There's Still One Left

A few hours later, inside the Unknown Gate.

"D-damn it! Gyeongho! Seok Gyeongho!"

"I know, so quit nagging!"

A low hum shuddered through the air. From both feet of Seok Gyeongho, the Striker, smoke rose like steam.

He stamped off the ground and shot upward, and then he was simply gone. In the next instant, a heavy crack split the air and the monster's neck spun like a windmill.

Junhwan had been waiting on that opening the whole time. He did not let the sliver of a moment pass.

The knife in his hand flared, brief and brutal, and punched clean through. Neck already broken, chest run through, the monster folded to the floor with a soft, final thud.

"Haah... haah..."

Junhwan dragged in ragged breaths and stared at the system window floating before his eyes.

Read for its wording alone, it was no different from an ordinary Gate. The difficulty was another matter. Clearing a single Unknown Gate had run one S-rank Hunter and five A-rank Hunters thoroughly ragged.

He wiped the violet blood from the blade and reached for the TIME field in the lower right of the window.

With this lineup, even a standard S-rank Gate ought to have fallen inside five hours. Eight.

If we'd been short even a single person, that could have turned dangerous.

As a rule, the Legion moved in pairs. For an S-rank Gate, in threes. All six of them deploying at once was rare in the extreme. At this level of fight, the bleeding Bulmyeol had taken in the Busan Unknown Gate suddenly made a grim kind of sense.

So this is an Unknown Gate.

He was studying the corpse at his feet with a complicated look when Gyeongho came up beside him and tapped his shoulder.

"Bae Junhwan, what are you doing? Grab whatever you're taking and let's go. Move it before the time bonus runs out."

"Ah. Right."

"Still, it's an Unknown Gate, in name at least. Feels like we ought to be able to hope for some kind of haul."

But something was wrong. Nowhere was there an item worth keeping as spoils. He had heard that Unknown Gates were lawless in both difficulty and reward, and yet...

Does it go like this, too?

No matter how he turned it over, it refused to sit right. At the very least, some scrap of miscellaneous loot—splinters of monster bone, anything—ought to have dropped.

"Hey. Are Unknown Gates usually this kind of—"

That was when it happened.

Rainbow smoke burst up in front of them without warning. There was no mistaking it: the smoke grenade Minju carried as a matter of habit.

"M-Master?!"

Coughing, the startled guild members searched the haze, but the gaudy color hid every trace of the small boy. All that reached them was Minju's voice, low and warning, from somewhere they could not see.

"What? What do you mean?"

They had killed the last Named. They had checked the corpse. The clear message had popped. And yet—

"Get out."

Somewhere, a round slid home with a hard metallic clack.

"Right now."

The Saturday she had promised Minju.

She pressed the bell, and before long the lock clicked and the door opened.

"Oh my, Yura. You're here already?"

Han Suhyeon—one of the Legion, the woman who had come over to Eunha, kept here at Minju's insistence, ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠and offered her something to drink. Junhwan's words came back to her all at once: that he was only the vice master on paper, and the one who actually held that kind of power was Suhyeon.

"Yes. Is Minju in?"

"He should be on his way. Would you like to come in first? I've been bored out of my mind minding the house alone, so this is perfect."

Eunha stepped into headquarters with her.

The ground floor was not a large space, and yet it felt somehow emptier than before. The other six, everyone but Suhyeon, had apparently gone off to Pohang on assignment. Suhyeon set drinks and a few snacks on the table, then dug through her pocket and checked her phone.

"What on earth are those kids doing, not a single call? They should have left by now."

Her thumbs flew over the screen as if she were firing off a message, and then she flipped the phone face-down on the table with a smack hard enough to ring.

"Off sightseeing again somewhere, I bet. Honestly. Not a speck of a sense of crisis between the lot of them."

Watching her shake her head, Eunha smiled faintly.

"They're always like that, I take it."

"Don't even get me started. They went all the way to Pohang—of course they swung by the ocean while they were at it. A hundred percent."

Suhyeon clicked her tongue.

"The Master's fifteen, so fine, but the rest of them are grown. And I can't even stop them."

Arms folded, huffing, she looked every bit the eldest sister talking about foolish younger siblings. Watching her, Eunha thought she understood a little better why they called one another family.

"They'll be back soon. It's all right. I can wait a bit."

