Translator: Vine
Translated At: Nyx Scans
Chapter: 74
Minjoo, lying lifelessly on the medical transport bed, didn't stir.
The entire bedsheet was stained crimson, as if it had always been that color.
One didn't need to check to know.
All of it was Minjoo's blood.
"Master...!"
A startled Suhyeon covered her mouth.
Seeing Minjoo's gruesome state, she couldn't even scream and began to tremble violently.
"..."
The other Corps guild members standing beside her, and even Eunha, who usually showed little change in expression, were the same.
Her pitch-black pupils dilated widely, and Eunha stood frozen, as if turned to stone.
"G-guardian. Right now, no—"
Pushing past the transport personnel, Suhyeon stumbled towards Minjoo.
The red bandage, soaked with blood, was wrapped around the boy's small head, not even enough to cover both his eyes.
Around his barely visible nose bridge, beads of cold sweat were profuse.
Anyone, even someone with no medical knowledge, could tell.
His condition was critical.
"Mas... Mi-Minjoo..."
Suhyeon reached out a trembling hand.
Before her hand could even touch him, swish, the cape Minjoo was wearing fell limply to the ground.
A green cape, so soaked in blood it was more blackish than red.
The stars embroidered with gold thread had turned black.
"Ugh..."
Suhyeon covered her mouth and collapsed where she stood.
Tears she couldn't hold back poured down like a heavy rain shower.
"We'll transport him now."
The paramedic, speaking heavily, gripped the bed handle.
But just then.
"...I."
Twitch.
Minjoo, who had been lying still as if dead, moved his fingers slightly.
Wheeze. Letting out a precarious breath, Minjoo moved his lips very slightly.
"Noo..., bl...ood... figu...re..."
"Yes, Master. Ms. Yura has arrived."
A voice, deeply suppressed. It was Junhwan.
Biting his lower lip hard, he turned his head towards Eunha.
Receiving his signal, Eunha hesitated for a moment before cautiously approaching Minjoo.
"..."
But that was all.
Eunha remained frozen, unable to even move her lips.
Seen up close, Minjoo's condition was too horrific for words.
Rustle—
The sound of sheets rustling was heard.
Minjoo, wrapped in bandages, struggled to reach out his hand.
The small hand that used to expertly handle custom-made rifles now looked like a withered, decaying leaf.
With a needle, seemingly thicker than his little finger, stuck in the back of his hand, Minjoo fumbled aimlessly in the air.
"Noo-noona... are you... there?"
"...Yeah."
Eunha replied softly.
Was her voice too quiet?
Minjoo fumbled at the bedsheet surface, then once again, with difficulty, moved his lips.
"Noo...na, did... you... c-come?"
"Yeah, I'm here."
This time, she answered a little louder.
But Minjoo's hand still remained suspended in the air.
"Junhwan, hyung... Noo...na, is..."
—As if he couldn't hear Eunha's voice.
Minjoo showed no further slight movement.
Her face etched with cracks, Eunha, frozen stiff, belatedly noticed the slender thread tightly clutched in the small hand.
Though heavily soiled with dirt, Eunha knew.
It was originally orange.
An orange, wish bracelet.
"What on earth happened?"
A desolate corridor.
Suhyeon's voice, suppressing her anger, echoed tremulously.
Amidst the guild members who hung their heads as if ashamed, Junhwan spoke heavily.
"Calm down. Master's recovery is the priority right now."
Recovery?
At Junhwan's words, Suhyeon frowned as if she had heard something nonsensical.
Suhyeon had already checked Minjoo's condition.
Was it really a state from which recovery could be hoped for?
No. Absolutely not.
Though the surgery was already over, Minjoo's condition was even more gruesome than before the surgery.
Electrocardiogram cables stuck all over his body, a thick tube inserted through his parted lips to secure his airway, an IV needle mercilessly piercing the thin skin on the back of his hand.
Besides these, countless unnamed medical devices clung densely to his small body.
"Master never even went to the hospital for the flu. He hates injections so much..."
Clench.
Biting her lower lip, Suhyeon's eyes sharpened.
"Tell me. Right now."
I'll kill you all.
Adding that, something slid down from beneath Suhyeon's cape.
A tail.
A red-furred fox tail.
Junhwan, who had been silently observing her, finally spoke lowly.
"Let it go. What are you going to do? The Unknown Gate is already closed. All we can do now is pray for Master's recovery."
"What the...!"
Shouting, Suhyeon grabbed Junhwan by the collar.
Blue veins bulged on her tightly clenched fist.
"What on earth were you guys doing? What were you doing that Master ended up like this!"
"...We did nothing. By Master's order, we escaped the gate first."
"What?"
Suhyeon blinked, as if dumbfounded.
"Are you saying you ran away first, leaving Master behind?"
Without pushing away Suhyeon's hand gripping his collar, Junhwan met her gaze directly.
"We defeated all the named monsters, including the boss inside the gate. We confirmed the clear message, and the exit definitely opened. It's just that there were no dropped items, but that situation could only be considered a successful subjugation."
Recalling the events, Junhwan's face darkened.
Junhwan uttered each word as if spitting it out.
