I Became The Rankers’ Number One Pick [EN]: Chapter 119

119.

“…Genie of the Lamp.”

As she muttered while lying down, a system window popped up.

[Genie of the Lamp: Grants the Hunter’s wish.

Applicable only to Hunters who have read through ‘Emotional Transference’.]

[(Reverse), (Slot 2), (Slot 3)]

Seo-ah stared at the window for a moment, then cautiously opened her mouth.

“Slot 1, delete Reverse.”

Surprisingly, the system window reacted.

[Once a slot is deleted, it cannot be recovered. Do you want to delete it? Y/N]

“Oh? It actually works.”

Seo-ah pondered for a moment. [Reverse] was definitely not a useful skill for her.

However, Slots 2 and 3 were still available, and it could be useful when working with other healers, even if not for herself.

‘And thinking in reverse, wouldn’t using [Reverse] and dealing damage have a healing effect?’

‘I don’t know since I haven’t tried it yet.’

Anyway, since there was slot space, she decided to leave it.

“No. I’ll do it later.”

The system window, understanding Seo-ah’s words, disappeared.

‘What is the system? Who is controlling it? What are they trying to do by making hunters stronger? And why did they give me this ability?’

She had talked to Baek Eun-hee before, but she only had vague guesses and didn’t know for sure.

Yoo Ji-an seemed to know something but didn’t seem like he would explain it.

Seo-ah’s unique skill [Genie of the Lamp] could make herself and others incredibly strong, depending on how it was used.

‘If I open a gate with a Creation Card and utilize this….’

Seo-ah stopped thinking and sighed. In the end, she decided to admit that she couldn’t let go of her attachment to the Elixir.

Just in case, she searched for ‘Elixir’ on her smartphone. It was already famous, as search results poured out.

However, it was mostly hearsay, and there was no useful information among them.

‘Yoo Ji-an said so definitively that it doesn’t exist.’

Though there was a subtle nuance in his definiteness.

Perhaps Seo-ah had been bothered by that all along.

‘Should I ask again when I see him….’

Anyway, the monster subjugation operation was also ending tomorrow. That meant tomorrow was the only day to collect cards.

With such thoughts, she spent the night awake and left home early in the morning.

She briefly considered selling her house, but Seo-ah didn’t have enough money to buy a new one.

She had saved enough money for Geon-woo’s hospital bills and living expenses, but it was still not enough to buy a decent house in Seoul.

As expected, even an S-Class Hunter has to work to earn money.

Seo-ah headed to Health Hospital, where Geon-woo was hospitalized.

Creak-

“Geon-woo.”

“Oh… Sis?”

Geon-woo blinked, looking at Seo-ah as if he had just woken up.

“Did I wake you up?”

“No, I was watching TV.”

Geon-woo gestured with his chin towards the television screen. It was explaining the grotesque sunflower subjugation operation.

“It’s almost over, so you can rest assured.”

Seo-ah sat beside him, reassuring him.

“I’m not too worried. My sister is an S-Class Hunter, after all?”

“Umm….”

“It’s really amazing. S-Class, that’s the same rank as Yoo Ji-an.”

“Ah, no. Yoo Ji-an is much stronger. He’s strong even among S-Classes.”

“Anyway…! It’s the same S-Class.”

Geon-woo seemed very pleased that his sister was an S-Class Hunter.

“Sis, when are you going on the next raid? Huh?”

“Raid?”

“You’re an S-Class Hunter, so you have to go, right? You have to go around destroying high-level gates, don’t you?”

Even though he was medicated, Geon-woo looked at Seo-ah with bright eyes. Seo-ah scratched her face with her finger, looking embarrassed.

“I’m… not going to go.”

“Not going? Why?”

“Why do you ask? Where would I go, leaving you behind?”

At Seo-ah’s words, Geon-woo’s expression visibly darkened.

“Geon-woo? What’s wrong?”

“No, it’s nothing.”

As if to say it was nothing, Geon-woo turned his back to Seo-ah and lay down. Seo-ah gently shook Geon-woo’s shoulder.

“Geon-woo. What’s wrong? Tell me.”

“It’s just… I feel like I’m holding you back.”

“What do you mean? Why would you be holding me back?”

“You said you can’t go on raids because of me. I was so happy knowing my sister was an S-Class Hunter, but it feels like too much, knowing I’m the reason you can’t go on raids….”

“It’s not necessarily that… High-level gates aren’t that common to begin with….”

Seo-ah tried to make excuses, but it seemed Geon-woo wasn’t listening.

