Being A Full-Time Employee C55

Chapter 55

“So it was true after all. Seeing how cold-blooded you are now, it must be. How can you make such a decision so easily? That man lying there could be you, could be me! My brother is dead! Hunter Chae Wonu—if it were Guide Yang Baekgyeom lying there, could you endure—”
“Don’t say things like that.”
“Urgh…!”
A portion of the water barrier holding back the rampaging hunter peeled away. It struck Park Seokho. It wasn’t fast enough to injure him badly, but the stone fragments within drew a thin line of blood.
“You…”
Park Seokho glared at Chae Wonu, his breath trembling. A taut silence stretched out—just a split second, but it felt eternal. Through that brief moment came a faint moan.
“Just… let me go… just… stop… please, just… let me go…”
It came from the collapsed hunter. He was gasping, wheezing, yet still pleading despite barely having strength left to speak. No one here misunderstood what he meant or what he wanted to end.
The Hunter Bureau wasn’t unique to our country. Most nations had similar institutions, and where they didn’t, corporations founded private guilds to manage and deploy hunters. Some were black companies, others were run by dictators who treated hunters literally like soldiers. Self-pity only destroyed you faster.
But still… knowing that pain—what could any of us do about that?
“Ha…”
I bit my lip hard to keep my emotions from bursting free.
“Home… with Myung-woo…”
Myung-woo—probably his younger brother. I stepped toward Chae Wonu, moving swiftly, and passed between the two men locked in standoff. I grabbed the loaded gun from him.
Time was running out, and I didn’t want Wonu to follow the manual again and be called a murderer. I would do it. No—I was the only one who could do it.
“Hyung!* It’s dangerous!”
Hyung: A Korean term used by a younger man to address an older brother or close older male friend.
Wonu’s trembling voice was nothing like the cold, mechanical tone he used when citing the manual earlier. Despite his plea, I didn’t stop.
If a hunter dies after losing control, they aren’t recognized as fallen in battle—they’re branded in disgrace. But if they die before rampaging, they’re honored as a warrior. At least then, they get to go home.
“This is the right thing,” I said.
“Yang Baekgyeom!”
Park Seokho shouted. By then, the gun in my hand was damp with sweat. Still, I didn’t switch hands. One shot—that would be enough.
The hunter on the ground slowly lifted his gaze to me. His eyes… were smiling. His lips quivered; they were tattered now, torn from the destruction overtaking his body faster than he could heal.
But I think I knew what he was trying to say. Probably “thank you.” Because I would have, too.
“Guide Yang Baekgyeom!”
Park Seokho’s shout echoed. I ignored it, steadied my aim, and wetted my lips. I can do this. I can…
Then suddenly, someone wrapped their arms around me from behind. A hand came over mine that gripped the gun, slender fingers carefully guiding mine off the trigger. The finger that slipped into place on the trigger was no longer mine—it was Chae Wonu’s.
“You don’t need to feel this too,” he murmured, and pulled the trigger.
For a moment, time moved unbearably slowly. So slowly. And then in an instant, everything snapped back to normal speed.
By then, the bullet had already duplicated into two. One whizzed toward its rightful target; the other toward me—or toward Wonu behind me.
I couldn’t dodge. No—perhaps I could, but if I did… if I did, Wonu would be hit. What should I do, how should I—
“Gah—!”
Then one bullet stopped right before my eyes. The other reached its mark. When I blinked, I saw Wonu catch the second bullet midair as it decelerated at the end of its spin, dropping it gently to the ground.
The cocoon covering the rampaging hunter had vanished—the water barrier had been used to block the bullets. Without Wonu’s reflexes and mastery over water, which moved more freely than his own body, I might have already been dead.
My legs gave out, and I sank to the floor. Wonu held me until I steadied, then turned abruptly.
“Are you insane?”
His voice was low and eerie, a tone I had never heard from him before.
“Maybe I should take your guide hostage and make my own threat. No—this wasn’t a threat. It was an attempted murder.”
“No, no. That’s not what I meant…”
Seokho sounded shaken. A sudden thought struck me, and I grabbed the empty collection tube, capturing the faint smoke still drifting in the air. My hands trembled uncontrollably.
“You’re the one threatening us right now,” said Seokho, firmly.
