Heongal's New Folk Game

After that, Sia tested her newly acquired Aging skill on medicine after medicine until her stamina gave out and she fell asleep.

The clock hands were racing toward three in the morning, and even the homeless addicts had spread out newspaper and gone to sleep by this hour.

But there was one place that still refused to rest.

That place was the dawn shift of the Hunter Gallery's concept-rec board.

There, the early-morning hunters were quietly engaged in a brand-new folk game.

The object of the game was a single post among the countless threads on the rec board—

…or more precisely, a comment attached to that post.

Originally, Heongal had been a relatively well-behaved community—real-name verification and a memo function that could identify even private posts kept the trolling lighter than most forums. But over the past week, clown-post occupancy rates had skyrocketed, and this was why.

Trace it back to the first post that started it all, and you got this:

Back then the tents had only just started going up in front of the pharmacy, but Sia was already locking down her seat as Heongal's Gallery Owner.

Of course, Sia was an ordinary civilian—not a single photo of her had ever appeared on a broadcast. But most Heongallers ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠had already come to the pharmacy to buy a three-million-won spare life, which meant nearly everyone had seen her in person. That made it possible.

A cute little beauty you genuinely wanted to nibble on. And yet she was a prodigy who had simultaneously attended and graduated from S-Class University's Pharmacy and Alchemy departments. On top of that, a hunter with a younger sibling in the same pharmacy class had spilled the tea that she'd never even been allowed into a bar until graduation—confirming she was pure-blooded human.

Sure, her actual age was nineteen rather than nine, but even so: thirty years after the Gates first appeared and the world had stabilized, with the Association still refusing to permit underage hunters to operate, she remained the youngest person in all of Heongal. That much was fact.

And though only a few days had passed, the number of people whose lives she had rewritten with handmade medicines of overwhelming quality was climbing one by one.

That adorable little Gallery Owner had said she laughed her belly button off?

And just like that, making Sia laugh hard enough to earn a comment became Heongallers' new favorite game.

It was only natural. When some old fogey typed in boomer-speak, it was garbage. When a cute girl typed the same thing, it was a medal of honor in the comedy hall of fame—written by delicate jade fingers.

No pension came with it, of course. But then, hunters who hit D-rank never had to worry about starving anyway.

"Hmm…"

Well. It didn't look like cyberbullying the way things used to, and Sia seemed to enjoy it—so maybe she'd just keep watching.

She was also curious how long it would take for Sia, who barely used the internet at all, to realize that people were making a whole production out of her comments on humor posts she'd already read—replying not with nested replies but with brand-new top-level comments, fussing and celebrating like it was a festival.

Heongal itself was fine. As her aunt, though, Servel had one complaint.

"Why is this kid gallery-posting this late?"

Her niece, who normally forced herself into ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠a hard nine-o'clock bedtime just to look taller somehow, was staying up later and later by the day.

Servel had worried that the relentless private-post trolls of Heongal might hurt Sia's feelings. She had never once imagined the community would enchant her instead. It was genuinely disorienting.

Then again—this was a kid who had restricted her own smartphone use for studying and stuck to an old flip phone, and Servel had forced an expensive one into her hands as a combined coming-of-age and graduation gift, over Sia's protests that it was too pricey. Maybe struggling with self-control was only natural.

Should she step in as the aunt and set some rules, or respect her as an adult even if she looked like a child? Servel found herself wrestling with a rare parent-teacher-conference kind of dilemma.

"Nngh—haah."

Elf though she was, Servel stretched like a cat beastkin.

Shoulders rolled back into place. Looking down, she saw five o'clock—H-District still blanketed in the dark of night.

"Condition's good."

Ten days without lying down on a proper bed, and her body still felt light as air.

That was the change that had come from sticking on the medicated patches Sia had given her.

Elves, as a rule, wore down their cartilage over the centuries they lived; no matter how high their combat power, there was always some corner of the body that ached. But ever since she'd started using these patches, the joint pain that had dogged her continuously past her two-hundredth year had simply… gone.

How to put it—a sensation of very slow recovery? A feeling that faintly resembled the old days of sleeping beneath the World Tree when it was still whole.

When she'd asked, Sia had said it only contained Melania flowers to free up stagnant flow, plus a bit of mana herb—nothing special.

"Heh."

Anyway. Who had she inherited this ridiculous talent from?

Not Lee Seong-ju, that's for sure. Has to be Seyeon… right?

"……"

Servel shook her head hard, banishing the thought of her sworn sister—missing, and for all practical purposes almost certainly dead.

Then she poured her focus back into discriminating every presence within a two-kilometer radius of Sia.

Hunters asleep in their long rows of tents, or snickering at their phones. Detachment hunters from the Crimson Flame Guild and the Azure Sea Guild standing perimeter watch in all four directions, a little ways off from the pharmacy—as if they'd worked out some arrangement among themselves. The peaceful breathing of sleeping civilians in their homes. And farther out, the residual presence of the junkies in the slums the nation had given up on.

And…

Hmm. That one's a little ambiguous.

No combat power worth calling a threat—but a presence that had been hovering around the line, then circling around the other way.

That one I'll check in person.

