“A healer taking down a 3-star Monster in a fistfight. That’s something you’d read about in the papers.”
As they left the dungeon entrance, Yuk Cheol-wan shook his head nonstop. It was no wonder he was so astounded. A series of events that overturned all common sense had just unfolded.
A healer who, far from wearing heavy armor, entered a Poison Dungeon without any gear, subdued over ten Evil Horses with single strikes, and beat the boss Monster to death with his bare hands. He must have witnessed scenes that were hard to believe, even with his own eyes.
“I should have brought one more person, no matter what.”
“Why?”
“Because no one will believe what I say. A healer who beat an Ashen Wolf to a pulp? No one will believe it.”
“Hm. Is that so.”
“Just how did you get that kind of power? Judging by your Healing Ability, you definitely seem to be an S-rank Healer…”
Even while being healed, Yuk Cheol-wan’s mouth moved without rest. After we left the dungeon, I immediately began to heal Yuk Cheol-wan. Although he wore protective gear, Yuk Cheol-wan had already reached the early stages of poisoning.
It was a good thing he was a Knight-type; if he had been an Esper or another type, his face would have turned a deathly blue. But as soon as my hand touched him, Yuk Cheol-wan’s poison vanished as if washed away.
If nothing else, I was likely a step above even Maria when it came to healing symptoms of poisoning. After all, the thing I had wrestled with every day even before my Awakening was Monster Poison.
“When I get healed by other healers, I’m usually bedridden for days. But right now, I feel like I could go back into a dungeon tomorrow.”
“That’s a relief. But I think you should change your gas mask and gear. For their weight, their performance seems pretty poor.”
“I was thinking the same thing. Since I made a good haul today, I plan to stop by the device market on the way back. This is all thanks to you, Hunter Cheon Hae-seon. I was able to mine the minerals smoothly without a single interruption.”
“That’s good. But did you find what you were looking for, aside from the minerals?”
Yuk Cheol-wan’s caterpillar-like eyebrows twitched. His expression clearly said, ‘How did you know?’ This man was quite amusing, as his thoughts were written all over his face.
“How did you know?”
I had to try my best to hold back a burst of laughter. In truth, I had asked half in doubt. The reason a B-ranker would wander through Poison Dungeons instead of joining a Guild.
Though minerals were valuable, the income wasn't drastically different from that of a normal one. Besides, this man only frequented dangerous places like Poison Dungeons. Considering the so-called life allowance, it was by no means a profitable venture.
That left only one conclusion. Yuk Cheol-wan had another purpose besides ‘minerals.’ He was expressing the accuracy of my deduction with his entire body.
“Amazing… Hunter Cheon Hae-seon, do you perhaps also possess the trait known as Insight?”
“It’s not that. It’s just that it seemed like the Clan Leader wasn’t having much luck here…”
“This amount of minerals is enough for a few weeks of living expenses. I don’t have much greed for money. I’m just…”
Yuk Cheol-wan stroked his messy beard with his palm.
“Just as you said, Hunter Cheon Hae-seon, I’m looking for a special item. Something called a ‘rare herb.’”
Oh.
Did he just say rare herb?
“I’ve only heard about the rare herb through rumors. I heard it can cure illnesses that can’t be treated with ordinary medicine. They say there are Copper, Silver, and Gold Eternal Flowers, depending on the grade.”
An ordinary Hunter would have shown considerable interest in this story. Unfortunately for him, I was someone who had picked more than ten of those rare herbs. I decided to just listen silently to his explanation.
In reality, very few people knew about rare herbs. As the saying goes, even a dog at a schoolhouse learns to recite poems after three years. Perhaps because he’d been a cleaner for so long, Yuk Cheol-wan knew the truth about the rare herbs.
“I’m not sure how to obtain it. But I have a reason I must get my hands on a Gold Eternal Flower.”
Hearing his explanation, I suddenly felt a pang of sympathy. Needing a Gold Eternal Flower meant there was a critically ill patient nearby who couldn't be cured by normal means. And I could say with certainty that Yuk Cheol-wan would never be able to save that person.
He might not know it, but the quality of a rare herb is directly proportional to the dungeon's difficulty. I had gone through hell just to dig up a Silver Eternal Flower; a Gold Eternal Flower would likely require a dungeon with a 7-star difficulty.
