* * *

“Did you catch Oh Mincheol?”

“Oh, that guy. Looks like Baekmyeon Cult dealt with him.”

Baek Gunho replied nonchalantly, as if it were no big deal. His casual tone made my eyes widen in shock.

“Dealt with? What do you mean?”

“He’s probably dead.”

“Oh…”

Seriously?

In the 21st century, can people just silence someone by killing them as if it’s nothing?

It defied all my common sense.

These cult lunatics…

Their actions are so out of bounds, ordinary people’s logic just can’t comprehend them.

“They probably dumped the body in a dungeon and sealed it off. With no evidence left behind, punishing Baekmyeon Cult for Oh Mincheol’s murder will be difficult.”

“Ah…”

They must have decided to cut their losses, choosing to sever ties rather than let Oh Mincheol expose the entire cult.

With the key connection now gone, any investigation would face significant roadblocks.

I wished we could find some evidence, but it seemed unlikely.

Baek Gunho glanced at me, seeming to notice my slight disappointment.

“It’s not a total loss, so don’t cry.”

“I’m not crying, you crazy bastard.”

This annoying jerk still hadn’t let go of the fact that I teared up once.

It was infuriating.

Someday, I’ll make this guy cry, and I’ll tease him about it for the rest of his life.

“At least we found the facility manufacturing that drug that’s been circulating lately. That’s a significant achievement, so stop sulking.”

“I said I’m not sulking. Do you have a death wish?”

“And the fact that Kim Kyungmin has a method to overpower an A-rank is the biggest takeaway.”

Ignoring my irritation, Baek Gunho muttered seriously.

A Hunter from the Hope Guild, who was captured and had their memory altered by Kim Kyungmin, was said to be A-rank.

While investigating Kim Kyungmin, his rank was reassessed.

As before, he was categorized as B-rank.

For a B-rank to brainwash an A-rank is no easy feat, yet Kim Kyungmin pulled it off effortlessly—apparently, multiple times.

Either the Baekmyeon Cult’s research had succeeded, and Kim Kyungmin consumed an item that boosted his abilities, or he had used a temporary method to disguise his rank, much like me.

It had to be one of the two.

It would be ideal to dig deeper into this, but so far, surveillance through Noeul hadn’t yielded any evidence.

Although Baek Gunho was using his connections to have Kim Kyungmin investigated, the lack of evidence made it hard to proceed further.

“Don’t worry too much. We still have one lead left to follow.”

He was right. We still had one more card to play.

---

I arranged another meeting with Lee Kanghoon.

Since he seemed eager to meet me as well, setting it up wasn’t difficult.

The food began to arrive.

This time, I chose a restaurant where all the dishes would be served at once, avoiding the hassle from our last meeting.

Lee Kanghoon acted overly friendly, chatting about various topics.

While he had seemed like a good-natured guy last time, now he appeared nothing but sleazy.

“How’s Na Hongju doing?”

“Hongju’s doing fine.”

Lee Kanghoon smiled shyly as he spoke.

Did this guy even deserve to say her name like that?

They seemed close, but knowing the truth about him, I felt sorry for Na Hongju, who would inevitably be shocked when she learned what he was really like.

When soup arrived along with the side dishes, Lee Kanghoon licked his lips with his tongue.

He then took a sip of water as if his throat was suddenly dry.

If I hadn’t known better, I might have ignored such actions.

But now they only annoyed me.

The people watching this live through the hidden cameras would probably feel the same way.

As the dishes were fully laid out, I slowly picked up my spoon.

At that moment, a Hunter who had been waiting outside entered the room.

“Excuse me for interrupting.”

“What the… Who are you?”

Lee Kanghoon’s face flashed with panic.

It was clear he recognized the newcomer.

The Hunter who walked in was someone skilled in detecting poison.

“I’m with the Hunter Management Bureau, Lee Kanghoon. Please wait here for questioning.”

“What? Hey, Kim Hyein! Even if you’re with the Bureau, you can’t just barge in like this—”

“This concerns safety, so I’d appreciate your cooperation.”

“Leave now. I’m entertaining an important guest—”

“Then it’s all the more reason to ensure their safety. We received a tip about poison in the food.”

“Well… if there’s poison, that’s serious.”

Having no room to back out, Lee Kanghoon pretended to agree.

From my perspective, it was obvious how anxious he was.

The Hunter inspected the dishes and then scooped a small bite of each.

As they sampled the soup, they abruptly spat it out into another bowl, covering their mouth.

“The tip was correct. There’s poison in this.”

At the Hunter’s words, Lee Kanghoon shot up from his seat.

“Poison? Are you serious? How can there be poison in a respectable restaurant like this?”

Veins bulging, Lee Kanghoon looked genuinely outraged.

Kim Hyein, however, stared at him coldly.

“Sorry, but one of the staff already confessed. They said you ordered them to spike the food.”

“What? That’s absurd—”

“Please come with us, Mr. Lee Kanghoon.”

Several Hunters who had been waiting nearby entered the room.

