The Elixir's Whereabouts

I stared at the map-like item in my hand, lost in thought. Yeonhee would be difficult even for me… How long could I keep other people inside my subspace? And how many at once?

Thirty minutes again. Tsk… Got it.

Doesn’t that ability have a cooldown?

Ran scratched the back of his head with one wing.

Figures.

Still, the more Ran grew, the more possibilities he would be able to draw out for me. He would become a tremendous asset going forward. If I could test out abilities I had never been able to use whenever he pulled in a new possibility, I would surely get the hang of them faster. And ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠eventually, I would be able to manifest them on my own.

Good. Things are coming together.

Feeling a strange sense of satisfaction as I slowly pieced the puzzle together, I devoted myself to sword training once again that day.

Master said he’d come back in three days. If I want to show even the slightest improvement by then, practice is the only answer.

I trained until the early hours of the morning, then took a short moment to meditate before pulling out the strange item called the Elixir’s Whereabouts.

A prankster god’s arrangement, huh… It can even revive someone who’s been dead for a long time. That’s insane. No wonder the other gods would be furious.

The explanation was fascinating, but it felt like a story from another world. Gods… I suppose it referred to beings like that colossal entity I had seen before.

But what the hell is this?

What puzzled me was the state of the map itself.

What kind of map is this? Does it not even know what a map is supposed to look like?

Not a single proper line was drawn on it. Only four dots slowly blinked in place.

…What is this? It feels similar to a minimap.

When I pressed the blinking dot at the very bottom, a message suddenly appeared.

Ah… So that’s why. The King of the Undead. I wondered why an item like this suddenly appeared as a reward.

It felt like a quest granted to anyone who stepped onto that path.

I looked at the condition the system had presented and doubted my eyes for a moment.

……Is this thing insane?

Even as a joke, there had to be limits. Asking me to defeat a Great Calamity that was driving an entire nation toward ruin? This wasn’t something I could attempt right now.

Just in case, I pressed the remaining three dots as well.

Haha… It wasn’t a joke. This is completely insane…

Every single one of them was a Great Calamity that had thrown an entire country into chaos before falling into slumber or was currently in the middle of wreaking destruction.

At least the Devouring Creeper is relatively better. That one has a clear elemental weakness.

That said, whether I could actually inflict meaningful damage on a Great Calamity was another question entirely.

If I could stack Flame Explosion five times, maybe… But honestly, I probably wouldn’t even be able to get close.

At the moment, it was so far beyond me that I couldn’t even picture it in my head. Even the small monsters the Devouring Creeper spat out from its vines were monsters that far surpassed B-grade. Approaching its main body was simply impossible for me right now.

I guess I can forget about this for the time being. Thanks for making sure I don’t even feel any lingering attachment, you bastard.

Still, it was an interesting enough topic ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠that it made for the perfect short break during sword training. I cleanly let go of any lingering feelings about the Elixir and resumed my training.

The next day.

We went to visit Cha Jin-hyeok, but we couldn’t even exchange greetings with him.

“He won’t stay unconscious like this, right?”

Yeonhee asked anxiously because Cha Jin-hyeok had fallen asleep yesterday and still hadn’t regained consciousness.

I told her that it wasn’t uncommon for hunters who suffered severe injuries to fall into a coma, and although she nodded, she couldn’t take her eyes off him.

Seeing the children’s worried faces gathered around Cha Jin-hyeok’s bed, I felt both sorry and a little envious. The man who was loved by so many children had already lived a successful life, hadn’t he?

I only have Yeonhee…

After leaving the hospital, we headed home carrying a somewhat bitter feeling in our hearts.

Our original plan had been to finish off Cha Jin-hyeok, then form a temporary party with the local hunters to clear the D-grade dungeon in the area. But—

“Jin-gyeong and Jiu said their abilities suddenly increased recently.”

As I thought about it on the way home, the matter of the evolution stones wasn’t something far away at all.

“Could the unnies have fallen for that kind of temptation too?”

Clack…

I hadn’t considered them, but now that Yeonhee mentioned it, it made sense.

“Let’s go see Helen first!”

Nod.

We hurried back to clear up our worries.

Song Jin-gyeong, Lee Jiu…

We needed to check on those two who had shown astonishing growth recently.

When we arrived at Helen’s shop, we could immediately tell that something serious had happened. The sight of Helen clutching her head and her bloodshot eyes said it all.

“Yeonhee! Jin-gyeong and Jiu… Hic—”

“No way…”

Unfortunately, Lee Jiu and Song Jin-gyeong had been unreachable since last night. The hunters who had been in the same party as them said they had gone missing inside a dungeon.

Missing… Unless a dungeon break occurred, there’s no way those two would disappear in a low-grade dungeon.

Helen hugged Yeonhee and sobbed, saying that if only she had noticed a little sooner, this wouldn’t have happened. But she soon pulled herself together and handed us a thin file.

