Destination Ellinia
Once they'd left the hospital, the three of them headed for Chaerin's house nearby. It was close enough that they arrived in no time.
The moment they opened the door, a voice drifted out from inside — Chaerin's younger sister, Jeong-hyeon.
"You're late. So, how's it going with that guy lately... oh my god! You already brought him home? You could've at least given me a heads-up!"
"It's not like that!"
"Don't worry. I'll come back tomorrow — or should I stay out a little longer?"
Chaerin's face flushed crimson at her sister's shameless teasing, and she snapped. But of course, that wasn't nearly enough to shut Jeong-hyeon up.
"The quiet cat always... wait, you're not exactly the quiet type, are you? Either way, I need to take another look at my Unni."
"Kku-ing?"
"...That's an actual cat? Oh my god, it's adorable! Who's this little one?"
Jeong-hyeon caught sight of Samsaek and let out a squeal. He'd always been cute, but the extra plumpness around his middle was a direct hit to her tastes.
"It's fine."
Samsaek glanced back and forth between Karen and Jeong-hyeon, seeking permission to speak. Karen nodded.
"Human. Got any food?"
"The cat... talks?"
"Never mind that. Come sit down."
"What do you mean, never mind? Unni! The cat—"
"Jaehyeong woke up."
"What?"
Fair enough — a talking cat was suddenly the least of her concerns. The moment their brother's name came up, every trace of playfulness vanished from Jeong-hyeon's face.
"Something's wrong."
Being secretary to an S-Rank Hunter was no easy job. Jeong-hyeon read the worry in her sister's expression in an instant. If Jaehyeong had truly woken up without complications, Chaerin would have called her first thing.
"Well..."
After hearing everything that had happened, Jeong-hyeon's gaze shifted to Karen.
"Come to think of it, we haven't even been properly introduced. Nice to meet you. I'm Lee Jeong-hyeon."
"I'm Karen."
"I know we just met, but I'm going to be blunt. This is about my brother, after all."
Chaerin fidgeted, caught between her sister's sharp questioning and Karen.
This is nothing.
"Ask away."
"You said you're a D-rank Awakened, correct?"
"That's right."
When every expert in the world had already failed to wake a patient from a vegetative state, what did a rank even matter? Jeong-hyeon noted the low ranking, then set it aside.
"You said you can wake my brother. How, exactly?"
The look in Jeong-hyeon's eyes was no longer that of Chaerin's little sister. It was the look of a B-Rank Hunter — and the secretary of an S-Rank.
I won't let Unni get hurt again.
Ever since their brother had fallen into a vegetative state, the two sisters had met no shortage of people claiming they could help. Cultists who swore a single touch of their hands would heal him. Quacks who claimed to possess legendary medicines. But the deepest wounds hadn't come from those frauds. They'd come from the competent, thoroughly legitimate professionals who, in the end, could only shake their heads.
"I'm sorry."
"This is beyond my abilities."
Each of those words had carved itself into the two sisters, leaving scars that never quite healed.
"I'm an alchemist."
"...An alchemist? The kind I'm thinking of?"
A flicker of disappointment crossed Jeong-hyeon's face. Then she started calculating. How do I get rid of this guy... Of all people, the man her sister actually liked had to be one of these. She wanted to curse herself for ever pushing Chaerin to go meet him in the first place.
"In that case..."
"Talking any further is a waste of time. Look at this."
Auction records from the Hunter Auction House appeared on Karen's watch.
Origin: Independent Developer
Status: Sold — Market Sensation
"This is... a 50% potion? Don't tell me you—"
"Kku-ing. Master's the one who developed it."
The man who had thrown the entire hunter world into an uproar was standing right in front of them. Both sisters stared in stunned silence. Joseon Pharmaceutical currently held a monopoly on the 50% potions, but anyone in the know had already guessed that the technology originated with some individual who'd appeared out of nowhere, like a comet.
"...I'm sorry I doubted you."
Jeong-hyeon stood and bowed her head with genuine respect.
"It's fine."
He hadn't been offended in the first place. If he were in her shoes, he'd be just as skeptical of some D-rank Awakened he'd never met claiming he could cure a brother no one else had been able to save.
"Where do Mandrakes grow?"
"An A-rank gate. Ellinia."
Ellinia — an Internal Gate that had formed in Jirisan. Whether by coincidence or design, it was a gate of dense, magnificent forest, perfectly matching the mountain it sat in. Mandrakes grew in the heart of that forest, but hunters had never shown much interest in them.
"The efficiency is terrible. The Musashi Guild has a monopoly on the gate, the spawn rate is low, and even if you do find one, harvesting it properly is..."
"That's because they don't know how to harvest them. When I do it, it's a hundred percent."
"Oh my god. If word got out about how to harvest them, everyone would be after Mandrakes and nothing else. And if they found out you know a treatment method on top of that..."
Jeong-hyeon said, aghast. With a patient in the family, she knew this field inside and out. Before the gates appeared, the United States alone had somewhere between fifteen and forty thousand patients in vegetative states. After the Gate Crisis, for reasons no one could explain, those numbers had exploded. Across the Alliance, the patient count had ballooned to as many as a million.
Everyone would be scrambling to get their hands on it.
Anyone with even a shred of business sense would understand. It was an ugly thought, but those patients represented an enormous fortune. People would show up with suitcases full of cash if it meant a chance of waking a family member who might otherwise never open their eyes again. And among those in comas were no shortage of the wealthy and the well-known.
"They couldn't copy it. On this Earth, I'm probably the only one who can do it."
