Kim Bitna stormed into the small living room, her face all scrunched up, clearly with something to say. Byeol-ha, currently contemplating his existence over a half-eaten sandwich, looked up, raising an eyebrow as she approached.
"Are you serious about this whole guild thing?" she asked bluntly, crossing her arms. "Or is this just a passing whim? You know, like your last five life-changing 'projects'?"
Byeol-ha blinked. Then his eyes narrowed.
"What's with the sudden concern, Bitna? Is your boytoy making you rethink things? Because I'm already three steps ahead of you, and no, I haven't forgotten to get him lunch yet."
Bitna rolled her eyes, then shook her head. "This is bigger than that. This isn't just about some quick fix. The world is... it's messed up. And you're asking me, no—asking everyone to trust you and follow your vision." She hesitated for a second. "What if something goes wrong? What if we all end up getting destroyed because you decided to play god?"
Byeol-ha leaned back on his chair, swinging the half-eaten sandwich in his hand like he was conducting some kind of lecture.
"Outer Gods, Bitna. Earth has been fractured—there's only so much that the human race can handle before things snap. You saw what happened to the last S-Class dungeon. There's no telling what's really out there. But I can tell you one thing: if you and your brother don't take this seriously, it's not just a guild I'll be building, it'll be the world's last line of defense." He dropped the sandwich on the table, eyes cold and serious. "So if something happens to Kim Heechan, will you be able to just... bear it? Accept it?"
The room went silent for a moment, the weight of his words hanging in the air.
Bitna's face tightened, and her gaze flickered to the corner where Kim Heechan was practicing sword swings. His movements were still stiff and unrefined, but he was trying. She swallowed hard.
"I... No," she admitted quietly. "I wouldn't be able to handle it." Her voice was almost a whisper. "But you're asking us to gamble with our lives."
Byeol-ha stood up, looking down at her with an intensity that made her shiver. "You're gambling every day by just existing, Bitna. At least I'm giving you a chance to fight back."
Bitna stared at him for a long while, then exhaled. "Fine. I'm in."
Byeol-ha didn't waste a second. He grinned and clapped her on the back hard enough to make her stumble. "Good. This is going to be fun."
As Byeol-ha moved on to his next plans, Kim Eo-ra had been quietly listening to the conversation from behind a thin, makeshift curtain. She could tell from the way Byeol-ha spoke that he was serious, and a part of her felt the weight of his words too. But for now, her concern wasn't for the guild—it was for her friends. The ones she'd lost. The ones she still had to fight for.
After a long pause, she stood up and headed toward the door, her steps quiet but purposeful. The room had become a little too heavy with tension for her liking, and she needed air.
Outside, the sun hung low in the sky, casting a warm, orange glow on the street. It had been a long time since Eo-ra had felt that sense of peace, but now—walking in the quiet streets, her footsteps slow and deliberate—she thought about the people who were still struggling in District 8. About her old teammates, who had disappeared without a trace when their contract with the Star had ended.
Eo-ra had always been the one to help, even when she had nothing left. But now, with the weight of her brother's expectations and the looming threat of the Outer Gods, she wasn't sure where to turn.
She arrived at a small, rundown house on the street. The roof was sagging, and the door was a little crooked, but it was home to the people she needed to speak to.
She knocked. Three times.
The door creaked open, and a woman with wild, black hair appeared in the doorway. Her face was lined with age and hardship, but her eyes were sharp.
"Eo-ra," the woman said softly, before pulling her into a hug. "What's wrong? You look like you've seen a ghost."
"I feel like I have," Eo-ra replied, pulling away and looking over her shoulder. "Can I talk to you and your family?"
The woman stepped aside, gesturing for Eo-ra to enter. As Eo-ra walked into the room, she saw the family—her old teammates—sitting around a battered table. There was the husband, Jae-hyun, a large man with graying hair and a stubble that looked like it had been there for days. Beside him was his wife, Min-ji, whose hands were worn from years of hard labor.
Then there was Jae-hyun's younger brother, Min-ho, a lanky nineteen-year-old who looked out of place in this world of magic and chaos, and the youngest, a sixteen-year-old girl named Jiwon. She was staring out the window, her hands resting on her lap.
Eo-ra sat down with them, looking at each of them carefully. "I need you all to listen," she said, her voice steady. "My brother is forming a guild."
At the mention of Byeol-ha, there was a collective intake of breath. Jae-hyun and Min-ji exchanged looks, but it was Min-ho who spoke first.
"Why? What does he want from us?" he asked cautiously.
Eo-ra met his gaze, trying to keep her voice steady. "He wants to protect people. He wants to make sure no one else ends up like you."
Min-ji clenched her fists at her sides. "We're useless now. You've seen it, Eo-ra. We've got no contract, no power. What good could we do? What could we even offer?"
Eo-ra leaned forward, her voice firm. "You can survive. You can help protect those who need it. You don't have to go through this life like this—surviving off odd jobs, barely scraping by."
Min-ho looked down, then glanced at his family. The silence in the room was thick, and it felt like time had slowed down to a crawl.
Finally, Jae-hyun spoke, his voice heavy. "We need time, Eo-ra. To think. We've been through too much to make any decisions lightly."
