Yess & Yes

Chapter 2.4

“Gasp!”

Park Sangwoo hurriedly jumped to his feet, scratching his head, which he hadn't washed in two days.

“Uwa, how did...”

Park Sangwoo quickly ran to Lee Juwon's side. In his haste, he bumped his thigh on the corner of the desk. Even while grunting and holding his thigh, he couldn't slow his pace.

“Phew...”

Only then did Lee Juwon breathe a sigh of relief. It was finally time to nitpick their indolence.

“Being on your phone during work hours...”

“Why did this suddenly break?”

"What are you doing..."

“Ugh, aren’t I the one who’s going to have to reimburse this?”

But Park Sangwoo didn't care what Lee Juwon said. He just quickly looked at his surroundings with a snow-white face.

The lab, with its closed windows and blackout blinds, didn't let in a single breeze, so he couldn't figure out why the potion had suddenly broken.

"Hey, can't you see me?"

“General Manager Choi, can you come here for a second?”

Park Sangwoo called out to the security guard in front of the lab.

General Manager Choi and Park Sangwoo put their heads together and even watched the CCTV, but all they could see on the monitors was a potion bottle suddenly falling and shattering.

Park Sangwoo muttered to himself as he grabbed a reagent flat mop from the cleaning bin, “So mysterious...”

“I’m going crazy, really...” 

Lee Juwon spat out curses and recoiled. Park Sangwoo mumbled that it was strange right in front of Lee Juwon’s face while pushing the flat mop. Lee Juwon looked down at the floor below him. The blue potion he thought he had obviously just drunk soaked the floor.

The invisibility hadn't been lifted yet. He wasn't visible on the CCTV, and he wasn't reflected in the glass windows. He could see the researcher swaying his head reflected in the window of the shelf opposite them, but not Lee Juwon, who was right next to him.

“Damn it...”

Anyhow, it seemed like such a low-class potion couldn’t lift the invisibility. If that were the case, he would have to use a forbidden method he really didn't want to use.

Deep inside the laboratory, Lee Juwon quickly walked to a specially guarded area with grim footsteps.

A special case was installed in the vault-like room. The S-class detoxification potion Green Forest was kept in a storage box at a temperature of 4 degrees Celsius, 23% humidity, and 110 Lux illumination, just as it was in the dungeon where it was first discovered.

Holding the potion bottle shining like emeralds, the corners of Lee Juwon’s eyes turned red. Tears welled up in the corners of his eyes as he thought about the wastefulness of pouring a detoxification potion easily worth twelve apartments in Gangnam into his mouth.

Lee Juwon's hands trembled as he carefully removed the potion's lid, a light green liquid sloshing.

It was both precious and terrifying.

The one in his hand was the highest-ranked detoxification potion in existence. If this potion, which December only had one of, had no effect, then there really was no answer.

It meant that something had gone wrong and he hadn't just become invisible, he had actually died and become a ghost. It is said that the effect of potions on ordinary people is insignificant, but if poison was in effect, it should be possible to detoxify it.

Taking a deep breath, Lee Juwon tilted the bottle, poured some into the cap, and swallowed hard.

“Did it work...?”

He didn’t feel good. He didn't feel any change. He didn’t taste anything either. He'd never tried Green Forest before, but according to the papers, it tasted bitter, like sumac...

Lee Juwon looked down at the floor. The white marble floor was soaked with the green liquid that Lee Juwon thought he had drunk. The sight of the expensive potion spilled on the floor should have made him angry, but now he was scared.

“I-I just have to drink the right amount, right...?”

Even if it was only a little bit, Lee Juwon quit trying to save up the potion. Closing his eyes tightly, he poured the rest of the potion into his mouth.

Did it work now? Can I be seen? I have to be visible. He closed his eyes and nervously muttered under his breath.

After a while, he opened his eyes and cursed again. The glass window only reflected the wall behind him, but he still couldn't see the figure standing in front of it. The S-class potion’s liquid spilled out on the floor like a sports drink filled with food colouring.

“...I-is this the right one? Didn’t someone pour water in this?”

This might not be the real detoxicant. Maybe someone had put emerald food colouring in the water.

Lee Juwon would rather believe that he trusted water with food colouring in it was Green Forest and treasured it up until now. Because then there would be hope.

"Who put water in the potion without my permission? This is 99% distilled water..."

Lee Juwon muttered frantically and switched on the potion purity tester. First, he put distilled water into the tester. The number didn't change from 0.00.

Next, Lee Juwon added Lemondite. Lemondite was an A-class recovery potion that Lee Juwon instructed to keep at 37% purity. The numbers on the purity tester began to change. It started at 0.00 and quickly changed digits, stopping at 36.99.

