SWNOVELXO Chapter 174: The Choi Sisters (3)
Tok!
Moments later, sharp white fangs sunk tiny holes into the skin.
Choi Jin-hee Hunter buried her face in Gi-ryeo’s arm and her neck muscles twitched dramatically.
At first, she thought she would just lick off the blood from the wounded area.
Oh.
Is there a leech or something in those fangs? Jin-hee drank the bodily fluid without losing a single drop, like a syringe.
The way she hurriedly quenched her thirst looked almost gluttonous.
Puhah!
How long has it been since this stroke of fortune!
With a very satisfied expression, she lifted her head, but Gi-ryeo, who was stopping the bleeding, continued the conversation.
“Is my blood really that tasty? Doesn’t anything feel off?”
She had taken good care of herself all this time.
Technically speaking, she was a body that had been dead and revived, so there was a bit of difference compared to a normal Earthling.
“It’s sweet!”
“Oh, really.”
“It feels a bit cold?”
Pause.
Gi-ryeo organized his sleeves while looking down at her clear eyes. But no further comments were made.
There was no need to clean up; the topic naturally shifted.
“Big brother. But when sister comes later, don’t tell her I drank blood.”
“That’s a request to keep a secret, right?”
“Yes, yes.”
Shh.
The B-Class Hunter brought her finger to her lips to demand silence. Gi-ryeo nodded.
After all, even though it was only about 150,000 won, it wouldn’t look good if he was caught extorting money from a friend’s relative.
He might even get scolded for not offering that much for free.
“You must! When sister comes later, you must!”
Gi-ryeo responded briefly to her words.
“It’s not a little later; she’s already here.”
Huh.
As if on cue, Choi Jin appeared in the lounge, and Ahn Yoon-seung returned from the parking lot around the same time.
Now that everyone had gathered, Gi-ryeo prepared for a serious conversation with the Choi sisters…….
*
Kim Gi-ryeo.
What the S-Class Hunter wanted to hear was Choi Jin’s experiences.
Red Dragon, Green Dragon, Black Dragon.
The dragons that had appeared on Earth were mainly divided into these three types, and he didn’t know much except for the toxic new species, the Black Dragon.
Attack methods, weaknesses, effective attributes, etc.
Gi-ryeo wanted to learn how to deal with the other two types of dragons.
In return, he wanted to sincerely answer her questions as well.
“If it’s about dungeon items, I could probably share satisfying insights. I’ve personally studied that area for a long time.”
Plus, he could also exchange information about the Black Dragon. He had plenty of ways to repay that debt.
“That’s fine.”
“Oh… really?”
However, Choi Jin, the Hunter, flatly rejected it.
She didn’t add anything further, but her eyes clearly showed that she was displeased about being there.
After the information relay, Choi Jin, Choi Jin-hee, and Ahn Yoon-seung went up to the roof of the building, leaving the S-Class Hunter in the break room.
Sss!
As soon as Choi Jin opened the roof door, she lit a cigarette.
But with her cousin standing nearby, she asked with a puzzled tone.
“Aren’t you smoking?”
Yoon-seung replied that he had quit for quite a while. Choi Jin tilted her head dramatically.
“No, what does an Awakened even know about quitting…?”
“My older brother told me to quit.”
Hearing someone who wasn’t present being mentioned made the woman visibly irritable.
The follow-up was a series of irritated remarks.
“Fine. Anyway, Ahn Yoon-seung, how can you just schedule this last minute when you know your sisters are busy? It’s troublesome.”
Though he had only contacted her two days ago, it did indeed come across as a rushed invitation.
“That’s why I asked if you were available….”
Yoon-seung felt quite wronged. Choi Jin had not been so cold when she contacted him last week.
“You said you didn’t want to organize it by email so just come and hear the story, right?”
“That was just because we wanted to catch up as relatives. Who would have thought you’d bring such baggage?”
Sigh.
Just as Choi Jin let out a deep sigh, Yoon-seung appeared shocked and argued back.
“Baggage? I just wanted to introduce a good S-Class to you!”
Maaan! It’s not bad to know high-ranked hunters as fellow industry folks, right?
“What?!”
“No, it’s an S-Class! So I thought my sister would be happy to meet him too!”
But all she heard in response was the huffy voice of another Hunter.
“Ugh!”
Choi Jin smacked her cousin on the back.
As a Hunter equipped with the item “Dragon’s Heart,” boasting A-Class magic power, her strength caused Yoon-seung to exclaim in shock.
“What’s there to be happy about? Don’t you get why I’m mad?”
“Big sister, don’t fight….”
“Jin-hee, it’s okay, just stay quiet for a bit.”
Choi Jin raised her voice, dismissing her younger sister’s plea.
“Hey, Ahn Yoon-seung. Why are you so oblivious? Speaking of which, didn’t you team up temporarily with Kim Gi-ryeo back in January?”
“Mermaid’s Cove?”
“Exactly! So you should know! Who this guy usually works with!”
At this point, the reason why Choi Jin had been adversarial towards Gi-ryeo was becoming clear.
She had a very negative view of any association between Kim Gi-ryeo and another Hunter.
