Regression Guidelines For the Supporting Character

“…So I brought him over here. It seemed safer for him to stay with people he knows.”

Park Minhyuk finally finished explaining with a weary exhale.
The atmosphere was abysmal.
He looked pitiful, really—helping me had only earned him the ire of three very unpleasant people. Still, as far as I was concerned, everything had gone perfectly.

‘Good, good.’
What else is the backing of the Yesung Guildmaster and a bunch of S-ranks for, if not this kind of situation?
Granted, I had an even more terrifying L-rank backup on hand…

‘But if I actually let him loose, someone would definitely die.’
At least these four S-ranks were law-abiding adults with social standing. It should be fine.
“I see,”

Ryu Sunghyun responded calmly after listening to the full explanation, then asked:
“Who was the Hunter that grabbed your wrist?”
His lips formed a pleasant arc, but his eyes weren’t smiling at all. Which only made it more terrifying.
Kwon Taehyuk and Song Jiwoon didn’t look any happier.

Kwon had always shown an odd amount of concern for my well-being, and Jiwoon… well, we’d grown relatively close. So their anger made sense.
Looking trapped between the three of them, Park Minhyuk reluctantly opened his mouth.
“It was a Hunter named Choi Gihun. He’s caused trouble for Supporters before.”

“Choi Gihun… is he the B-rank from Narae Guild?”
At Kwon Taehyuk’s question, Park Minhyuk nodded.
“So you’ve heard of him, then.”

“I’ve heard he’s a notorious headache even within his own guild. Looks like the rumors were true.”
So this bastard had a reputation.
Not surprising—grabbing someone’s wrist like that, the guy reeked of entitled asshole.

With the target of retribution now identified, I smoothly joined the conversation.
“Thanks to you, Team Leader, I got out of it without much trouble. Though I was a bit shaken.”
I intentionally gave a sheepish smile and brushed my shoulder with my left hand.

The wrist that Choi Gihun had grabbed was now clearly visible—still marked with a red bruise.
Kwon Taehyuk, staring intently at the mark, exhaled slowly.
“I’ll fetch Hunter Dan Yeoun. Get that treated first.”

Before I could stop him, he was /N_o_v_e_l_i_g_h_t/ already striding away to find Dan Yeoun.
While he was gone, Ryu Sunghyun and Song Jiwoon grabbed Park Minhyuk and made him point out Choi Gihun’s face.
“That guy over there, running his mouth—he’s Choi Gihun?”
“The guy in the leather pants.”

“…That’s him.”
Of course, there were other problematic Dealers too… but usually, you only need one public example to make the rest fall in line.
I was genuinely rooting for the S-ranks.

***
The mission proceeded as scheduled. Since Dan Yeoun had already come up front to heal me, he chose not to return to the Supporter group and remained by my side.
After he quickly finished treating my wrist, I asked him,

“You’re staying here? It’d be safer with the Supporters.”
No matter how many S-ranks were around, the front line was still more dangerous than the middle. I had Sahyeon’s shadow assigned to protect me, but Dan Yeoun didn’t.
If something happened to the designated S-rank healer just wandering around the front lines… I’d be the one suffering for it.

I made my displeasure obvious, but Dan Yeoun just smiled brightly while carefully inspecting my now-healed wrist.
“It’s fine. I’d rather be here than listening to the Dealers badmouth each other in the back.”
“Comparing gossip to personal safety seems a bit much.”

“No really, it’s okay. I thought this last time too—Hunter Cha Seohu, you’re really kind!”
“……”
I was momentarily speechless at his beaming reply.

Even staring at him like he’d lost his mind didn’t faze him—he just kept smiling back at me without averting his eyes.
Did he really have no awareness? Or was he pretending not to?
‘Most likely the latter.’

I stared at him suspiciously for a moment before giving up.
“Do whatever you want.”
There was no point trying to push someone like him away. I pulled my arm out of his grasp—he was still touching my wrist—and looked off into the distance.

The cloudless blue sky blazed with sunlight, and everywhere I looked was yellow sand.
The basecamp had been set on hard ground, but the moment we stepped away from it, our feet began to sink into deep, loose desert sand.
‘This is going to make running a lot harder.’

