Three-Heritage Soup
After morning training ended, we headed to the office for a meal.
"Haaah."
I kept yawning.
Tears even welled up a little.
Impressive, this child's body.
Just staying up for what was practically an entire night had been enough to force even This Seat, the Heavenly Demon Wiji Yeon, to shed tears.
"What's wrong? Yeon, you look tired today."
"I'm not tired."
"Strange. You're even yawning wide when you normally don't."
"Did you stay up late watching YouTube last night...?"
"Hmm... is that so?"
Kim Na-yeon's suspicious gaze swept over my face.
I maintained an expression as if nothing were wrong.
But inside, I was breaking into a cold sweat.
This woman had better instincts than I had expected.
Last night, I had definitely snuck into the gate Kim Na-yeon's party was clearing.
Two hunters stood guard at the entrance, but there was no way they could have spotted me with the naked eye while I was using the Heavenly Demon Phantom Steps. Thanks to that, I strolled into the gate as casually as if I were taking a neighborhood walk.
After that, well—I watched them fight for a while, and when they looked like they were struggling, I finished things off for them at the right moment.
At the end I only sent a telepathic message with a little internal energy modulation so they would not be too shocked, and since the technique of voice transmission is unknown in this world, there was no way Na-yeon would realize it was me.
From the start, in Na-yeon's eyes I was nothing more than a little girl with some strange power and knowledge. I had never shown her any combat ability.
And yet she was suspicious of me.
Was it purely gut feeling?
But she could not pin anything on me with a feeling alone.
I am a benevolent supreme being who listens well to her subordinates.
Na-yeon seemed to drop her suspicions at my brazen face.
Then, as if nothing had happened, she dropped a bombshell.
"So you were playing on your smartphone and went to bed late...? Maybe I should install a parental control app that limits screen time on Yeon's phone."
"What...!"
I flinched hard.
A time-restriction program installed on a smartphone.
A terrifying demonic art that lets a guardian control a child's smartphone usage time.
"P-please, spare me that at least."
"Oh my? Look at this little one begging so prettily?"
"I'm sorry, Unnie! I'll go to bed early from now on!"
I had no choice but to desperately cling to Na-yeon as she walked along with a sly smile.
"By the way, it's amazing. You endure this itchy restlessness every day and still keep up your training."
"From now on, Unnie Na-yeon is going to follow the same schedule as us."
"Unnie is training with us too!"
Lee Da-yeon seemed to be in a good mood.
Na-yeon had returned from clearing the gate, and now they could spend time together as usual.
Moreover, starting today, all three of them would train together.
I sat at the empty table and smacked my lips.
We had come to eat, but the office table we used as a dining table was bare.
Normally Yoon Deok-ja, the building manager and retired hunter, would have prepared something, or delivery food would already be set out.
"Is the food not ready yet?"
"Hehe. Today I prepared a special meal for you girls' health. Auntie Deok-ja is cooking it now, so she'll bring it soon."
"A special meal...?"
"Oh."
Lee Da-yeon tilted her head, and I let out a sound of interest.
A special meal.
If I had a few pleasures besides training in martial arts, one of them was eating the delicious food of this era.
Korean cuisine with its neat side dishes was fine, and the greasy fast food Na-yeon ordered from time to time was good too. Among those, chicken was my favorite.
Chinese-style dishes that claimed Chinese food culture came out occasionally as well, but a lot of it was quite different from the Central Plains cuisine I remembered. Time must have changed things.
A representative example was jajangmyeon, drowning in black bean paste—I could not get used to the color at first.
Well, it tasted fine, though.
Anyway, while we waited for the food, at Lee Da-yeon's insistent request we listened to Na-yeon's gate adventure story.
"...So Unnie threw everything away and went, 'Yap!' at the boss with her shield!"
"Wow!"
Lee Da-yeon clapped and laughed brightly. Good reaction.
But I shook my head with a deliberately stern expression.
"Na-yeon should train attack methods in parallel. No matter how strong your defense is, if you cannot take down your opponent, you will eventually be the one who falls."
"That's why I go around in a party. Unnie is a tank, you know?"
"Bah, enough chatter! I'll pick an auspicious day soon, so you and Da-yeon will learn from This Body!"
Even if Kim Na-yeon started learning advanced martial arts from now, it would take many years to reach practical skill, but basic hand-to-hand combat rooted in her strong physique could be learned and used right away.
If she added palm techniques and finger techniques that channeled internal energy into attacks, she could gain enough offensive power to take opponents down.
"Kids, time to eat."
"Thank you, Auntie Deok-ja."
As we chattered away, the long-awaited meal arrived.
Three earthenware pots steaming with heat, and from them, the familiar savory smell of meat.
"Oh... is this another kind of chicken dish?"
"It's called samgyetang. Unnie prepared this specially as a restorative for you girls, so everyone eat up."
It looked like a dish of thoroughly boiled chicken accompanied by ginseng, jujubes, ginger, garlic, and more.
But from the ginseng used as an ingredient, a familiar feeling...?
"...!"
I cried out in shock.
"W-what is the meaning of this!"
"Munch munch... Yeon, what's wrong?"
Kim Na-yeon already had her nose buried in the pot, scooping up chicken.
Her samgyetang had a full two chickens in it.
"Th-th-this precious thing, just as samgyetang ingredients...!"
