(Rumi POV)
"…I'm just saying," Zoey huffed, "if you wear a helmet indoors and don't tell people your name, you're suspicious."
Mira shot her a look. "No, you're suspicious for being polite to a random guy who just vaporized half the room and then insulted us."
"That wasn't polite! That was… cautious!" Zoey crossed her arms, looking personally offended at the accusation.
Rumi tuned them out halfway through the next exchange, still stuck replaying that man's sudden appearance in her head. The rippling air. The way everyone — demon and hunter alike — had paused just to look at him. The calm, deliberate way he'd fought…
…and the way he'd disappeared like a ghost.
She didn't realize her grip had tightened around her sword hilt until an elderly voice cut through her thoughts.
"Uh… excuse me?"
The three of them turned.
An old man in nothing but a towel stood in the doorway, dripping wet, white hair plastered to his head. His expression was somewhere between confused and deeply unimpressed.
"You're in the men's bathhouse."
The silence stretched.
"…Oh," Zoey squeaked.
"Uh—" Mira took a step back.
"Sorry!" Rumi blurted.
The man raised an eyebrow. "If you're done fighting… get out. Some of us are trying to relax in peace without being tripped over by… whatever you are."
The three girls scrambled for the exit, heads ducked, hands over their eyes like a synchronized "do not perceive" formation.
"Sorry sorry sorry sorry sorry—!" Zoey chanted all the way to the door.
(Sable POV)
From my rooftop perch across the street, I watched Huntr/x shuffle out of the bathhouse like a pack of embarrassed kittens, still covering their eyes.
Charming.
I made a lazy gesture in the air, tracing a curve only I could see. Down below, the faint outline of my stakes shimmered into view, each one pulsing with a subtle, cold light.
"That should keep the roaches from crawling back through their hole," I muttered.
A bounded field — my own little adaptation of a trick I may or may not have stolen from a certain anime series. Wards the place against "foreign entities" — demons, in this case. Anything dumb enough to cross the line gets scorched, and when that happens, their essence floats to me and right into the Chalice.
It's not as much energy as personally killing them — like sipping skim milk instead of heavy cream — but it's better than nothing. Passive income, demon-soul edition.
I gave it one last satisfied look, then turned away. Huntr/x could do whatever they wanted now; I didn't need to keep them on a leash anymore. Not when the city was full of open tears in the honmoon.
The weeks blurred into a steady rhythm of hunting.
At first, it was easy — I'd follow the faint pull of a tear, fold into position, and dismantle whatever unfortunate thing crawled through. The Chalice glowed brighter with every kill, its constellations filling in like a night sky being drawn by hand.
By the second week, I'd gotten more efficient. The Tomb's library coughed up a few new tricks: barrier layering that barely sipped my reserves, fold anchors small enough to stash in my pocket, even a few mana compression techniques that turned the First Star into a scalpel instead of a sledgehammer. The hunts stopped feeling like work and started feeling… clean.
That's not to say it was without risk. I had one close call where I rounded a street corner mid-hunt and nearly walked right into Huntr/x. One moment I was face-to-face with Mira's glare, the next I was folding sideways into an alley so fast my proxy had vertigo. I think Rumi still felt something, because she froze, scanning the air like she could smell me.
Avoiding them became a little game of its own — part strategy, part petty fun.
By the third week, my movements through the city were instinctive. Rooftop to rooftop, fold to fold, carving down whatever had the bad luck to cross my path. The Chalice drank deep, and Seoul stayed just a little quieter for it.
Back in my hotel room — white t-shirt, black sweatpants, bare feet on the carpet — I sat on the bed, staring at the Chalice.
Two of the outer constellation nodes glowed faintly, and one was halfway lit.
"A node and a half in three weeks," I muttered. "At this rate… three months to get all three."
I groaned, falling back onto the bed. "Three months of eating scraps. No thanks."
I was mid-rant, pacing through all the reasons this was unacceptable, when the thought hit me like a brick.
If the little fish weren't enough…
…maybe it was time to go for the big one.
Gwi-Ma.
A slow grin spread across my face.
Now that would fill the Chalice.
I turned the nightstand, turned off the light, and lay back with my hands behind my head. Sleep came easy with a goal that big waiting on the horizon.
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A/N: Our MC wants to go for the big fish huh.
He's really impatient 😔
Anyway how do you guys like the chapter bad, good? Let me know! 😊
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