Chapter 33

Chapter. 33

“…Hoo.”

Han Seol-ah exhaled a cold breath.

[Are you all right?]

“It is a little cold.”

Han Seol-ah’s fingertips had turned blue.

The new magic, Frost Mist, was magic that froze even Han Seol-ah’s own body, making no distinction between friend and foe.

‘This is difficult.’

She had overcome the Mana Capacity she had once thought of as Heaven’s Curse and had become an EX-rank Hunter.

But perhaps because she had grown far too rapidly.

Or perhaps because this was the aftereffect of a sudden Enlightenment.

Handling Frost Type Mana, which had once been as natural to her as breathing, now felt awkward and difficult.

[You will get used to it.]

“…I suppose I will.”

Han Seol-ah kneaded the hot pack she had placed in her pocket while searching the terrorist’s belongings.

The reason she had concentrated so hard that even her fingertips had frozen was simple.

It was to freeze only the terrorist’s body while keeping his belongings intact.

When one killed a criminal, that criminal’s belongings belonged to the one who killed him.

That was the unwritten rule in this world…And a lunatic crazy enough to crawl all the way into the Republic of Korea and carry out a terrorist attack usually possessed valuable items.

This “looting” was Han Seol-ah’s modest hobby.

The first things she found inside his pocket were three glass bottles containing liquid from which a murky purple aura slowly rose.

It was an ominous color that made it obvious at a glance that it was deadly poison.

“This… I should take it to Mother.”

She had heard that this terrorist was a criminal who handled poison.

Her mother, Min Ji-hee, would surely be able to find some use for it.

When frost settled over the surface and the contents began to freeze, Han Seol-ah hurriedly placed the poison bottles into her portable pouch.

Other than that, there were a few throwing hidden weapons.

“He was poor.”

After finally collecting everything usable, Han Seol-ah lightly flicked her finger.

CRACKLE! SHATTER!

With that single light gesture, the frozen body of the terrorist shattered into pieces and collapsed.

The last thing that emerged was a red potion inside a glass bottle.

The color of the potion looked extremely luxurious, but…The problem was the glass bottle holding it.

“…Orange juice?”

It was a cheap glass bottle with the remains of a peeled-off orange juice sticker still attached to it.

‘What in the world is this?’

Just as she was swishing the glass bottle around and examining it from every angle.

“Hello.”

A man slowly walked out from the darkness.

“It has been a long time, Guardian Han Seol-ah.”

It was Kang Hyo-jun, the head of the Black Market’s Korean branch and an unofficial S-rank powerhouse.

“…”

A familiar face.

Han Seol-ah lowered her level of wariness and, instead of answering, gave a small bow.

“That item you are holding in your hand belongs to us.”

“?”

Han Seol-ah held up the potion in her hand.

“Yes. That one.”

“…Hmm.”

A faint dissatisfaction appeared on Han Seol-ah’s face.

Kang Hyo-jun did not miss that sign and added,

“I know. It is your reward for eliminating ‘Wraith.’ However, that is stolen property.”

“Stolen property…?”

“Stolen property belonging to the Black Market is to be returned as a rule. I do not think you are unaware of that. However.”

Kang Hyo-jun set the backpack he had brought down on the ground with a thud.

“I am not asking you to hand it over for free.”

What Kang Hyo-jun rummaged through the backpack and pulled out was a box filled with “Low-grade Vitality Potions.”

“Twenty-four of them. One box. I will give you this.”

“Hmm…”

Han Seol-ah’s mind worked busily.

Stolen property was to be returned. That was one of the Black Market’s widely known principles.

However, in this world where the country—and further, the entire Earth—was half-ruined, was there only one or two pieces of stolen property?

Unless it was something exceptional, the Black Market generally turned a blind eye.

And yet, they were deliberately invoking the principle of “returning stolen property”?

That meant it was “an item too precious to overlook.”

If Han Seol-ah wanted to, she could pretend not to know and disappear with it in her pocket.

However, choosing to make an enemy of the Black Market over this single item was not an easy option.

The Republic of Korea Hunter Association was one of the Black Market’s regular customers.

Nod.

After finishing her thoughts, Han Seol-ah held the potion in her hand forward.

“Could you throw it over here?”

“…?”

Displeasure once again settled on Han Seol-ah’s face.

It was an expression that said, “Do you not trust me?”

“It is not that I do not trust you.”

“…”

“It is too cold around you. It is difficult to approach.”

