Chapter 210: The First Experiment (2)
Translator: RaidenTL
Chapter 210: The First Experiment (2)
I was dozing off in a chair, still holding Seo-yeon’s hand, when a commotion erupted outside the infirmary.
“Seo-yeon!”
A familiar, resonant voice struck me from behind.
They said they were sending another guardian, and I’d wondered who it would be… Right, there was Ju-yeon.
“Seo-yeon…!”
The click-clack of heels approached, and Ju-yeon’s eyes widened as she looked back and forth between me and Seo-yeon, before her gaze settled on our tightly clasped hands.
A man sitting and holding the hand of a sick, bedridden woman.
It was a scene anyone would misunderstand.
I really hope she doesn't get the wrong idea.
I offered Ju-yeon an awkward smile and a greeting.
“Hello…?”
“Oh, yes. Hello.”
Ju-yeon finally tore her eyes away from our hands and looked at me.
Her eyes, curved into beautiful half-moons, clearly showed her delight.
“You seem to have been… well?”
“Huh? Ah… yes, I have.”
What was that curveball?
“I hope you've been well, too?”
“Hehe… Well, I wonder? Maybe I have, maybe I haven’t…?”
Her words were impossible to get a read on.
Her expression shifted with every word, making it hard to tell if she was being serious or just kidding.
Was she always this expressive…?
“Anyway, how did Seo-yeon end up collapsing?”
“Ah, about that…”
I repeated what the doctor had told me earlier, word for word.
“I see…”
Han Ju-yeon looked down at Seo-yeon with pity, as if she had an idea of what had happened.
She probably knew.
After all, before she left for the US, Ju-yeon was the one who played with Seo-yeon the most and slept beside her, aside from her own parents.
“Actually… Seo-yeon has a childhood trauma. She hates being alone in the dark.”
“Ah… is that so.”
“Yeah. I thought she’d overcome it, but I guess not.”
Ju-yeon pulled a chair over from the next bed and sat down, reaching out to gently stroke the sleeping Seo-yeon’s hair.
“You must have had such a hard time, my dear Seo-yeon…”
A soft light began to emanate from her hand as she stroked her hair.
At the same time, the surrounding mana turned pure white and flowed through her hand into Seo-yeon.
With each pulse, Seo-yeon’s mana, which had been stabilizing slowly, began to rapidly return to its normal flow.
…She’s gotten stronger again.
Ju-yeon’s healing ability seemed to have grown even more.
She was already a rare A-rank Healer, but now it seemed she was on the verge of reaching S-rank.
If she were to reach S-rank, it would cause an uproar in South Korea.
It would be the first time in history that a single family produced two S-rank Hunters in the same generation.
“Whew!”
With a short sigh, the pure white mana subsided.
“She should be fine after a good, long sleep.”
“That’s a relief.”
“But…”
Her gaze drifted downward.
To be precise, to my and Seo-yeon’s still tightly clasped hands.
Better to beat her to the punch than be misunderstood.
“Ah! Please don’t get the wrong idea. Seo-yeon-sunbae kept calling for her dad in her sleep and asking me to hold her hand, so I did.”
As I blurted out the excuse like a thief caught red-handed, a strange smile played on her lips.
Han Ju-yeon slowly shook her head.
“Mm-mm, don’t worry. I’m not misunderstanding anything.”
“Well, that’s a relief…”
Then what’s this nagging feeling?
I heard what I wanted to hear, but I felt incredibly strange.
“Still, you can let go now.”
“Uh…”
She reached out and separated our clasped hands herself.
She’s going to start whining for me to hold her hand again.
Contrary to my worries, Seo-yeon remained sound asleep, as if she hadn’t even noticed.
“See? What did I tell you?”
It seemed her healing from a moment ago had done the trick.
“Your hand is all red from how tightly she was holding it.”
As if she couldn’t help it, she took my hand and began to draw on her mana again.
“You really don’t have to…”
“It’s fine. I’m doing this because I want to. So let’s just stay like this for a moment, okay?”
“…Yes.”
The shimmering light from her hand seeped into mine.
A refreshing sensation spread through my entire palm, as if I were getting a massage from an expert.
The feeling was so invigorating I worried I might get addicted, and a pleasant smile formed on my face.
But it was only for a moment. The flow of mana stopped.
Thinking the treatment was over, I felt a pang of disappointment and started to pull my hand away.
“Hiss… The treatment isn’t over yet.”
“…Huh?”
Strange. The flow of mana has already stopped, but she says it’s not over…?
“That’s right. Just a little, a little more… Yes, good boy.”
With her eyes closed, her fingers pressed into various spots on my palm, sending a strange, ticklish sensation through me.
“Y-Your palm is in worse condition than I thought… Just a little longer…”
I really hope this is just a treatment.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
Seventy hours had passed since the start of the fourth test.
With only two hours remaining, dropouts were occurring one after another.
“They’re probably reaching their limits.”
For seventy-two hours, you couldn’t eat or sleep in peace.
The thick darkness made you lose all sense of direction, driving you mad, while the sudden traps and golems meant you could never let your guard down.
As a result, the number of dropouts was naturally increasing.
It was so bad that more people had dropped out in the last twenty hours than in the first forty-eight.
“I hope at least one or two of them make it…”
Fortunately, aside from Seo-yeon, the other team members were still holding on.
It was frustrating not knowing how far they’d gotten or what their situation was, but what could I do?
All I could do was wait silently and pray they’d pass.
For two hours, I paced anxiously near the entrance, like a parent waiting for their child to return from an errand.
