Gestation
"Step aside. Before I cut you in half."
Lee Eunha's voice wasn't just vicious—it was flat-out chilling. I broke into a cold sweat and waved my hands in frantic denial.
"Eunha, it's really a misunderstanding! Whoa, whoa—hands off the sheath. Please don't draw that."
Damn it. Wrong move.
Her eyes were already half-rolled back with killing intent. She shoved me aside and flung the bathroom door wide open.
KUWAAAAAH—!
The instant the door swung open, a blast of freezing frost poured out into the living room, as if someone had pried open a walk-in freezer. The bathroom was sheathed in ice like the heart of a glacier, and at its center stood Jung Hayul, gripping the sink with a face flushed faintly pink.
…A temporary mana surge. That was all.
"……Oppa?"
Eunha fixed me with a look that demanded an explanation. Fair enough, calling it a misunderstanding was a stretch.
I let out a small sigh and laid out the facts.
"Hayul isn't a Successor yet. I was running tests to designate her as one, and something went wrong. I shoved her in there because it looked like the whole apartment was about to come down."
It was force majeure. The bathroom, sadly, was a total loss. If the pipes hadn't frozen over, I'd like to think that was divine mercy taking pity on me— shoved her in there to save the living room, after all.
Eunha seemed to be nodding along, actually buying it for once. That was the exact moment Jung Hayul, who'd been cooling her flushed face with cold water at the sink, straightened up. Sweeping back her wet white hair with quiet dignity, she spoke in her usual placid tone.
"Do not concern yourself, Your Honor."
Her cheeks were still faintly flushed as she declared:
"I have endured with distinction the trial You set before me in order to receive me as Your Successor."
"……It wasn't a trial. It was my mistake. I keep telling you."
I muttered this while pressing a hand to my forehead, but it didn't land on Jung Hayul in the slightest. She simply stood there, glowing with private gratitude, completing her deep misunderstanding all on her own.
And as Eunha watched this unfold, sparks lit up in her eyes.
"……Successor? Trial?"
Clack!
Both of Eunha's hands slammed down on either side of my head. Was she upset that the number of Successors was growing without her? I was wiping away a fresh wave of cold sweat, trying to read her intent, when—
"Wuuu…."
Her lips trembled, and tears welled up in her eyes.
At the same moment, my frantically spinning brain came to a screeching halt.
"I spent three whole days grinding without a single break, just doing everything you told me to."
"E-Eunha?"
"Hik! I-I even raised my level by ten like you said, and I worked so hard to earn money too!"
Uh-oh… at this rate, I'm trash.
"But some other woman gets to be a Successor, gets a trial, all that—without me even knowing? Without any effort? For free, at home?"
Huh?
……
Ah!
Come to think of it, I'd designated Eunha as a Successor and then never once told her she actually was one.
……Though setting that aside, the verdict of "trash" still stood.
"Well…… you see, Eunha?"
I gently took hold of the hands that were splayed beside my head and spoke with as much contrition as I could muster.
"I'm sorry. It slipped my mind and I never told you."
"Hik… Slipped your what?!"
"Eunha, you're my first Successor."
At those words, Eunha stopped sniffling. Instead, she began to weep in absolute silence, tears pouring out by the bucketful.
Her unexpected reaction froze me solid. I glanced toward the bathroom at Jung Hayul, but she apparently had no solutions either, quietly averting her gaze.
For a while I just held Eunha in an awkward half-embrace, patting her back.
"Huwaaaah—!"
Eunha proceeded to give a masterclass in wailing. Her shoulders heaved without pause as she spilled out her grievances.
"I-I… hik! I thought you were discriminating against me for being D-rank…!"
……There was no room for excuses here.
I was the one at fault, full stop. I quietly accepted my karma and kept patting her back.
"Why would I discriminate against you? You're my first masterpiece."
"Because she's S-rank… sob! I thought you were done with me and moving on to her!"
……
Laying it all out one by one, the pile of karma was mountainous. In my eyes, Jung Hayul was just a lunatic living a low-life existence in the real world, but she was still a bona fide S-rank hunter. To Eunha, she probably looked like an impossibly distant mountain, one she could never hope to climb.
Granted, it hadn't been intentional, but I'd also put off giving Eunha an answer about her feelings until after we conquered the 14th Floor—yet another number that sat one floor higher than Jung Hayul's. A tangle of factors wove together, and of course Eunha was self-conscious around her. The anxiety born of that self-consciousness was entirely valid.
If I were in her shoes, I'd have thought the same.
I calmly crouched down to meet Eunha at eye level.
"It's true I'm working with Jung Hayul. Her stigmata interested me, so I reached out. I think seeing it through to the end is the right thing to do."
Yes, the quest system had pushed me toward it, but that didn't dilute my resolve one bit. And Eunha herself—I'd taken her on as a Successor because I was every bit as serious about her.
"And that goes for you too."
Holding her gaze even deeper, I put my heart into every single word, hoping to ease even a fraction of her anxiety.
