The God of Wine Loses

Immortal Guild Headquarters.

"You're here, Seongyun."

Jaemin had been pacing near the reception room when he found Seongyun planted in one spot, still as a statue.

"That one?"

"Inside."

Seongyun jerked his chin at the door across from them. Carved edge to edge with Korean dokkaebi motifs, the wooden slab was so thick and huge a grown man could not have opened it with one hand.

Jaemin stepped past him and set a hand to the door.

"Master, it's Heo Jae—"

"What do you think you're doing?"

Seongyun cut him off at once.

"Master and our guest are in the middle of something important. Don't interrupt."

Interrupt? ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠Jaemin turned his head, face sour.

"You still haven't handed this over."

He lifted the cloth in his hand. Teraposa thread. What he held had been woven from a precious silk commonly called Concealment Silk.

At a glance the unpatterned black cloth looked ordinary, but look closer and it gave off a dim light ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠of its own. Only a first-rate tailor with a special skill was said to be able to make it, and merely wearing the thing could temporarily seal the wearer's unique ability. For that reason Concealment Silk was usually cut into prison garb for awakened criminals, or worn as a cloak at international summits, where safety and trust both had to be on display.

"It's just Master and that one in there, right? We ought to have them put this on, in case."

Formally invited guests of the guild were not forced into Concealment Silk. At least, not by any common sense Seongyun recognized. He spoke to Jaemin like a warning.

"They came by formal invitation. Offering Concealment Silk to a guest like that—doesn't it strike you as rude?"

"Someone who belonged to Wolf, however briefly. Preparing for the worst is only natural."

"Heo Jaemin. How many times have I said it? That person has done Bulmyeol a great service, and they'll be a great help in this plan too. That's why Master searched for them so desperately. Use your head."

Jaemin's brow tightened in irritation. They had been friends since they were boys, but at times like this they truly could not get a word through to each other.

"You use yours. This is the heart of Bulmyeol. What if that one takes it into their head to run wild? What if they clash with Master again?"

This building would be powder. Saying so, Jaemin remembered the fistfight the two of them had thrown at Jagalchi Market. It had been bare knuckles, no weapons—and what had come of it? The damages Bulmyeol paid ran into the hundreds of millions of won, and that was before anyone mentioned Jagalchi being shut for a month.

He admitted it. The Princess of Dark Flare was no ordinary F-rankconcept hunter. All the more reason he could not leave them alone with Master in the middle of headquarters.

"If they've got no mind to use their ability on Master, they won't care about wrapping a scrap of cloth around themselves."

He shoved Seongyun's shoulder hard.

"Move."

"No. I won't."

Seongyun did not budge. Not an inch—that was the resolve in him. Fierce sparks jumped between them.

"You want to have a go?"

The instant Jaemin's eyes flashed, red blades rose over both his shoulders, and a cold edge turned on Seongyun.

"If anyone wants to grind this building to dust, it looks to me like you."

Calm as the voice was, Seongyun seized the empty air. The atmosphere shuddered in his grip, and a white streak of light became a white arrow.

"B-both of you! You can't do this here!"

"What are the rest of you doing? Stop them!"

Guild members who had been passing rushed in and threw themselves between the two. Even so, neither was the first to lower his weapon.

Outside, the air was one slip from disaster. Inside the reception room, it was another matter entirely.

"Hah—ha—ha!"

Yu Hwan's great laugh rolled through the room.

"Right. You took me up on the invitation, so I can figure you mean to be part of this, yeah?"

Eunha did not refuse him. Taking her silence for yes, Hwan poured with obvious pleasure.

"Come on, don't hold back. Today's worth marking. Oh, and if it isn't enough, say so. Everything back there is liquor."

All of that is liquor? Eunha took a sip and looked past his shoulder. Even seated, Hwan was a bulk like Mount Taebaek, and the stacks of boxes there rose high enough to dwarf him. One whole wall, besides, was bottles from end to end.

Incredible. Somewhere in that indifferent gaze, a pure flicker of admiration sparked.

Ah. Only then did Eunha blink, slow. That had been close. A moment more and she would have lost herself entirely.

"Like the place?"

Hwan had read the shift in her face. He snorted a laugh as he spoke, and Eunha drew her eyes off the wall of bottles to look at him.

"Come by whenever you want. Honestly, I'm gladder to have a good drinking companion after all this time than I am that you reached out first."

Glug, glug. He poured into his cup like a waterfall and tossed it back in one swallow. Ahh—now that was the stuff. Pleasantly scrunching his nose, he filled Eunha's cup next.

"Not that you've got to force it down."

The cup had been made to Hwan's measure, about twice an ordinary beer glass. Size and weight both were more than a normal person could lift comfortably even with two hands, and he had filled it to the brim besides, so the thing alone had the heft of a decent dumbbell.

"...This much is nothing."

Her lips barely moved. Then she emptied the cup in a single draught.

Thud!

She set the empty cup down on the table with a flourish, as if to show him, and even wiped her mouth lightly with the back of her hand.

"Hoh?"

Hwan's brows rose in a round arch.

A sharp prickle raced across Eunha's skin. Nothing had touched her. It was hostility, strong enough to be felt on the skin itself.

She glanced toward the door. The source of it lay beyond that great door carved with dokkaebi.

"Ah, leave them."

Hwan waved a hand. He had felt it too, by the look of him. Drawing a fresh bottle from a crate, he said it as if it were nothing.

"It's basically a married couple's spat."

"There's a married couple?"

Hunter spouses in the same guild. When she asked as if the notion were novel, Hwan grinned.

"Close enough. Their fights are a knife through water. Nothing sticks."

