Catfight(?)
"Waaah—"
At the sudden appearance of that coldly beautiful face, I dredged up the profile of the beauty standing before me.
Han Mi-na.
Deputy Guild Master of the Blue Sea Guild, a water mage, an A-class top-tier hunter.
And the twin sister of Han Ye-na, the hunter I'd just had lunch with!
A celebrity!
Seeing a famous hunter in the flesh for the second time today, drool once again slipped from the corner of my mouth—the same spot that had been leaking while I napped in the car.
But was it really because they were twins?
"…How are you here—"
"…How are you here—"
Han Ye-na, wearing her easy smile, and Han Mi-na, wearing her icy blank expression, looked at each other and delivered the exact same line at the exact same moment—
"……Aha?"
"……Aha?"
—and then, at the exact same moment, let out the exact same little sound of realization.
Seen separately, they were fire and water, completely different atmospheres. Standing face to face like this, though, they looked like mirrors staring into each other.
"Waaah—"
…Except I'd said that out loud.
The two sisters, who had been locking eyes, now both turned their gazes on me.
Huh? What are they looking at? …My mouth?
Oh no. Drool.
"…Slurp."
I hurriedly wiped the corner of my mouth with my sleeve.
"……"
"……"
But their stares still wouldn't leave.
I rolled my eyes this way and that, trying to escape the prickling weight of their attention.
Why—why are they staring like that?
"…Haa."
"…Haa."
Both of them sighed at the same time, then shot each other another sharp look.
For a long while, something crackling and electric passed between them.
"…Sia, dear."
This time, Han Ye-na spoke alone.
"For now—there are a lot of eyes out here. Shall we go inside and talk?"
Twins resemble each other.
And the twin sisters of the Han family—who had awakened on the exact same day at the exact same hour when the Gates first appeared—resembled each other all the more.
"How are you here…… Aha?"
"How are you here…… Aha?"
The two sisters asked each other, and from that single shared question alone they arrived at the same realization at the same time, and the same name rose in both their minds.
Park Sang-jin.
From there, what each of them felt diverged according to her relationship to the man in question.
Come to think of it, Sang-jin's card charges were one million once and six million once…. Six million would be two potions… so he bought the red ones? Those must have worked well on the raid.
How the hell did this fire-up-the-ass little mare get here? Looking at how she already ate lunch, she can't have come after seeing the review my brother-in-law just posted on the Hunter Gallery… Come to think of it, she said he left her on read in KakaoTalk. Don't tell me her yandere mode kicked in again?
…Don't tell me that Gyarados bitch figured out why I came? Something feels off…. No. That's not what matters right now. What matters is that she—no, that the Blue Sea Guild side—is about to make some kind of offer.
…Ahh, so that's how it is. Well, whatever. What matters is that the Red Flame Guild was about to pitch an exclusive contract.
In the end, both of them, with their sharp instincts, grasped that they were now in a situation where they would have to claw at each other over a stake in the pie.
"Waaah— …slurp."
…Except the pie herself, with her pure and innocent little gesture, slammed the brakes on both of them.
And so, by unspoken agreement, the venue shifted inside the pharmacy. The sisters dragged over the single chair from the compounding room, sat the child between them, folded their arms, and faced off in a staring contest.
Haa.
Han Mi-na sighed inwardly.
The Blue Sea Guild's parent company was a major conglomerate, which meant the politics ran deep, and as the deputy guild master who had survived in a place like that, her radar for social cues was especially ruthless. The moment her keen sense of smell caught the faint sweat that had started rising off that fire-mare of a sister—who was putting on a bold front while her guts were clearly twisting—the full picture of how Ye-na had ended up here lit up crystal clear.
The clues had been more than enough from the start.
— Eh, come on. That's no fun. You two are in on it together, right? Why are you pretending a high-grade potion is a low-grade one?
— No, Sang-jin and I aren't doing some prank or hidden-camera bit. Sang-jin said it was a low-grade potion, so when the card charge text went to Wife-bun, he pretended not to see the message before the raid because he was scared Wife-bun would catch that he hadn't packed a high-grade red potion, okay?
— Hey! Hey!
Obviously Sang-jin left her on read, her yandere flared up, she dug into the shop that sent the card charge, dug into Sang-jin's Hunter Gallery main account, and so on.
Still, she managed not to set anything on fire this time?
Mi-na smirked.
"…Kh."
She lifted the corner of her mouth with that exact meaning loaded into it, and her twin looked like she was about to die of pure delight.
"Hnn…."
At the same time, though, Mi-na realized just how thoroughly her mind had checked out—because even with every piece of the puzzle handed to her in advance, she had completely failed to predict Han Ye-na's appearance.
But she couldn't help it.
— Uh… so if I just give you the address, you'll go on your own? W-wait a second… I'm going to post a review on the Hunter Gallery, so please make sure you read the precautions section before you go into the pharmacy! …No, what the—why is the comment notification like this? Ignore all the trolls, they're full of crap!
At first she had been so stunned by the potion's performance that she'd poured everything into getting out of the Gate and moving as fast as possible; later, she'd been so stunned by the contents of Sang-jin's review that she simply hadn't had room for any other thoughts.
That was how shocking the review had been.
