Chapter 470: Assignment Check (2)

The morning I returned to the Guild after two days to meet Hwayoung Sunbae.

As usual, I arrived at work wearing an unidentified mask as ‘Guild Hunter Kim Sungchul’, came out about 30 minutes earlier than the appointment, and waited only for Hwayoung Sunbae to arrive, but…

Unlike last time, even after waiting an additional 10 minutes past the original appointment time, she did not show up in the Guild lobby, the meeting place.

“……Hmm?”

Could it be that I got stood up?

But considering Hwayoung Sunbae’s personality, there really wouldn’t be a reason for her to stand me up.

Wondering if she might have forgotten today’s appointment, I sent a KakaoTalk message, but the ‘read’ mark showing ‘1’ stubbornly remained.

As a last resort, I tried calling her smartphone contact.

Somehow, given Hwayoung Sunbae’s impression, I thought there was a possibility she might have purely, without malice, forgotten our appointment.

-Ring ring ring, click.

“……Yes. Helloooo….”

“Hwayoung Sunbae, where are you?”

“Huh…?”

“Today’s the day you’re teaching me fire magic, Sunbae. You didn’t forget, did you?”

“……Aaaagh! Ack! Wh-what?! Ah, when did the alarm turn off?!”

“……”

Just by hearing the sounds from the receiver, I felt like I could roughly tell what the situation was.

She probably fell asleep late in her usual very tired state, didn’t hear the alarm, and seemed to have slept soundly.

It wasn’t particularly surprising. Somehow, I felt like Hwayoung Sunbae would make a mistake like this sometime or another.

‘Rather, it was surprising, if anything, that she wasn’t late when we met outside last time.’

More than half the times we’ve met so far were at her family’s commercial house, the lakeside pharmacy.

It was just ‘Sunbae being Sunbae’, so I wasn’t particularly angry or disappointed.

“S-sorry! I’m coming now! 10, 10 minutes! Ah, no, wait 5, 5 minutes!”

“I can wait for an hour, so come after preparing properly. Don’t just rush out and forget things.”

“Really sorry! I just called a Kakao Taxi and I’m leaving right now…!”

-Click.

Hwayoung Sunbae hung up the phone, desperately trying to convey that she was currently getting ready to leave.

Considering the distance from Sunbae’s place to here, it would be safe to assume I’d wait about 30 minutes.

It wasn’t like I’d come to dislike her because of the waiting time or anything.

In the first place, in an era like today where there’s so much to do on smartphones, 30 minutes to an hour was plenty of time to wait at the meeting spot.

I wasn’t standing outside waiting endlessly; I was sitting inside the Guild building with the heater on, just leisurely waiting for her to appear.

Scrolling through internet news on my smartphone, and browsing popular posts on communities where active hunters hang out.

After spending some time like that for about 20 minutes.

At the entrance of the Gangdong District branch of the Hunters’ Autonomous Union Guild, a familiar silver-haired woman finally appeared.

“……! ……”

“Ah, Sunbae. Over here.”

“S-Sungchul Hubae!”

Hwayoung Sunbae ran over to the table where I was sitting, as if we were reuniting after being separated as family.

Is she that happy to see me after so long?

Granted, we met once not long after I transferred to the company, and then couldn’t meet for a while, so it had indeed been about 2-3 months since we last saw each other.

During the busy year-end and New Year period when potion-related requests were flooding in, our schedules didn’t align, so we had to postpone our meeting to another day.

As a result, the ‘Estimated Acquisition Points’ now appearing next to her face were proving Hwayoung Sunbae’s libido to some extent.

『Estimated Acquisition Points: 80』

Excluding special cases like before first experiences, or during heat cycles, or maximum affection levels, it was quite fascinating for the Estimated Acquisition Points to rise that high in a normal state.

I’m sure a similar level of libido seemed to have accumulated when I first met Hwayoung Sunbae back then.

Before meeting today, I had checked Sunbae’s Estimated Acquisition Points in advance from the current ‘Libido Management Hunter’ list, but…

As expected, checking Hwayoung Sunbae’s points while looking her in the face, they definitely felt a bit more desperate.

If the Estimated Acquisition Points could rise that much in just a couple of months, it’s likely the actual felt magnitude of her libido would feel even greater.