"So? You did nothing? Until Master ended up like that?"
Suhyeon screamed.
Junhwan, still held by the collar, merely said this.
"Yes. We did nothing. Because Master ended up like that alone, in our stead."
His voice was moist.
"So, we didn't have to do anything."
"..."
"I'm sorry."
Suhyeon had no choice but to close her mouth.
Because his eyes, as he said that—.
"Really... I'm sorry..."
—were so incredibly red.
Slowly, Suhyeon's hand, gripping Junhwan's collar, fell downwards.
"You, aren't you a doctor?"
Gyeongho's shout came from beyond the closed door.
His voice was as agitated as Suhyeon's.
Junhwan, without even straightening his disheveled cape, quietly turned his back on Suhyeon.
Click.
Opening the door, sure enough, he saw Gyeongho raising his voice at a doctor.
He was raising his voice with a ferocity that looked like he might overturn the entire examination room at any moment.
"What? Wounds sustained in a gate are different from injuries obtained in daily life? So? Then you're just going to do nothing like this?"
"We will do our best, but as you know, cases related to 'curses' are difficult to handle with modern medical science..."
The doctor was repeating the same words over and over.
Eunha, leaning against the corner wall of the examination room, neither intervened nor left, silently observing them from the corner.
In truth, everyone there knew.
What happened to Minjoo wasn't the doctor's fault.
However.
"Damn it! You're a doctor, aren't you? Isn't your job to save people!"
They probably couldn't bear it without taking out this grief on someone.
But the moment Gyeongho grabbed the doctor by the collar—
"Stop it."
Click, clack. The unfamiliar sound of heels approached.
"Doctors aren't gods."
Gyeongho, startled, slowly turned his head towards the source of the voice.
"...Doctor Plant?"
One of Korea's S-Class hunters and the most famous and skilled healing hunter.
It was the master of Rose, Keum Roje.
Amidst the suffocating silence, the click-clack of heels continued calmly before stopping abruptly in one place.
Thwack.
Roje lightly slapped away Gyeongho's hand, which had been gripping the doctor's collar.
"No matter how skilled a doctor is, they can't save every patient. Just like a hunter can't save every civilian."
"..."
"Besides, you heard it too. Trickster's injury is a curse. So stop taking it out on an innocent person."
At Roje's words, Gyeongho bit his lower lip hard.
She was right.
He knew it all along.
He knew, but...
Gyeongho finally slumped down on the spot.
"Ugh...!"
Leaving behind Gyeongho, who was sobbing like a child, Roje quietly turned her gaze to the flinching doctor.
"You know this well, but you'll have to keep your mouth shut about Trickster's case. Especially to reporters. It'll be all over the public broadcast news and trending searches in less than an hour."
"Yes, I'll keep that in mind."
The doctor nodded his head hastily.
"I'll contact the Association separately. You guys just focus on Trickster's treatment for now."
"Huh? But the curse..."
"Just try to stop it from worsening, at least. Rose will send people too. First, clear out this entire ward completely. No entry except for medical staff and guardians. Thoroughly."
Then leave.
As Roje gestured towards the door with her chin, the doctor scurried away as if he had been waiting for it.
Roje, perching lightly on the desk, sighed softly and then slowly scanned the remaining individuals.
Gyeongho, collapsed on the floor, wailing as if he had lost his mind.
Junhwan, arms crossed, maintaining a heavy silence.
And—.
"...?"
Roje's gaze changed momentarily.
A hunter leaning against the wall, observing the entire situation.
A black dress and a black parasol.
It remained clearly in Roje's memory.
"...I see. So it was you."
Roje's gaze, looking at Eunha, was tinged with an unreadable light.
It was the moment Roje was about to part her lips towards Eunha.
"It's because you threw Master into the Unknown Gate."
Gyeongho, slumped on the floor, was now looking up at Roje with eyes full of resentment.
Roje's gaze shifted from Eunha to Gyeongho.
"Stop it, Seok Gyeongho. Anyway, someone from the S-Class had to go to the Unknown Gate."
Junhwan, unable to watch any longer, tried to stop Gyeongho, but he didn't avert his fierce glare from Roje.
"So why did it have to be our Master!"
Beside him, Roje silently gazed at them.
As if she had nothing to say, nothing she needed to say.
"Doctor. Is there... no way at all to heal Master?"
Junhwan asked Roje.
Though Junhwan maintained a calmer face than Gyeongho, his insides were the same.
He probably wanted to overturn everything right now and somehow save Minjoo.
However, Roje's following words weren't very hopeful.
"The only way is to concoct and administer any item that might be effective against the curse. Because only the one who cast the curse knows its contents."
"I'll go get it. Whatever it is."
Roje, staring intently at Junhwan's resolute face, sighed softly and then rummaged through her gown pocket.
"Can you really do it?"
Finally, what she took out was a single sheet of paper densely filled with neat handwriting.
It seemed to be a list of medicinal combinations she had recorded.
"Do I just need to get these things?"
Junhwan hastily took the paper and checked its contents.
However.
"How is it? Difficult, right?"
"..."
Thump.
Junhwan, his face drenched in despair, dropped the paper to the ground.
