Chapter 10
Ever since the damned Glass Body trait had appeared, Baek Seon had not shown up in the hospital room.
In the silent hospital room without him, Han Chasu flipped through a book before snapping it shut.
“Haah, I need to know what they’re doing.”
Han Chasu’s hand, drumming on the sheet, grew faster.
Glass Body or whatever, set that aside for now. When he recalled what those two had said, he couldn’t calm down. ‘It’ll be a disaster if they get hurt doing something strange somewhere.’ If they got hurt running around, not for any other reason but to make him healthy, dealing with the aftermath would all fall on him.
[...Cut off his limbs and throw him into a dungeon.]
[I’m the only one here worrying about you. Aren’t you grateful?]
The bloodbath those insane bro-con protagonists would unleash flashed through his mind.
No. He couldn’t let that happen to him.
Han Chasu was glaring into empty space when someone knocked on the door.
“You were awake.”
“Hello, Guild Master.”
Han Chasu greeted Jeong Iheun without even turning his head. It was an extremely rude attitude to take toward a guild master, but Jeong Iheun didn’t mind.
This made the fifth time. It had been the same reaction every time he came with the contract.
“Have you come to accept my resignation letter?”
“Haha. Say hello. This is Choi Cheolmin.”
Naturally ignoring Han Chasu’s question, Jeong Iheun introduced someone. It was a thin man wearing horn-rimmed glasses.
“He’ll be helping us draw up the contract today.”
While both Jeong Iheun and Han Chasu only said what they wanted to say, the lawyer caught between them, Choi Cheolmin, broke out in a cold sweat.
“I’m Choi... Cheolmin.”
“You may help draft the contract.”
“Ah, th-then.”
“I won’t be signing it, though.”
Choi Cheolmin’s eyes widened as if asking how he could do such a thing. Han Chasu turned his head to look at the cause of this situation.
Jeong Iheun, having entrusted the matter to Choi Cheolmin, was pretending to be occupied elsewhere. His long fingers touched the opaque glass bottles on the bedside table.
The glass bottles with neat labels were recovery potions Jeong Iheun had procured two days ago. ‘He said he’d gotten them from an overseas S-rank, didn’t he?’ Saying that Han Chasu’s recovery was far too slow, Jeong Iheun had urged him to be sure to take the medicine. But it tasted far too awful. Every time he drank a potion, his esophagus burned, almost as if....
Just then, Jeong Iheun picked up one of the lined-up glass bottles and shook it. His touch was like someone handling a toy.
“Guild Master, are you listening to m—”
Whoosh!
The innocent potion burst into flames, bottle and all.
“......”
“......”
“......”
In the silence, Han Chasu was dumbfounded. ‘Is he demonstrating something at me right now?’ But the thought didn’t last long. With the cheerful sound of a lid opening, a writhing centipede sprang out of the charred black bottle.
“Aaaagh!”
The lawyer screamed and leapt backward. A vivid blue centipede writhed in Jeong Iheun’s hand.
Han Chasu silently bit down hard on his lip.
“What is that?”
Three times a day, one bottle each time.
It was a medicine he had to take right on schedule, so at every meal, even the nurse came by to check whether he had finished it.
And yet something that should never have come out of it had sprung out.
Han Chasu’s eyes narrowed as he looked at Jeong Iheun’s hand. ‘Don’t tell me that’s... that thing.’ A larva of the four-headed centipede, or as Hunters casually called it, “godok.”
Like the godok that appeared in martial arts novels, it was a monster that parasitized the host’s body, killing the host or controlling their movements. ‘What kind of lunatic put that into the medicine?’ To begin with, four-headed centipede larvae were hard to obtain. One had to drag the monster out of a dungeon while keeping it alive. ‘And they used that on me?’ Han Chasu was speechless.
He had barely gotten past the crisis of death after saving Jeong Seohun, only to have his life threatened like this. He couldn’t believe it.
Swallowing a sigh, he held out his hand toward Jeong Iheun.
“Guild Master, it’s no use hiding it now.”
“......”
“Show me.”
First, he needed to confirm whether that really was godok.
“Isn’t that something I almost ate?”
Jeong Iheun silently looked down at his pale hand.
Then he emptied another potion bottle and placed the struggling centipede inside it.
“Han Chasu, if you concern yourself with too many things, you’ll only accumulate stress.”
“Pardon?”
“Focus only on recovering your health.”
Tap.
Instead of the centipede, Jeong Iheun placed the lifetime contract in his hand.
“I’ll take care of everything else.”
Han Chasu nearly smashed the Guild Master’s head in right then and there.
However, instead of tormenting the innocent documents, he decided to torment Jeong Iheun.
“As I recall, Guild Master, you were the one who brought those potions.”
“......”
