I was sitting in a chair, holding Seoyeon’s hand, and just starting to doze off.
That’s when a commotion erupted from outside the infirmary.
“Seoyeon!”
A familiar, booming voice struck me from behind.
They said they were sending another guardian, and I’d wondered who it would be… Right, there was Juyeon.
“Seoyeon…!”
The sound of heels clicking on the floor drew closer. Juyeon’s eyes widened as she looked back and forth between me and Seoyeon, before her gaze settled on our tightly clasped hands.
A man, sitting and holding the hand of a woman lying sick in bed.
I’d been caught in a scene anyone would misunderstand.
…I really hope she doesn’t get the wrong idea.
I offered Juyeon an awkward smile and a greeting.
“Hello…?”
“Oh, uh, yes. Hello.”
Juyeon finally tore her eyes away from our hands and looked at me.
Her eyes, curved into beautiful half-moons, openly displayed her delight.
“You seem to have been… well?”
“Huh? Ah… yes, I have.”
What’s with this curveball?
“Have you been well, too?”
“Hehe… I wonder? Maybe I have, maybe I haven’t…?”
She kept saying things that were hard to get a read on.
Her expression shifted so rapidly with every word that I couldn’t tell if she was being sincere or not.
Was she always this expressive…?
“Anyway, what happened to Seoyeon? Why did she collapse?”
“Ah, about that…”
I repeated what the doctor had told me earlier, without adding or leaving anything out.
“I see…”
Han Juyeon looked down at Seoyeon with pity, as if she had an idea of what was going on.
She probably knew.
Before I left for America, besides her parents, Juyeon was the one who played with Seoyeon the most and often slept beside her.
“The truth is… Seoyeon has a childhood trauma that makes her hate being alone in the dark.”
“Ah… is that so.”
“Yes. I thought she’d overcome it, but I guess she hasn’t.”
Juyeon pulled a chair over from the next bed and sat down. She reached out and gently stroked Seoyeon’s hair as she slept peacefully.
“You must have had such a hard time, my dear Seoyeon…”
A faint light began to seep from her hand as she caressed Seoyeon’s head.
Simultaneously, the surrounding mana was dyed a pure white, flowing through her hand and into Seoyeon.
With each pulse of light, Seoyeon’s mana, which had been stabilizing at a slow pace, began to rapidly return to its normal flow.
“…She’s gotten stronger again.”
Juyeon’s healing abilities seemed to have grown even more.
She was already an A-rank healer, a rarity in the healing field, but now it felt like she was on the verge of becoming S-rank.
If she were to reach S-rank, the entire nation of South Korea would be in an uproar.
It would be the first time in the world that two S-rank hunters from the same family emerged in the same generation.
“Hoo!”
With a short sigh, the pure white mana dissipated.
“She should be fine after a good, long sleep.”
“That’s a relief.”
“However…”
Her gaze drifted downward.
Specifically, to my hand, which was still tightly holding Seoyeon’s.
Better to strike first than be misunderstood.
“Ah! Please don’t get the wrong idea. Senior Seoyeon kept sleep-talking, calling for her dad and asking me to hold her hand, so I did.”
As I blurted out the excuse like a thief with a guilty conscience, a strange smile played on her lips.
Han Juyeon slowly shook her head.
“No, no, don’t worry. I’m not misunderstanding.”
“Well, that’s a relief…”
What is this unsettling feeling?
I got the answer I wanted, but I feel incredibly strange.
“Still, you can let go now.”
“Uh…”
She reached out and separated our clasped hands herself.
She’s probably going to start whining for me to hold her hand again.
Contrary to my worries, however, Seoyeon remained sound asleep, as if she hadn’t even noticed her hand had been released.
“See? I was right, wasn’t I?”
It seemed her healing from a moment ago had done the trick.
“Your hand is all red from how tightly she was holding it.”
She took my hand with a look of resignation and began to draw on her mana again.
“You really don’t have to do this…”
“It’s fine. I’m doing it because I want to. So just stay like this for a moment, okay?”
“…Okay.”
The shimmering light from her hand seeped into mine.
A cool, refreshing sensation spread through my entire palm, as if I were getting a massage from a professional.
A pleasant smile formed on my face from the invigorating feeling, so much so that I worried I might get addicted.
But it was short-lived.
The flow of mana stopped.
Thinking the treatment was over, I was about to pull my hand away with a hint of disappointment.
“Sss… The treatment isn’t over yet.”
“…Excuse me?”
That’s strange.
The flow of mana has already stopped, but she says it’s not over…?
“That’s right. Just a little, a little more… yes, good boy.”
“……”
As she pressed down on various spots on my palm with her eyes closed, her fingers sent a strange, ticklish sensation through me.
“My, your palm is in worse condition than I thought… Just a little more…”
I really hope this is actually part of the treatment.
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Seventy hours had passed since the fourth test began.
With only two hours remaining, dropouts were occurring one after another.
“They’re probably reaching their limits.”
For 72 hours, they couldn’t eat or sleep in peace.
The thick darkness surrounding them made them lose all sense of direction, driving them mad, while the traps and golems that popped out of nowhere ensured they could never let their guard down for a second.
As a result, the number of dropouts naturally increased.
In fact, more people had dropped out in the last 20 hours than in the first 48.
“I hope at least one or two of them make it…”
Fortunately, the other team members, excluding Seoyeon, were still holding on.
It was frustrating not knowing how far they’d gotten or what their situation was, but what could I do?
All I could do was wait patiently and pray for them to pass.
For two hours, I paced near the entrance, feeling as anxious as a parent waiting for a child sent on an errand.
