Chapter 020
[Chapter 020]
< Mysterious Spirit (2) >
Beep-
With a short alarm, the measurement ended.
Kang Dong-cheol and Kim Min-su simultaneously lowered their heads toward the detector screen.
[Measurement Target: Jang Kang-hyun]
[Mana Reaction: Below E-Rank (Unmeasurable)]
[Special Notes: None]
“....”
“....”
A look of "just as expected" passed over both their faces.
“I’m sorry for taking your time when you're busy, Manager Jang... I mean, Kang-hyun.”
“Please come and play sometime.”
Receiving Kang-hyun's send-off, the two got in the car.
“In the end, it wasn't this village.”
Kim Min-su said regretfully.
“Yeah. It wasn't.”
“By any chance... by any chance.”
“Hmm?”
“I did suspect for a moment that Manager Jang might be the hidden master.”
Kim Min-su said in a low voice while looking at Kang-hyun's house receding through the car window.
“Well, if Kang-hyun was really that master, he’d be getting love calls from all kinds of guilds and government agencies by now, wouldn't he? It's a bit of a shame. Kang-hyun really worked hard. I wondered what it would be like if Kang-hyun suddenly re-awakened and was that hidden master. Wouldn't his life just open up then?”
“You know re-awakenings are rare, right? and well, Senior Kang-hyun seems much better now, doesn't he? A leisure I couldn't feel before? That kind of feeling too?”
Kang-hyun was certainly different from before.
Should I say an inexplicable natural leisureliness was felt?
There was no way, but a feeling like a strongman's leisure?
Anyway, it was a relief that he looked well.
Since he seemed to have found his own small happiness while living this rural life.
“But Team Leader, then who on earth is Muryong? That hunter is also said to be E-Class. Kang-hyun... I’m saying this again just in case, but it's really not him, right?”
“Of course it's absolutely not him.”
Kang Dong-cheol cut him off firmly.
“Min-su, you might not know because you lack field experience yet. A hunter's eye, you see, doesn't simply look at mana.”
A hunter's eye.
It was one of the things Kang Dong-cheol often said.
That it's a veteran's sense that cannot be measured by data, and insight that pierces through the opponent's essence.
“The Manager Jang Kang-hyun I saw today... has become strong. Much more than before. His body looked sturdy, and his eyes were full of confidence.”
The Kang-hyun I occasionally saw during Bureau days was a bit different from now.
A youth who was always somewhat shrinking and blamed his own talent, cutting himself down.
But the Kang-hyun seen today was different.
A somehow unshakable stability, a leisure like a deep lake whose depths couldn't be known.
“Then isn't there a possibility? According to what you said, Team Leader....”
“The smell of blood was missing.”
“Pardon?”
“The unique killing intent that only wafts from those who have killed numerous monsters and crossed the line between life and death dozens of times. Min-su, you know what kind of place the Tower is, right?”
Monsters living in a place called the Tower.
Among those monsters, there were not a few existences that took human form and had intelligence.
Even if killing them was for the survival of humanity, the experience of slaughter left an erasable mark on the soul.
“That 지독한 (dreadful) blood-stench soaked into the bodies of Tower rankers was not felt from Manager Jang even in a single grain.”
That was the conclusion Kang Dong-cheol, a 20-year veteran, reached.
Because in the eyes of a slaughterer who has taken hundreds of lives, void or madness are bound to linger.
“How many monsters do you think Muryong killed while breaking through to the 10th floor? A person who has committed that much slaughter cannot have such clear eyes. Manager Jang Kang-hyun has certainly become strong, but he is not a ranker. That is my judgment.”
At Kang Dong-cheol's confident voice, Kim Min-su could no longer refute.
“But you know.”
“Yes?”
Kang Dong-cheol added one word while staring blankly out the window.
“Manager Jang, doesn't he look very... comfortable? He looked much happier than when he was at the Bureau. Enviably so.”
* * *
After confirming that the Bureau team had completely disappeared.
‘Below E-Rank, unmeasurable.’
I recalled the measurement result I saw earlier.
The result where the latest precision mana detector could not detect this giant energy flowing in my body at all, and only read the traces of my terrible E-Rank mana core.
“Well, I naturally thought it wouldn't be caught.”
Since the essence of the power filling my body is not mana, it was natural.
Clear and pure Internal Energy (Naegong), fundamentally different from the contaminated and rough mana that flowed from the Tower.
‘Since the measurement method itself is different, it's natural that no results come out.’
This could become the best shield for me in the future.
When every hunter in the world moves within the same rule called mana.
It was no different from me alone becoming an existence outside that rule.
No one can gauge my true strength, and no one can measure me properly.
Snap, snap!
“Hmm?”
I turned my gaze to the field at the unfamiliar sound.
In that spot, the white, radish-like Hasuo with two arms and two legs was quietly huddling its body on the soil.
But then.
“...Uh?”
I doubted my eyes.
The fellow who was clearly rooting in the soil just a moment ago was now walking awkwardly in the field on its two legs, wasn't it?
Waddle waddle.
Like a baby who just took its first steps.
The Hasuo was walking around the field and sucking into its body the faint energy emitted by other crops.
The lettuce, potatoes, and even the remaining energy of the Golden Bone Grass I had planted.
Is it hunting for food instinctively?