It was easy for Karen, but it required the kind of delicate mana control that came from injecting power with surgical precision. And who would risk their life entering an A-rank dungeon just to learn that technique — against Mandrakes that barely spawned in the first place?
"We're going to Ellinia. That settles it."
Chaerin, who had been sitting quietly through the entire conversation, spoke with iron in her voice.
"Unni, what about your schedule?"
"Cancel all of it. There's a reason we've been grinding it out as independents all this time."
Join a guild and you were locked into long-term contracts, exclusive deals — you couldn't just walk away whenever you needed to. Stay unaffiliated, and you could move freely for your brother's sake at a moment's notice.
"This is that moment. The one we've been preparing for."
When a light finally appeared in a darkness so complete you couldn't see your own hand in front of your face, a few cancelled jobs didn't mean a damn thing.
"The penalty fees..."
"Who cares. Pay them whatever they want. If they've got a problem, tell them to come see my face in person."
For a fleeting moment, Karen caught a glimpse of something he'd never seen in her before — the Witch of Severance the rest of the world knew, growling like a predator.
"That's my Unni."
Jeong-hyeon shot her a thumbs-up and disappeared into her room to start making calls. That left Chaerin and Karen alone in the living room.
"I should probably make some calls of my own. Want me to book you a hotel nearby? We don't have a lot of rooms here..."
"No need. We'll head back. And I'll go on ahead to Ellinia. Figured I'd do a little sightseeing."
"Kku-ing! Let's go. Sightseeing!"
Sightseeing? Well. Coming from a man this unpredictable, it wasn't the strangest thing she'd heard.
"Yeah? All right. Then I'll book you a hotel there."
"No, I can handle—"
"Just let me do this much, okay? I'm so grateful I don't know what else to do."
"Kku-ing, Master's gonna grab some extra vitality while he's at— ack!"
Karen scooped up the nonsense-spouting cat and gave his belly a firm kneading as he opened the front door.
"Fine. Go ahead and book it."
"Got it! We'll wrap up a few things here, get ready, and meet you in Ellinia. Be careful!"
Seeing them off, Chaerin watched Karen and Samsaek leave the house. It wasn't long before her shout rang out behind them.
"Hey! Guildmaster! We need to talk."
The puppy who'd been chatting with Karen moments ago was gone. In her place, a predator's snarl carried on the air.
"Wh-what? Hunter Lee Chaerin? Have you lost your mind?"
"Whatever. Let's talk."
Sato, guildmaster of the Musashi Guild, stared at his phone in utter bewilderment. The call had come out of nowhere. Had this woman gone insane?
Did her brother wake up?
Sato muted himself for a moment and turned to the secretary beside him.
"No, sir. According to the man we sent to the hospital, her brother's condition hasn't changed."
"Then why the hell is she acting like this?"
"I don't know, sir. The man who called in earlier was babbling in a dying voice about being on top of Namsan with a cat the size of a tiger. There might be a connection."
"What kind of garbage is that? How did that idiot even do his job? Bury him. Now."
Damn it. He'd sent that man specifically because Lee Chaerin was known to go easy on ordinary civilians — the problem was the guy had been so spineless he'd apparently lost his mind.
"Hey. You mute me?"
"I can hear you perfectly well. Incidentally, how is your brother doing?"
Sato had already received the report, but he started probing Chaerin anyway. She might be hiding something.
"That's none of your business. Let's negotiate."
"Negotiate? The terms are simple. Hunter Lee Chaerin joins the Musashi Guild, and we provide the Mandrakes."
"Fine. I'll join."
"What?"
It was the answer he'd dreamed of — and it left the Musashi guildmaster more confused than he'd ever been in his life. Has this woman lost her mind? She'd gone from cursing him out to volunteering to join his guild?
"...Give me a moment to think."
Let's see... why was she being this bold? Did she actually have a method?
It's not like I'd be losing anything...
The Musashi Guild held a monopoly on Ellinia — but that was all they had, and growth had stalled out in that mountain valley years ago. If an S-Rank Hunter joined his guild?
Heh heh heh. Then we'd finally be able to climb.
The Mandrakes were under his guild's complete control. The idea that something they didn't know about could come out of that gate was impossible.
"Very well."
"Good. Then we'll be heading to Ellinia soon."
"We'll be waiting. Next time we speak, I expect you'll be wearing a Musashi Guild badge. Hahaha."
"Don't start that shit."
"Ahem... that's rather harsh—"
Bang!
Chaerin's cursing, followed by the hang-up, finally pushed Sato over the edge. He slammed his fist into the desk.
"That bastard! The one who was spouting nonsense earlier — drag him to the torture room right now! I'll handle him myself."
"But... are you really going to let Lee Chaerin into the gate, sir?"
The secretary asked carefully, watching his enraged guildmaster's face.
"We made a deal, so we can't stop her. But even Lee Chaerin isn't walking into Ellinia alone."
"That's true."
"And plant someone with them. We've got just the right person for it."
"That person, sir? They've been showing some discontent lately, though."
"Hahaha. Their family's the one who needs a Mandrake. What are they going to do if they don't follow our orders? We're the ones protecting that family, after all."
"Understood."
Once the secretary had left, the guildmaster smiled a sly, ugly smile and opened the secret vault hidden in his office. With a groan of hidden machinery, an entire wall panel slid aside, revealing the vault door.
"I never get tired of looking at these."
Dozens of Mandrakes — those fabled, vanishingly rare plants — sat revealed inside the vault.
"Hahaha. Taking this place while those Korean bastards were gone for a while — now that was worth it."