Chapter 88

No wonder the three of them had moved without the slightest hesitation. Eui-rim had wondered why they hadn’t wavered despite the monsters mimicking human forms, but they had acted on a clear prerequisite.

By the way, how did Seo Hae-gun come to know this? It didn’t seem like his memories had returned. Did he really receive some sort of divine inspiration?

“Did this suddenly come to mind as well?”

“Yes.”

“Without any trigger or reason, you just remembered it?”

Unable to believe it, Eui-rim repeated the question, prompting Hae-gun to wear a sheepish, troubled smile. “To be a little more precise, it popped into my head the moment the dungeon terrain shifted. I heard an explosion underground, and when I came to, I was lying in the maze. That was when it suddenly occurred to me.”

Without having met the Gatekeeper or the Scales, and without any special catalyst, was that even possible?

When Eui-rim could not shake his skepticism, Hae-gun murmured in a faintly aggrieved tone, “Thanks to that, I’m not in the best mood. It’s just as unpleasant as when I first awakened as a hunter.”

Since he had been joking about shamanic possession, Eui-rim had thought he was fine, but was he actually in a foul mood? And why was awakening back then so unpleasant for him in the first place?

“You felt terrible even after awakening as an S-rank?”

In his entire life, Eui-rim had never heard anyone claim that becoming an awakened New Human felt awful. Even he, upon realizing he had awakened as a healer, had felt relief at the thought of finally possessing power.

“Yeah. It was fucking awful. It felt uncomfortable having everything perceived so intensely sharp and vivid.”

Only after hearing his follow-up answer did Eui-rim realize it made sense. Being South Korea’s first S-rank combat-type hunter must have brought countless hardships. Factoring in his age and the era when he awakened, irritation or displeasure might have been just the tip of the iceberg.

“If you ask me, I think it’s just ‘cause Guild Master has a rotten personality… Gah! Chaeyoon-ah! How many times do I have to tell you that hurts like shit?!”

“Oppa, you seriously need to learn to keep your mouth shut.”

Having taken a solid smack to the back from Chaeyoon, Moonhyuk writhed in pain. Brushing past him as she walked toward Hae-gun and Eui-rim, Chaeyoon pointed past the broken wall. “By the way, where should we go? Guild Master, do you know the way?”

“Nope. No idea.”

“Ah, sshp,” Moonhyuk muttered. “This is why we shouldn’t have lost that guy Yoo Tae-geun… Is he really an A-rank? How could his brute strength seem greater than mine? Did the Association report a lower rank on purpose to hide that he’s an S-rank?”

“You lost Hunter Yoo Tae-geun?”

At Eui-rim’s reflexive question, Moonhyuk’s mouth clamped shut. Dumbfounded, Eui-rim turned back to look at Hae-gun.

He couldn’t fathom what on earth had transpired on their way here. Had they not simply been navigating the maze?

“And how did you find this place?” Eui-rim asked. “Did you hear a sign of presence?”

“Uh-uh, no,” Chaeyoon answered. “We didn’t even know you were trying to break the wall, Eui-rim-ssi. We couldn’t hear a single sound.”

As Eui-rim asked questions to untangle the thread, Chaeyoon replied in a flustered tone. Glancing at Hae-gun to read his mood, she scratched the back of her head. “We just followed the Guild Master. We cleaned up the ghouls that popped up on the way, but other than that, we didn’t do anything.”

“What is this story about Hunter Yoo Tae-geun?” Eui-rim pressed.

“Moonhyuk oppa foolishly lost him,” Chaeyoon explained. “Apparently, he started at the same location with him at first, but…”

“Without warning, that guy shoved me like a lunatic and tried to head somewhere strange!” Moonhyuk protested. “When I grabbed him in shock, he kept muttering that he had to go to that place and even swung his weapon around! Wow, shit. I almost had my head lopped off by Verdant Horn.”

At first, Eui-rim didn’t comprehend Moonhyuk’s words, but remembering that Verdant Horn was Yoo Tae-geun’s exclusive weapon, he let out a dry gasp. Tae-geun had swung that massive double-edged battleaxe at Moonhyuk?

“Kim Si-hoon and the other Association personnel might also be gathered at the place Yoo Tae-geun mentioned,” Hae-gun noted. “We didn’t see them on the way here.”

As Eui-rim stood frozen, chewing over the information, Hae-gun drove the point home with his explanation. Reflexively nodding, Eui-rim sorted out his tangled thoughts.

So when the dungeon’s structure shifted, only Eui-rim had been trapped here while the rest dropped into the maze. Then Yoo Tae-geun, having lost his sanity, violently shook off Moonhyuk and took off somewhere.

Under these circumstances, the fact that the three of them even managed to meet in that darkness was practically a miracle. “Did the three of you start in similar locations?”

“Ah, the Guild Master and I were fairly close to each other,” Chaeyoon replied. “We found Moonhyuk oppa after hearing the racket he made with Hunter Yoo Tae-geun.”

