Chapter 59
China's Murim.
Its Hunter society was a form in which the old laws of the jianghu had been overlaid intact onto a modern guild system.
Sects.
Great clans.
Associations.
And religious orders.
On the surface, it appeared to be under state control under the name of the Chinese Hunter Federation.
But in the field, a Hunter's status was still determined by which sect they hailed from, which great clan's blood they carried, and which religious order protected them.
A world of Hunters who weren't really Hunters.
The old Chinese order of power that had not disappeared even in the modern age.
Its influence was so widespread that even I, as a child with no interest in Hunters whatsoever, had heard of it in passing.
And that Murim now stood behind Cheongryong.
“There’s Chinese Murim behind Ma Jaerim, the current guild master of Cheongryong?”
“Yes.”
Ms. Baek Sawol answered in a low voice.
It had already been a year since she fled Cheongryong with Guild Master Jin Yeoryeong on her back.
During that time, she hadn't merely been running.
True to her kunoichi background, she infiltrated places, eavesdropped, stole documents, and tracked whom Ma Jaerim was meeting.
And at the end of that investigation, she reached this conclusion.
“More precisely, it’s the Demonic Cult faction of the Chinese Murim. Specifically, the Blood Cult, one of the three pillars known as the Three Main Demonic Lineages.”
The Blood Cult.
Even the name was a word that seemed to carry the smell of blood.
“Ma Jaerim is currently negotiating with the Blood Cult. The dungeon business rights in the Gangdong region controlled by Cheongryong, its subordinate guilds, equipment distribution network, Hunter lodgings, and logistics hubs. She intends to hand all of it over as the Blood Cult’s first foothold for putting down roots in Korea.”
“And what does she get in return?”
“The position of Chief Overseer of eastern Seoul.”
“Chief Overseer?”
“Chief Overseer is a generous way to put it. In reality, she’d be the Blood Cult’s second-in-command in the eastern Seoul region it would rule. Ma Jaerim plans to sell out Cheongryong and play king under the Blood Cult instead.”
East Asian Hunter Joint Development Plan.
I had heard that name before, too.
The Hunter-world Belt and Road initiative China was currently pushing.
Its stated justification sounded plausible.
Establishing an East Asian dungeon safety network.
Supporting developing Hunter nations.
Jointly supplying equipment, manpower, recovery potions, and dungeon stabilization technology.
But beneath the surface, it was ultimately a single structure.
Chinese capital flows in.
Chinese equipment is installed.
Chinese Hunters are dispatched.
Some of the country's rights to dungeon development, mining, and clearing are held as collateral.
At first, it is aid.
Next, it is a loan.
After that, it is a joint venture.
And in the end, it is 'subjugation.'
Europe was blocked by EU-level dungeon security regulations, while North America had almost no room for Chinese capital to penetrate deeply because of the U.S. Hunter Security Act.
Then what remained was East Asia.
Countries with weak Hunter industries, such as the Philippines, Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia.
Countries where dungeons opened but they lacked the money to train their own Hunters, and where dungeon breaks had to be contained, leaving them no choice but to accept outside assistance.
China had reached out to them.
Legal on paper.
Legal procedurally, too.
But once a country began taking on debt, it became unable to close even a single dungeon in its own territory as it pleased.
The equipment was Chinese.
The recovery potions were Chinese.
The clearing teams were Chinese-affiliated.
Even the dungeon byproduct distribution network was backed by Chinese capital.
A structure in which dungeons had opened on their own soil, yet they had to hire Chinese Hunters just to manage them.
That was the true nature of the East Asian Hunter Joint Development Plan.
“But as far as I know, South Korea isn’t included in that plan.”
“Officially, it isn’t.”
Ms. Baek Sawol nodded.
“Korea has the Four Major Guilds holding the line. Its dungeon self-sufficiency rate is high, and its Hunter industry is already mature. If they came in head-on, there’s no way Geumseong, Baekho, Hyeonmu, and Cheongryong would sit still.”
“But someone inside Cheongryong is opening the door for them?”
“Yes.”
I understood then.
If outsiders broke through the castle gates, it was an invasion.
But if someone on the inside opened the bolt themselves, it became a contract.
“Ma Jaerim gathered factions within Cheongryong that were dissatisfied with Guild Master Jin Yeoryeong’s policies. People who argued that the dungeon interests in Gangdong should be sold off more aggressively. People who ran businesses with political kickbacks. People who already had ties to remittances to North Korea, unregistered Hunter brokering, and smuggling Chinese equipment.”
“It’s a full-blown cartel.”
“Yes. A cartel woven from the authorities, capital, guilds, and Murim.”
Set up a small branch in Gangdong.
Bring in Chinese Hunter capital.
Build dungeon equipment markets and recovery potion distribution centers.
Ultimately, they would build their own Hunter lodgings and training grounds.
On the surface, international joint development.
In reality, the Blood Cult’s beachhead in Korea.
By the time the Four Major Guilds realized what was happening, the Blood Cult’s flag would already be planted in the heart of Gangdong.
“So Guild Master Jin Yeoryeong⋯.”
“Yes.”
Ms. Baek Sawol looked toward Guild Master Jin Yeoryeong.
In one corner of the hideout.
She lay unconscious, drenched in cold sweat.
“The guild master believes she has to stop them herself. Because it all happened in Cheongryong’s name. Because as Cheongryong’s guild master, she has to take responsibility herself.”
Before the Blood Cult’s reach extended to the Korean Peninsula.
