The Support Ate it All - Chapter 579: Twin Masters (3)

Medicine Hall.

A place where all kinds of medicinal materials were made—practically the heart of the Dang family.

Dang Eunbi had set her mind on both poison and medicine, so since she was little she’d basically lived in the Medicine Hall. Now her skills had grown quite a bit, and she handled a wide range of tasks.

What she was doing now was one of them.

She carefully trimmed an herb that looked like a tree root, or put seeds into a small mortar and ground them into powder.

Then, after a final check to make sure there were no quality issues, she attached a tag and stored it away.

As she worked through the steps with practiced ease, stray thoughts kept brushing through Dang Eunbi’s mind.

I miscalculated yesterday.

Overlooking the fact that Kim Ho likely had poison resistance and using a rather ordinary poison—that had been the mistake.

And then, for no reason, she’d even doubted her own skill enough to actually ingest the poison herself.

After laughing until her stomach hurt, she’d {N•o•v•e•l•i•g•h•t} had to endure her brothers’ harsh scolding, too.

Dang Eunbi clenched her fist.

I can’t end it like this.

She had the Dang family’s characteristic tenacity, too.

Her flame of Down with Kim Ho burned even more fiercely.

What poison should I try…?

It needed to be strong enough to break through resistance, but not lethal.

She wasn’t trying to hurt him—she just wanted to embarrass him.

And how should I deliver it…?

The best outcome was that no one noticed she’d done it.

Second best was getting caught, but succeeding anyway.

With her brothers and Dang Gyu-young stuck to him, she’d probably have to lean toward the latter.

As Dang Eunbi kept thinking and thinking—

From behind her, she heard a presence approach, and an old, slightly hoarse voice followed.

“Eunbi, could you come here for a moment?”

An elderly woman stood there, dressed in deep green.

She was the head of the Medicine Hall—Dang Eunbi’s teacher, and someone who was practically her grandmother.

Dang Eunbi immediately stopped working, and before long the two of them sat facing each other and began to talk.

“You did something reckless yesterday.”

“Ah… yes… I’m reflecting on it…”

Dang Eunbi bowed her head low.

Of course. There was no way she could’ve slipped past the adults’ attention with her level.

They must have watched everything, from start to finish.

She expected a scolding to continue for a while, but the head of the Medicine Hall said something unexpected.

“The Elder Council brought it up. They said it would be best if you made up for your failure—so the Dang family’s reputation won’t suffer.”

Using poison was cowardly and shameful.

But there was something several times more shameful than that: using poison, and having it not work.

You gained nothing and only took losses.

Once you decided to employ poison, the Dang family mindset was that you needed to achieve at least a minimum result.

The head of the Medicine Hall handed her something carefully wrapped in paper.

“Open it.”

“……”

Dang Eunbi obediently did as she was told, and the moment she saw what was inside, her eyes widened.

It was an extremely fine powdered medicine, a blend of brown, white, and black.

“…It’s Poison-Assist Powder.”

A powder that, as the name suggested, assisted poison.

If you mixed it in when delivering poison, the poison would penetrate the target’s body in the most effective way—as if it were a living creature.

Even a poison that normally wouldn’t work could work if you paired it with Poison-Assist Powder, dramatically boosting both potency and success rate.

But Dang Eunbi felt uneasy and asked,

“Is it really okay to use this for something like that?”

Poison-Assist Powder was made from rare materials, and the compounding process was demanding, so even across the entire Dang family, there wasn’t much of it.

Unless you were taking down a lifelong nemesis, wasn’t it a waste to use it just to prank a guest?

The head of the Medicine Hall seemed to share that thought, but also seemed to understand the Elder Council’s position as she voiced a guess.

“You know how martial artists are. They live and die by pride and honor. When you look back later, they’re truly pointless things… but I suppose this is one of them.”

“……”

From Dang Eunbi’s perspective, it wasn’t a bad suggestion.

She’d planned to keep Operation: Down with the Evil Kim Ho! going anyway.

If she used Poison-Assist Powder, she could get results without resorting to a dangerous poison—meaning her options expanded considerably.

Even so, she hesitated a little, because the Elder Council’s intent was obvious.

“They want to use me to test him.”

Kim Ho had openly shown that he had poison resistance.

But since the exact level was unclear, they planned to use Dang Eunbi to find out, then move in for real.

On top of that, they likely intended to exploit her connection to Dang Gyu-young.

If another family member made a move and got caught, it wouldn’t be easy to smooth over—but if Dang Eunbi got caught, they could dismiss it as a childish prank.

Just like yesterday.

The head of the Medicine Hall slowly nodded.

“That’s probably correct. It pains me to have this conversation.”

“……”

“If you don’t want to, I won’t force you. These old men… this grandmother will try to block them.”

Dang Eunbi fell into brief contemplation.

The Medicine Hall’s standing within the household was significant, but if she refused the Elder Council’s request, she’d take a political loss.

And stepping forward to test poison wasn’t necessarily a purely bad thing.

Dang Eunbi was doing it half as a prank and half out of spite, but the Elder Council wanted to drive Dang Gyu-young and Kim Ho’s group out of the household.

If they couldn’t accurately gauge Kim Ho’s poison resistance, they might use excessive measures to achieve their goal.

Rather than letting things escalate to the point someone got hurt, maybe it was better to take the heat at an appropriate line.

With that, Dang Eunbi finished rationalizing.

