The Exchange Gathering Begins
A restroom inside the shrine.
Kancho stood at attention with a dignified posture and saluted.
"Yodel Ranger Unit Leader Kancho! Recon mission complete and reporting back, ma'am!"
"Good work."
"I found where Yodo Muramasa is located, ma'aaam! And during the mission, there was a teensy-weensy, dust-speck of an incident, ma'aaam!"
"Oh! So what was it like seeing it yourself? Just like in the photo?"
"An exact spitting image, ma'aaam!"
"Spitting image. Good, good. And what was that dust-speck incident?"
"I was discovered and captured, ma'aaam. Her name is Matsuna Hiyori. She said she's some kind of ranko or ranker, ma'aaam."
Jinhyeok froze.
Of all people, Hiyori.
In a way, this was more serious than finding Muramasa.
"I got caught twice, but I completed the mission and escaped, ma'aaam!"
"Good job."
Jinhyeok patted Kancho's ears and head.
The shrine might get turned upside down, but there was no need to worry too much.
No one could possibly connect Kancho and Jinhyeok.
"Commander-in-Chief. Can I go out and play, ma'aaaam?"
"I don't mind, but play outside the shrine. You shouldn't run into her again."
"Roger, ma'aaam!"
Kancho saluted again and was just about to dash out—
"Raccoon, halt."
Elia suddenly appeared and grabbed Kancho by the head.
"What do you want, old hag?! You wanna go straight to the sky right now?!"
"Stay still."
Elia clicked her tongue and examined Kancho's head from side to side.
She took out a potion from her workshop and dripped a few drops onto Kancho's head.
Then, with her fingers, she picked out small granules.
"Our little raccoon brought back something nasty."
"What is this, ma'am?"
Jinhyeok and Kancho both leaned in closer to stare at the grains.
"It's a curse."
"A curse?"
"A very, very, very vile one. It's the curse of the emaciation snake, Gerdanos—a creature that's now extinct. This is the curse you get from it. Anyone afflicted has their health slowly eaten away until they die. One of its traits is that if you come into contact with the cursed person, these particles—which are usually invisible—stick to you."
"Am I gonna die too, ma'aaam?!"
"No. You just brought back a trace. That's all."
"Thank goodness, ma'aaam. It's still too soon, ma'aaam. I haven't conquered the world yet, ma'aaam."
Jinhyeok and Elia stared at Kancho.
The smallest member, yet the one with the biggest ambition.
But more importantly—
"The one who captured you was Matsuna Hiyori?"
"That's right, ma'aaam. Bright yellow hair, ma'aaam."
Kancho went on to describe her appearance.
From the sound of it, it matched perfectly with the images circulating online—no doubt it was Hiyori.
"But Elia, didn't you say Gerdanos is extinct? Hiyori's about my age. She can't have been around that long. How could she have been bitten?"
"Do you know why Gerdanos's curse is considered so vile?"
Elia conjured a small light in the air.
"Gerdanos doesn't curse the person it bites. Instead, it burrows deep into their body. Then it passes on to their descendants. To their descendants' descendants. And then to the descendants of those descendants."
"Then does everyone die except the one who was bitten?"
"Not necessarily. The curse doesn't always activate. That friend of yours, Matsuna Hiyori, was just unlucky."
"That's awful, ma'aaam. She's a little strange, but she didn't seem like a bad person, ma'aaam."
"Isn't there a way to lift the curse?"
"Heehee."
Elia spun around once and pointed at herself.
"I'm an alchemist who's lived over three thousand years, you know? There's nothing I don't know."
"Oh. So there is a way."
"You make a potion. Though the ingredients alone would make you want to give up."
"That's terrifying, and you haven't even said what they are yet."
"Master, you don't need to be scared. Because…"
Elia pulled a large box from her inventory.
When she opened the lid, an Imugi's eyeball lay inside.
"We already have the ingredients."
"Even the old hag can be useful sometimes, ma'aaam."
"Heh heh. Show a little respect for experience, you pea-sized raccoon. So what do you say? Should I make it? An Imugi's eye is an extremely precious ingredient, you know?"
"Yes. Please make one."
At the unhesitating answer, Elia smiled.
"Rogerrrr."
She snapped into a salute, copying Kancho, then headed into the Workshop of the Stars.
"Kancho, go play."
"Roger, ma'aaam!"
With Kancho gone as well, Jinhyeok left the restroom.
It had taken longer than expected, and he'd been worried.
Fortunately, the exchange gathering was just about to begin.
Jin Seohee, Jin Seojeong, and Jin Seojun had finished putting on their protective gear.
The first day's schedule was simple.
Each family would demonstrate the martial arts they had honed through bouts.
But for all the simplicity, tension filled the faces of the Jin family.
The first to finish gearing up, Jin Seojeong, walked over.
"Ugh, I really don't want to do this."
She said it loudly on purpose, glancing at Jinhyeok.
"What do you think? Dueling like it's the old shogunate era or something."
"It's my first time seeing anything like this, so it's interesting."
"Right? It's interesting, isn't it? It's the twenty-first century, and they're still doing stuff like this."
Seojeong clicked her tongue.
She hated the exchange gathering itself, but the first day was the worst of all.
