Chapter 76
After laughing like that for a long while, the awkward atmosphere had completely vanished.
Kim Suho scratched his head and said.
“Anyway, since we’ve met like this, I’ll take you to the research institute. I can’t just let you go alone.”
“Huh? It’s fine.”
“What do you mean, fine? You’re going to keep digging into the ground and cause trouble again?”
He lightly tapped my forehead and added,
“And this is my repayment for that little forehead flick earlier. I’ve got to keep up appearances as an S-rank Hunter by at least being able to flick a kid on the forehead.”
His words made me snort a laugh.
I didn’t refuse his offer.
Being escorted by an S-rank Hunter would probably be a worthwhile experience.
“Then I’ll have to ask for your help.”
“Sure. Hold on tight.”
Kim Suho lightly wrapped an arm around my waist.
I reflexively clutched the hem of his clothes.
In the next moment, the ground beneath my feet receded in an instant.
The sensation of my body floating up into the air.
Only then did I realize I’d made a mistake.
“Wait, wait, wait!”
“W-what? What is it?”
“Put me down! I’m scared of heights!”
“What? Oh, come on….”
I nearly screamed the words out.
Kim Suho seemed to be greatly flustered by my unexpected reaction.
“Okay, okay! I’ll put you down right now!”
He hurriedly lowered our altitude.
The moment my feet touched the ground, my legs gave out and I collapsed where I stood.
My whole body was shaking.
“Hhh….”
“Are you okay? You’re pale as a sheet.”
Kim Suho crouched in front of me with a worried look.
I spent a long while gasping for rough breaths.
That was when Kim Suho carefully made a suggestion.
“Could you close your eyes for a moment?”
“Huh?”
“I’ll control the wind so precisely that you won’t feel any movement at all. Just close your eyes and open them again, and we’ll be there.”
Kim Suho’s voice was reassuring.
I hesitated for a moment, but I didn’t have the courage to fly through the sky again in this state.
I nodded and squeezed my eyes shut.
Kim Suho moved his mana again.
This time, I didn’t feel that same floating sensation as before.
There was no sound of wind or swaying.
It felt as if I were standing still in a quiet room, with no sensation at all.
How much time had passed?
“You can open your eyes now.”
His voice was tinged with a bit of fatigue.
When I opened my eyes, I was in a completely different place.
Beneath my feet was a huge H painted on the ground.
The city’s skyscrapers could be seen on the horizon.
The rooftop of the research institute. It was a helipad.
***
We took the private elevator on the rooftop and went down.
The research institute was quiet. The whole place felt like a general hospital.
When Kim Suho approached the reception desk, an employee who recognized him jumped to their feet in surprise.
Visits from an S-rank Hunter apparently weren’t common here either.
After a brief identity check, we sat on the visitor sofa and waited for Eun Mirae.
Before long, the sound of clicking heels came from inside.
Before long, a woman appeared.
A cold, composed expression.
A dress that emphasized the curves of her body, with a lab coat slung carelessly over it.
Dark blue hair tied up neatly, not a strand out of place.
She was Eun Mirae, the A-rank Frost Mage.
Eun Mirae spotted us and stopped walking.
A faint hint of question crossed her expressionless face.
“Kim Suho? What brings you here?”
“I had something to do nearby, so I thought I’d stop by.”
“That’s unusual.”
Eun Mirae gave a small nod and naturally shifted her gaze to me.
At that moment, her eyebrows lifted ever so slightly.
“….”
Eun Mirae looked back and forth between me and Kim Suho several times.
A gaze that seemed to be deep in thought.
After a moment, Eun Mirae opened her mouth as if she had reached a conclusion.
“Kim Suho.”
“Yeah?”
“You already had such a big kid?”
Eun Mirae’s voice was still flat, but the meaning behind it was anything but.
“You’re not even married. When did you have a kid?”
“Pffft…!”
I barely held back the laughter about to burst out.
Kim Suho looked blank for a moment, as if he didn’t understand the question, then soon wore a baffled expression.
“What nonsense are you talking about? There’s no way that’s my kid!”
A fierce denial.
Suddenly, I got a mischievous idea.
I carefully grabbed the end of his sleeve.
Looking up at him with the most innocent, pitiful voice I could muster, I said,
“Dad…?”
Kim Suho turned his head with a creak, like a broken machine, and looked down at me.
His eyes were shaking wildly.
“What are you suddenly talking about? No, I mean, this kid is….”
Kim Suho desperately tried to explain, but in his panic he couldn’t manage a proper sentence.
In the end, I couldn’t hold back and burst out laughing right there, clutching my stomach.
“Pffft, ahahahahaha!”
“…Ugh, this is ridiculous…. Anyway, this is the newbie you were supposed to meet with today.”
Kim Suho shook his head.
Even so, Eun Mirae showed not the slightest sign of disturbance.
As if she had no interest at all in Kim Suho’s panic, she took another step toward me.
She bent at the waist to meet my eye level and began staring at me even more intently.
“….”
Eun Mirae’s cold eyes swept over my face from corner to corner, like a microscope.
A suffocating stare.
I abruptly stopped laughing and stepped back.
“W-what is it….”
Eun Mirae’s lips moved very slightly.
“Cute.”
A voice close to a whisper.
So small it was nearly swallowed by the sound of the wind.
I hadn’t caught it properly, so I asked again.
“Huh? What did you say?”
Eun Mirae immediately lifted her head as if nothing had happened and returned to her expressionless face.
