The Voice and the Vine
S-rank or not, he was still human—and it seemed the core's influence had gotten to him all the same.
Baek Yeo-eul kneaded Han Yi-hyeon to her heart's content. His skin was soft, but the taut muscle beneath made it firm, solid—a deeply satisfying feel. The dizziness didn't return, yet his forearm kept making her want to touch it, and as she kneaded it absently, the core she'd only ever seen in photographs revealed itself.
"...You can destroy that thing, right?"
Coming face to face with a core for the first time, Baek Yeo-eul slid her hands off his forearm and asked, wetting her dry lips. The core's strange, iridescent color made her whole body go rigid with tension.
"Of course."
The answer came without a flicker of hesitation, and that alone was a small comfort.
"Go easy on the power. If it feels like a rampage is coming, retreat immediately. No pushing yourself. Understood?"
Baek Yeo-eul caught Han Yi-hyeon by the arm as he moved to go and drilled the rules into him. If she passed out mid-guiding in a place like this, she wouldn't be surprised to open her eyes in the afterlife.
"Yes."
Han Yi-hyeon answered and started toward the core. She'd thought it smaller than expected, but it swelled larger and larger the closer he drew—as if it had somehow guessed he was there to erase it, it was on the highest of alerts.
Disgusting.
Baek Yeo-eul's brow knotted. Rubbing briskly at her goosebumped arms, she suddenly narrowed her eyes and fixed them on the core.
"It's just like..."
...back then, isn't it?
The black haze that had coiled around Han Yi-hyeon right before his rampage flashed through her mind. She was still knitting her brow, trying to dredge up the memory, when a voice drifted in from somewhere.
[—Come.]
As if spellbound, Baek Yeo-eul turned her head. It was a corner where not a single ray of light reached.
[Come here.]
The voice was far clearer than before. Something wound its way up around her ankle. Unaware of it, Baek Yeo-eul took a slow step forward.
"Guide Baek Yeo-eul!"
At Han Yi-hyeon's shout, she snapped back to her senses and looked down at what was wrapped around her ankle. A vine, of all things. Her gaze kept traveling along it—and not far away at all, she found the spot where it began.
"...Huh."
Ah, shit.
Screeeech!
It was a monster.
"Han Yi—!"
Before she could even finish his name, the vine—or more precisely, the monster—yanked Baek Yeo-eul hard.
"Agh!"
With her ankle bound, she landed square on her tailbone, hard enough that tears pricked at her eyes. The moment she lost her balance, the monster's vine began dragging her across the ground.
Screeeech!
But before long, the monster was the one shrieking in pain.
"Are you okay? Are you hurt anywhere?"
Han Yi-hyeon rushed over. Bracing her sore rear, Baek Yeo-eul took his hand and pulled herself up, her rear end throbbing the entire time.
"What about the core?"
He'd promised not to let so much as a single hair on her head come to harm, and instead her butt had been the sacrifice—that complaint could wait a little longer. She asked the most important thing first.
"I dealt with it. I'm sorry I was so late. A monster, out of nowhere..."
Han Yi-hyeon murmured, watching the monster writhe in agony as it flailed its vines wildly.
Honestly, she could somewhat understand how he'd failed to stop the ambush.
There are no monsters inside a Grade 3 Gate dungeon. There cannot be.
Han Yi-hyeon and Baek Yeo-eul stared at the monster's corpse in mutual bewilderment. Then, all at once, a bright light flashed.
"Esper Han Yi-hyeon! Guide Baek Yeo-eul! Are you there? Say something!"
The rescue team.
"Here! Over here!"
Baek Yeo-eul waved her arm toward them at once. The first person to push through the murky haze was the last person she expected.
"Director?"
Why is the Director here of all places?
Baek Yeo-eul blinked blankly at Do Geon's sudden appearance. He closed the distance at a brisk pace, planted himself in front of her, and abruptly began to glare.
Wh-what is it? Did I do something wrong?
Only after Do Geon's sharp gaze had swept every inch of her body did it finally ease. Only then did he speak.
"...I came as soon as I heard you'd been caught up in the Gate while you were nearby."
Baek Yeo-eul accepted her fate. She was the luckiest of the unlucky—swept into a Gate alongside an S-rank Esper, and wouldn't you know it, another S-rank Esper had just happened to be nearby.
She couldn't decide whether to be glad or grieved, and right then Do Geon drew closer. In the same breath, Han Yi-hyeon stepped in front of Baek Yeo-eul.
In a heartbeat, her entire field of vision was filled with Han Yi-hyeon's broad shoulders.
Do Geon made no effort to hide his disbelief at the sight of him planted there as if to shield Baek Yeo-eul and bar his way. A hollow "Ha" burst out of him.
"Esper Han Yi-hyeon, what exactly do you think you're—"
"There was a monster inside the dungeon."
Do Geon's expression froze.
So did Baek Yeo-eul's. She stared, unblinking, at the back of Han Yi-hyeon's head. Talking down to a superior—has he lost his mind?
Having never once seen Han Yi-hyeon deal with anyone but her, Baek Yeo-eul couldn't help but be shocked to hear him speak informally to a superior ranked far above him.
"That's impossible. This Gate is currently Grade 3. You both entered as Grade 3 long before you ever fell inside."