Under the pretense of showcasing their arts, it was really just a day when the weaker side got crushed and laughed at.
"Jinhyeok, get some pain relief ready. I'm pretty sure Seohee and I are about to get beaten black and blue."
When Jinhyeok raised a questioning brow, Seojeong jerked her chin toward the Japanese families across the way.
Unlike Genex, they looked completely confident, if not smug.
"As much as I hate to admit it, objectively, they're stronger than us. That's why every first day ends the same way. The Japanese families show off, and Genex gets pummeled. You'll see soon enough—those families only go all out when it comes to us. Petty, right? What kind of 'exchange' is this, anyway? It's ridiculous."
He'd sensed it earlier, vaguely.
They didn't make it obvious, but there was a faint feeling of Genex being singled out as the only Korean family present.
He watched Seojeong continue to grumble.
"I'll cheer for you, at least."
With a wry smile, Seojeong shook her head.
"Don't. It just makes it more miserable. Ugh, if it weren't for Grandpa's stubbornness, we wouldn't have to do this at all."
With a shrug, she went back to her place.
Unlike Seojeong, who wore her reluctance openly, Jin Seohee looked utterly resolute.
Not like someone bracing to be beaten, but someone preparing to win.
Jinhyeok clenched his fists.
'Go, Seohee.'
She was serious about the sword.
That was why he sincerely hoped she would achieve good results.
And soon—
The head of the household, Gyuto, stepped forward and spoke.
"Ms. Jin Seojeong of Genex, Ms. Ronia Hosaka Rena. Please come forward."
The exchange gathering had begun.
Inner grounds of the shrine.
Hiyori lay sprawled on the veranda, gazing at the clear blue sky.
Her mother, Sachika, approached her.
"Hiyori. If you lie around like that, your father will scold you again."
"It's fine. Dad went to the exchange gathering, didn't he?"
"Aren't you going to the gathering today either?"
"No. Why would I? It's boring and pointless. A waste of time."
Hiyori sprang up and looked at Sachika.
"Mom. Have you ever seen a talking raccoon?"
"Did you have a dream or something?"
"Was it really just a dream?"
Tilting her head, Hiyori leaned against a pillar.
"But Mom… when are you going to announce it?"
"Announce what?"
"You know. 'Official Rank 7, Matsuna Hiyori, can no longer climb the Tower. She is expected to die before long.'"
"Hiyori!"
"The government keeps asking why I'm not climbing, right? Just tell them."
Hiyori casually brushed her hair aside.
"Delaying the announcement isn't going to stop someone who's meant to die from dying, is it?"
"You really—!"
Tears welled up in Sachika's eyes as she bit her lip.
Sighing deeply at the sight, Hiyori took her mother's hand.
"Sorry, Mom. I'm being nasty again."
"No, Hiyori. I'm the one who's sorry."
"Sorry for what?"
"For your body becoming like this, it's all—"
"How is that your fault? If we're going to blame anyone, it should be my grandmother's grandmother's grandmother's grandmother, right?"
Hiyori gave a small, crooked smile and looked back up at the sky.
The Matsuna family had carried a curse for generations.
No one knew where it came from, or how it had latched onto the family.
It simply existed—and because there was nothing that could be done about it, they accepted it.
The curse hadn't appeared for nearly 200 years.
Everyone was certain.
That the Matsuna family had been freed from it.
—Cough!
Sachika could never forget that day.
The day Hiyori came down from the Tower coughing up blood.
She hadn't been injured during the climb, yet she vomited blood all day long.
Through the old family records, Sachika realized the symptoms matched the curse.
For a long while, she refused to accept it.
This was the twenty-first century, an era where medicine had advanced beyond compare.
Moreover, with the emergence of Awakened Ones, even injuries that conventional medicine couldn't heal were treatable.
She truly believed it could be cured.
But as if mocking that hope, countless visitors failed to heal Hiyori's curse.
Even Hidden-class specialists who focused on curse-breaking shook their heads.
They said the curse was too ancient to identify; and a curse that couldn't be identified couldn't be lifted.
"Once the gathering is over, I'm going to talk to them and start climbing again."
"No. You're worse than last month."
"This time, I'm doing it no matter what anyone says. I don't want to rot away doing nothing."
Hiyori loved fighting. No—she cherished it.
The tension before battle, the exhilaration during it, the breeze that cooled the sweat afterward.
She loved all of it, and so, if she had to go, she wanted to die after fighting to her heart's content.
That was why—
She had left that provocative message to Runner through the official media.
The opponent Matsuna Hiyori chose for a fight without regret: Runner.
Though his floor count was far lower than hers, after watching his battle with Jo Gang-tae, she was certain.
With Runner, it would be a truly enjoyable fight.
Holding her phone, Hiyori logged into the Tower site.
'This guy isn't responding.'
She'd even put out requests everywhere to find Runner, but there'd been no response.
At this point, she suspected the Korean authorities might be hiding him deliberately.
"Haa…"
Letting out a heavy sigh, Hiyori closed her eyes.
Runner, who had shattered ten floors at once and made his presence known to the world.
Where would she have to go to meet him?
Kuuuuuung!!!
A thunderous boom echoed from the direction of the exchange grounds.
Hiyori turned to look, a question mark rising in her eyes.
What was that?
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T/N:
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