Looking at the comment notifications, seems like some troll rumor was going around
Anyway, writing the review
Currently three items available for purchase at this pharmacy
Looks like they also have stuff like Tendon patches and Mentos, but
Three things the Master made herself
Patches, red potions, blue potions
The patches are split by body part—shoulder, lower back, knee, sole of the foot…
……
Didn't go to the hospital for a detailed exam because of the raid schedule, but my lower back that was mid-herniated disc feels light as air
She said it's not drugs, it's made from Gate-sourced materials
Not a pharmacist who deals drugs—a pharmacist who deals magic potions, she said
But the real insane part isn't the patches, it's the red potion
On today's raid, one of our guys took a massive hole through the abdomen
We didn't have a high-grade potion on hand, so just to buy time I dumped two bottles of the red potion I bought here on him at once
I looked away for a second and the wound had regenerated
It was a hopeless injury—internal organs and spinal bone gone, nothing left but a strip of side meat
For reference, the red potion price was not 300 million per bottle. It was 3 million won
Haven't tried the blue potion yet but it looks like it'll be good
……
Nod.
Even Mi-na, who had witnessed the situation firsthand, found herself unconsciously nodding along to the first comment—that's how absurd the contents were.
From a distance she'd known there was a hole in the abdomen, but she hadn't known it was that bad.
And a herniated disc healed overnight by a patch? She wouldn't have believed it either.
Except all of it was true.
…Anyway. Setting aside the comments that had been weirdly hung up on the drug angle—
The precautions Sang-jin had hastily tacked onto the review, even though all anyone had asked for was the address, were almost comically ordinary compared to the patch that had supposedly cured a disc.
The Master is very kind, and she's nineteen… well, young, anyway, and she doesn't seem to use the internet much. When you meet her in person she really feels like someone's daughter, so if you go, don't look down on her—treat her with the same courtesy you'd give any other hunter. Actually, more politely than that.
Nineteen. Well—she and Ye-na had both awakened in high school, so it was perfectly possible. She'd figured it was no big deal.
"? …Ahaha?"
But that she was this young, this adorable, and this sweet—someone really should have said that properly.
…No, given the limits of an online space, restricting personal information made sense. She understood that.
Even so, meeting the potion master without any advance warning and discovering she looked smaller than her own niece hit harder than the time, before awakening, when she'd been fighting Han Ye-na and taken a frying pan to the head.
A soul this pure… and she's nineteen? No—more than that, she has two licenses and she's nineteen?
All in all, it was a pharmacy full of surprises.
While she was thinking that, her sister—wearing a smile more fake than usual—called her name in a tone more fake than usual.
"…Mi-na. I have something to discuss with Sia. Would you mind stepping aside for a moment?"
Honestly, that fire-mare of a sister.
"Oh my, Ye-na. I have a proposal of my own to make first?"
"Yer Blue Shea Guild's cash flow ain't lookin' so hot right now…"
What Ye-na said through clenched teeth so Sia couldn't hear was: I know all about the Blue Sea Guild's bad financial situation.
"An' Red Flame still got a long way before that dragon loot hits auction, don' it?"
Likewise: The Red Flame Guild still has a long way to go before the dragon raid spoils even make it to auction, doesn't it?
Kh.
Sisters, and rival guilds on top of that—they knew each other's circumstances far too well.
Han Mi-na ran the angles fast.
With the target looking this young, she could probably just praise the red potion's performance and sweet-talk her way into something. But there was zero chance Han Ye-na would step aside.
Which meant that even attempting persuasion was the same as personally informing her strongest competitor about the red potion's performance.
Ye-na already had a rough idea just from having sprinted all the way here, and she'd hear it directly from Park Sang-jin once she got home anyway.
Haa… I really should have thought deeper and locked down that review post… No. Even if I had, that Han Ye-na bitch would still have shown up. And the other hunters on-site wouldn't have been managed either.
…Now that a competitor had latched on and a review had gone up on the Hunter Gallery, it would be a long time before either of them could scrape together the money for an exclusive contract.
For now, the right move was to secure whatever stock existed and put a reservation down as fast as possible.
Her eyes swept the workshop—no, the pharmacy interior. Patches stacked in decent quantity, twelve bottles of blue potion, and red potions that looked like they were currently being brewed.
Scan complete. She tipped her head.
You half, me half. Deal?
…Deal.
Nod.
And just like that, a grand national accord was sealed by eye contact alone.
Buy the existing stock half and half, then race to free up as much cash as possible in the shortest time and duke it out over the exclusive contract.
"Master, we will each purchase half of all current stock and place reservations on future production."
"We'll prepare the funds for an exclusive contract, so please don't sign with any other guild or corporation—just wait a little for us, Sia dear."
And with that, two pitch-black cards were extended to the young master at the same time.
Blink.
Blink.
The child blinked about five times, as if processing the situation—and the answer that came back was nothing either of them had expected.
"Um… reservations… are possible, but. The blue medicine I have right now—no wait, the blue potions—I can't sell any more of those?"
"Why not?"
"Well… they already have an owner?"
At those words, both sisters' expressions turned several degrees more serious.
Meanwhile, outside the pharmacy.
The Deputy Guild Master is one thing, but why is Hunter Han Ye-na here?
No—I snuck out early and left the team leader in my seat, and now Han Ye-na AND Han Mi-na?! Why are those two…!
The hunters who had been watching the two tigers size each other up still couldn't go inside even after arriving, and were forced to read the situation from the silhouettes beyond the glass and the scraps of sound that leaked through.
Holy shit, if I post this it's going straight to the front page.
And one of them uploaded a live report to the Hunter Gallery, which was already on fire.
Why the sudden celebrity festival
Atmosphere inside is deadly serious
Guess that review was the real deal?
"Ye-na noona's there?"
Sang-jin—who had been the furthest behind among the raid members heading to the pharmacy, slowed by both a tanker's relatively sluggish pace and a running comment war with trolls after posting his review—came to a dead stop at that post.
A chill ran through him.
He still didn't understand a single thing—so why did that one unread messenger call-out flash through his mind?
Drip.
The sweat that had been warm from all the running went cold, and slid down through his beard.