Eo-ra nodded. "I understand. Just don't take too long. The world out there… it's not getting any better."
She stood up, moving to leave, but paused at the door. "I just want you all to have a chance. Think about it."
With that, she left, the door creaking closed behind her.
As Eo-ra walked back to her brother's house, the weight of her decision lingered. There was more at stake now than ever before. The world was changing, and whether she liked it or not, she had to decide where she stood.
The guild had already started forming, and with Byeol-ha's strange energy and bold ideas, maybe, just maybe, they had a shot at something better. Something more than just survival.
But only time would tell.
Thirty Minutes Earlier
If anxiety were a sport, Kim Bitna would've won gold, silver, and bronze… simultaneously. She sat on the tiny rooftop of the ramshackle building, knees to her chest, staring blankly at a half-dead pigeon pecking at something that was very possibly plastic. The bird looked confused. So did she. Maybe they were soulmates.
Her fingers fidgeted with the frayed edges of her hoodie. It wasn't even hers—just one she picked off a clothesline two years ago during a monster raid. She didn't have the heart to return it, or the spine to face the old woman who owned the line.
She sighed.
"I swear, if Byeol-ha's plan is just another 'hey let's make a lemonade stand but it's actually a black-market alchemy den' idea again, I'm gonna scream," she muttered.
But deep down, she wasn't mad. She was scared. Not the "oh no, a spider!" scared. This was the kind that lived in your bones. The kind that came after months—no, years—of running, surviving, scraping through days that felt like bad side quests with terrible loot.
She had been overthinking for hours. Not just regular overthinking—Bitna was doing an Olympic-level mental triathlon of trauma.
It all started tumbling when she remembered the thugs. 10 years ago, she'd been cornered in District 8's alleyways—by men who saw women as nothing more than weak, desperate currency. She didn't want to remember what happened. But her brain, the overachiever that it was, decided to play the whole memory in 4K HD.
Then came the thought: I wanted to die.
Back then, she really did. She remembered standing at the edge of the collapsed building, wondering if gravity would be kind. Maybe if she just leaned forward a little—just enough. But then a child called her name. That idiot. That sweet, oblivious idiot with bruised knees and broken shoes. He had no idea he'd saved her life just by saying "Noona! I found candy!"
The memories snowballed.
There were monsters. Too many. The government had collapsed in their district. The guilds had drawn back to protect their own zones. And no one cared if a bunch of powerless people in the slums were eaten alive by mutated rabbits with chainsaw teeth. (Yes, that was a real thing. She still had the scar.)
Then, Kim Byeol-ha disappeared. Vanished off the grid like a magician's card trick. No letters, no signs, not even a smoke signal. Bitna had assumed he was dead. Or worse—he had left them.
And then, the one that broke her heart into more pieces than a cheap porcelain plate: her little sister was sold.
By neighbors. Neighbors they shared rice with. That betrayal still made her clench her fists so tight her knuckles ached.
She could still remember screaming, clawing, begging. But the world didn't care. It never had.
And just when she thought things couldn't get worse—surprise! Life handed her a pregnancy she didn't even ask for.
That was the day she stopped hoping.
As if that was not enough to break her, her elder brother was severly injured and went in coma.
And as if the gods were personally betting against her, Kim Eo-ra lost her eyesight after her contract with a Star was forcibly severed. The pain had been so great Eo-ra screamed until her throat bled.
Bitna had held her that night. Covered her ears. Whispered nothing would ever hurt again.
It was a lie. But what else could she say?
So now here she was, thirty minutes before she stormed into Byeol-ha's half-sandwich pep rally, quietly losing her mind over every horrible thing that had ever happened in the last six years.
She tried to breathe.
But even her breath felt useless. Shaky. Fragile.
The wind stirred her hair, and for some reason, that broke her resolve.
"DAMMIT!" she shouted at the sky, making the confused pigeon flap away like she'd insulted its grandmother. "Why do we always get the short end of the radioactive stick?! What kind of cosmic sitcom is this?!"
Someone below shouted at her to shut up. She shouted back something unprintable.
After another few minutes of internal panic and self-deprecating monologue, Bitna stood up. Stretched. Wiped her face with the sleeve of the hoodie-that-wasn't-hers.
She didn't have any strength left to lose. Not a single drop. Her heart was duct-taped together. Her will was stitched from scraps.
But if Kim Byeol-ha—her pain-in-the-butt brother who somehow looked more alive now than ever—was actually planning to do something meaningful… she had to know. Not later. Now.
So she marched down the stairs, past the kids drawing on the wall with chalk dust, through the cramped hallway where three people were arguing about whether rats counted as pets or meat, and shoved open the flimsy door into the living room where Byeol-ha was munching away like a man who hadn't just blinked out of existence for ten years.
She stood in the doorway, arms crossed, eyes blazing.
"Are you serious about this whole guild thing?"
She didn't mention the trauma. The near-death moments. The coma. The blindness. The betrayals. The starvation. The loneliness.
But he heard all of it anyway.
And she hated that he understood.
Because when he gave her that answer, the one about the Outer Gods and protecting people and not losing anyone again…
For the first time in forever, she felt just a tiny bit of hope spark.
And that scared her more than anything.