"Was it that obvious?"
Come to think of it, Kim Giryeo himself had mentioned before that he had four or maybe five of those chicken restaurant sweatshirts newly stocked...
The awakener with drooping eyes hesitated, searching for the right words. But no matter how hard she tried to put a sentence together, her mind went blank every time her gaze met the printed chicken character staring back at her.
Horrifying.
Still, if there was any silver lining, it was that—rarely enough—today happened to be a day when the Guild Master of Korea's Tower Guild had her entire afternoon free.
"I should contact my third older brother as soon as I get back."
Esther resolved to order some new men's clothes as soon as their conversation ended. If the opportunity presented itself, she would also find a way to dispose of the insane sweatshirt in front of her.
It would be nice if there were some way to make it disappear naturally...
Perhaps through arson.
***
Bubble, bubble, bubble... Click.
How many minutes had passed since the earlier commotion settled down?
Inside a tiny studio apartment of roughly five pyeong, a flamboyantly dressed woman sat quietly. Guests were rarely invited into this place, which made the sight unusual in more ways than one.
"The sound of boiling water."
Come to think of it, she had been so startled by the homeowner's appearance earlier that she hadn't noticed, but now that she was inside, quite a few things caught her attention.
Outdated floral wallpaper.
Old, inexpensive blankets in place of a proper bed.
A sky-blue fan humming in one corner.
For a place where a person lived alone, it was surprisingly spotless, without so much as a speck of dust...
Esther slowly turned her head, taking in her surroundings.
"It's small."
Even someone as short as she was could cross the shabby room in only a few steps.
But for a man of his considerable height, wouldn't a place like this feel even more suffocating?
"..."
Visiting his home for the first time, Esther found herself entertaining unfamiliar thoughts.
She never would have imagined that the Hunter lived like this.
An S-rank awakener who could easily earn hundreds of millions from a single raid—yet instead of even having a proper wardrobe, he kept his clothes hanging from some cheap garment rack he'd picked up from who knew where?
"Why on earth is that Hunter living in a place like this?"
Esther found herself wondering the same thing every other visitor probably had.
But how could she possibly know the truth?
The blond man in question was actually an alien who had taken over the home of the body's original owner. After using an expensive spell in this very room, he had ended up staying in the studio because moving elsewhere felt like a waste of money...
It was a set of circumstances no ordinary Earthling could ever have imagined.
All Esther could do was remain puzzled.
"You can sit wherever you're comfortable."
At that moment, a small tray was placed in front of Esther, interrupting her thoughts.
The homeowner approached in a white shirt. Incidentally, he had changed out of his previous top after Esther expressed her distaste for it.
He unfolded the small folding table he normally used for meals, placed a teacup on top, and set it before her.
It looked a little shabby, but surprisingly, the hospitality itself wasn't bad at all.
An awakened person from Hadong-gun, apparently thinking Kim Giryeo might have finished his green tea by now, had recently sent him another batch of high-quality tea leaves.
"Thanks to that, I have more than enough to brew."
The only problem was that he consumed the gifts more slowly than people gave them to him, so the pantry was gradually filling up with tea leaves...
"Is it green tea?"
"Yes. Don't you like it?"
"Of course I do! Quite the opposite. I can never get enough of it."
In any case, Esther curiously examined the 3,000-won cup in Giryeo's home before finally taking a sip of the green tea.
Slurp.
After she swallowed her second sip, the man seated across from her, who had brought out some cookies to go with the tea, spoke in his usual dry voice.
"By the way, what's with the sudden gift?"
Esther answered.
"It's nothing special. I just thought I'd bring it over, just in case."
"Yes?"
"Well, our Giryeo-ssi here has a bit of a health problem right now, doesn't he? Though you never told me which raid caused it."
"..."
"As far as I know, coughing up blood is a fairly common symptom of dungeon curses. I thought this might help, so I brought it for you. It's Grade 1 Holy Water from Europe."
Holy Water.
Among the items used to remove status effects, this potion was particularly effective against curses.
As a simple gesture of goodwill, Esther had brought him Grade 1 Holy Water, an expensive item found only in certain parts of Europe.
However, the recipient's expression wasn't particularly enthusiastic.
After all, Esther's curses couldn't affect this body in the first place.
"Thank you."
Giryeo expressed his gratitude while rapidly running the numbers through his head.
He didn't know exactly how valuable the item was, but if the Guild Master of the Korean Magic Tower had personally brought it to him, there was no doubt it was expensive.
Still, reselling the potion immediately would be risky.
Some people didn't care what happened to a gift after giving it away.
But there were always those who did.
"If it's a rare item with limited stock, it'll be obvious the moment I resell it. Auction houses require sellers to use their real names."
Giryeo hesitated for a moment before finally tilting his head.
"I really appreciate the gift, but unfortunately... it's not something I need."
"Yes?"
"Holy Water doesn't work on me either."
Sssk.
Giryeo pushed the potion bottle back toward her.
"Really? Hmmm, then just think of it as a tonic and drink it when you're tired. There's no point giving it back to me. I don't have any use for Holy Water either."
Well, curse-type sorcerers were naturally highly resistant to such effects.
What use would an item designed to dispel mental magic be to her?
Esther continued to insist that he use it without feeling burdened, since she had already brought it all the way here.
Afterward, she took another sip of green tea and eased her hunger with the discount-store cookies the homeowner had served as refreshments.
Esther had been leaning toward the theory that Giryeo was suffering from some kind of dungeon curse, but now that the hypothesis had been disproven, she was left with mixed feelings.
To be honest, every time Giryeo shrugged off one of her curses, Esther had wondered whether he might already be under the influence of something extraordinarily powerful—something so strong that her own abilities simply couldn't override it.
