Chapter 41
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Translator: uly
Chapter: 41
Chapter Title: How to Make the Princess Happy?
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The first ones to be shocked were my parents.
"She said you could just go?!"
"R-Really...?"
"Yes."
They both seemed utterly unable to believe that Princess Kurumi had let me leave her side.
"I figured you'd at least pull some prank or something before coming back..."
"What the hell are you saying in front of the kid?!"
Thwack!
Mr. Lee Seok-gyu, who had let that slip, got his skull cracked by Aunt Rolling's knuckle rap and passed out cold.
The next to show surprise were the three guards responsible for the mansion's security.
"I thought you were clocking out... but doesn't this mean you basically got fired?"
"Haha... Yeah, pretty much."
Mr. Joo Sang-ho clicked his tongue sympathetically on my behalf.
"Did something bad happen with the princess or anything?"
"No idea..."
Ms. Yoo Cheol-ran pondered the cause alongside me.
But we never did figure it out.
"Hmm..."
"Sophia...?"
And finally, Sophia.
I'd expected her to jump for joy and burst out laughing, but surprisingly, she wore a grave expression.
"A Beast Hunter pushing Shin-woo away...? Is that even possible...?"
"You okay, Sophia?"
"Huh? Oh, yeah! I'm fine. Just a bit worried..."
"I see."
Anyway, after bidding farewell to the three who had come to see me off like that, I remembered my original job was Hunter Meister.
On my way to the workshop to clear my head and work up a sweat hammering and smithing...
"Hello?"
"......"
It was the second day since I'd left the mansion.
I'd stopped by the Hunter Association branch where the workshop was located.
"Could we talk for a moment, Shin-woo? Just you and me."
Branch Chief Lee Jin-ah was standing right at the workshop entrance, as if she'd been waiting for me. Our eyes met.
I knew exactly what lurked behind that beaming smile of hers.
Someone I couldn't trust.
To me, someone who'd gone through life-or-death battles, Lee Jin-ah was that kind of person. Naturally, I wanted nothing to do with her—not even talk—just ignore her and walk past.
But the problem was her position.
"Come with me to the branch chief's office. Right now."
She said it with a smile playing on her lips, and a mere Hunter Meister like me had no choice but to obey the branch chief.
And so, I set foot for the first time on the top floor of the Hunter Association's Korean branch, designed to feel completely open on all sides.
'Looks the same in the game and in reality.'
"Care for a drink? Tea, coffee, even booze is fine."
"Ah... No booze, thanks. I only drink once a week."
"Oh? That's commendable. I like that."
The drink Branch Chief Lee Jin-ah offered me as I sat down was Auramin C, good for hangovers.
'I drank two days ago, not yesterday...'
It probably wasn't poisoned, right?
I thought about it for a second.
But unless it was during my monsterized state, there was no reason for her to bother poisoning Han Shin-woo in human form.
Gulp, gulp.
"...You drank it without even suspecting anything."
"Well, you're Mom's friend. You wouldn't give me something bad, right?"
"Hehe. Fair point."
Wanting to hear her out and get this over with, I downed the Auramin C in one go.
Then Branch Chief Lee Jin-ah smiled brightly and began her story.
"Then I'll get straight to it."
"Okay."
Was she going to hold me responsible for getting chased away by Princess Kurumi?
I perked up my ears, bracing for a scolding.
"Princess Kurumi is going to die soon."
"......Pardon?"
I suddenly heard some nonsense that made my ears ring.
"Who... Who's going to kill her...?"
"Princess Kurumi. And it's not murder by someone. ...Or is it? Yeah, that might be right."
"An attack?! Another attack coming...!"
I shot up from my seat, ready to rush back to the mansion where Princess Kurumi lived.
But then the next words from behind me.
"Not an attack. A 'curse'."
Curse.
It was the most powerful debuff among the countless status ailments in the [Hunters Blood] world.
"A c-curse...?"
"Yes. That's right."
"So, someone put a curse on Princess Kurumi?"
"Yes. To be precise, she's had it since birth."
"Since birth...?"
Branch Chief Lee Jin-ah smiled at my baffled expression before dropping the horrific truth.
"Yes. The illegitimate daughter raised by the Kitsune clan not out of love, but to bear a curse—that's the true identity of Princess Kitsune Kurumi."
Born to receive a curse?
Illegitimate daughter?
This was TMI so new even I, a veteran of the original story, had never heard it.
What the hell was all this bullshit?
I just sat there gaping, unsure where to even start.
"The Kitsune clan has passed down the Beast Hunter bloodline for generations. You already know that, right?"
Branch Chief Lee Jin-ah started sipping an espresso so bitter she added five sugar cubes.
I nodded, and she continued with a smile.
"The monsters they've served generation after generation were all legendary beasts that left their mark on Japanese history."
Slurp.
