Kim Doo-eon appeared when they opened the door. He smiled at the flushed faces of the young couple.

“If you’re going to dinner, would you like to go together?”

He said he had stopped by on his way for a walk and suggested they go down together. The two left the area where the lodgings were gathered with Kim Doo-eon.

“Would it be too much to ask you to forget that I was harsh with you at school?”

He asked Yoon Tae-ha in a rather friendly tone.

“No. I liked your classes, Teacher. When else would I ever get to do Dunker training? I was always just taught how to break things.”

It was an honest answer. Kim Doo-eon smiled, surprised by her reply. Cheon Geon-young walked behind them, quietly listening to their conversation.

“Is the instructor who always wore a hat doing well?”

“Of course. That friend is working as my successor at the school. He doesn’t surpass me in anything except muscle mass, though.”

Kim Doo-eon, an expert in weapons, told them to find him anytime if they needed equipment. Then he met his colleague in front of the cafeteria and disappeared.

The cafeteria was full of various people. There were quite a few foreigners as well. The smell of grilled meat and spices filled the air. Due to the use of simultaneous interpreters, disjointed conversations could be heard everywhere.

“We’ll be getting plenty of protein for a while.”

Yoon Tae-ha, who had experience at the camp, picked up a piece from the mountain of piled-up meat and put it on her plate.

“Supplies can’t come here often, so the diet is limited. It’s gotten better since we started growing crops ourselves, but the variety of food we can eat has increased.”

Listening to his explanation, he put the same menu Yoon Tae-ha had chosen on his plate. There were other things that looked 괜찮아 on either side, but he wanted to avoid taking risks.

The people at the camp glanced at them a few times but didn’t pay much attention. Black hair wasn’t something that easily drew attention here.

Cheon Geon-young felt a strange sense of relief. The woman in front of him, seriously 고민하는 about the types of mustard, had a much more relaxed expression than when she was in Yeouido.

“I don’t like anything too tangy. Which one is better?”

She asked with a frown, as if facing the 고민 of a lifetime.

“If you’re eating it with meat, the one on the left is better.”

Yoon Tae-ha tasted it and then smiled, saying it was the right choice. Cheon Geon-young pushed other sauces towards her as well.

Soon after finishing their meal, they took a light stroll to get a sense of the base camp’s building locations.

The current season in Acheron was spring. Colorful flowers were budding, and small birds flew around in flocks.

Unlike when they infiltrated the school, they didn’t part ways at the fork after their walk. They simultaneously took out their access cards to open the front door.

“I always go in alone, so. You open it.”

Embarrassed, Yoon Tae-ha inserted her card.

It was a lodging where each room had its own bathroom and refrigerator. If one wanted, it was possible to not go outside all day.

“We have to go on reconnaissance tomorrow, so get plenty of rest today.”

Cheon Geon-young gave an early greeting to the woman who probably wouldn’t show her face until tomorrow morning.

“Good night.”

Yoon Tae-ha nodded instead of replying to his two-letter greeting without embellishment. She picked up a few water bottles from the kitchen table, went into her room, and closed the door. Cheon Geon-young also studied more about the Green Sea before falling asleep early.

The next morning, he woke up because of the aggressively pouring sunlight, even though he had closed the curtains. His first awakening in Acheron was noisy due to the birdsong. As always, he first checked the pistol he had placed by his bedside.

When he washed up and went to the living room, his partner, who had woken up earlier than he thought, greeted him with a piece of toast in her mouth.

“Did you sleep well?”

“I slept for over nine hours. It makes me feel guilty.”

“You shouldn’t feel guilty for sleeping nine hours. It’s not like it was nineteen hours.”

The two had instant soup that Yoon Tae-ha had made and toast they had brought from the cafeteria yesterday for breakfast, then headed to their meeting place with Baek Sang-ho.

Spring sunlight poured down from above. Despite the cool morning weather, combat operatives in short sleeves and shorts were running around the camp. Researchers with tired faces, wearing thin padding and slippers, headed to their workplaces in groups of twos and threes.

Their destination was a large single-story building on the right side of the camp. The leader of Team Alpha was waiting for them in a well-lit conference room.

When all the espers and guides were present, Baek Sang-ho stood up from his seat. He was dressed comfortably in jeans and a company hoodie.

“Has everyone adjusted to the time difference?”

In situations where only Team Alpha was present, he tended to speak casually. Except for Yoon Tae-ha and Cheon Geon-young, the current team members had built bonds over a long time, sharing their fates.

A-class esper Ahn Jung-seop, who had been with Baek Sang-ho for a long time, grumbled.

“Leader, we arrived yesterday afternoon. My eyes still aren’t fully open.”

“Aren’t you ashamed, as an esper, not even as a guide, to say such a thing?”

“My stamina is no different from an ordinary person’s, though. Among the people here, the only ones with simultaneous physical enhancement and recovery are...”

Yoon Tae-ha, who had been watching a sparrow pecking at a bug outside the window, turned her body. Her clear gaze turned towards Ahn Jung-seop.

“Did you call me?”

“Ah, no. Nothing. There’s no way there would be.”

Unintentionally, he seemed to have felt threatened. Yoon Tae-ha whispered to Cheon Geon-young, who was sitting next to her, “Does my expression look bad right now?” Cheon Geon-young brushed her fallen hair back and shook his head.

