Do Earthlings have a culture of keeping pets? Of course they do. After all, information about it is flooding through Kim Giryeo's brain like a tidal wave right now.
So, what I'm about to do is more or less like... dealing with a pet rodent that escaped into the living room while I was cleaning its cage.
~Crash!
The plan was to lure the target in with the scent of food she liked and capture her.
~Heuk!"
"Kyaaah!"
"Wait...!"
Slash!
I stabbed my left wrist with the dismantling scissors Choi Jin had given me and sprayed the blood that welled out all around. Even when it was sealed inside an unwounded body, a vampire could detect the condition of someone's blood. There was no way she'd be able to resist this.
~!!
As expected, a reaction came within seconds. The shapeshifter, apparently excited by the scent of blood that suited her tastes, began beating her wings twice as fast. At this rate, it was only a matter of time before she came charging this way.
"H, Hunter Kim Giryeo! N, no. What on earth are you doing!?"
"Calm down and keep an eye on your sister."
Immediately afterward, I took a bottle filled with crimson liquid from my pocket and drank its contents in front of Choi Jin. At the same time, the bleeding from my wrist abruptly stopped.
The truth is, it's just a grapefruit drink I bought at a convenience store... but hey, I have at least some sense of the situation.
"It would look strange if I healed my own wounds despite not being a healing-type Awakened. I should at least pretend to drink a potion when I recover."
While I was lost in thought, the predator in the sky finally took the bait.
"Ahhhh!"
Choi Jinhee screamed as she flew toward me. Her speed was every bit as impressive as that infamous beginner killer's. In fact, by the time I turned my head at the sound of her scream, she was already right in front of me.
The overwhelming flying creature.
The vampire plunged fiercely into the blood-spattered clearing. At the same time, Choi Jin realized that her sister was about to seize me and hurriedly grabbed hold of one of her wings, but...
The problem was her acceleration.
The kinetic energy Jinhee had built up through repeated acceleration was overwhelming. Even an A-rank trying to stop her with their entire body would easily be knocked off their feet by a predator moving at that speed.
"Ugh."
Drrrrk!
What followed was the sound of asphalt cracking apart.
Choi Jinhee grabbed me by the neck and slammed me into the ground. The road split open, and streetlights were torn from their foundations. I was sent sliding at least thirty meters from where I'd been standing, but despite how spectacular the attack looked, I didn't suffer much damage. Thanks to the coating effect of the Sacred Tree Seedling, I didn't get so much as a scratch amid all that chaos.
"Whew."
Items are the best!
I held my breath for a moment and waited for the dust around us to settle. After taking stock of the situation, however, it seemed I might suffocate before the dust ever cleared.
"Haaak! Aaaaahhh!"
"Jinhee-ya, stay still!"
"Ugh, where is all this strength coming from...?"
Soon afterward, the A-rank Hunters from the Faith Guild began a fierce struggle with the vampire on top of my body. Choi Jin and the rest of the team were doing everything they could to subdue the confused Jinhee, but it wasn't easy.
After all, there had to be a reason why someone like Jinhee, a B-rank Hunter, was part of this team in the first place. Hunter society was strictly meritocratic. No matter how close the sisters were, there was no room to carry someone weaker purely because they were family.
"Aaaah!"
"Jinhee-ya, please..."
"Let go of me! Let go!"
Her physical strength had been considerable to begin with, but once the abnormal status robbed her of reason, the shapeshifter's tremendous power surged to an uncontrollable level.
Chomp
!
Choi Jinhee sank her teeth viciously into my bloodstained wrist. If it weren't for my enhanced defense, she probably would have torn my wrist clean off.
Attacked by a crazed vampire, and the packaged chicken galbi I'd waited thirty minutes for at that popular restaurant got blown away by the wind.
It's just one of those days when nothing goes right.
Still, I guess this is the end of it.
"Ahhh!"
Soon afterward, the vampire was hurled backward when her older sister finally managed to catch hold of her wings.
"U, ugh...!"
At last, she was pulled away from me. Even after being subdued, the shapeshifter twisted and struggled, but Choi Jin pressed her down with her entire body and restrained her.
"Oh, as expected, the heart of a dragon really is something else!"
