“Are you sure I’m not intruding, Hunter Sung?”
“You’re not, and call me Jin Woo. I’m back!”
“Wai-“
After Jongryeo’s emotional meltdown. Jin Woo suggested to take him to his home. Jongryeo normally rejects such a request because he isn’t used to socializing.
However, Jongryeo doesn’t want to be alone for now.
Now with Jongryeo awkwardly standing inside Jin Woo’s home. He’s beginning to regret his choice of coming here. And when he sensed someone fast approaching.
A teenage girl approaches them.
“Oppa! Where did you go-“
The girl’s gaze shifted from Jin Woo to him. Jongryeo flinched ever so slightly and bowed his head.
“Hello, I’m Park Jongryeo.”
When he raises his head, he sees the girl has a weird look plastered on her face.
Then.
“Mom! Mom!!”
A middle-aged woman came into view. Jongryeo could see the similarities between Jin Woo and his mother.
“Um, I’m Park Jongryeo. Sorry for the intrusion.”
He hadn’t even crossed the doorway yet, he already met Jin Woo’s mother and sister. Jongryeo shifted a bit while trying to look calm.
“Oh, my, What an adorable young man you are. Please, come inside.”
She gazed at Jongryeo with a surprised expression, but shortly afterward, opened her arms wide to welcome Jongryeo with a warm smile on her face.
When that happened….
“Mom!!”
Park Kyung-Hye tightly embraced Jongryeo.
‘She’s warm, just like Hunter Sung.’
Jongryeo gently hugged her back.
Jin Woo hesitated slightly. That wasn’t something she should have done to Jongryeo who was feeling uneasy entering someone else’s home. But, seeing Jongryeo relaxed like that while locked in his mother’s embrace, he couldn’t bring himself to stop her.
“That is eno….”
Jin Woo eventually moved in to separate Jongryeo, but Park Kyung-Hye gave him ‘the look’ and slowly shook her head, her other hand still gently patting Jongryeo’s back.
Jin Woo sighed softly and took a step back.
As he looked at Jongryeo in his mom’s embrace, as well as his mom’s gentle and warm expression, a satisfied smile automatically formed on his lips.
‘My effort wasn’t in vain.’
It felt like he was being fully rewarded for all the hard work he had put in right at this moment. Also, he felt as if something hard and stubborn stuck in the corner of his heart had finally melted down and was now flowing away, out of him.
In that case, should he leave the two of them alone for a while?
“Why are you looking at me like that?”
Jin-ah has been smirking for a while now since she saw Jongryeo walk inside. Since she was one smart girl, she quickly noticed how her brother’s scent was encircling Jongryeo like a protective shield.
‘Oppa scented him’
For an Alpha to scented an Omega, it only means one thing; courting.
This psyched her up, actually.
She then sneaked closer to Jin Woo’s side and lightly poked him on his waist with her elbow.
“Hiya~, oppa, you’re getting bold today, wouldn’t you agree?”
He ignored this.
“Should I, your trusty little sister, start calling him brother-in-law?”
Jin Woo began pinching her cheeks with an emotionless face.
“Don’t bother him, okay?”
“Okk… Fwinee….”
After their embrace, Park Kyung-Hye gazes in anticipation at Jongryeo.
“You have arrived in time, we were about to set the table for dinner, would you sit at the table with us? Jin Woo can set the dishes.”
“I’ll bring the food!”
Jin-ah rushes back to the kitchen.
Jongryeo didn’t want to be rude, after all, he came here unannounced. So he summoned something from his Inventory.
“And…. umm, here, please take it.”
Jin Woo raised an eyebrow.
He too, stored food and water but mostly those were for survival in his Inventory but seeing someone else pull a box of cake was definitely something he hadn’t expected from the aloof Park Jongryeo.
‘He surprisingly has a cute side.’
________________
The dinner with Sung Jin Woo’s family was tranquil and refreshing. It left a bittersweet reminder to Jongryeo if he ever experienced this kind of thing in the past.