“Ah.”

She understood.

Han Seol-ah tossed the potion.

‘?’

And then she saw it.

Kang Hyo-jun’s face fell into a state of extreme tension.

BOOOOM!

A shockwave erupted, the kind produced when an S-rank Awakened circulated Mana at full power.

“Wh-Whoa. Ah! Ugh!”

Afraid that it might break, he made every possible fuss and let out sounds like an ape.

Kang Hyo-jun caught the cheap orange juice bottle with trembling hands.

The way he carefully cradled it as though holding a newborn baby, terrified that it might break, made him look exactly like an ape.

“…”

“…”

Silence followed immediately afterward.

Kang Hyo-jun awkwardly scratched his head.

“Ahem. It is precious, you see. I have shown you an unsightly side of myself.”

Kang Hyo-jun bowed his head and disappeared into the shadows.

‘…’

After waiting until Kang Hyo-jun’s presence had completely vanished, Han Seol-ah took the box of low-grade potions.

“Ah.”

CRACK!

The moment she touched the box.

SHATTER! CLINK!

The cold flowing from Han Seol-ah’s hand froze and shattered several bottles of potion.

‘…Now that I think about it.’

The poison bottles too. And these low-grade potions now.

None of them could withstand the cold flowing out from Han Seol-ah’s body.

But that cheap orange juice bottle.

Even when Han Seol-ah had picked it up with her bare hands and examined it from every angle, it had not been affected by the cold at all.

‘…How strange.’

Had it been specially treated?

The orange juice bottle was clearly cheap.

Then the liquid inside it must have been special.

‘Kang Hyo-jun is the head of the Korean branch. I heard he almost never leaves the business site unless it is something truly significant…’

It was an item valuable enough for them to invoke the Black Market’s principles and for a big shot like Kang Hyo-jun to move personally.

Interesting.

It certainly was, but…

‘I do not know.’

Han Seol-ah gave up thinking any deeper about it.

She intended to report it to Min Ji-hee as one piece of valuable information and then forget about it.

TAP.

Han Seol-ah lightly leaped upward.

Then, just as the Apostle had done, she created ice platforms in midair and vanished in a flash.

***

After the incident inside the auction hall had been settled.

“Heh heh heh .”

For taking the lead in resolving the situation, Yeriche was able to take possession first of the one “Red Elixir” that had not been stolen among the two that had been offered.

When she thought of the enormous Points she had paid purely to see the actual item in person, and the Points she had invested to win a single bottle, tears nearly sprang to her eyes.

‘But I secured it, did I not?’

With this, the Order’s future was protected…

Yeriche felt like raising a toast to herself for acting so decisively.

‘I will make sure it never appears in the world again.’

She was still bothered by the one the Golden Mine had taken, but…

‘One bottle should be fine.’

As long as such a divine item did not flood the market.

She was willing to overlook one bottle.

“Lady Saintess, here is the item you won today…”

“Give it to me at once!”

Whoosh!

Yeriche snatched the luxurious box away.

With her heart pounding, she opened the box.

“Haa…”

Inside it, a tomato juice bottle wrapped in luxurious red velvet lay intact.

Inside the bottle, the red liquid with its luxurious sparkle sloshed gently.

‘Hm?’

However, beside the Red Elixir lay a black card.

“What is this?”

“Ah, it is a message of thanks the seller asked us to deliver.”

“Hmph. So he is aware that he sold it for an outrageous price?”

She had thought he was an idiot whose nose had swollen high just because he had been lucky enough to obtain a divine item.

Apparently, he had some sense after all.

Yeriche slightly revised her evaluation of Number 1 of the Numbers upward.

Yeriche opened the card.

[I am glad the Red Elixir seems to have pleased you.]

‘…It did please me. Enough that I resolved never to let it appear in the world.’

[If you ever need more, please feel free to contact me at any time.]

‘…If I need more?’

There was… a strange phrase written there.

[I only have 18 bottles of Red Elixir on hand right now, but]

“Huh?”

[I can produce as many as you want]

Snap.

Yeriche shut the card before she could even finish reading it.

“That is… a lie, right?”

“Pardon?”

“Do you know how much of the Order’s budget I pulled in to stop this one bottle from appearing in the world… and he has 18 more? How am I supposed to buy them all?!”

Yeriche’s eyes shook violently.

“Hm? It is a lie, right?”

The Black Market employee answered with a face that showed he had no idea what she meant.