From the moment the first Gate tore open until this very day, it had never happened. Not once. It was only natural that Do Geon couldn't believe it. But then he pointed at the monster lying in the corner. Look at it this way or that—it was a monster, plain as day.
"Grade 5. The second I left to destroy the core, it went straight for Guide Baek Yeo-eul, who'd been left alone—like it had been waiting for exactly that."
"This was a Grade 3 Gate to begin with. And yet a Grade 5 monster..."
What followed was an exchange of dense, profound-sounding jargon that Baek Yeo-eul couldn't begin to parse. She had only ever learned the most basic, one-dimensional facts: what a Gate was, what a monster was, how many grades there were. That was the entire curriculum. So to her, the conversation between Do Geon and Han Yi-hyeon was nothing but a blur of confusion.
"Guide Baek Yeo-eul, I'm with the rescue team's medical corps."
Perhaps standing there dazed looked strange, because a medic came up to her.
"Are you injured anywhere?"
"Ah—my butt."
Baek Yeo-eul snapped out of it and answered. Her rear still throbbed. It was bound to bruise at this rate.
"Mm, and any discomfort?"
"Other than my butt..."
Giving the same answer to every repeated question, Baek Yeo-eul felt wronged—the medic clearly didn't believe her. He wore a doubtful look.
"I see. So you're not injured anywhere after all."
My butt hurts, I'm telling you...!
It was maddening, being unable to exactly drop her trousers and prove it. Baek Yeo-eul wanted to grab the medic—who was eyeing her like she was some kind of lunatic—and explain herself.
"Aside from that, well... did you happen to hear any strange sounds?"
"Strange sounds?"
Baek Yeo-eul suddenly thought of the voice that tormented her every time she was deployed to a scene. Come to think of it, she'd never once heard anyone mention hearing strange sounds. People were simply shaken by the horrific scenes—no one had ever claimed to hear voices.
The voice that came with every deployment.
Then what on earth is that voice?
"Guide Baek Yeo-eul? I asked whether you've heard sounds."
The medic pressed her, his tone impossible to read.
Baek Yeo-eul trusted her instincts, and trusted them a great deal. Especially the negative ones—hers were developed to an eerie degree, and they were almost always right. And right now, her instincts were speaking. They said: don't tell him.
"Ah, that's..."
"Guide Baek Yeo-eul."
A hand settled over her shoulder, gentle but firm. Han Yi-hyeon.
"You said you were tired. Let's head back."
"Uh, uhh... Yes."
His sudden intervention flustered her, but he was too handsome for it to be unpleasant. Half his face was hidden behind the blindfold, yet registering him as good-looking felt closer to instinct than thought.
"Ah, you must be terribly confused. I'm Choi Pil-ha. If there's anything you'd like to ask, don't hesitate to contact me anytime."
The medic, Choi Pil-ha, flashed a grin and held out a business card. The instant Han Yi-hyeon's eyes dropped to the card, Choi Pil-ha mouthed something at Baek Yeo-eul.
[Voice.]
Baek Yeo-eul's eyes flew wide open.
"Well then, I'll be off."
Choi Pil-ha promptly vanished off to somewhere.
"The card. Please give it to me."
"Why?"
Han Yi-hyeon fidgeted anxiously, unable to even snatch the card out of her hand.
"Uh—I'll keep it safe for you."
"I have pockets too, you know."
"It's just, things are so chaotic right now, you might lose it, so..."
He really can't lie to save his life.
Baek Yeo-eul let out a soft sigh.
"Just say it."
Han Yi-hyeon hesitated.
"He's not a good sort of person. Nothing good will come of getting tangled up with him."
"...Okay."
She glanced down at the card, then handed it over without a shred of reluctance. Han Yi-hyeon, not finding it the least bit strange that she'd given it up so meekly, crammed the card deep into his pocket with palpable relief.
Sorry, Han Yi-hyeon, but...
Baek Yeo-eul had memorized the phone number in the split second she'd glimpsed it. A hunch told her she ought to, and before she knew it, the digits had burned themselves into her memory. Only then did she pass the card to Han Yi-hyeon.
With its core destroyed, the Gate was gradually regaining its original form. But the toxic miasma it exhaled still lingered, and staying any longer would do her no good whatsoever.
Worried about the aftereffects of her first time inside a Gate, Baek Yeo-eul was whisked straight to the hospital. Lying in the ambulance, she faced a deeply awkward dilemma when the paramedic asked where it hurt—because the honest answer was her butt.
"A s-slight headache..."
And so Baek Yeo-eul chose the well-meaning lie.
Somehow blundering her way through even a full battery of tests, she lay quietly in the hospital bed waiting for the results.
She turned Choi Pil-ha's phone number over and over in her head. She'd known nothing about the man, but thinking it through, he seemed to be a low-rank Esper. Working in the emergency medical corps, he must have been inside plenty of Gates.
Then does Choi Pil-ha get those headaches too, just like me?
The question, yielding no answer, only chased its own tail.
Then came the quiet sound of a door opening. She had only just finished her tests, so it couldn't be someone bringing the results. And the footsteps, the presence—both were deliberately erased. Whoever this was, they were clearly not hospital staff.
Watching a shadow slink along beyond the curtain, Baek Yeo-eul tensed.