After that, it was getting late. Jongryeo was about to say his goodbye but Park Kyung-Hye is very persuasive. According to her words; No omega should be wandering off outside late at night.
And to Jin-ah’s; Take Oppa’s room.
That’s how he was stuck inside Sung Jin Woo’s room. It did leave an impression on Jongryeo that Jin Woo is very neat with his things.
The Hunter doesn’t appear to have much any luxurious belongings from what he could see.
It is rude to snoop around without consent. So he made the most of it to what he could only see from his surroundings without rummaging through Jin Woo’s personal stuff.
Click.
Then the handle spun, the door opened, and Sung Jin Woo entered.
He looked strangely exhausted.
Jin Woo sat next to him. Jongryeo moved closer and let his head rest on Jin Woo’s shoulder.
“Sleep here. I’ll sleep outside.”
“Stay.”
Jin Woo’s cold black eyes met his.
“Are you sure?”
“Yes.”
Jongryeo nodded.
Park Kyung-Hye did nag Jin Woo earlier about not being forceful. Every omega is different and how they react to courting varies as well. For an Omega like Park Jongryeo who is aloof, focused, and unemotional, Park Jongryeo mostly preferred to keep to himself.
Omega like Park Jongryeo are tough to come by and most Alpha would initially avoid to court.
But Jin Woo doubts that. He almost immediately took interest in Park Jongryeo but that is a story for another time.
Jin Woo got off the bed to turn off the light and made his way back to the bed. Jin Woo pulled the covers for the both of them and pressed closely to Jongryeo, holding him tightly in his arms.
Jongryeo dug his face into Jin Woo’s chest while he nuzzled his head into Jin Woo’s neck.
Jongryeo took that opportunity to breathe in Jin Woo’s scent. At first, it smelled like lavender but the scent soon changed to powerful iris with spicy black pepper and deep vanilla wood.
Jongryeo can’t help to try mixing his scent with Jin Woo’s.
A content smile soon formed on Jongryeo’s face.
__________________
‘The raid must’ve started by now.’
The Association President Go Gunhee looked at his wristwatch and smiled softly to himself. The raid in question was, of course, Hunter Sung Jin Woo’s.
“Chief Park, are you well?”
“Yes.”
Jongryeo who is leaning his back against the wall with his arms are crossed. It’s not an unusual thing for him to do but what caught Go Gunhee strange is that Jongryeo seems a bit uneasy.
‘No, it’s more close to sulking.’
Jongryeo is generally a composed person, more composed than Woo Jinchul.
To see him acting childish. Go Gunhee can’t help but chuckle a little.
If it was at all possible, Jongryeo wanted to see for himself, but…. due to Go Gunhee’s orders, it was simply not feasible, so all he could do was to kindly oblige while Go Gunhee sent Woo Jinchul, instead.
He was getting all worked up already, thinking about what Section Chief Woo Jinchul’s report would entail.
‘Ah, right. I shouldn’t be doing this right now.’
Jongryeo shook his head lightly to get rid of the distracting thoughts. There were mountains of documents sitting on top of his desk right now that he had to deal with later.
They were practically forming the towers of documents at this point.
Ever since the dungeon break inside the high school happened, this pile of documents didn’t want to decrease no matter how hard he worked every single day. No, they seemed to get even taller, instead. That was how insanely busy he was, yet his interest in Hunter Sung Jin Woo didn’t wane one bit.
If only the opportunity appeared – wouldn’t he have cleared some dungeons together with Hunter Sung, too?
‘Huh, I’m also being hopeless, aren’t I?’
Jongryeo shook his head one more time and returned to his work with a smile on his face.
And so, just how long did he concentrate on the documents?
Knock, knock.
Go Gunhee raised his head after hearing the knock on the door, and realised that three hours had flown by.
“It’s Woo Jinchul, sir.”
