A Whole Different Kind of Firepower
The issue of hunter aftereffects was under the control of the National Security Bureau.
Hearing that, a question rose in Oh Hyeon-seong's mind.
Choi Jeong-il spoke to him.
"The more sites hunters deploy to, the more their cellular recovery converges toward zero. Then, once they take a major injury, they're left with lasting sequelae—psychological or physical. Every hunter's case is wildly different, of course, but that much is common knowledge everyone in the industry knows from experience."
"That's right."
Some were showered with attention for their brilliant talent, only to have their natural recovery bottom out after barely a handful of gates, ending their careers before they'd truly begun.
Once a hunter's recovery collapsed and the aftereffects erupted, their bodies plummeted with no chance of rebounding.
But others—ordinary, unremarkable men who first gripped a sword as mediocrities—pushed onward through hundreds of gate conquests without a single aftereffect taking root, climbing ever higher.
Because of this, there was a saying in the old days that the ones who survived to the very end in this business were the strong ones.
Han Su-yeon, Choi Jeong-il, and the other juniors had all been selected precisely because they possessed top-class aptitude in that respect.
Yet even Oh Hyeon-seong, who had commanded such teams, had felt his body start to creak and groan as he led the charge through countless battlefields—and after that final battle, he had finally broken.
"Finding out the cause of all that was our laboratory's single biggest research project. We poured in enormous manpower and money. And in the end, we discovered that the source of every one of those problems was something called takgi."
"Takgi...?"
Oh Hyeon-seong's head tilted in puzzlement.
Monster takgi—the malignant energy—permeated not just the gates but the entire Earth these days.
It was in the very ground he stood on, in the crops of the fields, even in the clear river water.
Only its concentration was extremely faint.
Apart from the environments of the government-designated Restricted Areas, the residual takgi wasn't enough to cause any real harm to the human body itself.
While it was the main culprit behind disrupted ecosystems and foul-tasting crops, when it came to humans alone, numerous studies had already proven it harmless.
"If takgi were really that dangerous, wouldn't every ordinary civilian be dead by now?"
"To be precise, it's the direct exposure to takgi from gates that's the problem. It has nothing to do with civilians—it's a long-term, harmful effect that affects only the hunters who enter gates and fight monsters."
The takgi spewing from gates and the residual takgi on Earth were on entirely different levels.
That was also why ordinary civilians were strictly barred, by any means necessary, from gate sites of a certain grade and above.
But humanity was not stupid.
The vicious level of takgi in gates had been a matter of vigilance from early on, and appropriate countermeasures had been put in place.
The very reason every gate and hunter began receiving grades was, at its origin, built around a single standard: whether a hunter's body could withstand that site's takgi.
"Just as a Rank 9 hunter would never be assigned an S-Rank gate, if everyone simply followed the current grading system, there should never be any harm to their bodies from takgi. So what's the problem?"
"Unfortunately, the problem is that it only appears to be no problem. On-site, nothing feels wrong. Come back, run the tests, and everything looks normal—but every trace of takgi they were exposed to accumulates in the body, untouched. It lingers in the flesh forever, until the person dies, slowly piling up and quietly gnawing them away."
Choi Jeong-il continued.
"There's no safe line. Even if I—a 12th Grade hunter—conquered a mere D-Rank gate instead of an S-Rank, the takgi accumulated there would remain in my body for eternity."
"Hold on..."
Oh Hyeon-seong pressed a hand to his forehead for a moment.
This flew squarely in the face of everything he'd thought he knew.
Then the crippling aftereffects that had clung to his own body—weren't those, in the end, also the work of takgi?
And not just any takgi—a massive reservoir of it, accumulated and accumulated again over a full ten years, was still sitting inside this body of his.
"If that's true, why hasn't the world been told?"
"After our laboratory discovered it, we intended to go public. But the moment we tried to announce it, the government shut us down. And it wasn't a case of them scrambling to bury it after the fact—their own research institutes had already reached the same conclusion. They'd known all along."
