Shortcut

A small office sat off to one side of the Labyrinth entrance. I followed Lee Hee-yeon in, took a seat on the sofa, and ran my fingers over the leather. It wasn't purely soft. A faint roughness clung to it, and the feel of it was strangely off.

"It's made from kobold hide."

Lee Hee-yeon smiled, gentle.

"Would you care for some tea?"

She set the cup on ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠the table before the sofa and settled across from me. A bright, fresh scent filled the office at once.

"It's tea steeped from blue leaves. Made from the fallen leaves of the Tree of Life."

Tea brewed from Nehemis's Tree of Life. An intriguing notion.

I had no thought of refusing, of course. Out in the real world, my life had been nothing but elixirs—foul to the taste and expensive besides. If I was going to drink something worth drinking, it might as well be here in the Tower.

I took a sip. Sweet, and clean. At the same time, the thread drawn tight through my mind seemed to ease, if only a little.

Did it restore mental strength, to some degree? I couldn't pin the effect down exactly, but my mood lifted on its own. I put the question to Lee Hee-yeon a shade more gently.

"What did you call me here for?"

It didn't look as though she'd summoned me over anything unpleasant. She had held to a careful, deferential posture the whole time she guided me and brewed the tea, and even now she was watching me with an uneasy face.

Her eyes trembled faintly as she spoke.

"First... I truly hope you won't misunderstand. Neither the Association nor the state has the slightest intention of binding you or placing restrictions on you, Transcendent Hunter. I swear it on everything I am."

Obvious, really. Even China and Russia had given up on controlling the Awakened. Korea had no reason anywhere to attempt such a thing.

I read the situation quickly enough. The trouble was that no answer came to mind. Had I always been this poor with words? Or had eight years of confinement changed me?

Honestly, I couldn't tell. Aftermath of the accident, or simply too much time gone by? I couldn't clearly remember the person I had been before it.

When I kept my mouth shut, Lee Hee-yeon pressed on, her voice unsteady.

"To speak frankly, your rate of growth is beyond all reason, Transcendent. This time especially—you spent 420 points and earned 4,200. That figure leaves common sense entirely behind."

I gave a small nod. Go on.

Lee Hee-yeon took a light sip of tea, then drew something from inside her coat. A business card. Again. At this point, it seemed safe to conclude that handing over a card was basic manners among the Awakened.

I took it and looked it over.

Affiliation and name, a phone number and an address. A simple, clean card.

"Would you turn it over?"

At her word I flipped the card, and paused. A code was engraved on the back—nothing you would ever see on an ordinary card.

"It's an Awakened-only connection code issued by the Association. Within the country, it's a special line that functions even in the backcountry, where communications and the internet have both gone dead."

Lee Hee-yeon held her phone's camera over the code. A connection prompt rose on the screen; I pressed it, and a new display opened. There was nothing remarkable about it. A handful of numbers and words, and that was all.

Lee Hee-yeon spoke.

"In an emergency, press 1 and you'll be able to reach me. Should you ever find yourself in difficulty and in need of help, the Association will move on your behalf, Transcendent. Any time. Any situation."

I didn't answer at once. I let the silence sit. A promise to help me no matter the circumstances—sweet, and dangerous in the same breath.

A double-edged sword. That was the thought that came the moment I heard it.

Once I began accepting the Association's help, I would have to render something of equal ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠weight in return. In the relationship between a state and a hunter, nothing rang quite so hollow as a favor offered with no conditions.

"...You're not wrong."

As if she had read the thought, Lee Hee-yeon nodded.

"But I'd like you to think of it less as a give-and-take, and more as a kind of investment. That's the conclusion the Association itself reached."

"...An investment?"

"Yes."

Her eyes still trembled, but there was resolve in them as well.

"Awakened who grow at a pace this absurd are exceedingly rare. And if that Awakened is a mage... the Association and I concluded it is all but impossible."

Had she seen me working flame in the lobby? She knew I was a mage. The analysis itself was fairly sharp.

"We want nothing from you, Transcendent. Going forward, we will never do anything against your will. This is a little blunt, but..."

Lee Hee-yeon smiled lightly.

"The Association is not foolish enough to cut open the goose that lays the golden eggs. So please don't feel burdened. We would like you to take our offer as simple goodwill."