“Enough, both of you,” I called weakly. “Why are we fighting here? We should call in the strike team—”
“Hyung.”
“Yes?”
“I think I won’t stop until I put a hole in that arm.”
“What…?”
But Seokho was a hunter too. By what he knew, he and Wonu were of the same rank. Maybe he believed he could win if he copied what Wonu created, even without adding any foreign matter—he’d practiced enough to know how.
Still… please, just don’t fight.
“Stop it. Enough.”
Min Eesoo tried to restrain Seokho. But neither of the two hunters—who normally would have listened—did. Their eyes gleamed sharply, glaring at each other with murderous intensity.
The ground trembled faintly. Wonu spread the water once used as a shield slowly behind him. From it rose spikes like stalactites, sliced into shape and spinning rapidly like water screws. The thought of one embedding in someone made me sick.
“Hunter Chae Wonu, that’s enough. Stop,” I demanded, frowning. Was it because I was too far away? My words didn’t reach him. I pushed myself up on trembling knees; even standing took effort. As I gasped for breath, Min Eesoo screamed. I whipped my head around—Seokho was sweating, blocking the incoming water screws with his duplicated constructs.
“Wonu!”
Panicked, I extended my hand and rushed toward him, ready to pull him back. Water shards sliced past Seokho’s arm. Even though they merely grazed him, the wounds were deep and bleeding heavily. At that sight, Wonu’s weapons dipped slightly.
Because I stepped in, his guard faltered. Seokho seized the moment to lunge, but Min Eesoo caught him first.
“Seokho!” she shouted, pointing to the side. The rampaging hunter was reaching his limit. Wonu clenched his hand tightly.
The man gasped, suffocating as the water constricted his throat. He flailed one last time before the inevitable explosion hit—this one bigger than all the previous ones. I curled up to shield myself.
But no explosion came.
“Hyung, it’s over,” Wonu whispered from behind, wrapping his arms around me.
“It’s over.”
In the end, Wonu finished it. Selfishly, all I could think was I made him do it.
I heard Park Seokho sobbing. They hadn’t seemed especially close before, judging from their arguments. Maybe it wasn’t grief for his friend—but fear that he, too, might be “processed” that way someday.
“You…!”
Even though it was too late, Seokho still shouted in fury, trying to lunge at Wonu. That kind of reaction, that pointless rage—even that proved hunters were still human.
Wonu didn’t respond. And soon I understood why he remained so calm.
—Zone A cleared. Moving in.
A violent trembling followed by the sound of shattering glass. The invisible barrier broke, and people in hazmat suits and soldiers stormed in. A mechanical voice echoed crisply through the earpiece—no static this time.
The soldiers first confirmed the hunter’s death, reporting that the rampage threat was neutralized, then turned toward us. There was something strange about their demeanor.
A chill of foreboding ran through me. I pushed Wonu’s shoulder, trying to rise. Then the man at the front raised his rifle—and aimed at Wonu. At me. At Min Eesoo. At Park Seokho.
—Subduing target.
“Ah…”
I muttered weakly. I needed to tell them to move, to dodge—but then the rifles fired. Not bullets—needles. The needle struck Wonu’s body, and just as he was on the edge of rampage, his eyes closed and he collapsed backward.
“You bast—”
Stopping the rampage was one thing, but treating a person like that—as if he were an animal fit only for tranquilizers…
There was so much I wanted to say, so many curses I wanted to scream, but I couldn’t. A needle had hit my own arm, and consciousness slipped away.
How had they actually cleared the dungeon? Why had that barrier formed? What happened to the others…? Questions spun through my foggy head.
—Two injured guides, one deceased guide, one hunter down.
Behind the voice reporting that, a figure in a hazmat suit bent down. Through my fading awareness, I felt Wonu twitch and grip my hand, as though to reassure me.

As soon as we arrived at the Hunter Bureau, we were drenched in disinfectant spray. People in protective suits swarmed around, pulling us aside. Wonu and I were separated. Not just us—hunters and guides were segregated.
They must have used a stronger drug on the hunters, because none of them opened their eyes. That was probably for the best. If they were conscious, chaos would have followed.
We weren’t much better off. Half-conscious, we were dragged away with support under our arms. My shoes scraped across the floor again and again. And then my dimming vision went fully dark once more.