Completely Caught – And Why My Eyes Glow Blue
The girl stared at me with those cold, calculating eyes, and I knew right away that this was no random ambush.
Every single attack bounced off me like rain on glass. Even when I threw my full weight into the counter, the pain still didn’t land.
‘This is really weird.’
I figured it had to be some kind of counter-weapon or special dodge she’d learned the hard way.
But the more I pressed, the more it felt like something else was at work.
‘Completely wiped out.’
I was already pinned face-down, her arms locked behind her back, and I had my knee planted right between her shoulder blades. Even if she tried to thrash, the damage control from the raid team had left her legs dead weight.
‘How the hell—’
I looked down into her face and started pulling up the briefing notes I’d memorized from the client.
Lee Hajin. Level 6 hunter.
Former captain of Strike Team 3 at Baekya Guild. Awakening: Super-Intuition. Height 183 cm. Personality: antisocial, rigid, short-tempered. Looks: jet-black hair, dark eyes that turn vivid blue the second he activates his gift. The file said he was handsome enough to make people second-guess their own eyes.
‘Why does everything about him sound like bad news?’
Maybe the client had some old grudge. Didn’t matter. Most hunters only had surface-level reports anyway; this one had been almost too clean.
Still, I was confident. Even if she was down to Level 4 right now, her assassin instincts from childhood would still be sharp.
And they were.
Her force and speed were exactly what I expected. But every single strike I threw hit nothing but air.
‘This… super-intuition…?’
I cursed the client under my breath. And then the thought hit me like a truck.
‘It’s almost like he’s… looking into the future…!’
That was insane. There was no such thing as future sight in our world.
Before I could finish the thought, his voice cut through the air.
“I won. Now are you going to the police?”
I felt a strange sting of unfairness. I’d started it, after all. But still…
“……That’s cold.”
If this had been my old self, I would never have let things get this far.
“Cold? Where’s the real combat rule against cheating?”
He was right. He was right, and that only pissed me off more.
“……A real hunter doesn’t throw away his sword.”
“I’m unemployed, so I don’t know that rule. Besides, you’re not a hunter anymore, are you?”
Her mouth snapped shut. That was the one thing I’d learned about her during the academy years—when the conversation turned against her, she just… closed up.
A moment later he spoke again.
“By the way, you.”
“……What?”
“You move like a veteran, but your strength is crap. Were you starving for days?”
Her body jerked. I’d hit the exact nerve.
“Normal people are stronger than you. Who sent you? Baekya? Or one of Kwon Taesoo’s clan bastards?”
‘She’s faster on the uptake than I thought.’
Still, protecting the client’s identity was the first rule of the underworld. And this woman was painfully old-school about it. She turned her head and looked away.
“……That’s not true.”
“Oh, really? You’re causing a scene in broad daylight.”
Before she could finish, his hand rose above her hood.
The fabric slid back, black hair spilling across the floor like spilled ink.
“Wait—”
I tried to stop him too late; my body wouldn’t obey. His hand kept going until the mask came off.
“That—don’t take it off.”
“Why? You want to see my face that badly?”
“……It’s an invasion of privacy.”
“Too bad.”
The excuse didn’t even land. The mask finally peeled away.
“Hm… I’ve seen you before.”
‘…Good.’
Her face had changed since the last time I’d seen her. Hair color, eye color, the whole thing. She probably wouldn’t be recognized on sight.
But then his eyes widened.
“Jin Seohyun?”
“……!”
The way he said my name was pure disbelief. But the pronunciation was perfect.
‘I’m exposed.’
The cold light in her eyes turned into something sharper. Once he knew my real name, there was no way I was walking away.
One way or another, she had to die.
I took a deep breath and poured every last drop of strength I had left into my voice.
‘I really didn’t want to do this…’
Using it even once left a price tag. I had no idea how much my ruined body could survive.
But this was all I had left.
Whoosh—!
Power exploded out of me like a storm. Black shadows spilled across the warehouse floor, and every scrap of metal around us shot straight up into the air.
His grip wavered for the first time.
Just as I lunged for his throat, his eyes blazed even brighter.
And then he whispered something under his breath.
“Expand.”
Ka-BOOOOOM——!
Expansion
The warehouse shook like the world was ending.
Time itself stuttered. I saw a hundred different versions of my own death flash across my vision.
‘More than I expected.’
Every single one ended the same way.
‘One more try.’
Once an awakener crossed into a new realm of power, people called it “expanding.” I’d reached that threshold fighting the boss of a Level 6 gate last month.
This was my first expansion.
I chose the outcome I wanted, then pulled every scattered possibility toward that single thread.
I sifted through the timelines like a machine.
Time didn’t exist here. Only thought.
‘Hyper-focus state.’
Thoughts raced faster than reality itself.
Hundreds of futures rushed past in the blink of an eye.
I picked the one I wanted.
‘Good.’
“Expand.”
Stage one. Single World.
Ka-BOOOOOM——!
The moment the explosion faded, the warehouse exploded again—only this time it was deliberate.
