An Inescapable Fate
A clamor had echoed through the house in the dead of night.
Oh Hyeon-seong blinked his eyes open, rose from bed, and stepped out of his room.
"What on earth is that noise... huh?"
The moment he entered the living room and saw the kitchen lights blazing, he froze stiff in place.
The kitchen was already a complete disaster.
Joo Ji-hye lay sprawled unconscious on the floor, and standing beside her was Han Su-yeon, who had appeared out of nowhere.
"Ah... hey, Sunbae. Hi?"
She waved her hand with an awkward smile.
He rubbed his eyes once, but no—he wasn't seeing things.
"...What are you two doing there?"
"So, let me get this straight... you barged into our house without a word in the middle of the night, this girl was rummaging through the kitchen, and you took her for a burglar and took her down?"
"Sorry, it was so late I didn't want to wake you. I figured I'd just park the car and sleep here, but I sensed someone clumsily trying to hide inside. And it was less that I caught her—more like she attacked and I countered."
Han Su-yeon offered her excuses.
Oh Hyeon-seong turned to look beside him. Joo Ji-hye, carried out to the living room, was still out cold.
"Why on earth are you in my house with no warning at all? You said you'd be too busy to come for a while, didn't you?"
"That's the thing... my schedule suddenly cleared up. I hadn't planned anything, and you just happened to cross my mind, so I came straight down."
"At this hour of the night?"
"It was a bit too late even to call ahead. It's my first vacation in ages, and I couldn't sleep anyway—wasting the time felt like a crime. I'm sorry for the commotion."
Han Su-yeon scratched her head and apologized.
Even she knew it was a flimsy excuse, but there had been nothing she could do. Coming up with a plausible cover story was impossible when the entire journey here had been profoundly irrational to begin with.
She hadn't been given a gap in her schedule—she had simply blown off her obligations and left on a whim.
After the potatoes Oh Hyeon-seong had given her ran out, she'd managed to hold out for a few days, but her patience hadn't lasted long.
It wasn't merely that she wanted to eat potatoes again. Something about the way her breath kept catching at night—the tight, suffocating feeling she'd been having—had finally driven her to make the impulsive drive down here in the small hours.
She surprised even herself. Had she always been this impulsive a person?
It was something the Han Su-yeon of ordinary days would never have done.
"You told me last time I could come visit again. Can I impose on you just a few more days?"
"Well... I don't mind. How long are you staying?"
"Hmm, about a week?"
"Fine by me."
Oh Hyeon-seong clicked his tongue softly and nodded. The house was plenty big anyway.
"So who's this one?"
"Joo Ji-hye. She's with Aegis."
"Joo Ji-hye? Ah, the hunter Choi Jeong-il has been grooming?"
Han Su-yeon started and turned to look at Joo Ji-hye. Now that she studied her properly, it really was her.
A celebrity so famous that even someone with no interest in the hunter scene couldn't fail to recognize her, given how many fields she dominated.
Still, as the de facto head of the Management Bureau, Han Su-yeon received regular reports on all hunters of Grade 10 and above. She simply hadn't recognized her at first because of the darkness.
"So what was she doing in the kitchen, anyway?"
"Eating stew, from the look of it."
"...Stew? Already?"
At Han Su-yeon's testimony, Oh Hyeon-seong stared at the unconscious girl in disbelief. Sure enough, there was a small smudge at the corner of her mouth.
"Couldn't even last a single day. I'm a little disappointed, honestly."
"Did you starve her or something?"
"You think I would?"
Oh Hyeon-seong was a man of honor—he wasn't so stingy as to withhold a single meal. Guests deserved hospitality, after all.
"Sneaking stew in the middle of the night and ending up like this. She's going to kick her blanket when she wakes up, I bet."
"...What should we do? Should we wake her?"
Han Su-yeon regarded Joo Ji-hye with a troubled look, but Oh Hyeon-seong shook his head.
"A hunter isn't going to be seriously hurt by a hit like that, and I hear she's had insomnia lately. Just let her sleep. She'll rest better this way."
Joo Ji-hye's eyes were closed in deep slumber. She had been knocked out by an impact even a Grade 10 hunter couldn't withstand—but seen without that knowledge, she looked as peaceful as a child sleeping soundly.
Yaaawn.
A yawn burst from Oh Hyeon-seong. Waking up abruptly in the middle of the night meant the fatigue hadn't worn off yet.
Back in the day, pulling all-nighters had simply been part of the normal cycle. Since moving to the countryside, though, his appetite for sleep had grown enormously.