Even while they talked, the noise beyond the door went on—clang, clang, clang, a whistle of air, a bang. Hwan looked as though he did not care in the least.

"You get closer, trading blows, don't you? Especially at that age."

Pop. With a clear sound he pulled the cork and filled the cups again. Eunha let the racket go and turned her attention to the new liquor.

A scent thick enough to swim the head stabbed her nose. She did not know the bottle, but it was plainly a formidable drink.

"This one—what was it—came from the Butterfly Guild over in China a few years back. Feels like I've been saving it all this time just for today."

Take it. He laughed, bold, and thrust the mouth of the bottle forward.

"Thanks."

Eunha held out her cup and answered flatly. Pouring, Hwan lifted one corner of his mouth as if amused.

"Come to think of it, you're talking casually to me."

He was not calling her impudent, and he was not looking for a fault. It was only strange that a woman who looked, at a glance, no older than her early or mid-twenties could drop every honorific without so much as a blink.

Eunha, cup empty, lifted her eyes.

"So are you."

"Hm. How old are you?"

"Hard to say. Probably about the same."

What? Hwan's eyes went round.

Only for a moment. He slapped his knee and started to laugh, shoulders shaking.

About an hour later, empty bottles lay rolled around the two of them past counting. It was a number difficult to believe two people had drunk in a single hour.

Thud. Hwan set his cup on the table and slowly raised his head. His color was so sound it was hard to credit that he had emptied so much. Of course it was. He was not a man who got drunk on this.

Besides Great Sage Equal to Heaven, he had another epithet, kept quieter. Korea's god of wine: K-Dionysus. There was even a rumor that Seongyun, no lightweight himself, crawled headquarters on all fours imitating a lizard whenever he shared a cup with Hwan.

Hwan studied the face across from him. So far she had matched his pace well. That alone was worth a word of praise.

About time. There was a fair amount of alcohol in her already. A little longer and she might be past speaking, so if he meant to draw out what she was hiding, now was the moment. Face easy, he poured and opened his mouth.

"Been curious for a while, I have. Skill like that, and you still call yourself a concept hunter? And what's with the F-rank judgment?"

People did not say drunken words were sober truth for nothing. For getting what you needed, and for building trust and friendship, nothing beat liquor.

At the question, Eunha sipped and answered as if from a long way off.

"Do you need a story like that to carry out this plan?"

He stopped.

Cup halfway to his mouth, Hwan went stiff in spite of himself, then raised his eyes to her.

Astonishingly fine. Only then did he see that her color was no different from the start. Drink this much and an ordinary person would have a tangled tongue, or a face gone crimson. Now and then someone was born so that drunkenness never showed, but she had thrown his question straight back without changing expression at all. It did not seem to be that, either.

He looked her over in silence. He knew by now that she was a fighter above F-rank, and that she was a hunter who held both flame and darkness, the two attributes this plan could not do without. Even so, questions about her remained. He had meant to loosen her tongue a little with the help of the liquor. It was not as easy as it sounded.

"...I'm sick of this one too. I'll treat you to something new."

The hand that took a fresh bottle from the cabinet was rather grim. Eunha's eyes changed, subtly, as it came into view. Indeed, the design alone was no ordinary thing. Tiny diamonds were set thick across the glass, and a single bottle ran to about three hundred million won—the finest of the finest. To Hwan, who never stinted on liquor, it was merely a slightly prettier, slightly tastier drink.

Another half hour passed.

"Of all the guilds there are, why Wolf?"

He had been tossing down liquor worth three hundred million won the way other men drank soju that cost a few thousand. Slowly, he opened his mouth again.

"We just happened to be connected."

"How?"

"Just—literally by chance."

Not yet? Hwan's brow twitched. They had drunk this much, and far from growing tipsy the other party seemed to be getting colder. Was that only his imagination?

No helping it.

He tapped the empty air with a thick finger. Inventory, open. A sphere of light flared over his empty palm—flash—and when the ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠glow died, a peach-colored gourd bottle sat there.

Dreamwine. Legendary liquor, said to have been brewed by the Queen Mother of the West herself from dew gathered at the Jade Pool on Mount Kunlun. Four years ago, at the end of a savage bidding war at the Hunter Auction, he had taken it for fully ninety thousand coins.

I was saving this to drink with her someday, but...

Ah, forget it. He hesitated no longer and opened the bottle. Pop. A sweet peach scent touched his nose.

Perhaps, from that moment on, he had already not been in his right mind.

Click.

The reception-room door, which had seemed as if it would never open, finally did. Seongyun, keeping watch nearby, hurried over. After the blood-fight with Jaemin they had settled who would guard the place with rock-paper-scissors, and Seongyun, the winner, had stayed.

Something was strange. The one who came out was not Yu Hwan, the Great Sage Equal to Heaven, but the woman in the black dress—the Princess of Dark ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠Flare.

"Are you heading back now?"

"Ah. Yes."

He glanced at her as she answered, short. Even at this distance the smell of liquor stabbed the nose. And yet, strangely, her color was unchanged from when she had gone in, as if she had not drunk a drop.

Impossible. This was no ordinary reception room. It was Hwan's liquor storehouse. Since the founding of the Bulmyeol Guild, no one but Hwan had ever walked out of it on two feet.

"I'll stop by again soon. Please tell him I'll hear the rest of what we didn't finish today, then."

"Ah—yes. Anytime..."

Eunha gave the blinking Seongyun a short bow and passed him, heels clicking.

"...Hah."

He stared blankly after her, then belatedly snapped to and stepped inside. And there—

"M-Master?!"

The Great Sage Equal to Heaven, formerly K-Dionysus, lay spread-eagle on the floor.