Chapter 7

“Excuse me. I have something I’d like to ask.”

“Yes? What seems to be the problem?”

The mocking laughter following behind her clung to her like something sticky. But that wasn’t what mattered to Seong-ha.

She walked over to the guild’s lobby desk and asked,

“There seems to be a problem with my guild member ID. The gate isn’t recognizing it.”

“One moment, please. May I see your guild member ID?”

“Yes.”

Ha Seong-ha handed the plastic card to the employee. After taking her guild member ID, the employee casually glanced over her face before typing on the keyboard.

The indifferent gaze that checked her face never reached Seong-ha, who was lost deep in thought.

Did Zodiac abandon me? Really?

The questions Why? and How come? naturally came to mind. Still, she could easily guess the reason.

They must have grown tired of keeping around an incompetent S-rank Hunter. Yet because they still wanted to make use of her, they hadn’t bothered to tell her that she had been expelled from the guild.

If she hadn’t come to the headquarters herself today, she wouldn’t even have known that she’d been kicked out.

“Ah, Ms. Ha Seong-ha.”

“Is there a problem with my guild member ID?”

“Uh… no.”

Apparently having figured out the cause after several keystrokes, the employee looked up.

“Ms. Ha Seong-ha, you are no longer a member of the Zodiac Guild.”

“What?”

“Last month, we strengthened security at the guild headquarters and installed a new security system at the gates. Ms. Ha Seong-ha isn’t registered in the program.”

“…I see.”

For the past ten years, ever since fifteen-year-old Ha Seong-ha awakened as an S-rank Hunter, she had been a member of Zodiac, whether she liked it or not.

She had been adopted by the former Guild Master of Zodiac and was naturally, and forcibly, enrolled in the guild at the same time.

Being a member of Zodiac had once been the bare minimum foothold that allowed Ha Seong-ha to be socially recognized and exist as a Hunter, regardless of her own efforts.

After all, without being a Hunter, she couldn’t operate as a member of the Zodiac Guild.

And yet, in the end, Zodiac had abandoned her.

They really were idiots to the very end.

There’s nothing more I can gain from this place anyway. I’ve read almost all of the data Zodiac has accumulated, and now I can make weapons too.

The reason she possessed extensive knowledge about Hunters and dungeons was partly because, even if only in name, she had been a member of Zodiac.

The data accumulated by the nation’s second-largest guild was enormous.

It contained information not only on major dungeons but also on the creatures living inside them.

Ha Seong-ha had gone to the information room containing the publicly available materials every single day, desperately trying to gather anything that might earn her even the slightest recognition from others.

And she had read every single piece of information there.

She had relentlessly dug into the only benefit she could enjoy as a member of Zodiac.

But now, she no longer needed Zodiac’s help.

If anything, she found it absurd that she had only just discovered that the leash around her neck had already been removed without her even realizing it.

Seong-ha asked again, wanting to make absolutely certain that her connection with Zodiac had been severed.

“The data isn’t wrong, is it?”

“Of course not. The part you’re asking about is directly connected to the Zodiac Guild’s security system. Since it’s something the development department pays particularly close attention to, there couldn’t possibly be an error.”

Hearing the employee’s firm answer, Seong-ha barely managed to suppress the hollow laugh that escaped her.

So, over the past month, they had secretly expelled me from the Zodiac Guild while openly trying to tie me to Ji Cheong-ho through an engagement in order to merge Zodiac and the Cheongwol Guild.

“…Really? So that’s how it is.”

She was grateful that they had kindly cut her loose themselves.

Thanks to them, things had become incredibly easy.

Ha Seong-woon still wouldn’t know that her awakening as a High-Rank Weapon Creator was the truth.

She looked forward to the moment when the face of the idiot who had thrown away a goose that laid golden eggs with his own hands became twisted in regret.

Suppressing the smile threatening to appear on her face, Seong-ha calmly spoke.

“Then could you contact the Guild Master and tell him that I’ve come?”

As soon as the desk notified the Guild Master’s office of her visit, permission immediately came down to let Ha Seong-ha into the Guild Master’s office.

Seong-ha coldly looked down at the gate that opened without resistance before walking forward.

There were two reasons she had come to Zodiac Guild headquarters.

First, she had come to retrieve the car that had been left behind in the underground parking lot of Zodiac headquarters when Ha Seong-dan had dragged her into the dungeon.

And the second was…

“You’re late.”

She had to meet that man.

Today, Ha Seong-ha had intended to meet Ha Seong-woon and negotiate her departure from the Zodiac Guild.

But now there was no need.

Thankfully, they had already set her free themselves.

“I heard some interesting news.”

“…”

“Read this.”

Thud!

Seong-ha sat down on the sofa in the Guild Master’s office on the top floor of Zodiac headquarters.

Ha Seong-woon sat in the seat of honor, raising his glacier-blue eyes. He made no effort to conceal his displeasure.

Without saying a word, she picked up the file thrown in front of her.

As she turned through the pages one by one, the enormous headlines of the articles burned themselves clearly into her mind.

— The Birth of a New High-Rank Weapon Creator?! Who Is the Newly Emerged Weapon Creator?

— An S-Rank Hunter Awakens Again! The Ugly Duckling Hunter Has Become a Swan

— Zodiac Guild’s Misjudgment? The “Incompetent” S-Rank Hunter Who Solo-Cleared a Dungeon That Even an Elite A-Rank Team Failed to Conquer

Every single article was about her.

