"Are you sure you're all right?"
"Haah, haah."
Frost covered Ha-yeon's arm like scales as she came out of the Grade exam.
Probably the recoil from drawing her power out at full strength.
Garam hurriedly took out the mana stabilizer he always carried and handed it to her.
"Take it, quick. You'll feel better once you do."
Ha-yeon took the medicine he offered and swallowed it at once.
But even that wasn't enough; the frost didn't disappear completely.
"Nothing else for it, then."
FWOOSH
Garam kindled flame in his hand and let it flow into Ha-yeon.
Only then did the frost begin to melt away completely.
Some amount of time passed like that.
Around the time her frost had vanished entirely,
-Hunter Yang Jin-hak, B-Grade confirmed.
another announcement came.
At it, the eyes of the hunters waiting outside moved back and forth between Ha-yeon and the hunter who had just finished.
Blatant stares, with no intention of hiding them.
"Bunch of morons."
The hunter called Yang Jin-hak, who came out of the exam hall, likewise brushed past them and threw an odd sneer their way.
"Sorry, big brother. I guess I shouldn't have come along."
Ha-yeon forced a smile.
She didn't seem aware of it, but she was clenching her fist in frustration.
Garam could say nothing to that.
All he could do was take Ha-yeon and get out of there.
Hae-rang must have read the mood too, because she didn't follow any further.
***
"I'll head back now. It's about time for dormitory curfew anyway."
She spoke with her shoulders drooping.
The sight of her was enough to create the illusion that she had been drenched by rain.
Gloomy enough to drain the strength out of Garam just watching from beside her.
"All right. Get inside quick. Oh, and you're about due to run out of medicine, so I'll send some to the dorm."
He'd brought it up to change the subject, but she really was about due to run out.
Even the mana stabilizer he always carried was starting to show the bottom of the bottle.
She was the one actually taking them; she'd have run out long ago.
"Tell me right away when your medicine runs out, all right?"
"You act like I'm some little kid."
Garam's concern must have lifted her mood a little, because she nodded as she walked away, and leaving her behind,
Garam headed back to the Hunter Association.
He didn't have business with the Association itself.
His business was not with the Association but with the Hunter Market on the floor above it.
A place it would be no exaggeration to call the gathering point of every material in South Korea.
That was the Hunter Market.
Going to a place like that to buy medicine was funny in its own way, but there was no choice.
'Mana stabilizers aren't ordinary medical supplies. They're in the spirit-medicine category.'
So he headed for the Hunter Market rather than a pharmacy.
It was a road he had already walked any number of times over eight years.
A road familiar enough now that he could walk it with his eyes closed.
-DING. Third floor.
Garam stepped off the elevator to the familiar announcement, and before him stood a shopping complex that could pass for a huge department store.
The only difference was that what it sold wasn't luxury coats,
but sturdy armor, monster materials, and unidentifiable liquids in glass bottles.
Things that would have stolen the eye of any ordinary hunter at least once, money or no money.
But Garam didn't spare them so much as a glance.
'I don't even have money for medicine, how would I buy that?'
It wasn't that he really had no money.
He had the mana stones from yesterday's gate and the signing fee he'd received on joining the Holy Knights.
He simply didn't want to spend it.
'I'll have to spend where it's needed, but... it can wait for now.'
He'd come to the Hunter Market today for Ha-yeon's medicine, so that was all he intended to buy.
Crossing the glittering department store, Garam stopped in front of one shop.
Unlike the others, this shop had no flashy display window and no bright lighting, nothing but gloom.
All it had was a short sign that read Dawn Medicinal Herbs.
DING.
Garam opened the door of that shop and went in.
"Mm? So you've come, young Garam."
Inside sat an old man with a full head of white hair, a long pipe in his mouth.
He was the herbalist Garam had patronized for eight years now, a man he was grateful to, who sometimes let him buy on credit when he had no money, or handed medicine over cheap.
"It doesn't seem long since you bought medicine. Have you run out already?"
"Yes. It has to be taken regularly, after all."
"True enough. Indeed."
"About that, I'd like as much mana stabilizer as I bought last time......."
Thanks to the signing fee he had plenty of money, but times like these were exactly when he had to be frugal.
Trust the number printed in your bankbook and splash out, and the money vanished in no time.
"Right, a month's worth, you mean? Let's see... demand for stabilizers has gone up a bit this time, so the price has risen. Six million won."
"Kek."
A price that choked the breath right out of him.
A mere month's worth, which was to say thirty pills, for six million won.
Which came to two hundred thousand won for a single pill no bigger than a finger.
'Fair enough, I suppose.'
The mana stabilizer was a spirit medicine whose necessity grew greater the higher a hunter's Grade.
After consuming a spirit medicine that strengthened the body, the medicine you took to control that power was the mana stabilizer.
A spirit medicine for calming rampaging mana and maximizing the effectiveness of other spirit medicines.
So it had become a medicine that high-Grade hunters, who needed even one handful more mana, sought out often, and the price had inevitably risen with it.
Even so, Garam's hand didn't hesitate.
Just as he took his card from his wallet to pay as he always did,
BANG!
"Hey! Bring out every mana stabilizer you've got in here!"
An uninvited guest had arrived.
A gleaming shaved skinhead with a bramble tattoo drawn over it.
And a suit that looked as though it had been forced over bursting muscle.
A man whom the word gangster suited better than it suited anyone.
And the B-Grade hunter who had sneered at Ha-yeon earlier.
Yang Jin-hak.
"You old geezer, are you deaf? I said bring out every mana stabilizer you've got."
Yang Jin-hak barged roughly into the shop and shouted, slamming his fist down on the counter.
