My Assigned Hunters Climb the Tower - Chapter 05

========== CHAPTER 5 ==========

An emaciated body, a face so dirty it showed how long it had been since they’d last washed, and thin, ragged clothes that didn’t suit the early spring weather.

Lee Seong-ha frowned without realizing it.

However, Go Gyeol, having confirmed the appearance exactly as it was in his memories before the regression, naturally knelt on one knee to meet the child’s eyes. Although the exterior was so pitiful, he knew. He knew of the warmth hidden inside this child, and the fierce rebellion that contradicted it.

“We came to pray for your grandmother. Is she inside?”

Lee Seong-ha’s eyes widened.

‘This asshole is using such a gentle tone?’

The child’s eyes, full of wariness, rolled around to scan Lee Seong-ha, who was wearing a cassock. Feeling that gaze, Go Gyeol nudged Lee Seong-ha’s leg. Only then did Lee Seong-ha come to his senses and force a benevolent smile, the kind he used to make at the cathedral.

“W-we, the priest is going house to house to offer prayers. Is your grandmother in?”

The child hesitated for a moment before nodding.

“…She… caught a cold… she’s sleeping.”

“Then, would it be alright if we just offered a prayer and left?”

The child stared intently at Go Gyeol again, then soon stepped aside from the door with a small nod. Lee Seong-ha reluctantly followed Go Gyeol inside.

A cramped room not even a pyeong in size. Faded newspaper was plastered on the walls like wallpaper, and in the corner, a gas burner and a brass pot containing moldy rice were scattered about.

In the corner, where there wasn’t even a window, someone who appeared to be the child’s grandmother was lying down, covered by a single thin blanket.

In the air, which was as cold as it was outside, the grandmother’s complexion was pale.

Go Gyeol swallowed a sigh and sat in front of the grandmother. When he took her hand, there was, as expected, no warmth at all, and it was stiff, as if rigor mortis had set in.

“…Hey, Grandma is sleeping….”

At the child’s voice, Go Gyeol composed his expression.

“When did your grandmother fall asleep?”

Instead of answering, the child only rolled their eyes.

“Lee Seong-ha. Pray for her.”

Lee Seong-ha, who had grasped the whole situation from Go Gyeol’s low words and the grandmother’s complexion, sat in his place and placed a hand on the grandmother’s forehead. Without minding the cold touch, he closed his eyes and made the sign of the cross.

The child quietly knelt beside Lee Seong-ha, clasped their small hands together, and closed their eyes. Go Gyeol watched that scene quietly before going outside and calling 119 and 112 at the same time.

Before long, the sound of sirens could be heard faintly from afar.

Go Gyeol confirmed the lights of the police car and ambulance that had arrived at the entrance of the alley, threw the phone he had been using into a corner, and went back inside the house.

The prayer was finished, and the child and Lee Seong-ha were staring blankly at each other.

Go Gyeol picked up the child without hesitation.

“Let’s go.”

“Wait! What are you doing!”

The child shouted, struggling at the sudden action. But Go Gyeol didn’t care and headed outside. Lee Seong-ha, who always had many questions, followed behind him without a word this time.

“Let me go! What if Grandma wakes up!”

“Kang Hoon.”

Go Gyeol called the child by his real name.

“It’s all over now. You don’t have to live like this anymore.”

At that moment, the child—no, Kang Hoon’s body stiffened. And the next moment, he used all his strength to break free from Go Gyeol’s arms.

“Hup!”

Kang Hoon, who had landed on the ground while Go Gyeol was momentarily off guard, dashed into the back alley with the speed of a beast.

“That crazy little brat!”

Lee Seong-ha shouted in surprise. It was a speed he hadn’t imagined. He was faster than a D-rank monster.

A faint smile hung on the corner of Go Gyeol’s mouth.

‘As expected. The talent is still the same.’

“Lee Seong-ha.”

“Yeah?”

“Catch him. Don’t hurt him.”

Lee Seong-ha kicked off the ground and disappeared instead of answering. Kang Hoon ran through the narrow and complex alleys of the shantytown as if it were his own living room. But it was to no avail.

When Kang Hoon, who had reached a dead-end alley, hurriedly turned around, it was Lee Seong-ha who blocked his path.

“Caught you, kid.”

“Move!”

Kang Hoon tried to slip past Lee Seong-ha, but the moment Lee Seong-ha’s hand lightly tapped his shoulder, Kang Hoon’s body felt a pressure as if it were sinking into the ground. He couldn’t move a muscle.

In the end, Kang Hoon was grabbed by the two men and forcibly put into the back seat of the car.

The car slipped out of the shantytown.

“Let me out.”

Kang Hoon, who had been sitting quietly, opened his mouth.

Go Gyeol glanced at the back through the rearview mirror and pulled the car over to the shoulder.

“Seong-ha. Have the kid sit next to you.”

“Huh? Oh.”

Lee Seong-ha had the child sit in the passenger seat with a bewildered look. It was right then.

—Duduk. Dududuk.

Along with the sound of bones breaking, the child groaned and curled up.

“Huh? What’s wrong with him!”

Unlike the flustered Lee Seong-ha, Go Gyeol threw the blanket he had prepared in advance to the back and shouted.

“Cover him with that!”

“Hurry!”

At Go Gyeol’s urging, Lee Seong-ha hurriedly covered the child’s body with the large blanket. At that moment, the small figure under the blanket began to swell and grow. The arms and legs lengthened, and the black bobbed hair turned red and grew down to the waist.

—Jji-i-ik.