Everything that had been on the floor shot up. Black shadows became razor-sharp spears.
I stood perfectly still at the center of it all and watched.
The Jin Clan was one of the oldest martial families in Korea. I’d always assumed they only did traditional sword-and-staff stuff.
‘Among my academy classmates, there was a branch of the Jin Clan.’
I’d never heard of any Jin Clan member using anything like this. And the mana I knew about from the family didn’t match at all.
‘Whatever. Noble families do dirty things behind closed doors all the time.’
I stopped thinking and locked onto the last remaining future in my vision.
Chink!
Her hidden blade whipped toward my neck.
I didn’t move.
The second the blade grazed my skin, I’d already corrected the angle.
It sliced past me by a millimeter.
At the same moment, every scrap of metal around us collided with each other and flew off in random directions.
Clang! Clang!
It felt like the entire scene had rearranged itself to match the ending I’d chosen.
‘More and more interesting.’
That was the result of the first single-world expansion.
‘I picked one outcome.’
Evade the first strike. Break her stance.
Of course that was possible. She was still at Level 4. Even if her mana had spiked for a second, her body was still that of a broken Lv.4 hunter.
I’d seen plenty of futures where I could exploit that.
The single-world effect ended.
Her stance collapsed completely.
I dove in before she could recover.
“Ugh…!”
She tried to raise her blade, but I was faster. I twisted her wrist, sent the weapon flying, and slammed her shoulder into the floor.
Thud!
“Ugh!”
Exactly the same position as before.
“Second KO. Want round two?”
“…”
Even my little joke didn’t get a reaction out of her.
“Let me go.”
“If I do, you’ll just attack again?”
“You used expansion just now, right?”
“Yeah, but—”
“Liar.”
“I watched it happen myself and you’re denying it?”
“A Level 6 hunter using expansion? Don’t make up nonsense.”
I could hear genuine confusion in her voice.
‘Right. Expansion is only accessible to high-rankers.’
I answered honestly.
“It’s nothing special. Just works.”
“What?”
“It’s just that.”
“Ha… hah…!”
Her expression twisted like I’d personally insulted her entire bloodline.
The same face she used to make during academy matches.
“……Unlucky.”
“Take it as a compliment. By the way, the shadows earlier—when did the Jin Clan start using curses? Or did you awaken something new?”
“……You don’t need to know that.”
“That’s not how someone who just got caught acts. Turn me in and you might even collect the bounty.”
“Go ahead. I don’t care anymore anyway.”
“Doesn’t matter what?”
I leaned in, ready to press, and her face went deathly pale.
Her breathing turned ragged, pupils shaking.
“Cough!”
Blood sprayed from her mouth. The unstable mana inside her began to riot.
‘Rebound.’
I wiped the blood from her cheek and checked her pulse.
Black veins pulsed just under her collarbone.
“Hey, you…”
“Hands… off…”
She couldn’t even finish the lie. This was the worst state she’d ever been in.
The backlash from the strength she’d forced into her body was eating her alive.
‘How badly did she break herself…?’
I grabbed her wrist, poured a thin line of my own mana into her, and immediately regretted it.
‘Why is her body like this…?’
The mana circulation from her lower abdomen was completely severed—something I’d never seen. The black aura I’d just seen was frantically trying to glue the broken pieces back together.
It was like someone had tried to patch a leaking drum with superglue and then added water.
And now it wouldn’t hold.
“Your condition…”
“……”
No answer. She rolled her eyes back and passed out cold.
“Sigh…”
I gently lowered her to the floor and stood up.
‘I was supposed to kill her. Why do I keep saving her?’
I pulled out the emergency potion I’d been carrying since academy days and poured it into her mouth.
This was the stuff we kept in every strike team’s kit—enough to keep you breathing even if your organs were on fire.
‘One hundred million won each.’
She’d better pay me back if she woke up. A former Lv.8 hunter who probably had no money in the bank could always pay in other ways.
Raid a gate. Protect a convoy. Whatever.
With that kind of power, she’d have plenty of opportunities.
Her breathing slowly evened out. The potion was working.
I looked down at her sleeping face.
Jin Seohyun.
The hunter who, at twenty-two, had hit Level 8 and burned her name into every hunter’s mind.
Then her entire raid team was wiped out. She was arrested on the spot, and a few days later she vanished from the world completely.
I remembered it all too.
At the academy, that was the only story anyone talked about for months.
‘How did someone like her end up like this?’
Shattered body. An unknown black power that shouldn’t exist. Four years of empty space.
Too many questions.
I could wake her and ask right now, but the girl who’d tried to kill me five minutes ago wasn’t going to answer sweetly.
There was one better way.
Of the two futures I could see, the second one.
‘Fate Observation.’
It let me watch a target’s peak performance.
The problem was… she’d already lived through that peak once.
My ability only worked on people who hadn’t reached their high point yet.
‘One look and it’s already a loss.’
I crouched beside her and placed my palm on her forehead.
“Fate Observation.”
And then…
‘…What the—’
The scene that opened in front of me made my mind blank.