"So why on earth would they suppress something that should be shouted from every rooftop?"
"The reason is simple. The government doesn't want hunting to become a job people avoid. If anything, they want the current trend to continue."
"Ha... ignorance is bliss, is that it? And you managed to keep your mouth shut all this time?"
"I wanted to find a concrete solution first, rather than start a fire. But there was no answer. Only more pessimism stacked on top of pessimism. That is, until you appeared, Sunbae."
The other reason Choi Jeong-il had never felt able to go public was that there was, quite simply, no real treatment—a countermeasure to the problem.
There was no method on Earth for scraping takgi out of the human body once it had settled in.
It had been judged theoretically impossible, and the prevailing view was that it would remain impossible for at least the next few decades.
The most he could do was juggle his agency hunters' schedules to minimize their burden as much as possible.
After Joo Ji-hye fell ill, he had pulled her from gate sites entirely and filled her calendar with filming and other engagements for the same reason.
It's like getting blindsided with a shovel to the back of the head. And to think it all connects in a single chain like this.
Oh Hyeon-seong clicked his tongue.
But thanks to that, the whole picture had snapped into perfect clarity.
The crops raised by the spirits didn't merely heal injuries—they neutralized takgi, the root cause itself, inside the body. And it explained why he had been unable to hear the spirits' voices for all this time.
A single, compelling hypothesis took shape in his mind.
"Sunbae."
"Hm?"
"There's... something I'd like to ask of you."
Choi Jeong-il spoke with a grave, solemn expression.
At some point he had even set down the spoon he'd been holding.
"A favor, is it."
Oh Hyeon-seong let out a soft laugh.
Just from the look on his face, he could see how long the man had agonized before bringing it up.
Besides, he had a pretty good idea of what he was about to say, so he brushed off his seat and rose.
"Get up. Let's talk outside."
"Hm hm~"
Joo Ji-hye, sitting in the yard, hummed a tune to herself.
She'd been staring blankly at the view outside for a while now, and yet the scenery refused to grow old.
Her taste in movies was so picky that she'd storm out the moment she decided one was a waste of time—yet here she was, watching a landscape like she'd been hypnotized.
Was this how her parents had felt, she wondered, now that she'd started receiving photos of scenery from them out of the blue?
"Huh?"
Just then, she felt a strange gaze fixed on her.
She glanced sideways—and her eyes met something small hiding behind the outdoor dining table.
At first she wondered if a rat had snuck in, but it was far too big for that.
"Gotcha!"
In an instant, Joo Ji-hye kicked off from her seat, lunged, and snatched the creature up.
But when she saw what was in her hands, both her eyes went wide.
Squirm, squirm.
"Eh? Why is there an otter in a place like this?"
She hadn't seen wrong.
A plump, fluffy-looking otter dangled from her grip, wriggling.
It flailed about in apparent alarm, but Joo Ji-hye simply stared at it, dazed—as if she'd taken a blow to the head.
"So... so cute."
Her expression melted into mush.
She had always been hopelessly weak to cute things.
From its adorably squished face to this squeaky little cry, the creature was driving her insane.
"Eee~"
Joo Ji-hye stretched the otter's cheeks out in a long, continuous pull.
The creature, evidently displeased, slapped her hand away—and even that was cute.
Oh, hang it all. Joo Ji-hye dove right in, clamped onto its plump little paws, and nuzzled her cheek against them.
"Hehehe. Hello theh ~!"
She hugged the creature tight and refused to let go.
The fluffy texture scrambled her brain entirely.
Part of her simply didn't want to let it go—and the more it squirmed, the tighter she squeezed.
"And where might you be going?"
"Follow me and find out."
Just then, Oh Hyeon-seong and Choi Jeong-il stepped outside.
Their gazes naturally landed on Joo Ji-hye, who was making a spectacle of herself in the middle of the yard.
