Ellinia
"Sunbae-nim!"
The moment they stepped out of the hotel, a haggard Han Minjae was already waiting out front. He was a big man to begin with, and with his clothes looking that dingy on top of it, people gave him a wide berth without being asked.
"Kku-ing. He looks kinda pitiful."
"He said he was a C-Rank Awakened. Is he really that broke?"
His hair was a mess even on a good day, and he was still wearing yesterday's clothes. A few more days like this and he would look like a genuine beggar.
"Ahaha, I've just got a few things going on. Nothing important enough for you to trouble yourself over, Sunbae-nim. All right — the tour starts now! Just follow me!"
True to that confidence, Han Minjae set off through Ellinia with Karen and Samsaek in tow, weaving them through every corner of the city.
"There's an antiques shop tucked into the corner of this market. And over here, there's a performance that only goes on at this hour. Also..."
"Kku-ing. He's a pretty good guide."
Just as Samsaek said, the man knew the city like a local — all the hidden pockets no tourist would ever find. After hitting several spots, they ducked into a pie shop buried deep in an alley to grab a bite.
"Oh..."
Karen took a bite of pie and could not help marveling at the taste.
"Master! You have to pack some of those to go."
Tap, tap.
Samsaek was thumping his carrier again in protest. Yeah, yeah. I got it.
It really was delicious. The pastry, made from fruit grown in Ellinia, was soft and yielding, and the jam inside wrapped around the tongue in a wave of sweetness.
A gulp sounded beside him.
"Hm?"
Karen turned toward the swallow and found Han Minjae's throat working. The kid was trying not to show it, but with a frame that size, every little movement gave him away.
"You're not getting one?"
"I've already eaten."
Maybe try lying after you do something about the growling still coming from that stomach of yours.
"You sold all your snacks yesterday."
New clothes, sure — that he could understand. But Minjae should have had more than enough left over for food.
"I, uh... I paid off some debts I'd been sitting on. I'm really fine! There's a free meal service coming up soon anyway."
"Three more pies, please. Your stomach's so loud I can't even eat. Here."
"Thank you, Sunbae-nim!"
Hungry as he was, Minjae demolished the pies in seconds, his earlier protests forgotten.
"You're C-Rank and you're this broke?"
Karen had always figured a C-Rank could live comfortably enough. At the very least, nobody at that rank ought to be living like a beggar. And he still could not figure out why this guy was hanging around Ellinia — an A-Rank dungeon — in the first place.
"I've been here so long the money just ran out. Ellinia's also the only gate where you can get herbs this good."
"So go make money at another gate."
"Ahaha... well... the Association kind of has it out for me."
After the gates appeared, a new organization had sprung up. The Alchemist Association.
The Alliance had even backed it, and the founding purpose had been decent enough. The problem was that alchemy was a completely unfamiliar discipline, so there had been no way to tell the real deal from a fraud.
"And then the Association President was the final nail in the coffin."
The Association had already been a mess, and then some guy had appeared out of nowhere, taken the president's seat, and run the whole thing into the ground.
"Happens everywhere."
Karen could understand that well enough. It was not even an established field — of course there would be noise.
"I pushed back against Association policy and kind of... charged in. So I ended up on the blacklist... haha."
This kid was starting to look a little different. Karen had taken him for a pushover, but there was a spine in there after all.
"The Association's reach doesn't extend here as much, so I've been staying put. Sometimes I go in as a porter and forage for herbs. It's not bad."
"A porter?"
"Yes. I just carry the gear while the combatants take the lead. Though I don't even get to do that very often."
The Porters' Association had tied wages to an Awakened's rank. It was meant to guarantee porters a minimum wage, but for Han Minjae it had become poison.
"Nobody needs to hire an expensive C-Rank just to haul bags. Sometimes I wish my rank were lower."
To Han Minjae, alchemy mattered more than his own rank. The problem was that the Alchemist Association, unlike the Porters' Association, had rotted through.
The Association President had restricted all herb gathering inside dungeons to people holding their official permit. Rumor had it the monopolized herbs were being funneled straight to the guilds and the Alliance.
"Tsk. What a waste of time."
No wonder every potion in this place was garbage. With a head that empty running the show, of course nothing worked.
"And the alchemist profession itself doesn't get much respect."
"How is that possible? Even if the factories mass-produce potions, there's a limit."
"A limit? The potions alchemists make can't even touch what the factories put out."
Karen's face twisted at Han Minjae's nonsense. What the hell was he talking about?
"The best a factory can do is a fifty-percent potion."
Come to think of it, Director Kang had not seemed to know that either last time. And if even a pharmaceutical company employee did not know...
"Don't tell me people on Earth have no idea that mana potions over fifty-one percent have to be hand-crafted by a person, infusing their own mana?"
"What? Is that true?"
Good lord. Karen had never been this shocked since coming back to Earth.
"Honestly, we call ourselves alchemists, but we're basically just herb gatherers. The only difference is that we're Awakened."
"So that's how it is. That's how it is."
Factory goods were churned out by machines, so researchers had designed them. Alchemists could not make any money crafting by hand, so they had not even tried to make or research anything.
"They'll figure it out themselves."
He had not the slightest intention of reforming the Association or any other such headache. He was simply floored, that was all.
"Sunbae-nim, alchemy is still a pretty amazing profession, though, right?"
Han Minjae was looking at him with shining eyes, and Karen found his opinion of the kid shifting.
This one's a special case.
He was doing work that did not pay, picking a fight with the Association knowing he would lose, and getting driven all the way out here.
"I'm an alchemist too."
