The silence settling over the alleyway was heavy.
Yigyul swallowed hard.
The chilling sensation that had brushed his fingertips made his spine go stiff.
It wasn’t just because he was startled.
The demonic energy hidden within him alongside the curse was churning just from this man’s presence.
They were perfect opposites.
Yigyul blinked rapidly.
He had to avoid this.
His instinctive senses, faster than his brain, were screaming at him.
If he didn’t, the “thing” he harbored would be discovered.
Yigyul instinctively looked away from the man’s intense gaze. The man, Seong Yohan, toyed with the name tag while staring at Yigyul.
The stretched-out hoodie, the slippers, and the hair left to grow however it pleased.
Curiously, the strands of white mixed in like highlights gave him a strange aura.
It wasn’t pure black, but a shade of ash.
It felt like looking at a pile of cinders left after everything had burned away.
Seong Yohan tilted his head.
“Did you not hear me?”
“I… I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
Yigyul stuttered despite himself.
He decided his best bet was to play dumb and just walk away.
“…I don’t know anything about that, so just go your way.”
Yigyul scowled and tried to brush past Seong Yohan.
However, Yohan blocked his path.
That excessively handsome face was narrowed in a frown as he looked down at him.
Yigyul kept his scowl fixed, acting as if he were unbothered.
“I asked if you knew this child.”
“I told you, I don’t.”
“And yet, you—”
“What.”
‘Seriously, I said I don’t know. He talks too much.’
Was the No. 1 Ranker always this common a sight?
It was flustering.
Even through the TV, Yohan’s aura had felt unpleasant, but meeting him in person made him feel even more like a jerk.
Just look at that overflowing holy energy.
He could feel it just by being near; Yigyul felt like his cursed body might actually burn to a crisp if they touched.
Yigyul broke into a silent cold sweat as he stared back. Yohan glared at him with a deep frown.
“I asked ‘what’.”
“……”
Yigyul glared back, refusing to back down.
Why was he looking at a stranger with such a hellish expression?
Irritation flared, and Yigyul tilted his head to the side.
Even under that defiant stare, Yohan didn’t avert his blatant gaze.
Just as Yigyul was about to snap and say something, Yohan spoke first.
“You reek of a terrible stench.”
“…What?”
Yohan grimaced as if he were deeply offended.
Yigyul was momentarily speechless before blunting out a response.
A stench? What?
No matter how much of a bum he was, he washed and stayed clean every day, and this guy says he reeks? This bastard.
“It seems you live covered in curses. I suppose having such a wicked heart that you’d cast curses on others is why you smell so bad.”
“You… what are you talking about?”
“Whatever, that’s your business. This child—do you know him? Did you happen to cast a curse on him?”
The way he treated a person like a criminal right off the bat was beyond the pale.
Yigyul let out a hollow laugh of disbelief.
Who did this guy think he was talking to?
More importantly, the damnably pure holy power radiating from the man was starting to make him feel physically ill.
Yigyul spoke with a pained grimace.
“So treating someone like trash upon your first meeting is the etiquette of Korea’s No. 1 Hunter. On TV you wear white and act like an angel, saying ‘I love you, brother.'”
“I have no desire to say such things to someone who spreads curses. Just answer my question.”
“Ha! I just saved that kid from getting shaken down by some punks while I was passing by. Satisfied? Now do you feel like calling me ‘brother’?”
“…You didn’t cast a curse on him?”
“This bastard—”
“Bastard?”
Yohan’s eyes narrowed.
Yigyul flinched, tempted to pull his hand out of his pocket, but he suppressed the urge.
He knew nothing good would come from starting a fight with the current No. 1 Ranker here.
As a returnee who had crossed the Gate of Reversal, he didn’t even think he would lose, but his energy and Seong Yohan’s were simply too incompatible.
Yigyul bit his lip hard.
“Hey, whatever. Just go your way.”
Yigyul waved him off dismissively.
He glared at Yohan one last time before treading past him.
Yohan looked down at the name tag in his hand and then at the walking Yigyul.
It was strange. He definitely felt the energy of the demon realm from this man.
A demonic aura strong enough to make the fragment of God within him react was radiating from that man.
Even now, his heart was thumping wildly.
Yet, strangely… facing him had caused his throbbing headache to subside.
He could feel his overheating body calming down as that dark man seemed to absorb his excessive holy power.
