The Porter (4)
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Bang!
There were loud thuds, then silence.
“What is that? Hey… no,” he heard a voice he longed for.
Min-jong opened his eyes and saw Seung-ho looking at him with sad eyes.
Behind Seung-ho, the Gigantic Gorilla’s massive shoulders loomed.
But even monsters could not survive without a head.
“Seung-ho…” Min-jong was overwhelmed by tears and approached Seung-ho for an embrace.
Seung-ho suddenly grabbed Min-jong’s shoulders, blocking hi.
“Your… your pants…”
He looked down with mixed emotions as he saw the liquid still flowing down his pants.
Seung-ho carefully supported Min-jong’s shoulders and helped him balance.
Then, he turned to the unknown woman. “Who are you?”
“My lifesaver,” Min-jong answered. “Without her, I would have been in that guy’s belly.”
With that said, Seung-ho had a surprise expression as he looked at the woman. The woman appeared to be still in shock as she looked back with a blank face.
As he supported Min-jong with one hand, Seung-ho stretched out his other hand to reach the woman.
The woman seemed startled, but she took his outreached hand.
She felt good as she felt his hand’s warmth. When she felt it, her tears were changed with relief at the realization that she was still alive.
“Thank you. Thank you.”
The woman bowed down deeply, at 90 degrees, as she expressed her gratitude.
Seung-ho felt someone was approaching from a distance.
He wondered if there were more monsters, but the size and shape he felt seemed normal.
Perhaps, he thought, they were members of the Association who arrived late.
The owner of the presence soon came in Seung-ho’s view and ran with urgency.
“This is gate out area!” the man yelled. “It’s dangerous to be here! The monster is still…”
The man came here to evacuate them, but he saw the Gigantic Gorilla, with its head missing.
There were only three people in the room – a crying woman, a man with a broken leg, and another man standing before him.
“Are you a hunter?” the man asked Seung-ho.
“Yes, well…” Seung-ho didn’t finish, but it didn’t matter to the man.
“Oh, I forgot to introduce myself. My name is Choi Yoo-il from the Association’s Special Department. Can you cooperate with the investigation?”
The man’s polite attitude wasn’t too bad, but Seung-ho had more important matters in mind.
He pointed at Min-jong’s leg. “I should go to the hospital first. My friend needs help… I only caught the monster.”
“I understand,” the man said, before speaking to his radio device. “One injured in the middle of Sungsung, please send an ambulance. The situation is already controlled. Repeat, the situation is already controlled. Send in the recovery team to clean up, over.”
The man then knelt down in front of Min-jong, carefully avoiding the traces left on his pants.
“I’m not a doctor. This is just first aid,” the man told them before Min-jong could make excuses, and before the mood turned awkward.
After a while, Choi Yoo-il approached the Gorilla’s body.
The missing head is the first thing he noticed, but as he looked closer, there were huge cracks on the wall around the body of the Gigantic Gorilla.
Its chest was also caved in as if it had been hit by a dump truck.
There was blood splattered around the corpse from the chest wound.
The more Choi Yoo-il observed the more he feared the person standing outside.
To kill a Gigantic Gorilla alone… to overpower it with just bare hands…
Meanwhile, they heard a siren, and an ambulance arrived for Min-jong.
* * *
After arriving at the hospital, Min-jong told Choi Yoo-il about what happened, leaving the detail about the foreign man. He said he broke his leg while running away.
Choi Yoo-il seemed unconvinced, but didn’t probe about it further and simply thanked them for their cooperation.
As the men from the Association left, he called Seung-ho and told the story about the foreign man who broke his leg.
Min-jong told him about his assumption.
“Drachsh’s men?” Seung-ho was surprised.
“Hyung, your voice is too loud,” Min-jong warned him, before looking around to see if anyone heard.
Seung-ho’s face hardened. “Why would he?”
“It must be because I’m digging behind Drachsh.”
Seung-ho’s face turned red upon hearing Min-jong’s words.
