Maybe it was because only a year had passed since my reincarnation, but I still often felt a certain disconnect when dealing with Earthlings.
Extraterrestrial beings are difficult to understand. Perhaps that was precisely why I found myself even more drawn to them.
With that thought, I kept my gaze fixed on her, making no attempt to hide my curiosity. And the dark-furred mammal, who had just heard an Alphaurian's true name for the first time, narrowed her eyes—as though she had realized something from the way I was observing her.
"...!"
From the very beginning, the only reason an S-rank hunter's gaze had so often lingered on her was simple observation.
By now, even she couldn't possibly have failed to realize that.
***
Buzz—
About 25 minutes earlier.
It was summer.
For some reason, Seonwoo Yeon had decided to go out for the first time in a while, even taking out her cherished pair of American-made denim jeans.
She was going to see someone today.
Although she normally placed great importance on proper manners, this time she had made a rare exception out of concern for the person involved.
That alone showed that, at the very beginning of this incident, there had been nothing but someone's boundless goodwill behind it.
"Hmm..."
Soon, Seonwoo Yeon left the house dressed in casual clothes.
The sunlight was warm, and the green leaves lining the road seemed almost to welcome her.
The weather was so pleasant that, for a brief moment, she felt as though everything might turn out all right.
The reality that awaited her, however, was quite different from what she had expected.
And, on top of that, utterly shocking.
"I'm actually an alien!"
Aliens really exist.
And the hunter standing right in front of me is one of them.
Seonwoo Yeon thought to herself.
Maybe this was nothing more than a worthless B-rank affair, and she was being punished for foolishly getting caught between two whales.
Normally, she would have dismissed any talk of aliens as a joke without giving it a second thought.
But right now, in the middle of this confrontation, Justitia itself was verifying the truth of the conversation.
Faced with such tangible proof, her thoughts instantly became a tangled mess.
Aliens. Binary star systems. Magic.
No matter how many times she turned the words over in her mind, they refused to sink in, floating there like oil on water.
"Hello. I am a Lemming."
Could it really be true that beneath that man's polished exterior was an alien being?
And that such an unfamiliar entity had been hiding, of all places, among South Korea's hunters?
"Since we've properly introduced ourselves, we're friends now, right?"
Justitia's verdict.
And the blond Hunter, who had always seemed to make flawless decisions, as though he were the embodiment of rationality itself.
The man possessed several traits that made his claims difficult to dismiss, but Seonwoo Yeon chose to trust her own experience above all else.
And so, she arrived at a conclusion.
"Alien..."
A thought crossed her mind.
Maybe, just maybe, what the blond man was saying wasn't a lie after all.
"H, huh?"
Only now did Seonwoo Yeon finally understand a strange scene she had buried deep in her memory all this time.
A blond man taking an ice cream from a child who looked no older than a first grader.
Come to think of it, something had felt strange from the very beginning.
And now that she looked back on it, many of the uneasy impressions she had picked up before suddenly fit together with the conversation unfolding in front of her.
"Could that be why he called himself 'retired'?"
If his story was true, then the man in front of her really was, in a sense, a retired soldier.
Even the single word Kim Giryeo had once muttered under his breath could now be explained.
The possibility that what she had heard wasn't mere empty boasting grew stronger.
Even so, accepting all of this on the spot was far too much of a shock for an Earthling.
Seonwoo Yeon wasn't foolish.
But she was sincere and straightforward by nature, and once the other person asked her to trust his words, she quickly began trying to do exactly that.
"But surely you're not feeling wronged in this situation, are you? If you think about it, you were the one who recklessly trespassed into a mage's territory in the first place."
In truth, there was hardly room for deep reflection in a crisis like this anyway.
A few minutes later.
The Earthling, now cursed by an unknown spell after coming into contact with Lemming, who had completed the magic.
"No, seriously, Seonwoo Yeon, I didn't expect this from you. I've helped you out so many times before, and now you just blindly believe whatever Kang Changho says and come at me like I'm some kind of monster? Did you really think I was a bad guy or something?"
After a long conversation, the blond man finally began grumbling in an openly displeased tone.
Seonwoo Yeon hurried to explain.
"N, no. Wait a moment. That's a misunderstanding!"
Afraid that the angry alien might smash her head open, she immediately clarified why she had come here.
