Chapter Forty-Five

Finishing the last mutant who did not manage to escape with its fellow mates due to the slimes on its feet, Yuri pulled out a matchbox and flung multiple lighted matches onto the dead bodies of the mutants which she had killed just moment ago, burning them into ashes and allowed the wind to take them away.

May you rest in peace.

Yuri kept the matchbox back into her pocket and surveyed her surroundings. Since the mutants had either been killed or escaped, the atmosphere changed into a quiet and peaceful one unlike the eerie and creepy feeling from before.

But… this is a little too quiet.

“Sooyoung?” Yuri called out her friend’s name into the air. Sooyoung said she saw someone and ran off in the middle of the fight. That happened about ten to twenty minutes ago, Sooyoung should have either return already or else she should be hearing noises coming from her.

Yuri got a very bad feeling about this.

“Sooyoung!” Yuri pulled out her gun again as she ran towards the direction where Sooyoung had disappeared to.

Sooyoung may seem weak, but she is definitely stronger than how she looks and is a qualified hunter in Hunter S. There is no way she would be put down so easily, no way!

“Sooyoung! Where are you? Can you hear me? Answer me will you?!”

Running through the tall grasses and thick bushes frantically, ignoring the cuts and pains accumulating on her clothing and exposed skin, Yuri kept on calling for her friend. She tried as hard as she could to spot the tall hunter who should be easily spotted despite these greenies all over the place.

“Sooyoung––”

Yuri swallowed the rest of her sentence suddenly when she noticed the familiar handle of her friend’s weapon, standing not too far away from her.

“Sooyoung!” Yuri dashed towards her friend’s weapon as fast as she could, but before she could make it to the large axe, something tripped her over and she fell flat to the ground. Yuri pushed herself away from the dirty soil with the support of her elbows. She turned to see what tripped her out of reflex, but to her horror, it was a pair of feet wearing similar boots to the ones she was wearing on her very own feet right now.

No… Her eyes widened in fear. It can’t be!

She quickly got back on her feet and swiped the tall grasses that were blocking her view and hiding the owner of the feet aside. A body with the face which she always looked at and bickered with everyday was lying on the ground, stiffened.

“SOOYOUNG!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!”

*

“Taetae!”

A girl with shoulder length hair shouted at the girl, who had a long ponytail hair tied to the back of her head, following restlessly behind her.

“Taetae! Hurry up! The sun is rising soon!” The short-haired girl whined.

“Yah!” The long-haired girl paused on her track. She arched slightly forward with her hands pressed against her bent knees. She inhaled a deep breath and looked at her lover, “Is the sun more important than me?”

The short-haired girl pouted at her with a puppy expression, “Taetae! You promised!”

The long-haired girl shook her hand and dropped to the ground, “I can’t walk anymore. Let me take a rest first, just five minutes… five minutes will do.”

“Taetae!” The short-haired girl stomped her feet and walked back to her lover. “This is the fifth time you’ve been telling me this! I don’t care! If you don’t come with me now, don’t ever talk to me again!” The short-haired girl stuck out her tongue at her partner childishly and continued with her journey without her partner.

“Yah! I’m just kidding!” Knowing her lover was serious with her words, the long-haired girl got up on her feet hurriedly and chased after her. “Wait for me!”

“Phanie-ah!!!”

Tiffany's eyes snapped open as she bolted up from her bed, twirling half of her body to the back subconsciously, wanting to steal glances at her lover while she waited for her to catch up with her. However, all she saw was nothing but the plain white wall behind her bed.

There was no one walking behind her and obviously no whatsoever Taetae chasing after her. She was all alone in her room… sleeping, and not climbing some mountain trying to catch the sunrise.

Tiffany felt a tinge of disappointment rousing within her. But she chose to ignore this weird and unexplainable feeling, and arched her head to the side, reading the time that was reflecting on her digital clock.

11:48A.M… Did she sleep for that long? Tiffany frowned, pushing the hair covering her vision to the back of her ear and jumped out of her bed. She went to her wardrobe and grabbed a fresh set of clothing before disappearing into her personal bathroom to wash herself up.

It was around noon now, approximately three to four hours after Yuri and Sooyoung left for their patrolling. Tiffany went to the I.T. Department for their I.T. genius. As soon as she stepped into the air-conditioned office, she immediately felt all stares on her. However, none acted like how that annoying guy who blew whistle at her when she came yesterday. Most of them went back to their computers after taking a quick peek and the rest, who was annoyed by her appearance, could only glared at her to show their discontentment.

