The Gift of a Surprise Shield
In front of the Association building stood two men.
A man in a white mask, and another with a massive build.
They were Han Jin-hwan, ranked first among Korea’s hunters, and Choi Hee-seok, ranked seventy-ninth.
Jin-hwan stood very still, staring down at his right hand.
He’d already been standing there for two minutes when Hee-seok finally asked, “What’s wrong?”
“Brother….”
“Hmm?”
Jin-hwan opened and closed his hand.
He repeated the motion several times, then finally clenched his fist and turned to look at Hee-seok.
“Remember how, after you shook my hand once, you said there was no way you could ever beat me?”
“I remember.”
It wasn’t exactly a moment he was eager to recall.
Hee-seok did not voice the rest of the thought.
Then, suddenly alarmed, he asked, “Why? Don’t tell me you mean that guy—”
“No, that’s not it.”
“……?”
Without even letting Hee-seok finish, he denied it.
He waved a hand and, to Hee-seok’s baffled expression, went on, “I’ve never once in my life thought I couldn’t beat someone. Even when I ran into the Americans, I figured I’d probably win.”
The Americans.
He meant the American S-class hunters.
In other words, Jin-hwan was saying he felt like he could beat an S-class hunter.
It was an absurd thing to say.
Ranks existed because there was an absolute difference between them.
Just as it was tremendously difficult for a B-class hunter to beat an A-class hunter, it was equally ridiculous for an A-class hunter to beat an S-class hunter.
If anyone else had said something like that, Hee-seok would have snorted and told them not to talk nonsense.
But right now, he couldn’t.
The person saying it was Han Jin-hwan, the man praised in Korea for his overwhelming strength.
The same man so powerful he’d been given the arrogant nickname Thunder Emperor.
So Hee-seok didn’t take it as mere bravado.
“Then why bring it up now?”
“I think I could beat him. I just don’t think I could kill him.”
“What? What’s the difference?”
At Hee-seok’s question, Jin-hwan didn’t answer right away. Instead, he scratched at his white mask.
He seemed to be sorting through his thoughts, trying to figure out how to put them into words.
Hee-seok stood quietly and waited until he’d finished.
“I’m not sure, but for some reason it feels like the world is protecting that bastard… or something.”
“The world?”
“Yeah.”
“…….”
Was he joking?
Hee-seok watched Jin-hwan with that question in mind.
But the eyes visible behind the mask were serious.
He wasn’t joking around, and he wasn’t lying.
He was saying it with complete sincerity.
“Yeah. It’s not so much that I can’t kill him as that if I do, something really bad feels like it’ll happen. Does that make any sense?”
“No. I have even less idea what you’re talking about now.”
Hee-seok answered with a shrug.
Seeing that, Jin-hwan didn’t feel frustrated at all; he only let out a short laugh.
After all, even he couldn’t understand it.
If he fought Baek Do-woon ten times, he could win all ten.
But taking his life felt impossible.
Why?
“…….”
Jin-hwan thought about it in silence.
Unfortunately, even after a while longer, no thought that made the feeling understandable came to him.
So he pushed the whole thing to the back of his mind.
He wasn’t the type to think too hard.
He didn’t need to be.
The strongest man in Korea was allowed to be that way.
“Anyway, like you said, he’s interesting. I’ll give him that.”
“Hm. Hearing you say that makes him even more interesting to me, too.”
“Hmmm.”
Jin-hwan looked toward the place where Baek Do-woon had driven off in his car.
Then he muttered, “Baek Do-woon, huh…. I’d kind of like to work on something with that guy.”
＊＊＊
“Ah, that’s better.”
Soaking my body in hot water felt like a blessing.
It was already June, technically spring, but I wasn’t giving up hot water for anything.
Whether it was a shower or a bath, hot water was still the best.
I roughly dried myself off with a towel and headed out.
I heard the front door open.
At this hour, the only person who’d come home was Do-hee.