"If two conflicting commands are applied through curse skills at the same time, the weaker one gets ignored."
In the end, nothing was clear.
"Anyway, Giryeo-ssi, how have you been feeling lately?"
"I'm fine."
Half resigned, Esther bit into a cookie.
Crumbs clung to her fingers, so she wiped them away with a tissue from nearby.
Then she opened the trash can beside her to throw the used tissue away.
"Ack!"
At that moment, a scream suddenly burst from her mouth.
"Huh? What's wrong...?"
Esther stared into the trash can and flinched.
Inside was a gruesome mess of red liquid, as though the entrails of some animal had been spilled all over it.
The trash can was stuffed with blood-soaked tissues.
Blood that hadn't even had time to oxidize.
Bright, fresh blood, as though someone had only just vomited it up.
"Ah."
The timing could hardly have been worse.
In fact, only a few hours earlier, Kim Giryeo had once again suffered the side effects of the [Sacred Tree Seedling].
The magical artifact's ability had caused him to cough up blood beside a sewer for quite some time, and the symptoms had continued until this morning.
He had even vomited blood in the living room only moments before Esther arrived.
That was why he'd appeared at the door looking like a drowned rat, one hand still gripping the doorknob.
Once the surge of magic wore off after roughly a day, the artifact's protective effect would fade as well.
So today, he had planned to restore his depleted defenses by bathing in coral blood.
"...That's strange."
Yet somehow, the curse sorcerer had shown up bearing a gift right in the middle of the activation cycle.
"But I'm pretty sure you just told me you were fine when I asked how you were feeling."
Giryeo lightly pressed a finger beneath his nose as he searched for an answer, then quickly offered an excuse.
"It only happens occasionally when I'm not feeling well. Don't worry. It's not usually like this."
"Hunter Kim Giryeo."
Esther clearly wanted a more detailed explanation.
But since the truth involved borrowing power from alien coral, this wasn't something he could possibly reveal.
"Would you like another cup of green tea?"
Giryeo had no choice but to fall back on silence.
Unfortunately for him, the Guild Master of the Korean Magic Tower wasn't oblivious enough to miss such a blatant attempt to change the subject.
"No, it's fine. I'll finish this and leave."
Realizing that the homeowner was trying to avoid talking about his injury, she quickly stopped pressing him.
Even so, questions continued to rise in her mind.
What puzzled her most was Kim Giryeo's attitude.
"Even Holy Water and the best recovery medicine can't cure this injury."
If she herself had ended up in such a condition, she doubted she could have remained so indifferent.
The blood of the Sacred Tree wasn't fatal as long as it was properly managed.
Kim Giryeo knew that perfectly well, which was why he could treat the temporary inconvenience of the activation period so lightly.
From a human perspective, however, his composure was extraordinary.
An S-rank awakener was ordinarily beyond the reach of most threats.
Even in an era shaken by dungeons, they were among the few people who could still enjoy a genuine sense of safety.
So if someone like that were suddenly afflicted by an incurable disease, most people would naturally panic.
They would call every expert they could find and try every possible method to solve the problem.
But.
Despite all that, Kim Giryeo remained silent and indifferent.
To an outsider, Korea's fourth S-rank Hunter appeared almost apathetic.
And little by little, that deep, ocean-like composure of his began to make Esther uneasy.
"..."
Maybe he could act so indifferent only because he had already tried everything he possibly could.
"Am I worrying too much?"
A thought suddenly occurred to Esther.
What would she do if Hunter Kim Giryeo simply disappeared one day?
There was no real basis for the thought.
Yet for some reason, it left her deeply uneasy.
Living quietly as a freelancer without joining a guild.
Using old things while staying in a cramped room.
And having a personal life that was almost unnaturally clean.
Esther soon felt an inexplicable sense of discomfort and frowned.
"Giryeo-ssi."
Kim Giryeo had risen from his seat and was putting the Holy Water she had brought into a cupboard.
At the sound of his name, he casually turned his head and glanced her way.
"Is there anything I can help you with?"
"Yes?"
"I understand now that bringing you potions is pointless. But the numbers still don't add up, and that bothers me."
Slurp.
Esther finished the rest of her green tea before continuing.
"Honestly, even if there hadn't been any debt between us, as fellow Awakened, I would've cooperated if you'd simply asked me for help with Chairman Go's matter."
"Ah."
"So from my perspective, I still haven't repaid you for what happened at the F-rank gate."
"I see."
"If there's anything you need, just tell me."
So she was still thinking about the debt from back then.
Giryeo raised one hand to his mouth and fell briefly into thought.
Thanks to the tutoring fees deposited every month by the number-one-ranked Hunter, he had managed to accumulate some money, and recently he had even resolved the problem with his respiratory system.
Now there was only one thing the archmage wanted.
"Hmm..."
In fact, he had already spent several sleepless nights worrying about that very thing.
"Then."
"Twitch."
"Maybe a cadaver... or somewhere like a cemetery...?"
However, the blond awakener couldn't finish the sentence and quickly closed his mouth.
For a moment, he had thought that someone as capable as the leader of a major guild might be able to solve this particular problem.
But after thinking it over, he realized that asking for the corpse of an awakened person was far too dangerous.
"No, no. Forget what I just said."
"Yes?"
"I misspoke. Honestly, there's nothing I need at the moment."
He raised the hand that had been resting against his chin and completely covered his mouth.
After that, a rather long silence settled over the studio apartment.
"..."
"..."
A sick man with health problems had suddenly brought up corpses and cemeteries.
As for what sort of misunderstanding began taking shape in Esther's mind after hearing those words...
There was hardly any need to explain.