Just as that worry crossed my mind, as if on cue, a cloud of sand rose in the distance—and a wave of killing intent swept toward us.
“Monsters incoming!”
“A-ranks! I count seven!”

“There are B-ranks too. Mixed group approaching!”
“To your positions!”
Beastly howls and the sound of claws scraping through sand reached us. Then, through the dust cloud, massive four-legged beasts appeared.

They looked like hyenas but with two heads—and their sleek bodies were covered not in fur, but in countless black spikes.
The grotesque monsters drooled thick, dark-purple saliva. Wherever it fell, the sand sizzled and blackened with an acrid stench.
“Stay right here.”

With that, Park Minhyuk dashed off to handle the monsters alongside the S-ranks. Dealers not assigned to guard the Supporters followed into battle.
The area quickly turned into a chaotic mess of combat between Hunters and monsters.
And being in the middle of a desert didn’t help—the combination of skills, blood, and sand smoke made it hard to see anything.

‘Still… this I can’t miss.’
I kept my eyes wide open, searching for Choi Gihun.
The moment I spotted him tangled in the middle of the Dealers, a sharp blade came flying from somewhere and stabbed the ground right next to him.

“Shit, fuck!”
Thinking it was a monster’s attack, Choi Gihun flinched hard—only to realize who had thrown the blade.
“Y-Yesung Guildmaster?!”

“Move. Maintain your position properly.”
Kwon Taehyuk had the audacity to bark at him like he was the one being wronged, glaring coldly as he brushed past.
“W-what the hell…?”

Too stunned to react in time, Choi Gihun shuffled aside, muttering under his breath—just as—
BOOM!

A lightning strike cracked down beside him, spraying sand everywhere with a flash of gold.

It passed so close to his face that if he’d moved a centimeter more, he’d have been seared alive.
“Huuhk!”
Pale-faced, Choi Gihun collapsed backward, trembling as Ryu Sunghyun strolled by casually with a smile.

“Ah, my bad. Thought you were a monster.”
He offered a half-assed apology right before an ice spike came flying in next.
“Agh!”

It stabbed the ground right beside where Choi Gihun had landed, freezing everything around it. Panicked, he jumped up and scrambled away in a blind dash.
I watched the whole scene unfold, utterly delighted, when Dan Yeoun—watching beside me—asked,
“Did that Dealer do something to offend you, Hunter Cha Seohu? They're really coming down on him.”

He pointed to the wrist he’d treated earlier with a knowing smirk.
See? This bastard was absolutely perceptive.
“Yeah, something like that.”

It was too ridiculous to deny, so I just nodded.
If this mess fixed that asshole Choi Gihun’s trash behavior, then all the better.
Revenge for me, discipline for him—everyone wins.

Still smiling, I continued watching Choi Gihun’s humiliation—until—
“Hyung.”
Cha Sahyeon approached me from the middle of a separate skirmish, and his serious expression made my fingers twitch instinctively.

‘What now? Did he notice something?’
I was all for Choi Gihun getting wrecked, but I didn’t want him dead.
“What is it?”

I asked nervously, and Sahyeon jerked his chin toward the south.
“I feel something.”
“What?”

“You said to tell you if I sensed anything strange, right?”
“……!”
I immediately left Dan Yeoun behind and ran toward Sahyeon. As I got closer, he leaned in and whispered near my ear.

“The source isn’t far. But… the location’s weird.”
“Weird how?”
“It’s underground. I’m sensing it from below. There’s probably some kind of subterranean space. And that’s where the energy’s coming from.”

“Underground, huh…”
We’d need to go south and check it out to be sure, but Sahyeon was rarely wrong about things like this.
Especially in the desert—underground structures were entirely possible.

‘The problem is figuring out how to get down there.’
I’d need to think of a convincing excuse to persuade the raid leaders—Park Minhyuk, Kwon Taehyuk, the others.
I turned my eyes back to the battlefield—and noticed something strange.

“……?”
Choi Gihun, who’d still been moving around fine even after the S-ranks targeted him, was now suddenly lying motionless on the ground.
Did a monster get him? But why was he soaking wet?

‘No way…’
I quickly scanned the area near him and, as expected, spotted a familiar figure with golden hair.
Kang Haeil met my eyes as if he’d been waiting for me to look, and winked playfully.

“Ha.”
That crazy bastard.