Even I couldn't guarantee success at that level of difficulty, so it was far beyond what Yuk Cheol-wan could handle. Yuk Cheol-wan seemed to think that rare herbs were like wild ginseng that grew by chance. But unfortunately, that sacred herb only grew in the lairs of high-difficulty bosses.
Since his priority had always been collecting minerals over killing the boss Monster and clearing the dungeon, he had never discovered one.
“It seems someone is very sick.”
At my careful question, Yuk Cheol-wan smiled bitterly.
“My wife was attacked by a Monster and fell into a state of mental corruption. It happened while I was dispatched to another area.”
“...!”
“Haha. You don’t have to look so pitiful. Everyone has their own circumstances, don’t they? Still, today’s harvest was considerable, so I’m looking forward to going home.”
After saying that, Yuk Cheol-wan walked on with vigorous steps.
“If you’ve been hesitating for that long, just do it.”
“Huh?”
The flow of the conversation was strange. No, there hadn’t even been a conversation. My sister had suddenly spoken to me as I was eating dinner in silence.
“If you’ve been worrying for three days, that’s long enough. I don’t know what it is, but just do it.”
“How could you tell what I was doing?”
“Hehehe.”
My sister’s friendly eyes curved into crescent moons.
“You probably don’t remember. You were very young. You agonized and hesitated for a week before shutting your eyes tightly and asking for a toy robot. You look just like that right now.”
“...!”
I thought I wasn't showing it, but it seemed completely obvious to my sister. In fact, I was agonizing over it. About collecting the Gold Eternal Flower.
Mental corruption is a truly terrible disease. You can’t control your own body and have to lie down every day, and naturally, you can't even take care of things like using the bathroom yourself. Moreover, although they can't express it, the person has to battle with pain every day while lying there.
I once saw an interview with a patient who had recovered from mental corruption. He said that during his illness, he would send desperate gazes to his family every single day. A plea to just let him die.
“There’s someone who has a terrible illness.”
“Oh my. Who? Is it a very serious illness?”
“Mm… It’s similar to the pain I went through before my Awakening.”
“That really is… a terrible illness, just as you said…”
“I want to save them, but to do so, I have to go to a pretty dangerous dungeon. And it doesn’t pay.”
The Gold Eternal Flower would be very expensive, but it would be used for treatment immediately, leaving only a Black Core. From my perspective, it wasn’t a profitable endeavor.
“But the fact that you’re still agonizing over it means you really want to do it, doesn’t it?”
“Yeah. That’s why it’s a bit frustrating. It’s something I could just turn a blind eye to, but it keeps bothering me.”
“Why is that frustrating? It’s a cool thing to do.”
“A cool thing?”
“Yes. A cool thing. Do you remember what you said to me when you told me you were taking the Hunter test?”
Of course, I remembered. That I would become the most powerful Hunter in the world. So that I would no longer have my life weighed on a scale by others.
“Weighed on a scale…”
As if possessed, I uttered the words.
“That’s right, Hae-seon. If you want to save someone, you just save them. Without weighing this and that. Even if it doesn’t make you any money.”
Oh…
Suddenly, my sister seemed pretty cool.
“You can always charge them for their life after you save them, right? Hehe.”
“…”
Her cool image vanished without a trace in just three seconds. But thanks to her, I felt the clutter in my mind clear up.
“Thanks, sis. I feel more at ease now.”
“But in return, you have to promise to stop if it gets really dangerous, okay?”
“I will.”
I couldn't make my family sad just to save someone else. And so, the ‘Gold Eternal Flower’ project to save both myself and another began.
“Wow… You’re looking shiny and new.”
“Hahaha. This is all thanks to you, Hunter Cheon Hae-seon.”
A week after conquering the first Poison Dungeon. We arrived at a newly appeared 4-star Poison-type dungeon in Heukseok District. If I had my way, I would have gone straight to a 7-star dungeon to look for the Gold Eternal Flower, but it was necessary to gradually adapt to the poison flowing in the atmosphere.
Not for me, but for Yuk Cheol-wan.
“I invested all the profits from the minerals I gathered last time. They look like brand-new products, don't they?”
Indeed, his gas mask, gloves, pants, and all his ‘Poison-type dungeon gear’ had been replaced with new items. At a glance, they looked light and precise, seeming more than capable of handling a 4-star dungeon and beyond.
“Um… that’s true, but.”
Yuk Cheol-wan asked me with a cautious expression.
“The antidote that you have, Hunter Cheon Hae-seon… would it be possible for me to purchase some?”
“Oho?”
