The Name of the Betrayer

"Huh? It's a kid?"

At the sound of the voice, two people looked up—a man and a woman.

Weren't they supposed to be all gathered together after so long?

...This is it? This is all of it?

There had been a time when more than a hundred names were on this guild's roster. And now there were only these three?

"Jena, Jena, who's this? A friend of yours?"

"She's in a school uniform? And our Jena doesn't have friends."

"Not a friend. She's our guild's brand-new recruit, actually."

"...A recruit? A real one?"

The moment the word left her mouth, the two of them sprang into a flurry of activity. The man scooped up the blanket sprawled across the sofa, then simply balled it up and chucked it into the fold-out bed, while the woman smacked the mountain of papers on the desk until they formed something resembling a neat stack. Every blow sent the loose sheets wobbling right back out of line.

Is that really going to fix anything?!

Jeyeon was watching the spectacle through eyes half-surrendered when her gaze suddenly caught on their faces.

Huh?

Wait a second. Those faces.

That's Jisu and Hoyeon, isn't it?

Kang Jisu and Jung Hoyeon. Both had been founding members of Seongyeon.

Their faces were exactly as she remembered. Only now, the weight of the years sat squarely on top of them—in the corners of their eyes, in their complexions, in smiles that looked worn down at the edges.

...You two, too.

They had every right to curse the guild's name and walk away. Instead, they'd stood by Seongyeon to the very end.

She was grateful. And sorry.

One look at this office told her the journey hadn't been an easy one, either.

But at the same time, a question nagged at her.

Why are they living like this, though?

Back in the day, both of them had been rankers in the global top tier. Among summoners, the only one stronger had been Jeyeon herself—so they'd ranked second and third, right behind her.

Ten years on, their levels should be even higher, and even just clearing high-grade dungeons would have earned them plenty.

And the guild leader is our maknae now, of all people.

She'd leapfrogged right over Ryu Sungho, who'd been vice guild leader back then.

Did he leave the guild? Ugh, this is so frustrating.

She had a mountain of questions.

The problem was that there wasn't a single one of them Lee Sihyun could ask.

Meanwhile, the three veterans had gone tight-lipped themselves, carefully reading the new recruit's mood.

"Do you think she's the type who's shy around strangers?"

"Not her at all, Unnie."

"Then she must've taken one look at our office and lost heart."

"Can't blame her. Those tour videos of the big corporate guilds' offices are all the rage these days. If she'd seen those first, this would've hit even harder."

"No, that's not it."

Only then did Jeyeon look up and speak.

"I have so many questions I don't know where to start."

"Oh! Is that all?"

"Questions are always a good thing. Ask away!"

Kang Jisu and Jung Hoyeon's eyes lit up as they waited eagerly for her to begin.

Understandable, really. It had been a very long time since anyone had come to them asking to join Seongyeon of their own accord.

...In fact, this was the first time.

And Jeyeon, facing those sparkling eyes, asked shrewdly—starting with what she was actually allowed to ask.

"How on earth did things fall apart this completely?"

"...?!"

In the stunned silence that followed, Jeyeon didn't stop.

"And the two of you—have you been through a lot? You look older than your age."

"...Why do you ask?"

"It just looks like life's been hard on you."

"..."

"No, I don't mean it in a bad way. It just... hurts to see."

Watching the two of them freeze solid, eyes wide and mouths agape, Jena was screaming inside.

That's even worse!

And to make it unbearable, none of it was wrong, and there wasn't a shred of malice in it either—so there was nothing anyone could say.

The first to recover was Jung Hoyeon.

"Haha, well, we have been working ourselves to the bone for money. Guess it's showing on our faces."

"Yep."

The agreement came without a flicker of hesitation.

A strangled sound escaped Hoyeon—something like poor kid...—and though he was laughing, his eyes were glistening.

Ahem.

Then Kang Jisu raised a fist to her mouth and cleared her throat. A signal that she would take over.

"The reason Seongyeon collapsed like this is that we had a traitor in the guild."

Traitor.

At that single word, Jeyeon's mouth opened before she could stop it.

"...You mean Sung Jeyeon?"

"Oh, for the love of—"

Jena was already bristling, about to snap, when Kang Jisu shook her head.

"No. It was Seongyeon's former vice guild leader."

"...Vice guild leader? Sungho?"

"How do you know that name?"

"Er, well, that's..."

"Fair enough. The man's the Association President now—you've probably at least heard of him."

Kang Jisu's gaze drifted briefly into empty air. Her eyes had the look of someone digging up a memory.

When her eyes returned to meet Jeyeon's, her face had hardened into something terrifyingly cold.

The Kang Jisu Jeyeon remembered was never someone who wore that expression.

"Ryu Sungho—now the President of the Korean Awakened Association. That man is the traitor."

Jeyeon couldn't say a word.

Ryu Sungho. Sungho, to whom she had entrusted everything behind her—all of it, whole—while she climbed the Tower.

Ryu Sungho.

