Chapter 10 : Memorial

The Vault of the Post-Processing Management Department.
I made one additional request to Lee Yeonah.

“Ah. And tell them I’m going inside the Gate. The one I came from.”

Due to the unexpected incident at the Association, I had taken a slight detour, but this was my original intention.

“…Are you referring to ‘Death’s Blessing’?”

“Yes. You know, right? This isn’t exactly a request.”

It wasn’t asking for permission; it was me unilaterally informing them.

Naturally.
Because that place was my rightful possession, my own domain that I ruled.

“Hmm. The erosion level will worsen, though. In that case, would you be willing to fulfill a few requests from the Association?”

I shook my head.
It wouldn’t be polite to Caspar to bring someone else along when I was visiting my deceased lover.

“That’s why I subjugated the A-rank Gate they couldn’t handle before. I’ll subjugate a few more later, so be satisfied with that.”

“Yes. That’s true too. Understood, Hunter Agathe-nim. I will relay it as such.”

Just as I was about to leave, having finished my business, I briefly turned back to her and offered a greeting.

“Ah. And please tell Yulha, who sent the strategy guide, thank you.”

She worked in the Temporary Strategy Compilation Department; I heard she was Lee Yeonah’s younger sister.
She was also the one who wrote the report on the strange phenomena in the DMZ.

“Yes. I will tell her.”

Lee Yeonah nodded.

***

-Whoosh.

The wind of the royal capital, filled with nauseating air, blew past.
The scent of decay and plague, and the stench of rotting corpses, wafted from all directions.

Had I already grown accustomed to comfort after spending just a few dozen days in a good place?

My brow furrowed, and I felt slightly nauseous.

“Ugh. Hooo. Later, I’ll need to move the coffin too.”

I couldn’t leave Caspar in a place like this.
Even if it meant hiring hordes of healers and bathing it in Holy Water, I wanted to purify the place where Caspar slept.

-Click.

Opening the entrance to the intricately sealed burial chamber, I arrived at the place where Caspar’s gravestone stood.
It was once a burial chamber Caspar had made for Enhen.

Enhen’s temporary grave, created to calm me when I was driven mad by guilt and anger after losing my sister.

It was excessive kindness.
Enhen had been dragged to hell, not died.
Though Caspar at the time didn’t know.

In the glass coffin, adorned with all sorts of precious gems, lay a single man.

The handsome young man had scars scattered across his body, contrasting with his good looks, and lay as if sleeping, not looking like a dead person at all from the outside.

This was because the internal decay had been completely halted, preventing the body from rotting or deteriorating.

Thanks to that, as a side effect, the palace became covered in decay, but at the time, I didn’t care how soiled my body and soul became.

I gazed endlessly at the glass coffin, stroking the gravestone with my hand.

“Caspar… I miss you.”

I was looking at his body, but… isn’t it just a shell, devoid of soul?

In the end, it’s nothing more than a slightly elaborate portrait.

Suddenly, a chill ran down my spine.
It felt as if a sudden coldness was washing over me.

I realized it anew.

The person with whom I once shared my body, pledging eternal love, was no longer here.

The man I loved did not exist in this world.
I would never hear his voice or see his smiling face again.

Forever. Until the day I die. No, even after death.

My beloved lover became forever unattainable due to my mistake.

“Ah. Ugh. Heuk. Aaaack!”

It felt like being thrown to the ground.
The truth I had painstakingly ignored for a while overwhelmed me.

I tried so hard to act indifferent, to pretend I had forgotten everything, but…

In the first place.
My reason for living had vanished long ago.

Tears streaming down my face, I clutched the coffin.
I couldn’t grip it tightly, afraid of breaking the magic cast upon it.

Unable even to hold his hand, just, somehow overlaying the image of Caspar in my memory onto the figure inside the coffin.

I yearned for the love that had been cut off at some point.

The spring that once filled my heart had long dried up, yet I wandered endlessly, searching for the traces of the love he once gave me.

Remembering love, looking again at you before the coffin, despairing. Resenting my own incompetence for being unable to die.

Like that, for several years.

I spent them before your corpse.

“I want to die. Caspar. Heuk. I’m so, so lonely. I’m sorry. Because I was stupid…”

I wish we could reunite, even for just a single moment.

Before I die, I want to meet you and kiss your hand.
I want to whine like a child, sulking about how hard things were for me after you died.

And I know that is an impossible dream.
I know your life was a story completely concluded the moment it was struck by my bullet.

There is no epilogue where we all meet in heaven and catch up.
There is only a child crying inconsolably after accidentally tearing out the last part of the book where the happy ending should have been.

I rambled incoherently, crying like a child for a long time.

Until your figure lying in the glass coffin blurred through my tears gathered on the glass.

For a long time.

***

One day later.

I wiped away my tears and came out of the Gate.
My soul felt tainted by the curses pervading the Land of Prosperity; it seemed I would need purification with Holy Water again.

I decided to leave the coffin as it was.
If I placed that coffin in my house or nearby, my current mental state wouldn’t be able to bear it.

I would probably visit it constantly, repeating the vicious cycle of tearing my own heart apart.

“…”

Outside, it was daytime.
My phone, now receiving signal, had many missed messages.
The name Han Sol stood out.

Come to think of it, I left without saying anything.

To think someone worries about me even when I’m gone.
It’s an unfamiliar feeling.

