CH 43

“He doesn’t have a concussion, does he?”

“Nope. No bruises, everything’s fine.”

“Oh, he seems to be regaining consciousness.”

“Shhh, everybody shut up. Let’s all get out of here, except for one. If you stay here, you’re going to get in trouble with Chief Ki again.”

Over the chatter of the medical staff, Han Cha-soo had a hunch.

‘You’ve been caught.’

Well, at least there was no mention of blood, which was exactly what he expected.

“I suppose I should be thankful.’

Swallowing a sigh, he opened his eyes. As the medics whispered, only one person stood beside him.

“Hunter Han Cha-soo, do you remember how you got knocked down?”

Of course he remembers. But he can’t tell the truth.

He can’t tell him that he poisoned his stomach in order to make him drop a valuable item.

The events leading up to his passing out flashed through Han Cha-soo’s exhausted mind like a flashlight.

It happened in the middle of a check-up.

Two hours, fifteen examination rooms, and barely enough time to eat.

[Exilis’s Guild Master, Hunter Geum Myeong-yeol, arrived in the country an hour ago. According to officials, Hunter Geum Myeong-yeol lives in the United Kingdom….]

Han Cha-soo would have to wait and see.

‘Holy shit.’

The future owner of the earring had once again set foot on Korean soil.

Predictably, the Awakening Management Bureau began to stir.

“I heard that Exilis stopped you from coming to the administration right away, does anyone know anything?”

“Geum Myeong-yeol wanted to come here as soon as he returned home?”

“Yeah, that’s what the Exilis kids said.”

“Isn’t that why you’ve got them in the brig for fighting at the Item Trade Association?”

“That’s right. They were still there, weren’t they?”

Listening carefully to the passersby in the corridor, Han Cha-soo instinctively realized.

He was the reason Geum Myeong-yeol had come to the Bureau. There was no doubt about it.

‘He heard I was about to die and decided to take his chance.’

When the owner dies, the item is dropped in its place, meaning that whoever picks up the dropped item is the new owner. Perhaps that’s what Geum Myeong-yeol was worried about.

A shadow fell over Han Cha-soo’s face as he gripped the handle of his wheelchair with a serious expression.

‘If I get this wrong, he might just kill me, right?’

From an efficiency standpoint, it was better to take him out while he was still weak than to keep him alive and appease him. Later, when Jung Yiheon confronts him about it, he just says that he was always sick. After all, he was brought in coma state, so there should be plenty of witnesses.

“Let’s go in.”

A cold sweat ran down Han Cha-soo’s back as he entered the examination room.

This was going to end today.

Back in his new room, Han Cha-soo tried to think of a way to return to coma state once and for all.

‘There was a poison.’

As he rummaged through his inventory, he found the vials of reagents, and a wry smile spread across his face as he looked at them.

A way to inflict life-threatening injuries in a short amount of time, while leaving no scars.

That was a poison!

‘Why did I not notice this until now?’

It was ridiculous that he had to look for the hard way when the easy way was right in front of him.

Han Cha-soo locked the door to the hospital room and quickly concocted the poison. Of course, he made sure there were no CCTV cameras or bugging devices inside.

‘Okay, then.’

[Poison Manufacturing (A)]

[Poison Manufacturing (A)]

[Poison Manufacturing (A)]

Every time he used the skill, a small effect would explode. Inwardly, he was worried that he would suddenly start bleeding as a penalty, but it didn’t happen.

Thank goodness for the damned cover, the potion maker seemed to have given him permission to brew poison.

“Hmm….”

He made three poisons in total.

It was a class A haemorrhagic poison, a class B neurotoxin, and an equally class B sleeping poison.

‘I wanted to make something stronger.’

Unfortunately, the Poison Manufacturing skill only allowed him to make poisons that he already knew the recipe for, but this seemed promising. Besides, there were only a few types, but the quantity was generous.

Han Cha-soo swept the roughly ten vials of poison into his arms and headed for the bathroom.

He laid down under the shower, which he had turned on to full pressure, and opened the lid.

The pungent smell that assaulted his nostrils was soon washed away by the stream of water.

Gulp. Slowly, he inhaled the poison, his earlobes now pierced.

Soon there was a gut-wrenching sensation and a gush of blood.

“Kulk, kulk…!”

His esophagus burned hot. His eyes watered and his fingertips quickly turned blue. A frighteningly strong stream of water swept over it, dripping with blood.

[Warning!]

[Mortally wounded!]

[You have the status condition ‘Continuous Bleeding’]

[You are losing health]

[You are losing health]

[Losing health]

[Losing health]

System windows began to push and pull frantically. Han Cha-soo hurriedly tossed the vial of poison into his inventory, throwing his upper body out of the bathtub in case his earrings were swept away by the water.