For the past ten days she'd been squeezed by the government, busy taming unit members who kept thrashing about wanting to go to the pharmacy themselves, and monitoring certain pieces of trash whose recent movements had turned suspicious. She hadn't been able to watch over things directly, so she'd been forced to call in a favor from an old colleague—

Seeing everything running smoothly with her own eyes put her mind considerably at ease. The Crimson Flame and Azure Sea guild members really had been handling every disturbance on their own, just as reported.

Hmm… the guild detachments alone would have been enough. Did I over-fortify for nothing?

The prickly feeling of having taken a loss was a separate issue.

But even thinking it through again, this had been the best option.

Originally, greasing the Narcotics Investigation Bureau so they'd diligently scoop up the addicts who wandered by now and then would have been enough. Then Sia's medicines started making a name for themselves, and the whole situation changed.

Her pharmacy had gone massively viral inside the hunter community. Everyone was desperate for the disc-fixing patches and the three-million-won red potion that performed like three hundred million. On top of that, word of a blue potion that modestly expanded mana capacity and a period-pain medicine that simply deleted menstrual cramps for female hunters had been spreading by whisper—crossing Gates, even.

The colleague currently cooperating was someone Servel would rather not have gotten involved with. But if she hadn't made contact, she never would have learned the rumors were already reaching the Empire.

Cha Ji-woo—an S-class hunter obsessed with knowledge and information, who had awakened a specialized class and planted eyes and ears across the globe and even inside the Empire beyond the Gates. Her personal combat power was formidable enough on its own, but on missions where information mattered, she was more useful than anyone.

And she was the only one Servel could still reach. As a naturalized citizen who'd spent the last decade in a black-ops unit, every shallow connection had been cut. What remained was Cha Ji-woo and one other person—and that other person was currently on a commission beyond a Gate, so.

"…Haa."

Right. She'd meant to contact her partly to help sell Sia's medicines—just to tell that woman to do a little promo among her nearby network. She hadn't intended an actual meeting.

But camping comfortably on the pharmacy rooftop for security detail was out of the question. Servel herself was too busy, and far too famous.

An S-class hunter of elven origin from the Empire who had naturalized alongside Han Seyeon—Sia's mother, the second S-class awakener—and even taken the Han surname. As team leader of a black-ops unit, her very existence had been kept hidden; she especially could not show her face among hunters who might recognize her.

Anyway, if that woman shows up out of nowhere, Sia's going to jump out of her skin.

And if I just KakaoTalk it, that woman will definitely see it too.

…Will I even get a chance to tell her?

Turning the problem over rapidly in her head, Servel leapt from rooftop to rooftop the way one might hop across tree branches.

She landed on the streetlight directly above her target's head, zipped up her khaki jacket, pulled on a baseball cap, and finally covered her face with a mask. Then—

Thuk.

She dropped.

The suspicious man had been staring at a map on his phone for ages, standing in the long line, then looping far around behind the pharmacy with his nose still buried in the GPS. Servel chopped the back of his neck—

THWACK!

"What the—mmph!"

She ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠clamped a hand over his mouth and hit him a few more times for good measure.

"…S-spare m—"

Once the look in his eyes had gone properly obedient, she let go of his mouth.

"Purpose?"

"Sia! Han Sia, who opened a workshop here—koff—I'm a college classmate, I was on my way to see her!"

"Hmm?"

One of Servel's eyebrows climbed.

Just Sia? And a classmate?

"You know Sia?"

"Yes? Yes, yes! We were in the same section! Classmates! After I returned from leave I spent two years at school with her… we even did lab internships together!!"

"Which lab?"

"The alchemy lab, under Professor Herban—for a year!"

"Huuh…"

Sia had bounced through quite a few labs in both the pharmacy college and the alchemy college, so Servel didn't know every professor's name offhand either.

"Hmm… you've already graduated, but you're still carrying your student ID?"

"Yes? Yes, yes! As a, a keepsake. Felt weird to throw it away—"

Well. The student ID in his wallet was from S-Class University, the student number matched, and his pupil response was normal.

If he was lying, she could just beat him up then.

Servel smiled sweetly behind her mask.

"Then this works out. We'll go together."

"Huh?"

She needed to tell Sia that Cha Ji-woo was coming to visit, and she still had to pick up the blue potions she hadn't collected yet.

And she wanted to see her niece's pretty face, too.

The only problem had been time—she couldn't afford to stand in that line—and figuring out how to slip through ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠the swarm of hunters unnoticed. Now she had the perfect front to walk in with.

"Sia's my niece, you see."

"…Excuse me?"

Servel smiled at the way his eyes flicked toward her pointed ears.

"What, elves aren't allowed to have human nieces? Don't tell me… you're some kind of racist?"

"No! Of course not! Perfectly possible, yes!"

Good enough.

"Walk. Casually, toward the front of the pharmacy."

"Eep—yes!!"

"Casually. I said it twice?"

A jab of condensed mana in the small of his back made the man pivot as innocently as he could manage.

And so began ten minutes of walking a knife's edge.

To the man those ten minutes felt like ten hours—and then, past the tent village, the pharmacy's Chinese-character signboard finally came into view.