#52 At Dawn (2)
#52 At Dawn (2)
The silence stretched. Wolf, who had shut off his sense of smell, wore a sour look. He glanced at Kang Tae-ho, still standing there blinking, then looked back down at the collapsed Hong Yuri and let out a sigh.
Back when he'd bitten off her wrist, he'd thought it was a little excessive. Excessive enough that Hong Yuri, of all people, had actually begged for forgiveness. You could chalk it up to blind rage, but thinking it over again, it was karmic justice—he just hadn't expected her to be in this kind of state. When she'd been sobbing and apologizing, he should have realized...
"Kyuu?"
Perry cocked her head as if asking what was going on. He stopped her before she could wander over to Hong Yuri out of curiosity, then extended a tentacle and lifted Hong Yuri up. The sight of a tentacle sprouting from the body of a small puppy was jarring. Kang Tae-ho snapped out of his daze and shook his head. Wolf spoke to him.
"...Who should I call?"
He could clean up what she'd spilled on the floor, but he could hardly be expected to wash her off as well. Kang Tae-ho pressed a hand to his forehead, said he'd bring someone right away, and left. Perry tilted her head again, as if wondering what he was doing now. ...In the brief moment it took to handle things, he sensed someone coming up.
"T-Teacher...?!"
The person Kang Tae-ho brought back was someone he had not expected at all. Baek So-yul. Her eyes went wide, and she immediately tried to rouse the fallen Hong Yuri, but a person who had fainted was not going to wake up that easily. He had splashed some water on her to cover things up, but... would she be okay with dirty water? In any case, Kang Tae-ho began fumbling his way through an excuse for the scene that had been staged.
Honestly, he didn't need to go this far...
'...I just feel a little sorry for her.'
That mountain of pride. That stubborn mess... By this point, it was practically in the realm of mental illness, and he clicked his tongue in regret. He did need Hong Yuri's help later for the Square...
'In this condition...'
Getting any help out of her seemed unlikely now. He shook his head with an inward sigh. Wouldn't it be better to approach a different mage? Dawn had other mages besides Hong Yuri. Anyway, once Baek So-yul had carried Hong Yuri away on her back, Kang Tae-ho furrowed his brow.
"What in the..."
He looked as though the unbelievable situation had drained every ounce of energy out of him. Shaking his head, he turned to look for Alpha again, only to let out a dry laugh when he saw the puppy was already gone.
"That damn guy."
At least he'd gotten some material to tease Hong Yuri with later. Kang Tae-ho snickered to himself as he headed alone toward the infirmary.
***
"Did you have a good walk?"
Wolf gave a rough nod at Kang Tae-jun's question. Kang Tae-jun was still organizing paperwork, and the sheer volume was staggering.
'Doesn't he get tired?'
The man had fought Kang Hoon and was injured, yet here he was doing paperwork. "Iron Man" might be a more fitting title for him than Sword Saint.
'Ah. Iron Man was somebody else, wasn't he.'
"Kyuuu~"
While playing with Perry, Wolf mulled over the brief glimpse he'd caught of Baek So-yul earlier. Why was she even here? A plausible theory came to mind. The Academy had been destroyed, the Prodigal Sons were targeting her—Dawn was probably keeping her under protection. He couldn't think of any other reason.
"......."
The way she called Hong Yuri "teacher" suggested she was learning from her, but... honestly, he couldn't quite make sense of it.
'Does she still not know?'
—Baek So-yul's magical power was pathetically low. He'd checked with Insight; her mana was only 307. Not even the B-class average. Still, given the circumstances, and considering she was still an academy student, she was clearly exceptional. Exceptional, yes...
'Considering her name is Baek So-yul, she should be different.'
She was the Witch. The only person who could become the Witch's Calamity. —The Witch's Calamity. Back when the Sewer Calamity had occurred in Busan and thrown everything into chaos, Baek So-yul had been kidnapped, subjected to some kind of experiment by the Prodigal Sons, and reborn as the Witch after losing her reason. And that method...
"What's wrong?"
The heat must have risen inside him without his noticing. He answered Kang Tae-jun's question with a dismissive "Nothing" and forced himself to calm down. It had been the same during the fight against Chimmuk-haneun Ip—this phenomenon was getting worse by the day. He really needed to meet the System as soon as possible.
'First things first: Baek So-yul.'
Back to the main point. There was a very specific reason why only Baek So-yul could become the Witch. Her constitution. Her mana absorption rate. Specifically, her extraordinary talent for absorbing external mana, especially from sources like spiritual medicine. Simply put, feed her spiritual medicine and her mana would practically clone itself.
'Not that spiritual medicine is easy to come by, of course.'
So they had used a different method. The same method Blind Spot had used before: grinding down countless humans and turning them into mana. In the end, after all manner of experiments, Baek So-yul was forcibly injected with mana, lost her reason, and became the Witch, slaughtering indiscriminately.
'Not that it will happen now, but...'
Now that the Prodigal Sons had been rooted out of this land, the probability of Baek So-yul becoming the Witch was near zero. Even if remnants remained, he had no intention of letting them act. But since he couldn't personally watch over Baek So-yul twenty-four hours a day, he needed to raise her own level to a certain point. Not enough to fight a high-ranking officer, maybe, but enough that she wouldn't fall to some nameless grunt.
As he'd said, the method wasn't hard. Just feed her spiritual medicine. He turned to speak to Kang Tae-jun, but the man was already on a call.
"...Understood. If he's fine with it, there shouldn't be a problem. More importantly, did you see Team Leader 3?"
[Jinha? I saw him through the window. Didn't look like he'd die.]