“No?”

“…”

In the end, Yeriche shed tears.

“Fuuuck…”

Yeriche’s hand loosened, and the card dropped to the floor.

[I can produce as many as you want.]

[If you prepare only the materials, I can also produce elixirs of a higher grade than the Red Elixir or other types of elixirs.]

***

Snowy’s navigation function was quite useful.

Until now, I had no choice but to set a destination and run at full speed in that direction.

But Snowy displayed a large arrow in front of my eyes and guided me along the shortest route here and there.

The effects I had gained as the EX perk of Frost Sorcerer also felt quite substantial.

Thanks to that, I could move along with a relaxed heart, practically humming to myself.

The moment I thought that.

[Huh?]

“Oh, come on!”

There were two things I truly hated.

One of them was “Huh?”

Whenever something finally seemed to be going well or feeling comfortable, that magical word always appeared without fail.

Once that word came out, something infuriating inevitably happened.

The second was…

Ah, did you know that there are two ways to irritate someone?

One is to stop talking halfway through a sentence, and…

[Lee A-un’s life signs have grown faint.]

“What do you mean by that, my dear Snowy?”

[It means he is on the verge of dying.]

“…Ah, damn it. Nothing ever goes smoothly.”

FLASH!

I hurriedly increased my output.

I stepped on an ice platform and shot forward like a streak of light.

In accordance with my suddenly increased speed, Snowy’s guidance also became intense.

Fortunately, Lee A-un’s traces were not far away.

TAP.

I landed where Lee A-un was.

It was the empty lot of the school where I had killed the enraged Scathach.

On one side of the empty lot. Inside a newly formed, deep crater.

Lee A-un was lying there.

Blood flowed from his entire body.

He looked as though a bomb had exploded inside him.

When I looked around, a red line stretched from far away all the way to this crater.

It was a path made of blood.

[It seems Backflow and Mana Reflux Syndrome erupted at the same time.]

Even so, his physical state was horrible.

He was a complete mess, as if a thoughtless child had wildly splattered bright red paint over a sleeping person.

Snowy’s diagnosis continued.

[It seems he forcibly guided the Mana storm back into his own body. If he had not done so, this entire area would have disappeared.]

“…”

Was it because he had not taken his medicine in time?

Lee A-un seemed to have sensed the danger, thinking, “Huh? It feels like I am about to explode.”

Then, while enduring pain that must have felt as though he was being torn apart, he had crawled all the way here to a place without people, where property damage would likely be minimal…

And the moment he found such a place, he had relaxed and gone boom.

Even in the middle of that, he worried the surroundings might be damaged and suppressed the explosion inside his own body?

“This guy is amazing.”

It was incredible concentration.

I went down into the crater.

I opened Lee A-un’s mouth, stuck the Red Elixir in, and gently stroked his uvula.

Gulp.

Most of it spilled out of his mouth, but he had definitely swallowed it.

Flash!

A red light flashed from Lee A-un’s body.

The blood spilled across the ground did not writhe and return to him.

Instead, his torn and split skin healed in an instant.

A faint vapor also rose from the wounded areas.

It was the effect that appeared when one drank Vitality recovery-type potions in Lost Honor.

‘…It feels strangely game-like.’

His body began to gain life again.

‘Amazing.’

Its healing ability exceeded what I had imagined.

In the game, I had used it as emergency medicine that instantly filled a certain multiple of HP.

It felt similar in reality as well.

He recovered to a certain level, and then the wound healing stopped.

It was exactly around 30 percent recovery.

‘So even things like this are reflected.’

Mm-hmm. Truly game-like.

Since the urgent crisis was handled, I looked around a little.

Beside him, a note that looked like a will was fluttering.

Perhaps he had wanted to leave it behind even amid the pain, because he had even placed a stone on top of it so it would not fly away.

‘I am curious.’

I immediately read it.

First, there were a few lines expressing gratitude toward “Mister.”

‘That must mean Golden Mine, that old man.’

After that were a few lines of lamenting his situation and regretting that he had not been able to avenge his younger sister.

‘So he had quite a story behind him.’

Then came words of self-mockery about the meaninglessness of life.

And it ended with a single line:

‘Ridiculously enough, even at this moment, I am still hoping for a miracle.’

‘…A miracle, huh.’

I placed my hand on Lee A-un’s crumbling shoulder.

“Fine. Today, I will become that ridiculous miracle of yours.”