“No. Nothing.”
Eun Mirae let out a short cough and, in the blink of an eye, plucked one strand of hair each from me and Kim Suho.
The movement was so natural and quick.
“Ow! What are you doing!”
“Ow! What the heck?”
Kim Suho and I screamed at the same time.
Eun Mirae didn’t care about our reactions at all.
She carefully put the two strands of hair she’d plucked into a transparent sample bag.
Eun Mirae said in a perfectly matter-of-fact voice,
“For a paternity test.”
“How is that even a paternity test?!”
Kim Suho’s scream filled the lobby.
But Eun Mirae didn’t even blink.
Eun Mirae slipped the sample bag into her lab coat pocket and said,
“Well, you never know. It’s best to secure the data and move on.”
There wasn’t the slightest hint of a joke in her tone.
Kim Suho could say no more and only gaped with his mouth open.
Eun Mirae stood up as if she had finished all her business.
She gestured at Kim Suho with her chin and said,
“You can head back now. Thanks for bringing me all the way here.”
“Uh, yeah…. Take care….”
“And you.”
Eun Mirae’s gaze shifted to me.
“Come with me. First… I’ll measure your basic physical data.”
“Huh? I came to look at the relic, so why are you giving me a physical exam?”
With so much happening, I’d even forgotten for a moment, but my original reason for coming here was the dwarf relic.
I had come to check whether I could restore the relic with the power of my ring.
“And if we’re talking about exams, the Association already did all that when I came to Seoul before. Together with Kim Suho.”
At my words, Eun Mirae paused and looked back at me.
Her eyes began to sweep over me from head to toe.
After a moment, she opened her mouth.
“A detailed examination is necessary. You’re much smaller and younger than I expected…”
Her voice was firm.
“And the examinations I do are a hundred times more accurate. There’s a world of difference between some amateur clicking a machine a few times and me, the greatest genius in South Korea, personally analyzing you in detail.”
Eun Mirae’s words were full of absolute confidence in her own abilities.
I was overwhelmed by that confidence.
‘Right. If a smart person says so, then I guess that’s how it is….’
Come to think of it, if the greatest genius around was willing to look at me herself, there was no reason to refuse.
Besides, my body had changed a lot since then too.
In the end, I nodded and followed after her.
***
The room she led me into was completely white.
The walls on all sides were packed with complex machines whose purpose I couldn’t make out.
In the center of the room stood a single bed.
Eun Mirae instructed me to lie down on it.
“Let’s check the basics first.”
Eun Mirae moved without the slightest hesitation.
Cold metal patches were attached to my arms and legs.
But when Eun Mirae’s cold hand slipped inside my clothes and climbed up to my stomach, I jerked back in alarm.
“Are you attaching them even there?”
“Huh? Isn’t that obvious?”
Eun Mirae tilted her head, as if she didn’t understand my reaction.
She wore an expression as if to say, Of course you’d put the stethoscope on the chest if you want to hear the heartbeat, right?
Apparently, to her, this was just a perfectly normal procedure, little different from a medical exam.
In the end, I gave up resisting.
The examination continued.
Unfamiliar graphs fluctuated across the monitor.
Eun Mirae skimmed through the data for a moment, then took my hand.
“This is a measurement of mana conductivity.”
Eun Mirae’s gaze lingered for a moment on my fingertips.
Her eyes wavered ever so slightly when she checked my little finger.
“….”
But she said nothing.
She probably thought it was a sensitive issue for me and deliberately chose not to mention it.
Eun Mirae’s slender fingers gently stroked the back of my hand and palm.
I heard her muttering to herself.
“So soft….”
Eun Mirae’s gaze was still fixed on the monitor, but her thumb was unconsciously stroking the back of my hand.
‘Something feels off here?’
Just then, her other hand reached out and poked my cheek.
My cheek was pressed in by her finger before returning to normal.
“… Is this really an exam? It feels like you’re not doing anything.”
At my remark, Eun Mirae took her hand away.
I looked at her with a suspicious eye.
But her expression was still so serious that she looked like she was truly doing something important.
One thing was certain: maybe because she was a Frost Mage, her hands were incredibly cold.
I said it without thinking.
“Your hands are incredibly cold?”
At that moment, Eun Mirae’s movements stopped as if startled.
It was the first time she’d shown any sign of fluster.
I was surprised that she was flustered.
“Ah…. Sorry. I’m an ice mage, after all….”
“It’s okay.”
Her voice trembled slightly for the first time.
I shook my head and said it was fine.
Eun Mirae let out a cough as if to compose herself, then spoke in a much more businesslike voice than before.
“All right, then let’s start the real exam. First, we’ll do an endoscopy and turn your body into sand….”
I almost sprang up from the bed.
“No, then what was everything we just did?”
At my shout, Eun Mirae’s eyes shook violently.
Her gaze wandered through the air, losing focus.
“Th, that…? That was… well, preliminary measurements…?”
I couldn’t stand it anymore.
I felt a sense of crisis that if this kept up, I really might be dissected.
“Stop! Stop! Just show me that thing! That’s why I came here in the first place!”
At my firm shout, Eun Mirae clicked her tongue in disappointment.
“Hmm… I haven’t even started on the things I want to research yet….”
Her voice was thick with regret.
But she seemed to have judged that she couldn’t push the matter any further.
“Fine. It’s not like today is the only day.”
Eun Mirae finally began leading me toward the room where the relic was kept.