"That's a small mercy."
Even without focusing, his D-rank Hearing skill let him catch every word. It sounded like Kang Tae-ho was calling from the infirmary.
"And the others?"
[The ones badly hurt are in surgery. The rest can be discharged in a few days, they said.]
"...I see. Anything else?"
[Well... I figure I should at least show my face at the funerals for the dead and old lady Ju-gyo.]
There was a note of bitterness in Kang Tae-ho's voice. Kang Tae-jun sighed. They seemed to be sharing news about Neverland. Annihilation had been averted, but so many had still died. They'd probably have their hands full with the aftermath for a while. After talking a little longer, Kang Tae-jun hung up and stared up at the ceiling for a moment. Wolf spoke to him.
—By the time the night had deepened and Kang Tae-jun had finally finished processing that mountain of paperwork, he rose from his seat.
"...Time to head out."
Perry, who had been sleeping soundly, rubbed her eyes and cocked her head. He stroked her and told her she could sleep more, but she didn't seem interested.
"Leaving for the day, sir?"
Kang Tae-jun acknowledged the duty clansman's greeting and stepped outside, then got into his parked car. Honestly, just running there would have been several times faster, but there was a condition: his form could not be exposed. No choice but to endure the frustration. After nearly an hour of driving...
'It's been a while.'
They had returned to the familiar Jirisan Mountain. He could still feel it—the high ridgelines and the dense thickets. Just a little, he felt almost like he'd come home. Kang Tae-jun's gaze kept drifting toward him, likely noticing how worn out he was, but it wasn't his fault he wasn't sleeping.
He reactivated the sense of smell he'd shut down, followed a scent preserved in his memory, and before long, he found what he was looking for.
'It's still here.'
He'd been a little worried wild animals might have eaten them, but thankfully not.
—[54-Year-Old Ginseng]
The ginseng patch that bear had shown him way back when he was a Warg. He himself could no longer use it—there was a limit to how much the same spiritual medicine could raise his mana—but for others, it was a different story.
Kang Tae-jun couldn't hide his astonishment and let out an exclamation. The fatigue from earlier was nowhere to be seen; his eyes were seriously gleaming. Ginseng it might be, but even a quick glance told you the years buried here were on another level. And the scale was not small... Kang Tae-jun nodded.
"...Impressive."
When they'd scoured Jirisan looking for Alpha, they hadn't found a single trace, and he'd never imagined there would be a ginseng patch left untouched. Actually, when Wolf had made that sudden suggestion to come to Jirisan, Kang Tae-jun had half-suspected it was some kind of trap...
"......."
But seeing the field of buried ginseng, that suspicion evaporated completely. Kang Tae-jun smiled bitterly, mocking himself. He'd said he would entrust himself to prove his trustworthiness, and yet he hadn't really been trusting at all. In the meantime, Wolf gave Perry a root of ginseng.
"Kyuu~?"
Perry sniffed it with interest, then ate it and immediately grimaced. Still, she didn't spit it out. That was commendable. Maybe she'd sensed the mana contained inside.
'I still have some of the Juggernaut's flesh chunks left.'
He'd grabbed them from inside the Juggernaut when he'd devoured Chimmuk-haneun Ip. But given Perry's appetite lately, even that would be gone fast. A phantom beast like Fairy Dragon wouldn't die from starvation, but deep down, he didn't want her to go hungry.
'For a while, I'll feed her ginseng first...'
Meanwhile, Kang Tae-jun was also gathering ginseng into the backpack he'd brought. Wolf did the same using his Stowage skill, but couldn't even collect half of it. Seeing the ginseng field far more vast than he'd imagined, Kang Tae-jun clicked his tongue.
"An incredible amount."
An expression of satisfaction, rarely seen on him. Wolf had said he'd give him some of the ginseng just for coming along, so from Kang Tae-jun's perspective, this was a completely unexpected windfall. Spiritual medicine wasn't something you could obtain just by throwing money around.
'Doesn't matter to me.'
If a hunter's level rose even a little, that was only good news for him anyway. And if he could put the Dawn Lord in his debt for the price of a few ginseng roots, that was a bargain.
***
"......?"
Deep into the night, Baek So-yul, who had been tasked with looking after Hong Yuri, woke to an indistinct noise. When she looked beside her, she frowned. The spot where Hong Yuri should have been was empty. Had she woken up in the meantime? Baek So-yul was about to pull back the blanket and get up when she froze.
"———."
Because of a sound coming from somewhere. Somewhere—she thought, but there were only so many places a sound could come from through a wall besides the bathroom. What was she doing in there without even turning the light on?
"Tea..."
Baek So-yul started to call out for her but closed her lips. She realized the sound she was hearing was weeping. More precisely, stifled, sobbing cries.
"......."
Thinking back, it was strange. Rather, everything was strange. A hunter doesn't faint just from a fall. She hadn't asked because Team Leader 2, the Swordmaster, seemed reluctant to answer, but her phobia must have flared up again. Having a rough idea now why the water had been spilled, Baek So-yul sighed soundlessly.
"———!"
The stifled sobbing grew louder. She could hear the sound of someone crying into their clothes, wiping away tears. When the crying eventually broke free into full-on wailing, Baek So-yul stood before the darkened bathroom door, let her hand fall from the doorknob, and released a long sigh.
There couldn't possibly be a dog inside the clan building... so what on earth had the teacher seen? Could the Swordmaster have played a prank on her?
"......."
Baek So-yul thought about it, then shook her head. She pretended to be asleep for the sake of her teacher who would return exhausted from crying, but sleep never came.
—That night, the two of them lay awake until dawn.