Should I get up now?
I'd spent the whole time lying beneath Choi Jinhee like a corpse. With my frail F-rank strength, there really hadn't been a single finger I could move in that situation...
"Did some dust get into my eyes? Why are tears suddenly welling up?"
I swallowed the secret I couldn't bring myself to say aloud and rose from the ground.
"Use your skill, quickly!"
"Ah, yes!"
And just as I was brushing the dirt from my suit jacket, I heard that the situation on their side had also been brought under control.
Fortunately, during all that chaos, the healer, who possessed high resistance to status effects, was the first to break free from the confusion. Once recovered, the healer immediately used a skill to restore Choi Jin's younger sister to her senses.
"Heuk!"
At last, every member of the team returned to normal. The moment the status effect disappeared, Jinhee suddenly sagged as though the aftereffects of her earlier frenzy had caught up with her all at once.
"Jinhee-ya, are you back to your senses?"
But apparently she still hadn't fully grasped what had happened.
At her sister's question, the younger woman merely blinked.
"Unnie... I'm sorry."
It wasn't until quite some time later that Jinhee finally spoke again.
She concealed the abnormal organ she had created with her skill, and as the strength drained from her limbs, she apologized. In response, her sister assured her that it was all right, even saying that she was the one who had made a mistake. Then she gently embraced her younger sister and comforted her.
It was a rare display of sisterly affection.
"Hmm?"
But then...
"What is it?"
As I watched the Earthlings without much thought, something strange happened.
Choi Jin abruptly stopped stroking her younger sister and raised her head, meeting my eyes. For some reason, her dark irises remained fixed on me, staring without wavering.
"That's a long stare."
Come to think of it, whenever I stared at Earthlings like that, they usually got angry and asked if I was trying to pick a fight.
"Huh? Is she picking a fight?"
I was momentarily taken aback by the hostility in her expression. But no matter how much I thought about it, I couldn't figure out why she was behaving that way.
***
A-rank Hunter Choi Jin.
She gently stroked her younger sister's back as she sank into thought.
It had been truly foolish of her to conceal her strength in front of that monster. Because of her arrogance, even her comrades had been forced to suffer through all kinds of trouble.
"Haa."
Choi Jin continued to berate herself without pause.
Then, for a moment, the blade of that criticism turned outward.
In a way, couldn't this entire situation be blamed on someone else?
If it hadn't been for that S-rank Hunter, she would never have felt the need to conceal her skills in the first place.
'...'
Choi Jin squeezed her eyes shut.
Right.
In truth, she knew perfectly well.
Those thoughts were nothing more than pathetic excuses, and this situation had actually ended relatively peacefully thanks to that Hunter.
Choi Jin opened her eyes and looked across the park grounds. Vivid red bloodstains still remained there.
"Crazy bastard."
She normally hated using the word 'crazy' to describe people.
But this time, there was simply no other way to put it.
~ And lend me those scissors for a moment.
~ Scissors?
~ Yes. Those sharp dismantling scissors you're holding.
That person had cut into his own flesh for no other reason than to lure Choi Jinhee down to the ground.
Who wouldn't have been horrified at the sight?
There hadn't even been time to stop him. The moment Kim Giryeo received the dismantling tool, he had carried out the act without the slightest hesitation.
"Crazy..."
Choi Jin repeated the curse she'd been trying not to use.
And yet, at the same time, she was certain that Kim Giryeo's mind had been clearer than anyone else's.
High-ranking Awakened didn't even get drunk from alcohol. Hunters of their level rarely suffered the same impairment of judgment ordinary people did.
"It's even creepier knowing he did that completely sober."
Then why, out of all the possible solutions available to him, had Kim Giryeo chosen such an unusual method?
"Unnie, are you okay? You're not hurt too, are you?"
Choi Jin thought she might know the answer.
Kim Giryeo was an S-rank Hunter.
And not just any S-rank, but someone her cousin endlessly praised for his extraordinary abilities.
But if someone like that tried to capture a bloodthirsty Awakened at another person's desperate request...
"I know how powerful an S-rank Hunter is because I've been hit by one myself."
