LTTH C83

Chapter 83

10. A Top 1% Healer?

Korea was freed from the threat of monsters.

That single, unequivocal statement shook the world. Hunters dispatched from every nation to counter the Second Great Cataclysm afflicting Korea boarded planes home without ever laying eyes on a monster. Not a single one complained.

Ordinarily, no matter how well a gate was managed, the miasma exhaled by monsters seeped outward, and land tainted by that breath grew naturally dim and oppressive. That was why barricades stood around fixed gates that did not disappear even after a clear, and why the Association kept permanent staff on-site.

But the soil of Korea that the hunters trod was different. However immaculate your management, some trace of a monster’s blight should hang in the air; in Korea the very air was different. It was like the air from long ago—so far back it felt beyond memory—when there had been no monsters at all, that ordinary, unremarkable air. Hunters departed Korea unable to forget the feel of it. And with their departures, news of Korea’s anomaly spread across the globe.

If the Messiah’s emergence had set the world’s hunters abuzz, then Korea—suddenly the safest nation on earth—set ordinary people astir.

Hunters, after all, could raise their level and earn money only by slaying monsters. Not so for civilians. There was a reason the wealthy hired retired hunters as bodyguards. The anxiety that a gate could open anywhere, anytime—no fortress, however stout, no cadre of hundreds of guards could dispel it. Now there was a place where that anxiety need not be felt. Naturally, the world’s most prominent fortunes began to converge on Korea.

“The only paradise—that’s the tag being hung in front of ‘Korea’ right now.”

“Paradise, huh… Not inaccurate.”

In the reception room of the Mage Tower—which had all but become a salon—Hansol and his companions faced one another. The Tower Master and Kassie had snapped to and used movement magic the moment Hansol, offhandedly yet firmly, announced there was no time limit on the Sanctuary.

Not everyone who had endured the second catastrophe heard Hansol’s words, but the hunters certainly had; their hearing surpassed that of civilians. And the swiftest nations would already have sensed Korea’s change. Through hunters’ mouths they would also have deduced that Hansol stood at the center of it.

Hansol exhaled at the mere thought of a situation burdensome enough to make him ache. He could not undo the Sanctuary. Otherwise gates would reappear and monsters would rampage. Some might welcome that… but Hansol was not one of them. He trusted the three gathered here felt the same.

“…Hansol-nim, there is something I wish to ask.”

“Please, ask freely.”

The Tower Master, lost in thought for some time, slowly opened his eyes. Hansol saw the faint knit of his brow and the subtle tremor at the corner of his eye. Guessing at the question, Hansol prepared answers—about the Sanctuary, about the Cataclysm. He could not say he had been granted a portion of the System’s authority; he would have to frame things carefully.

“Are you—no, is it true that you are human?”

“…Pardon?”

Hansol’s gaze froze upon the Tower Master. That was where he was taking this?

“Darling—no, I mean… there’s no way, but you’re not a god… are you?”

Even James chimed in. Of the three, only Kassie kept silent. Flustered by questions that had careened far past his anticipated list, Hansol steadied himself and answered.

“…Of course I’m human. What on earth are you two imagining?”

“Haah. Thank goodness. Truly.”

“…Anyone who stood there that day probably wondered the same.”

The Tower Master pressed a hand to his chest in relief while James shrugged as if to say he was blameless. Hansol let out a breath of laughter. He had thought himself inured to grand epithets—Messiah, Saint—but to be suspected of godhood? He could not tell whether to be pleased or dismayed.

“Well, you turned Korea—small though it is—into a safe zone. It’s not a stretch.”

Kassie spoke as though to defend the Tower Master and James.

“And people present that day—hunters and civilians alike—grew remarkably healthy, didn’t they? That alone is hard to file under ‘healer,’ full stop, Hansol.”

Healthy. It was not a matter one could dismiss with a single word. From major trauma to minor cuts, the bodies of both civilians and hunters were restored. That much, the Sanctuary could explain. But longstanding chronic ailments, even “incurable” diseases, had vanished as well—a different order of miracle.

What healers could treat were the monster-borne poisons and outward wounds. They could not cure human chronic or terminal conditions. If they could, healers would have been stationed at hospitals rather than entering gates.

To be sure, not every soul in Korea had been made hale by Hansol’s Sanctuary. Only those who had stood within the Sanctuary at the time—before Hansol extended it to cover the entire nation—had changed. He could only surmise the Sanctuary’s effects differed with its area of designation.

“…You say that, Kassie, yet you don’t look surprised at all.”

“As if.”

Kassie’s lips traced a pleasant crescent, adding a peculiar luster to his fine features.

“I was plenty surprised, Hansol.”

“For someone ‘plenty surprised’… you look as if you expected it.”

At Hansol’s words, the Tower Master and James both turned their eyes to Kassie. In such moments a little tension was to be expected, but Kassie wore easy composure; and because it suited him, Hansol found nothing to seize upon—though that did not make it less suspicious. From the instant their eyes had met in that vision the System showed him, Kassie’s behavior had been strange.

“Hansol, you received a transfer of authority from the System, didn’t you?”

“……!”

Kassie’s blunt finger on a truth Hansol had not dared voice made him flinch back—only to bump into the firm back of the sofa. Startled enough, at any rate.

“Seems we have things to discuss—just the two of us, yes?”

Kassie tilted his head at Hansol as he asked; but his gaze went to the Tower Master and James. A silent request to give them the room.

“If Hansol-nim wishes it, I will withdraw.”

“Same here.”

Hansol glanced at Kassie, then nodded.

“…Please.”

It was not that he distrusted the Tower Master or James. But Kassie’s topic would surely touch on Britain. It was not solely Hansol’s story; their consent would be needed. And though he felt sorry for them, if Britain’s de facto spokesman requested privacy, then a private conversation it must be.

“…Understood.”

“…All right.”

The two rose with a reluctance that dripped like resin and left. Hansol, apology tucked in his heart, watched the door close.

“Where shall we begin?”

Once they were well and truly gone, Kassie opened the conversation.

“…How do you know about the transfer of authority?”

That was what Hansol most wanted to ask: how did Kassie know the System had handed him its authority? Was there some link between Kassie and the System?

“Mm. Hansol, what do you think of the ‘Britain’ I’m from?”

Instead of an answer, a question. Hansol thought on the “Britain” Kassie meant.

Britain… Britain.

To Hansol, Kassie’s Britain felt like home. The time there had been brief, but you could not measure affection merely in hours.

“I think of it well. Perhaps… even better than this place.”

“Haha. Thank you, Hansol. Then I asked the wrong question.”

The severity in Kassie’s face unknotted into a clear smile. After a soft laugh, his eyes curved and he asked again.

“Do you think their survival was a coincidence?”

“……?”

What was this?

“I had to choose. Whether to abandon everyone in the original Britain.”

He drew a breath, gathering himself, and continued:

“Or to save at least a portion.”