The creature currently using Kim Giryeo's resident ID card was taken aback by the intensity of her anxious reaction.
Objectively speaking, however, her fear was understandable.
Throughout the conversation, the alien had repeatedly explained that he had only been impressive in the past and that his power had greatly diminished since then.
What he still hadn't revealed was the crucial fact that he was currently ranked F-rank...
"U, um, to be precise, it's a little different. I actually came because I was really worried about you, Hunter."
"Hines?"
Where was she even supposed to begin?
At some point, their positions had completely reversed, and now the blond man had taken control of Justitia, resting one hand on the head of the scale.
As an Association employee, Seonwoo Yeon chose her words with extreme care, doing her best to avoid any phrasing that might register as a lie.
"I heard about this from Kang Changho! He said he suspected that something bad might have possessed Hunter Kim's body—like what happens in dungeons such as (Nameless Cave), or with creatures like (Doppelganger). And isn't everything already chaotic because of monsters that can take control of people's minds?"
"That's right."
"If some demonic beast really had taken over your body, that would be an extremely serious situation. I was just worried... What if, even by the slightest chance, Hunter Kim was in trouble? I-I never thought you were a bad person based on everything I'd seen of you before..."
"Ah. So your suspicion wasn't directed at Kim Giryeo's identity itself."
A little.
At those words, a tiny tear, barely the size of an ant's eye, gathered at the corner of Seonwoo Yeon's eye.
"You said I shouldn't carelessly say your real name, right?"
"Yes."
"Then I'll call you the way I usually do. Um, Hunter Kim Giryeo always jumps into bizarre gates without hesitation, so... I thought there was a decent chance you might have been caught up in some unusual dungeon disaster."
Contrary to a certain alien's suspicions, Seonwoo Yeon had come to the one-room apartment with nothing but good intentions.
But around this point, a small doubt began to form.
"Wait a minute. But if your only goal was to confirm whether a monster had possessed someone, wouldn't it have been far more efficient for Kang Changho, the owner of Justitia, to come himself? Didn't you find it strange that he insisted on entrusting the scale to someone else?"
But after hearing Seonwoo Yeon's answer, even the archmage Lemming soon nodded in understanding.
"Hunter Kang Changho thought that if he came alone, no one would believe him... so he hoped the Association, as a public institution, could mediate the matter as much as possible."
"Aha."
"Before he informed his coworkers about the incident, I thought it would be better for someone like me, who already knew the hunter personally, to verify the facts first."
"Hmm. Seonwoo Yeon, now that I think about it—if everything Kang Changho said had been true, and I really had been a monster, then obviously you'd have been in danger. What were you planning to do about that?"
"...Whenever I go to a dungeon or any other site, I always send an email in advance with my dispatch location. So if something unexpected happened, the Association would find out, and somehow... help would come."
"Oh."
Most of her reasoning was predictable.
"Since we're talking about it, why don't we cancel that dispatch email first? We're friends who've exchanged names now, and from this point on, we're just going to have a peaceful conversation in this room."
"Ugh..."
Kim Giryeo accessed Seonwoo Yeon's email on her phone and continued speaking.
"So, in short, Seonwoo Yeon, you were persuaded by that guy's seemingly ethical argument."
If Kang Changho had simply tried to force her into submission, things might have turned out differently.
Seonwoo Yeon was thin-skinned, yes, but by nature she was the kind of person who would rather break than bend under pressure.
She wasn't some emotionless machine, yet she had an almost obsessive attachment to fairness.
So if Kang Changho's request hadn't seemed reasonable to her, then even if a convicted criminal had threatened to kill her and ordered her to hurt Kim Giryeo, she would never have come to this studio apartment in the first place.
"I'm sorry."
Her voice came out miserably.
"To be honest... I'm human too. There was actually a case inside the Association where someone was disciplined for leaking information to Hunter Kang in exchange for money. Maybe because I saw all of that firsthand, it wasn't easy for me to stay neutral. So, honestly, right up until I came here... I hardly believed what he was saying at all."
The innocent B-rank sorcerer regretted what she had done and soon offered an apology.
"But someone like me, worrying about a top-class hunter... Just the thought that there might have been even the slightest possibility that Kim Giryeo was in trouble... I'm truly sorry for being disrespectful..."
Of course, the owner of the room didn't particularly care.