The man he used to be would have felt a flicker of self-loathing at such laziness.
But the Oh Hyeon-seong of now had come to accept it as a rather pleasant change.
"Let's leave it here for tonight. It's late, and you must be worn out from the drive. Any spare room you like—just go pick one and sleep."
"Thanks, Sunbae."
Oh Hyeon-seong scooped up Joo Ji-hye, carried her to the annex, and settled her into a room. Watching him go, Han Su-yeon headed for the room she'd used on her last visit.
She pulled out the bedding, spread it, and lay down.
Objectively speaking, it was a wretched excuse for a bed compared to the one in her own home.
And yet it offered a comfort she had never once felt in the house and bed she'd slept in for over a decade. Why was it so relaxing? It felt almost like coming home.
Han Su-yeon sank into sleep more contentedly than she had in years.
The next morning.
Warm sunlight filtering through the window tickled her eyelids, and Joo Ji-hye jolted awake, pushing herself upright.
"Hup...! Wh-what the—"
She rose as if snapping out of a fever dream, glancing wildly around before instinctively curling in on herself.
A faint throb in her head and arm. A hazy memory surfaced—of being struck by something and blacking out.
Click.
She slipped out of the room, muffling her presence, and poked just her head out the door of the annex.
"You're up."
"Hyaah!"
Oh Hyeon-seong, who had spotted her the instant she emerged, waved. Convinced the timing was uncannily bad luck, she muttered under her breath about her misfortune—then noticed a woman standing beside him.
"Sleep well?"
"...Huh?"
The grogginess burned off Joo Ji-hye in an instant. It was the exact same woman who had appeared out of nowhere in the dead of night yesterday and traded blows with her.
The problem was that the face was one Joo Ji-hye knew all too well.
"H-Han Su-yeon?!"
Stunned, Joo Ji-hye could only stare at her blankly. Oh Hyeon-seong spoke up from between them.
"You recognized her right away, I see. Well then, why don't you two introduce yourselves."
"Ah! I-I'm so sorry, Deputy Director, ma'am!"
"Just use my name. You're Ji-hye of Aegis, yes? I've heard a great deal about you."
"It's an honor..."
When Han Su-yeon extended her hand, Joo Ji-hye hastily accepted the handshake. Her cheeks flushed crimson.
A living legend of the hunter world whom she had never once laid eyes on despite all her years in the field—and here she was, in the flesh, in a farmhouse yard. It was dizzying.
'Is that really THE Han Su-yeon?'
Joo Ji-hye stole a glance at Oh Hyeon-seong. She'd been certain he was some charlatan who'd tricked her out here with nonsense about training—so what was a figure like this doing here? What exactly was their relationship, that such a person would show up at a country house, of all places?
"I'm truly sorry about yesterday. Your attack came in stronger than I expected, and deflecting it just... slipped."
"N-no, it's fine."
Joo Ji-hye's head bowed deep. Never before, on her way to the top, had she suffered such a blatant defeat.
Given who her opponent was, there was room for extenuating circumstances—but to think she'd been utterly overwhelmed without accomplishing a single thing.
"S-so, um, what exactly is your relationship with the Teacher?"
"We crossed paths often when I worked at the Management Bureau. When I first joined, she showed me the ropes, and we grew close along the—"
"No need to lie."
"Ah."
Pierced by Oh Hyeon-seong's blunt remark, Han Su-yeon nodded.
"She's my direct senior. My superior at the Bureau—we served on the same team."
"Wait—she was YOUR superior? Senior to Deputy Director—er, to Miss Su-yeon? That can't be..."
"Forget all that. Why were you eating stew in the middle of the night?"
Oh Hyeon-seong cut in. Joo Ji-hye wore a brief look of confusion—but thanks to his words, the rest of yesterday's memory came flooding back.
The moment when she, the great Joo Ji-hye, had snuck into a kitchen like a common thief and been caught mid-bite into a bowl of soybean paste stew.
Grrrowl!
"Uh? Th-that's..."
And right on cue, her stomach let out a growl loud enough to hear, and Joo Ji-hye's face turned red enough to burst.
Joo Ji-hye sat before the very same breakfast table as the night before. Rice, soybean paste stew, and a few basic side dishes—nothing more.
But her reaction was the complete opposite of yesterday's. She ate with her head nearly buried in the table, utterly absorbed.
"Hnnngh..."
Joo Ji-hye's expression melted into pure bliss.