Realizing everything had been exposed, Lee Kanghoon’s face twisted in frustration.

“This is a setup! Who confessed? Someone’s trying to frame me!”

Of course, no one had actually confessed.

We had simply guessed that he ordered someone else to do it.

By his reaction, he essentially confessed himself.

With Lee Kanghoon apprehended, the bribed employee would be caught soon enough.

Shouting until the end, Lee Kanghoon was bound with a sealing device and dragged away by the Hunters.

The matter was resolved quite easily.

Now we just needed the investigation results to come through.

As I stood there, a man who had been monitoring the situation through hidden cameras and audio came to find me.

“Heewon, are you alright?”

“Yes, I’m fine.”

Despite my reassurance, he didn’t seem fully convinced.

“Really, I’m fine. Nothing happened.”

“Still, it’s hard not to worry. You’ve been causing trouble lately…”

Feeling guilty, I let out an awkward laugh.

When Baek Gunho explained the situation, he blamed it on “G.O.,” essentially outing me.

When I asked why he used that name, he replied bluntly, “Because it was you.”

With a witness who saw me in action, it was impossible to use another identity.

So now, the man knew everything I’d been up to.

Unsurprisingly, he’d scolded me quite a bit.

“I’m sorry.”

“…Forget it. What’s done is done. Just don’t pull stunts like this again, alright?”

“Yes…”

I nodded obediently. I didn’t want him to worry about me.

After experiencing strange visions, I found myself feeling even more affectionate toward him.

In that place, despite rejecting everything else, I still longed for him.

Though it seemed I eventually killed all the researchers and tried to sever even that lingering sentiment.

“Let’s head back together for once. Should we eat first?”

“Sounds good.”

I nodded instead of asking, “Is this okay?”

I thought for sure the man would head off to work, but it seemed like he was preoccupied with me today because of the earlier incident.

Even though we were already at a restaurant, the place had turned chaotic due to the investigation.

So, he chose a nearby spot where we occasionally ate out.

As the car came into view, instead of heading for the driver’s seat, the man gave my back a hearty pat.

“Today, you drive, Heewon.”

“…Me?”

“You need to practice ahead of time if you’re going to hit the road again.”

That bastard Baek Gunho must’ve snitched to him that I had driven.

That annoying jerk.

The man seemed genuinely concerned about it, too.

In the end, I climbed into the driver’s seat of his car and took the wheel.

Though I was extremely tense, it turned out to be more manageable than I had expected.

Perhaps my reckless drive across Seoul had helped.

At first, the man looked very nervous, bracing for the worst, but later, he seemed relatively at ease.

I arrived at the restaurant and parked without any issues.

The man showered me with praise, and I couldn’t help but feel a bit smug.

Maybe I have a knack for driving after all.

During the meal, we chatted lightly about this and that.

Talking with him was always enjoyable.

But this time, my thoughts kept wandering.

While we talked, the hallucination from before crept back into my mind.

After we finished eating and returned home, he stopped me just as I was about to head to my room.

“Heewon, is something bothering you?”

I thought I had hidden it well, but apparently not. I was about to dismiss it as nothing but then decided to speak up.

“Uncle, do you happen to remember…”

“Hm?”

“When I was younger, not long after I came to live with you. There was a time when you raided a place that looked like a research lab during work… Did you meet a kid there who tried to self-destruct?”

“You mean the incident with Shinhae where we dealt with the experimental subjects?”

“Ah, yes.”

So Shinhae mentioned it.

I hadn’t been able to bring it up, but it seemed like the man had refrained from telling me the details out of concern.

If he had told me everything, his overly protective nature wouldn’t have let the matter rest.

At least now, I didn’t need to explain too much.

“Yes, I remember. I survived that time thanks to Gunho.”

“…Baek Gunho? How?”

“Gunho said something like, ‘You’ll die tomorrow if you raid the lab, so use sealing orbs on the kids being held as test subjects and isolate them.’ At first, I didn’t believe him, but then we got a tip-off about a lab exactly in the location he mentioned. Everything—the reasons we went there, the precise coordinates—it all matched what Gunho had described.”

Honestly, I couldn’t believe it.

No matter how accurate Baek Gunho usually was, could he really get things that spot-on?

This wasn’t just intuition—it was practically precognition.

And even precognition wasn’t typically that precise.

“The sealing orbs were clunky back then, and I worried about using something like that on a kid. But since everything was unfolding just as Gunho predicted, I went ahead with it. That’s when we discovered some kids had skills that allowed them to self-destruct. That one kid was planning to use it.”

“…That actually happened?”

“Yeah. Gunho really is something else. He insists he doesn’t have a precognition skill, but maybe it’s something similar.”

“I guess so…”

A chill ran down my spine—not because of Baek Gunho’s accuracy, but because of how close the man had come to dying.

If what he said was true, Baek Gunho was a savior to both of us.

And if he had died there, my future likely would’ve turned out exactly as I had seen in that hallucination.

Somehow, a vague unease lingered.

It felt like something bad was about to happen, just like in that vision.

* * *