I draped the towel over my head and, before going out, quickly pulled on the underwear and pants I’d laid out earlier.
If she saw me standing there naked, I’d never hear the end of it.
“Oh, you were home?”
“Yeah, I was.”
I answered as Do-hee came in, taking off her shoes.
I glanced at my smartphone to check the time.
2:23 a.m.
“You’re pretty late. Been that busy?”
“Yeah, I’ve had a lot to do.”
“Anything I can help with?”
“If I said yes, would you come back?”
“…….”
I didn’t answer. I just smiled.
No matter what I said, she wouldn’t like it.
If I said no, she’d scold me for saying no; if I said yes, she’d ask why I’d gone and quit in the first place if that was the case.
At times like this, smiling and staying quiet was the best strategy.
There’s a reason the saying goes that you can’t spit on a smiling face.
Though Tae-cheon probably would.
“Hmm, at least you’re wearing your hair tie properly.”
As I expected, Do-hee moved on to the next topic.
She was looking at the hair tie looped around my wrist.
“That’s the first thing you check?”
“Hehe….”
Do-hee didn’t answer, just kept smiling.
Why did it feel like there was such a difference in temperature between my smile and hers?
“So how’ve things been lately?”
“Ah, well….”
I nearly said, You already know everything I’ve been doing, so what are you asking me for?
Thank goodness I stopped myself.
Do-hee still didn’t know I had people keeping tabs on me.
I’d play along and pretend ignorance.
For the sake of Lee Jae-wook and Kim Sang-cheol, too.
“I’ve been doing fine.”
“…Hmm, really?”
She seemed curious about what I’d been up to.
That made sense.
She’d been informed that I’d gone to Crystal Workshop, but she probably hadn’t been told what I’d done there.
Neither had Jae-wook or Sang-cheol.
That was why she kept asking.
What she was most curious about, of course, was that I’d fought some guys in front of the workshop.
If I told her it had been the Crowd, she’d worry.
So, to change the subject, I decided to tell her just one true thing.
“Oh, right. I made some potions and sold them to the government.”
“Potions?”
“A fair bit of money’s going to come in, so after you sort your bank account, don’t ask me where all that cash came from.”
“Ah. Then that makes sense.”
Why would you say it makes sense right there, Do-hee?
I’d just have to pretend I hadn’t heard that.
“Hm? What was that?”
“Oh, nothing. It’s nothing. You were talking about high-grade potions, right? You made those, Oppa?”
“Yeah, I did. How’d you know?”
“The government sent a notice text to A-class hunters last night.”
As she said that, she held up her smartphone.
On the screen she’d shown me was a message that read, High-Grade Potions For Sale.
“We didn’t need potions, so we didn’t buy any.”
I’d heard there were practically no potions on the market, but apparently the problem was even more serious than I’d thought.
The Association had gone so far as to send out a mass text and start selling them.
Maybe because I wasn’t directly involved, the severity of it hadn’t really hit me.
“What kind of dispute—”
Do-hee was just about to ask something when my phone vibrated.
As if I hadn’t heard the end of her question, I checked the screen.
Hong Su-jeong had sent me a message.
Do-woon, this is Hong Su-jeong.
At this hour?
I wasn’t the only one wondering.
Do-hee was curious too, and immediately started grilling me.
“Who is it? A woman, right?”
“...Yeah, but she’s here for work.”
“At this hour?”
Do-hee clearly didn’t believe me.
She walked briskly right up to me and tried to peer at the screen.
“Tsk.”
I lifted the phone out of her line of sight.
With a slight furrow in my brow, I said, “I’m serious.”
“...Fine.”
Do-hee pouted.
Then she went back to her room to get ready to wash up.
I lowered the phone again and looked at the screen.
Sorry for messaging so late at night.
The pinecone appraisal is finished, so I’m texting now before I forget.
It took longer than expected to appraise it, right?
