The Ancestor of the Punishment Team, Arashi(3)

Ghouls eat humans.

This was a fact as obvious to Arashi as the sky being above and the earth below, and it was a sight she had always seen.

Her fellow ghouls and Arashi herself bringing beautiful men and women to put on the dining table.

Because of this, humans also knew that the ghoul race practiced cannibalism, and when they realized that the yokai appearing before them was a ghoul, they would often run away with their tails between their legs.

However, if there was one thing humans misunderstood because of these incidents, it was that ghouls don’t just eat humans.

Rather, ghouls preferred eating other races that contained a lot of mana and power, that is, other yokai, more than humans who only filled their stomachs.

‘For that reason, we attacked other yokai almost daily.’

If humans were like “calorie bars”, other yokai were “nutritious food” packed with nutrients.

Therefore, based on their bodies that could be called immortal, the ghoul clan always attacked other yokai, and three or four times a week, yokai would be served as meals.

For such ghouls, the flesh of a yokai with immense mana was like gourmet food they wanted to eat somehow.

And this category of yokai flesh included other ghouls as well.

However, unlike other yokai, ghouls were not allowed to kill each other, so ghouls could not use force to eat each other’s bodies. Therefore, what ghouls used to eat each other’s bodies was money.

The more excellent and superior the body of a ghoul, the higher the price skyrocketed.

As such, the price for Arashi’s body, who was born into royalty and incomparable to other ghouls, was literally worth billions.

‘Not only does my body taste good, but my mana quantity is not something that can be coveted by the leaders of ordinary yokai.’

How many people had come carrying mansions full of gold coins just to eat one of Arashi’s fingers or toes?

Therefore, Arashi knew how much ghouls, and by extension yokai, wanted to eat her body.

So Arashi couldn’t help but think of that question she had seen in the book.

-Give a gift to the other person with your heart in what you think is valuable.

If it was an answer to this question, wouldn’t it undoubtedly be her own body?

Arashi’s own body, which other clan members couldn’t obtain even if they gave tens of millions of gold.

Since Arashi herself, who had eaten it, knew best how delicious and excellent her body was, Arashi thought:

Let’s cut off my arm and give it as a gift.

She didn’t know what Shin-yeon’s race was, but if she was the ancestor of the General Management Team, she must be a yokai one way or another.

If so, Arashi’s own arm would naturally be a gift that she couldn’t help but like.

Therefore, Arashi held such conviction and at the moment of her first meeting with Shin-yeon, she added the modesty of a small gift and cut off and handed over a whole “arm”.

“……”

“…Do you perhaps not like my gift?”

Arashi carefully asked as she saw Shin-yeon looking at the arm with a quite rotten expression.

For the yokai Arashi knew, it would be a generous gift that they would accept while bowing with both hands raised.

However, for some reason, Shin-yeon in front of her was looking at Arashi as if she was crazy somewhere, not just disliking it.

And the moment she realized that much.

With the thought of “maybe” crossing her mind, Arashi slowly parted her lips while looking at Shin-yeon.

“Um… I’m asking just in case, but Miss Shin-yeon, do you not eat humans or yokai?”

“Yeah… We just eat normal meals.”

“Oh no! I-I apologize……”

And hearing the answer to that “maybe” question, Arashi apologized while biting her tongue and immediately crushed and annihilated the arm she had cut off and handed over with magic.

Pasasak—!

Arashi’s arm condensed into something smaller than dust in an instant within the high-level magical formula.

It was a sight that would have made other ghouls sigh in regret if they had seen it, but in this place where Arashi’s arm had no value, Arashi’s arm was nothing more than trash that needed to be removed quickly.

After removing the arm, perhaps because of the confusion of having made a mistake, the contents of the book that she would have surely remembered clearly in her mind became blank and she couldn’t remember.

“Um… First of all, let’s have a me-… No! The book said to have a meal after talking enough, so hobbies? What are your hobb-… I don’t think this was right either?!”

