Chapter 370 – Year-End Party

That night Seong Tae-kyung was having a crazy time with her twins.

In a high-rise apartment in Gangdong-gu, two middle-aged women were having a crazy time in a different way.

“Cheers! Okhee, cheers~!”

“… Drink in moderation. Like last time, don’t vomit on the sofa at our house again.”

“Eh~ you’re not like that~? Have you ever seen me not keep what I said~?”

“… A promise you made while drunk is a promise you don’t keep.”

“I wasn’t drunk~?”

“… Whew.”

Kang Eun-young stumbles over the table with a clearly relaxed expression.

Seo Ok-hee was quietly waiting for the last day of the year to pass while quietly watching her loosen up.

“In the end, I spend this year with you at the end like this.”

“Right…”

“Still, I think I managed to spend this year leisurely because you came back. I also received a lot of help from you for the regular cleanup of the abandoned village. Hyerim and Hyunkyung seemed very surprised when they heard the news of your return.”

“Ugh…”

“Please take good care of me next year, Kang Eun-young. As friends and as our guild hunters.”

“…”

Whether she listens to herself or not, Kang Eun-young lies on her table and quietly breathes without moving.

Seo Ok-hee, who watched her old friend and colleague like her, silently sipped her beer in her hand.

A recollection of her company’s operation over the past year.

This year was exceptionally busy for Seo Ok-hee and her construction work was exhausting.

Of course, to her, the CEO of Eun and Ok Co., Ltd., What year could she not be busy? Even considering that, this year was a year filled with many strange things for her.

Among them, the most special thing was, of course, the part about the company’s human resources and management.

Due to the nature of the hunter guild, where thousands of hunters are registered and retired every year, it was not something that the CEO of the company, Seo Ok-hee, had to worry about.

But this year, there were two people she could not help but carefully examine.

“Mmnya… Hehe…”

“…”

One is that woman over there talking in her sleep with her face buried on the table.

It was Kang Eun-young, her S-class hunter and her own old friend, who declared her return after 17 years.

The other was Seong Tae-gyeong, the world’s only male Awakener, B-class hunter who moved to the company through her introduction.

“The world’s first male Awoken Hunter…”

Just publicly announcing that she’s her own male awakener could’ve done much more celebrity than anything else like her hunter life.

He was an interesting person in many ways in that he dared to take on the risky and unstable job of being a hunter.

It wasn’t that I couldn’t understand why that child was so obsessed with becoming a male hunter, having heard the story once through Kang Eun-young.

Still, it would be a lie if he said he didn’t care about his decision to live only as a hunter with the high value of the rarity of being a male awakener.

“… Well, it’s not something I’d like to interfere with.”

Even so, he definitely had no intention of arguing about the judgment made by the male hunter named Seong Tae-kyung.

If you wanted to leave the male and female high school and act as a single hunter, you could just leave it alone.

In the first place, the reason why the male hunter’s grade limit was up to C grade was because there had never been an awakened male hunter.

Seo Ok-hee’s values ​​were that if there was an Awakener among men, it wouldn’t be strange whether that person became B-class or A-class.

When it comes to dealing with people, she tends to try not to wear even a little bit of colored glasses when it comes to her partner’s age or gender.

She could not help but be more inclined to do so because of her experience of being misunderstood because of her somewhat youthful appearance.

And she said that one of the people who had looked at her without prejudice from her first meeting was this friend who was now hanging out with her drool beside her.

“Umm… Ok-hee, over there, the ice ghost lord… Hold on for three more minutes…”

“… When the hell are you talking in your sleep about the enemy?”

It was more than 20 years ago that the last time they went to the snowy mountain in the valley of ice, and she was talking in her sleep as she recalled her memories of that time.

Looking at her old friend’s face, Seo Ok-hee smiled quietly, enough that she could now say that the years she had known were far longer than the years she had lived without knowing.

Her old friend has also returned to active duty, so from next year, she will have more time to hang out with her than now.

You’ll be able to work together when you need to enter a dungeon that can only be attacked by S-rank or higher hunters, or when you need to measure the level of a new dungeon.

She couldn’t help but feel transported back to 17 years ago, when she worked together until her retirement.

