The Savior Arrives
"Heavier than it looks."
"Right? Farming takes a lot of strength. It's no trouble for awakened like us, but honestly, it amazes me how the village elders manage it the way they do."
Oh Hyeon-seong and Choi Jeong-il chatted amiably as they hefted the boxes together. They were moving crates full of crop samples one by one, setting them along the roadside beyond the barrier.
Lab staff would be arriving shortly to collect them in person. Given how important the contents were, Choi Jeong-il had insisted they couldn't be trusted to a courier or anyone else's hands.
"If the analysis turns anything up, I'll report it to you right away."
"Good. Here's hoping we find something useful."
Oh Hyeon-seong nodded. The problem of miasma accumulating in hunters' bodies was research Choi Jeong-il had poured himself into with desperate devotion — but Oh Hyeon-seong was as much a victim of it as anyone.
His condition had improved noticeably through steady consumption of spirit crops, yet he still hadn't shaken the aftereffects completely.
I used to have five mana rings. Right now I've only managed to restore one.
He rested a hand briefly over his dantian. Even Alvern's presence alone filled his capacity to the brim. It was a testament to just how powerful the spirit was — but compared to his prime, the amount of mana he could handle had shrunk to a fraction of what it once was.
His old partners. To resummon the High Spirits of each element, he would need to raise his mana back to its former level. More precisely, he would need to restore his body to the point where he could unseal his mana and reactivate all five rings.
It is improving little by little even now, but honestly, the pace doesn't satisfy me.
Which was why Oh Hyeon-seong wanted crops with a stronger effect. It was the reason he'd run a few experiments on his produce recently. The more delicious and higher the quality, the better the crops would be at neutralizing miasma — or so he reasoned — and if he found the right method, his recovery could accelerate far beyond its current rate.
And if that happens, maybe I'll get to see Priya again.
The first spirit he had ever contracted, and the mightiest of the High Spirits. She was also the one who had been with him from the very beginning of his life as a hunter to its bitter end.
If only he could drag her back out of that pitch-black darkness, he was willing to pay whatever price it took.
Choi Jeong-il seemed to be thinking along similar lines, because he spoke up. "If Alvern has returned... does that mean your other spirits can come back as well, sunbae-nim?"
"Yes. Which is exactly why I need to shake off these aftereffects for good." He nodded, then added, "Who knows — the spirit crops might even bring your eye back someday."
Oh Hyeon-seong said it while looking at him. Of course, equating his own legs with Choi Jeong-il's eye was a stretch. Milder aftereffects easing over time and reviving a body part whose function had been completely lost were two entirely different matters — and Choi Jeong-il knew it as well as anyone.
"...I don't expect that kind of thing. Whether a wound can heal or not, I know better than anyone."
He had spent the past week eating dishes made with spirit crops, fish from the reservoir included, but his left eye hadn't changed in the slightest.
And yet — when even the resummoning of a spirit everyone had believed lost forever, a thing no method could ever achieve, had come to pass, Oh Hyeon-seong had come to believe that nothing was truly impossible.
"Anyway, go on inside. I can handle handing over the boxes myself."
"What would I even do in an empty house? I'll just wait here with you."
With all the boxes moved, Oh Hyeon-seong plopped down on the ground. The only thing country life added to his days was leisure. Because of that, he tried not to grow too impatient about the problem of his aftereffects. He had plenty of time, after all, and nothing chasing him.
The old him would have torn the whole world apart if that was what it took to find the fastest possible way — but the man he'd been then and the man he was now were different people in more ways than one.
Ring!
Just then, his phone went off. He tapped the screen awake and found a text from Ju Ji-hye — short, but baffling beyond all reason.
"Save... me?"
What on earth was this.
The Disaster Management Bureau, led by Han Su-yeon, was the agency in overall command of controlling and managing every gate and hunter in the country. It had also been built upon the foundation of the Special Task Force — the unit Oh Hyeon-seong had once given his body to — and inherited its legacy.
Of course, officially speaking, the very existence of the Special Task Force had never been made public, and even back then a separate organization called the Management Bureau had existed in its own right. But the Disaster Management Bureau only became the full-fledged, massive institution it was today after the unit was disbanded.
The Special Task Force's successor, however, was not the Disaster Management Bureau alone.
The National Security Bureau.
An intelligence agency charged with information gathering, counter-espionage, national security, counter-terrorism, and overseas operations. It was one of three special institutions newly founded when the unit was dissolved — and if anything, it was this one that had inherited the true character of the Special Task Force.
The nature of its work forced it deep into the shadows by definition, yet in a world like the present one its presence could hardly stay small, so it featured often in public gossip and the media alike.
Herein lay the problem: among the duties assigned to the bureau, the category of "national security management" also included the handling of unstable hunters. Hunters afflicted with Awakener Psychosis — commonly known as Psychosis.
"Psychosis? Does that still happen these days?"
"Of course. Just last month, a high-ranked awakened went berserk in Incheon. Fortunately we subdued them before they could do any real damage, so there were no casualties. It was never reported in the media — that's probably why you haven't heard of it."