Therefore, Arashi couldn’t speak properly while rambling, and finally, Shin-yeon, who couldn’t stand watching anymore, sighed softly and stepped forward.

“I understand why Seo-hyun said that. Let me ask straightforwardly since it’s come to this. What’s the reason you wanted to meet me today?”

“Ye-yes?”

“You didn’t ask to meet me without any reason, right? Why did you want to see me?”

“Th-that is……”

This is a type of question that wasn’t in the book. To think she would ask what the reason for wanting to meet was.

Realizing that there was no answer coming to mind to Shin-yeon’s question, Arashi fell into contemplation for a moment.

Should she make up an answer, or should she be honest?

But if she said she came here wanting to be friends, wouldn’t that look strange no matter what?

Therefore, Arashi thought it might be better to say something plausible even if it was a lie, but in the end, the words that came out of Arashi’s mouth were a single truth spoken with a stiffened and nervous tone.

“Fr-friend… I set up this meeting because I wanted to make a friend……”

“……Friend? Pfft, ahaha!”

Shin-yeon burst into laughter as if she couldn’t believe it after hearing Arashi’s words.

Seeing Shin-yeon laughing as if watching a circus, Arashi felt her face turning red even though she was a ghoul no different from a corpse.

So Arashi regretted inwardly that it would have been better to lie after all, but at Shin-yeon’s next words, Arashi’s eyes widened.

“I don’t mind, you know? Being friends.”

“……Really?”

“I recently made friends with a kid, and it looks like I’m about to make one more today.”

Shin-yeon said this while looking at her as if she found her quite interesting in many ways.

It seemed that Shin-yeon found it interesting that she had asked to be friends, but that part wasn’t important to Arashi.

“A-are you really going to be my friend?”

“Yeah, that’s what I’m saying.”

What was important to Arashi was that Shin-yeon really agreed to be her friend.

After all, that was the purpose of wanting to have this meeting today, so that was the only important thing.

The goal of this meeting was to become friends with Shin-yeon, who could break her boring life, and she achieved it so easily.

Although the process was messy in many ways, isn’t the result what matters in the end?

“Is making friends such an easy thing……”

Therefore, Arashi muttered this while grasping her still dazed mind.

It felt like she understood what Seo-hyun had been telling her so much, that books and reality are different.

Thus, in this newly realized obvious realization, a ghoul and a goblin became friends.

---

Although it wasn’t very audible due to the soundproofing, when she put her ear to the door crack, Seo-hyun could faintly hear Shin-yeon and Arashi’s laughter.

“Phew… It seems they safely became friends.”

And hearing that laughter, Seo-hyun straightened her posture and muttered softly.

Judging by the voices of the two people who seemed to be chatting happily, fortunately, it appeared that Arashi had safely established a friendship with Shin-yeon.

Given Shin-yeon’s easygoing and straightforward personality, Seo-hyun thought it might be easy to become friends, but she had been worried because Arashi was obsessed with strange books and had almost no interpersonal skills.

But it seems such worries were unnecessary.

“The Ancestor will be in a good mood for a few days.”

Arashi, who always complained that every day was boring, met Shin-yeon whom she wanted to meet so much, and on top of that, became friends which was her wish, so Arashi’s mood would be at its peak for the time being.

“Then I’ll have to take care of the work that’s been piling up for the Ancestor……”

And it was Seo-hyun’s job to have Arashi handle her work that had been piling up for the past month while her mood was good like this.

Deciding that she should start handling it from the moment they returned today if possible, Seo-hyun quietly closed her eyes and loosened the tension in her whole body.

Thud—

“……!”

If only it weren’t for the footsteps felt from far down the corridor.

“……Who is it?”

At the fact that footsteps echoed in the corridor where there should have been no one, Seo-hyun raised the tension she was about to loosen again.

If there were people who might be here, it would be the founding family members of the General Management Team at most.

However, including Yeon-ah, they were all currently working and the possibility of them coming here was infinitely low.