"That's right..."

After confirming that the purity tester had nothing wrong with it, Lee Juwon dumped the Green Forest that had spilled on the floor into the purity tester.

Unlike what Lee Juwon wanted, the numbers starting at 0.00 instantly passed 0.10.

10, 20, 50, 90…

The number, which was going up scarily fast, stopped at 99.99.

“Haha...”

The number he would've normally been terrifically happy about was now hopeless.

 

* * *

 

Magic Holly

Christmas Special Edition <s-class temple dungeon morning star freshly drawn water>

 

i wished to grow taller, but only my face grew longer...

holly will be sad if you compare it to such cheap drawn waterㅜㅜㅜ

i prayed to make a lot of money, but now i'm wanted for bank robbery...

never compare it to such evil drawn water!!

our baby is morning star freshly drawn water imbued with sacred and good energy♥

what did our lovelies wish for??

we'll make your wish come true in a way that makes everyone the happiest..?!?!(laughing emoticon)

general manager you can't sell it at this price~~ i said you can't~~ they tried to stop me with a straight face but

i want to make our lovelies' xmas wish come true!

treating myself! event in progress!! (clap~~~!!!)(trumpet blowing emoticonx2)

effectiveness x7 during a white christmas!!!

accepting orders based on first come first served so no returns or refunds(hands together emoticon)

bicuz[1] of the price –0<

 [1] purposefully misspelled

 

#sclassdrawnwater #christmaswish #lotto #HAcertifiedproduct

 

* * *

 

"This is ridiculous..." Lee Juwon muttered as he sat in the empty representative's office.

The security company had come to the potion laboratory. No matter how much he shouted, swore, and raged in front of them, no one could hear him, and no one could see him either.

Unable to win against his anger, Lee Juwon recklessly threw items around and even banged on the doors and walls and broke stuff. However, the guys called the security hunters couldn't figure out the cause.

They watched the laboratory's CCTV that didn't show Lee Juwon dozens of times, suspecting a new, invisible monster, and operated the dungeon formation sensor. None of it worked, so they just droned on nonsense like how this building was unlucky in the first place. The atmosphere made it feel like they were soon going to report it to <How Can Such a Thing Happen in This World?>.

Lee Juwon looked down at his hands.

Any living organism or things imbued with mana passed through his body like air. Inanimate objects that did not contain mana could be touched, but what Lee Juwon held in his hands or wore on his body was invisible to others.

He had never heard of or seen such an invisibility potion before, so maybe he really did die and became a ghost just like how the world was saying...

“Did I really die? Me?”

It's possible for there to be ghosts in a world where monsters exist. But it was a different story if he himself was the ghost.

“I really died? Why?”

He couldn't believe it at all. There had to be something wrong.

“Did I really die? When? Where?”

Repeating those same words over and over, Lee Juwon suddenly jumped out of his seat.

He decided to go to the scene of the accident first. It seemed like he needed to see what had happened with his own two eyes to be able to organize his thoughts.

"...Aren't ghosts supposed to float around and fly?"

Lee Juwon thought for a moment about jumping out of the 18th-floor window but then decided against it. He was scared that he'd actually die for real because of the fall and safely rode the elevator down.

There were still a bunch of reporters crowded in front of the main entrance of December. They all spoke Lee Juwon's name, but they couldn't actually recognize him passing by in front of them.

He could take the bus or subway without paying a transport fee, but he didn't think of such benefits at all.

 

* * *

 

At the scene of the accident on the three-way intersection of Hannam Station, Lee Juwon's car wasn't there because it had already been towed away. Only the skid marks were left on the road, an intense jet-black, indicating that a major accident had occurred. The ginkgo tree that stood where the tyre marks ended was dented and bent, with a yellow police cordon around it.

To Lee Juwon, it was just an ordinary accident scene.

It was enough to catch the attention of passersby, but not enough to stop them in their tracks.

A few passersby might take photos of it, but it wasn't the kind of scene that would make them thrust their phones out like they would for the Mona Lisa at the Louvre Museum.

Contrary to Lee Juwon's expectations, however, the area around the tree was crowded like a tourist attraction. People took photos doing the peace sign with the bent ginkgo tree as a background or waved their hands while taking a video.

While the police patrolling the area were distracted for a moment, a middle-aged man who had been lurking around bent his waist and secretly went inside the police line. He quickly ripped the bark off the part of the ginkgo tree's trunk that got hit and came back out.

Seeing this, the other middle-aged man tilted his head and asked, "Kim-ssi, what are you doing?"

