"I apologize for calling you here so suddenly, Minjun."

As Minjun stepped into the spacious, brightly lit office at the headquarters of the Korean Hunter Association, Chairman Go Gun-Hee welcomed him with a warm, genuine smile. The older man felt a wave of relief that Minjun had actually given him face by showing up.

"It’s fine, Chairman," Minjun replied smoothly, his posture relaxed.

"You seem lighter today. Did something good happen to you recently?"

"..."

Minjun stopped, looking at Gun-Hee with a deeply strange, calculating expression.

"As I expected, huh?" Gun-Hee chuckled warmly at the reaction.

"Is that really all you called me here to ask?"

"It won’t be any fun if we just sit around talking about grim business all the time, right?"

Minjun simply rolled his eyes. He bypassed the formal guest chairs and sat comfortably on the plush leather sofa. Without asking for permission, he reached across the low coffee table and picked up a piece of nurungji—a traditional, crispy rice cracker made from scorched rice.

Crunch.

The crisp, satisfying sound echoed softly through the quiet office as he bit into the poor man’s snack. A quiet, almost imperceptible sigh escaped his lips as the familiar, toasted flavor brought a wave of sudden nostalgia.

"It’s honestly a bit strange to find this specific type of snack sitting in the office of the Chairman of the Hunter Association," Minjun noted, examining the scorched rice.

"Is it that weird?"

"It is," Minjun said, looking squarely at Gun-Hee. "Being the Chairman still provides you with a massive, top-tier income, right? You could afford imported caviar."

Gun-Hee only smiled, his eyes crinkling at the corners. "I could. But I genuinely like the taste. Besides, my wife made this batch herself. How is it?"

"It’s delicious."

"Right?" Gun-Hee’s chest swelled slightly with pride at the praise.

The Chairman wasn’t offended in the slightest by Minjun’s casual, almost disrespectful lack of formal etiquette. In fact, he found it refreshing. He desperately wanted this young man to become a foundational pillar for this country, and building a genuine rapport was the first step.

An Archer.

The general public, and even most high-ranking Hunters, considered the Archer class to be inherently weak—a support role relegated to the backlines. Yet, Minjun had just demonstrated the terrifying physical might to forcefully tear open a sealing dimensional gate with pure, unadulterated kinetic force. While there was no official public record of what he had done outside the Double Dungeon, Gun-Hee had read the classified field reports. He knew without a doubt that Minjun was an entirely different breed of monster.

Yet, watching this terrifying powerhouse casually sit on his sofa, munching on nurungji—a snack historically born from poverty and leftover rice—created a bizarre cognitive dissonance in the Chairman’s mind.

"Still... it is a little strange to see you eating that snack with such familiarity," Gun-Hee observed quietly.

"My grandma used to make it for me all the time," Minjun replied, his voice taking on a faint, melancholic edge.

With a casual flick of his wrist, Minjun reached into a localized pocket dimension and pulled out a small packet of sugar and a vial of soy sauce to dip the rice cracker in.

Yes, he had recently hijacked the System, which naturally granted him access to a spatial inventory, exactly like Sung Jin-Woo.

Unfortunately, Minjun couldn’t help but sigh internally. He couldn’t replicate the insane, reality-bending multiversal feats that the "Suzuki" of the Tensura universe was currently executing. But that was perfectly normal. Their skill sets, their magical biology, and the fundamental laws of the universes they inhabited were vastly different.

Tensura Suzuki possessed a unique skill, "Self-Made," a skill that allowed him to instantly adapt to and assimilate skills, technologies, and foreign concepts from across the multiverse.

Minjun? He was still physically human. He knew his mortal body currently couldn’t do a similar feat. But that didn’t mean he would never be able to do it in the future. There were countless unique, reality-warping artifacts hidden within the Solo Leveling universe, or waiting out there in the broader multiverse.

In the worst-case scenario, I will just ride on Jin-Woo’s coattails while he levels up, Minjun thought, sighing at his own pathetic pragmatism.

It was a frustrating reality. Right now, he honestly couldn’t fathom a viable, logical way to bridge the absolute gap in power between himself and the Rulers, the Monarchs, or the true Outer Gods.

But I won’t give up.

He had made his decision in that hospital hallway. He was going to protect what was his.

"Did she?" Gun-Hee asked gently, his expression softening as he watched how completely natural Minjun looked eating the humble snack.

Minjun’s handsome face, elegant posture, and overwhelming aura usually made him look like an untouchable aristocrat or royalty. Yet, Gun-Hee had thoroughly read his background file. He knew the truth. Minjun came from a family that was barely hovering above the average poverty line. In a hyper-capitalist country like Korea, especially post-Gates, being in that financial bracket meant you were only one bad accident away from total ruin.

