The next day, the Pado Guild had a meeting to decide on the Jongno 3 dungeon raid team. Sa-young had no intention of joining, but since he was the decision maker, he had to attend the meeting.

With the consensus of the entire guild, it was decided that the raid team would be Bae Won-woo's team. As soon as the results of the meeting were announced, Sa-young was the first to leave the room. His mind was elsewhere even before the meeting was over. When he opened the chocolate colored door of the conference room, he was greeted by Min-ki who was waiting outside.

"Guild leader."

He pushed his tired face in and tried to speak first, but Sa-young beat him to it.

"Tell me."

As Seo Min-ki swallowed hard at the directness of his words, the other guild members approached the doorway shouting.

"What the hell, why are you standing in the way?"

"What is it, this traffic jam?"

"Are you serious?"

"Hurry up, the kids are waiting in the back."

Sa-young stood in the doorway, causing people in the room to shout, but the party in question didn't even listen. He wanted to cry, and the words of the guild leader's request for a moment's respite rose to the bruises on his throat, but for his own safety he had to hold it together.

After glancing at his guildmates, he finally obeyed Sa-young's order.

"Yes.... Park Ha-eun, age 8, parents are victims of the Anyang Dungeon. Survived alone at the age of three and almost went to a nursery, her maternal grandmother took her in and raised her."

"Never mind that. Your uncle."

"That's because... she doesn't have an uncle."

Lee Sa-young raised his eyebrows as if he didn't know what that meant. Min-ki scratched his head.

"Park Ha-eun has no relatives on either side of the family to call an uncle. Her mother was an only child and her father only had female siblings."

"Then... I wonder where that uncle came from."

"Um..."

Min-ki said and rolled his eyes.

"I guess I can't rule out the possibility that she's calling him uncle when he's just a stranger. If this doesn't turn up anything, I don't think they're related by blood. Here are the documents."

Min-ki handed over a thick file. Sa-young took the file and leafed through it.

"One family, my grandmother, runs a Haejang-guk house around here, and it's been around for a while."

Before Sa-young could say anything, he heard a voice in the conference room.

"Haejang-guk house? The one in the alley?"

"You know that place?"

Jisoo replied with an openly bored face.

"That's the deputy leader's second job."

"Huh?"

"Vice Leader~ he eats there all the time! He never gets tired of it. He goes to work once a day, but he goes to Haejang-guk twice a day for lunch and dinner... so technically it's his first job."

Sa-young knew that Bae Won-woo went to the same restaurant every day. It's a familiar sight in Pado, with guild members sticking their necks out when he asks to have lunch with them, but it happens to be the Haejang-guk house of Park Ha-eun's grandmother.

Inside the gas mask, the corner of Sa-young's mouth twitched. Somehow, he had a good feeling.

"Huh? Haejang-guk house? Why there?"

Just then, Bae Won-woo, who had given up on leaving the conference room and was sweeping the floor, joined the conversation.

"Bae Won-woo, do you know this Haejang-guk house?"

Sa-young called out the address in the file and Won-woo, who had been listening, nodded. The mention of Haejang-guk House made Bae's voice sound a little reminiscent to Won-woo.

"Ah, my favorite restaurant. My sign is up there too. Why, do you want to try it?"

"Ugh, it's so damn ominous, deputy leader, please step aside for a second."

Bae Won-woo quickly shook off the eerie feeling that had enveloped his entire body a second ago and looked at Lee Sa-young with a gentle smile. He smiled back at him with a similar smile. Although his smile was a devious one to hide what he was really thinking.

Bae Won-woo patted his chest reassuringly.

"I'm treating you today!"

"Is it good?"

"It's delicious! If you eat it once, you'll get a stamp every day."

"I'm sure you'll change jobs."

"I'm thinking about it, asshole."

So the two of them dispersed to their respective offices, looking for a lunch date. Not knowing the minds of the Hunters, who didn't want to be caught between the Guild Leader and the Deputy Guild Leader...