Finally, with exactly one minute left until the 72-hour mark.
One second, two, three… fifty-eight, fifty-nine, sixty.
[The fourth test is now concluded.]
[We express our deepest respect to the candidates who ran through the darkness for 72 hours.]
[Candidates still inside the maze, please follow the instructors’ directions to exit.]
It’s finally over.
It was a long, long wait.
I was so bored waiting alone for two days for the test to end.
The tightly shut entrance doors opened, and candidates, looking like beggars, began to walk out one by one.
“I did it…!”
“We’re outside!”
“Sob, fuck.”
Sadness, anger, joy.
A mixture of these three emotions filled the waiting room.
It was understandable.
You could say that all the applicants who took this qualification exam were just unlucky.
Of all the times they could have applied, the test that had been sealed for ten years had to be reinstated.
“Guess I should get going.”
I grabbed the water, towels, and easy-to-eat energy bars I had prepared and headed toward the entrance.
I spotted a grimy face in the pouring crowd and waved.
“Elena!”
She, who had been walking with her head down in exhaustion, looked up at me and broke into a huge grin.
Heh.
She must be happy to see me after three days.
“Dojin!”
Elena shouted my name and ran toward me.
“That water in your hand, hand it over, quickly!”
“Oh, sure…”
So she was happy to see the water, not me.
Well… I can accept that.
Elena and I haven’t progressed beyond being teammates yet.
Soon, another face emerged, walking with difficulty.
“Naeun!”
“Do-Dojin…!”
Her eyes welled up with tears the moment she saw my face.
I opened my arms to embrace her as she ran toward me with her arms outstretched.
“Hiiiing…!”
She buried herself in my arms and started to whine.
“I thought I was going to dieeee…!”
“You went through a lot.”
“Sniffle… Hooooonk!”
“……”
Hey, why are you suddenly wiping your nose on my clothes…
“Ah, sorry! Hehehe…”
She’s too cute to get mad at.
I took one of the many wet towels I’d brought and wiped the snot smeared on my clothes.
Just how much dust did she inhale in there for her snot to be black?
“Oh, there’s Yujeong!”
Just as I managed to wipe off all the snot, Naeun waved at someone.
I saw Shin Yujeong trudging toward us from a distance.
The palms and knees of her gear were completely black.
I could tell right away she’d been crawling on the floor to be safe.
With hollow eyes, she trudged over and held out her hand.
“Water.”
I handed her a water bottle, and she downed the entire 1L bottle in the blink of an eye before holding out her hand again.
“Energy bar.”
I unwrapped an energy bar and gave it to her. She shoved the whole long thing into her mouth in one go.
She was always so enthusiastic about fellatio whenever we had sex; a bar of this length must be nothing to her now.
Like an actor in a famous eating scene from an old movie, she furiously chewed the energy bar, then thrust her face forward.
“Wipe it.”
“…Can’t you wipe it yourself?”
“Ah, hurry up.”
Did being in the dark suddenly cause her to regress to a child…?
With no other choice, I used a wet towel to carefully wipe the dust covering her face.
She’d been through a lot, so I could indulge her childishness at least once.
While I was at it, I wiped her palms clean too, and the once-white towel turned completely black.
“But what’s with you?”
Now clean, at the cost of one towel’s life, she stared at me with a sullen expression.
“What about me?”
“…Why are you waiting for us with all this stuff?”
“That’s because… I passed the maze two days ago.”
The gazes of the three people, who had been standing in a circle around me, all shot toward me at once.
“You passed that insane maze?”
“In just one day…?”
“Have you lost your mind?”
Their tones were filled with disbelief.
[We will now announce the successful candidates.]
Perfect timing. The announcement of the results began.
A leaderboard appeared on a beam projector aimed at one of the waiting room walls.
[1st Place. Kim Do-jin (B-rank)]
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[252nd Place. Shin Yujeong (Failed)]
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[292nd Place. Elena Mikhailova Dobreva (Failed)]
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[301st Place. Im Naeun (Failed)]
“Huh.”
A gasp escaped my lips as I saw the rankings.
My rank didn’t matter.
I was the only one who passed the maze, so of course I was first.
Elena and Im Naeun’s failure was unfortunate, but not bad.
In fact, considering they had only started learning to be hunters a year ago, their ranks of 292nd and 301st were promising for their futures.
The problem was Shin Yujeong.
Her situation was similar to the other two.
“Ah…”
She had only been learning for a year, and she was exceptionally talented.
Her rank, 252nd, was the highest of the three.
The only problem was that the cutoff for passing this quarter’s Hunter Qualification Exam was exactly 251st place.
In other words, she had missed her chance to become an E-rank hunter by a hair’s breadth.
“Aargh, fuck!”
Her furious curse, filled with rage that had reached its peak, echoed throughout the waiting room.
But it didn’t matter.
With sounds of wailing already coming from all over, a little swearing was nothing.
“Yujeong, are you okay…?”
“That is most unfortunate, Yujeong…”
Elena and Im Naeun, who were less shocked, approached Shin Yujeong, patting her on the shoulder and offering words of comfort.
I quietly backed away from the scene.
Sometimes, words of comfort from someone who passed can feel less like solace and more like mockery.
I decided to wait a bit for her anger to cool down before going back. I was looking at the scenery outside through a window in the long hallway when it happened.
Bzzzt-
The smartphone in my pocket vibrated briefly and then stopped.
A message, it seemed.
I took out my phone and checked it.
«Han Ju-hee: April 5th, noon, at the Magic Tower»
Finally, she took the bait.