The Huntress, Your Knight Next Door

“······.”

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Jin-hee said nothing as if she had read the boy’s thoughts.

The boy’s main skill specializes in battling against numerous opponents.
It focuses on many-to-many battles, killing enemies with dolls that never die.

However, it is also a technique that only works for those who are below his own skill level.

It is a skill that has a higher chance of winning when dealing with ten opponents whose skills were lower than his, but it doesn’t work well with one opponent with similar capabilities.

Jin-hee’s ability was far above the boy’s magic.
It would have been easier for him to fight with ten Park Juns.

If it were Park Jun’s honest sword style, a war of attrition would have worked, but for Jin-hee, who finds the enemy’s gap with amazing accuracy, the doll was a substandard opponent.

“You… I’ll remember this.”

The boy clenched his teeth and mumbled.
The mission failed.
As long as that woman is here, there is no way to touch Lee Si-young.
He could have waited for Jin-hee to lose strength, but the delay for that was too long.

“Oh, running away? Well, it’s time for the backup to come soon.”

“······.”

Did she know everything from the beginning? The boy spat the moment he heard Jin-hee’s words.

Kim Yu-jin’s group, who left the gate earlier, may be bringing reinforcements by now.
Lee Si-young is, after all, one of the successors of the ‘Geumgang’ Corporation.

(Note: Golden River Corporation was used before but the Korean term which is Geumgang is going to be used moving forward.)

Even if he was young and his abilities were insignificant he was from that big corporation.
If hunters from the Geumgang Group came, it’ll be difficult to guarantee his life, even if he was only a boy.

“Remember correctly.
I’ll definitely come back and kill you next time…”

“Yeah, yeah.
You talk too much.”

Jin-hee frowned, cutting the boy’s words.

In fact, she planned to let the boy go.
It wasn’t that she was averse to murder.
Jin-hee was neither foolish nor too virtuous to feel guilty about killing a person who tried to kill her.

It was for the simple fact that he just helped with her rehabilitation.

And if these enemies were left unattended, they would become more interesting by the time they came back for a second round.

But thinking about it again, this person could be a headache in the future if left alone.

“Heok!”

Her sword shone again.
But this time it was not their neck but the body.
The dolls fell to the floor in two halves.

The boy certainly belongs to some kind of a group.
They obviously anticipated and carefully planned to ambush Lee Si-young in this place.
He also jokingly said that he was an ‘avenger’, so they must be an organized group of bandits.

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If she lets this guy go, she doesn’t know what kind of hindrance will come along with him next time.

She enjoys fighting strong enemies, but it wasn’t fun if it could interfere with her daily life.
She hated those sorts of things.
She had a family and she had a house that she could laze around comfortably on her days off.
She wasn’t the same as when she was Bazette.

“Unfortunately, my relationship with you will end here.”

“Wh-what?”

As the dolls collapsed, the boy who had been hit by mana looked up at her with cold sweat.

The boy immediately raised his head up.
But Jin-hee wasn’t at the place where she used to be before.

“······!”

Suddenly, she was already in front of the boy’s eyes, and once again was in the posture of using her mana sword.

‘I’m going to die.’

The boy’s pupils dilated and time slowed down.
Like a kaleidoscope.

He only realized it now.
She was playing with him.
The boy’s all-out efforts to detain her were to no avail.

And in just a blink of an eye.
She got rid of all the dolls and got to the boy.
She was confident that she could end this fight in just a few seconds.

Obviously, there were protective magic circles and traps around the boy, but somehow it was destroyed as soon as she stepped in.

Death.
He could see the golden mana hanging from her sword.
No matter how high his body enforcement defense is, the moment that sword reaches him, they’ll be all useless.
And like those dolls, his neck will fly in the air.

‘No!’

The boy clenched his teeth.
Then he stopped using magic.
What he used reflexively was what was inside his pocket, the escape device he was told to use in an emergency.

[Generate the gate.]

“Huh?”

Suddenly, a distortion with the air changed the trajectory of the sword.
A small black hole-like gate was created right in front of her.

“Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!”

The sword deviated greatly due to the space distortion of the gate, but the boy could not avoid it.
His right arm that was raised to protect himself, was cut diagonally, and soon fell off.

Blood surged from the boy’s forearm up to a neat cross-section.

“I-I’ll kill you!”

As Jin-hee got a little surprised by the unexpected appearance of the gate, the boy snatched his right arm with his left hand as he was about to fall to the floor.

The gate grew as big as the boy’s height and swallowed him up.

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“I’m not going to leave you alone, wait for it! The next time we meet, I will surely…!”

“Oh, damn it.”

The little boy’s tone is harsh.
Jin-hee shook off the blood on the sword and clicked her tongue.

By the way, she never thought that a tool to create a gate would exist.
It was common sense that it was impossible to artificially make or remove gates.

She didn’t expect that the attack would be blocked due to a gate’s appearance.
If she had known this beforehand, she would have stabbed him immediately without giving him any time to rant.
Jin-hee calmly mumbled her bitter regret.

“Are you all right?”

Park Jun, who was still pressing his chest, slowly approached.
Lee Si-young, who had turned pale, was following him from behind.
His eyes were filled with fear and strange respect, and on the other hand, Park Jun looked sorry.

“I’m sorry.
I feel like a burden.”

“…No.
It’s okay.
You fought well enough.”

She bent her elbows to wipe her sword through her clothes and stuck it in her waist scabbard.
Then Park Jun asked with a serious expression at her familiar body movement.