Whether in his past life or this one, he had always been arrogant by nature; only the degree had changed.
And since his soul was still the same, his tastes and inclinations had hardly changed either.
The blond-haired man glanced at the scale, which had not tilted to the left even once, and slightly parted his lips.
"If you came because you were worried about me, then that's enough. I'm actually grateful."
The alien who had introduced himself as Lemming soon waved one hand dismissively.
Judging by his gestures alone, he could easily have passed for a native Korean.
"Yeah. Come to think of it, I'm the one who picked a fight with Kang Changho and made things worse in the first place. It's not like Seonwoo Yeon did anything seriously wrong."
"Fighting...? Wait a second. Did something happen between the two of you?"
"You didn't know?"
"If I'd known, do you think I would've come here?"
After that, he learned that the media was currently being kept under control.
Whether that was meant to protect Esther's image as an awakened person or was the result of interference from Kang Changho's side was unclear, but it wasn't particularly important.
"The internet spreads information so quickly that some posts might have appeared briefly. But at least there was nothing in the news about the two of you fighting, and I don't really use social media much..."
Now, the man with golden hair and black eyes.
Lemming.
He rested his chin on one hand and thought for a moment.
"Hmm."
For now, he had safely secured Justitia, so there was no longer any risk of falling for the same trick twice.
As for Seonwoo Yeon, well, even if it took the entire day, he could take his time and make use of her however necessary from this point forward.
To be precise, that Earthling was a useful card to play against a certain ex-convict.
After all, she had openly said that she had come because she was worried about Kim Giryeo.
Even someone with poor social awareness could recognize that this was the Korean concept of jeong—a deep, empathetic affection built through human connection.
"Yeah. After all the kindness I've shown her, the least she can do is take my side."
As long as he had sufficient justification, that upright public official was highly likely to oppose another person's unjust violence with everything she had.
That was simply the kind of person she was.
Which meant most of the problem had already been solved.
But now, at this point, one question kept circling through his mind.
I understand now why Seonwoo Yeon came all the way here without resisting.
I understand why, out of all the people he could have chosen, Kang Changho picked that particular public servant.
Among my acquaintances, Ahn Yoonseung is blindly loyal, while she's at least fair. And if I ever slipped up, she'd be the one capable of causing the most damage.
So of course his choice makes sense.
But still...
Everything had gone so smoothly that he had momentarily overlooked the most important point.
Now that he thought about it, how exactly had Kang Changho guessed that someone's mind had been replaced in the first place?
"Hunter Kim Giryeo... There's just one thing I'd like to ask you, if you don't mind..."
"Why the sudden honorifics?"
A short while later, even the guest in the studio apartment raised the same question.
Glancing around nervously, she hesitantly asked whether Kim Giryeo had perhaps done anything in front of Kang Changho recently that could have been mistaken for monster-like behavior.
But Lemming believed he had been doing a fairly good job of imitating an Earth native.
As proof, a certain B-rank hunter had been so shocked upon learning that he was an alien that she had actually stumbled backward.
So from Kim Giryeo's perspective, Kang Changho somehow identifying his true nature seemed like quite a leap in logic.
"You're an alien... Maybe you noticed it too? Now that I think about it, when Hunter Kang Changho spoke to me, I don't think he ever explicitly called you a 'monster'..."
"Well, considering he had Justitia and, above all, used the contract item, his wording was probably vague and indirect overall."
His head tilted slightly.
Even giving the matter every possible benefit of the doubt, it seemed impossible for an Earthling not only to recognize him as an alien, but to identify him specifically as an Alphaurian.
And to be clear, the idea that anyone could have figured out that he was the individual known as Lemming was even more absurd.
If they had truly realized that the corpse Kim Giryeo inhabited contained an archmage of the old era, freed from every restraint, then no one—no matter how many times they had seen him appear weak—would have picked a fight with him so easily.
When dealing with an Alphaurian, it was far more reasonable to assume that an apparently weak mage was merely pretending to be fragile in order to deceive everyone around him.
After all, there were plenty of sinister individuals among the supermage clans scattered across the universe.
And yet, considering all of that, someone's hostile behavior felt strangely reckless and strangely cautious at the same time.
From this point on, the mystery only deepened.
What exactly does that bluish-purple-haired man think I am?
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