Regret and Exhaustion?
Regret and Exhaustion?
The moment she saw the corpse sprawled in a pool of blood... a body that could hardly be called a living thing.
Her vision went black, and her mind dimmed along with it.
The past and present overlapped.
A disciple who said they'd step outside.
A Lee Ha-yul who said they'd step outside.
Her past self, trusting her disciple without a second thought, sure they'd manage somehow.
Her past self, looking away despite her worry, telling herself it wasn't her place to interfere.
A disciple caught in a dungeon outbreak.
A Lee Ha-yul caught in a dungeon outbreak.
A disciple who disappeared, leaving only an arm behind.
A Lee Ha-yul with his arm torn off, thrown into a pool of blood.
"Ah."
A single, short lament burst out.
Blood dripped from her clenched fist.
Atra wanted to smash her own head in.
She wanted to ball her hand into a fist, wrap it in the aura she drew from her unique ability, and slam it into her skull.
Hallucinations from mental attacks were common. One standard way to deal with them was suicide inside the illusory world.
She wanted to believe this was a mental attack, a hallucination.
Her five senses and instincts, sharp as they were, told her it wasn't, but still—if there was even a sliver of a chance it was an illusion... she wanted to gamble on that possibility.
- ...!
The reason she couldn't was that what she'd taken for a corpse was still faintly gasping for breath.
A sense of reality crashed into her.
Atra, who had been standing like a stone statue, rushed over and dropped to her knees.
Splash— the moment her knees hit the ground, the pool of blood rippled and sloshed.
She examined Lee Ha-yul's condition.
...It was hard to believe he was still alive. Even for someone with a regeneration ability it would be difficult, yet Lee Ha-yul was still clinging to breath.
It was faint, as if he might slip away at any second, but he was undeniably alive.
Alive.
That single fact filled her mind.
With urgent yet careful hands, she lifted Lee Ha-yul into her arms. She took off her coat, wrapped it around him, and kicked off the ground at a sprint.
The sky outside the shelter was regaining its natural color.
The outer wall encasing the city was slowly crumbling. That was thanks to Lee Ha-yul taking down the alpha individual that had been acting as the dungeon's core.
Atra headed toward the cluster of presences gathering near where the outer wall had stood.
There, the Association's rescue team was just about to breach the dungeon's outer wall and enter.
Naturally, the rescue team included a hero with a healing-type unique ability.
The healing-type hero stayed behind while the rest of the combat personnel entered the city where the outer wall had collapsed.
The healing began.
Atra waited behind him, her face full of agitation, as the hero performing the treatment suddenly grimaced.
"This is as far as I can go."
"What?"
As far as he could go.
Cracks spread across Atra's face at the completely unexpected answer.
"I'm sorry. I didn't hear you properly. Could you say that again?"
"...Yes. My abilities aren't enough."
The senior healing-type hero, Pasenov, said this while chewing his lip. His expression was thick with urgency and shame.
"The wounds are too severe. The unique ability that's burrowed into them is obstructing the healing so viciously that it's maddening."
This is as far as I can go.
Atra's head churned as she stared at the healing-type hero repeating the same words.
Not enough. Then what was she supposed to do? The only healing method Atra carried was the recovery potion she usually kept on hand.
She'd already used it. It had done almost nothing.
That was the result even with a product of a quality safe to use inside the Demon Realm.
A healing-type hero said he couldn't do it. Then who could she turn to?
She knew the answer. If one wasn't enough, go to two. If a senior hero couldn't do it, go to a top-grade hero.
Both options were impossible here.
Gritting her teeth, Atra lifted Lee Ha-yul again.
His body was growing cold. She couldn't feel a hint of warmth. It made her hope feel like it was dying out, little by little.
She kicked off the ground. She wrapped herself in aura and cut across the terrain, wrapping Lee Ha-yul in aura, too, to protect him from the force of her movement.
She had to reach the Association, to where a gate was. From there, wherever she went next, he had to receive treatment from high-grade healing personnel.
- Hah, ugh...
Even as she pounded the ground without pause.
Every time she heard that gasping breath from her arms, Atra's heart sank with a heavy thud.
He was unstable. The Lee Ha-yul in her arms was so precarious, as if his breath might stop at any moment. As if he might... die right then.
The stench of blood filled the air. The subtly sweet body scent that usually clung to him was gone, replaced by the smell of death strong enough to numb the nose.
All of it tormented Atra. Her chest ached like it was being torn apart.
'I shouldn't have let him go.'
She shouldn't have told herself not to get attached. She shouldn't have ignored him, telling herself she couldn't stay by his side his whole life. It was a bullshit excuse.
Regret.
Always, regret that came far, far too late.
.
.
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[Local time, 12:15 PM. A chain dungeon outbreak has occurred centered on the Sipnaha region of Scotland.]
The weekend of the first week of April.
The breaking news swept across the peaceful everyday world like a hammer blow.
[The World Superhuman Association has stated that this Sipnaha outbreak was an anomalous case with no prior warning signs, caused by a chain outbreak of five Grade 4 dungeons.]
A dungeon outbreak.
However much peace the world might enjoy, these occasional disasters often claimed countless lives.
[The outbreak has been confirmed to have caused approximately 500 deaths and 7,000 injuries. These figures are still being tallied and are expected to rise further as the investigation continues.]
The news spread quickly across the nation.
News of a dungeon outbreak and the resulting casualties was always treated as critically important—and it was the kind of sensational news that especially grabbed attention in daily life.
Sensational news. And that was where it ended.
In the end, unless you were directly involved, it stopped at feeling a moment of pity.
Atra stood in a position that could be called directly involved.
Near the entrance to the healing room.
She sat blankly in a chair, listening to the breaking news playing from a hologram.