"You... you...!"
Oh Hyeon-seong stared at her in horror.
Choi Jeong-il had gone just as white as a sheet.
"What exactly do you think you're doing?"
"Ah, an otter suddenly came into the yard! I have no idea where it crawled in from, but—"
"Get off it NOW! That's not an otter, that's Alvern!"
"Eh...? This is that spirit from before?"
What kind of nonsense was that supposed to be?
But before she could even lower her head again, she felt a bone-deep chill rising all the way to her chin.
Crack-crack-crack!
And then, right where she stood, Joo Ji-hye froze solid, stiff as a statue.
"Uuuugh..."
Joo Ji-hye sat hunched on the wooden porch, trembling like a leaf.
Beside her, barely rescued from her frozen state, a cluster of small fire spirits sat in a circle, gently melting the cold from her body.
It was a rare kindness from the shy spirits, who normally kept their distance—but at Oh Hyeon-seong's request, they had gladly shared their warmth.
"Th... thank you..."
Joo Ji-hye chattered at the spirits through chattering teeth.
Alvern, the one who'd put her in that state in the first place, sat primly perched on Oh Hyeon-seong's shoulder in its manifested form, looking utterly unrepentant.
"Sorry about that. This one's a bit... high-maintenance."
Oh Hyeon-seong shook his head with a sigh.
Alvern was an extraordinarily fastidious creature—affectionate only toward its contractor, him, and no one else. Even Choi Jeong-il couldn't casually approach it or touch it.
The only person it ever permitted to lay hands on it, and only when it was in a good mood, was Han Su-yeon, with her natural affinity for spirits.
"...It was my fault anyway... I'll go rest in my room for a bit."
Worried about her, the fire spirits scampered after her as she went.
Joo Ji-hye trudged into her room with a gloomy face.
Oh Hyeon-seong clicked his tongue.
Unlike ordinary summoned beasts, once a spirit took on a manifested form, there was simply no way to tell them apart.
Mana detection was useless too—so unless you'd experienced it yourself, there was no helping the mistake.
But he had somewhere to go with Choi Jeong-il now, so he put it out of his mind and set off.
"Busy schedule these days?"
"No, things have been fairly light lately."
"Then stay a few more days."
"I couldn't. I'll head back up tomorrow regardless. Freeloading here forever would be a burden on you."
Choi Jeong-il cut in crisply.
He had tasted the food here for the first time today, and yet he could sever the string that cleanly.
Truly impressive self-restraint.
Of course, how long that restraint would actually hold remained to be seen.
"This is... a Restricted Area, isn't it?"
"It is. There's a reservoir inside. That's where we're fishing today."
"Excuse me? Fishing?"
"You go insane over fishing, don't you?"
"But a reservoir inside a Restricted Area would surely be heavily contaminated—how could we possibly fish there..."
When it came to the effects of takgi, water environments were far more vulnerable than land.
That meant the number of places where one could properly enjoy fishing had dwindled, and worst of all, the taste had become genuinely horrifying.
While natural produce could still hold its head above factory-made junk, seafood was one of the few fields where cheap factory-farmed product tasted far better than the wild catch.
That was the state of ordinary watersides—and fishing in a Restricted Area was outright madness.
Standing before the reservoir only reinforced that impression.
Even at a glance, the water was filthy with contamination.
"Even for us, fishing in a place like this... I doubt we'd be found alive the next morning."
"Alvern, I'm counting on you."
SPLASH!
Alvern leapt powerfully down from Oh Hyeon-seong's shoulder.
The spirit surged through the contaminated reservoir, then dove straight down near its center.
For nearly the length of time it must have taken to touch the very bottom—
Vuuuum!
A massive ripple spread beneath the surface of the water.
Alvern's dominion—an order of being apart from the low-tier spirits—washed across the entire reservoir.
The stagnant, foul water rapidly cleared into something crystalline and pristine, and Choi Jeong-il's jaw dropped open.