It was hard to tell whether he'd come to buy goods or to plunder them.
'An annoying bastard just walked in.'
There was a reason hunters got called trash.
With bastards like this around, the average of hunter character could only sink.
'Judging by the tattoo on his head, Saryeon Society?'
A guild with a particularly bad reputation even within the industry, literally no different from a gang of thugs.
And their behavior was at exactly that level.
"Mr. Yang Jin-hak. I'm sorry, but I came to purchase the mana stabilizers first. Please wait a moment."
Garam sighed and blocked Yang Jin-hak's way, but
Yang Jin-hak looked him up and down for a moment and then sneered at him, just as he had back at the exam hall.
"Can't you even work out that you'd make more money selling to me than to trash like this, geezer?"
Yang Jin-hak ignored Garam's words entirely and spoke to the old man again.
Even at words that came close to a threat, the old man shook his head firmly.
"There is such a thing as merchant's ethics. I can't do that. If you won't wait, please leave."
"Ha, fuck, this is absurd. Then if this bastard weren't here, I could buy it, right?"
At the old man's words, Yang Jin-hak looked at him again.
So did the old man.
If there was a difference between the two gazes,
one glittered savagely as though it would devour him on the spot,
and the other was tinged with self-reproach for having said something he shouldn't have.
"Hey, get lost while I'm still asking nicely."
"As I told you, I came first. If you don't want to wait, go somewhere else."
"Hmph. What do cheats like you, rigging your Grade exams, need a stabilizer for? Get on your knees and beg instead. Who knows? Maybe I'll share a spirit medicine you couldn't even dream of."
Yang Jin-hak came closer, sneering at him and at Ha-yeon both, laid an arm across Garam's shoulder, and began adding force.
"So in the end all you've got is showing off your strength?"
"What?"
GRAB.
He gripped the hand on his shoulder and slowly peeled it away.
And brought it up to his own face.
"What the—"
"Hit me. Go on, hit me. Taking one blow and collecting damages would be a profitable deal for me."
He'd met trash hunters like this to the point of exhaustion in his porter days.
Bastards who showed off their strength more than anyone, yet tucked their tails and ran when it actually came down to it.
'What the hell is this guy? He's beating out my strength, a B-Grade hunter's?'
Yang Jin-hak's face crumpled viciously, apparently furious that Garam had pulled his hand off.
"You bastard, you think I won't hit you if you tell me to!"
At the provocation daring him to strike, force gathered in Yang Jin-hak's hand.
SMACK!
He shook off Garam's hand and, in the same motion, his hand tapped Garam's face as it passed.
"You hit me. Wow, are hunters allowed to go around beating up whoever they like?"
Behavior so brazen it came close to extortion and fraud.
Logic flimsy enough that he'd have nothing to say if he were reported for fraud on the spot, but,
'So what?'
Garam didn't care.
No, more precisely, there was no reason for him to care.
'That bastard is threatening me outright with force, not with extortion, so why shouldn't I?'
With bastards like this, this method worked best.
Yang Jin-hak stared at Garam's shameless attitude for a moment, then burst out laughing as though at something absurd.
"Ha, have you ever seen such a lunatic. Hey, can you handle this?"
Yang Jin-hak came closer, energy spilling from his whole body.
The pressure began pressing in bit by bit.
He really was a B-Grade hunter; the pressure he gave off was of a different order.
An ordinary hunter would have tucked his tail and run at this point, but
"Pay the damages, buy your goods quietly, and go."
Garam didn't back down either.
Pressure like this was nothing compared to Gallos.
The indiscriminate bloodlust he'd felt then was beyond comparison with bland threats like this.
At Garam's voice, dropping low and bleak, Yang Jin-hak shuddered despite himself.
VWOOM.
'Am I imagining it? This guy's eyes...'
Before Yang Jin-hak's face were red eyes.
Too vivid to be mere imagination, chilling red eyes like a drop of blood fallen onto drawing paper.
"You bastard, playing tricks!"
Perhaps because of the unease he felt from Garam's eyes,
Yang Jin-hak swung a fist at Garam instead, but,
[Sub-skill: Absorb is used.]
SHOOOOP
Yang Jin-hak's blood was absorbed into Garam in an instant.
[The target's Grade is high.]
[Absorb is not fully applied.]
Since he hadn't killed him as he had Gallos, he couldn't absorb all the blood, but
"Urgh."
it was at least enough to disturb his movement for a moment.
THWACK.
Garam threw off the point of impact and deliberately took Yang Jin-hak's punch.
"Now you've really hit me."
Which meant he'd have to pay damages.
"Sir. You saw that, right? This bastard will be paying the six million won."
"That's bullshit!"
"Shh. Keep it down, in a place this crowded. You don't mean to disgrace your Saryeon Society, do you?"
At the words Saryeon Society out of Garam's mouth, Yang Jin-hak's body stiffened.
"H-how."
"With it tattooed on your skull that big, it'd be harder not to know."
Hadn't he had it drawn there to show off in the first place?
Now he was cowering like a kid caught doing something bad.
"Urgh."
Yang Jin-hak clenched his fists in frustration, but there'd be nothing he could do.
If word got out that a B-Grade guild member had been shaken down for damages by a mere C-Grade hunter, he'd be beaten to death.
Bastards who acted as though their lives hung on their pride.
That was the kind of guild the Saryeon Society was.
'I don't get why anyone joins a guild like that.'
It was nothing but a gang of thugs.
At this level, maybe the ones who joined were the idiots.
"Ahem, here you are. As you said, I'll take the money from this young man."
The old man sighed as though reluctant, but he must have found it satisfying in its own way, because a smile could be seen hanging at the corner of his mouth.