Go Gunhee didn’t fail to notice how the hunter on the corner, perked up.
The news he was waiting for had finally arrived. Without a single hint of fatigue visible on his countenance, Go Gunhee welcomed Woo Jinchul into the office.
“Please, come in.”
Creak.
Go Gunhee’s eyes nearly popped out of their sockets after he saw Woo Jinchul’s face as the latter cautiously entered the office.
‘What’s this?’
He expected there to be no problems, yet Wool Jinchul looked as if he got dragged through a wringer, instead.
‘It’s not just anybody but Hunter Sung Jin Woo we are talking about here, so how come Chief Woo looks like that….??’
His confusion only lasted for a short while, though.
“May I sit down for a little while, sir?”
Woo Jinchul sounded desperate, so Go Gunhee quickly pointed to the couch.
“Of course, it’s fine. Do take a seat.”
He then got up from the President’s chair behind the desk to settle down on the opposite side of Woo Jinchul.
Woo Jinchul powerlessly sunk deep into the couch. He rubbed his face with his hands, showing how tired he was.
Just what happened inside the dungeon?
Even before Woo Jinchul could start explaining himself, Go Gunhee couldn’t win against his curiosity and started first.
“What happened to you? Why does your face look like….?”
“Pardon? Is there something on my face, sir?”
“You look incredibly tired right now. As if you couldn’t sleep a wink for the past few days.”
“Ah…..”
Nod, nod.
Woo Jinchul wordlessly nodded his head a few times as if he could understand everything now.
“It’s probably because I’m just too shocked, that’s all. Sir.”
“Shocked….? Please, tell me more in detail. My friend, didn’t you accompany Hunter Sung Jin Woo to observe his raid?”
Woo Jinchul lowered his gaze and slowly shook his head.
“That, sir, that wasn’t a raid. It was…..”
“….It was?”
Woo Jinchul raised his head, shock and fear still writ large in his trembling eyes.
“Sir, it was the scene of a massacre.”
The charismatic leader of the Monitoring Division, Woo Jinchul, often thought to possess an inborn heart of steel, was speaking with a voice that trembled ever so softly.
“A massacre, is it…..?”
Go Gunhee swallowed his saliva.
Woo Jinchul replied without hesitation, evidently not even thinking of changing or denying his description.
“Yes, sir.”
Was there any other description that fit what happened in there? It was as the word suggested, a total massacre. Woo Jinchul didn’t hold back on anything and confessed to everything he saw at the behest of the Association President.
“The dungeon was a nest of Nagas, sir.”
Go Gunhee narrowed his eyes as he combed through his knowledge of various monsters.
‘If it’s a Naga….’
Creatures that resembled a hybrid of a human and a sea snake, preferred to live in damp areas, and experts of both melee and magic attacks, capable of giving many experienced Hunters a hard time – those points were the Nagas in a nutshell.
They were also known as really tough opponents to contend with as they moved around in large groups, even though they were high-ranked monsters.
However….
…
‘But, someone of Hunter Sung Jin Woo’s level shouldn’t be having a hard time against a handful of Nagas going around in groups?’
As if he had read Go Gunhee’s inner thoughts, Woo Jinchul clarified himself.
“….I even felt sorry for the Nagas at some point, sir.”
“…..!!”
Woo Jinchul recalled the scenes back then. When a group of 30-strong Nagas suddenly made their appearance, he even momentarily forgot who was next to him and tensed up greatly. Nagas were dangerous enough existences to warrant such a reaction from him.
But then….
“….The surrounding areas suddenly became ‘dark’, sir.”
Or, more specifically, he should have said that a massive black shadow suddenly extended out from beneath Hunter Sung Jin Woo’s feet.
All the hair on Woo Jinchul’s body stood up after he realized that something big was about to happen. And precisely at that moment, soldiers emerged above ground one by one from the extended shadow.
And the battle – no, a massacre, commenced.
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