The Free Trade District (3)
“An item for me?”
At first glance, it sounded as if she had come to buy a gift for me. Of course, the harsh reality of the slums lay far from such romance, yet…
Yuri seemed to sense the strangeness in her own words. She quickly turned her head away and corrected herself.
“…I must have spoken oddly. Please do not misunderstand. Arin and Dong-hyuk are free to ask for anything they need, and I will move immediately. That is the duty of the guild master.”
Even compared with the excuse she gave, it felt thin. Still, I said nothing.
“Understood. Then to the destination store…”
“I will guide you myself. The map is saved on my phone. Come along.”
She set off in a cold tone, her outfit the same crisp white suit and tight mini-skirt I had grown accustomed to seeing at Flame headquarters.
It belonged more to the aisles of luxury boutiques than the slums, yet Yuri appeared oblivious.
‘She has no awareness that she is in danger.’
To any onlooker she would seem a young lady from a wealthy family. And in truth, she was.
Yet today the streets swarmed with outlaws who killed for pocket change. The academy arcs of the first two parts, yes, but the third arc of the hunter world carried a far darker hue.
Such grim districts were sadly common. After all, in a world where monsters and villains claimed lives without pause, respite was a luxury few could afford.
‘And if one strays off course in the Free Trade District, one might never leave a body behind.’
That was why, even during my days at Eins, I had refused to set foot here before securing an item with the stealth attribute. The risk was simply too high.
Yet Yuri showed no trace of tension whatsoever.
We walked deep into the labyrinthine alleys of the slums. The journey took far longer than I had expected.
‘Wait. Yuri…’
A fact I had momentarily forgotten resurfaced. Yuri was an absolute pathfinder. That talent had helped me defeat her in our first academy duel.
She finally stopped dead in her tracks, expression bewildered. Even if a navigation app existed, it would have been useless in this maze-like network of backstreets.
She stared at her phone for an unusually long time. Perhaps because I stood right beside her, her voice grew even more flustered.
“Why is this? The store should be right here…”
Yet the two of us stood in a filthy alley with no sign of any shop nearby.
“May I see the map?”
The instant I reached for her phone, my body jerked.
‘Enemy?’
Mana was still unusable, but the sensitive instincts of a graduate remained sharp. No—thanks to the S-rank Ancient Gear Ruby fused in place of my mana heart, they had grown even keener.
I scanned the surroundings instinctively. I felt eyes on me.
‘Five of them. Surrounded.’
Especially in a dead-end alley. Escape was impossible. The moment the sound of air being torn split the air, a thrown weapon whistled toward us.
‘Projected weapon?’
My body reacted at once, but the speed was unnatural. Mana was embedded in it. I barely dodged.
‘Tch. Just grazed.’
Without mana, movement lagged slightly. Blood trickled from the shallow cut on my cheek.
It had been an ambush, yet I had reacted instantly. The wound was no more than a superficial scrape.
Considering the unbridgeable gap between ordinary people and awakened ones, what I had accomplished was nothing short of a miracle.
‘Maybe my tireless rehabilitation made the difference. This should be enough to adapt to the field.’
Clang—alongside the throwing weapon came a Claymore-like explosive blast.
Yuri’s freeze magic dispersed every fragment without a hitch. Nothing happened.
The instant I relaxed, Yuri cried out.
“B-blood! Lee Minsu, are you all right?”
Alarmed, she forgot every ounce of formality and seized my shoulder. The air around her cooled rapidly.
Her blue pupils trembled.
***
I absentmindedly touched my cheek. Blood stained my fingers, but the wound was trivial—only a faint seepage after the scab of an ordinary cut had been torn away.
Yuri’s reaction was extreme. Her entire body shook; the shock was palpable.
“I… I must have been distracted by the map… and looking for the way… and so I… what on earth…”
Cold mana surged around her in a sudden storm.
At the same moment, the pure-white ring on her right middle finger flared. It resonated with a sound that only S-rank Ancient Gears could produce.
“That’s it! An Ancient Gear! This is huge! We’ve hit the jackpot!”
“Kill every last one of them! With one gear, this back-alley life ends right now!!”
“Wait! Keep the girl alive! Her looks are stunning… khehe.”
The five assailants surged forward and closed in on Yuri. The familiar scent of awakened mana mixed with the foul reek of drug addicts.
I tried to move, but Yuri refused to let go.
Even as a woman, her strength far surpassed that of an ordinary adult male. She pulled me into her chest, shielding me.
Our eyes met with those of the attackers.
“…Trash.”
The voice that left her lips was ice-cold, stripped of every trace of warmth by fury that had surpassed all limits. The ring blazed again, and the limbs of every attacker froze solid.
“What… what’s happening to my arms?”
“Ugh… I can’t move…”
But that much shock was nothing.
Crack—
The ice shattered. The attackers were thrown backward.
“Aaaah! My… my legs!!”
“Aaaah! Save me!!”
The attackers who had come in with such momentum now lay broken and helpless. But that was not the end.
Yuri’s Ancient Gear, Nivis—identical in rank to Ruby—released mana once more. Five ice spears materialized in the air.
“Ah… I… remember now… that woman… the Snow Maiden… Yuri Tarkovskaya!!”
“You… bastards… If she’s the Snow Maiden… she’s an S-rank hunter!!! We stirred up a hornet’s nest… p-please spare us!!”
The resonance of Nivis did not cease. The tips of the ice spears locked onto the attackers’ heads.
I calmed her. I stroked her back where I still clung.
“Guild Master, I am fine. Please stop.”
“But those trash… they were going to… I mean, they were going to harm you, Minsu…”
“I’m really all right. Let’s go.”
