Chapter 44. Crush (2)
“Rope? Are you helping the Guild Master?”
The barely graduated staff of the Magic Tower was shocked by Gi-ryeo’s request and hesitated, but then a hand restrained him.
“I’ll get it right away.”
“Uh, Manager.”
Kwak Byeong-ki.
The one who had been silent until now finally spoke.
He then rushed off to grab rescue supplies from the car.
It looked like a sturdy rope about 15 meters long.
“Thank you.”
As the F-Class Hunter turned away from the swamp with the rope, the youngest staff member whispered.
“Wasn’t that guy an external appraiser?”
“Don’t worry, just watch.”
Usually, when faced with the deadly poison from an A-Class monster, people would be trembling.
But Kim Gi-ryeo, instead of shaking, started walking confidently with a relaxed attitude.
“…!”
He didn’t even look down to gauge the length of the rope.
With such a toxic pool all around!
A Hunter of the Magic Tower with the lowest awakening level, a C-Class, gulped and shook his head.
‘Even if they paid me, I wouldn’t do something like that.’
The blond man was crossing the road with no hesitation at all.
“Wow!”
But then.
From the fractured road, the body of a minor demon rolled down from the high ground.
Thud, splat.
The impact splattered poison from a nearby pool.
Fortunately, only a few drops dirtied his shoes.
After all, it was A-Class poison. Shouldn’t he be panicking?
“……!”
But Gi-ryeo showed no signs of disturbance, merely standing quietly in front of Esther’s swamp.
“Please wait.”
Kim Gi-ryeo said that and slowly untied the rope.
Esther, watching him, thought,
‘Why is he helping me?’
She had an aloof attitude.
Still harboring resentment over Gi-ryeo’s earlier mockery of her skills.
She frowned, chewing over the provocations he’d thrown at her.
‘Hmph, he seems to have pretty high poison resistance? But even if he treats me well now…’
Then, right after that.
Esther’s expression changed momentarily, observing what Gi-ryeo was doing.
“Hey!”
“Hold on and come up. Esther Hunter.”
This man secured the rope to a nearby utility pole and tossed the end into the swamp.
From Gi-ryeo’s perspective, he was calculating their strength difference, but to Esther, it came across as refreshingly new.
‘What’s this? It’s strangely cool!’
Until now, she had dealt with many who would flatter her just to win her favor.
An S-Class Hunter holds an extraordinary value in society.
So Esther had received countless conditional favors that were slowly starting to wear on her nerves.
“Are you having trouble moving your arms?”
“No. I’ll get out now.”
Yet, Gi-ryeo lacked any sort of pretense.
He could easily pull her up himself, yet he nonchalantly tied the rope to the pole and made it his responsibility to help her out.
If he suspected she might play tricks with curses, he’d have to confront her boldly…
Upon closer inspection, it didn’t seem like he was trying to curry favor with an S-Class Hunter.
“Wait a moment.”
But whenever he was kind, he was really kind.
“There’s mud in your hair…”
“Ah.”
“It almost got in my ear.”
Gi-ryeo reached out and brushed a purple liquid flowing through Esther’s hair.
‘Huh?’
At that moment, he realized the swamp was poisonous, but it didn’t bother him much.
Nerve poison just barely made it within the threshold of his resistance.
Of course, if it were blood poison, then that would be a different story.
‘Heh, if you were stuck in that toxic swamp, you should’ve said so.’
Gi-ryeo halted, realizing he’d almost meet his end there.
The silence was broken by Esther’s single phrase.
“Thank you.”
No matter how annoying Gi-ryeo was, it wouldn’t be right to take help and remain silent.
Esther stiffened, then ordered her guild members to bring cloth and water.
Gi-ryeo stared at her quietly.
Then he hinted.
“You’re working hard.”
Seeing the young mage covered in mud doing such risky work stirred his pity.
“If that non-awakened had not interfered, today’s events would have ended neatly…”
At this, Esther narrowed her eyes.
“What would you have done in the same situation?”
“Excuse me?”
“If a civilian suddenly intervened in a fight. You seem collected, so I feel like you’d think it was completely wrong for them to rush in and dismiss them~”
Esther burst into a playful laugh, probing Gi-ryeo’s thoughts.
If even a casual compliment slipped from his lips, she thought she might completely oppose him.
“Well, I’ve experienced something similar before.”
But she didn’t expect that kind of response.
“I was in the middle of activating a skill, and a civilian popped up in front of me.”
“……!”
“I hurriedly canceled the casting, but the recoil ended up causing everything around me to explode.”
Gi-ryeo recalled a fleeting moment from the past.
“Not breast… but an arm was blown off, and I was a bit surprised.”
“What did you just say?”
The foreigner shrugged, as people around here typically do.
“But I think our way is right. It might be frustrating for now, but nothing is more precious than life.”
Gi-ryeo continued with his trademark expressionless face.
“Honestly, when I saw you protect that non-awakened, I felt relieved. Yes. A person like you should be at the top.”
Someone who values even the lives of the weak like you…
He opened his mouth to say more but swallowed his words.
‘This isn’t a topic for an Earthling to complain about.’
Gi-ryeo briefly recalled the upper class from his hometown, filled with awful memories, then shook it off in disgust.
Time was running short.
“Esther Hunter, I’m sorry. I suddenly remembered something urgent; may I leave for today?”
“Pardon?”