Finally, there was exactly one minute left until the seventy-two-hour mark.
One, two, three… fifty-eight, fifty-nine, sixty.
[The fourth test is now concluded.]
[We express our utmost respect to the applicants who ran through the darkness for 72 hours.]
[Applicants still inside the maze, please follow the supervisors’ instructions to exit.]
It’s finally over.
It was so, so long.
I was bored out of my mind waiting alone for two days.
The tightly shut entrance doors opened, and applicants, looking like beggars, began to trickle out.
“I did it…!”
“We’re outside!”
“Sob, fuck.”
Sorrow, anger, joy. A mixture of these three emotions filled the waiting room.
It was understandable.
You could say that all the aspiring Hunters taking this qualification test were just unlucky bastards.
Of all times, the test that had been sealed for ten years had to be reinstated right when they were taking it.
“Time to go.”
I grabbed the water, towels, and easy-to-eat energy bars I’d prepared and headed for the entrance.
I spotted a grimy face in the pouring crowd and waved.
“Elena!”
Walking with her head down, she looked up at me and broke into a huge grin.
Heh. She must be happy to see me after three days.
“Do-jin!”
Elena shouted my name and ran toward me.
“The water in your hand! Hand it over, quickly!”
“Oh, right…”
So she was happy to see the water, not me.
Well… I guess that’s fair.
Elena and I hadn’t progressed beyond being teammates yet.
Soon, another familiar face emerged, walking with difficulty.
“Na-eun!”
“D-Do-jin…!”
Her eyes welled up the moment she saw my face.
She ran toward me with her arms outstretched, and I opened mine to catch her.
“Hic… Waaah…!”
She buried herself in my arms and whimpered.
“I thought I was going to diiie…!”
“You worked hard.”
“Sniffle… Hooooonk!”
“……”
Wait, why is she suddenly blowing her nose on my shirt…?
“Ah, sorry! Hehehe…”
She’s too cute to get mad at.
I took one of the many wet towels I’d brought and wiped the snot smeared on my clothes.
How much dust did she inhale in there for her snot to be black?
“Oh, there’s Yu-jeong!”
Just as I finished wiping off the snot, Na-eun waved toward someone.
I saw Shin Yu-jeong trudging toward us in the distance.
The palms and knees of her gear were pitch black.
Looks like she crawled on the floor to be safe.
With hollow eyes, she trudged over and held out her hand.
“Water.”
I handed her a water bottle, and she downed the entire liter in the blink of an eye before holding out her hand again.
“Energy bar.”
I unwrapped an energy bar and gave it to her, and she shoved the long thing into her mouth in one go.
She was always so enthusiastic about fellatio whenever we had sex; a length like this must be nothing to her now.
Chewing on the energy bar like that actor in the famous seaweed-eating scene from that old movie, she thrust her face forward.
“Wipe it.”
“…Can’t you do it yourself?”
“Ugh, just hurry up.”
Did being in the dark for so long give her age regression symptoms or something…?
Having no choice, I took a wet towel and carefully wiped the dust from her face.
She went through a lot. I can indulge her whining at least once.
While I was at it, I wiped her palms clean, too, turning the once-white towel black.
“But what about you?”
Now clean, at the cost of one towel’s life, she stared at me with a sullen expression.
“What about me?”
“…Why are you waiting for us with all this stuff?”
“That’s because… I passed the maze two days ago.”
The gazes of the three women, who had been standing around me, all focused on me at once.
“You passed that insane maze?”
“In just one day…?”
“Do-jin, are you insane?”
Their tones were filled with disbelief.
[We will now announce the successful candidates.]
Right on cue, the announcement began.
A ranking table appeared on a wall of the waiting room, projected from a beam projector.
[1st Place. Kim Do-jin (B-rank)]
.
.
.
[252nd Place. Shin Yu-jeong (Failed)]
.
.
.
[292nd Place. Elena Mikhailova Dobreva (Failed)]
.
.
.
[301st Place. Im Na-eun (Failed)]
“What the…”
A gasp escaped my lips the moment I saw the rankings.
My rank didn’t matter.
I was the only one who passed the maze, so of course I was first.
Elena and Im Na-eun’s failures were unfortunate, but not bad.
In fact, considering they’d only started seriously learning to be Hunters a year ago, their ranks of 292nd and 301st were impressive enough to make me look forward to their futures.
The problem was Shin Yu-jeong.
She was in a similar boat to the other two.
“Ah…”
She’d only been learning for a year, and her talent was exceptional.
Her rank, 252nd, was the highest of the three.
The only problem was that the cutoff for passing this quarter’s Hunter Qualification Exam was 251st place.
In other words, she had missed her chance to become an E-rank Hunter by a single spot.
“Aaargh, fuck!”
Her furious curse, filled with rage that had reached its peak, echoed throughout the waiting room.
It didn’t matter, though.
Wails of despair were already coming from all over the place; a curse like that was nothing.
“Yu-jeong, are you okay…?”
“That is most unfortunate, Yu-jeong…”
Elena and Im Na-eun, who were less shocked, approached Shin Yu-jeong to pat her shoulder and offer words of comfort.
I quietly backed away from the scene.
Comfort from someone who passed can sometimes feel more like mockery than solace.
I decided to wait for her anger to cool down before approaching her again. I was looking out a window in the long hallway when…
Vzzzzt-
My smartphone vibrated briefly in my pocket.
Looks like I got a message.
I took out my phone to check it.
«Han Ju-hee: April 5th, noon, Magic Tower»
She finally took the bait.