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“Since we’re not an enterprise, we cannot promise you a lot of money. But we can help you flourish a different path.” Go Gunhee watched Sung Jinwoo from across the waiting area, not hiding his frank appraisal. This young man had the potential to upend the entirety of hunter politics in South Korea with one decision, and at least some idea of what that might mean, of what stood to be gained if he joined a guild.
Gunhee had made a similar offer to Cha Hae-in two years before, and meant it even more than he had then. The situation then had not been much less dire; they’d already been dealing with the fallout of the second Jeju Island raid, and the public was waiting for something. Anything to rebuild their faith and security. A newly reawakened S-rank joining the Hunter’s Guild instead of the Association had put the public’s trust even more into the guild system, and cemented further the idea that the Hunters’ Association was just another government agency with red tape about gates.
Needless to say, letting such opportunities go was not a luxury he had the ability to revisit. Cha Hae-in had made the Hunters just a step more powerful than the rest, and Jinwoo was likely at least as powerful as her, if not more. There were not that many S-rankers in Korea, and his presence would give the Hunters' Association back the domestic legitimacy they desperately needed.
“What do you mean, flourish on a different path? What does the Association offer that the guilds don’t?” Jinwoo met his eyes, and there was something there that Gunhee recognized in them. A dark bright weight that he only knew as power.
Gunhee spread his hands, smiling. “Why don’t we start with what you would like?”
“To fight,” Jinwoo said. “I want to fight. My place is in a gate.”
“I see.”
The silence hung between them for a long moment, and then Jinwoo cleared his throat and clenched his fist, bringing forth a summon that looked like a knight, at least twice the size of a human. The knight knelt on one knee to Jinwoo, who patted it. “If you’ve looked me up in your files, you know that my mother has spent a lot of time in hospital, and that my younger sister is still in school. I don’t want fame, and as long as I can pay for rent and food and hospital bills, I don’t need money either. But I want to fight, and I will win.”
A cold sweat broke out over Go Gunhee’s back. Not at the words, whose sentiments in fact invigorated him, but at the sight of the summon. He knew in his bones what he was looking at, though by the fact that Jinwoo was still talking to him it was possible that Jinwoo did not.
He couldn’t help himself asking. “May I ask about your summon?”
Jinwoo sat back, smiling and deliberately light. Playing the game. “Oh? Sure, this is Igris. He’s my strongest summon.”
Igris bowed deeper to his summoner before turning his attention to Jinwoo’s defense. If Gunhee had wanted anything further than a talk, he might have been more unsettled. Then again, if the summon was as powerful as he thought, perhaps he ought to worry regardless.
“Your personal history is safe with me, I promise.” Gunhee laughed it off as best he could, while silently bringing his own power to bear in a way he knew Jinwoo must feel. “But, if the Hunter’s Association could offer you opportunities to fight, would you join us?”
“When you say opportunities—”
“All gates must be processed by the Evaluation Division before being put to auction to the guilds. There would also need to be considerations made for our lack of a dedicated mining or excavation team, of course, as we don’t currently retain nearly as many gates as other countries. Perhaps it is time to rethink our model a little bit.”
A small smirk turned the corners of Jinwoo’s lips, and in that moment Gunhee knew that he’d either gotten the young man or lost him entirely. There had been no second guessing; Jinwoo had asked for only the one thing, and it seemed like he’d been direct enough to ask for what he actually wanted.
For the Association, this could only be a gain. Those summons could easily take on the work of clearing gates of their valuables, likely even better than humans since they didn’t tire and didn’t need to be paid. Also, he’d offered a rather material gain in that Jinwoo wouldn’t need to bid on gates under this arrangement, for all that Jinwoo claimed to be unconcerned with money. Few people actually were that unconcerned with material wealth.
“So, Hunter Sung, what will you do?” Gunhee asked.
“I accept.”
In a corner of the Monitoring Division, an office had been cleared out. It was almost always dark, and had never been properly decorated. It was strange as well; the shadows in the room never quite seemed to align with the furniture inside. An intern who had been dared to go inside had come out quiet and shaking, saying that it was haunted.
Technically, that might even be true. Gunhee suspected that there were more of Jinwoo’s shadows around than just whatever had startled young Kim Suhyeon. Or perhaps Jinwoo himself counted there. The employment paperwork he had left on Jinwoo’s new desk had disappeared one night and reappeared the next, without anyone having seen him coming or going.
The day after, Gunhee found himself smiling down at a shadow in the break room that didn’t look quite right, and a coffee cup that seemed to belong to no one in particular. Ah, youth.
Soon he’d need to get Jinwoo into the office during the day, if only to make a show of him to the department. It would do both him and them good to get a measure of their newest allies, and there were a few things in that paperwork that Gunhee wanted to corner Jinwoo about. Like, for example, why one of his summons was listed as an emergency contact. Or what exactly he meant by his ‘inventory’.
And maybe Gunhee wanted to watch him fight, just a little. He'd always been drawn to power.