Holy B-Class Life

#033

“What? Me?”

“Yes.”

Yoon Pa-ran, who had been nodding unconsciously, asked in surprise.

Dan Joo-hyuk, who had been chattering about things not even asked, now only gave a short affirmation to the question actually posed, without adding any reason.

“No, why?”

C-rank and D-rank gates require less time to clear than higher-rank gates. Instead, the grace period before the gate breaks is also shorter.

Even though they’re low-rank gates, if they all spew out monsters at once, it would cause great chaos. The number of civilian casualties would undoubtedly increase uncontrollably. This was because monsters aren’t easily neutralized by weapons other than gate byproducts.

So the intention must be to have strong hunters enter and quickly bulldoze through them.

He understood the intention. He understood it so well that his doubts wouldn’t go away.

In such a situation, wouldn’t him tagging along be more of a hindrance? Why bother?

“If it’s this, we could lift the gate entry restriction too, right? Not bad, is it?”

The doubt that had briefly blossomed evaporated at Dan Joo-hyuk’s subtle threat.

“You really put the restriction on again?”

“Want to find out if it’s true?”

Yoon Pa-ran was irritated by Dan Joo-hyuk’s attitude, asking back with a grin. While he was trying his best to handle the situation somehow, why was Dan acting like this?

“Are you really crazy…”

Even when Yoon Pa-ran openly cursed at him, Dan Joo-hyuk just chuckled leisurely.

Why does he look so pleased in this situation? What a truly perverted bastard.

“We’re going to enter the nearest one right away.”

Despite Yoon Pa-ran’s concern for his mental state, Dan Joo-hyuk calmly said what he wanted to say. He seemed pleased with the thought of entering a gate, ignoring Yoon Pa-ran’s wishes.

Yoon Pa-ran suddenly thought that talking to a monster might be better than this.

“I just came out of a gate. Has your conscience really gone bad?”

“It’s just a C-rank, why are you complaining? Didn’t you go to C-rank gates because you liked them?”

The words that shot out at the slightest provocation were quite sharp.

Though still smiling, there was a strange pressure. For whatever reason, Yoon Pa-ran could tell that Dan Joo-hyuk wasn’t pleased with him frequenting C-rank gates.

No, why on earth?

“What’s the real reason for doing this?”

The strong doubt came out unfiltered.

Clearly, the two weren’t on terms to casually exchange messages. Yet, it was strange that Dan had been somewhat obsessed with replies since earlier.

At the serious question, Dan Joo-hyuk fell into thought for a while.

Then he soon smiled again and answered.

“Of course, it’s because of our contract. What other reason could there be?”

“…”

Hearing that, the situation seemed to make a little more sense. Given Dan Joo-hyuk’s considerable interest in his skill, he must have been dissatisfied with the lukewarm fulfillment of the contract.

Of course, that didn’t mean his actions were understandable.

“Hah…”

Yoon Pa-ran, crushed by fatigue, rubbed his brow. He tried hard to turn his dull mind, but it wasn’t easy.

No. Let’s just not try to understand. How could a sane person like himself understand the thoughts of a madman?

Then something suddenly occurred to Yoon Pa-ran.

“Hey. Where’s the assigned gate?”

“Why?”

If he couldn’t avoid it, he should at least try to use this situation to his advantage.

Especially after receiving information earlier that many low-rank gates were on the verge of breaking, he felt a bit anxious.

Several low-rank gates had appeared near the orphanage this time. Although they were all being monitored, he suddenly felt uneasy about whether they were being resolved properly.

There seemed to be a few gates with imminent deadlines nearby.

“If we’re going, let’s check the location first. You said you’d clear them all within the period anyway.”

“Gate requests are prohibited, you know.”

Dan Joo-hyuk spouted off about principles while dragging people around like kidnapping.

It was really hard to contain his rising temper. Just as Yoon Pa-ran was about to lunge at Dan Joo-hyuk with a fierce glare,

“Then choose,” Dan Joo-hyuk said with another smirk, pulling out a piece of paper from his pocket and tossing it.

“…”

The document, stamped with large red letters saying “CONFIDENTIAL,” contained information about gate locations and times. As he carefully read it, Yoon Pa-ran’s face grew serious.

There was information that a gate close to the orphanage might break by tomorrow.

“This one.”

Yoon Pa-ran chose it without hesitation. Dan Joo-hyuk glanced at the coordinates his finger pointed to and silently turned the car around.

“Phew…”

Only after confirming they were heading in the right direction did Yoon Pa-ran let out a long sigh.

Given the situation, this was rather fortunate.