Yeah, that was the last thing he remembered, and….

“Oh, right. My boss told me to give this to you.”

“……?”

The employee handed him a small box on the table. Han Cha-soo took it nonchalantly and opened his eyes wide.

Inside the box was a pair of tiny earrings.

The very earrings he was wearing, the Earring of Cursed Resonance.

‘It worked… wait.’

“What’s wrong?”

Han Cha-soo grabbed the medic who was about to leave and turned to face her.

“Did the chief give it to you? Was he with me when I collapsed?

“What? Yes. He personally carried hunter Han Cha-soo to the bed and changed his clothes.”

“…….”

“What’s wrong?”

Han Cha-soo paled and brought up the system message window again.

‘…Nothing.’

The messages that had filled his vision before he blacked out, none of them warning him that he was about to enter coma state.

‘Then how on earth was the attribution lifted?’

Han Cha-soo’s eyes were filled with confusion as he looked at the earrings. There was no way an item could be unattached except by dying or entering coma state.

But the confusion was short-lived.

[Warning!]

[Energy required for the passive skill ‘Regeneration’ is severely low!]

[Constraint for energy conservation is added]

[Currently enforcing constraint: Watch your language]

[Exploring additional applicable constraints….]

[Navigation completed]

[Apply a constraint optimized for energy saving by analyzing the subject’s activity pattern]

[Constraint: Get enough sleep]

[8 hours of sleep per day is required to maintain regeneration skills]

[Caution! Adequate sleep is an essential component of good health]

[Be sure to stick to your sleep schedule!]

‘Holy shit.’

Or maybe it was karma for slamming ten vials of poison into his otherwise frail body. The regeneration skill had put new shackles on him.

“Hunter Han Cha-soo, hunter Han Cha-soo, are you sleepy? Shall I put out the fire on the way out?”

Han Cha-soo shouted through his fading vision. This isn’t a fraudulent skill, it’s a rubbish skill.

But thanks to the skill’s ability to seize his voice, his curses never reached anyone’s ears.

The next morning.

‘I’d like to meet with Chief Ki Tae-yeon.’

Upon opening his eyes, Han Cha-soo demanded from the medical staff.

“Good morning, Han Chasoo-ssi.”

Ki Tae-yeon yawned and the man looked even more tired than usual.

‘By the way, he said he was at the scene of the detention center explosion yesterday.’

For a man who hated to work, he was a very sincere man, and a very suspicious one at that.

Han Cha-soo looked at him quizzically, and he naturally fumbled with his arms.

“What are you doing, now!”

“Ouch.”

“Smoking in front of a patient. Are you out of your mind?”

“Ouch….”

Ki Tae-yeon, who had been slapped on the back of the hand, tilted his head with a helpless face. Han Cha-soo frowned at the look of hopelessness on his face.

In the original, he couldn’t keep the cigarette out of his mouth, so that was an addiction.

But whether Ki Tae-yeon was addicted to nicotine or not didn’t matter to him, because the reason he was called was for something else.

Han Cha-soo took out the post-it note the medic had brought him and wrote something on it. A square. The sound of the pen scratching the paper made Ki Tae-yeon’s head snap down.

“……?”

His blue eyes blinked at the yellow post-it note. Not that he didn’t understand what it said.

“Are you calling me to ask me this? Am I the one who changed Han Chae-soo’s clothes?”

He was dumbfounded.

Seeing Han Cha-soo nodding with a nonchalant face, Ki Tae-yeon burst out laughing.

“Ha, really…. That’s right, I stripped you of your drenched clothes, dried you from top to bottom, put you in crisp new clothes, and tucked you into bed, okay?”

He said, if you have any complaints, try it. But rather than being surprised or angry, Han Cha-soo still blinked.

Square.

He shoved another post-it at him. Ki Tae-yeon wasn’t smiling anymore.

<Did you pack my earrings yourself?>

“…….”

When he didn’t answer, he stuck a post-it note in his lap. Ki Tae-yeon made an annoyed face.

“Yes. I was changing your clothes and it kept bothering me, so I took it off. No, did you really call me to ask about this?”

Han Cha-soo nodded with a faint smile.

This confirmed it.

‘Ki Tae-yeon doesn’t know that the earring is an attribution item.’

He’s not even in coma state, so how did it get released. He didn’t wonder why the ownership didn’t fall to him when it was an attribution item.

‘I’ll just hand it over to Geum Myeong-yeol and let it go.’

No need to stay in the Heavenly Spirit Guild anymore.

Han Cha-soo smiled quietly.