“If he hangs out with that bastard Kang Chang-ho, it’s all too predictable. So for crying out loud, don’t associate with those kinds of people from now on!”
Just the mention of Chang-ho’s name made her younger sister visibly uncomfortable.
They had been victims of a violent incident involving a Hunter named Chang-ho in the past, and they didn’t want to relive that experience.
“A little search will tell you—there are articles! How can you even think of doing business with such a scumbag…?”
When violent incidents happen, people online often assume there’s some blame on the victims. Surely it wouldn’t happen without a cause.
But Choi Jin was truly an innocent victim with no background to her story.
She had just gone to work like any other day.
– Ah, you are that Faith Guild ace?
She had simply been punched by a certain freelance Hunter she met inside. That was all.
‘It was weird from the start when someone from a small guild offered to help us.’
Kang Chang-ho had previously attacked Choi Jin disguised as a mistake.
There wasn’t a clear witness due to the S-Class’s exceptional abilities, but at least the victim knew it was intentional.
‘The angle was aimed straight at me.’
The attack that pierced through a monster and reached Choi Jin was too severe to have been done with mere hands.
In the news, it was dismissed simply as “seriously injured.”
However, it was honestly a horrifying incident that nearly exposed her organs.
‘So stressful.’
Moreover, she hadn’t realized it at the time, but later learned it was a sort of attempt to siphon someone else’s powers.
Not long after that, there was a major incident where another owner of the “Dragon’s Heart” was murdered abroad.
The perpetrator claimed they thought the heart would return to its original pure item form by doing so, but the verification showed the complete opposite.
Hahhh…
Kang Chang-ho’s persistent interest ended abruptly after that foreign news report.
How chilling of an experience was that? He had dared to view others as mere prey.
And at this moment, the most terrifying fact was that there was someone with a similar aura to Kang Chang-ho among them.
Disgusting.
People.
It felt as if they were being treated as something other than human with those eyes.
Choi Jin instinctively realized that Gi-ryeo was looking down on them—at an incomparably higher level than that third S-Class Hunter.
Yet Yoon-seung stubbornly rejected this notion.
“Hey, my brother is not that kind of guy! I think you’re misunderstanding because he has a strong impression, but he actually takes Kang Chang-ho along just to punish him!”
Taking Chang-ho around for punishment? Had this guy been drinking instead of smoking?
“I saw it clearly. Chang-ho is just his accomplice in dungeons!”
Yoon-seung continued to argue with passion.
But everything he said was so hard to believe.
That Chang-ho cleared the mobs coming after him, or that he had praised some blonde S-Class as being vastly superior to himself.
Moreover, Yoon-seung himself felt like Chang-ho had indeed been trampled by Kim Gi-ryeo before. There was no way Chang-ho could be so subservient otherwise.
“Did you hear that directly from Kim Gi-ryeo?”
“No. But it’s almost certain. When I asked if there was some complicated relationship with Kang Chang-ho, my brother said there were some issues but they were definitely not close.”
Yoon-seung clenched his fists and spoke confidently.
“So don’t worry!”
Choi Jin’s expression was completely different from his optimistic stance.
“Just listening to you makes me feel foolish…”
She soon took a drag from her cigarette, inhaling deeply until the flame reached the filter.
Honestly, it was hard to believe that the fourth could have overpowered Kang Chang-ho.
Chang-ho was an Awakened with a massive ego. You could feel that he was temperamentally wary of anyone challenging his status.
So if what Yoon-seung claimed about a fight had taken place, one of them definitely would have to be finished.
Tsk.
With her cousin’s continued grim demeanor, Yoon-seung announced he would head down first, gracefully clearing the scene.
Now, only the sisters remained on the roof.
“Jin-hee, are you cold? Should we go down too?”
Choi Jin, having finished her cigarette, spoke softly, completely opposite to her previous tone.
Her younger sister gazed up at her sister’s face, hesitating before speaking.
“Sis, do you dislike that guy?”
The brother she couldn’t even remember the name of yet.
The one just referred to as “Big brother” was naturally the Fourth S-Class of Korea.
“Yeah. I dislike him. So Jin-hee, from now on, don’t go near him recklessly, okay?”
“…….”
“It’s dangerous. Remember when I got hurt by an S-Class before? That guy is just like Kang Chang-ho—a super strong and scary Hunter. If you poke him, you might get hurt again.”
“…….”
“I, I’ll always protect you but… S-Class is really tough, Jin-hee.”
Choi Jin advised calmly. Of course, her younger sister seemed to ignore it completely.
“I hope you don’t dislike that guy.”
Well.
Honestly, she didn’t want to be so on edge about it either. But circumstances made it necessary.
If she didn’t stay alert, she couldn’t fully protect what was precious to her.
“……Do you really wish for that?”
Choi Jin asked with a complicated expression, and her younger sister quickly replied with a high-pitched voice.
“Yeah!”
“Really?”
That smile was as angelic as ever.
“That guy is sweet and kind!”
“What?”
“Oh.”
The fact that she was so straightforward could be considered angelic in its own way.