The Huntress, your Knight next door - Chapter 12

“Yes.”

The boss pointed his finger at the ceiling.

“Leave your organization above and sign a contract with mine. I guarantee you double the amount you received. You can catch the fairy again and become an executive right below me as a member of the organization.”

“……Double? You must have a lot of money.” 

“Of course, as a hunter of my grade you would get a lot of money…but that’s not all you see. ‘Up’ is even better.”

There’s someone above. Jin-hee, who almost hastily asked a question, suppressed herself. After all, if she stays still, he’ll tell her. The behavior of that boss has been fully understood, and, as expected, the boss spoke on his own.

“You don’t seem to know about ‘Them’. Well, in the end, it will be out eventually. …The Crows are just a sub-organization. I, ‘we’ will grow bigger.”

“…Who is ‘Them’?”

“I can’t tell you that. The story ends here. If you become a member of the organization, I’ll tell you everything. Because we, too, are always welcoming talented hunters.”

I don’t think he’d tell more. Jin-hee thought quietly. Do I need to know the organization that is above this person? Rather, what I was curious about was not the identity of this organization or what they were doing.

“Then, can I ask you one more question?”

“What is it?”

“…The man in the room next to the fairy. Where the hell did they come from? I’ve never seen such a race since I was born.”

“Hmm. That one was a coincidence.”

“…Coincidence?”

“Yes. Taking over Garam Orphanage was the original plan, but we don’t know why a child who should be human became a fairy. I just approached the orphanage because of the instructions from above. As for that man…right, it was found at the gate.”

“Gate? In Sillim?”

“I don’t know if he came from a gate in Sillim, but our gang found it camping there. It’s a humanoid monster whose skin changes to one like a reptile, so I caught it myself. It was a difficult task for the executives.”

“So you don’t know where they were born.”

“It’s unfortunate, but that’s about it. Your organization didn’t know that either? Well, you never know, maybe the first ones to discover them, whoever they are, might know.” 

Said the boss while stroking his beard. 

Does that mean it’s all a coincidence? The organization, which realized that Min-ha was there, tried to take over the nursery, but it did not seem to know yet why Min-ha became a fairy or where the fairy was born. The same goes for the Draconian. 

Okay, then there’s no more business here.

Jin-hee got up from her seat.

“Well? Have you made up your mind?”

“Yes.”

She replied with a small smile.

Indeed, things got easier thanks to the opponent who was overconfident in his own skills and flaunted around for free. There was not even a need to use her hands for torture.

Jin-hee took out her sword, which had been stuck by the chair.

“…I don’t think that’s the answer I’m thinking of.”

“Of course. It would be a shame to come all the way here and just go back empty-handed.”

“Haha, fools rush in where angels fear to tread.”

(Note: Literal Korean idiom {A puppy doesn’t know to be afraid of a tiger.})

The boss once again released his mana. Again, the ground shook at the magic that filled the room, but this time Jin-hee, who did not need to act, also smiled.

“…!”

In an instant, the room turned upside down.

In the room filled with the boss’s mana, Jin-hee’s mana reversed the tide and wrapped around him.

Mana. This magical energy was something mysterious. The strong can recognize the weak, but when the level of mana is the same or similar, they cannot recognize each other’s level. Not to say, that the weak can never estimate the strength of the strong.

She had already seen through the boss’s mana level. Conversely, the boss must have been thinking of Jin-hee’s mana was ‘just below his own’. He must have never dreamed that Jin-hee had deliberately not revealed her mana.

Come to think of it, I think I like the expression of a strong person who hides their true power. Jin-hee smiled and looked at the boss.

“W-what…!”

“I got tired of acting like a fool.”

The Crow extermination is now at the end. The boss got up with his eyes wide open due to the deathly pressure of her mana, and Jin-hee’s sword mercilessly headed towards him.

The most important thing in a battle between a wizard and a knight is distance. The distance that the knight’s sword can reach usually cannot exceed 5m even if they use mana, and on the contrary, wizards have magic to intercept all enemies who come into view.

Therefore, unless the knight aims at the back of the wizard or fights together with another wizard, it was right to retreat if there was a distance.

Of course, if the fight develops at close range, the knight has an absolute advantage. A magic circle created by a wizard is not very vulnerable to the intrusion of external mana, but the moment a defensive magic circle is cast, attack magic cannot be used at the same time, and the wizard falls into a lull.

Therefore, the battle with the Crow leader was extremely advantageous to Jin-hee.

“This wench…!”

The boss, who had already given up on the gentleman’s attitude, swung his hand, and the stone protruding from the wall flew in as a spear.

The magic of water and earth has good compatibility. By compacting and kneading the surrounding ground with water, the caster can perform various attacks with little mana usage. Earth magic had a limited way of usage, but if water magic could be used, the spectrum of skills increases indefinitely.

However, the opponent wasn’t a good match for the boss.

Earth magic uses the surrounding land, in other words, the durability of the attack was also the same as the surrounding space.

“It’s boring for an A-class.”

“Shut up!”

As Jin-hee swung her sword with a lukewarm face, numerous stone spears were shattered in one breath.

No matter how much you attack, in the end, it’s only a stone. Its strength and sharpness could not be compared to iron, and although the quantity was large, it was only dizzying with no actual damage effect.