Tiffany ignored them all. She was already used to this kind of unfair and offensive treatment ever since she became a hunter. Her principle is as long as they did not irritate her, she would pretend that they were never around.

Tiffany knocked twice on door and entered it without waiting for Kyuhyun’s reply.

“Com––Uh, Tiffany?” The corner of his mouth twitched subconsciously when he realized who was standing at the door.

Tiffany closed the door behind her and grabbed a seat in front of Kyuhyun’s table.

“How’s everything?”

“Eve… rything?” Kyuhyun had not recovered from Tiffany’s sudden appearance and his brain failed to register Tiffany’s question.

Tiffany frowned at his query. Did this I.T. genius forget the task she gave him just yesterday? She crossed her arms together in front of her chest and reminded him with an extremely cold and stern voice, “The immunizing of magic system and devices. This is urgent. I hope to see a fast progress on your researches. Can you briefly tell me how much information had you gathered so far?” They could not drag this for too long because she just realized the situation was worse than what she thought initially.

At first when Tiffany told Kyuhyun about the possibility of sorcerers mutating humans, she was only thinking of Taeyeon and, if there were any, her companions. But the incident which took place in Yoona’s room yesterday had alerted her that their enemies might not be lurking somewhere in the dark only.

Jessica Jung may be a hoax.

“I’ve discussed this situation with my I.T. mates already and everyone outside this room had done their individual researches on it. But to be honest with you Tiffany, the result is rather negative. There is absolutely no hint or clue on how to produce these equipments.”

Tiffany frowned upon hearing that, “What did you found then?”

“Its history and uses.” Kyuhyun typed a few words on his keyboard and turned his monitor towards Tiffany’s direction, so as to share the information on his screen with her. “This is a mixture of articles we found on magic-immunization equipments. I had re-edited them into one article.” Kyuhyun scrolled the page to where it stated History. “The very first magic-immunization equipment was actually invented about five hundred years ago by a highly skilled priest from this kingdom calledRunical.”

Runical? The same one Yuri mentioned before?

Kyuhyun did not notice Tiffany’s reaction and continued, “You may not have heard of that name before, because that kingdom vanished into thin air some time after lots of magic-immunization equipments were created and we couldn’t find any records on this particular kingdom. But never mind about that, the main point here is that these equipments vanished along with the disappearance of the kingdom.”

“And?” This did not make sense. Clearly in her great-grandmother’s diary, she stated that her great-grandfather made use of magic-immunization armor to torture her lover without needing to worry that he would be harmed by the latter’s magic.

“And it re-surfaced again about three hundred years ago. A group of explorers went to the Forbidden Land for hiking and discovered plenty of magic-immunization equipments. They brought as many as they could back to mainland and sold them in the black market, planning to earn some quick cash from it. But the response was so overwhelming that it did not only attract the nobles’ interest, but also the sorcerers from Wideon too. It was known that the auction had hit the highest peak ever and no auctions had beaten to it since then.”

Tiffany registered all his words in mind and processed them. “So you’re saying we have to go to the Forbidden Land in order to get the magic-immunization equipments?”

“Nope.” Kyuhyun shook his head in disagreement. “Entering Forbidden Land is no different from sending one to death. Do you know why Forbidden Land is called Forbidden Land?” Kyuhyun asked Tiffany.

Tiffany tried to recall any information regarding to Forbidden Land in her head, but other than being warned there were strange creatures living in it, she knew nothing about it.

“Why?” She returned the I.T. genius a question.

“Let me continue from where I stopped first. Those explorers were greedy people. When they knew that magic-immunization equipments could earn them big bucks, they went back to the Forbidden Land, intending to bring more magic-immunization equipments back to mainland for selling. Strangely, only one managed to come back and he was in a really bad condition. When the villagers living nearby found him, he was already severely injured to the point that even the sea was red in color. And according to the witnesses, he rejected all medical assist and was crazily shouting ‘Monsters!’ until he died.”

“Monsters…” Tiffany immediately caught the hint within Kyuhyun’s words. “It was the same rumors about having strange creatures living in Forbidden Land being passed down to us by our ancestors.”

Kyuhyun nodded at her answer.