Looking at the western wall, I saw flowers in full bloom.
Even though summer was ending, they hadn’t lost their color yet.
They were Chinese trumpet creeper flowers.
Orange-yellow vines bloomed profusely along the wall.
Bright light scattered on the flowers, making them look almost golden at first glance.

“…Sol’s probably going to scold me a bit.”

As I briefly admired the bright summer scenery, my hand vibrated.
Han Sol was calling again.

With a slight smile, I answered her call.
A familiar nagging voice came through.

– Unni! Where did you go!
*(TL Note: ‘Unni’ is what a younger female calls an older female sibling or close older female friend.)*

“Just. Went outside for a bit.”

– Haaah. I was worried. Always leaving without a word. Are you taking your medicine properly? I thought you went off to raid some Gate again. I heard you subjugated Bulimmunja this time too, take it easy and rest.

“…You know. No, never mind. I’ll call you later.”

Click.

I mumbled vaguely and hung up.
It would probably be fine if I told her when I got home later.
She roughly guessed how rotten my heart had become.

When I first met her, she seemed like a stiff person, but people have such varied facets.

Former A-rank Hunter Han Sol is someone suffering from PTSD and feelings of inferiority towards other A-rank Hunters.
And Grade 5 Civil Servant Han Sol is a moderately laid-back civil servant who still thinks about citizen safety.

And the person Han Sol I meet privately was just an ordinary woman.
A slightly considerate, ordinary person who liked delicious food and pretty clothes.

The ordinariness I lacked, the kind of ordinariness I yearned for.

In a ruined world, too much was required to protect the ordinary.

So, I felt a little relieved.
Because I thought maybe if I associated with such an ordinary person, I too could become like that someday.

I know it’s impossible.
I know it’s undeserved.
But I hope for another miracle to happen to me.

The human heart is so fickle.
To find hope even in such fleeting moments of peace.

The fact that the feeling wasn’t entirely unpleasant hurt me even more.

Could I… be happy in the future?

Such a small hope touched my heart.

***

Hunter Association. Temporary Strategy Compilation Department.

Sisters Lee Yulha and Lee Yeonah were chatting while drinking instant coffee mix.

And naturally, the conversation turned to one person.

“Ah. Yulha. Hunter Agathe-nim asked me to thank you.”

“…Her? Ah, the DMZ subjugation this time?”

“Yeah. That’s right. Good for you, getting your strategy adopted? Usually, the Abnormal Grade Management Department puts out the official strategy. There’s also that atmosphere of looking down on your department’s wiki-addicts.”

It was a faction problem.
The Association had various departments, and matters concerning Gate raids, in particular, were a crucial point of contention at the core of the Association.

Therefore, people in each department tended to subtly disparage other departments.
Especially Lee Yulha’s department, due to its nature, received a lot of slander.

The Temporary Strategy Compilation Department, which created strategies on the fly through improvisation, was essential, but the quality of its information was often low, leading to criticism bordering on condemnation.

Being slandered as ‘wiki-addicts’ or ‘wreck-car addicts’ for supposedly just scraping info from wikis all the time was typical.
*(TL Note: ‘Wreck-car addict’ (렉카충) refers derogatorily to people (often YouTubers) who quickly jump on sensational news or controversies for views/clicks, like tow trucks rushing to an accident scene.)*
Therefore, Lee Yulha’s achievement could be considered quite encouraging.

It meant she provided information that was fast, accurate, and yielded results.

However, Lee Yeonah, smirking, knew.
That her younger sister hated that kind of thing.

“Haaah. Annoying.”

Actually, Lee Yulha was indeed a wiki-addict.
To the extent that most documents related to Hunters came from Lee Yulha’s hands.

As a bonus, she was also someone who fervently loved Hunter-related communities and X-Tube.
*(TL Note: X-Tube is likely a fictional name for YouTube.)*

“So. Yulha, skipping the company dinner again?”

“Ugh. Not going. This is why work should be done half-heartedly. But since people’s lives are on the line…”

Honestly, from Lee Yeonah’s perspective, she couldn’t understand why her sister worked even during her leisure time but found work that brought performance bonuses annoying. Still, she respected her sister nonetheless.

“Half-heartedly. Seems unlikely this time too. The next task for your department was ordered directly by the Association President.”

Lee Yulha’s eyes widened.

“What? The President?”

Thump.
Lee Yeonah put down her finished coffee and calmly recited the report that came from above.

“S-rank Gate Seocheon Flower Garden Subjugation Project. To be carried out jointly with other departments. Since there are so many variables, your department will probably be more important.”

With those words, Lee Yeonah opened the cabinet she brought and poured reports onto the table, lining them up.

Due to the risk of hacking with electronic devices, high-security items were usually prepared in analog format.

Therefore, even internal messengers couldn’t be used freely, and information often had to be delivered this way.

“…This. It’s a foreign Gate?”

They were reports written in French and Hindi, respectively.
Reports hand-translated into Korean were placed beside them.

Lee Yulha read the title written at the very top of the report.

A-rank Gate Alchemist.
S-rank Gate Churning of the Ocean of Milk (Kṣīra Sāgara).
*(TL Note: 乳海攪拌 (Yuhae Gyoban) is the Korean term for the Samudra manthan, the Churning of the Ocean of Milk from Hindu mythology.)*

“I don’t know the details either. For now, read all of that and memorize it. Good thing you’re not going to the company dinner.”

S-rank Gates were extremely important matters, so the reports spanned hundreds of pages, but it didn’t matter.

Because memorizing it was her sister’s job anyway.

“Ah…”

Lee Yulha’s groan echoed emptily.