Hero Hunter is on Parental Leave C67

Chapter 67

“Seeing you in person would make for a much better picture, wouldn’t it?”

Yeongung stopped the emergency call mid-motion and casually took the ID card hanging around the employee’s neck, looping it around his own.

“You still haven’t answered me. The Chairman is in his office right now, correct?”

“Y-Yes…! He has a weekly meeting in an hour, so I believe he’s resting in his office until then.”

“Thank you. I’ll return this after I use it.”

After tagging the card and passing through the security checkpoint as if he owned the place, Yeongung boarded the high-rise executive elevator leading to the Chairman’s office.

The moment he tagged the card again, four words flashed on the LCD screen:

[NO AUTHORIZATION]

“…Right. Guess I should’ve just flown in through the window like usual.”

The elevator doors were about to close from timeout when—

“Ha—huff—! Hey, hey! Hold the door! Let’s ride together!”

A foreign-looking man with striking light-colored eyes came running over, breathing hard.

“…Go ahead.”

The man, apparently convinced he’d barely made it in time on his own, glanced at Yeongung standing silently with his arms crossed, then tilted his head in mild confusion. He tagged his own card.

Clunk.

The elevator began to rise.

“I left with plenty of time, but it was still close. Rush hour, you know.”

He looked like someone returning from outside work, casually chatting as if this were an ordinary elevator ride.

Yeongung stared straight at him.

The man, apparently unfazed by the silence, tried again.

“Ah—my apologies. I should’ve introduced myself earlier. Thank you for waiting.”

“Waiting?” Yeongung replied flatly.

“Did you even know who you were bringing up here?”

“Well, of course—”

The man—Jake—froze.

He’d only been transferred to the Central Branch a week ago. And only now did he realize what he’d just done.

In security, there was no such thing as “of course.”

Especially not on the most heavily restricted floor in the building.

“Looks like you haven’t been here long,” Yeongung said mildly.

“Good thing you don’t have much stuff yet.”

“…Excuse me?”

“You’ll need to pack it all up anyway.”

Ding.

They reached the top floor.

As Yeongung stepped out, he pressed the close button on the elevator panel.

“Careless attitude aside—how does an Association employee not recognize the face of the Absolute?”

Jake’s eyes widened in horror.

“Y-You’re… Yeongung Hunter?!”

The reaction was identical to the receptionist downstairs.

The elevator doors slid shut, cutting off Jake’s stunned face, and Yeongung walked down the quiet corridor toward the Chairman’s office.

Only the sound of his boots echoed.

Along the hallway stretched a massive mural:

Aries. Taurus. Gemini. Cancer. Leo. Virgo. Libra. Scorpio. Sagittarius. Capricorn. Aquarius. Pisces.

The Twelve Zodiac Constellations.

“Calling yourselves stars,” Yeongung muttered.

“Disgusting.”

The mural symbolized the ten Association Heads, the Chairman—and the final vacant seat.

Yeongung’s seat.

A place hunters dreamed of.

To Yeongung, it looked like nothing more than a shrine for rotten old men clinging to power.

At the end of the corridor stood a massive mahogany door carved with a grotesque serpent motif.

“Still got shit taste,” he muttered.

He shoved the door open without knocking.

The old tiger was already waiting.

“Have you been well?”

Hunter Association Chairman Baek Gangseok exploded.

“Yeongung, you little—!!”

Despite being over sixty, Baek Gangseok radiated terrifying presence, his body still that of a man in his forties—huge, muscular, overflowing with vitality.

Yet Yeongung didn’t flinch.

He raised an eyebrow and drawled,

“Why so angry, old man? I came back.”

Baek Gangseok had watched Yeongung since the boy awakened at fourteen.

He’d seen everything.

And when other Heads tried to suppress Yeongung’s rise, Baek Gangseok had been the only one to remain neutral.

That was why—only in private—Yeongung called him old man.

“You ungrateful bastard! Didn’t the ancients say never raise a black-haired beast—!”

Baek Gangseok looked around, searching for something to throw. Finding nothing suitable, his hand landed on a golf club.

Yeongung dropped onto the sofa and spoke calmly.

“I worked nonstop from fourteen. Think of this as taking a few years’ worth of vacation all at once.”

“No one forced you to work like a mad dog! You did that yourself—for money, for the Absolute title!”

“Then don’t acknowledge it. I’ll deal.”

He leaned back completely.

Baek Gangseok narrowed his eyes.

“You’re different. Something’s changed.”

The hollow hunger that once lingered in Yeongung’s gaze was gone.

In its place—ease. Confidence. Something dangerously full.

Before the old man could probe further, Yeongung cut in.

“Let’s get to the point. I’m here about the implant.”

“You ripped it out with your own hands—and now you want it back in? Don’t bullshit me.”

“Covering my face is annoying. It was nice at first, being unrecognized, but I’m tired of it.”

A lie.

The real reason was access.

Level-0 Classified Database.

Information about his son—

about the abilities Nullification and Wish—

was beyond even Richmond or Sayoung’s reach.

And—

“Before my family registry turns into a mess,” Yeongung muttered,

“I need to clean things up.”

“Registry? You’re a known orphan! What registry?!”

To move Yeong Jaehui from Yeongjun’s fake identity to Yeongung’s—

Yeongung had to reclaim his real name first.

Marriage with Won Iheun came after.

Assuming Iheun even wanted that.

Still—

Yeongung would proceed.

“So,” he said bluntly.

“Are you putting the chip back in or not?”

Baek Gangseok collapsed into his chair, pounding his thigh.

“My fate… My cursed fate…!”

He whispered to his secretary—undoubtedly ordering an operating room prepared.

“You couldn’t just leave me in peace until my term ends? Please. I’m begging you.”

Yeongung studied the old man.

He’d expected at least one punch.

Instead—

…Nothing.