The Eye That Sees Truth
It wasn’t my request. No one knows how dungeons appear or where they sprout from. Even after countless eras of human history, the principle behind them remains unsolved. Modern science, mana engineering, and awakened research have poured out every hypothesis imaginable, yet the origin of dungeons is still one of humanity’s greatest unsolved mysteries.
Still, after all those long years, humanity had managed to learn one thing. Dungeons seemed to harbor a deep hostility toward people. The more densely populated an area, the more frequently and violently they appeared. The larger the city, the higher the frequency of dungeon outbreaks and the greater their difficulty. Conversely, in nearly uninhabited regions, dungeons rarely formed at all, and even when they did, their threat level was comparatively low.
That was why, if anyone asked why all four of Korea’s representative major guilds were centered in Seoul within this small peninsula nation, the answer was simple. Because Seoul had the most people.
Dungeon appearance rate. Mana density. High-risk dungeon occurrence rate. In every single metric, Seoul utterly dominated every other regional city. Even Busan, the second most populous city in the country, had a danger level several steps lower than Seoul by comparison.
“Ugh…!”
And roughly two months ago, that very fact caused a catastrophe in Seoul.
The highest risk level for dungeons appearing in Korea was normally classified as A-class. Considering the country’s total population hadn’t even reached one hundred million, anything higher almost never occurred.
Yet in the Gangseo District of Seoul, a B++-class dungeon had suddenly emerged. A dungeon sitting right on the threshold of A-class. Its internal mana density and monster threat level were far too high to simply call it B-class, but the measurements were still ambiguous enough that it couldn’t be officially designated A-class either. The mere news that such a thing had appeared in the heart of Gangseo had thrown the entire country into chaos at the time.
The Baekho Guild, which managed that district, immediately halted all scheduled raids. Low-rank dungeon clears, reconnaissance missions, external support contracts—everything was postponed. Instead, they poured every core asset they had into conquering the B++-class dungeon.
A conquest that would have taken any ordinary hunter nation several months even with military support was completed by Baekho in just one week. The incident made quite a stir in the global hunter industry as well. It was another example proving the speed of Korea’s response and the organizational power of the Baekho Guild. After that event, the name “Baekho of Gangseo” carried even heavier weight.
But it wasn’t all glory. There had been a price that was never made public. The core power of the Baekho Guild. Han Sora’s right eye.
‘That day, I overused Veritas Eye too much in order to finish the raid quickly.’
Inside the B++-class dungeon, Han Sora had activated her skill almost without rest. Reading monster movements. Avoiding traps. Covering her teammates’ blind spots. Analyzing the boss monster’s patterns.
Veritas Eye was originally the ability to read an opponent’s minute movements. But the burden it placed on her eyes and nerves was equally immense. Especially inside a dungeon overflowing with high-density mana—if used at full power for extended periods, it inflicted direct backlash on her vision.
As a result, a magical micro-damage had been left on the surface layer of Han Sora’s right cornea. It wasn’t a severe enough injury to cost her the eye. Her vision hadn’t gone completely blurry, and she could still fight without issue. To an ordinary person, it would have been nothing more than mild dryness, frequent stinging, or squinting in bright light.
But for Han Sora, it was different. She was a hunter who fought with her eyes.
Veritas Eye read gaze, breathing, and muscle tremors to predict the opponent’s next move. To her, even the slightest damage to her right eye was far more than mere discomfort. A tiny delay in a blink. A momentary glare when catching light. A foreign sensation that appeared after prolonged skill use. In the middle of combat, that half-beat difference could easily cost a life.
So she hid it. The fact that a core asset of the guild had been left with aftereffects. The moment that truth leaked outside, Baekho’s enemies would never let it slide. A guild that had already made countless foes through information warfare—if a weakness was exposed even once, they would swarm from every direction. Besides, Baekho had another unstable factor at the moment.
‘Her.’
The person who should have been at the center of the guild was no longer in perfect condition either. In that situation, they absolutely could not let Han Sora’s injury become known. That was why she wore special lenses to suppress the redness and used auxiliary tools to obscure the magical reaction on her eye’s surface. She hadn’t left any hospital records. It was a secret known to only a very small handful inside the guild.
Yet the man seeing it for the first time today—a mere first-year medical student—had pointed it out instantly.
“H-how did you figure that out?”
Han Sora’s voice trembled. On the other hand, Seo Jihoo simply tilted his head as if he found the question strange.
“Even if you ask how I knew… it was just visible.”
“Visible? You saw the micro-damage on the corneal surface that I hid even with special lenses?”
“You were wearing lenses?”
“…Pardon?”
What the hell… What the hell is this guy?!
For a moment, she was at a loss for words. It was too precise to be a coincidence. Her symptoms barely showed on the surface. Even most of her close guildmates hadn’t noticed, and hunters from the other four major guilds had shown no reaction whenever they met her. But Seo Jihoo was different. A very short conversation. A few blinks. The minute reaction of avoiding light. That alone had pinpointed the weakness she guarded most carefully.
In that instant, puzzle pieces that hadn’t fit before began rising one by one in Han Sora’s mind. The B-class hunter from the Geumseong Guild whom everyone had been certain would die. The absurd surgery that had saved him. The male medical student who had supposedly been inside the operating room. And now, the man who had instantly noticed the damage to her eye.
The wall called common sense shook. No—it completely collapsed.
“…It was real?”
“Pardon?”