Then who on earth had entered this corridor?

The answer to this question Seo-hyun had could be known the moment she turned her head toward where the footsteps were coming from.

Thud– Thud–

“Hunter Ha Se-young?”

“Hello, Team Leader. I came here directly by asking the staff since you weren’t answering your phone.”

The one who entered the corridor was none other than Ha Se-young, the exclusive hunter of the Punishment Team who was scheduled to return to the country today.

The moment she saw her black hair and dark red eyes, Seo-hyun recognized her and looked at her tilting her head.

“How are you here, Hunter Ha Se-young? There’s no way you could have come up here.”

Since Seo-hyun currently didn’t have her device, she couldn’t answer about the phone call, but putting all that aside, Seo-hyun couldn’t understand why she was here.

Even if she was an exclusive hunter of the Punishment Team, this was the General Management Team’s tower.

She should have been stopped from the first floor lobby, but how did she come up here?

However, this question was easily resolved by Se-young’s answer.

“When I said I came to meet the Team Leader, they just let me up? They said there was an order to just let Punishment Team people up anyway.”

“……The order was quite comprehensive.”

The order Shin-yeon had given so that she wouldn’t be embarrassed when she came back with Arashi.

However, it seems that order was vaguely conveyed to the staff below.

Of course, who would have expected additional Punishment Team members to come… Although it couldn’t be helped, Seo-hyun frowned at the situation that actually occurred.

But only for a moment.

Seo-hyun recalled Shin-yeon and Arashi inside the room she was guarding and gestured to Se-young.

“Hunter Ha Se-young, an important conversation is taking place in this room right now, so for now, return to the tower. I apologize for not answering the phone, but let’s talk about that apology and what happened in China later.”

The two inside were the ancestors of the General Management Team and the Punishment Team.

It was a place that Se-young, who was merely an exclusive hunter, should not approach, so Seo-hyun blocked her in advance.

And of course, given the relationship between a team leader and an exclusive hunter, Se-young also stopped her approaching steps and stood in place.

“If it’s your order, I won’t do anything more… But one of the reasons I came here was to meet that Shin-yeon bastard?”

“……Why are you looking for that hunter?”

“Why, of course because that bitch stole my ranking. Oh, come to think of it… You decided that, didn’t you, Team Leader? Don’t tell me you thought I’d be weaker than that Shin-yeon bitch?”

Isn’t that obvious?

The moment she heard Se-young’s words, Seo-hyun felt the urge to answer like that, but in this situation where she was on guard duty, there was nothing good about having more conversation with her.

Moreover, looking at Se-young’s eyes, she was quite excited right now.

Therefore, Seo-hyun chose to cut off Se-young’s words rather than answer her question.

“We’ll talk about that later when we return to the tower. Go back now. Our Ancestor is inside.”

“The Ancestor…? Tsk, haah… Fine. But you’ll have to answer me clearly when we get back.”

“Yes, of course.”

Fortunately, when she cut off the conversation by mentioning Arashi was there, Se-young clicked her tongue but took a step back while calming her excitement.

Seeing that, Seo-hyun inwardly sighed in relief and watched Se-young’s back as she turned around.

Se-young, who kept chewing out curses as if she had a lot of pent-up dissatisfaction, left the corridor.

It was truly fortunate that she could be sent back quickly from here.

Whiiing—

“Seo-hyun! Shin-yeon told an interesting story, would you like to come in for a moment?”

And if it weren’t for Arashi’s words heard as the door opened just before Se-young completely left the corridor, everything would have been perfect.

“Huh? Ah, just a moment…!”

“……Shin-yeon?”

Before Seo-hyun could answer Arashi’s words, Se-young stopped in her tracks and turned her head back towards Seo-hyun.

Seeing her starting to turn her body as well, Seo-hyun hit her forehead and let out a groan.

“This is troublesome……”

That was the single line Seo-hyun uttered at the moment when the lid was blown off the most unpredictable hunter in the world.