She had been on the verge of wiping them out completely.
Yet when I repeated myself, Yuri obediently withdrew her mana. Compared with the ruthless woman she had been moments earlier, she now seemed almost gentle.
‘And anyway, these living things would have suffered far more than death.’
They were drug addicts. Even an S-rank hunter like Yuri could not have been recognized as such by these small-time thugs.
In this unforgiving slum, becoming a limbless cripple would have turned their existence into a living hell. There was no need to grant them mercy by killing them.
“Then we should hurry out of this alley…”
Only then did Yuri realize how tightly she had been holding me. She jolted.
“I-I’m sorry! Ah… let’s leave quickly. Minsu.”
A smile slipped out before I could stop it. For an ice mage who had turned five awakened into cripples in an instant, she looked far too shy.
In the end, I took the lead in finding the way.
“Normally I’m very good at finding directions… but perhaps the map Team Leader Seo provided is a little off.”
She tried to excuse herself, yet the map was flawless and far too detailed. Following it would have avoided the alley entirely.
‘That explains the lapse in attention.’
Especially since Yuri, the pathfinder, was beside me—a weakness I exploited so perfectly that she was now even more flustered.
A normal Yuri would never have been surrounded by awakened thugs in the first place.
I bought cheap hats and sunglasses from the nearest novelty shop and placed them on her head.
“Your appearance is too eye-catching, Guild Master.”
“…You’re right. I’ll be more careful from now on.”
The absurd disguise clashed with her elegant outfit, but at least it hid her beauty.
A short while later we reached the destination. Only then did I understand why Yuri had come to the slums at all.
“This is a mana stone, correct? But it hasn’t been properly purified, has it?”
“Boss, that’s our sales point. The mana makes… how should I put it… the MCI spike just a little… it gives such a rush. Right?”
The middle-aged shop owner whispered into my ear with a sleazy grin.
“Especially good when spending the night with your girlfriend. Boss, your girlfriend looks like she’s quite beautiful.”
The shop owner spoke nonsense the way only a slum-dweller could, yet I had read Yuri’s intention in an instant. We bought the stone and left. The return journey was handled entirely by me.
As we settled back into the car, Yuri spoke.
“Due to the Association’s intern program, a field trip is scheduled for the interns. That’s why we need this mana stone. Especially for Minsu.”
This stone was required because of my unique trait—zero MCI.
Flame’s operations were handled by Team Leader Seo, who possessed the ability to manipulate information. But when visiting the Association, they might view an individual with no limit line and zero MCI as abnormal.
“Just like this stone, if the purity is low, it will naturally interfere with MCI measurement equipment,” Team Leader Seo and Executive Director Maria had explained. “You don’t need to carry it all the time, but you must wear it during the upcoming Association mission.”
“Understood.”
I nodded obediently. That much made sense for today’s outing.
‘But…’
It was not rare for low-purity mana stones to lack purification. I recalled something.
The mana stone Yuri had received from me today shared the exact same half-moon shape as the one I had given her. And ordinarily, creating such an unusual shape required immense difficulty.
These peculiar stones had to be sold by hand to collectors.
‘A gift, perhaps.’
Before I could ponder it further, the car stopped at a traffic light.
At that moment Yuri asked softly,
“May I… see the other side for a moment?”
She reached into the glove compartment, took out a band-aid, and gently pressed it to the small cut on my cheek. Our eyes met; she turned away in haste.
“So the scar doesn’t remain. When we get back, apply ointment.”
The two of us rode back to Flame headquarters in silence.
***
Two weeks after joining the guild.
While the first week had been routine waiting with no incidents at headquarters, the second brought a significant schedule.
“Are you having any trouble finding your way, Dong-hyuk?”
“I’ve traveled the Southeast Contaminated Zone many times under previous guilds. It’s manageable, Team Leader Seo.”
“You’re reliable.”
Dong-hyuk answered. I sat in the ninth-seat minivan—the exact vehicle the field teams of Flame used for movement.
The driver was Dong-hyuk. Team Leader Seo sat in the passenger seat. I occupied the seat directly behind the driver, where an operator terminal had been installed.
The device ran the same OS as the one in the guild office, so operation presented no inconvenience.
“Intern Minsu, the dungeons in the Association’s intern program are not particularly difficult to clear. Still, it’s your first time with this team. Please double-check the backup tactics you submitted yesterday.”
“Yes, Team Leader.”
As instructed, the interns of the field team would participate in today’s mission. Of course, for new recruits like us, it was not a mission directly managed by Flame.
‘Dungeons for the intern program…’
The Association’s intern system existed solely to raise adaptation and survival rates for fresh hunters. It would not involve any dangerously high-level dungeons.
‘This is the perfect place to adapt to the field.’
More than anything else, these dungeons offered the fastest way to restore my mana. It was an excellent opportunity.
“Senior, sitting in the car so long must be uncomfortable. Would you like me to massage your shoulders?”
Arin leaned from the back seat, peeking toward me.
“Highway driving. Sit still. Accidents happen.”
“Eh, it’s not that bad…”
“And I’m busy right now.”
“Yes, I understand. I won’t disturb you.”
Arin turned away with a sulky expression. Soso, seated beside me, glanced at her.
Soso had kept her strange outfit on even for the journey to the field.
‘Time to talk to Soso properly.’
Unlike Yuri, who had grown more conversational since the academy days, I had not exchanged a single personal word with Soso since the equipment warehouse incident.
I stole a glance at the terminal monitor. The graph of Soso’s limit line and post-guild changes stood displayed. The moment I tried to examine its meaning again,
Soso spoke abruptly,
“Lee Minsu. This maiden wishes to ask you something.”