Gi-ryeo bowed his head and expressed his apologies.
Originally, he was supposed to help out with categorizing the magic stones at the Magic Tower right from now.
‘Ugh, my fingertips are going numb!’
Truthfully, Gi-ryeo didn’t have full resistance to poison.
He just happened to have a higher resistance than others.
Not to mention, this was a different matter than mind-type magic.
“If the opportunity arises, let’s meet again.”
And so he half-escaped the scene.
In the background, the guild members were belatedly shouting that they had brought water, towels, and antidotes, but Esther acted as if she couldn’t hear them.
-But I think our way is right.
The Curse Mage pondered over the words left behind with the same lingering thought.
*
“I think he’s quite a good Hunter!”
A vivacious voice echoed into the air.
That sentence bounced off the damp cave walls, creating a small echo.
“Who?”
Then, another young woman’s voice flowed in.
“Kim Gi-ryeo~”
“Oh, that…?”
“Yeah. Poison resistance.”
Esther and her secretary.
The two were walking out of the cave, engaging in a light conversation.
“At first, I suspected that guy would be a nasty piece of work like Kang Chang-ho.”
“Right?”
“I usually don’t care about appearances, but his eyes were so telling…”
Esther cleared her throat.
“But after talking to him, he really isn’t a bad person.”
“Really?”
“To my surprise, he’s quite polite.”
But then.
Clank, clank.
An odd noise echoed from behind Esther.
It was a heavy sound, like metal scraping across stone.
“The higher-ranking awakeners tend to have twisted personalities, but Kim Gi-ryeo Hunter is rather, rare in being sensible.”
However, neither of them paid any mind to the noise, silently continuing toward the gate.
“Well, either way, it’s a win. If it’s not a villain, when would the great Esther come into play?”
“Haha.”
“I’m really glad Gi-ryeo isn’t a bad person.”
“True.”
“I wouldn’t want to fight against a Hunter who doesn’t even take curses…”
Clank, clank.
Amidst the sharp metallic noises, faint sounds of human moaning began to mix in.
“Grrr… Ugh…”
Esther briefly turned to look back at the sound.
Her face was shadowed in blue from the moonlight behind her.
“By the way, this is quite a hassle too.”
Rustle.
Esther pulled out her phone from her pocket.
As she stepped outside the gate, all the functionalities of her phone began to work normally.
As she activated the selfie camera to capture her own face,
In one corner of the angle, the identities of the two people they dragged along appeared in the shot.
“I have to record evidence outside. When will they develop a body cam that works inside the gate?”
They were tied to solid chains, two figures.
Esther had been dragging them along the floor all this time.
“Grrr, ugh…”
“Please, save us…”
The two unknown individuals, covered in black blisters and drenched in blood, cried out for their lives.
But Esther paid them no mind, focusing on her own tasks.
“One~ two~ Kimchi~”
“Aaaah!”
“Aah, aah!”
Following her curses at maximum output,
They cried out in extreme agony, their eyes turning bloodshot before they vomited blood and dropped dead.
Ding!
Esther immortalized that moment on video.
“Do you know what Kim Gi-ryeo Hunter said earlier? Someone like me should be at the top.”
“…….”
“How could he think just like me, be that strong, and not fawn over an S-Class Hunter…?”
She murmured softly with a sweet smile floating on her face.
“Is it a high sense of pride? Or some form of dignity?”
Her expression was one of fascination.
“I really like that guy.”
How could she make him her ally?
Esther’s mutterings prompted a short question from her secretary.
“Are you thinking of getting close to him or something?”
“Indeed. I’m very eager for that.”
Click, click.
Esther snapped a few more selfies as she engaged in conversation.
“Today, I received a report from Team Leader Kwak Byeong-ki that Kim Gi-ryeo Hunter handled the Cursed Sword without any issues.”
“Really?”
“I confirmed it at the scene too. Far beyond my imagination.”
Startled, the secretary’s body tensed at her words.
But Esther remained calm.
“If that kind of monster becomes my ally… I could easily suppress not only the shameless Jeong Ha-seong and Kang Chang-ho, but also the ranked players of the world with sheer power.”
She playfully pouted her lips, quickly tapping away at her phone screen with her thumb.
“Sigh, but it’s a bit daunting. He seems to have no greed for money…”
Even a unique-grade magic sword would probably leave him indifferent since he must have plenty of rare items lying around.
Isn’t this a bit too hard?
Esther heaved a deep sigh and spoke absurdly.
“If this were a game, raising affection levels would be easy. Just look for a guidebook and bombard them with gifts.”
“Again with the game talk.”
The secretary commented lightly, tossing the corpses into the disappearing gate.
With a light admonishing tone.
“Who said you weren’t a game addict? You keep making that kind of analogy!”
“So what? I quit already.”
Esther raised her phone to show the screen to her secretary.
“There’s no time to connect these days with all the work piling up.”
Two corpses’ photos.
This S-Class Hunter succinct expressed all the actions that occurred in the hills with a single phrase.
“There’s a line of death row inmates like this.”
Death row.
After articulating that sharp word, Esther gazed beyond the gate where the corpses had been disposed of.
“It’s pathetic. It’s been years since the Dungeon Shock occurred, but there still isn’t a prison that can hold even one high-ranking awakened.”
“…….”
“Honestly, I wish all the nasty ones who torment the weak would just die~”
What followed was the incessant chattering of the Curse Mage.