Gate break information is kept as confidential as possible to prevent social chaos. Even hunters couldn’t know about it in advance. Well, Dan Joo-hyuk’s situation might be different.

Instead, when the government-set critical period approaches, they send out evacuation advisory messages and help citizens evacuate. If the gate they’re heading to now breaks, the orphanage would be within range.

No matter how much security has been hired, it would be very difficult for the director alone to take care of all the children. The thought that such a thing might happen while he was away made him very anxious.

By now, he had somewhat adapted to the waves Dan Joo-hyuk was emitting. It wasn’t exactly a comfortable situation, but he decided to try and relax his mind since it had come to this.

Perhaps because of that, the tension suddenly released. The accumulated fatigue seized the opportunity to rush in all at once.

He was grateful that Dan Joo-hyuk agreed to go directly to the gate he had chosen.

Leaning back fully in the passenger seat, Yoon Pa-ran closed his eyes. He felt a bit crazy for thinking about falling asleep next to Dan Joo-hyuk.

But he didn’t know how many gates he would have to enter from now on. So he needed to rest when he could.

But hopefully, the craziness isn’t contagious, right?

His brow furrowed involuntarily at the useless thought. In that state, Yoon Pa-ran fell into a light sleep, crumpled in the passenger seat.

“…”

The car, which had been moving at a considerable speed, was now moving slowly.

❖ ❖ ❖

At the C-rank gate near the orphanage where he was forcibly dragged.

“Ugh… Kuk…”

“Move faster.”

There, Yoon Pa-ran kept groaning. Due to the continuous movement, damp sweat seeped out, permeating his entire body.

Dan Joo-hyuk observed this scene with cold eyes.

“Huff…”

More than expected, really more than expected…

“What are you doing? Clean up.”

This is awesome.

“Shut up. If you’re not going to help, don’t keep rushing me.”

Yoon Pa-ran grumbled in response to Dan Joo-hyuk’s constant urging. Meanwhile, his hands didn’t stop, cutting through monster bones and flesh to extract magic stones.

“I killed all the monsters, didn’t I?”

At Dan Joo-hyuk’s words, Yoon Pa-ran nodded silently.

Well, he did kill all the monsters.

Yoon Pa-ran’s heart softened to the size of a jelly piece left by Ju-hee. Of course, even for a C-rank gate, collecting magic stones was easier than dealing with monsters.

But Yoon Pa-ran didn’t show it. He felt embarrassed about cursing so much earlier for being forcibly brought along.

He should have at least said he’d kill the monsters alone. What a weird guy.

When entering the gate, Yoon Pa-ran had worried about how picky Dan Joo-hyuk would be in using him.

However, unexpectedly, it seems time was truly of the essence. Instead of putting Yoon Pa-ran in front, Dan Joo-hyuk ran ahead and cut down all the monster groups.

Then he told the dazed Yoon Pa-ran behind him to collect the spoils.

“Just go ahead then.”

“Hurry up. It’s taking too long just to collect magic stones.”

“…”

When told to go ahead if he was in a hurry, Dan Joo-hyuk started being picky again. As this situation had repeated several times, Yoon Pa-ran wisely kept his mouth shut and moved his hands diligently.

Even though it was just extracting magic stones, it naturally took time as it had to be done by hand. Due to the difference in rank, Dan Joo-hyuk could knock down monsters even faster.

There was inevitably some time before moving to the next location. Then Dan Joo-hyuk would follow closely behind Yoon Pa-ran, meddling in every little thing. For all his urging, he didn’t lift a finger to help.

Is he doing this because he’s afraid I might steal magic stones? Dan Joo-hyuk should know better how many monsters were killed, so Yoon Pa-ran couldn’t understand why he was acting like this.

At first, he was told to handle not just magic stones but monster byproducts as well. It was too much for Yoon Pa-ran to process everything alone.

At that time, Yoon Pa-ran also inwardly sighed at the overwhelming workload. But even that soon became okay.

The rare simple labor suited him quite well.

The biggest threat one can face inside a gate is death. But unexpectedly, with Dan Joo-hyuk there, that was resolved.

So what remained was work that required no thinking, just silently moving his hands. Yoon Pa-ran, who had been playing the ill-suited role of raid leader for days, felt his mind becoming very comfortable.

Moreover, all of these were spoils to be shared just between Dan Joo-hyuk and Yoon Pa-ran.

Suddenly, Yoon Pa-ran felt energized. Of course, since Dan Joo-hyuk did all the monster clearing, his share wouldn’t be large, but even getting the basics seemed quite good.

Except for the tension of wondering when that guy might crash his lips into him again, that is.