Chapter Nine

The night had come again, and the girls had gathered around the fireplace, chatting on whatever topics they could think of, spending this boring time away. Yoona was wrapping her arms around Tiffany’s elbow as she rested her head on the cold hunter’s shoulder and listened to their conversation silently.

“How about a ghost story?” Sooyoung suggested.

Tiffany opposed to the idea immediately. “Don’t you find it irony for hunters to be scare of ghosts when they themselves kill mutants almost every day? Ghost stories never work here Sooyoung.”

Sooyoung bit off the top part of her baked sweet potato and replied grumpily, “Why don’t you suggest a topic then?”

“Let’s all go to bed.”

“Anything but that!”

“Then you suggest.”

“AH! Yuri, help me!”

Yuri turned away, pretending to be oblivious of Sooyoung’s call. She would not be that stupid and went against Tiffany.

“Yoona!”

“Eh?” Yoona woke up from her slumber upon her partner’s call. She had fallen asleep on Tiffany’s shoulder accidentally. “Did someone call me?” She scanned her surroundings confusingly.

“No dear, go back to sleep.” Tiffany patted on Yoona’s head gently, allowing the younger hunter to rest on her shoulder again.

Yoona did as what she was told, but sat up again as soon as she leaned on Tiffany’s shoulder. With her arms still entangled around Tiffany’s elbow, she leaned back and rested her body against the couch. “Nah, I’m not going to sleep. I want to join the conversation.”

“Suggest a topic then.” Sooyoung threw her burden onto Yoona immediately.

Yoona pouted, her brain was still in the midst of processing after waking up to Sooyoung’s call. Ideas were not coming out for sure.

“Alright, why not do this? Let’s talk about the Runical.” Yuri finally spoke up. Ever since Sooyoung showed her the historical records of the lost kingdom the other night, she had been thinking a lot about it.

People from Runical are most likely capable of white magic. If they were still alive, there might be a chance to solve this entire crisis involving mutation.

“Yah!” Sooyoung threw one of her precious baked sweet potatoes at Yuri, “And you were so quiet when I was seeking help from you just now!”

Yuri playfully stuck out her tongue. No one would help her if they knew their opponent was Tiffany.

“What about Runical?” Tiffany ignored Sooyoung’s grumbling and asked Yuri. She had never heard of that word before.

Yoona had her attention on Yuri too. She, too, had never heard of Runical before.

“Runical is a kingdom about 500 years ago. It disappeared over one night suddenly. No one knows where they had gone to, or whether they are still even alive.” Yuri explained while trying her best to recall what she saw on the book the other night. “Apparently, people from Runical had this ability, or rather, magical power that can save people.”

Sooyoung protested, “Yah, I was the one who told you this the night before!”

“Well, you were given a chance to talk, but you threw it away…” Yuri mumbled loud enough for Sooyoung to hear. “Anyway,” She quickly continued before Sooyoung had the chance to interrupt again. “My conclusion is if Wideon is a village of sorcerers, Runical is the opposite of them, priests.”

“I need more elaboration Yuri.” Tiffany commented. She somewhat got the idea where Yuri was heading, but she needed more information to truly understand Yuri’s intention.

“If we’re able to find the descendents of the people from Runical, perhaps we can return the mutants back into humans.”
Sooyoung disagreed with her, “The book clearly stated that Runical had been wiped out by the other clans, there is no way we can find their descendants.”

“But Sooyoung, don’t forget there are no evidences to prove the downfall of Runical. It was the historians who concluded they were being eliminated by the other clans. The truth behind their disappearance is still unknown.”

“Well then, asides from that. Even IF the Runicals are still alive, where are we going to find them? There is no way for us to go around asking the people, ‘Hey, are you from Runical by any chance?’ They will either think you are crazy or question you what Runical is.” Reports on Runical are very little. If Sooyoung hadn’t fumble around the library and found this book at a deep corner the other day, she wouldn’t have known this kingdom named Runical once existed in their world too.

Yuri went into deep thoughts, “I haven’t thought about that yet.” Maybe she should re-read that book again after she returned to her room.

“Yuri, I don’t think you should spend too much time on Runical. Defeating Satron is a much faster way to stop these mutations.” Tiffany said while Yoona’s hair. The girl had fallen asleep once again while resting her head on her shoulder.

“True… but Satron are difficult to find, isn’t it? They had abandoned their base, it is hard to track them down.”

“But tracking them is definitely a lot easier than tracking someone who may not even exist.” Sooyoung replied, grabbing another baked sweet potato from the table in front.

Tiffany watched how the baked sweet potato was ripped off by Sooyoung’s teeth, chewed and swallowed down , into her stomach. She felt a little sick when images of those little bits and pieces movement played in her head. Dinner was like just an hour ago? Wouldn’t Sooyoung feel bloated with so many foods stuffing in her stomach?

“Sooyoung,” Tiffany called out when she saw Sooyoung grabbing another sweet potato. “Are you really that hungry?”

Sooyoung paused for a second, before biting off a big part of the sweet potato, “Not really.”

“Then why are you eating?”

“My mouth feels itchy, it wants to bite on something.” She shrugged.

Tiffany rolled her eyes at her.

“Hey guys, no side-tracking! I’m not yet done with Runical!”

“I thought we already have a conclusion?” Tiffany shifted herself a little more to her side, allowing Yoona to rest on her laps instead.

“No, I just remembered something.” Yuri drew her finger near to her lips, “I read this on the book, it says Runical was located on a land called Zarekanald, but obviously there isn’t any land named Zarekanald now, so what I’m thinking is if we can find the exact location of Zarekanald, maybe we can find the traces of the people from Runical.”

Tiffany couldn’t help but sighed out loud. She understood that Yuri wanted to minimize the numbers of innocent lives sacrificed, but this is wrong, she was putting faith on something which might not even exist.

“Yuri, being persistent is not a good thing.”

Sooyoung couldn’t agree more. “And you’re persistent on something which may not even exist. Yuri, unless you can prove that Runical is still around, otherwise, I think we should spend our time searching for Satron instead. At least we know they are somewhere out there waiting for us.”

Yuri buried her face into her palms helplessly. She couldn’t tell if she was wrong for putting her hopes on something she read from the book. Runical… as written on the book, they vanished over one night. No one could explain the cause of it, how thousands or millions of people disappeared without a trace. Her instinct told her something was wrong. She had a feeling that the people from Runical might were still alive, living or hiding somewhere no one knew of.

Or maybe, they were actually living among them?

Beep! Beep! Beep!

The sirens went out and the girls were on alert. Even Yoona woke up almost immediately and was back on her feet.

“Mutants on alert, all Hunter S please report to the lobby now. I repeat, mutants on alert, all Hunter S please report to the lobby now.”

Yoona was dumbfounded, “Did they just say all?”

Tiffany cursed under her breath, something big must have happened. “Go get your weapons now and report downstairs. We will know what it is when we get there.”