"Ah... what a troubling world we live in..."
Ju Ji-hye's pupils trembled every which way. Even she knew that the National Security Bureau was the organization responsible for the Disposal of psychotic awakened. Officially, the Bureau always insisted it did its utmost to treat berserkers, and claimed that more than half of all sufferers were successfully treated and released. But no one alive believed that was anything but a lie.
Psychosis was a disease that could never be cured. In truth, the prevailing rumor was that every single one of them was disposed of.
"Memory lapses at odd intervals, inability to control your emotions, crippling bouts of anxiety... Has anything like that ever happened to you?"
"M-me? Why? What for?"
"You took a serious injury in Busan last year, so I thought I'd ask whether you've had any problems of that sort. Identifying people like that early and helping them recover is part of our job, after all."
"Wha— no way! Come on, I'm perfectly fine!"
Ju Ji-hye clamped her trembling legs tightly under her hands. But she couldn't hide the beads of sweat running down her forehead, and the moment she became conscious of them, she fared even worse. On a film set she could act with divine skill — so why, in front of Baek Ji-soo of all people, was she completely falling apart?
Stay calm! I just have to keep my mouth shut.
Ever since her injury, the fact that she suffered from psychological aftereffects had been buried under layers of absolute secrecy. On her own she never could have contained the information, but CEO Choi Jeong-il had stepped in personally to seal it shut. He minimized the number of people who needed to know, arranged for her treatment only at the medical facilities he owned, and silenced everyone involved without exception. It was thanks to him that not a single article had surfaced despite her enormous fame. He was a master of this kind of damage control, and the influence wielded by the head of Aegis was formidable indeed.
And yet somehow, Baek Ji-soo was looking at her with eyes that seemed to see straight through everything.
"When you do this line of work, you end up seeing a lot of liars. Maybe that's why, but I can always tell when someone's lying. It's like there's a smell coming off them — one they simply can't hide."
Baek Ji-soo stepped close beside her and whispered. "Ju Ji-hye. If you're lying to us, there's nothing we can do to help you."
The color drained from Ju Ji-hye's face. They'll dispose of me...! I'm going to be disposed of...!
Her ashen mind was already in complete shambles. But at that very moment, the front door opened.
Creeeak!
"What are you two doing out here?"
Oh Hyeon-seong had appeared. He stared, bewildered, at the improbable pairing of women sitting on his porch. But to one person in particular, his arrival was like a savior descending with a halo blazing behind his back.
Ju Ji-hye shot up from her seat and bolted over, eyes brimming with tears, and threw herself behind Oh Hyeon-seong's back. "Ugh... Teacher... I almost died..."
"...I haven't done anything to you yet."
Baek Ji-soo rose slowly from her seat. Ju Ji-hye flinched behind him and clutched his jacket tight, but Oh Hyeon-seong made no particular gesture.
"Long time no see, sunbae."
"Yes. It really has been a while."
"'Teacher,' though? Taken on a new disciple already, have you?"
"Ignore that, it's nothing worth discussing. More importantly, what brings you here all of a sudden?"
"I was watching the news and you crossed my mind out of nowhere. So I came to see your face. Have you been well?"
It was a warm, friendly greeting. And precisely because of that, Oh Hyeon-seong eyed her with even deeper suspicion. This was not a woman who showed up on someone's doorstep without a reason. He had come outside after receiving Ju Ji-hye's text, granted, but Baek Ji-soo was the last face he'd ever expected to see materialize here.
"You do know that girl is suffering from psychological aftereffects? Textbook early symptoms of Psychosis."
"I know. There's no way I wouldn't."
"Then why is she still by your side? It's been about a year — she should be close to the breaking point by now."
"B-but I'm completely cured now! I don't have any of those symptoms anymore!"
"'Cured,' is it..."
Baek Ji-soo didn't even feel the need to respond in kind. A hunter whose prodromal symptoms had begun did not simply stop. Sooner or later they descended into full Psychosis and devoured themselves — or went off the rails into death before that could happen. There were only those two endings. If anything, reaching the stage of denying reality hard enough to believe oneself cured only meant the progression was that much worse.
But astonishingly, Oh Hyeon-seong chimed in.
"She's not fully cured yet — but she's right."
"...Right?"
"Her symptoms are almost gone these days. The condition isn't worsening anymore, either."
"Hearing that come out of your mouth is honestly disorienting."
Baek Ji-soo's head tilted in confusion. But a fact remained a fact.
"Hard as it may be to believe, it's the truth. So take her off the disposal list."
"Haha. What era do you think this is, that I'd throw around an inhuman word like 'disposal' at a person? I merely handle the termination of hunters who've become a problem."
"How is that any different?"
"Relax. You know how it works, sunbae — terminations only happen when there are clear signs of trouble. And besides, I didn't come here to threaten anyone."
If disposing of a problem hunter had truly been her purpose, Baek Ji-soo would never have come in person. She could simply have dispatched the Bureau's agents. For someone of her caliber to show up at a place like this personally, there was only one possible reason.
Oh Hyeon-seong.
"I came... because I need your help, sunbae."