The long-awaited lunch break. Bae Won-woo led Lee Sa-young to the front of the Haejang-guk with a cheerful face. The place seemed to be more crowded since they arrived after lunch had already started. Scanning the dilapidated exterior of the restaurant, Lee Sa-young looked at Bae Won-woo with suspicion.

"Is this a restaurant?"

"Hey, don't you trust me?"

"Yes."

Sa-young's suspicion wasn't completely unfounded. The entrance to the shop was so low that you could almost touch your nose to it, and the shabby exterior walls had a way of giving you the feeling that they were about to collapse. The dilapidated old shop was not at all to the neat freak's liking.

"You can't trust me, but you can trust my tongue."

"What's on the menu here?"

"Haejang-guk."

"What else?"

"Gonggibap."

"What else?"

"Soju, rice wine."

"That's it?"

Bae Won-woo shook his head as if to say you don't know what you're talking about.

"Think about it. If it's that good, you'd fight over a single bowl of Haejang-guk. Have you been living a lie?"

"Yes."

"You have too much doubt, man."

He said that, but on second thought, he was right. A restaurant that's been around for a long time must have a lot of customers. With some of his suspicions overcome, he peered inside through the glass of the sliding door.

Inside Haejang-guk, a meerkat's view... It was full of hunters. Not many of them, just a field of hunters! It was almost like a dungeon auction was being held here. Lee Sa-young gently pulled his face away from the window and looked at Bae Won-woo suspiciously.

"Why are you looking at me like that again? What is it?"

"Are you thinking about changing guilds?"

"What the hell, how much time and effort did I put into the Pado?"

"Then why are there so many hunters here, you're the head of HB Guild's HR team."

Only then did Bae Won-woo realize that he had been blinded by Haejang-guk and forgot about the offer of another rice cake for the hateful person.

This is a paradise for tired and hungry hunters. A knight's shelter, a knight's restaurant. A hunter-approved restaurant. And here I am, with my own hands, bringing in this rude, low-life guild leader, a guy who can spoon-feed you and spit poison when he feels like it?

Inside Haejangguk, a meerkat's view... It was full of hunters. Not many of them, just a field of hunters! It was almost as if a dungeon auction was being held here. Lee Sae-young gently pulled her face away from the window and looked at Bae Won-woo suspiciously.

"Why are you looking at me like that again? What is it?"

"Are you thinking about changing guilds?"

"What the hell, how much time and effort did I put into Waves?"

"Then why are there so many hunters here, you're the head of HB Guild's HR team."

Bae Won-woo gave the ugly bastard another rice cake and realized what he had forgotten, blinded by the seaweed soup.

This is a paradise for tired and hungry hunters. A knight's shelter, a knight's restaurant. A hunter-approved, hunter-approved restaurant. And here I am, with my own hands, bringing this ill-mannered, low-life guild leader, a girl who can spoon-feed you and spit poison when she feels like it?

Xed.
(TL/N: the raw: X됐다)

An intense feeling of foreboding washed over him, and he felt like he was being shot into space. If he got into a fight here, he might end up on the 9 o'clock news, not just X, but already X.

Should he just leave now and eat his one-pot lunch?

Leaving Bae Won-woo alone in his anguish, Sa-young opened the sliding door as soon as the previous customers had left and taken their turn and stormed into the Haejang-guk. It was such a quick move that there was no time for anyone to catch him, lest they think he was the number one hunter.

Sa-young ducked his head slightly to avoid hitting the low ceiling, then looked straight ahead and there in front of him was...

"Welcome..."

The face he was looking for appeared, half hidden by the mask he'd seen the night before, but he was sure of it.

A soju branded apron. A young man with a teapot instead of a ladle.

"I found him."

As if to prove his conviction, the young man's face crumpled in real time. Lee Sa-young pushed up his invisible lips in a casual greeting.

"Hello, Hyung."