Pixie Powder

A heavy silence settled over the examination room.

Eunha had not said a word the whole time she stood beside them. Without a sound she picked the page up and quietly read what was written there.

It was absurd, no question. Every line crowded onto that single sheet was an ingredient that went into compounding one medicine.

Even a rough skim put the kinds well past a hundred. Among them were items that Junhwan himself, eleven years a hunter, was hearing of for the first time.

A few were things you could find anywhere.

The numbers required beggared belief.

Empty the guild warehouse to the bare shelves this very moment, and that volume still would not come out of it.

"You'd have to clear the gates yourself and bring them back, or ask around and go knocking on the doors of whatever guilds already have them. Just gathering most of the materials would take two months at the least. Anything that only drops in a special gate—you're looking at a year before it's in your hands. Longer than that, even."

No. That would be too late.

The medicine had to be found as quickly as possible. Even in this moment, Minju was wandering the line between life and death.

"......"

"......"

No one opened their mouth. At last Rose, who had held her silence a long while, slowly stirred her lips.

"There is exactly one way. The fastest, and the most effective."

Junhwan's head snapped up. The face that met him was nothing but heavy.

Rose added it quietly, her voice as hard as the look on her face.

"A relic-grade item. Curse, confusion, petrification—any status effect at all, erased in a single use."

Items had grades, just as hunters did. Five in all, in order: Advanced, Rare, Heroic, Relic, and Legendary.

Like hunter rank, it was a standard set by the International Hunter Association, and it held the world over.

It hardly needed saying. The higher the grade, the greater the effect—and the chance of ever obtaining the thing sank toward the truly vicious.

Pixie Powder...

Walking along the road, Eunha came to a dead stop.

The Pixie Powder Rose had named was Relic. Set Legendary aside, and it was the hardest grade there was to lay hands on.

All at once Minju rose vivid before her eyes, lying on the bed as still as the dead, not stirring at all.

Minju, who used to beam and dart back and forth in front of her like a squirrel, had in a matter of days come to a point where he could not even breathe on his own without the machines.

Pixie Powder. If she only had that, could he really go back to the way he was?

A message window bloomed in front of her without warning. Eunha gazed at it for a moment, then opened her mouth as if something had just occurred to her.

"You. Do you happen to have any Pixie Powder?"

A little hourglass spun round and round before her eyes. The cat was probably rummaging through its fur. And a moment later—

A chime.

"Check properly."

Eunha frowned faintly, unable to understand. A person might die, and it was talking profit and loss.

In that instant, she understood.

A rectangular message window, floating before her eyes. Inside it, a cat whose shape she could not even see. There was no humanity to argue with there.

Right. The cat was a divine beast.

Not a monster that attacked humans—and yet not a being one could call human, either.

That it helped her, that it was friendly toward her at all, was purely because the two of them were bound by contract. Maybe time had passed and some familiarity had piled up between them. Maybe it was nothing more than the cat's whim.

"Please. Check properly. I... that kid absolutely needs Pixie Powder."

"The way you and I are. That kid, too."

Eunha lifted her head and fixed her eyes on the message window.

Back at the officetel, Eunha sat on the edge of the bed and for a long time did not move, still as someone turned to stone.

At her asking, the cat had in the end checked once more—carefully—whether it owned any Pixie Powder. It seemed, after all, that none had turned up.

Whether it ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠truly didn't have the powder, or was only pretending, she couldn't tell. It wasn't as though she could dig through the cat's fur herself.

Then what was left? Lost in the question, Eunha suddenly raised her head.

Tak.

She picked up the phone lying on ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠the table, hesitated, and then began to press the dial, one firm digit at a time.

Trrrr—

After a few rings, a familiar man's voice came through the receiver.

"It's me."

Eunha answered quietly.

Right after, something crashed—the sound of objects falling. She flicked a puzzled glance at the phone, then put it back to her ear.

"...Hello?"

"You okay?"

"Sorry for calling out of nowhere. There's something I wanted to ask."

Whether he was even listening, no answer came back from Siwoo. Maybe, now that their contract had already been broken, he was displeased the call had reached him at all. But—

If that were it, he wouldn't have picked up.

The Siwoo she had known was a man whose likes and dislikes were perfectly clear.

And then it happened.

Through the receiver came a scrape, a tap, a thud—sounds she couldn't place, one after another. Only after about a minute did she hear Siwoo's answer.

A thoroughly sunken voice. And the noise that had come through the line until a moment ago—what had that been? She couldn't tell.

"I'm looking for Pixie Powder. I wondered if I could get a little information."

"No reason. I heard it was a precious item, and I got curious."

Silence again.

Eunha waited for his answer, then spoke first.

"Never mind. If you don't know, that's fine. I'll hang up."

She was just about to cut the call when a low voice leaked through the receiver.

"...Really?"

Phone still at her ear, Eunha blinked.

"The Hunter Auction?"

"Where in Sejong is it?"

"Yeah?"

Eunha answered as if it hardly mattered.

Silence followed. From the other end of the line, not even a breath.

Into that gap—already onto another thought—Eunha moved her lips first, quietly.

"All right. I understand for now. Thank you."

"Then I'll hang up."

"......"

Eunha glanced at the screen. The call she had expected to drop with a click showed no sign of ending, even after several seconds.

"...I'm hanging up first."

To the very end, no answer came from Siwoo. Maybe he thought the call was already dead and had shoved the phone straight into his back pocket.

In the end, it was Eunha who hung up.

It was a phone call, so she couldn't see his face and couldn't be sure—but he felt a little different from the Siwoo she remembered. She couldn't have explained it cleanly. Only that, somehow, the feeling was different.

"...First."

She had been sitting quietly in her thoughts. Then she went out to the living room and switched on the laptop waiting on the dining table. The Hunter Auction. Siwoo had said that. She was certain of it.

Taktak, taktak...

Both index fingers out, Eunha pecked busily at the keys.

Three hundred and ten coins... Halfway down the mouse wheel, Eunha stopped and sank into thought.

"What could you even do with three hundred thousand coins?"

"Hard to say. Coins don't calculate cleanly as ordinary money, but... if you forced it, somewhere around thirty billion?"

If her memory was right, that was exactly what Siwoo had said.

Three hundred thousand coins, thirty billion won. Then ten thousand coins was one billion, and ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠a single coin was one hundred thousand won.

So, working the sum through—

...The entry fee came to more than thirty million won?

The people running it had to be out of their minds. Either that, or this Hunter Auction was simply enormous—jaw-droppingly so. Short of thinking ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠one or the other, it was not a sum she could easily believe.

In truth, set against what hunters earned these days, it wasn't so tremendous a figure. For Eunha, it was different.

She was someone who had never in her life spent a lump sum of more than a million won at once. Allowance had to be made for prices in the Korea of the years she had lived through, and even then.

Of course, what they were asking for here was not won at all. It was coins.

And fortunately, the divine beast under contract to her—Cat Wandering the Darkness—had a habit of sponsoring her with coins.

Right. If it's coins, there should be enough.

She hadn't checked in some time, but the last time she looked, more than four hundred thousand coins had been left. It ought not to fall short.

Eunha set her blankly halted hand moving again and scrolled on down.

At last her dark eyes reached the final line of the browser window.

It was the day after tomorrow.