While Hyejin stood there with her mouth hanging open, Eunwoo casually walked over to a fridge, pulled out a bottle of water, and returned.
“Let me show you my skill first. Watch closely.”
He placed the small bottle on the counter with a triumphant air and wiggled his long, pale fingers.
Hyejin kept looking back and forth between him and the bottle.
Soon, white mist began rising from the once-transparent water, and a radiant glow started to shimmer.
Bubbles bobble-bobble rose inside like some magical potion had been added, and a tiny whirlpool swirled at the bottom of the bottle.
“E-excuse me! What are you doing to that bottle?!”
“Haha, ‘doing’ what? Just watch.”
“No, what am I supposed to—”
The moment Hyejin looked at the bottle again, she became speechless.
The liquid inside was no longer ordinary water.
It now contained a glowing, luminous fluid.
Eunwoo twisted the cap off and handed it to her with a “go ahead, drink” gesture.
“Seems like a lot of people today want to open products without paying first.”
“I was just too excited to show you. Do you know what this water is now? If I tell you what I did, you’ll probably be shocked. This is exactly why I want to do business together.”
“Still, you’re supposed to ask the owner’s permission before opening a bottle.”
Hyejin narrowed her eyes sharply, but at that moment Asha’s tiny, cute paw tap landed on the back of Hyejin’s hand.
“Hyejin. Look closely. That’s not just water anymore. It’s holy water. I don’t know exactly what it recovers, but it’s definitely a healing liquid.”
“Asha?”
“Huh? The cat talks. As expected, a special cat knows a thing or two.”
Hyejin cut off Eunwoo, who looked ready to keep talking, and asked,
“Did you… just infuse that bottled water with healing?”
“Bingo! Exactly. I poured my heal into it—with my own mana.”
Eunwoo showed off his long, white hands, clenching and opening them proudly, then dropped the smile and continued seriously.
“As a hunter, you probably know the basics: we have mana. But I’ve never been able to use mine until now. What do you think happens when someone like me keeps accumulating mana without ever releasing it?”
“…”
“The overflowing mana goes berserk. Instead of helping people, I’d end up wanting to hurt them. I’d turn from a healer into a curse-spreading warlock. To prevent that, I have to keep using my mana. But my father is dead-set against me being a healer.”
“There isn’t a single hospital or guild that would hire me when the chairman of Baektae Group says no—and there’s no guild my father doesn’t sponsor.”
Hyejin carefully nodded. She roughly understood. Yet one question still remained.
“But why our convenience store, of all places?”
Hyejin shrugged, genuinely baffled, and glanced at Asha.
But Asha wasn’t looking at her; the cat’s gaze was fixed on the floor, tail swishing back and forth as if deep in thought.
“Do you know what happened right before I declared to my father that I’d become a healer and came here first thing?”
How would I know that?
Swallowing the retort, Hyejin simply shook her head.
“My father knew perfectly well that I was going insane in my current situation, yet he still refused outright. So I told him I’d rather die than not be a healer—and then this, see?”
“See what… Wait, that—?!”
“Yep. Got a nice slap across the face. Hence the bruise.”
When Hyejin looked closer, she saw that what she thought was just shadow under his eye was actually a dark blue-black bruise.
Yoon Eunwoo pointed at his own eye and grinned widely.
“He told me to leave everything behind if I really wanted this—so I really left everything. No wallet, no car keys, literally nothing.”
“At least he didn’t take my ability away? Anyway, I’m wearing sunglasses so girls don’t freak out seeing me like this.”
“Are you okay…?”
Hyejin asked worriedly.
Eunwoo waved it off like it was nothing and pushed the bottle toward her again.
“Now drink it. See what effect it has. Imagine selling holy water made by an SS-rank healer at a convenience store—wouldn’t that be a massive hit?”
“Before that… won’t your father come chasing you all the way here?”
She couldn’t help worrying. It felt straight out of a K-drama—rich heir runs away from home, etc.
Of course, in dramas it was usually the chaebol heir falling for a poor girl and abandoning wealth and status for her.
Still, a chaebol second-gen running away from home was close enough.
“Nah, no need to worry about that. My dad’s way too scared to ever step foot inside a dungeon. What’s the point of being a chaebol if you can’t even awaken as a hunter? Weird, right? Why do you think he never awakened?”
He joked, then suddenly turned serious, rubbing his chin.
Hyejin couldn’t help but let out a small laugh.
“How would I know?”
Hyejin stared at the bottle for a moment, then took a sip.
She expected some special flavor, but it only pop-pop fizzed like carbonated water—completely tasteless.
“It’s… bland. Just sparkling water?”
“It’s holy water—what taste were you expecting? You’re really weird the more I look at you. Cute, Manager.”
“I’m not exactly at an age to be called cute by Yoon Eunwoo-ssi.”
The moment she set the bottle down, a reaction began inside her body.
Maybe because of the holy water, her thirst vanished; she felt refreshed like she’d just had a perfect night’s sleep, her mind cleared, and her whole body felt cleansed.
When she looked down, faint light flickered over her skin before disappearing.
Hyejin just blinked, speechless at the series of changes.
“See? Told you the effect is this good.”
“You really didn’t do anything weird—you actually infused heal into it? You turned plain water into real holy water? The kind that restores HP and MP like a potion?”
Eunwoo nodded as if he’d expected her shock.
“Of course. So—are you going to work with me or not?”
“That’s not something I can decide so easily. But… it really is amazing.”
At Hyejin’s pouty reply, Eunwoo clung desperately.
“Let me do my business here and earn some money, then I’ll leave on my own. Think of it as saving one person’s life—please hire me. I’ve always wanted to experience part-time work too. I was curious what ordinary people’s lives are like.”
“I saw on the news you did tons of volunteer work. Didn’t you see enough then?”
“Not that—I want to experience how ordinary people actually earn money.”
“This isn’t the world of ordinary people; it’s the world of hunters.”
“Weren’t hunters originally ordinary people too?”
“Keep saying ‘ordinary people’ like that and the ordinary person listening feels bad.”
“Ah, haha—no bad meaning, you know?”
Hyejin let out a huge sigh and whispered softly into Asha’s round, adorable ear.
“What do I do? Honestly, I’m greedy for that holy water. It has no flavor, so we could definitely add effects to other drinks. That means holy water in all kinds of flavors… It’s so tempting.”
“I’m thinking too. A healer walking in on his own is great, but I’m worried that guy will become a walking headache for the store. Getting tangled with a chaebol family is rarely good.”
“Exactly—that’s what worries me. What do we do?”
“I don’t know how long you two plan to whisper with the talking cat, but—hire me or not?”
Hyejin turned to answer Eunwoo, who was leaning casually against the counter with his sunglasses now tucked into his jacket pocket and a smile on his face.
But before she could speak, Asha snapped at him in a curt, almost angry tone.
“What are your conditions? Working together doesn’t mean everything just ends there. We don’t know if you plan to use this store to make money or if Baektae Confectionery is trying to take the store away. How are we supposed to trust and hire you in this situation? Right?”
Asha looked genuinely irritated—an expression Hyejin had never seen on her before.
Hyejin was startled.
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