I’ll let them use me—just this once.

She gathered the Poison-Assist Powder and spoke.

“I’ll try it. Please tell them not to expect too much.”

*****

We traded fierce blows with the Twin Heroes of the Dang Family for quite a while.

As a result—

[The rank of ‘Movement Command’ increases. (F→E)]

▷Pierces 1 rank of forced movement resistance

▷Every 3 minutes, additional piercing increases 1→2 ranks

Since I’d only just learned it, the growth was pretty fast.

And the fact that the opponents pushing me around were high-level probably played a part.

Dang Ilbi and Dang Hanbi raised a hand and stopped us.

“Enough.”

“It would be good to take a short rest here.”

Then they retrieved all the steel pellets and coins that had been flying everywhere at once.

We also retrieved our weapons without complaint, and we all took a break together.

Dang Ilbi and Dang Hanbi spoke in turns, one line at a time.

“Last night, we spoke thoughtlessly.”

“They’re young, but they’re still heroes of Dragonslayer Academy.”

“Didn’t we say that losing was only natural, and that it wasn’t shameful?”

They were two masters in the mid-A rank.

They must have expected to subdue two second-years and a freshly graduated early-A rank without much trouble.

But we took a slight edge early on, and even after the probing exchanges ended and we were driven onto the defensive, we held out stubbornly.

So they acknowledged they’d underestimated us and offered an apology.

I replied in a gentle tone.

“I can see why you’d say that. I learned a lot. And I think I’ll learn a lot more, too.”

The two of them looked embarrassed again.

“Ahem… Looking at you, you’ve got a knack for gilding faces.”

“We learned a lot as well.”

“Your handling of skills and Traits was surprising.”

“We got caught off guard more than once.”

Not only was [Ghostless Shadow] used at exactly the right times, Dang Gyu-young and Seo Ye-in even let effective hits slip past with [Distortion].

The cooldown was a full day, so we should assume we couldn’t use it again today, though.

Dang Hanbi’s gaze went to the immortal Kim Ho Kim Ho Pot.

“That pot, especially. It had ridiculous defensive power. What kind of item is it?”

“It’s Treasure Number One.”

Seo Ye-in replied, eyes sparkling.

That didn’t seem like what he was asking.

Dang Ilbi, meanwhile, was sending an intense look my way.

“To think we couldn’t land a single effective hit on you.”

“I was just supporting from a safe position, wasn’t I? She did all the trading.”

“Even so, that isn’t movement a mere student should be showing.”

Then Dang Gyu-young, who’d been listening in, chimed in.

“I haven’t been able to hit him either. He dodges too well.”

“So it’s the same for you? Then I should set a goal—landing a hit at least once.”

Dang Ilbi wasn’t the only one. Dang Hanbi’s fighting spirit flared up too.

At this rate, it looked like I’d be running around even more.

I casually changed the subject.

“Still, if your skills are this impressive, the Dang family’s overall strength must be even more overwhelming.”

“It isn’t.”

Unexpectedly, the two of them shook their heads and answered in turns.

“You should consider us exceptional cases.”

“There are only a handful in the household who could match us.”

“And it’s been a very long time since an S-rank master appeared.”

So… maybe around five or six A-ranks?

I asked again.

“Then who is the strongest master?”

Dang Ilbi and Dang Hanbi let the pause stretch.

After exchanging a silent discussion with their eyes, they answered.

“It’s known that the clan head and the head of the Elder Council are about even.”

“But we can’t say what it’s like now.”

“It’s been a long time since the two fought.”

The head of the Elder Council.

I recalled the old man who’d been seated near the seat of honor at last night’s formal dinner.

Overall, he’d maintained a calm expression, but our eyes met once—and I’d felt a presence like a venomous snake watching prey.

He looked strong, too.

Still, I think Gyu’s dad is stronger.

It was only a rough judgment, but the clan head seemed like he was nearing the very end of A-rank.

If that guess was right, it wouldn’t be strange if he crossed into S-rank at any time.

The question is when the trigger shows up.

S-rank was the realm of enlightenment.

Enlightenment was a highly abstract concept—so much so that if you had a hundred people, you’d have a hundred different kinds of enlightenment.

Because a person’s entire life, their ties with others, and the martial strength they’d built up formed its foundation.

When I played <Dragonslayer Academy> as a game and raised heroes, I used two main methods.

Either I kept grinding relentlessly with the mindset that just one attempt might hit.

Or I provided an intense experience tied to the things mentioned above.

For example, Carmilla—my 1,000th S-rank hero—had the keywords “vampire” and “darkness.”

So I killed a Black Dragon, made a jewel out of its blood, and had her absorb it.

Thanks to that, it succeeded in one shot.

But that was when it was a game.

Now I was inside the world of the game.

A living person had to be more complex than a character, so the process of enlightenment would be just as complex.

And I’ve never even met the craftsman—no, the elder—before.

I didn’t know what kind of life he’d lived, and even if I asked, there was no way he’d tell me.

It was hard to even suggest a direction.

For now, I should assume there was nothing I could do.

Dang Ilbi and Dang Hanbi dusted themselves off and stood.

“That seems like enough rest.”

“Shall we go again?”

“Get ready.”

Then we sensed someone approaching, and we all turned our heads at once.

It was Dang Eunbi, walking toward us with several teacups on a tray.

With everyone’s attention on her, she smiled brightly and said,

“I brought tea. Drink up before you continue.”