That Curse Must Hurt
That curse must hurt like hell.
The Healer Association wasn't made up of healers alone.
There were also "operators"—people whose job was to protect the rights of healers by interfering with anyone who threatened those rights. That was the polite way of putting it.
In reality, they were just thugs hired to harass any healer who had the misfortune of landing on Lee Jiseon's blacklist. Lee Jiseon, after all, might as well have been the Association itself.
Go Jongtae, the curse user, was exactly that kind of man.
And he had conveniently awakened a skill perfect for the job.
"Hello? Jiseon. Yeah, it's me. That woman you marked last time? She's doing business out here. Hm? Mess with her? Well, yeah—that's why I called. Oh, and there's a little girl selling heals for thirty thousand won. Looks like she knows Yun Doa. What? Handle it myself? Sure, sure. Just cut me a deal on heals later."
Go Jongtae hung up and immediately fixed his eyes on the girl standing with Yun Doa.
There was something… strange about her. Something almost uncanny. For a fleeting moment he wondered if she might be a model, or a child actress.
"Damn. Kid's got a mysterious face on her. Almost makes you hesitate to mess with her."
He said it, but his hands never stopped. He was already preparing to cast Dispel on the girl.
Perfect timing—a customer's here. Might as well start by tanking her reputation a little.
The moment the thought crossed his mind and Dispel activated—
"Ghk—!"
He couldn't breathe. Agony slammed into him so hard and so fast that the air left his lungs. It felt like every limb was being torn from his body, like his entire frame had been set on fire.
"AAAAAARGH!"
Go Jongtae collapsed to the ground, unable to hold himself up. The pain was so overwhelming he wanted to black out—and yet he couldn't. He knew exactly what this was.
A curse.
As a curse user himself, he recognized it better than anyone. Tears and snot streaming down his face, he forced himself to search for whoever had cast it.
And there, in his blurred vision, was a tiny figure.
What the…
A palm-sized fairy in a mage's robe was looking down at him—and laughing.
A man walking down the street had suddenly collapsed.
The people nearby—hunters, more precisely—swarmed in at once. That was only natural. Ellie and Yun Doa were among them.
"That's…"
Yun Doa's expression hardened. So did the faces of the hunters around them. Given that this was the entrance to a fairly high-rank gate, there was no shortage of veteran hunters present—and those veterans recognized the man's symptoms almost immediately.
A thick violet aura was rising from the fallen man's body, after all.
"That's a curse, isn't it?"
"And not just one."
"If this goes wrong, he's done for."
"Is there a healer here?!"
Yun Doa stepped forward.
"I'll… I'll try healing him."
Honestly, she had no confidence. Even at a glance, the traces of the curse looked severe. Could her healing even lift something like this?
Doubt clawed at her, but trying came first. She stretched out both hands and activated her heal—
Shaaaa—!
And Arwen saw it.
"Ppyu?"
Her queen was looking down at the collapsed man with a worried expression.
As expected of Her Majesty! To show mercy even to the one who cast the curse…
In truth, Ellie was thinking something closer to, A curse? Scary. They said it was stacked, so it must hurt like crazy… But still.
Arwen turned her gaze back to the man. Compared to the look she'd given her queen, her expression was ice-cold.
"Ppyuppyu."
For Her Majesty's sake, I'll let you off just this once.
Arwen lifted the curse she'd placed on him—perfectly timed with Yun Doa's healing.
"Oh! The curse is breaking!"
"She's lifting a curse that heavy?"
"Whoa… her skills are no joke."
"Nice work, miss! You just saved a life!"
The crowd's praise washed over her, but Yun Doa could only blink in dazed confusion.
I… it actually worked?
Yun Doa—you've probably heard the name at least once.
She pulled someone back from the brink today.
Yun Doa treated it.
As far as I know she's a C-rank healer… is that rank even right?
The same gate where Yun Doa saved someone today.
There was a tiny girl with her—looked like a friend—and she was walking around with a fairy as her summon.
Could it be…?
Yun Doa blinked.
It had been a good day—she'd made decent money, something nice had happened—so she'd brought Ellie to a Korean beef restaurant. And yet her eyes kept drifting to the summons at the girl's side.
No matter how I look at them… those are fairies, right?
"Ppi!"
"Ppyu!"
The fairies were happily munching on the white kimchi that had come as a side dish, while Ellie watched them with a fond little smile.
Yun Doa slid her gaze sideways and checked her phone.
Today's breaking headlines.
An unidentified hunter who had rocketed to rank 4 the moment the leaderboard reset at midnight last night.
Fairy King.
Yun Doa hadn't seen it herself, but the story was that the second the rankings refreshed in the early hours, a hunter named Fairy King had instantly claimed the fourth spot. Reset rankings updated on strength alone—which meant an unprecedented monster had just been born in South Korea.
The Association and every major guild were already in chaos over it.
And a clue connected to that very Fairy King they were all hunting for… was sitting right in front of her?
No. No way…
Ellie, the monster who hit rank 4?
Even so, that couldn't be it. Ellie was a healer—the kind who treated other people's bodies.
Unless she awakened self-heal…
If she'd awakened a self-heal skill, there might be a slim chance. There were precedents. Then again—even with self-heal, rank 4 was absurd, wasn't it?
No matter how she turned it over, she couldn't believe the tiny girl across the table was rank 4. So Yun Doa simply focused on grilling the meat.
"Is the meat good?"
—Nod nod.
"Unnie's treating today, so eat as much as you want."
—Nod nod.
Hunter Association, President's Office.
Association President Go Ganguk stood quietly, gazing out over downtown Seoul through the glass, and thought back to the conversation he'd had with Origin Guild Leader Seo Eunha not long ago.
"President… it's possible a disaster-class monster has appeared in Seoul."
A disaster-class monster. A threat level high enough to wipe out an entire city—the kind that demanded multiple S-rank awakeners.
"Could you explain in more detail?"
Instead of answering, Seo Eunha had held out her wrist. A leaf-shaped mark was etched clearly into the skin.
Go Ganguk knew that mark. Five years ago, an S-rank gate had opened in the DMZ. Every survivor who miraculously returned from it had carried the same brand.
A curse mark. A powerful curse that triggered the moment certain information was spoken aloud.
"…I see. I understand."
He hadn't asked for further explanation. The moment he saw the mark, he knew what Seo Eunha was trying to tell him.
That disaster-class monster was connected to the S-rank gate that had opened in the DMZ.
And now, as the monthly rankings reset, a name had planted itself squarely in the upper tier of the hunter leaderboard.
4th — Fairy King
"…Coincidence?"
Knock, knock, knock.
A light rap on the office door, and someone entered—Kim Dongwook, Director of the Hunter Management Bureau under the Association.
"Mr. President. The meeting is ready."
Go Ganguk nodded and made his way to the conference room. Department heads from every division were already seated. Taking the head of the table, he surveyed the room and spoke.
"I reached my conclusion on the way here. I suspect you all feel the same."
The directors nodded as one.
Go Ganguk's voice was firm.
"This person. Let's find them."