Of course, if the caster uses more complex magic, proper attack magic is possible instead of this crude attack, but Jin-hee did not give leeway.

“You had a big mouth after all.”

“Gahak!”

At the same time as the stone spear was thrown, the boss who was about to cast another magic was hit by Jin-hee’s kick and flew backward. As he coughed when he hit the wall, drops of blood came out to show his internal organs were damaged.

“T-That’s absurd…this…”

“I know. The skill difference is absurd. I thought you were the warmage type, but it seems like I was mistaken.”

(Note: Warmage forgoes all subtlety in favor of blowing stuff up and dealing piles of damage. Some games have them wield swords to complement damage when they cannot cast spells.)

Jin-hee couldn’t understand why he pretended to be strong by emitting mana. At first glance, the boss was a typical Wizard type. She hasn’t seen it first-hand, but if you look at the amount of mana, of course, the magic skill itself was excellent.

However, in magic, there is a casting time, and no matter how fast, it’s a ridiculously long time in a battle between knights whose lives go back and forth in a time frame of seconds. Because he was so confident, Jin-hee thought that he was a warmage capable of close combat, but that was not the case at all.

“You don’t have much fighting experience, do you?”

“…!”

Just by seeing it was apparent what kind of magic strategy he used. The boss’s way of fighting was focused on artillery. A method in which he pours spells of enormous attack power in a focused area from a safe place.

Since he had never done close combat, he would only have his own confidence from battles, and he knew his destructive power, so his habit of underestimating his opponent only increased.

Jin-hee was a person who had experienced it a lot. Wizards who did not deal with a knight in front of their eyes often did not know the danger of the battlefield. It’s the same for a Hunter. Rather, modern hunters had positions that were even more standardized than the ones she had seen in war. 

“People who don’t have a lot to show always talk big.”

“That freaking mouth…!”

“And? What are you going to do about it?”

“…!”

Jin-hee approached the boss who was about to spit out insults again. The boss swallowed his words at Jin-hee’s appearance, which was just around the corner, destroying all his magic with a sword. There was fear in his eyes.

Helplessness, despair, and…

“Come on, wait! Any money… … !”

Cowardice.

“No, I’m good.”

“That…!”

Jin-hee’s sword was stuck in the boss’s chest. His suit jacket, which had all kinds of protection charms, was pierced like a piece of paper, the blade on his chest pierced through him at once.

“….”

It was a futile death for the leader of The Crows faction who was an A-class hunter and ruled the neighborhood.

The corners of his freshly bloodied lips trembled as he was about to say something, but his movements stopped soon after.

Jin-hee looked down at the corpse, immediately shook the blood from her sword, and looked around.

It was a place she came to have some light exercise, but a lot of things got tangled up again.

* * *

The first thing she did in the room was to look around. She took some seemingly important documents, swung her sword through the door of a room that appeared to be a safe, and entered.

Of course, she also took all the magic stones that the boss was going to offer her. When she entered the door earlier, she threw away all the luggage bags of the thieves she had met. Seeing what she found, there was no need to carry them around.

“As expected, there’s no cash.” 

Most of what was visible were in-kind valuables. Inside the safe, there were chests that she had only seen in movies and artifacts that she did not know for what they were used.

She couldn’t carry all of them out, so Jin-hee put the things that looked reasonably expensive in the two briefcases that were in the corner of the room. While she was picking things up, she found a sword that was just on display.

Did that wizard even collect swords?

When I took it out, the shape was close to that of an Arming Sword. This sword, which had almost no decorations but was characterized by a straight blade and a crude handle, was a military sword favored by knights.

‘Why did you use this as decoration?’

The Arming Sword was a sword for practical use, not a decorative or ceremonial sword. This is because it is a sword that is close to off-the-shelf like the sword she has been using.

“Huh?”

As she held the arming sword in her hand, Jin-hee could feel strange mana circling the handle. Just in case, she directly put in her own mana and the energy contained in the sword reacted with Jin-hee’s energy.

“Aha.”

After a few swings, she knew how to use it.

“It can transform.” 

When this sword was first pulled out, it looked like an arming sword because Jin-hee was originally a knight who often used an arming sword. When she thought that she wanted another sword, the sword changed its shape and changed into a two-handed sword, a dagger, and even a rapier.

It was a sword that transforms using mana, so even if you can’t use it, it’s a rare sword that one would want to own.

“That is great. I was going to change the sword I was using.”

She threw away the sword she wore around her waist and put a new sword in her belt. The size was changed to the size of a short sword. I’ll have to buy a spell sheet later so it can be turned into an Orb. Jin-hee thought it was the biggest harvest she could get, and went outside.

The hallway was quiet. The crows disappeared out of nowhere, and only the bloodstains left by her were seen in the hallway.

“Well?”

Shall we visit the place called Garam Orphanage first? While trying to take out her cell phone and search for a map, she realized that someone was looking down at her from the stairs.

I was still wary of my surroundings by spreading mana, but I didn’t get that person in my detection. 

The man, who was crossing his arms above the stairs, had his face shadowed due to the outside lighting. 

I could only see with my eyes that he was tall and wearing a suit. 

“Who?”