I see detecting presence and getting one’s bearings is easier in the maze. What a relief.

Then does that leave only one remaining question?

“Seo Hae-gun-ssi, how did you know I was here?”

Eui-rim remembered how, while Hae-gun was swinging his blade to wound the shadow, he had pried open the fissure and brought down the wall. If Hae-gun hadn’t found him at that exact moment, Eui-rim could never have held out to the end and would have been overrun by the ghouls.

Just then, the ceiling shuddered, cutting off the flow of conversation. With a sound like rolling thunder, concrete fragments and dust cascaded down, and the faintly glowing light vanished entirely.

As darkness identical to the maze dominated the space, groans erupted from Moonhyuk and Chaeyoon. Grumbling followed that if they ever had to enter an enclosed dungeon like an Isolation Ward again, they would unconditionally pack flashlights or fluorescent minerals.

And amid that chaotic din and dense darkness, Eui-rim’s eyes met Seo Hae-gun’s.

It was a kind of instinct. Just as Eui-rim could instinctively tell where Seo Hae-gun was, Hae-gun had unfailingly located and recognized his resonating counterpart.

With that, their surroundings brightened in an instant. A vivid yellow radiance spread into a broad light source, and firefly-like motes drifted upward, beginning to guide them beyond the wall.

Trait Activated: 〈Pathfinder〉

“Uh, uh. What is that?” Moonhyuk stammered.

“Don’t tell me that’s the light you mentioned, Eui-rim-ssi?” Chaeyoon asked.

Wondering if the others could see the light this time, Chaeyoon’s eyes sparkled as she looked at him. After nodding in bewilderment, Eui-rim stared at the light swirling just beyond the wall.

Up until now, that had never been visible to anyone else. Did the trait evolve as it activated?

“I’m saying this because I feel like you already know, Eui-rim-ssi, but…”

Hae-gun spoke just as Moonhyuk and Chaeyoon crossed the broken wall, following the light.

When Eui-rim paused halfway through the collapsed breach and looked back, Hae-gun smiled faintly and added, “I’m pretty similar to you, Eui-rim-ssi.”

“…Similar?”

“I felt like I vaguely knew where you were. Strangely enough, it felt completely natural.”

Having barely crossed the wall, Eui-rim looked at him, and Hae-gun, who had stepped right up to his side, took hold of his arm and pulled him close. Eui-rim held his breath as he moved forward with him through the dark-drenched maze.

Whenever the vivid yellow light flickered along the corridor, deep shadows fell across Hae-gun’s face. His pupils, resembling a nocturnal sea, shimmered faintly.

“…”

Once again, a streak of blue-gray light grazed across Hae-gun’s pupils like a meteor shower.

This time, too, it happened in a fleeting fraction of a second.

Even knowing that Seo Hae-gun’s status abnormality had not yet cleared, Eui-rim nearly lost his composure. Every time he caught that blue-gray glow reminiscent of the previous life, a sense of fretfulness gripped him, wondering if the man’s memories had somehow begun returning.

“What are you two doing back there? Aren’t you coming?” Moonhyuk called out.

“Ah, sorry,” Eui-rim answered.

Before they knew it, the light had halted its advance and was waiting for them. Apologizing to Moonhyuk as he urged them along, Eui-rim hurried his steps.

Let’s just focus on the raid for now. If his memories really had started returning, Seo Hae-gun himself would have been the first to notice.

As the distance between them and the two narrowed, the light hovering in place began moving again. Splish, splash. Every time they took a step, the waterway Hae-gun had summoned parted with a noisy splash.

“It’s because of resonance, right?”

Startled by the sudden whisper in his ear, Eui-rim pressed himself against the wall, but wearing a crooked smirk, Hae-gun closed the distance again.

Being pinned between the wall and Seo Hae-gun… it’s suffocating.

Eui-rim asked, feigning indifferent ignorance. “Resonance?”

“The reason I could tell where you were, Eui-rim-ssi.”

Eui-rim debated whether to lengthen his stride and pull away, but decided against it. Compared to when Hae-gun couldn’t even meet his eyes due to the hallucinations, this was infinitely better.

Deep down, Eui-rim had worried what would happen if the lingering effects of the hallucinations persisted even after clearing the dungeon. Even if he didn’t like the method itself, having a way for Seo Hae-gun to maintain his sanity was nothing short of a godsend.

By the way, if it came to him unbidden, does that mean he used this method in the previous life as well? Then was his ability to retain his sanity even after becoming a host because he had wounded his own body?

The momentary chill subsided under Seo Hae-gun’s touch. As Hae-gun’s hand gently rubbed the nape of his neck, composure gradually returned, allowing Eui-rim to think rationally again.

After taking a deep breath, Eui-rim gave Hae-gun the answer he had been waiting for. “It seems so.”

“Have you ever done it with anyone else?”