“…By any chance.
Are you perhaps actually not a new hun…”

Before Park Jun could even try to finish his speech, a big disturbance came from the gate.

“Ms.
Seo Jin-hee! Mr.
Park Jun!”

Kim Yu-jin entered the gate with a dozen people who appeared to be hunters.

The situation developed rapidly.

Park was immediately taken to the emergency room, and Lee Si-young was surrounded by people from the Geumgang group.
Of course, Jin-hee wasn’t ignored either.

The paramedics asked her if she was hurt, and Kim Yu-jin, who was listening to the situation, thanked her.

After sending them all back, Jin-hee headed for the police station.
And while she was telling the detective about the situation inside the gate.

“Can I have a moment?”

Park Jun came back.
Apparently running in a hurry with a bandage around his chest, he took her out to the hallway, saying he had something to talk with her for a while.

“Is it alright if I announce that I’m the one who took care of this?”

“What?”

When Jin-hee tilted her head wondering what he was talking about, he said with an apologetic expression on his face.

“It’s actually confidential, but… Today’s raid wasn’t only focused on us.
It happened simultaneously.”

“Really?”

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“The heads of different companies like ours, executives, guild leaders of Hunter Guilds, and even key members of the National Assembly have been attacked.
They were from a bigger organization than we thought.
By now we believe that they’re already in hiding, whether it’s in a country or a business.
The timing of the raid was unfortunate, and many people were even killed at home or on a trip.
This case will probably be reported on  the higher-ups, and if that happens…”

“…Are you worried about me?”

“…Yes.”

She doesn’t think he was trying to steal her achievements.
Even in Jin-hee’s eyes, Park Jun did not seem to have that kind of personality.
He was just worried about her, who had no clear background.

‘Figures.’

Park Jun’s choice was right.
Her strength was seen by him.
It was a great thing, but she was a solo hunter.
If the report goes up, it will definitely get attention, and then it will be easy for the enemies to single Jin-hee out.

“And Geumgang… …Probably won’t help.”

She is strong, but in the end, she is only just a C-rank hunter.
Even if she is in danger, Geumgang will not help.

The state should be able to help, but the power of those who manipulate the gate and commit simultaneous terrorism could not be easily handled.

Moreover, as Park Jun said, the suspicion that the enemy was hiding behind a country or a company could not be easily overlooked.
It was only right to expect that there would be conspirators within that organization who perfectly predicted the movements of major factors and simultaneously executed terrorism.

Therefore, Park Jun’s proposal was to make it seem that he’s the one who prevented the terrorist attack and Jin-hee hid in safety.

“Fortunately, you’re just a new hunter, so you don’t have a history of hunter activities yet.
I also deleted all the party records on our smartwatch.
If you’re careful, you’ll be fine for a while.
You only have to lay low until we find the enemies.”

“······.”

“Of course, we’ll pay for the cost.
In return for your help…”

“Yes, I’ll accept the money.
I’ll also write the statement as Park Jun said.”

When Jin-hee nodded nonchalantly, Park Jun was embarrassed and opened his eyes in a circle.

“Is-Is it really all right?”

“It doesn’t matter.
Getting recognized doesn’t give me an achievement certificate.”

In addition, she did not want to be introduced to the media as the new hunter who averted a terrorist attack.
Honor is a good thing, but she hates to think that her face would be sold to the media indiscriminately.

She nodded to him as a sign that their conversation was over and then walked back to the office where the detective was waiting.

“…You’re quite an interesting person.”

Looking behind her, Park Jun scratched his cheek.

In fact, it was a rude and far-fetched proposal, but he didn’t expect that she was going to accept it that easily.

“Oh, but I don’t want to just rest at home.”

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“What?”

“I’m going to work.
You’re going to pay me, aren’t you?”

“······.”

Do whatever you want.
Park Jun mumbled as if he didn’t know what Jin-hee was thinking.

 

༺═━━━━━━━♞━━━━━━━═༻

 

“Oh, hello?”

“······?”

She was on her way back after she finished filling out the statement report.
While looking at the already dark sky and thinking about taking a taxi, someone suddenly talked to her.

The man with thin eyebrows, slanted eyes, and a beautiful jawline was about one head taller than her.

To sum it up, she thought it would be this kind of face if a fox was turned into a person.

“I see you often.”

He greeted me with a grin.
While Jin-hee was looking back on whether she had ever met such a person, he leaned against the wall of the hallway and said as if he was upset.

“Oh, you must have forgotten.
We met at the evaluation room last time.
Don’t you remember?”

“Ah.”

The man who was eating the snack.
Jin-hee said as if she remembered it now.

“I remember you.
What’s going on?”

“I was just passing by, and I saw a familiar face.
Besides, I heard you were involved in a terrible incident.”

“Yes, that’s right.”

It’s a really terrible incident.
Though terrible was an underrated term when you think about what happened in the herb garden.
Unidentified humans are scattered on the floor in half, while a large company’s B-class hunter was hit by a spear on his shoulder.

Jin-hee could say that she fortunately survived such an incident, but it wasn’t the case for those people around her.

“Yeah, it’s really fortunate though.
This terrorist attack occurred in a total of 20 different places, and there were only two places where no casualties were reported.
One of them is where Jin-hee was.”

“······.”

Jin-hee looked around quietly and soon leaned against the opposite wall of the man, making him smile a little.