Before it put down roots in the land east of Seoul.
She had to finish it herself.
That was why Guild Master Jin Yeoryeong was trying to fight again even as she lay dying.
I couldn’t say anything for a while.
I understood the reason.
I understood her resolve, too.
But.
“I don’t want to perform that kind of surgery for you.”
“⋯!”
I spoke quietly as I looked at Guild Master Jin Yeoryeong, who was asleep.
“I’m sorry, Guild Master Jin Yeoryeong, but I’m a doctor who saves people, not a medic who forcibly pumps stimulants into someone who’s already dying and sends them to the battlefield.”
“Does that mean⋯.”
Ms. Baek Sawol’s voice trembled.
“That there is a way to make the guild master fight?”
“⋯Yes. I did think of one possibility.”
But it was a method that absolutely must not be used once you viewed the patient as a 'person.'
If I treated Jin Yeoryeong not as a patient to be saved, but as a training aid that had to somehow be made to move again right up until battle,
then it was a theoretically possible surgery.
It was called the 'Life-Burning Mana Circulation Forced Recanalization Procedure.'
The most important thing in a Hunter’s body was an organ ordinary people did not have.
Mana.
And the parts that stored, buffered, and momentarily amplified that mana were the mana pouches in the chest and buttocks.
In particular, the chest mana pouch near the heart was not simply a storage tank.
It was a buffer that took in the mana emitted by the heart, lowered its pressure, and distributed it throughout the body.
But Guild Master Jin Yeoryeong’s chest had suffered extensive necrosis across the skin and superficial subcutaneous tissue from Black Blood Snake Poison.
On the surface, it looked completely dead.
But the MRI showed that some of the deep breast parenchyma and part of the pectoralis major were still alive.
The mana pouch’s core functions had not completely shut down, either.
Then, in theory, I could force a solution into existence.
Make a wide incision through the necrotic skin.
Locate the breast parenchyma where some response remained.
Then forcibly reopen the blocked mana circulation around it.
And partially forgo the buffering process the mana pouch was originally supposed to perform, connecting it directly to the circulation around the heart.
Put simply, this would bypass the broken mana pouch and directly connect the heart to the body's mana circulation.
“To use a car as an analogy⋯ if the fuel pump and cooling system were broken, you’d remove all the safety devices and plug the fuel line directly into the engine.”
“That means⋯.”
“It would run for now. No—it might even produce more explosive output than before. With no safety devices and no buffer, you’d simply set it ablaze regardless of whether the engine overheated.”
But there was a reason people called them safety devices.
Because you couldn't do without them.
The mana pouch wasn’t simply a place to store mana.
It absorbed pressure the heart couldn’t withstand, kept mana surges from striking the organs directly, and regulated the strength of the mana flowing throughout the body.
Bypass that?
The mana backlash would hit the heart full force.
In terms of real-world medicine, it would be like pumping a cardiac stimulant into a heart-failure patient beyond safe limits, while simultaneously injecting vasoconstrictors and stimulants to force them upright.
On the outside, she might look fine.
She might be able to stand.
She might be able to run.
She might be able to fight.
But the heart and all her organs would pay the price.
“If it succeeds, she might be able to fight for about an hour.”
“An hour⋯.”
“But after that, she’ll almost certainly die.”
And above all.
“This is all theoretical.”
I clenched my teeth.
“It’s a surgery I devised in my head. There’s been no trial run and no precedent. I don’t know whether it will really produce the output I’m expecting or kill the patient right there on the operating table.”
Gulp.
Ms. Baek Sawol swallowed.
Her face twisted with conflicting emotions.
She wanted to save the guild master.
But the guild master wanted to fight.
There was a way to make her fight.
But that method led to death.
Caught between those contradictions, she couldn’t say anything.
They say tears are a luxury for ninjas who keep their emotions in check.
But she wasn’t a ninja now.
She was a subordinate who had carried the person she served on her back while fleeing for a year.
“I⋯ What am I supposed to do⋯?”
I couldn’t answer.
A doctor can explain the options.
A doctor can explain the risks.
But a doctor cannot decide someone else’s life and death, or the reason they wish to burn themselves out for one last time.
All I could do was gently place my hands on her trembling shoulders.
There was nothing else I could do now but share that pain, even if only for a moment.
It was then.
Rumble rumble rumble⋯.
A low vibration traveled up through the floor of the hideout.
At first, I thought it only felt that way because Ms. Baek Sawol’s body was trembling so violently.
But it wasn’t.
Rumble rumble rumble rumble rumble!
The old light hanging on the wall shook.
The metal tray holding the surgical instruments trembled and rattled.
“Th-the ground⋯.”
I reflexively looked around.
“Is it an earthquake?”
At that moment, Ms. Baek Sawol rose as though wrenching herself out of my arms.
The face that had been crumpled in despair moments ago hardened in an instant.
She pressed a hand to the floor to feel the vibration, then immediately turned toward me, her face pale.
“This isn’t an earthquake⋯.”
“Then what is it?”
Rumble rumble rumble rumble rumble!
This time, it was louder.
Dust fell from a gap in the ceiling.
The eyelids of Guild Master Jin Yeoryeong, who lay in one corner of the hideout, trembled faintly.
“It’s dungeon pressure.”
“Dungeon pressure?”
“A warning sign that appears just before a dungeon whose raid has failed, or one left unattended, reaches its limit—in other words⋯.”
Her gaze darkened.
“It’s a sign that a dungeon break is imminent.”
“!!”