'......'
It had been nearly a full day since Lee Ha-yul entered the intensive healing center.
Even after receiving treatment from dozens of professional healers over that day, Lee Ha-yul still hadn't regained consciousness.
That was the scale of his injuries.
What was especially infuriating was that the unique ability that had caused the damage was so vicious that even professional healers struggled to clear away its remnants.
- Step, step
The sound of deliberately unhidden footsteps approached. Atra raised her head.
A man in a formal uniform was crossing the hallway toward her. A familiar face.
Maxwell.
A superhuman from the Association's Disaster Management Department, which handled damage from dungeons, he was slightly acquainted with Atra.
"It's been a while, Clyde. Two years."
"...Yeah."
Her hair had grown brittle in the short time since the incident, and her voice held not a shred of strength.
Her complexion was ashen and lifeless, and her eyes had lost their light.
Seeing her, Maxwell sighed deeply to himself. He'd expected it, but her condition was poor.
Maxwell knew Atra's situation. The tragedy her former disciple had suffered, and what kind of relationship she had with Lee Ha-yul now.
He understood, at least in part, how she must be feeling right now.
He hesitated briefly, but he still had a job to do.
"Top-grade Hero Atra Clyde. In your capacity as Cadet Lee Ha-yul's guardian, will you accompany us to review the observation records of the incident site?"
The incident site, observation records.
Atra's eyes trembled.
.
.
.
The interior was dim overall. Atra chewed her lip steadily, glaring at the hologram floating in the center of the room.
The hologram showed the scene just before the dungeon outbreak... specifically, Lee Ha-yul.
A magic tool imbued with the Tower of Observation's Authority had captured the events at the time.
It hadn't been able to transmit while the space was isolated, but now that the isolation had lifted, playback was possible.
In the footage.
Strictly speaking, it wasn't Lee Ha-yul's actual appearance. The figure captured had a completely different build and appearance.
"It's been confirmed that Cadet Lee Ha-yul was carrying a perception-obstruction magic tool at the time."
At Maxwell's explanation, Atra nodded.
Bang! A deafening noise rang out from the footage. Simultaneously, Lee Ha-yul staggered. He grimaced hard and pressed a hand to his head.
Atra guessed that the ability Lee Ha-yul had described as 'spatial perception' was the culprit.
Had the dungeon outbreak affected space itself, damaging him through his spatial perception?
The footage continued.
The dungeon rampaged, and the sky turned a murky grey.
In the midst of that bewildering situation.
Lee Ha-yul first took care of a young child near him and headed for a shelter. Even while doing so, he used magic to kill monsters, whittling down their numbers.
The footage continued.
Lee Ha-yul, having sent the child into the shelter, did not enter it himself.
He was only a cadet, barely two months past his awakening, but he plunged into the heart of the rampaging dungeon without hesitation, killing monsters and saving people.
A Red Leaf Hound's claws slashed at Lee Ha-yul. Fluttering cloth barely intercepted the attack.
There were too many monsters. Too many people to save. Lee Ha-yul had no room to breathe.
He handled monsters from a distance with magic, but there were times he had to use his own body to block.
And there were moments he had to throw his body in the way to protect civilians.
He blocked everything: with artifacts, with aura, and sometimes without even the time to deploy them, taking the blow with his bare body and shedding blood.
'......'
His injuries then had been minor. There was nothing that could have caused wounds like the ones he had now.
The footage accelerated. For hours, Lee Ha-yul killed monsters and saved people without stopping for a second.
The acceleration stopped. In one corner of the footage, a familiar monster appeared.
The monster that had been lying next to Lee Ha-yul with its head crushed—the alpha individual that had been sustaining the dungeon's outbreak.
Boom! The monster in the footage kicked off the ground. It was considerably fast. A speed that the Lee Ha-yul Atra knew would have trouble reacting to.
Its massive front paw drew back. The paw trembled slightly from the condensed power.
The next instant, Atra anticipated what would happen and gritted her teeth.
Crash! With a massive impact, Lee Ha-yul's body was slammed into the road. Atra's fingertips twitched.
Skidding across and gouging up the asphalt, the flung Lee Ha-yul squirmed.
It wasn't the appearance from the perception obstruction; it was his true form. The perception-obstruction magic tool had been knocked off by that single blow.
'......'
Atra could see Lee Ha-yul's face clearly now.
His face was twisted, stained with pain, trembling with terror.
She understood. Lee Ha-yul, who hadn't even experienced proper real combat, was reacting exactly as anyone would.
His feet dragged backward. He stepped back. That was natural. Naturally, he should. Naturally, he should run away.
Atra prayed he would just keep running.
And then, his legs stopped.
It was an instant—a moment that couldn't have lasted more than a few seconds. Lee Ha-yul's face twisted sharply.
Fear and pain.
With both flickering across his face, Lee Ha-yul kicked off the ground.
Forward.
Toward where the monster was.
Wrapping himself in aura, he stood in front of the monster to block it.
As Atra stared vacantly at Lee Ha-yul in the footage, a question-and-answer from some day long ago brushed through her mind.
She'd asked him, roughly, how he'd respond if he got caught up in a dangerous incident.
Back then, Lee Ha-yul had scratched his head, gauged her expression, and answered through his hologram.
- [I'd probably run away. I'm a coward, so I don't have the guts to fight with my life on the line.]
The image of Lee Ha-yul, watching her reaction nervously after giving that answer, worried she might be disappointed in him.
'Why...'
Overlaid with that was the image of Lee Ha-yul, his body reduced to a tattered rag, gritting his teeth and standing against the alpha individual.
Why hadn't he run away?
The one person who could answer that question still hadn't regained consciousness.
She regretted it.
Far, far too late.