"Huh, Yeon. You know what this is?"
Of course I did.
This was a type of Fire Ginseng.
A spiritual herb possessing fire energy, the counterpart to the cold-natured Snow Ginseng.
Of course, what Na-yeon had brought did not seem aged for a thousand years or anything, but even at this age, it was a fairly high-grade spiritual medicine for us.
"Unnie prepared this specially to help with your training. Unnie doesn't need any, so each of you eat one. Just watching you eat is enough to fill Unnie's stomach, you know?"
Mine and Da-yeon's pots each had one, but Na-yeon's pot had no Fire Ginseng.
Instead, two chickens.
Just watching us eat fills her stomach? Na-yeon's stomach would be plenty full as well.
And since the Fire Ginseng's energy had dissolved into the broth, she would get some internal energy enhancement effect of her own.
...Even so, samgyetang of all things!
"How can you treat a spiritual herb that should be handled with care like this...!"
"There wasn't any particular prescribed way to handle it."
"Ugh, this root tastes bad. Yeon, you eat... mmmph!?"
"Th-this is extremely precious, my disciple. You must eat every last bit. Not even a single drop of broth must be left!"
I forcibly shoved the Fire Ginseng into Da-yeon's mouth as she tried to pick it out and eat only the chicken.
I also chewed my share of Fire Ginseng thoroughly.
I forced every last bit of the samgyetang broth into my stomach as well.
The tallest building in Seoul, rebuilt after the Great Calamity of a hundred years ago.
The fact that this entire massive building belonged to a single group was not particularly surprising in the current era.
And if one heard that the group was the Jeokpung Guild, even hunters from other countries would nod in understanding.
On a high floor of the building was an office meant for only one person.
By the window overlooking the river that cut across Seoul, a man looked down with indifferent eyes.
He was none other than the master of the Jeokpung Guild, and currently the S-class hunter evaluated as the strongest in South Korea: Lee Myeong-won.
Knock knock.
"Come in."
The door opened with the knock, and a middle-aged male hunter entered.
Lee Myeong-won, who had been looking out the window, turned his head to regard him.
"Hunter Jo Yong-hyeop."
"Master, I have a report."
"Speak."
"...As instructed, we proceeded in secret, so it took time. We have finally finished excavating the collapsed zone."
"Survivors?"
"None. The researchers' corpses clearly showed signs of being attacked by monsters. They all appear to have died just before the collapse."
"And that?"
"The life support device was still running, but the test tube was shattered. And it was empty."
While the man called Jo Yong-hyeop continued his report, Lee Myeong-won showed no change in expression.
But Jo Yong-hyeop broke out in a cold sweat.
He could clearly feel the air in this place growing sticky, as if it were tightening around his throat.
After a moment, Lee Myeong-won turned his head back toward the window.
Only then could Jo Yong-hyeop breathe.
"Hunter Jo Yong-hyeop."
"Yes, sir."
"In this world, power is everything."
"......"
"In the past era of conventional weapons, there was a great nation that waged war against other countries. But the international community only raised voices of condemnation, and not a single nation took direct military action against them."
"As you say, sir."
"This world right now can be seen as being in a transitional period between paltry humanitarianism and order enforced by power."
Lee Myeong-won.
The hunter standing at the pinnacle of South Korea today.
Why did a man already strong enough that few on Earth could compare still pursue even greater power?
Even Jo Yong-hyeop, who had been his closest aide for over ten years, still did not fully understand his guild master.
Lee Myeong-won clenched his fist.
"People sing of hope. Humanity has risen again. We have grown strong enough. The scenario of humanity's extinction by monsters is becoming a thing of the past."
The gaze looking down on the city was as cold as if it pierced beyond it.
"They say South Korea currently has five S-class hunters, but that is few compared to the numbers held by other hunter powerhouses. At this rate, South Korea will only return to the history of watching the great powers' faces. Moral condemnation of inhumane experiments? That sort of thing can ultimately be ignored as long as one has overwhelming power. The other foolish masters of South Korea do not understand that."
Jo Yong-hyeop listened silently to Lee Myeong-won's words.
"So Jeokpung must grow stronger. By any means necessary."
Where did this abnormally persistent pursuit of power, that spared no means or methods, originate from?
Lee Myeong-won still kept his back turned as he gave the order.
"...'It' is alive. Investigate the roster and affiliated guilds of the personnel who participated in the expedition at the time of the Gate Break."
"Understood."
The master office after Jo Yong-hyeop had left.
"Kh."
The man who had stood so firmly, Lee Myeong-won, suddenly staggered.
Then he slumped into the chair as if collapsing into it.
"Huu."
Bit by bit, that voice grew stronger.
The existence that had once given power to the weak Lee Myeong-won.
The voice of the existence that had raised D-class hunter Lee Myeong-won, who had been dying in some nameless gate, to his current position.
Lee Myeong-won felt as if he was losing himself after obtaining this power.
But that was fine.
What the voice wanted was not so different from his own ideal.
It would be good to find the test subject, but it did not matter if he could not.
He simply needed to grow stronger himself.
There was no being in this world as powerful as the master of the voice that accompanied him.
With this voice, Lee Myeong-won could stand at the pinnacle of the world.
This voice was saying:
If he fully assimilated with it, he could obtain power a dimension above—power that would let him call S-class hunters "mere things."
"...Blood Demon."