The man with a receding hairline, who was called Kim-ssi, answered in a low voice, "Why? It's said that it's good luck to have a jujube tree that's been struck by lightning. Who knows, maybe I'll have some luck by keeping this too?"

“Oho... is that so?”

“Choi-ssi, you do it too.”

The man called Choi-ssi soon also went under the yellow tape and ripped off a piece of the bark. The surface of the tree, which had suffered from the winter's dry winds and fumes, was already peeling in places and felt rough, making it easy to peel off.

Choi-ssi held the light grey bark up to the winter sunlight, shining it here and there and muttered to himself, "Doesn't it look kind of magical? Should I bring it to my second daughter-in-law?"

The people gathered around the tree glanced sideways at that scene. Then, in ones and twos, they stuck their heads under the police line and entered before they began to tear off pieces of the tree trunk, leaves, etc. In an instant, the scene of the accident became chaotic.

Beep—!

The police, who belatedly checked the sight, blew their whistle to stop them.

“Don't cross over!”

Beep-! Beep-!

“It's dangerous!”

But the scene of the accident had already lost its order, so it couldn't be easily handled. The people, who are stronger in numbers than alone, didn't even pay any mind to the police's restraint, and the whistle sounded sharply at the Hannam Station three-way intersection.

It was an improvised superstition that had even less credibility than the popular belief that touching the nose of a stone grandpa[2] will give you a son, but in an instant, the ginkgo tree was tattered, as well as the yellow tape that covered the street tree.

[2]
 

The people clutched the bark taken off the tree and branches preciously and each made a wish.

"Please let me win the lotto..."

"May my family all be healthy..."

"Darling, let our love be everlasting!"

Lee Juwon watched the commotion from afar. He couldn't believe that they were wishing for happiness and good luck at the spot where he died.

"I really need to get into college this time..."

"I hope our Choco doesn't get sick anymore..."

"Please let me manifest as a hunter like Kang Inheon."

Each of their wishes echoed lowly in the centre of the street tree.

Seeing this, Lee Juwon unconsciously took a step back and turned around. He hadn't come here to check this.

Many people were passing by on the street in the middle of the day. It was crowded enough that they had to be careful not to bump into each other while walking. But no one paid any attention to Lee Juwon, who was walking at a brisk, staggering pace.

He didn't know how long he walked, but the scenery around him became unfamiliar. But there were still many people on the streets.

Probably on holiday, students hung around in groups in casual clothes, office workers out for lunch with their employee ID cards hanging around their necks, couples dressed warmly and with their arms intertwined, an elderly man passing by leaving a trail of white cigarette smoke behind him, a woman side eyeing him and coughing as if wanting him to hear, a girl holding her mother's hand and a boy following behind on a skateboard, motorbikes delivering food...

The year-end street was lively and crowded, but no one seemed to notice Lee Juwon's presence, even if he were to strip naked and dance in the middle of the street. Amid such a large crowd, he felt like he was alone on a remote island.

“Ha...”

Winter was the season where your breath could be seen, but the sigh Lee Juwon let out couldn't even be turned into vapour.

Lee Juwon stood in a bustling part of the city and looked up at the sky. The snow-washed winter sky was clear, but the tall buildings blocked the view on all sides. It was dizzying as if the blue sky and tall buildings were spinning in circles.

Suddenly, an outdoor billboard caught Lee Juwon's confused gaze.

 

My star, my hunter, my champion

December 29th, happy birthday to you

Thank you for being born on a winter day as beautiful as you

 

“Kang Inheon...”

Kang Inheon's fan club Champions put up an advert to celebrate his birthday. The Kang Inheon on the billboard was revised brighter than usual and smiled cleanly.

“If it's Kang Inheon...”

In addition to their physical abilities, hunters have developed all five of their senses to an inhuman level. Didn't that mean their sixth sense or foreboding feeling had been developed too? Of course, none of this had been reported in any of the papers so far, but S-class hunters were rare enough that they were not suitable as test subjects anyway.

“...He might be able to see me.”

Even if the string was super thin, he had to grab on.

Out of habit, he searched inside his pockets, but he was unable to grab his phone. Realizing that it hadn't been there since the morning, he nervously ran a hand through his hair.

He had his number memorized but had no way of contacting him. His appearance couldn't be seen so he couldn't borrow a phone, and even if he could somehow reach him, would he even be able to hear his voice?

“I have to see him...”

As far as Lee Juwon knew, there were no requests assigned to Kang Inheon today. Since it was his day off and he wasn't at work, there was a high probability he was at home.

 

He had never been to Kang Inheon's house before, but he knew where it was. As a CEO, he should naturally know where the figurehead hunter of his company lived.

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