Park Jongryeo was lying on his bed with sheets pulled right up over his head. But he was writhing around in great distress at the moment.
‘Why did I go and say, I think so?! Ughhh!!’
Did I do it right?!
Jongryeo never experienced being courted by Alphas or Betas. So he doesn’t have any idea how to properly accept an alpha.
Accepting is the final stage of courting. When an omega accepts the alpha they will officially become partners.
He wildly kicked the sheets away, and finally stopped moving only after a thought popped up into his head out of the blue.
‘Then…..’
How was he to decipher Mister Sung Jin Woo’s reply, then?
[“In that case, should we start living together?”]
He wanted to quickly escape from that situation and told him that he’d think about it before leaving in a hurry, but simply recalling that moment caused such distress that his thought process ground to a complete halt almost immediately.
Blush.
His face blushed from the memories he remembered yet again.
Back when he looked into the maddened eyes of the enlarged summoned creature, he predicted his unavoidable death. Yet, he wasn’t afraid.
Jongryeo was ready to use [Earth’s Core] as ten claws descended upon him from both sides. But, then….
He felt the warmth coming from his back. At the same time, a familiar scent gently wrapped all around him.
‘Ah….’
Jongryeo looked behind him.
He found Jin Woo standing there, deadly glaring at the summoned creature while stopping the claws with his bare hands.
It was true that his heart skipped a beat at that moment.
And then….
[“Are you perhaps accepting me?”]
Wasn’t it patently unfair to ask a question like that in that sort of situation?
‘No, wait.’
Jongryeo shook his head hard as if to shake off all the distracting thoughts. Even if he asked him like that, he should answered him truthfully.
‘I’ll just say it.’
His lips parted.
Maybe because his mind felt more relaxed when he was around Hunter Sung Jin Woo, he ended up revealing a side of him that he always kept hidden.
It was as if he wasn’t himself anymore.
‘….As if I wasn’t myself?’
Those words sounded rather familiar for some reason.
Where could it have been from? He could vaguely remember hearing a similar expression from somewhere.
It was then – a piece of memory once erased from his mind brushed past his brain.
– ….Please, pass it on.
Jongryeo quickly bolted upright.
‘…..!!’
He finally recalled that voice, a voice that seemed to slowly fade away to the other side, just like a waking dream. Even though it couldn’t have been that long ago.
– ….Please, pass this message on.
‘I, I….’
Jongryeo did his very best to remember the contents of the voice as well as the owner of it. The full scope of the memory, blurry and indistinct as if a thick veil of fog was covering it, slowly regained its former glory.
– ….Please, pass on the message that he needs to be careful.
‘….I met with Hunter Min Byung Gyu.’
Back when he lost consciousness and was being dragged into the endless void, Hunter Min Byung Gyu appeared out of nowhere and pulled him back by his wrist. He felt momentarily displeased from his peaceful rest being interrupted back then.
He remembered being puzzled by the black armor covering the entirety of Hunter Min Byung Gyu. Only his face was visible outwardly.
Even that face seemed quite sad for some reason, which was unlike his usual self.
As the memories of those moments slowly crept back into his mind, Jongryeo felt a chill run down his spine.
Hunter Min Byung Gyu spoke to him, his expression barely holding back his tears.
– To Hunter Sung Jin Woo….
‘To Hunter Sung Jin Woo, what….?’
– Please pass on the message that he needs to be wary of the power he possesses.
_______
After ending the shower, Jin Woo stood before the bathroom window.
‘Hmm….’
He sure looked okay from where he was standing, but….
But, to think that he was so good-looking that a beauty like Park Jongryeo accepted him as his alpha! He did court him but Jin Woo never expected that he would be successful.
‘Am I really that good-looking?’
Jin Woo peered deeper into the mirror. And a smirk leaked out of his mouth. He wasn’t planning to drown in narcissism even if no one told him to.
He was confident of only one thing about himself, and that would be….
….That would be his muscles, getting progressively firmer through repeated daily quest routines, as well as his height that suddenly grew up much higher than before, probably due to the influence of the System.
That was about it. Meaning, all he had was his body and not much else.