At their seemingly affectionate 모습, the people in the conference room simultaneously became dazed.

What’s wrong with that woman? She’s doing things she never used to do?

They said she was nearing death, so could she really have turned over a new leaf? Everyone exchanged glances with their partners.

Choi Bo-mi, who was friendly with Yoon Tae-ha, whispered joyfully to the man next to her. Her guide shrugged with a face that showed little interest.

In the chaotic atmosphere, Baek Sang-ho drew their attention back to himself.

“You get to know each other while working. You all heard from Choi Bo-mi, right? Esper Yoon Tae-ha isn’t the fierce and violent S-class the rumors make her out to be. Of course, she’s fiercer than the center director. I guarantee it.”

I did well, right? Baek Sang-ho winked one eye as if asking that. I’m so grateful I could die. She smiled in acceptance.

Soon, after the situation briefing of the base camp led by Baek Sang-ho ended, the story of the hunter they had brought yesterday was brought to the table. Baek Sang-ho said he had a deep conversation with him last night.

“He’s a human hunter who was active around the second free city. His main job was stealing and selling supplies coming to the camp.”

Choi Bo-mi expressed her opinion with a smiling face.

“Treating animals like that, he was an unspeakable piece of trash. Should we hang him alive in front of his colleagues? And stick sharp needles in his ears?”

At her radical expression of opinion, two team members shook their heads, saying, “There she goes again.”

“Your tone is the softest, but your way of dealing with things is the most extreme. That’s why you’re a little scary sometimes.”

“Choi Bom, how long has it been since you got disciplined for acting so violently...?”

“We can’t bury trash in the ground. Then kids like Kuakua will suffer.”

Despite the worried nagging, she was steadfast. When the conversation flowed in an unwanted direction, Baek Sang-ho quickly intervened.

“We can’t dispose of him right away. That man was wearing something like this around his neck.”

He held up an old necklace in his hand. A dark, dull stone was attached to the end. The stone looked like a common one that would turn up while plowing a field.

“It doesn’t look like a necklace a civilized person would wear. It looks like wearing it would bring a curse.”

“That’s not what the leader said.”

Yoon Tae-ha and Cheon Geon-young sat close together, listening intently to Baek Sang-ho and Ahn Jung-seop’s conversation.

“Is it some kind of necklace that lifts curses?”

The dirty necklace dangled precariously in Baek Sang-ho’s hand. He was as confident as a man who had made a great discovery.

“A wish-granting necklace.”

The people gathered in the conference room had similar expressions. A wish? It wasn’t a word that fit in an era where drones were sent to deal with monsters.

“Are we here to dig into some kind of primitive religion? Or are we here to deal with anti-government forces who threaten the safety of citizens through illegal activities?”

“Maybe the two are connected.”

Baek Sang-ho began to write words on the large electronic whiteboard behind him.

“It’s said that getting this necklace is popular among the residents of the second free city these days.”

The name of the second free city was written in large letters.

“Cocytus. It’s a neighborhood that can’t even be compared to Acheron.”

“Why is such an ugly necklace popular?”

“I told you. It’s said to grant wishes. The man who controlled the poor hamster said that if you carry it on your body and earnestly wish for something, minor good luck will follow.”

Baek Sang-ho placed the necklace on the desk to show it properly to the team members. Yoon Tae-ha looked at it up close and returned to her seat. She shook her head at Cheon Geon-young, indicating it didn’t seem like much.

“It seems this is a stone from that mine.”

A map of the mountain range they had to explore appeared on the whiteboard. Baek Sang-ho continued his explanation, marking several places with large asterisks.

“It’s a stone that’s like leftover waste after mining the Green Feather. The people here think of it as a wish-granting stone and are wearing it.”

Yoon Tae-ha, who had been quietly listening to the story, raised her hand slightly.

“Please speak.”

“Then does that mean the Green Feather itself has an even more concentrated form of this strange power you’re talking about?”

“That’s what we’re presuming.”

“So Orca is mining stones that grant wishes.”

“That’s right.”

She finished speaking with a face that showed she wasn’t fully convinced. The other team members had similar reactions to Yoon Tae-ha.

No matter how they could move objects without touching them or draw swords from thin air, the existence of a wish-granting stone was a reaction they found hard to accept. Baek Sang-ho, who had his thick hands stuck in the pockets of his jeans, had a face that said he had predicted this outcome.

“I’m also dubious. But it’s also true that those guys are desperately clinging to this. They never do anything that doesn’t make money.”

It was a statement that all the top espers gathered in the conference room agreed with. Baek Sang-ho concluded the first meeting, saying he would provide updates as new information arose.

•

Afterwards, Yoon Tae-ha and Cheon Geon-young borrowed two motorcycles for reconnaissance. The motorcycles, with Ark’s logo engraved on the front, stopped on a hill with a good view of the fortress city.

Yoon Tae-ha, who got off her motorcycle first, stretched once.

“A wish-granting stone, huh. They always find the strangest things first.”

Cheon Geon-young looked around. The sense of liberation he had felt looking at the scenery of the camp wasn’t just due to the open view.

There were no cameras constantly watching them here. There was no need to be aware of the Vice Chairman’s people hiding somewhere.

At least not in this field.

“What do you think?”

The woman who completed the beautiful scenery turned around. The only shadows were those cast by the drifting cumulus clouds.