“Still, you’re catching a lot of grotesque sunflowers. And I’ll go if I get the chance. I don’t really enjoy raids anyway. It’s just tiring when I go.”

“Really? How many sunflowers have you caught?”

Seo-ah managed to appease Geon-woo with various comforting words, and after watching him eat lunch, she came outside.

“Hoo….”

She never imagined Geon-woo would think that way. She thought she should be more careful with her words in the future.

‘Come to think of it, it must be hard to be stuck in a hospital room at his age.’

It would be even more difficult mentally if he thought he was a burden.

Geon-woo had always admired strong hunters, so he had reason to be happy about Seo-ah’s awakening.

Seo-ah left the hospital and tried to gauge the direction she should go today.

“Hmm, today….”

Many personnel were deployed to the south to finish up. So, the place for Seo-ah to go was the opposite side.

“Shall I go towards Paju?”

***

What greeted Seo-ah when she returned to the Association after completely clearing the Paju area was Cha Tae-woon, not Oh Hyun-soo.

Everyone had already left, and only Cha Tae-woon and a few staff members were in the lobby.

“Oh, Association President.”

Seo-ah called out to him and cautiously went inside.

“To come at this hour, you must have worked really hard. As the Association President, I thank you.”

Cha Tae-woon smiled and slightly bowed his head.

“No, I was distracted in between, so it got this late.”

Seo-ah deliberately emphasized that she didn’t work that hard.

“Is that so? Anyway, let’s go up.”

Cha Tae-woon cut off the conversation and headed to the elevator. She wondered if she really needed to go up since the work was done, but the atmosphere didn’t allow for objections, so Seo-ah obediently went up.

Cha Tae-woon was silent in the elevator.

He wasn’t usually talkative when he was with Yoo Ji-an, but it was even more awkward with Cha Tae-woon since they didn’t have much of a relationship. And he definitely seemed to have something to say to Seo-ah.

As usual, after arriving on the 70th floor, Cha Tae-woon guided Seo-ah to his office instead of the conference room.

As soon as Seo-ah entered, he closed the door sharply.

“I heard you were working alone since yesterday. Why?”

Cha Tae-woon sat at his desk without looking at Seo-ah.

“It’s more comfortable that way. And wearing the mask is also stifling.”

“I see, but you still worked really hard.”

“No, not really….”

Cha Tae-woon pointed to a map hanging on one side of the wall and said.

“We checked the route reported by Hunter Park Seo-ah for the last time, and there wasn’t a single monster left in this area. They say there were no traces of other hunters having been there.”

“There weren’t that many individuals in that area to begin with.”

Seo-ah replied, but she somehow had a feeling what Cha Tae-woon was going to say next. She thought it was inevitable since it was coming.

“You caught that many, but Hunter Park Seo-ah only returned one card.”

“……”

As expected.

Seo-ah sighed silently and finally confessed. She had been feeling uncomfortable about it all along.

“I’m sorry, I actually collected a total of 8 cards. I’ll return them now.”

Then Cha Tae-woon spread out his hand and said something unexpected.

“No, Hunter Park Seo-ah. I’m not saying this to reprimand you.”

“Then…?”

Park Seo-ah looked at Cha Tae-woon with a puzzled expression, and Cha Tae-woon stood up again and stood in front of Seo-ah.

Seo-ah, who was meeting his eyes, slightly avoided them.

“I’m curious about the reason why Hunter Park Seo-ah collected the cards. Is there something you want?”

“It’s… no different from other hunters.”

“It’s hard to believe that you simply wanted to open a gate to get expensive items. Hunter Park Seo-ah is an S-Class Hunter, and you can earn a lot of money if you put your mind to it. If you just say you want to sign a contract with any guild right now, they’ll offer you hundreds of millions. That goes for our Association as well.”

“If I tell you the reason, will you let it go?”

“Since you only have 8 cards anyway, you can’t do anything significant with them. It means it’s meaningless to keep them.”

“That’s true….”

Seo-ah hesitated to answer and slowly walked over and sat on the leather sofa. Seeing her action, Cha Tae-woon also sat opposite her.

“I heard about an item called Elixir.”

Cha Tae-woon nodded at the answer.

“You mean the panacea [a remedy believed to cure all ailments]. You’re probably interested because of your younger brother.”

“Yes, that’s right. But Hunter Yoo Ji-an said there’s no such item in the world. Well, I just had vague expectations and collected the cards… If there’s no Elixir, then I really don’t need them. I’ll return them.”

Seo-ah was about to open her inventory, answering relatively obediently. But Cha Tae-woon asked with a puzzled tone.

“Yoo Ji-an said that? That Elixirs don’t exist?”