I Became the Rankers’ Number One Pick

He knew that Park Seo-ah was in the Sun Guild and was asking to meet her.

Of course, Han Seok-hyun refused him immediately. He didn’t know exactly what it was about Park Seo-ah, but in light of Yoo Ji-an’s and Baek Eun-hee’s discernment and her reported training results, she was clearly a raw gemstone that was yet to be cut and polished.

A very expensive gemstone.

If Cha Tae-woon was able to contact Seo-ah, he would surely want to poach her. In this situation, the only option was to first let Kang Soo-jung stay in order to keep her.

“Phew, Ji-an should acknowledge my hard work.” Han Seok-hyun sighed and stepped into the elevator.

***

After he’d left completely, Soo-jung let her jaw drop. “Eonnie…”

“That’s great, Soo-jung!”

“Eonnie…!”

The young girl tearfully hugged Seo-ah, who patted her on the back.

“It’s all thanks to you. The Sun Guild…!”

“Mmm, but by the way, Soo-jung, I haven’t joined them yet.”

“I know, but for me, just being in this building is a dream!”

Seo-ah listened to more exclamations of joy, thinking that she had to thank Yoo Ji-an and Han Seok-hyun later.

***

The next evening, the premier team of the Sun Guild gathered in one place, waiting.

A C-class gate was forecasted to appear in Seoul tonight, and the second- and third-ranked teams were not available.

“C-class, that must be boring.”

“We’ll be back in no time. It’d be a waste to give it to another guild, but still, it’s a C-class gate.”

They didn’t occur very often, and the items one could get from there were distinctly valuable. It wasn’t something that a guild could simply hand over to others.

There were a total of five permanent members on the team, including Yoo Ji-an, and people were added or excluded depending on the nature of the gate.

It was a powerful force consisting of one S-class and four A-class hunters. At the moment, there were three of them present.

A-class tank Yoon Ah-jung glanced at the door and lowered her voice, “Have you heard? There’s a rumor that Song Jin-ho is dating someone.”

“What? Jin-ho? Who’s he dating?” A-class long-range damage dealer Kim Soo-hyuk asked gleefully.

“Well, I didn’t see it myself, but do you remember the E-class healer who recently came to our guild?”

“Oh, I think I’ve heard the lower level hunters talking about her… What was her name again?”

“Park Seo-ah,” interjected Kang Hae-in, an A-class caster who had been pretending to be indifferent to the conversation.

“Yes, I think that was it.”

“Anyway, the rumor is that those two are an item—”

The door opened roughly. Three heads turned in unison.

“Ji-an! Why are you here so early?”

“Yeah, I thought there was like, another hour left.”

Ignoring those comments, Yoo Ji-an went straight to Yoon Ah-jung on the sofa.

“Wait, why me?”

The frosty aura changed the atmosphere of the room in an instant. While these A-class hunters had experienced being in the line of fire too many times to still be intimidated by most things, being faced with the full force of an S-class hunter’s ire made all those things pale in comparison.

“Who’s dating whom?”

Yoon Ah-jung, surprised at the nature of the question, tilted her head, stuttering, “Song Jin-ho and the n-new girl, Park Seo-ah… It’s just a rumor…”

“Ji-an, why are you suddenly asking about that? Are you interested too?” Kang Hae-in, who was a year older than Yoo Ji-an, managed to stand and gently pull his shoulder.

He gulped at the look in his eyes.

“So, where is Jinho now?”

“He’s not here yet.”

“Let’s just go.”

“Where?”

“To conquer the gate,” Yoo Ji-an replied, leaving first.

Looking at each other with wide eyes, the rest jumped up and followed him out the door.

“Hyung!”

“Ji-an!”

“Song Jin-ho hasn’t arrived yet!”

The youngest, Kim Soo-hyuk, scratched his head and looked at Kang Hae-in. “What’s the matter? Are we going without Jin-ho?”

“Let’s just follow him for now. It’s about time we started anyway. Jin-ho will know what to do in this case.”

***

Yoo Ji-an seemed to have gone ahead, so the three of them rode together in the car provided by the guild.