So that is where his terrifying drive comes from, Gun-Hee realized.

If Minjun had been born into a privileged Chaebol family or handed an S-Rank awakening on a silver platter, he wouldn’t possess this suffocating, desperate hunger for power. Minjun wasn’t born with a golden spoon in his mouth. He had been forced to forge his own spoon out of iron and blood, sharpening the edges so that if anyone ever tried to steal his bowl, he could smash their teeth in.

"As a thanks for the snack, I will allow you to ask me one question," Minjun said, breaking the silence as he swallowed the last bite.

Gun-Hee was momentarily speechless at the sheer arrogance of the phrasing, but he merely sighed. He knew he couldn’t force Minjun to talk, even if he ordered the entire Association to try.

If he threatened this young man, what would happen?

Minjun would simply leave. He would walk out of Korea, and by then, what would happen to this fragile nation? Gun-Hee knew perfectly well that Minjun possessed absolutely zero patriotic love for this country. He might feel a bit of nostalgia for the food, but if the government annoyed him, the consequences would be catastrophic.

Gun-Hee, hailed as the strongest Hunter in Korea, had to painfully admit to himself that he wasn’t confident he could defeat the young Archer sitting across from him.

Still, despite his terrifying power, Minjun was a simple man to understand. If you treated him with genuine goodwill, he would return it. But if you approached him with malice or tried to use him as a political pawn... well, there was no need to ask what would happen. Their fates would be sealed.

"What exactly happened inside that Double Dungeon?" Gun-Hee asked immediately, not wasting his one golden opportunity.

It was impossible to ask Sung Jin-Woo for the full truth. Oh, Jin-Woo had been thoroughly debriefed, and he had recounted what he believed to be true. But Jin-Woo had been unconscious during the climax. What about Minjun? What had the Archer seen when he tore the gate open?

"What do you think happened?" Minjun countered smoothly.

"I don’t know. That is exactly why I am asking you."

"If you knew the truth, what would actually happen?" Minjun asked, his dark eyes locking onto the Chairman.

"I believe that any necessary, high-level information can be utilized by the Association so we can properly prepare for a countermeasure."

"And what exactly are you preparing for? Instead of agonizing over a closed dungeon, you might want to spend your limited resources agonizing over the ticking time bombs on Jeju Island or the borders in the North."

"...."

Gun-Hee fell completely silent, his jaw tightening.

Minjun rolled his eyes. He knew perfectly well that it was vastly better for Gun-Hee to remain ignorant about the Architect and the System. It wasn’t that Minjun was trying to be maliciously secretive; the information was just functionally useless to the Chairman.

Even if Gun-Hee knew the truth about the absolute, cosmic entities pulling the strings, what could an old, dying Hunter actually do about it? Absolutely nothing. Bringing the Association into the fold would just cause massive trouble for Jin-Woo’s leveling process, and more dangerously, it would paint a massive target on Minjun’s back if Ashborn sensed interference.

"So... nothing happened in there?" Gun-Hee pressed, clearly dissatisfied.

"The dungeon’s internal mana rank spiked suddenly, but..." Minjun trailed off, staring into the distance.

"But...?"

"Everything inside just vanished."

"Why? How?"

Go Gun-Hee leaned forward, desperately pressing Minjun further. He knew this was vital intelligence. If whatever caused that massive mana spike was still out there, and if it endangered the country, the Association needed to prepare for war.

The thought gave Gun-Hee an intense, throbbing headache. As Minjun had bluntly pointed out, Korea was already being crushed between the massive S-Rank ant colony on Jeju Island and the aggressive political tension in the North. It was as if the world itself actively wished for this small country to perish.

If there was another apocalyptic problem brewing inside Seoul, Gun-Hee shuddered to even think about it.

Yet, Minjun’s expression remained completely unreadable. His answer remained exactly the same.

"I don’t know."

"..."

Gun-Hee blinked slowly, staring at Minjun in heavy, tense silence. He knew the young man was lying.

"Even if you stare at me like that, my answer is not going to change. I don’t know," Minjun repeated, his voice perfectly even.

He leaned his head back against the leather sofa, looking up at the ceiling as he casually reached for another piece of nurungji.

"And honestly, Chairman," Minjun added quietly, a dark, dangerous undertone slipping into his voice. "It is probably for the best that I don’t know. Because if I actually knew the truth about what was waiting in the dark... neither of us would be able to sleep tonight."