As for his face…. Well, minus his sharper-than-normal eyes, wouldn’t it be on the level of an average man commonly seen on the streets?
It was at this point that he noticed something.
‘Hold on.’
Jin Woo’s expression became serious as he stared into the mirror. He leaned his head slightly to the side and took an even closer look than before. The Jin Woo of the mirror’s reflection and the Jin Woo of reality stared at each other for a long while.
‘Uh?’
A strange light flickered in Jin Woo’s eyes. His gaze swept all over his face. And as he thought…
He really did change.
Those small scars, spots, and nicks that couldn’t be seen normally and needed to be looked at really close, had all disappeared from his face even before he had time to notice it.
‘Is this because of the ‘Will to Recover’ buff?’
One of the buff effects he got as the reward for becoming a Player said that ‘all his damaged body parts would be recovered back to their original state’.
This buff even managed to regenerate the leg that got cut off by one of the stone statues, too. So, it wouldn’t be so strange for those little skin damages to be healed completely, as well. However, what really came across as mystifying was….
‘….I think I’ve actually grown younger?’
He was originally in the middle of his twenties. But the him in the mirror looked two, three years younger, in his early twenties. Now that was a surprising thing.
The magical energy apparently could delay the aging process of the Awakened to a certain degree, so could this be a similar effect to that?
‘Gimme a break….’
Jin Woo thought that it was a funny notion for a grown man to stare at himself in the mirror like this, so he decided to leave the bathroom. With excellent timing, his younger sister also emerged from her bedroom, and the siblings got to have a brief reunion in the living room.
Jin Woo grinned and called out to Jin-Ah.
“Hey, sis?”
“Ng?”
“How do I look to you?”
“What do you mean?”
“Like, my appeal as an Alpha.”
“Huh??”
Jin-Ah furrowed her brows.
“And where did you find your baseless confidence from? Because Hyeongnim is a beauty and he accepted you? You’re still the same stay-at-home oppa in my eyes, you know?”
“Alright, thanks for that.”
Jin Woo grinned and pinched her cheek lightly, and she too threw a rather sharp kick to his shin as a retaliation. Of course, the one jumping around in pain was Jin-Ah.
“You forgot what kind of a person your oppa was? Can you even study properly with that head of yours?”
“What was that?”
Jin-Ah pouted and narrowed her eyes at him.
“I was ranked first place in the mock test in the entire school, I’ll have you know.”
Jin Woo really enjoyed his sister’s reaction and had a hard time swallowing back his laughter.
One of the best things about having your family around was that, even if you changed, they still treated you the same with exactly the same attitude as before.
Jin Woo used the towel to rub his wet hair and walked past Jin-Ah.
“Work hard.”
“You too, oppa.”
Just before he slipped into his room, though, he remembered something and looked behind him.
“Ah, right. I’m thinking of creating a Guild soon.”
“Ohhh!”
Jin-Ah’s expression brightly and her eyes sparkled brilliantly as well.
“Oppa, are you going to be called a ‘chairman’ from now on, too?”
“If it all works out.”
“What’s the name of the Guild?”
“That’s what I wanted to hear your opinion on.”
“Oh! What is it? What is it??”
Jin Woo cautiously asked his little sister busy looking at him with eyes full of expectations.
“What do you think of ‘Solo Play’ Guild?”
“…..”
“HUH?”
The answer sounded the same but its ‘nuance’ was rather a lot different than the one that came before. If she was kidding around just now, then she was dead serious this time.
“What’s wrong? You think it’s weird?”
“…..Oppa, why are you naming your Guild like that?”
“Because I like moving around solo.”
“What is Hyeongnim’s reaction to that?”
“He was speechless?”
“He definitely would. It does sound like you, but still, isn’t it a bit strange to name your Guild like that?”
“Why?”
“Isn’t your ability summoning out those black-armoured soldiers?”
“Yeah.”
“So, if you get technical about it, you aren’t fighting alone, right?”
Now that he heard her opinion, that made some sense. Jin Woo nodded his head.
‘I may think of it as just another one of my skills but it won’t look that way to other people, is that it?’
Indeed, she had a point there.