“I told you to stop that! You said it was too dangerous if it was true, and it was just a waste of time if you were wrong.”
“It’s not wrong. Ha… If I had a laptop, I would show you the picture.”
“Do you know who made my legs like this?” Min-jong continued, smiling. “Would you be surprised to hear it?”
“Who?” Seung-ho had no clue.
“Victory Khan, 4th Battalion Captain of the Drachsh Guild, who disappeared soon after returning from the gate.”
Victory Khan was an A-class hunter 20 years ago. He could kill Min-jong with his fingers.
Min-jong also knew that, but he because he was a reporter, he was happy because he got new exclusive information, even if it almost cost him his life.
“Are you going to release that information now?” Seung-ho wanted to congratulate him on getting information, but the tone that went out was of anxiety.
Min-jong shook his head strongly.
“No! It would be suicide to release it right now. After the surgery is over, we will arrange the material, then publish articles. Where would the suspicion go if I die after the article is published? Even a poor knight will be my shield. Rather, I will use it more exaggeratedly and more provocatively.”
“If they know you are alive, they could come for you tonight! You could have told Cho Yoo-il that you were attacked by a Hunter so the Association could protect you.”
Seung-ho blamed Min-jong for falsely responding to the investigation. If the Association knew and guarded him, it wouldn’t be possible for Victor Khan to attack at night.
However, even after Seung-ho’s suggestion, Min-jong’s expression did not change.
“How many people in the association could protect me from a class A hunter 20 years ago? Would anyone believe me? Doesn’t Drachsh have the Association on his string?”
After the words of Min-jong, Seung-ho raised his hands and admitted defeat.
“At least for today, please watch over me, okay?” Min-jong asked.
“Yes, just in case…” Seung-ho sighed.
Min-jong chuckled as if he was a businessman who won a negotiation.
Seung-ho decided on his alibi. He took a selfie of Min-jong’s legs, making sure that the photo captured both of their faces.
If he called and explained the situation, his father may not understand it, and his mother would be troubled.
Min-jong looked disgusted by Seung-ho, who took a selfie with his broken leg but shook it off. “Never mind,” he said.
Seung-ho felt a little embarrassed, but he continued to tap on his phone.
He sent the picture to his father and called him via Ko-Talk to explain the situation.
It took a while for his father to answer, meaning his father slept without waiting for him.
Seung-ho paced around the room as he spoke.
Min-jong could only hear the conversation on Seung-ho’s side.
“Father, we drank too much, Min-jong got hurt.”
“Sorry, Father, Min-jong has no guardians… I think I should stay with him. I don’t think I can go home today.”
“I know. Don’t tell mother.”
“Yes, don’t worry about me.”
“Yes, goodbye.”
After hanging up the phone, Seung-ho nodded to Min-jong, his mood lighter.
Nurses arrived, and one of them announced, “Mr. Choi Min-jong will enter the operating room.”
“I’ll go.”
The nurses dragged the bed where Min-jong was lying.
Seung-ho followed the nurses out of the emergency room and saw Min-ji, the woman who saved Min-jong, sitting outside. She held canned coffee as she watched Seung-ho approached.
“Oh, you’re here,” he greeted her. “You haven’t been home yet. Are you feeling ill?”
“Oh, no. Thank you very much for saving me,” she replied.
The silence continued because Seung-ho had nothing to say, and Min-ji began to hesitate as if she had something to say.
Finally, she managed to speak up.
“Oh, well, so… I would like to serve you the next meal, can you give me your contact, if that’s okay?”
Seung-ho gave her his information and noticed that she was still hesitating.
“If you have more to say, please do it,” he asked her.
“That… his contact information…” Min-ji turned her head slightly in the direction that Min-jong disappeared to.
Seung-ho felt a little sorry at being too direct with her, but after he gave her Min-jong’s details, her face brightened, and she finally said goodbye.
“Ha…”
Seung-ho sighed as he sat alone in the hospital hallway.