A clever calculation, and clever words to match.

Ten percent of the points I earned would pass to the state no matter what. Right now that was a little over four hundred. Whether it became four thousand later, or forty thousand, no one could say.

That was why the Association had come seeking a friendly footing with me.

"And the next?"

At my word she pressed 2 firmly. An ordinary search bar rose on a blank white screen.

"The information side is no different from a normal web search. Enter the keyword you want, and the related material comes up in a list. The quality of that material, of course, is on another level from the open web or the community boards."

She searched several keywords. The information was remarkably varied. It was not limited to the Tower and the Labyrinth.

Domestic and foreign affairs, the power struggles between corporations, even files on the various offices—one entry led into the next without end.

"Korea isn't a hunter superpower, not with our shortage of people, but in intelligence we hardly fall behind the major powers. The data accumulated so far is already enormous, and new information updates in real time. So, with something on this order..."

Lee Hee-yeon smiled softly.

"Might it serve, even a little, as a token of sincerity for a monstrous mage who passed four thousand points in only three entries into the Labyrinth?"

I opened my eyes. The rustle of the blanket traveled up the mana threads and registered against me.

Instead of rising at once, I connected through the code Lee Hee-yeon had passed me. I had already tried it the day before. The interface was so intuitive there was hardly a method to learn.

I moved to option 2, Information, and entered a keyword.

I read the file on the Yu Ji-seong Office through several times. I understood, then, why Lee Hee-yeon had been so confident about the information section in particular.

Some of it was sorted by how grave the matter was. Some of it was laid out along a timeline. Quality intelligence the community could never have produced, perfectly organized.

"...Not bad."

I finished showering and left the motel. In the parking lot I hit the key fob.

Beep.

The car Yu Seo-ha had handed over was an SM5, an older model. I had asked her to pick something unremarkable, and she had shown up with some convertible sports car, so I had simply taken whichever of the office cars came to hand.

I started the engine and drove north. Between Daelim-dong and Mapo, crossing Seongsan Bridge, I glanced east on a whim.

Beyond the Han River, glittering in the morning sun, the skyscrapers and high-end residences rose in a wall of towers.

If that accident had never happened that day, would I have been living somewhere up there too?

Lee Tae-sik was probably living well somewhere in that skyline, feasting on the good life.

A question surfaced. A body no better than a worm's, unable to look after itself without mana threads—and inside it, a potential I could scarcely imagine. In that ironic reality, how far could I actually reach?

Screech!

Daelim-dong and Mapo were not far apart. I arrived at Yu Ji-seong's office, opened the back door, and went in. Perhaps because I had called ahead, the siblings—seated and murmuring together—turned toward me.

"Mr. Seong-han, you're here! You said you'd come yesterday and then changed the schedule, so I was worried. You aren't hurt, are you?"

"...As if that could happen. Little sister."

At Yu Seo-ha's worried words, Yu Ji-seong let out a short breath of a laugh. Then he came over and took the Breath of Hatred from me—a glass bottle filled with transparent heat-haze.

I was curious, privately. What exactly did one do with that?

"Quite a few factors affect the purity of a Breath of Hatred, but two are always named as the most important."

Yu Ji-seong muttered as he took up a pen-shaped device. He set the tip against the surface of the bottle and pressed the button. A red line passed straight through the glass.

"How many you killed, and how fast you killed them."

At his words I searched my memory. The time it had taken to kill some four thousand kobolds. Well. About... five seconds?

A beep sounded, and a figure appeared.

"...Huh?"

Yu Ji-seong tilted his head. He pressed the device to the bottle and turned it this way and that. Beep, beep—the measuring tone kept sounding.

"Oppa, what are you doing...?"

Unable to stand it any longer, Yu ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠Seo-ha stepped in.

"This machine's acting weird."

"Weird how? We just bought this thing."

Yu Seo-ha took the pen, set the device against the bottle, and pressed the button.

It didn't look any different from what her brother had done.

"Wha—why is it doing this?"

Sure enough, she tilted her head as well. She met Yu Ji-seong's eyes, then whipped her head around. Both of their gazes landed on me at once. Brow faintly creased, Yu Seo-ha asked me:

"This... what on earth did you kill and fill it with...?"