This is…

“I was actually preparing to put out a request. This is all the information I’ve gathered so far.”

The materials she showed us contained information about the other hunters in the party that Song Jin-gyeong and Lee Jiu belonged to. The moment I saw it, something felt off.

“Three people who have been stuck between the upper E-grade and lower D-grade for over six months. The other two spots are always filled with newcomers. Those two newcomers right now are Jiu and Jin-gyeong. Look at this. This is data related to their party over the past two years.”

“All the newcomers… were women?”

“Yes. Except for the three original members, the other two spots kept changing at regular intervals. The problem is that none of the replaced hunters are alive today. More precisely, they were all declared missing inside dungeons.”

“Ha… That’s dangerous. Why hasn’t anyone noticed something this obvious until now?”

“As you know, deaths or disappearances inside dungeons tend to be seen as the hunters’ own karma. And there’s no accurate way to verify it, is there?”

“That’s… true.”

“These three are the ones pulling the strings.”

The file Helen handed over contained several photos of them along with detailed personal information.

“The first time these bastards started acting suspiciously was two years ago. It was right after they reached the upper F-grade. Before that, they were just wasting time, repeatedly challenging dungeons and getting injured. But after they started doing whatever it is they’re doing, they began growing at a pace similar to other people. And their growth curve has been steadily rising ever since.”

Helen paused for a moment and looked at Yeonhee, her lips moving hesitantly. Yeonhee nodded as if to say it was okay and asked,

“Yes. What would you like us to do?”

“Well… I was planning to request this from someone else, but it would be hard to find anyone more trustworthy and skilled than you two. This is both my personal request and a formal commission. Find Jin-gyeong and Jiu. And if possible, kill these three.”

“……?!”

“And if you can find out what they’ve been doing, and even locate any traces of the people who seem to have been sacrificed by them, that would be even better. The reward is this much.”

“Huh…? Th-this is way too much.”

The success reward Helen had presented along with her rapid-fire words was 1.5 billion won plus α. Where did this person get the money to offer such a huge sum for someone else’s business?

Helen scratched the back of her neck awkwardly and continued.

“It’s embarrassing, but the amount I contributed isn’t much. The rest of the commission fee was all gathered from the families of the missing people, each pitching in whatever they could. Five hundred million as an advance. Another five hundred million once their deaths are confirmed. And an additional five hundred million if you find any traces of the victims. How about it? Honestly, considering how dangerous this is, the amount isn’t actually that high.”

“…I’ll do it.”

“Really? Um… Also, one of the victims’ family members made an additional request. There’s a separate bonus for that.”

“What is it?”

“If you can bring even one of them back alive, that person said they would pay a bonus. They run a fairly large business, so they seem to have some money.”

“……Understood for now.”

“Good. Can you start today?”

“Yes! We’ll begin right away.”

Perhaps because of what had happened just ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠yesterday, or because she was worried about Jiu, Yeonhee accepted Helen’s request without much hesitation.

“Thank you. Be careful. If it feels even slightly dangerous, you can abandon the request. I don’t want you getting hurt too.”

“I’ll keep that in mind, unnie.”

She was worried about us, but honestly, from my perspective, this was practically a honeyed commission.

I feel like I could take ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠on several requests like this a day. Hmm— Should I just push Helen completely into the brokerage business?

While I was thinking about other things, we received the materials Helen had prepared and headed straight for the luxury officetel where those three were staying together.

“This is more urgent than ranking up. Let’s take care of it right away.”

Nod.

We reached the officetel in less than thirty minutes, but the three were out, so we had to wait quite a long time.

“We confirmed today is their day off, so they’ll definitely come back.”

Clack clack.

They must have eaten a late breakfast; they appeared while giving off a strong smell of food. The moment they entered the house, we sprang into action and subdued them without much difficulty.

These pathetic weaklings.

Although they were still the same D-grade as us, the gap in skill was overwhelming. After knocking them out with blows to the chin and stuffing them in a corner, we thoroughly searched the house and soon found meaningful materials.

“This is… an E-grade hunter list. How did they get their hands on something like this? Did they hack the Management Bureau or the Association?”

We secured the PC containing the hunter list they used to scout prey.

“Ilwol, look at this!”

Although the bottle design was different from what we had seen yesterday, we also discovered several bottles of ‘Evolution Water’ that gave off a very similar scent.

As expected… Has it already spread throughout hunter society?

They probably didn’t realize that becoming stronger this way was the same as devouring their own future potential. But once someone crossed the mid D-grade, their annual income would jump dramatically, so it seemed they fell for the temptation easily.

In the end, it’s always about money.

I used their car key to check the navigation destination on the vehicle they owned and also secured the list of people they had contacted frequently recently. The navigation showed a pension on the outskirts of the city that they visited regularly every weekend. That place looked suspicious.