Along with the sound of clothes tearing because they couldn’t handle the body shape, a long, slender hand poked out and wrapped the blanket around its body. Lee Seong-ha covered his mouth with his own hand without realizing it.

“Th… what on earth is this….”

“Hoo….”

What came from under the blanket was no longer the child’s voice.

Kang Hoon, who had instantly become an adult—no, a teenager—looked at Go Gyeol with a furrowed brow. He was gaunt, but his eyes were filled with sharp rebellion.

“Who are you guys?”

“Kang Hoon. 18 years old.”

One sentence.

“Attribute, Curse-type ‘Witch’. Right?”

At those words, Kang Hoon’s face hardened like stone.

In the place where contempt and rebellion had disappeared, only shock and fear remained for the person who had seen through all his secrets.

The feel of the cold leather seat was chillingly vivid. The man in the passenger seat had introduced himself as ‘Go Gyeol’. His face, as upright as his name, was unrealistic, but the words that came out of his mouth were a brutal reality.

“Wh… who are you?”

His voice came out cracked. Kang Hoon pulled his body toward the car door handle without realizing it.

“Go Gyeol. And the person who will raise you as a hunter.”

“Crazy bastard.”

Along with the reflexively spat-out profanity, the moment Kang Hoon tried to open the car door, the man threw out a decisive remark in a languid voice, as if he didn’t care at all.

“You cast the curse because of your grandmother, right?”

It felt as if the blood in his whole body had frozen.

Kki-gik.

Kang Hoon turned his head, which was stiff as if it would make a sound.

“Don’t say no. That form you’re in right now… you turn into a kid every time you use your ability, don’t you?”

Kang Hoon bit his lower lip without realizing it. It was an undeniable truth. An excuse flowed from his mouth as he hung his head low.

“…It was Grandma’s wish.”

Lee Seong-ha, the other person in the passenger seat, who had been silently watching Kang Hoon’s black crown of his head, asked quietly.

“Who is the target of the curse?”

Kang Hoon was silent for a long time. His voice, which broke the silence inside the car, was wet with moisture.

“……The drunk driver who killed her son.”

To him, the grandmother was not just a neighborhood old woman. She was an old friend who had treated him, left alone in the world, like a human being for the first time.

Everything started in his second year of middle school, the day he awakened as a Curse-type ‘Witch’. One day, while wandering the night streets in an empty house, looking for human warmth without knowing it, he met the grandmother. Unlike her shabby appearance, she was a warm person, as if she had gathered all the warmth in the world. She was a precious being who had shared a warm meal and warmth with him for the first time without asking for anything in return.

So, before the grandmother died, he wanted to grant her last wish.

‘Hoon-ah… if only… I could see my son’s face one last time….’

He didn’t care what price he had to pay for the curse.

However, he couldn’t bring the dead back to life. That was something no hunter could do, so he decided to punish the person who had killed the grandmother’s son.

In the same way that he had killed him.

“Ah.”

Behind Lee Seong-ha’s short sigh, a heavy silence descended inside the car.

“Do you think I’m wrong? Do you think I’m a monster too?”

He was still hanging his head, but his voice was as sharp as broken glass shards. It was the last thorn to protect himself.

Go Gyeol looked at Kang Hoon through the rearview mirror. And he answered nonchalantly.

“If you don’t think you’re wrong, then that’s the answer.”

It was neither affirmation nor denial. It was a statement that returned the weight of all decisions entirely to Kang Hoon. It was a form of acknowledgment that no one, not even his parents, had ever given him.

Kang Hoon slowly raised his head. Transparent tears were already welling up in his eyes, which had been full of venom.

Lee Seong-ha quietly reached out and placed his hand on Kang Hoon’s head. At the unexpected warm touch, Kang Hoon’s shoulders flinched.

“I don’t usually do this for those who haven’t been baptized… but let’s just call this a confession and I’ll pray for you.”

A low but firm voice rang through the air in the car.

“In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit….”

As his prayer began, the tears that had been precariously hanging in the corners of Kang Hoon’s eyes fell, drip, drip. They were tears he had never shed, not even when his grandmother’s breath stopped, nor on the day he was abandoned by his parents. The guilt and loneliness he had to swallow alone, unable to confide in anyone, were melting away helplessly at the sound of a stranger’s prayer.

“You guys… anyway, why did you come looking for me?”

Kang Hoon, who had been crying for a while and seemed embarrassed, asked, sniffing his nose as if nothing had happened.

“You think we came for a vacation?”

At Lee Seong-ha’s playful retort, as if he hadn’t just comforted him, Kang Hoon frowned fiercely.

“Why did you find me?”

“Like I said earlier. To make you a hunter.”

“Based on what? What do you know about me?”

Smack!

Lee Seong-ha lightly slapped the back of his head.

“Ouch!”

“Fix your tone. You’re being cheeky.”

“What’s wrong with my tone! Ouch! Why are you hitting me!”

“Use honorifics.”

At the sight of Lee Seong-ha shaking his fist, Kang Hoon pouted and asked.

“Why me, of all people? Aren’t there hunters everywhere?”

South Korea was a powerhouse of hunters. He was asking why, out of all those hunters, they had chosen a monster-like person like him.

“Because you have a skill that only you can use.”

At Go Gyeol’s words, Kang Hoon’s eyes widened.

Before the regression, Go Gyeol had seen it clearly. In the center of Myeong-dong, which had become a cursed city, Kang Hoon was extinguishing the life force of all living things. He had to lead that terrible skill, which had claimed 1,500 victims, in a different way in this life.