"...You went to the gorge?"

"How many did you take down at once...?"

A brief silence circled the room. Yu Ji-seong opened his mouth.

"Ah. In five seconds..."

Yu Seo-ha let out a breath of a laugh.

"Four thousand...?"

The two of them looked at each other. Then they burst out laughing.

"Hahahahaha."

"Puhahaha..."

Yu Seo-ha cut the awkward laughter short and looked at me. Confusion filled her eyes.

"You're... not joking?"

I nodded.

Yu Seo-ha said it with confidence.

"At this purity, you could easily get eight million won for it. Around six thousand dollars."

Astonishing. Eight million won from a few hours of hunting.

From the vantage of a man sleeping in a motel that ran eighty thousand won a night—about sixty dollars—the number refused to feel real.

Yu Ji-seong shook his head.

"This isn't something you sell for cash. We post it."

"Oh? We do?"

"Yeah. The purity's 4.6. Completely insane."

The Breath of Hatred, called the alpha and omega of alchemy. Maximum purity was 5.0. From roughly 3.8 upward it was recognized as high-grade, and once it passed 4.0 it was rated as top-tier material.

So the siblings' shock was no strange thing. A 4.6 was a figure only the highest-ranking mages could produce. Ah. Of course, those people were never idle enough to actually make a Breath of Hatred, and so in practice the thing was said to be enormously valuable.

"Mages who can sweep away four thousand kobolds in a single blow are anything but common. Just say it outright and no one will believe you—but post a 4.6 Breath, and they'll believe it to some extent."

Yu Seo-ha nodded.

"So?"

"So what do you mean, so? We land a better commission. A high-grade designated request would be ideal."

Hm. Something about that didn't line up. I carved letters into the empty air with a mana thread.

"Hahaha... please forget I said that. I must have been briefly out of my mind."

Yu Ji-seong laughed, broad and easy.

"Sending talent like this out on ordinary requests would be a national loss. I absolutely cannot do that."

"I'll adjust the request grades appropriately, so you needn't worry. Ah—while we're on the subject, would you like to see whether any of them appeal to you? They aren't designated requests, but there are quite a few worthwhile ones."

Welcome news. High-level requests not just anyone could approach. I had been thinking all along that among the rewards attached to them, there might be something capable of knitting severed nerves back together.

At that, Yu Ji-seong hurried to a cabinet and came back with an armful of folders.

Thud!

Papers piled like a mountain on the low sofa table. I let Yu Seo-ha's scolding—that it was far too much—go in one ear and out the other, and focused on the documents.

The details of the requests were beside the point. I checked only the rewards. I had to see whether any of them could join nerves back together.

One sheet. Two. Three.

Rustle. Rustle.

A fair amount of time passed. Yu Ji-seong left his seat, saying he would refresh the information in my file. Yu Seo-ha, who had been chattering away beside me, picked up her laptop and started on her own work.

For a long while there was only the tapping of keys and the turning of paper. Then one of the sounds stopped. I looked up. Yu Seo-ha, who had been staring at the laptop, had dropped her head and was nodding off.

How long had I been that focused? Outside, it had already gone dim. The office's visitors had thinned considerably, and Yu Ji-seong was gone from his seat.

Why am I still fine? Thinking about it, both sitting and turning pages were done entirely through mana threads, so it seemed my body wasn't particularly tired.

Rustle. Rustle.

I kept checking requests for a long while after that. Then the mana thread turning a page stopped short.

I had wondered whether anything I needed would be there. It really was.

Low skill levels meant a drop in physical ability. But that did not apply to me. Every one of my skills was already at maximum level.

What was more, I had already mastered six. If I absorbed the Cursed Heart, I might learn six new skills. Not six ordinary skills. It had said skills from outside the hierarchy. Beyond the flame line entirely—skills of a completely new order.

Yes. Like the piece of a puzzle, ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠the reward fit my trait exactly.

I extended a mana thread at once, gave the dozing, nodding Yu Seo-ha a light shake, and held the document out to her.

"Nn... hmm...?"

Blinking, her expression blank, she faced the letters I carved before her eyes.

Maybe I had found a shortcut.

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