It also looked like it was completing itself while absorbing every essence of the garden.
-Hmyo?
What was more surprising was its obsession with Muryong.
The Hasuo was stuck to Muryong's back like a baby duck following its mother, unable to separate.
If Muryong stopped, it stopped, and if Muryong huddled, it also huddled.
“Muryong, does it think you're its mother?”
-Hmyooo!
But Muryong didn't seem to entirely welcome the faceless root mass following it around.
It fled to the edge of the garden as if it were annoying, but the Hasuo persistently followed behind.
-Hmyooooo....
Muryong, who at first fled with disgust, gradually seemed to accept its fate and took on a resigned expression.
Now it was so used to it that it would even sit and doze while leaning against the Hasuo as a backrest.
“But, it's a bit mysterious.”
I sank into thought while watching that bizarre sight.
It seemed not simply to be following around, but to be absorbing something from Muryong.
Is it instinctively sucking in energy beneficial to itself, like a plant stretching its stem toward sunlight?
“Pwaaa-ng”
Occasionally, a white and pleasant steam, like a freshly steamed rice cake, rose from the Hasuo's body.
Every time that happened, the fellow's frame seemed to become very minutely, but surely, sturdier.
What was clear was that the Hasuo was becoming stronger day by day by accepting Muryong's energy.
Strangely, however, Muryong showed no sign of being tired at all.
‘Is it like scooping a bucket of water from a giant lake?’
Muryong's appearance was so resolute that it made me wonder if the total amount of power it possessed was incomparable to the amount that Hasuo was taking.
Only.
-Hmyo....
It seemed the annoyance from the sudden childcare couldn't be helped.
It could have pushed it away, but now it was accepting the Hasuo's playfulness quite familiarly.
Good fellow.
“Well then, it's a special meal.”
* * *
Next afternoon.
I was steaming corn I had planted yesterday and just harvested.
The corn grown in the garden shone golden grain by grain and was as sweet as if sugar had been sprinkled.
“Now, it's all done.”
As I put the steaming corn in a colander and set it on the veranda, the three gathered as if by appointment.
“Kkiyot!”
-Hmyoot!
The Gorani, who had been taking a nap in a corner of the yard, smelled it like a ghost and ran over to lie flat next to me.
Muryong slid down from the Hasuo's head as if on a slide and jumped onto my lap.
“Do you want to eat too?”
The Hasuo sat quietly where Muryong had been sitting and waited for its turn without a word.
I shared the well-ripened corn one by one.
Crunch! Munch!
The Gorani munched on the corn cob with its heavy frame, and Muryong picked off the corn grains one by one with its small front paws and munched them.
-Hmyoooooot!
Completely falling for the sugar-sweet corn taste, Muryong's tail trembled with happiness.
After finishing one corn grain, it even sucked my finger asking for more.
-....
The Hasuo was rubbing its root body here and there on the corn and absorbing the sweet energy.
“It seems to have gotten a bit bigger though.”
But even after several days, the Hasuo was almost the same size as when it first sprouted.
Because it's a primordial existence, its growth seems extremely slow.
Still on the system window.
[Item: ??'s Fleeceflower (Hasuo)]
[Rank: ???]
Only the nameless status window popped up, and everything was a mystery.
-Hmyoot!
Just then, Muryong, who had finished the corn, went inside a crushed beer can I had left for myself as if excited.
And then it kicked its short legs and began to cross the veranda while riding the can like a sled.
Clatter! Ta-ta-ta-tang-!
-Hmyo, hmyoot!
In the end, unable to overcome the speed, it flipped over.
I smiled inadvertently while watching that silly and peaceful sight.
‘When was the last time I just spent time like this?’
During my Bureau days, I never had a day where I laughed with a peaceful heart.
I was always being chased by something, oppressed, and had to prove myself.
But now there is nothing weighing me down.
Just warm sunlight and the smell of soil.
Time that remains no matter how much you use it.
‘This kind of life... isn't bad.’
I took a bite of the corn.
Sweet juice spread throughout my mouth.
It was the taste of true rest felt for the first time in 6 years.
* * *
Waddle waddle.
The white radish-like Hasuo walked around the garden with its short root legs.
On its head, Muryong was sitting comfortably as if it were its own place.
Every time the Hasuo walked, Muryong's body swayed cutely up and down.
But there was someone watching this peace anxiously.
“....”
Standing in the shade next to the shed, the Gorani's large ears fluttered incessantly like antennas.
Its round black eyes were shaking as if they lost their way, not knowing what to do.
The Gorani thought while watching the Master and Muryong, who were basking in the sun together on the veranda, and the walking Hasuo root that appeared out of nowhere.
It's a crisis.
He accepted that Muryong was the existence right next to the Master.
It was fine even if he was next.
Because he was satisfied if he could be the Master's reliable bodyguard.
But what on earth was that root mass.
Suddenly born in the garden one day, not only was it stuck to Lord Muryong sucking energy, but it was even monopolizing the Master's attention.
“Hasuo, you're growing well.”
Lately, the Master patted that root mass more often than the Gorani.
If this continues, he will surely go below that root.
Below a root mass, impossible!
The Gorani stamped its front hooves out of a sense of crisis.
He had to prove his usefulness somehow.
< Mysterious Spirit (2) > END