🔊 TTS Settings
Episode 28
“I heard that any case involving a Hunter automatically went to the Association.”
“Not anymore. Ever since four years ago, due to the Association being overworked, the police began handling cases unless it involved a wanted villain. That’s why they started recruiting Hunters into the police force.”
“My first attempt to file a report was about twelve years ago.”
“…Ah.”
“I know things have changed under the new Association President. But back when I was desperately asking for help… the Association was…”
The memories alone clogged his throat.
Still, telling her even this much made his chest feel a little lighter.
“So that’s why you’ve been living on the streets with Sihoo…?”
“There wasn’t a single place I could trust. Not the government, not the Association, not the system. And I knew it was wrong to drag a child into that life, but…”
Saebyeok wondered if perhaps his heart had already started crumbling back at Seoul Station.
“Then you showed up.”
From the moment she appeared at his lowest point,
his weary heart had begun leaning toward her—
even if he’d tried to deny it.
But the Scavenger Guild incident had confirmed everything he had tried to suppress.
“You keep saying all you want is for me to join your guild…”
“That’s because you’re going to awaken, Mr. Kang Su-ho—”
“Awaken? Is that what you think?”
Su-ho laughed softly—his first laugh in years, though bitter.
“When exactly is this awakening supposed to happen? Next week? A month from now? A year? Ten years? No one knows.”
She had no answer.
“Who in their right mind invests in something with no promise of return?”
He couldn’t shake the feeling that her talk of his awakening was just a story she’d made up.
“So why are you doing all this for me?”
Saving his life.
Caring for his little brother.
Offering him a home.
Making him believe the world might not be so cruel after all.
“Why?”
“Hmm… just because?”
Her answer was so natural, it almost made him want to believe in people again.
“There’s no such thing as kindness without reason.”
His heart pounded violently, sweat dampening his palms.
He feared her answer—
feared learning this, too, was built on sand.
And yet… he waited in silence.
Saebyeok’s Thoughts
She couldn’t answer right away.
She knew all too well that kindness without reason could feel terrifying.
In her past life, Su-ho had been the same—hating to receive help.
Not out of pride, but because accepting help meant being burdened by a debt he had to repay.
It wasn’t until they had shared countless battlefields,
crossed death’s door dozens of times together,
and debts and repayments became impossible to track,
that he finally gave up resisting.
Saebyeok understood—because she had once lost everything too.
She remembered the emptiness, the desolation of being alone in a broken world,
and how it could hollow a person out completely.
And she knew Su-ho had endured all that without anyone to lean on.
Finally, she spoke.
“It isn’t kindness without reason.”
That was all she could manage—
because the real reasons were things she couldn’t say aloud.
She couldn’t tell him that he had saved her countless times in another life.
That she owed him far more than he could ever owe her.
She couldn’t tell him that his strength and his stubborn hope had been the reason she survived at all.
“Mr. Kang Su-ho, I think you see me in too good a light. I have plenty of schemes—dark ones I can’t even tell you about.”
Even if she had to throw herself into Destruction again,
there was one thing she could promise.
“But believe this: I might have my secrets, but I will never betray you. I swear it.”
She would never, ever turn her back on him.
And with that, Han Saebyeok finally broke down Kang Su-ho’s last wall completely.