I’ve been so busy lately....
Su-jeong really must have been swamped.
She’d made two kinds of World Tree potions, found a sales channel at my request, and completed the sale.
At the same time, she’d researched Bava and Vipi on orders from me and Hee-seok, and even had to write up and submit a report on top of that.
That wasn’t all.
I’d also handed her the pinecone and wasp stinger for appraisal.
She was, quite literally, buried under work.
Feeling a little sorry for her, I kept reading the appraisal report on the pinecone.
The pinecone has a wide range of uses.
First, it can purify the air and toxins around it.
So just by existing, it purified the air nearby?
It was basically a natural air purifier.
It would be a huge help in places with heavy miasma, like Hongyureung Gate.
Well, it was a pinecone from the World Tree, so that made sense.
It can also be used like fuel.
It has the property of storing purified energy as pure mana.
Oh, wow. Not only was it a natural air purifier, it was also natural fuel.
Its size alone suggested it could store a huge amount of mana.
Maybe that storage property was what let it absorb all that photosynthetic energy and shoot out like a missile, piercing right through Kim Mu-yeon’s body.
You can also just use its outer shell, which is as hard as turtle shell.
An outer shell as hard as turtle shell.
That meant the pinecone was one of the hardest things in the world.
“That’d be perfect as a shield.”
Tae-cheon had lost his shield because he fought Kim Mu-yeon for my sake.
I’d been thinking I should make him a new one.
Now I could do more than think about it—I could actually make one and give it to him.
But before that.
Could it still be used if split in half?
I’m asking whether its properties would disappear or not.
I sent a question because there was something I wanted to know.
The answer came back in less than a minute.
It’s possible.
The efficiency would drop a little, though.
Then that was fine.
As long as the properties didn’t disappear entirely, I could live with a slight drop in efficiency.
I wasn’t some idiot who couldn’t even do that much for someone who had fought for me.
While I was thinking that, Do-hee opened her door and came back out.
Just as I’d expected, she’d finished getting ready to wash up.
“Do-hee.”
“Yes?”
She stopped at once and turned to me when I called her name.
“Did you make a new shield for Tae-cheon yet?”
“No, not yet. I can’t seem to find materials as good as the old one.”
“Really? Good.”
“Good?”
She tilted her head, completely lost.
It made no sense to her that I’d say good when she’d just told me she couldn’t get anything suitable.
I grinned and said, “Yeah. I’m going to get him a new shield.”
“You are, Oppa?”
“Yeah. A turtle shell from Guisu Mountain—”
“You got that!?”
I nearly jumped.
Do-hee’s eyes went wide as she shouted the question.
Fair enough, really.
If someone asked, “What’s the best armor material in the world?” plenty of people would answer, “Armor made from Guisu Mountain turtle shell.”
It was that excellent a material, and that expensive and rare. If I said I’d gotten my hands on it, even Do-hee would be shocked.
Of course, I hadn’t actually gotten any.
“Enough to make a shield?”
“I got something just as good.”
“Ah, ahh….”
The loud, startled reaction vanished in an instant.
She drooped in disappointment.
Which was a pretty understandable response.
Something as good as Guisu Mountain turtle shell.
That kind of phrase was usually just an idiomatic way of saying something was excellent armor material.
But what I was talking about was a World Tree pinecone.
Literally, truly, something just as good as Guisu Mountain turtle shell.
Not an idiom.
“From your face, it sounds like it really is something good.”
“It is. Just make sure nobody buys a different shield first.”
“Huh? You want me not to tell them?”
Do-hee cocked her head.
There was no need to stop people from buying one if I was simply going to get them a shield.
I gave a faint grin and nodded.
“A gift is supposed to be a surprise, isn’t it?”
“Ah. Right. Got it.”
Do-hee snickered and went off to wash up.
As for me, I ought to get some sleep and then head over to Jae-i’s Blacksmith.
For the surprise.
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