No need to spell out a long explanation. That one sentence was enough.
"I believed in you! Someday I'm going to make people recognize alchemy for what it is."
"Why do you like alchemy so much, anyway?"
A C-Rank had plenty of other options. Money, for one.
"It's fun. Mixing things together and getting something completely different — it's genuinely mysterious. Plants are beautiful, and potions are just... really cool."
When Han Minjae talked about alchemy, his face turned childlike. Of course, with those rough features, nobody else would have noticed...
I used to be like that too.
It had been not long after he had first fallen into Belial.
"Hey there. Are you hurt?"
An old man had treated his wounds with herbs and potions, and told him he was an alchemist. They had never met again, but that encounter had made Karen who he was today.
"Well, it's not like I can do anything special for you. Still hungry?"
"What do you mean you haven't done anything? Just getting to walk around with you is an honor, Karen Sunbae-nim!"
Sunbae, huh...
"I'm really fine. You already bought me pie."
A thunderous rumble answered him. Three little pies were nowhere near enough to fill the stomach of a man in his twenties who had barely eaten in two days.
"Where's the best restaurant in Ellinia?"
"I'm really fi—"
"I'm not buying for you. I just want to eat."
"Karen Sunbae-nim..."
The kid's passion was all well and good, but that look in his eyes was a lot. Like a duckling staring at its mother.
"You gonna stop staring?"
"Yes, sir. I'll show you the way."
At least he could take a hint. He ducked his head at once and started leading them down the street.
"That's him?"
Lee Chaerin arrived the next day and looked Han Minjae over with frank curiosity. How on earth had he gotten into the good graces of someone as fickle as Karen?
"Um... the Witch of Severance?"
The trademark crimson hair. The scar slashing hard across her face. There was no mistaking her — Lee Chaerin, the S-Rank Hunter known as the Witch of Severance.
"The Witch of Severance? That's what they call you? Hahaha!"
Karen burst out laughing at a nickname he had never heard before, and Chaerin's face went ice-cold as she turned her glare on Han Minjae. She caught him by the shoulder and whispered in his ear.
"You... just wait."
"Hup... I'm sor—"
"Shut up. Don't even apologize. Keep your mouth shut."
Threatened by an S-Rank Hunter he had only just met, Han Minjae's face went corpse-pale, as if he might drop dead on the spot.
This mouth of mine!
Why had he gone and tugged the whiskers of a sleeping tiger? No — the woman standing in front of him was scarier than a tiger. And stronger than one, too.
What do I do?
With a crisis staring him in the face, Han Minjae's brain began spinning faster than it ever had in his life.
"You're not hurt anywhere?"
Chaerin looked Karen over carefully, worry written all over her as she checked him from head to toe. She might as well have been a different person from the one who had just spoken to Minjae.
"Hm? What are you talking about?"
"Some bastards picked a fight with you, didn't they. Samsaek told me."
Chaerin had originally planned to recruit party members, get everything ready, and arrive in time for the gate entry date. The moment she got the call, she had dropped whatever she was doing and come running.
"Chaerin! You're here!"
Something unlatched with a click, and Samsaek's head popped out of the bag on Karen's back. It was a spaceship-style carrier, a bubble of clear glass bulging outward from the front. Hauling the old carrier around all the time had been a pain for both Karen and Samsaek, so they had bought this one yesterday on Han Minjae's recommendation.
"Oh my, that is too cute. I even brought handmade snacks for our Samsaek."
Right. Forgot there was a spy in the nearest possible place. One spy. Well — one animal.
"Master! Your girlfriend's here!"
"Oh my?"
The unexpected title turned Chaerin's face scarlet. She did not know where to put herself.
"Hey, that's rude. Look, she hates it."
This is it. This is the way.
Chaerin's sudden softness, and that flustered reaction, hit Han Minjae like a bolt of lightning. A way out had just opened in front of him.
"Um..."
The instant he opened his mouth, Chaerin whipped around to look at him, her face changing so fast it was downright ghostly.
"Um... Sunbae-nim. There's a restaurant just for companion animals that I'd love to introduce to Samsaek. Would it be all right if we went together?"
"How about it, Samsaek?"
"I'm in!"
As if this guy was ever going to say no.
"Then I'll escort Samsaek there myself. You two should go grab a meal."
"I'm fi—"
"I'm starving! I ran here so fast I didn't get to eat."
"Huh? Then..."
"You're not telling me to eat alone, are you? Come on. You two have fun!"
Han Minjae snatched the carrier off Karen in a flash. Even Samsaek wriggled his body around, helping the handoff along.
"Let's go!"
Chaerin hooked her arm through Karen's and called it out loud enough for the street to hear.
"There's a restaurant here in Ellinia that ranks among the very best."
Chaerin took the scrap of paper with the address Minjae had given her and mouthed a few words in his direction.
"You're forgiven."
Han Minjae watched the two of them disappear and finally let out the breath he had been holding.
"Hm? Who's talking about me?"
Walking along, Chaerin suddenly felt her ear itch and gave a little frown.
"What did you do this time?"
"Ah! There is something. But she's got no room to talk."
"Hm?"
Chaerin grinned, picturing the person she was closest to in the world — who by now was surely furious.
The truth was, Chaerin was supposed to be in Seoul right now, handling a pile of work of her own...
The instant Chaerin heard that Karen had been threatened, she had come running. Her good little sister would root for her anyway. She had been the one who pushed Chaerin into this in the first place.
"Then today's for fun. Tomorrow we go into the gate."
Chaerin kept her arm linked through Karen's and set off toward the restaurant Minjae had recommended, her steps light the whole way.