This Guild might end up accompanying him for the rest of his life, so he wanted to give it a name that best represented who he was. And that’s why he went with ‘Solo Play’, but now….
‘If the true meaning doesn’t come across all that well, it’ll be useless.’
What could be another term that could describe him the best?
Jin Woo asked his sister’s opinion again.
“How about ‘Ah-Jin’ Guild?”
“Ahjin?”
Jin-Ah mouthed the name for a bit, before asking him back with a smile.
“I kinda like it, cuz it sounds like my name but flipped around. But, what does it even mean?”
“Ah (我) means ‘myself’ and Jin (進) means ‘moving forward’.”
Meaning, only he could tread on this road. And it was a name he wanted to give to the Guild that would grow alongside him.
“Combine them together, and you get the meaning of ‘I shall progress forward’. That’s Ah-Jin (我進).”
“Ohh…”
Jin-Ah came up with the best praise she could think of.
“You know, that doesn’t sound bad at all.”
_________
Next day.
Jin Woo went to the office armed with the new Guild name.
“Hey. It’s about the Guild’s name….”
Yoo Jinho had been in the office since early morning, working. When he heard the new name from Jin Woo, a brilliant smile formed on his face.
“That is an excellent name, hyung-nim!!”
Didn’t they say that a swan floating elegantly on the water was kicking furiously under the surface? Yoo Jinho had been feeling as desperate as that old saying.
‘Whatever it is, everything will be fine as long as it’s not Solo Play.’
He imagined ‘it’ so, so many times already. And that would be him introducing himself as ‘Hello, I’m Yoo Jinho, Vice-Chairman of the Solo Play Guild’.
That seriously tormented him.
He couldn’t be sure of why, but a corner of his heart ached every time he imagined himself saying those words. However, how could he dare to rebel against a name that Hyung-nim had worked so hard to come up with?
He resigned himself to that fate but then, a heaven-sent opportunity came knocking in his way!
“Hyung-nim, let’s go with that as our Guild’s name!”
Jin Woo made his decision after receiving his partner’s genuine consent this time.
“Okay, so we decided on the Guild’s name, finally.”
Yoo Jinho began crying out in elation inwardly after hearing Jin Woo make that declaration. Meanwhile, the latter rubbed his chin and muttered out.
“The remaining issue is the last founding member slot, isn’t it?”
“Oh, that. Hyung-nim?”
“Yeah?”
“What happened to Park Jongryeo Hunter-nim yesterday?”
“It won’t work out with Jongryeo. He’s not exactly who I’ve been looking for.”
It’s dangerous for my omega to get involved.
‘Keok?!’
Yoo Jinho hastily swallowed a shocked gasp. He expected his hyung-nim to hold a high standard, but to think that he’d not be satisfied with a Hunter on Park Jongryeo’s level!
Hunter Park Jongryeo was an S-rank, he was still very young, his records were excellent, and to top them all off, he was beautiful as well. No matter from which angle, he was pretty much perfect. At least, from the perspective of an ‘average’ Joe, that was.
However, would the word ‘average’ even apply to his hyung-nim?
‘I mean, he almost swept away all the S-rank monsters by himself in the first public raid he participated in as an S-rank, after all.’
It’d be oh-so-obvious that ‘regular’ S-rank Hunters wouldn’t even be able to catch his attention. But, if that was the case then just what kind of a Hunter would satisfy Hyung-nim’s strict judging criteria?
It felt as if the hundreds of applications this yet-to-be-named Guild had received recently all due to the name of ‘Sung Jin Woo’ were about to be thrown into a trash heap now.
…
‘But, I don’t think anyone will be better than Hunter Park Jongryeo among the rest of the applicants, though….’
Yoo Jinho was suddenly beset with worry that the Guild might never get to open its door at this rate, and he cautiously asked Jin Woo.
“Excuse me, hyung-nim. What kind of a person are you looking for, anyway?”
“Someone with a Hunter license who doesn’t care much about the Guild’s activity but we can still place our trust in.”
“Uh….?”
Yoo Jinho thought up a person meeting that criteria perfectly right away.
‘Isn’t that…..’
It was then.
Knock, knock.
Someone knocked on the office’s entrance.
“Who is it?”
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