Chapter 14

“I pieced it together, and it looked like they dumped someone in the Jain Forest just to screw them over. On top of that, they kicked him from the guild and said he was too sensitive to the pain filter. But the Jain Forest automatically maxes out the pain filter the moment you enter. How could I ignore that? What if it had been someone weak in mind or body, or someone with a chronic condition?”

When Theo finished speaking, Aslan patted his head with a smile. “You’re a good guy.”

Theo drove his elbow as hard as he could into Aslan’s side, and ignored him as he crumpled to the ground.

Father also ignored the fallen man, as if it were routine, and said,

“Wow, life really is unpredictable. If you hadn’t come out of the sanctuary that day, you wouldn’t have met him. Isn’t that fate?”

“Don’t call it fate…”

Theo glanced sideways at Blaine. He worried the word fate might make him uncomfortable. But Blaine only hung his head low, unmoving. Through the hair that fell across his face, his eyes looked vacant.

Theo stopped and turned toward him.

“Blaine, are you tired?”

There was no answer.

Theo tilted his head in puzzlement and called to him a few more times, but Blaine didn’t react. Finally, Theo grabbed his shoulder and gave him a light shake. Blaine flinched, startled, and lifted his head.

“Are you okay, Blaine?”

Theo asked, concerned.

“Huh? Oh… yeah?”

“You seemed tired. Should we call it a day?”

“No! Not at all—I can keep going!”

“Really?”

“Yes.”

Blaine forced a smile and nodded. But the pale tint to his face was something he couldn’t hide.

After that, they ran the dungeon about five more times. Bamia’s Spider Silk still didn’t drop. Everyone was drained, body and mind, so they decided to call it and returned to Lucilvania for the day.

The next day, the party lineup shifted slightly. Aslan had other business and couldn’t come, and instead Holanghee joined them.

“Hello, sweetie.”

Her bright greeting came with an overwhelming first impression: pure white. Waist-length white hair in big waves, a standing-collar top in white, a layered white skirt like torn fabric stitched together, white tights, white ankle boots. Even her weapons—the urumi and hinge knuckles—were all washed in white.

Blaine blinked in surprise at her almost obsessive devotion to the color, but Holanghee only smiled back with an angelic face and offered her greeting.

Caught off guard by the sudden brilliance of her presence, Theo finally understood the gift Marco had given him before Holanghee joined the party: sunglasses.

Holanghee, unlike Aslan, fought with an urumi—a whip-like sword. Each swing cracked through the air with a thunderous sound. Even watching her wield it was intimidating enough, but paired with her poison-coated hinge knuckles, monsters had no chance. They melted away the instant they crossed her path.

Maybe because they were in the same guild, Theo and Father meshed better with Holanghee than they had with Aslan. Thanks to that, today’s runs went even smoother than yesterday’s. But still, Bamia’s Spider Silk didn’t drop.

When they left the dungeon, they sat around a campfire in the Rest Area. The only difference from before was that while Father cooked, Holanghee pulled out a small pouch and sprinkled a strange powder into the flames.

Blaine watched with a puzzled look, but Holanghee sat down and handed him the pouch.

“Here. Powder that restores fatigue.”

Blaine hesitated, then accepted the pouch and asked, “Fatigue?”

He had never even heard of such an item. Powder that restores fatigue?

“Mm-hm. You won’t find this even if you pay for it, so enjoy it. Oh, and you could sell it too. Third-gens would go crazy for it. With that much, you’d get about three hundred million~”

Holanghee propped her chin in one hand and smiled brightly.

“Cough!”

Theo choked in shock. Three hundred million—that was enough to cover a month of Virtual Town management fees. And yet this tiny pouch of powder was worth that much?

Holanghee had originally started alchemy to develop poison for her hinge knuckles. Sharper, deadlier, more efficient poisons. In the process, she had become a well-known Tier 4 alchemist. She could easily make a fortune from alchemy alone, but she only ever used it for poison.

“I-I can’t accept something like this.”

Blaine waved his hands in panic and tried to return the pouch. But Holanghee simply cupped her hands beneath her chin and smiled like a flower.

“Why not, sweetie? It’s fine. I have plenty.”

Blaine glanced helplessly at Theo, his eyes silently pleading for help. Theo wanted to shout, If you don’t want it, give it to me! But he restrained himself, barely calming the greedy voice in his heart as he asked, “Alchemy can make something like this?”

“Of course not. I was mass-producing Retai Powder, and a bonus option happened to stick.”

“Ah.”

Retai Powder was one of the ingredients Holanghee used for her poisons. Every so often, she made large batches of ingredients all at once. Apparently, one of those batches had rolled a rare bonus option.

“How much did you make?”

“About ten thousand.”

“…”

One pouch contained about two hundred units of powder. Ten thousand meant fifty pouches… fifty pouches meant… one hundred and fifty billion.

“I already gave three thousand to Father. You can even cook with it, so she’s been putting it in her dishes.”