Perhaps Kim Giryeo had used his blood to lure Jinhee precisely because he understood that.
The more she thought about it, the more it seemed like the gentlest possible way to capture her.
Even when the S-rank Hunter had been dragged down and was on the verge of being attacked, it seemed as though he'd placed the other person's safety above his own.
"He waited for Jinhee to calm down without moving, like a corpse."
If it had been Kang Changho, he would already have struck the insolent B-rank who dared grab him by the neck.
And if it had been Jung Haseong, even if he'd been caught off guard, he would surely have struggled to shake the vampire off.
'...'
In the end, Choi Jin interpreted the S-rank Hunter's actions like this.
"He let it slide."
He had let her younger sister off so that she wouldn't get hurt.
"How could..."
In truth, Giryeo merely possessed a weak, useless body and had been incapable of defending himself, but naturally, Choi Jin had no way of knowing that.
Soon, she rose to her feet and bowed deeply to the Hunter approaching her.
"Thank you for helping us."
Her gaze no longer contained the hostility it had before.
"It seems you weren't able to enjoy the meal you'd bought because of us. I'll make sure to reimburse you for the dakgalbi."
"Really?"
"And the potion you used earlier as well. If you tell me what rank it was, I'll replace it with an identical one immediately..."
Indeed.
When she'd heard her younger sister say that Kim Giryeo had willingly allowed her to drink his blood, doubts had begun creeping into Choi Jin's mind.
Setting aside the first impression she'd formed of him—a little belatedly...
Choi Jin slowly began to understand what kind of Hunter Giryeo really was.
He was far more generous and approachable than she'd expected.
"No. That's fine."
"Yes!"
"Don't worry about the potion. More importantly, is your younger sister all right?"
Despite that cold expression of his, his personality was warm enough to make a person feel genuinely cared for.
Perhaps that was why Younseung was always praising him as such a noble person.
"Yes. Thanks to you, Hunter, no one was seriously injured. Everything is fine."
Choi Jin continued the conversation in a much gentler tone.
Now that the misunderstanding had been cleared up, there was something else she wanted to tell him.
"But Kim Giryeo-ssi, there's something I'd like to mention, purely out of concern..."
"Yes?"
"You often go on raids with Hunter Kang Changho, don't you? Hmm, please don't misunderstand me, but I really don't know why you continue associating with someone like him. Personally, I'd advise you not to trust that Hunter at ALL."
Choi Jin soon brought up Kang Changho in a subdued voice.
If a person like Kim Giryeo had someone like that Hunter as a companion, there was a good chance he'd been deceived somehow.
Choi Jin began explaining what she knew about Kang Changho, using words such as "opportunist" and "psychopath" to describe him.
And at last, Kim Giryeo's doubts were resolved.
He finally understood why the Dragon Hunter had been so hostile toward him.
"Oh, so that's what had been bothering you all this time?"
I did it again.
Giryeo finally explained himself with a sense of relief.
It wasn't as though he traveled around with that man because he liked him either.
"He's a b*stard to me too, so don't worry."
"Really? Then why on earth would you go hunting with someone like that? How could you possibly trust him?"
Choi Jin stared at him in surprise, but all she received in response was an indifferent shrug from the S-rank Hunter.
"It's a little complicated to explain."
"Ah..."
"It may be for a reason similar to yours."
Hmm?
What does that mean?
Choi Jin raised her head in confusion at those last words, while Giryeo quietly looked down at her.
"Hmm, I wasn't entirely sure about this until earlier today..."
The conversation resumed a few seconds later.
"Hunter Choi Jin, just in case, do you happen to know Esther from the Korean Magic Tower?"
"No?"
Giryeo asked the seemingly out-of-the-blue question.
But every word he spoke carried some kind of meaning.
After observing them for so long, he had noticed yet another peculiar trait shared by the Choi sisters.
"Aha."
In fact, both sisters were under a curse.
And quite a high-level one at that.
However, based on his previous experiences, there had only been two instances on Earth in which such a powerful curse had been activated.
"So, just as I thought... you really are under the knight's oath, aren't you?"
Giryeo considered the other possibilities he had in mind.
But immediately after he spoke, the atmosphere in the clearing changed.