Yohan found this peculiar sensation deeply unpleasant.
He called out to the back of Yigyul’s head.
“You saved him? For no reward? Don’t even think about lying. If you were trying to steal something from that child, or if you approached him to gain something—”
“Oh, for God’s sake.”
Yigyul, who had been trudging toward Mt. Dumang with his hands in his pockets, turned around with a look like he’d stepped in something foul.
He’d just tried to pick up a name tag, and now he was stuck with this nuisance.
Yigyul stood crookedly and looked back at Yohan.
The tall, strikingly handsome man was watching him with an extremely sensitive expression.
Yigyul recited the mantra for patience three times and smiled.
“Look, I get that you’re losing your mind because you lost a kid, but you’ve got the wrong house.”
“Tell me where you hid him.”
“Why would I hide him? Are you blind? I’m empty-handed. He ran away on his own two feet. That way.”
“…That way?”
Yigyul jerked his chin toward the end of the alley.
Yohan’s gaze naturally followed.
That direction led out of Miyang-dong toward the visible silhouette of a massive mountain.
It was the direction of Mt. Dumang—the very place Yigyul was headed.
Yohan’s eyes wavered. Mt. Dumang was currently open to gathering hunters looking to enter the Rank C dungeon.
If Kang Yeongwon had gone there…!
“Ha—”
Yohan swept his hair back, gritting his teeth.
As expected, children were difficult to raise in many ways.
Especially a child who was desperate to awaken.
Kang Yeongwon was an aspiring Awakened.
He had an older sister, but she had returned as a corpse after fulfilling her role as an Apostle during the past Gate of Reversal incident.
She left nothing behind. Whether out of some sense of debt, Yeongwon dreamed desperately of becoming an Awakened.
Since awakening often happens in crisis situations, he had undoubtedly chosen to enter the dungeon himself this time.
“Damn it….”
“What? ‘Damn it’? I give you the location and you say ‘damn it’? You really want to go, don’t you?”
An agitated Yigyul rolled up his sleeves and marched toward Yohan.
Yohan felt a wave of exhaustion. Yigyul didn’t actually intend to fight for real.
He just wanted to deal with him briefly and leave, so he stood before Yohan and raised his arm.
He intended to give the man’s chest a light shove, but Yohan caught Yigyul’s wrist first.
“Ugh—”
‘As expected of the No. 1 Ranker, to catch my arm like this, this is the first—’
Before he could finish the thought, a massive surge of holy power poured through the point of contact.
“…!”
Yigyul’s face went pale instantly.
The holy power collided with the demonic energy boiling through his veins like lava, as if trying to incinerate it.
Yigyul or bit his teeth against the pain that felt like an explosion within his body.
His vision spun.
“…Let go.”
“You—”
“I said let go!”
“Urgh—”
Thump—!
At Yigyul’s shout, Yohan’s body was suddenly repelled.
It was as if an invisible barrier had formed and pushed him away.
Because of that, he lost his grip on the wrist.
Yohan stared at Yigyul with a bewildered face.
Yigyul shook out his seized wrist and curled one side of his mouth into a smirk.
“Whatever… get lost. No, I’ll be the one to leave. Let’s never see each other again.”
The corner of his lip trembled slightly, but Yigyul managed to keep his expression composed as he glared at Yohan and strode away.
Yohan stared blankly at his own hand in surprise before watching the receding Yigyul.
He had grabbed the arm instinctively because of the demonic aura.
Usually, those “polluted” by demonic energy or practitioners of curses couldn’t even move or would be frozen in fear when they saw him.
His power was the hard counter to such people.
But it was strange.
That man was defiant… and when they touched just now, his holy power had actually been sucked away in massive quantities.
Thump-thump. Thump-thump.
His heart was racing.
That man had effortlessly consumed the holy power that the “fragment” inside Yohan was constantly producing.
Excessive holy power was a disaster for Yohan.
No matter how much he released, the constant generation threatened to make him explode.
He needed to offload it, but with no way to do so, he had simply been enduring it.
Yet, just by holding that man’s wrist, the energy had been drained.
The throbbing headache and the senses that had been raw from the excess power all fell quiet.
Yohan’s eyes turned strangely dark.
This… he had to catch him.
He had to confirm this.
Clutching the name tag, he watched Yigyul exit the alley toward Mt. Dumang until the very end, then began to follow him.