Her libido, which she had become thoroughly accustomed to over more than 100 years of living as a lifelong virgin, and her rapidly surging libido after experiencing intimacy with a man and being unable to forget that feeling, simply couldn’t be compared.

“S-sorry! I-I-I really set the alarm, but when I came to my senses and woke up, it was all turned off! No, th-that’s not it, I’m not trying to make excuses or anything….”

“Just calm down. In the first place, I wasn’t even angry.”

“Aaaagh, Ah, I-I-I’m not trying to make excuses thinking Sungchul Hubae is angry, right? It’s just that I didn’t take my promise with Sungchul Hubae lightly, or anything like that… is what I mean….”

Even if Hwayoung Sunbae didn’t frantically make excuses like this, I had already figured out the situation roughly, and besides…

Just looking at Sunbae’s current state was quite convincing that what she was saying was the truth.

Messy hair, a haphazardly wrinkled pharmacist’s gown, and the sleep crust still clinging to the corner of her right eye.

Even without this, her usual messy hair and dark circles always gave off the vibe of someone who had just woken up, but now…

Seeing Hwayoung Sunbae looking like this, more than doubled in disarray compared to her usual appearance, I really didn’t want to doubt her claim that she had just woken up.

Rather, I had expected it to take about 30 minutes right after hanging up the phone, but she was only 20 minutes late, so I almost felt like praising her.

Of course, being late is being late, so praising her like that would probably backfire.

“In the first place, you didn’t exactly want to be late, Sunbae, right?”

“Th-that’s obviously not it…!”

“Then it’s fine. Being late is being late anyway, and today is a long day, after all. I won’t get angry or nitpick over being just 30 minutes late, so don’t worry.”

Of course, being late could, in a sense, be seen as a rude act like disrespecting the other person’s time, but…

If that lateness had no malice or intent behind it, I tended not to care much.

The reason I didn’t feel anything particular when Min-ah was a little late for our date last time was also for that reason.

Rather, I was worried she might have rushed out and appeared just wearing underwear under her gown, like she does at home. So, it was fortunate that she came out properly dressed, even wearing her gown.

And thanks to this lateness, I’ll be able to take the lead from Sunbae in bed tonight more than usual.

Personally, a weakness of this level was closer to a gain than a loss for me.

“Still, for a trivial reason like oversleeping, you made a guy wait…”

“Like I said again, I’m not really angry about you being late, Sunbae. In the first place, Sunbae’s job is being a pharmacist who makes potions, so it’s understandable to oversleep a bit from fatigue from work.”

“St-stop saying that…. I already feel bad enough….”

“And strictly speaking, I am learning fire magic from Sunbae, so Sunbae is taking time out of their schedule to teach me, right? And you’re not exactly receiving anything in return for teaching me.”

“……It’s not like I receive nothing.”

“Huh?”

“Ah, no…. Nothing….”

Hwayoung Sunbae glanced at me with a slightly flushed face, bowing her head slightly.

I gently brought my thumb to the corner of her right eye and gently wiped away the sleep crust.

With my other hand, I roughly finger-combed her messy hair just enough to make it look presentable.

“And I told you to prepare properly because I could wait. You have sleep crust all over and your hair is a mess. What is this?”

“I-I’ll do it myself…. Pl-please don’t look….”

“Sunbae, take off your gown buttons and re-fasten them. It looks like you fastened them incorrectly starting from the top.”

“Ah, th-that’s right…”

As if realizing it after hearing my comment, Hwayoung Sunbae fixed the buttons on her white pharmacist’s gown one by one.

After about 5 minutes of that rough finger-combing, Sunbae’s messy appearance had become somewhat presentable.

Her expression, which had been full of apologies for being late, had also calmed down somewhat.

“You look much better now.”

“Yeah, thanks.”

“Forget the apology, let’s just do what we need to do today first. We’ll start with checking the assignment you gave me last time, right?”

“Probably so? We need to see how much Sungchul Hubae has grown to move on to the next stage.”

“So, are we going to a C-rank fire dungeon like last time today?”

“That place is good in many ways for testing fire magic performance, so…”

Still, practicing in the fire dungeon with Cha Yuri paid off, huh.

I wonder what expression Hwayoung Sunbae will make when she sees my Explosive Fist, transformed into an improved Flame Whip and Flame Sword.

I looked forward immensely to seeing her expression in the near future.