"Not once have I ever thought of you as a replaceable part. You're a partner I move forward with."
As I quietly held her gaze, Eunha collected herself and gave a huge sniffle.
"……Do I look pathetic right now?"
"No. You look beautiful."
I meant it.
From her awkward perch in the bathroom, Jung Hayul's gaze slid silently onto me. What. Why. What.
"Wh-why are you groveling to a D-rank?"
……It seemed I had thoroughly made it onto her blacklist.
"Just to be clear—you don't genuinely believe you're D-rank, right?"
"……I don't. I got a recommendation for re-evaluation, after all."
"Then where do you think you actually stand?"
"Way higher! ……C? Maybe B?"
At that answer, I stared blankly at Jung Hayul in the bathroom. She shook her head in exasperation and stepped forward.
"Lee Eunha. To put this bluntly—if your skills were truly below B-rank, White Night would never have approached you."
Jung Hayul's gaze shifted—from my guest to the raid team leader of the White Night Guild.
"File for a re-evaluation. That you carry a D-rank after the Benefactor has taken you in hand is frankly an insult to his work. Even calculated with extreme conservatism, you could readily secure an A-rank."
This was recognition delivered firsthand by an S-rank hunter—Rank 8 in the nation, no less. Eunha stared, dumbfounded by the unexpected assessment.
"……A-rank?"
Watching her, something stubborn flared up deep in my own chest too.
A-rank? My first masterpiece is going to stop at A?
'Come to think of it, that actually pisses me off.'
To think my first Successor had been fretting over a meaningless D-rank label.
……I was well aware that my own stake in things had contributed heavily to that. Still, this was a matter of my pride too.
I gripped Eunha's shoulders tight.
"Eunha."
"Y-yes?!"
"We're going for the re-evaluation. The world won't end because you took a day off. But don't you dare plan on settling for a comfortable A-rank—"
Until now, I'd deliberately restrained her damage scaling, worried that her senses were growing warped. But it was time to throw off those shackles. I took stock of my assets with complete seriousness.
◈ Fragments of Expansion:156
◈ Shards of Regret:78
◈ Fragments of Chaos:29
◈ Skeins of Fate:3
……
Practically every one of these was a resource Eunha herself had earned. I really had been skimping on the reinvestment lately. I'd have to reflect on that.
"The ten points you earned over three days, plus every asset I own. It all goes into you."
It was time to move past that makeshift mid-tier farming setup. Scouring for mana-convert nodes? No—the Shards of Regret were staying in reserve for when I could simmer them into a proper soup.
"I will make you S-rank. That's a promise."
At my declaration, the eyes that had been a soggy mess of tears mere moments ago began to fill—not with despair, but with pure, brimming excitement.
"……Okay. Coming from you, Oppa—and not just anybody—I believe you."
Jung Hayul, who had been quietly observing the exchange, let out a small cough.
"I trust Your Honor's abilities without a shred of doubt, but we do face one small problem."
We relocated to the living room. Jung Hayul, wearing an expression of great apology, broached the topic with care.
"The world's eyes are sharper than you'd think. If Lee Eunha suddenly rises to S-rank with no guild affiliation whatsoever, people will start digging for whoever stands behind her."
"Gasp, really?"
When Eunha asked with a guileless face, Jung Hayul nodded gravely.
"The first place they'll look is the people closest to you."
……
That was undeniably a problem. The person closest to Eunha was me.
And I had absolutely no means of defending myself.
"Most will try to approach within the bounds of common sense, but even that may discomfort you, Benefactor. And there do exist those with whom common sense simply does not work."
"Heeeng, then what do we do?"
"Since it would diminish your dignity, Benefactor, deliberately taking a lower rank as camouflage is out of the question."
Jung Hayul drummed her fingers on the side table, lost in thought for a moment, before speaking slowly.
"The simplest solution is for you, Your Honor, to keep your distance from Lee Eunha. Records—well, this place belongs to White Night, so doctoring them appropriately would pose little difficulty."
"Absolutely not!"
The refusal was instant. I agreed with Eunha wholeheartedly.
Physical distance or not, zero contact was impossible. Her stigmata would need continuous maintenance, after all.
"Other options?"
When I asked, Jung Hayul made a subtly regretful expression.
……It was the briefest flicker, but I definitely saw it.
"Lee Eunha could enter White Night's fold for a time. The absence of any prior activity record as a White Night member might raise suspicion, but few would dig that deep."
"Few would, huh…."
This one didn't sit right with me either. It meant the guarantee wasn't 100%.
……It's an obvious truth that anyone with eyes knows, but the gap between 99% and 100% is enormous.
"Anything else?"
"……I hesitate to recommend this one, but—the alternative is to publicize Your Honor's existence instead."
"Publicize it?"
"Without exposing your actual identity, we put forward your gallery handle—HackSlashFanatics."
Oho. Now that piqued my interest.
"Give the public an official point of contact, and all that attention will funnel in a single direction."
Jung Hayul's clear blue eyes settled into a calm, steady light.