She picked up one of the snacks Suhyeon had set out and said it at her ease. Suhyeon, watching, scratched her cheek, a little abashed.

"Well... it isn't as if the Master would break a promise with you of all people, Yura."

She sat on the sofa beside her and took a snack of her own. She wasn't angry anymore.

"The Master, honestly. The way he goes on—noona, noona—I'm almost jealous, and I'm a guild member."

After that she changed the subject whenever the quiet threatened, telling story after story so Eunha would not be bored. Most of it was the trivial day-to-day of the Legion's seven.

What surprised her was that in more than an hour of talk, Suhyeon never once mentioned the dress or the parasol. She did not look down on Eunha, the hunter known as an F-rank Concept Hunter, and she did not sneer. She never even brought up Jagalchi Market, so lately on everyone's tongue, or the Great Sage Equal to Heaven.

Perhaps that was why. When Eunha came back to herself, she was leaned into the chair cushion, nodding along at ease.

The phone buzzed.

"Ah, one second."

Cut off mid-rant about Junhwan's appetite, Suhyeon reached for it.

"Hey. Where are you?"

She barked it the moment she answered, then poured out a scolding like a machine gun.

"Yura's already here, I'm telling you. And the Master—don't tell me he forgot today's promise?"

A brief silence.

Suhyeon said, "Hello?" and checked the screen, then put her ear back to the speaker.

"Why aren't you saying anything? Hello? Are you listening, Bae Junhwan?"

Then a crack spread across her face.

"...Wait. Are you crying?"

Eunha, quietly sipping her drink, glanced over—and the phone slipped weakly from Suhyeon's hand.

Suhyeon reached the university hospital near Legion Headquarters and took off at a run.

Only minutes ago, after Junhwan's call, she had said it while snatching up her coat.

"I think I need to step out for a bit. Looks like the kids got a little hurt."

"Hurt?"

"The Pohang job this time—it was an Unknown Gate clear."

Only then did Eunha understand where they had gone. Suhyeon spoke to her as she froze where she stood.

"Will you come with me?"

"Me... too?"

"Yes. You're family, Yura. The Master said so himself."

And so she had come along, for now.

Eunha glanced at Suhyeon's back as she ran ahead.

She had insisted they were terrible exaggerators, that this would surely be another bout of playacting—but the Suhyeon who arrived at the hospital looked anything but calm. Around the corner of the corridor, a little way off, a familiar cluster of green cloaks came into view. Family.

"Hey, you little—!"

Suhyeon swallowed the rest of the curse and strode up to them. Then she flicked Junhwan, standing at the very front, square on the forehead.

"I knew it would be like this! Do you have any idea how scared I was when I heard you were at a hospital? God, my heart."

She shouted it. The words were aggressive, but the line of her mouth, rigid all this time, finally loosened.

"See, Yura? What did I tell ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠you? These guys are unbelievable drama queens. Look at them, perfectly fine—hospital, my foot."

Eunha, who had followed her in, took in their condition with her own eyes. All five of them were scratched here and there, and the dust ground into their cloaks was impressive, but none of them looked seriously wounded.

...How?

They were an elite group made up entirely of A-rank Hunters. Which was also to say that not every one of them was S-rank. Unknown Gates were mysterious enough that the difficulty of a clear changed every time, but it was astonishing that every last one of them had come back whole.

In the Busan Unknown Gate, Bulmyeol had lost a considerable number of people. Even granting that a group this close would move in perfect step, returning without a single deep wound was strange. What nagged at her more was that, whole as they were, their faces were somehow sunken.

"Why do you all look like that? Anyone who saw you would think you'd come out with three weeks' rest."

Suhyeon teased them lightly, almost sarcastic. But there was no way she failed to feel it either—this air, so heavy it was hard to breathe.

"What is it, seriously. Why are you all acting like this? You're making me nervous. Fine. I won't say anything else, so..."

The corner of her mouth ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠began to tremble, just slightly. Behind her, where she was forcing out a smile, Eunha—silent all this time—took one step closer.

"Where's Minju?"

That was the trigger.

Silence fell. Even Suhyeon, who had been talking without pause, froze solid. The quiet stretched. Within it, Junhwan opened his mouth with difficulty.

"...The Master."

His lips moved in fits and starts. His head, unlike them, sank down, and down, without end.