Most of the colleagues who started the hunter life with him had already retired more than 20 years ago, and the new colleagues who occasionally work together were also very young late exponents with an age difference of at least 10 years from him.

In that respect, Seo Ok-hee also felt a little gratitude to Seong Tae-kyung, a B-class hunter. Especially since her own old friend made her come back to active duty.

In return, she acknowledged her career for working under a different name in her union and allowed her to change jobs while holding the qualifications of a B-class hunter, so she must have repaid the favor.

If she had insisted that even if he was an awakened person, she would transfer to a B-class hunter without the ability, she would have firmly refused.

It didn’t take long for her to determine that he was a person worth more than a B-class hunter after seeing her true identity with her own two eyes and talking to her.

And in fact, after Seong Tae-kyung joined Azure Shield, Azure Shield’s performance also showed a noticeable upward curve.

First of all, the amount of basic materials submitted by the entire Azure Shield increased, of course, and the quality showed a clear difference from before.

It was to the point where I had secured materials for the White Crystal Spider Queen, an S-class monster, one of the most powerful boss monsters in the Crystal Spider Cave.

In fact, Seo Ok-hee already judged the Azure Shield to be an A+ level party.

If other parties other than Azure Shield had similar results, it could have been a result of coincidence, but she was sure that this was not the case with Azure Shield.

Because it was a party that her own old friend, Kang Eun-young, and her daughter had made, knowingly or unknowingly, it was a party she always watched closely.

Of course, there are a few more conditions that need to be met in order to be promoted, so I can’t raise the party level of Azure Shield right now.

At least it was not difficult to guess that the party would continue to grow a little more.

At the center of it, of course, there will be Seong Tae-kyung, a newly joined Awakened male hunter.

“Swordsmanship, magic, and recovery…”

Seo Ok-hee folded and straightened her left hand once, recalling the last time she met him for a job interview.

The appearance of her having healed a single cut on the palm of her own left hand with a simple recovery spell.

She looked carefully to see if she was cheating by secretly using potions or scrolls, but all she could feel was her history and awakening abilities, which were presumed to be divine powers.

At least everything she said in front of herself that day was probably true.

In the first place, although there was only one person in the world who could use her insight and could blatantly lie in front of her.

“Umm… Whoa!”

Kang Eun-young, who had been lying on the table talking about her meal, opened her eyes in a hurry, and she immediately raised her upper body and looked around her.

“Uh, huh? … Are you Okhee?”

“Huh.”

“Uh… The other kids… ?”

“While you were in full swing talking nonsense, everyone went home. Because Hyerim and Hyunkyung live tightly held by her husband.”

“Still, I don’t even say goodbye and leave… It’s been a while, but I’m sad…”

“You even said goodbye with both hands. Don’t you remember?”

“Uh… Is that… ?”

… She would have been a much better friend if only she knew how to control her drinking.

Seo Ok-hee took another sip of the beer can in her hand, thinking about how many years they had been having similar conversations.

I asked a reluctant question to Kang Eun-young, who started to doze off in her seat again.

“Could you straighten the blanket?”

“… Ugh, huh?! I-I’m not tired yet… ?!”

“Even if it’s saliva dripping from your mouth, wipe it off and say it.”

“… Is it beer foam?”

Seo Ok-hee smiled as she saw Kang Eun-yeong spouting lies so shameless that she could recognize them even without using her insight.

Gently lifting the beer can in her hand, he brought out her suggestion to finish her table.

“It’s already dawn, let’s get down to Shimai.”

“I still have some alcohol left…”

“You’re going to sleep this year anyway. Drink only what she has in her hand and be done with it.”

“… Okay.”

Since it was Seo Ok-hee’s house, not even her own, Kang Eun-yeong had no choice but to quietly nod her head at the landlord’s resolute words.

Her can of beer stretched high into the sky as she wanted to shake off the regret of her last glass.

“Happy New Year, Okhee~!”

“… Yes, you too.”

The year-end party held at the house of Seo Ok-hee, a single hunter in 42, no, 43, was approaching its end.

At this time, she did not expect that her coming new year would be a particularly special year for her.