“You weren’t planning to make me drink medicine with a bug in it, were you?”
Jeong Iheun’s eyes turned troubled, and he looked away.
“That is not the case.”
The back of his head throbbed fiercely. Holding his ringing head, Han Chasu firmly rose from his seat.
“At the very least, I believe I have the right to know.”
Han Chasu reached for him without hesitation.
He had only intended to take the bottle with the centipede in it.
But perhaps because, out of old habit, he had tried to twist the wrist by aiming for an opening. Or perhaps because of who his opponent was.
His vision suddenly blurred.
[ Warning! ]
[ Stamina is being consumed. ]
[ Stamina is being consumed. ]
[ A penalty will be determined at random. ]
[ You have been afflicted with the status abnormality “Tinnitus”! ]
Beeeeep—!
“This is... again, ugh!”
Han Chasu seethed. This thing was draining his stamina completely at will.
In the meantime, Jeong Iheun swiftly snuffed out the centipede’s life. Seeing Choi Cheolmin at a loss for what to do, he spoke.
“Choi Cheolmin, please look after Han Chasu.”
“Yes!”
Choi Cheolmin quickly supported Han Chasu and laid him down on the bed. As if he had been waiting for that, Jeong Iheun strode out of the hospital room.
“......”
“......”
“Um, would you like something to drink...?”
“I’m fine.”
Refusing Choi Cheolmin’s trembling kindness, Han Chasu let out a deep sigh.
Ah.
He wanted to be discharged.
***
Bang!
As Jeong Iheun left the hospital room and walked away, people fell in behind him.
One woman with her long hair tied tightly into a single tail, and two men with solid builds.
Every one of them possessed a refined presence that made them seem far from ordinary people.
“Did something happen?”
The woman with the stern air asked, keeping close behind Jeong Iheun.
Instead of answering, Jeong Iheun threw out a question.
“After I last came by, who went in and out of the hospital room?”
“Baek Seon, Jeong Seohun, and Piloso’s vice guild master came by for regular treatment. Other than that, Raid Team 1 and Potion Production Team 1 requested visits, but they were denied.”
No one among the visitors stood out in particular.
At the report that contained nothing especially unusual, Jeong Iheun’s brow twisted. ‘There’s no way Noir tampered with his own goods.’ He had already wrung them out of Noir by force, even as Noir claimed he no longer had the materials to make any more.
It would be one thing if Noir had hidden them away somewhere and cherished them dearly, but there was no way he would have played tricks on something he treasured.
Then there was only one answer. ‘Someone among the medical staff tampered with the medicine Han Chasu was supposed to take.’ But why? Doubt appeared on Jeong Iheun’s face.
He was already someone in a difficult state. A man who struggled with every single breath and needed help. ‘And this happened before I could even change his mind.’ Tight. Jeong Iheun realized that, without noticing, he had clenched his fist. He had almost broken the bottle.
With a sigh, he forced himself to relax.
“Guild Master.”
As if sensing the shift in his mood, the man among the two whose cheeks were sunken cautiously asked,
“Has something happened to the patient?”
Jeong Iheun came to a halt. In the middle of the silent corridor, he let out a deep breath and turned around.
“Look.”
At first, all three of them wore expressions asking what this was. But when Jeong Iheun opened the lid, each reacted differently.
“What is this?”
“It appears to be... a bug, but the color is peculiar.”
“Is it godok (蠱毒)?”
The last voice belonged to the woman who exuded a stern air.
“There’s a high possibility.”
Seeing her face go cold and hard, Jeong Iheun gave a slight nod.
“I’ll hand it over to the analysis team, so once the results are out, tell me immediately.”
Even as he handed the godok over to the woman, Jeong Iheun’s expression was not good.
The larva of the four-headed centipede, known as godok. It possessed the property of liquefying, so if it was left in water or a drink for a certain period of time, it would melt.
The problem was that melting did not mean the larva’s death. ‘Once it fuses with the liquid and settles inside the host’s body, it sucks blood and regains its original form.’ Perhaps having thought the same thing, the bodyguard’s face twisted as she looked at the bug she had received.
“Where in the patient’s room did this come from?”
“It was inside Noir’s potion.”
“That can’t be.”
The three of them looked deeply shocked.
“...The ones immediately suspicious are the medical staff.”
Though she spoke in conjecture, the woman was certain.
Jeong Iheun also agreed with her opinion.
It was a potion that had passed from his own hand directly to Han Chasu’s attending physician.
If someone had tampered with it in the middle, it had definitely happened inside this hospital.
“Shall we begin a search?”
“...Yes. And if you catch the tail, bring them to me as they are.”
Looking at the bug, Jeong Iheun continued.
“I need to see what kind of face belongs to someone who plays games with people’s lives.”
A cold flame burned in his red eyes.
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