The antidote for Poison Dungeons I got from Bi-soo. Before, he had vehemently refused even when I told him to try it, but now it seemed he had changed his mind.
“When we came out of the last dungeon, my condition was quite poor. If you hadn’t healed me, Hunter Cheon Hae-seon, I would have suffered for days. But you, on the other hand…”
“Were perfectly fine?”
At that, Yuk Cheol-wan jumped in surprise and waved his hands dismissively.
“Perfectly fine…?! That wasn’t my intention.”
I knew.
I was just teasing him.
“It’s just that… after witnessing the effectiveness of that antidote, all this gear feels so meaningless…”
“Hm.”
I knew what he meant. He was poisoned even while lugging around annoyingly heavy equipment, while I was fine after taking a single pill. He must have had a major reality check.
In reality, I had the antidote Bi-soo gave me, but I never took it. My body was a lump of healing, so I didn't need to absorb anything special. But that didn’t mean the medicine’s effects hadn't been proven.
Before I started going to Poison Dungeons with Yuk Cheol-wan, I had run quite a few with Bi-soo. Its efficacy was more than proven. It would at least be a much better measure than the gas mask he was wearing.
“Here.”
I took the antidote out of my pocket and placed it in Yuk Cheol-wan’s hand.
“Take one pill every three hours.”
“Th-thank you. This precious item…”
Yuk Cheol-wan tucked the pill into his clothes as if it were a sacred treasure and then asked me the price.
“Hey, hey. Put that away.”
“Excuse me? What do you mean?”
“We’re in the same ‘Clan,’ aren’t we? We help each other out.”
“Ohh…”
A light of deep emotion appeared in Yuk Cheol-wan’s hairy eyes. If he looked this moved now, how would he react when I told him about the ‘Gold Eternal Flower Project’?
“Is this your first time in a 4-star dungeon?”
“No. I’ve been to a 5-star dungeon at most.”
Yuk Cheol-wan was not one to bluff, so it was likely true. A 5-star dungeon would have been quite difficult.
“Of course… from 4-star dungeons onwards, I never even went near the boss Monster…”
Yuk Cheol-wan lowered his gaze and scratched his bushy beard. He seemed to feel ashamed of having only acted as a ‘cleaner’ as a Hunter. But there was no need for that anymore.
We would find the rare herb and also defeat the boss Monster to close the dungeon. Before I received my Hunter license, I had to leave the boss alive, but now the Association was the one asking me to clear Poison Dungeons. For me, who possessed Exa’s blade, nothing was easier than killing a target.
“Let’s go in.”
I followed Yuk Cheol-wan’s lead and entered the dungeon entrance. Just as we passed through the dark entrance, a wave of damp air washed over us.
“Clan Leader. Be careful. This place is…”
“Yes. I feel it too.”
The more humid the air, the faster the poison spreads. Yuk Cheol-wan not only took the antidote but also meticulously put on all the gear he had brought.
“…This is a bit troublesome right from the start.”
It was a cave. A cave that split into multiple paths. I had always experienced swamps or forest areas, but this was my first time in a dungeon like this.
“What’s wrong?”
“I can feel a powerful poison from this direction, but the space is too narrow.”
An unsettling energy was seeping from a thin crack that looked barely wide enough for a cat to pass through. It would be good to hunt other Monsters along the way, but there was no benefit to dragging things out in a Poison Dungeon. It felt like too much of a waste to deliberately go around.
Wasn't there a good way?
“Is that all? Please leave it to me.”
“...?”
Yuk Cheol-wan suddenly stood in front of me and stuck his gloved hand into the crack. Soon, his forearm swelled up like a balloon.
“Uooooooh!!”
Crack. Ah.
I had momentarily forgotten that this man was a B-rank Knight. Amazingly, he was ‘tearing off’ the cave wall with his strength. Is this a man or an excavator?
In the few seconds he exerted his monstrous strength, the hole in the wall grew several times larger. It was more than enough for a person to pass through.
“Wow…”
The thickness of the cave wall seemed longer than a person’s forearm. To think he would try to rip it apart with his bare hands. An incredulous laugh escaped me.
“Let’s go, Hunter Cheon Hae-seon!”
Was he excited at the thought of being helpful? Yuk Cheol-wan snorted and took the lead. A Hunter who is mindlessly(?) strong is convenient at times like these.
“Yes. I’m coming.”
I followed behind Yuk Cheol-wan with a strange smile on my face.