“According to the ancient people, they said those explorers had angered the Guardians of this island for taking away those equipments which do not belong to them. And for your information, Forbidden Land was actually a popular but deserted island where hikers loved to explore until these equipments were discovered.” Kyuhyun paused and drank a sip of water from his mug to ease his dry throat. “Whether is it to find the precious equipments or for simple visiting, apparently people that went to this island after the incident never came back again. Since then, everyone started calling Forbidden Land as the Cursed Island, but the people thought that naming it ‘Cursed’ would only triggered even more people in risking their life and challenge this isolated land, so they decided to rename it to Forbidden Land.”

There was a moment of silence as Tiffany put all the information she just gathered in her mind together, piecing them into the right places. So now they knew that the origin of magic-immunization equipments was from the lost kingdom, Runical. But since their magic-immunization equipments disappeared along with the kingdom, this piece of information may be considered as useless.

Then, the Forbidden Land.

Though the rumor first started three hundred years ago, but Tiffany rather not risk any of her companions’ lives just to retrieve those said items which she had no idea if they still exist. And also, three hundred years might be long to human, but the creatures? No one knew anything about their life spans. Who knew if they are still alive?

“What happened to all the magic-immunization equipments sold at the black market?” Tiffany asked suddenly, breaking the silence within them.

“Remember I told you sorcerers from Wideon came for the auction as well?” Tiffany nodded her head in silent. Kyuhyun continued, “The Wideons were afraid that these magic-immunization equipments would be unfavorable to them, so they actually spent all their money and the valuable properties they owned, just to get those equipments into their hands. But still, a few of them went into the nobles’ hands since their financial status had reached its limit.”

Which explained why her great-grandfather owned a magic-immunization armor… it was probably their ancestors who got it from that auction. Tiffany let out a displeasure sigh inwardly. She heard from her father that her grandfather ran away from home after witnessing his mother’s death. He took nothing from home, except the ring and diary left by her great-grandmother, and never returned again.

According to her father, her grandfather hates her great-grandfather a lot – maybe as much as how her great-grandmother hates him – and he never talks about her great-grandfather once to her father, not even his identity, or else she may be able to locate one magic-immunization equipment already.

“So now the conclusion is, most of the magic-immunization equipments went into the Wideon’s hands. But Wideon was wiped out by Satron a hundred years ago, where do we get the equipments now?”

“You just said it yourself.” Kyuhyun flashed a meaningful smile at her. “Satron. They are the last people who get in touch with the Wideon. I concluded that the equipments are in their hands now. I don’t really think they will throw them away like a trash if they ever found them. Magic-immunization equipments are still considered as valuable items even if sorcerers or magic don’t exist anymore.”

Tiffany rose from her seat suddenly. “I shall explore the Satron’s headquarters then.” The members of Satron might have abandoned their base, but their base does not disappear just because they abandoned it. Tiffany had no idea where to find the people from Satron. The only solution she had is to visit the abandoned headquarters located on the other side of Aurales, which is at the northern region.

*Side note: Aurales located in the southern part of the mainland, whereas Satron located in the northern area.

“Hold on Tiffany!” Kyuhyun got up from his seat too and rushed to Tiffany before the hunter went out of his room. “I was planning to go as well. Please take me along with you.”

Tiffany merely shot him a cold stare and said nothing.

Kyuhyun was frightened by her stare. He should have known it was never easy to request something from Tiffany! Kyuhyun gulped secretly and asked again, “Please? I promise I won’t be a hindrance to you. I just want to help in finding the magic-immunization equipments and if possible, I would like to see if I can get any clues about the mutation from there.”

Tiffany never shifted her gaze away from him and continued to remain silent. Kyuhyun started to feel beads of sweats accumulating on his forehead despite having his air-conditioner in its full blast.

Just a few more seconds… he bet the sweats are going to roll down his temples soon.

Suddenly, a chuckle snapped him out of his thoughts. Kyuhyun stared at Tiffany in awe, completely surprised by the hunter’s reaction.

“Look at how nervous you are. I didn’t say you can’t come with me.” The rare eye smile was revealed on her face, the awe within him grew bigger. “Get yourself prepared, we shall leave at three.” Tiffany didn’t wait for Kyuhyun’s reply and went out of the door.
 

When the gap between the door and its hedge finally met one another, Kyuhyun couldn’t contain anymore and he dropped himself on the couch, panting heavily. He had obviously not recovered from the shock he received from the unusually nice Tiffany.

That was freaking creepy! Tiffany just laughed and flashed her eye smile at me!