Han Sora’s gaze locked onto Seo Jihoo. She could no longer see the man before her as mere camouflage. A shield? Bait? A protected male student? No. That assumption had been wrong from the very beginning.
“It was really… you?”
Han Sora’s voice trembled ever so slightly.
“Were you the one who saved that B-class hunter from the Geumseong Guild back then?”
The moment she realized it, astonishment flooded her blue eyes. And through that astonishment, a tiny spark of hope began to seep in.
The hope that he might be able to save her… An absurd hope, yet one she now had no choice but to cling to.
Han Sora has recognized your identity.
***
If you turned on the TV, you’d hear the name fairly often. Korea’s Four Major Guilds. Geumseong of Gangnam, Baekho of Gangseo, Hyeonmu of Gangbuk, and Cheongryong of Gangdong. An A-class hunter from one of them—Baekho—was currently sitting in my living room.
A hunter in the top 0.1 percent. A superhuman among superhumans. And that woman knew about the B-class hunter’s surgery I had begged to keep secret.
“…So, what exactly do you want?”
When I asked without bothering to hide my wariness, Han Sora bit her lip for a moment. The elegant “ohohoho” noblewoman act from earlier had vanished. Only her blue eyes trembled strangely.
And then—
“P-please perform surgery on me!”
Of course. So that was it.
I glanced at Han Sora’s right eye.
‘I saw it in a hunter medicine textbook back at the university.’
A hunter’s body was strong. Skin and muscles reinforced by mana could deflect the cannon fire of a modern tank depending on how well they had been trained. But in a hospital, that very strength became poison instead.
Hunter surgery basically involved cutting, spreading, and opening a reinforced body to reach the affected area. It was called surgery, but by ordinary human standards, it was closer to construction work. The eyes, however, were different. The cornea, lens, retina, optic nerve—none of those areas could be forced open with brute strength. The slightest mistake could destroy vision, which would likely lead directly to a loss of combat ability.
Thanks to that, techniques for opening a hunter’s body had advanced, but methods to save sensitive areas like the eyes had yet to catch up. She had probably come here because of that.
That right eye. The micro-damage she had to hide even with special lenses. If I was the one who had opened up and saved a B-class hunter’s body before, maybe I could fix her eye too. She must have been grasping at straws.
But.
“How rude.”
“…Huh?”
“You barge into someone else’s house and the first thing out of your mouth is asking for surgery? Besides, I’m still just a medical student without a license.”
“T-that’s…”
“And you dug up someone else’s surgical records without permission, then waited inside their house without even contacting them first… At this point, isn’t this less of a request and more of a threat?”
I had seen plenty of people like this in my previous life. National assembly members, families of conglomerate chairmen, people who knew the hospital director—humans who demanded to be seen first while patients waiting in line could drop dead for all they cared. Maybe those memories were overlapping, because my voice came out colder than I intended.
“If it were a patient on the verge of death, that would be one thing. Please leave now. Before I call the Ministry of Male Affairs.”
A firm answer. It might have sounded a little heartless. But at least Han Sora’s right eye wasn’t a life-or-death issue right now. It could become a weakness as a hunter, but it wasn’t a patient dying at this very moment. That was where I drew the line. That was my judgment.
So I turned away, intending to say nothing more. But at that moment—
Thud.
“……”
The sound of something hitting the floor. When I looked back, Han Sora was on her knees. The A-class hunter who had been laughing like a noble lady just moments ago. The woman said to be the next guild master candidate for Baekho. She was clutching my arm in a humiliating posture.
“Please… I beg you…”
“Haa.”
My brow furrowed.
“Please. Lend me your strength. I’ll compensate you for today’s events however you want. The unauthorized entry, the investigation—everything. I’ll make it right. As much as you desire…”
Money, huh. So it came down to that again. I thought there was no need to listen any further and tried to shake her off. At that instant—
Drip.
Something fell onto the back of my hand. A teardrop. Tears were falling from Han Sora’s blue eyes.
“My mother…”
“…Yes?”
“My mother is in so much pain…!”
My hand stopped. Han Sora lifted her head, teeth clenched. The haughty look in her eyes had crumbled, and her lips were trembling faintly.
“The truth is… I am the only daughter of Han Yura, the guild master of Baekho.”
“Wait. The Baekho Guild Master?!”
“Yes…”
She drew in a shaky breath as if swallowing a sob.
“My mother… she might die soon…”
“……”
“The surgery I’m asking for isn’t for my eye… My eye doesn’t matter… I came because I want to save my mother. I want to save Mom.”
At those words, I couldn’t say anything. Just moments ago I had thought of this woman as the same type of powerful person I had grown sick of in my previous life. But the eyes now clutching my arm were different. They weren’t the eyes of someone begging for their own life. They weren’t eyes asking to have their own pain fixed. They were eyes begging for someone else to be saved—the kind of eyes a doctor finds hardest to turn away from.
“Please… help me.”
Han Sora spoke in a trembling voice.
“If you do that for me, I’ll do anything for you…”
“Anything?”
“Yes! Anything at all.”
“……”
I looked down at her. Unauthorized entry. Background investigation. A desperate, unreasonable request. None of it sat well with me. But that look in her eyes—I simply couldn’t push her away coldly. It had been the same in my previous life. I remembered the eyes of family members weeping and begging to save their loved ones far longer than the patients themselves asking to be saved. And right now, Han Sora had exactly those eyes.