Jeyeon turned the name over in her mind once more. And each time, the same familiar voice rose up with it.

That was the kind of man he'd been. The kind who'd sworn it all, unshakably.

Jeyeon finally managed to speak.

"...Could it be that he just left the guild, and that's why?"

"Hm?"

"The reason you call him a traitor—it isn't something like that, is it?"

People moved on when better offers came along. Maybe they'd parted on bad terms.

Jeyeon hoped it had ended somewhere around there.

"Not a chance."

Kang Jisu cut that hope off at the root.

"Ryu Sungho held a press conference exposing what he called the conspiracy between Jeyeon-unnie and Seongyeon Guild."

"...I'm sorry, what?"

"Right after Ki Taewon's interview ended, too. Like the two of them had scripted it together."

The air in the office went heavy and damp.

The first to break the silence was Jung Hoyeon.

"Aargh!"

He scratched the back of his neck and deliberately raised his voice.

"If it weren't for that bastard, we never would've ended up like this. Seriously!"

He delivered the curse like a drumbeat, playing the whole thing up for laughs.

But for all his laughter, his eyes weren't laughing at all.

Kang Jisu picked up where he left off.

"That was the nail in the coffin. An insider had confessed, after all. The government branded Seongyeon a traitor to the nation, just like that."

Jena gritted her teeth.

"They seized every asset Seongyeon had and slapped us with hundreds of billions of won in fines. If we wanted to keep the name Seongyeon at all, we had no choice but to pay back every last won."

"That's... really true?"

"Look it up online later. All the records are public."

"I'm telling you, I got old paying off that traitor's debt. I wasn't born looking like this, you know."

Hoyeon tossed in the joke lightly, but Jeyeon couldn't laugh along with him. Even in the moment she'd torn out her own heart with her own hands, it hadn't hurt like this.

Her hand rose to her chest and clenched the fabric of the shirt tight.

Heat surged up behind her eyes.

No.

She could not cry here. Lee Sihyun was a new recruit walking into this place for the very first time today. What kind of rookie burst into tears over someone else's guild history?

Jeyeon clenched her jaw and bowed her head, strangling her breathing to hold the flood back down.

And at the end of that straining, white-knuckled line of sight, she saw Jisu's and Hoyeon's shoes.

Worn down from years of use. Filthy. Falling apart.

This was the debt they could have escaped by simply letting Seongyeon go. The toil they could have walked away from by abandoning nothing more than a name.

And yet they'd stayed. Stayed, and been reduced to this.

What did I even amount to? What was Seongyeon?

Why would you two ruin yourselves to protect a single miserable name?

Her throat burned.

"Sihyun?"

At the careful call of her name, the three of them began murmuring among themselves over her head.

"Hey, was that too heavy to drop on a kid?"

"She had to hear it sometime, though. Imagine if she joined knowing nothing and found out later. She'd feel like we'd scammed her."

"Sure, but not on her first day..."

After a brief silence, Jena's voice came again, much gentler.

"Sihyun. You came all this way, but you don't have to join us. Go home today, think it over slowly, and decide when you're ready."

"That's right. You heard our situation—being careful is the smart move."

Jeyeon lifted her head.

Her eyes met the three pairs watching her with worry.

You absolute fools.

Instead of holding on to their first recruit in ages, they were trying to send her home.

They couldn't even bring themselves to fool one kid.

Jeyeon pressed the wound down and buried it.

Now was not the time to fall apart.

For the sake of the people who had believed in her and held the line, she had to stand back up.

Jeyeon drew in a slow breath and let it out.

Then she grinned.

"Where else would a summoner go, if not Seongyeon? I'm joining. Right now."

All three faces brightened visibly.

"Really? For real?"

"Even after hearing all that?"

"Yes. Even after hearing all that."

"Sihyun! Welcome to the family!"

"We're all summoners here, so ask us anything you want."

"And to celebrate Sihyun joining, let's go get something good to eat. My treat!"

"What's gotten into you, Oppa?"

"Our new maknae just walked in—was I supposed to sit still? I'll just pick up one more shift tomorrow."

"Wow, Jung Hoyeon, you're actually reliable for once."

Jeyeon watched the scene unfold with quiet eyes. They were acting like the family of some old melodrama.

Ah. I'm about to cry.

The three of them were clearly happy, and the more she listened, the more it broke her heart.

Jeyeon couldn't hold it in any longer.

"Seongyeon is going to be different from now on. Because I'm going to make it the greatest number-one guild again."

And I'll make sure you three live in luxury for the rest of your days.

"Oh?"

"Haha, look at Sihyun go. What a firecracker."

"That's our maknae. That's our maknae."

The three of them, knowing nothing of the truth, looked thoroughly well-fed on the maknae's ambition alone.

Jeyeon smiled too.

And behind that smile, she quietly pressed two names into her heart, one on top of the other.

They had spent ten years building it, so it would be solid indeed. But things always came crashing down in a single instant—and Seongyeon had already proven that.

Ki Taewon. Ryu Sungho.

You two had better come down, too.