They’ve certainly been busy writing.

To be honest, Ha Seong-ha had been startled when she encountered the reporters waiting for her the moment she came out of the dungeon.

She had never imagined that anyone would be waiting for her.

And they were precisely the people best suited to kick-start the plan Seong-ha had designed.

“Explain. What exactly happened inside that dungeon? And what do you mean by saying you’ve awakened as a High-Rank Weapon Creator?”

Even as he ground his teeth, Ha Seong-woon merely lowered his voice threateningly instead of acting as he had in the past.

Seong-ha inwardly sneered at him.

Of course.

The Ha Seong-ha standing here now was a Hunter attracting attention from all of Korea—no, from the entire world.

The amount of attention that would pour onto her the moment she walked out of this Guild Master’s office was impossible to imagine.

And if she so much as opened her mouth in front of those people and said that Ha Seong-woon had threatened her…

Things would get really interesting.

I’m no longer connected to this place, but I can still give them one hell of a parting gift.

Seong-ha stopped flipping through the documents and slowly opened her mouth.

“You already know everything there is to know, don’t you? If you don’t, you can read this article.”

“Ha Seong-ha!”

Seong-ha shook the file in her hand.

With public opinion already leaning heavily in her favor, there was no reason for her to kindly explain anything to him.

She tilted her head as she watched Ha Seong-woon’s face twist viciously.

He immediately caught the ridicule in her expression and ground his teeth.

“Now that you’ve awakened again, do you think I’m beneath you? You’ll always be in the palm of my hand.”

“Who knows? I don’t know whether you’re foolish or simply stupid for still thinking that way.”

A scoffing laugh escaped her.

Ha Seong-woon’s eyes widened, and he kicked the table in front of him with a loud BANG!

Despite his threat, Seong-ha calmly placed the file in her hand down.

Then she casually raised her eyes and met his gaze head-on.

“Ha Seong-ha! You—!”

“I just heard some interesting news on my way up here. Have you checked the guild member list?”

“What?”

Ha Seong-woon’s pitch-black eyebrows rose higher and higher at Ha Seong-ha throwing his own words back at him.

Meeting his eyes, Ha Seong-ha recalled a text message she had once received from him.

They were the messages she had received on the day she entered that grave-like dungeon, around the time she had finished eating with her fiancé, Ji Cheong-ho.

[Ha Seong-woon: I’ll continue making time for you to spend with Ji Cheong-ho as much as possible.]

[Ha Seong-woon: Do your best to build a relationship with him.]

[Ha Seong-woon: It’s the only way someone as useless as you can have any value.]

He was the kind of man who had expelled her from the guild while still trying to sell her off to facilitate a merger with the Cheongwol Guild.

He was also arrogant enough to believe that everything happened within the palm of his hand.

But things would never go according to his wishes again.

From now on, he would never get what he wanted.

Because from now on, what he’ll want will be me.

Seong-ha pulled the corners of her mouth upward as far as she could and stood.

“Because I’m no longer a member of the Zodiac Guild.”

“What? What the hell are you talking about…?”

“That’s a shame. You’ll have to completely overhaul that plan to merge with the Cheongwol Guild and swallow up the Salvation Guild from the very beginning.”

Ha Seong-ha walked toward the Guild Master’s office door.

As she stepped outside, she added without even looking back,

“Good luck. Of course, there’s no way you’ll have a talent like me.”

“Ha Seong-ha!!”

Don’t look back. Just keep walking forward.

[You’re doing great.]

[Even I’m feeling refreshed watching this.]

Seong-ha continued speaking to herself inside her head.

Then, when the final thought she had been thinking appeared before her eyes as words, she let out a small laugh.

The humiliation she had endured until now, and the sorrow it had caused her, would now become the driving force that allowed her to burn through the rest of her life.

[Ha Seong-ha.]

[There is nothing that can ignore you anymore.]

Seong-ha suppressed the laughter that naturally welled up and ignored the gazes fixed on her the moment she left the Guild Master’s office.

She already knew better than anyone that she was someone strong and precious in her own right.

She wouldn’t allow herself to be diminished by the insignificant gazes of others.

Returning to her car in the underground parking lot, Seong-ha started the engine and glanced at the time.

Three in the afternoon.

She still had plenty of time.

Seong-ha studied her face in the rearview mirror.

Her tightly pressed lips and slightly upturned eyes came into view.

As she stared blankly at her own eyes, clear and sparkling with intelligence, Seong-ha spoke softly.

“Quasar, you said I only have two years left, right?”

[Yeah. Why?]

“…Never mind.”

Two years.

Two years, huh.

Seong-ha gripped the steering wheel tightly as she repeated the amount of time she had left to herself over and over.

Ha Seong-ha’s body remained right where it was, but everything surrounding her was pushing her forward.

Further and further ahead.

Even if the end of that road was a cliff.

But Ha Seong-ha had no intention of wasting the time she had left.

She intended to struggle until the very last moment.

She intended to make the fullest possible use of the miracle she had grasped for the first time and achieve everything she had desperately wished for.

This is where it begins.

Whether it became revenge or saving the world.

The shackles that had been dragging her down were gone.

Now, all that remained was for her to soar.

It was time to use the reality pushing her from behind as a tailwind.

With a determined gaze, Seong-ha pressed down on the accelerator.

The car smoothly moved forward.