"Especially the four monsters called the Four Divine Beasts, used by direct descendants—they're all A-rank threats, terrifying creatures."
Slurp.
"...So what does that have to do with the curse engraved in Princess Kurumi's body?"
The greatness of the Kitsune clan and the curse supposedly sealed inside Princess Kurumi.
From what I'd heard so far, they seemed totally unrelated.
But her next words.
"Amaterasu."
"...!!"
The moment I heard that monster's name, I instinctively shut my mouth.
'Amaterasu here, out of nowhere?'
Amaterasu.
Otherwise known as the Abyss Giant.
In the original [Hunters Blood], it was one of the final bosses you could only face by taking the Japan route.
No matter if you won or lost the showdown, it would flood the entire Japanese archipelago—one of the worst monsters.
Even I, who'd cleared the final boss, had given up on it early after buying the game, one of the few I couldn't beat.
"The strongest and worst monster in Japanese history, Amaterasu. The ones who succeeded in sealing it and earned recognition as one of the world's top ten clans were the Kitsune clan from 2,200 years ago."
The direct descendants of the Kitsune clan, whom I never even encountered despite riding the Japan route, supposedly waiting for a later DLC.
I'd never dreamed they held such a secret.
...So what then?
"You're saying this curse inside Princess Kurumi is connected?"
"Yes, very much so."
A princess born cursed by her own clan.
A worst-case monster sealed by that clan 2,200 years ago.
And finally, the Four Divine Beasts meant for direct descendants—all four sealed inside the illegitimate fox-child Kurumi.
The reason was simple.
"The Kitsune clan calls it a 'seal,' but that's only half right and half wrong."
"What do you mean...?"
"Amaterasu wasn't sealed by the Kitsune clan. To be exact, it 'allowed' itself to be sealed."
"Allowed...?"
I tilted my head at Branch Chief Lee Jin-ah's words.
"Why?"
"Simple. They made a contract."
"A contract?"
"Yes. A contract."
The family with the purest spiritual energy in Japan at the time.
In exchange for feeding on their descendants generation after generation, Amaterasu agreed to quietly reside in the sacrificial vessel's body.
And it made an additional contract with the four monsters called the Four Divine Beasts: to share a bit of its power with them while they dwelled in the vessel together.
"Wait. Then..."
"Yes. What Amaterasu 'eats' is the human sacrifice's 'lifespan'."
"Lifespan...?"
"In exchange for that lifespan, it doesn't go berserk and even shares power with the clan's inherited monsters—a mutually beneficial arrangement."
"So Princess Kurumi is..."
"She's the so-called intermediary in that contract... an 'energy storage unit,' if you will."
Once Princess Kurumi, having given all her lifespan, dies, Amaterasu returns underground to the Kitsune clan, awaiting the next sacrifice.
And the Four Divine Beasts, emerging from the dead princess's body empowered by Amaterasu's energy, become far stronger—then, as per clan tradition, each pureblood direct descendant takes one to serve.
In other words, Kurumi was a disposable pawn from the start.
"This is insane...!"
People whose faces I'd never even seen in the original story.
I'd visited their mansion hoping to see them on the Japan route later, but the clan members I'd spoken to acted like they knew nothing about the Kitsune clan's daughter who'd gone to Korea.
At first, I thought it was just foreshadowing for a future DLC sales gimmick.
But no.
By that point, Kurumi had already fulfilled her role as sacrifice and was no longer of this world.
"I-Isn't there anything we can do about this?"
"The curse?"
"Yes! The curse! There has to be a way to lift it..."
The curse, rated as [Hunters Blood]'s worst status ailment.
Once afflicted, no recovery potion worked—you had to meet the specific condition to lift it.
And if you could meet that condition...
"Curses disappear completely, like all the debuffs never happened, once the condition is met!"
Princess Kurumi's lifespan would return to normal.
And as I said that—my own question—I realized the method to lift Amaterasu's curse, something it'd repeated for 2,200 years.
The conditions for lifting powerful curses like this were usually the same.
"The way to break Amaterasu's curse is..."
"Sharp as ever."
"To defeat Amaterasu itself—the one who cast it."
"Yes. But it's the monster of monsters that no one in Kitsune history has dared to command."
"......"
"So that's off the table. The reason I told you this, Shin-woo, is so you can at least make her remaining days happy..."
Me, seriously pondering, and Branch Chief Lee Jin-ah, about to get to the real point.
But our conversation ended there.
Ring ring ring.
"Ah, excuse me a moment."
A phone rang from Branch Chief Lee Jin-ah's pocket.
And as she picked up...
"Senior! Big trouble!!"
The voice boomed through the entire branch chief's office.
No matter how I listened, it was Mr. Joo Sang-ho.
And his next words.
"Th-the princess has disappeared!!"
At the news that Princess Kurumi had vanished from the mansion, my face and Branch Chief Lee Jin-ah's hardened simultaneously.