Being A Full-Time Employee C0

Prologue

Seventeen years old, standing on the very spot where a dungeon had erupted on the eve of my high school entrance ceremony. It was also the place where the graves of my family—everyone but me—rested. We had held a joint funeral.

Though I continued to reside in this city with only a temporary dwelling, I had deliberately averted my gaze from this place. Even though I knew people came here every year to pay their respects, I had never once visited.

Yet here I was now, all because of you.

By contract, our relationship should have naturally come to an end. After all, it was only a one-year agreement that neither renewed nor extended. But even after it closed ahead of schedule, I never imagined that my connection to you would continue in this way.

Of course, I missed you. It was more than simple regret, but still, I only hoped you were doing well. You were still so young. No matter how peculiar your constitution, I believed the right Guide would surely appear for you.

I only wished you would forget me…

I clenched my fist as I stared at the red targeting dot aimed at your face and chest. My hands trembled less when I did so. My cold hands had grown clammy with sweat.

Behind you stretched heaps of construction debris and the grotesque corpses of monsters that had yet to dissipate. You had pierced even more holes in your ears since I last saw you, and you seemed taller too. It was natural—you grew quickly even in the brief time we once spent together.

Because of the brutal battle, the cherry blossoms planted along the roadside now stood stripped, their prematurely bloomed flowers meaningless against the bare branches that remained. Each time the wind blew, petals already fallen scattered across the ground. It was, incongruously, a beautiful backdrop for such a reunion.

How good would it have been if, like before, when I came here with you, we could drink lukewarm beer, laugh loudly at dull jokes, and carry on as though nothing were wrong?

“Hyung.”

After staring at me for a long time, you called out.

“Let’s go back. You could die.”

That might be true. The pendant you gave me was already broken, and I had spent every last bonus life allotted to me.

Blood spurted endlessly from the monsters’ corpses, and water gushed in streams from shattered water pipes. With this much moisture, you could easily kill every person gathered here. You did not seem to care that your own rampaging power was destroying you.

Your ability spilled out past its limits, your once-violet hand now splitting open, flesh torn and dripping blood. And yet you showed no sign of pain.

“Let’s just go back. Live an ordinary life.”

“Ordinary?”

“……”

“You know that’s impossible. This is our everyday life.”

It was the very truth I had spent my whole life denying, running away from. I had sworn to save up money and leave this world behind. For as long as I could remember, I clung only to that purpose, refusing to form attachments—even with fellow hunters. You were supposed to have been only another passing line on my record.

They say those who never make plans do so because life is too unpredictable to follow one. And they were right.

Because of you—because of the variable that you were—I had been completely changed.

“Hyung.”

Your lips trembled as you moved them, your face—until now frozen in cold resolve—finally beginning to crack.

“I’m sorry. Truly… this isn’t what I wanted.”

As I was about to answer, a sound somewhere nearby rang out—something exploding. It was the fractured pipes bursting fully at last, spraying torrents of water.

You reached for me, desperation etched in your expression. My body moved before I had time to think.

The moment I ran to you, an order to fire descended behind me like a blade.