Holanghee raised her thumb proudly, calling Father her best customer. Father, just as proud, raised her thumb too. For third- and fourth-gens, who didn’t really need sleep, a fatigue recovery item would definitely be useful.

“Are you really sure it’s okay for me to have this…?”

Blaine spoke, his eyes fixed on the small pouch in his hand. Because of his appearance, they had suspected he might be a third-gen, and now his reaction confirmed it. A first- or second-gen wouldn’t be so eager to stay up all night with fatigue recovery powder.

Holanghee smiled and tapped her cheek with one hand cupped beneath it.

“I said you can keep it. But sweetie, why don’t you drop the formal speech?”

“Huh?”

“We’re going to be seeing each other often anyway, right? How long are you planning to keep being polite?”

Now that Theo thought about it, Holanghee had switched to casual speech with Blaine too. He was pretty sure she had been polite at first. It must’ve been after they entered the Rest Area that she’d changed.

“Yeah, even Aslan you met yesterday—we’re all twenty-six, so just call us hyung or noona.”

Father joined in. She had just finished cooking, and she handed out coconut beer and meat pies to everyone. Blaine accepted his portion in a fluster, then blinked in surprise.

“We’ll… see each other often?”

Everyone gave him a look like, Huh?

“Wait, were you planning to ditch us as soon as we got the Bamia Spider Silk?”

Father narrowed her eyes. Blaine jumped in alarm, waving his hands frantically.

“N-no, of course not!”

“Or maybe you thought we’d be the ones to ditch you?”

Holanghee grinned as she teased, and Blaine shook his head even harder.

“If you didn’t totally hate hunting with us, then it’s fine to stick around. We already added each other as friends.”

Theo spoke through a mouthful of pie. As Blaine squirmed, his expression slowly brightened. Soon after, Father and Holanghee—grumbling about why only Theo had gotten a friend request—added themselves to Blaine’s friend list as well.

The next day, Aslan returned. The moment he arrived, he clung to Theo, hovering around him with no shame. Theo’s face flushed red as he pushed him away again and again. Father, used to the sight, didn’t even bother paying attention.

Watching the two act so close, Blaine suddenly found himself uncomfortable with Aslan.

Dungeon runs went smoothly as always. Though it had only been three days, the repeated hunts were so routine that they could’ve done them blindfolded. Still, grinding all day wore everyone down and left them weary. They decided to call it quits for the day and save the rest for tomorrow.

With Father’s final strike, Bamia collapsed with a heavy thud. Theo and Aslan quickly sorted through the loot, while Blaine harvested the corpse.

At first, everyone had watched eagerly whenever he harvested, wondering if the drop would appear. But by now, none of them paid much attention. Their only concern was what Father would cook tonight.

Blaine, too, couldn’t help but look forward to it. Every meal Father had made so far had been delicious. He swallowed the saliva gathering in his mouth as the harvesting finished. Without much expectation, he pressed the “collect” button—then froze in place.

Blaine blinked in disbelief, then shouted with trembling hands as he held the Bamia Spider Silk.

“I-it dropped… it dropped!”

Everyone’s focus, which had been on Father’s cooking, instantly shifted to Blaine.

Even when they saw the silk floating above Blaine’s palm, none of them could believe it. Was this real? Were they dreaming? They rubbed their eyes, slapped their cheeks—but the silk didn’t vanish.

It was real. The Bamia Spider Silk was real, and so was the lucky man holding it. Everyone stared at Blaine in awe.

Blaine’s cheeks turned red as he held the silk out to Theo.

“I’m glad I could be of help.”

Theo received it reverently, as if it were a sacred relic, but his gaze never left Blaine. In those steady eyes shimmered the faint stirrings of affection.

“No, I should be the one thanking you. Without you, I might never have gotten the Kallia Tree… or this.”

Blaine blinked, then broke into a bright smile. His wolf ears flattened back against his head, nearly hidden, while the blush on his cheeks deepened.

He looked so much like a puppy craving praise that Theo almost reached out to pat his head.

“Wow… people say luck is everything, but it never hit me until now. Experiencing it firsthand is beyond imagination.”

“He’s really a talent worth having… would you consider joining our guild?”

After Father’s words of admiration, Aslan made the suggestion. Both Father and Theo snapped their heads toward him so fast it was almost audible. At some point, Aslan had stepped up to Blaine, extending his hand as if for a handshake.

In his palm, a small magical circle displaying his guild’s crest glowed faintly. If Blaine took his hand, he would instantly join Aslan’s guild.

Father’s veins bulged along her neck and face.

“That sly little bastard…”

Muttering through gritted teeth, her eyes flashing with murderous intensity, Father strode forward and shoved Aslan aside. She then extended her own hand to Blaine. A guild crest shimmered on her palm as well.

Aslan, slightly flustered, said, “Hey, I asked first,” trying to block her. But Father silenced him with nothing but a glare, then raised her chin and declared with confidence:

“Join our guild. Theo’s here too.”