It was still an absurdly delicious taste. No—unlike the cold stew she'd eaten in the small hours, this was a freshly made batch, still steaming hot, and so it was even better.
And on top of that, every spoonful of rice and every single side dish was flawless. She'd been robbed of her meal last night before she could properly eat, and her starved body took in the food like a thing possessed.
"This is so good!"
"...That's why I told you to eat when it was offered."
Oh Hyeon-seong shook his head from where he sat on the veranda outside. She looked so mortified, her face so red she might burst, that he had simply set the table for her and stepped outside with Han Su-yeon to give her space.
From the sounds drifting out behind them, she was clearly enjoying every bite.
"Haha, if it's her first taste of your cooking, Sunbae, that's about right."
Han Su-yeon said with a laugh. But she was hungry too.
She hadn't eaten a single meal since yesterday, and the aroma of soybean paste stew wafting from inside was devastating—her mouth watered uncontrollably.
She hadn't let it show, but Oh Hyeon-seong somehow noticed anyway.
"You're hungry too, aren't you? We'll fix something for ourselves later—she looks like she's about to demolish everything on the table. For now, make do with this."
Oh Hyeon-seong pulled out a basket. The moment the cloth was lifted, a delicious smell and billows of steam rose up.
"...Potatoes."
Color bloomed across Han Su-yeon's face at once. Without a shred of ceremony, she gave a quick word of thanks, grabbed a potato, and began eating with relish.
She'd been gorging on the ones he'd gifted her at home, yet the peerless taste never grew old.
"You too, come on out. Eat up."
With a soft chuckle, Oh Hyeon-seong thrust the basket down toward the ground. The spirits hiding beneath the veranda emerged one by one, taking potatoes and sharing them among themselves.
He'd steamed them for the little ones in the first place, but feeling hungry himself, he picked up one as well.
"Something I didn't get to ask yesterday—why is Ji-hye even here? It's not as if Choi Jeong-il is staying here, and she has no connection to you whatsoever, right?"
Han Su-yeon asked between mouthfuls of potato. From Oh Hyeon-seong's perspective—five full years spent on treatment and rehabilitation—there was no possible point of contact with Joo Ji-hye. It was only natural for her to wonder.
"It's a long story... but she suffered an injury during a gate raid that caused psychological damage. She came here to recuperate because of it."
"Recuperate?"
Han Su-yeon tilted her head.
"Hold on. A mental illness caused by physical injury... that's not good."
Hunters possessed stronger minds than ordinary people. To be precise, it had nothing to do with mood regulation like battling depression—it meant a heightened resistance to external stress.
It was the wellspring that let them enter a gate—an environment utterly alien to Earth—without their sanity collapsing, and stand their ground against monsters.
But there were cases, like Joo Ji-hye's, where a severe physical injury inflicted by a monster cascaded into psychological aftereffects.
That said, such cases weren't common. Oh Hyeon-seong himself had survived wounds that should have killed him many times over, and he remained perfectly sane.
Once a problem did take root, however, the situation turned grave.
"I don't know what you mean by 'recuperate,' but you know this as well as I do, Sunbae. A hunter who develops psychological aftereffects never recovers."
Unlike ordinary cases, a hunter's mind, once it began to crumble, never healed.
The longer a hunter served, the greater the odds of developing such aftereffects—yet modern medicine couldn't even identify the precise cause.
Some whispered it was an extraterrestrial virus that had ridden the gates in from beyond the dimension; others claimed ultra-microscopic parasites from the otherworld had burrowed into the brain. The theories were endless, and all of them flimsy.
Then and now, there was only the onset, the outcome, and the response that followed. The cause remained a blank.
"And I'd been hoping something would change while I was laid up. So much for that."
Oh Hyeon-seong smiled bitterly.
A hunter whose mind broke never simply stayed as they were. A human psyche that cannot heal is like a body whose cells no longer regenerate—it inevitably deteriorates, little by little.
"How long has it been?"
"She said it's already been a year since the injury that triggered it. For that, her aggression is on the low side."
The gravest problem of all was that the more a hunter's mind collapsed, the stronger their aggression grew. And when the deterioration passed the point of no support—when the mind shattered completely—the aggression reached its peak, and all reason was lost.
Awakener Psychosis.
Its official designation: Awaken Psychosis.
A hunter who slipped into that state could never be turned back. And for beings who could become calamities in themselves, only one final fate awaited—Disposal.
"...Six months, at most."
Han Su-yeon turned and looked back at Joo Ji-hye, her gaze dry and cold.