Chapter 2–12. Second Child (3)
Trauma.
It is an affliction of the mind that can take root in anyone.
Especially in times like these, it's terribly common.
After all, the gate crisis had cut the world's population in half.
…Damn it all.
Choi Jeong-hyeon had lived an utterly ordinary life.
Born into an average family, she made it through elementary, middle, and high school, then got into a university. Once she graduated, she probably would have become an office worker. Or perhaps she'd have been preparing for the civil service exam. Either way… it was obvious she would never have done anything extraordinary.
That is, until the year she became a university junior — the year the gate crisis erupted.
Of course… her life remained ordinary even after that.
Because the standard of "ordinary" itself had changed.
She lost her family in the most ordinary way, narrowly survived death in the most ordinary way, and witnessed every kind of ordinary horror there was.
I just… wanted to live a good life, that's all….
The good life she imagined was nothing unusual. Graduate from a decent university, land a stable job. Then, at the right age, marry someone dependable, have children, and live out her days. That was all she had ever wanted.
…….
And then came the day the entire world's life was uprooted, down to its very foundations.
On that day, Choi Jeong-hyeon's life changed too.
She lost everyone she could lean on and was thrown into catastrophe at the unremarkable age of twenty-three.
Of course, she knew as well.
She knew she wasn't the worst-off among them. There were people who had lost far more than she had, people who met this disaster at even younger ages.
And it wasn't just that such people existed… there were many of them.
So she felt wronged.
She had lost nearly everything too, and yet somehow her suffering counted as "ordinary." That felt unjust. That she had no power at all in a situation like this felt unjust.
But fate was cruel.
She barely managed to hold onto her life, and what waited beyond that was an endless stretch of miserable living.
Nearly two years passed like that.
Then, by chance, she awakened an ability.
She had become one of the awakened — the very people she had looked up to for the past two years.
But once again, fate was cruel.
D-Class. Barely better than nothing.
That was where she started.
In the beginning, though, there was still hope. Someone had already rocketed up from D-Class all the way to A-Class, and even if she couldn't manage that, she figured a promotion to C-Class would come quickly enough.
Had she dreamed too big?
She failed the C-Class promotion review, and in a state of reckless despair, she went to the Seoul Dungeon.
For once, she didn't look for a party. She spared no care for her own body and threw herself into hunting alone, like someone possessed.
She spent a long while cutting down monsters and grinding out levels, letting the hours bleed away.
The status window was honest — kill a monster, and experience rose accordingly. Levels showed exactly as much as she put in. Put in the effort, and results followed. Even if those results were still capped by her own talent, that much was a small comfort.
So she hunted, and hunted, and hunted for days.
It was pure chance.
Because she'd let her mind go blank chasing monsters, she stopped caring whether she was in danger or not. That was why she simply wandered the area even though someone was herding Ogres nearby.
And when she finally came back to herself, there was no one around anymore.
Only then did she realize it.
The ones herding the Ogres… had been the Vice-Chairman she'd seen before, and that thief of a woman who'd been with him.
Back then… it could have been me.
If the one taken under the Vice-Chairman's management… had been me.
If the one training at his side had been me.
Wouldn't something, anything, have changed? It would have been better than now — better than drifting around with no affiliation at all, unable to reach even C-Class.
…Ah.
The two of them moved on, leaving behind the mountain of Ogre corpses piled up before them.
Where were they going?
They were really just going to leave all these byproducts behind?
…….
Choi Jeong-hyeon hesitated.
If they abandoned the byproducts, those would be ownerless. So… wouldn't it be fine for her to take them?
But her deliberation didn't last long.
She tore her eyes away from the byproducts and chose instead to follow the two of them.
No matter how low I've fallen… I don't want to scrape by like that.
Her life had hit rock bottom, but she didn't want to sink quite that far. And so, she simply… walked.
Through that door, toward whatever might lie behind it.
And then… how did it go again….
How did it go. It just… ended right there.
I die now. This is what was supposed to happen three years ago. Back at that department store… I was the only one who survived. So I should have done something. Anything. But… in the end, I was nothing at all. So let it be easy now. Just let it end.
Even as that thought took hold—
The last face she had seen drifted through her mind.
…….
The Vice-Chairman, wasn't it.
One of the truly chosen — of the mere thousand who existed in all the world.
An Initial Awakener.
He had saved her, unmistakably, when she was on the very edge of death.
Three years ago.
And now, too.
"Hhm…!"
Her eyes opened.
The first thing she felt was the sensation of a cozy bed. A soft mattress, a warm blanket draped over her, a pillow cradling her head. Those gentle textures loosened the tension in her body, if only for a moment.
"Ungh…."
What came next was pain.
Her whole body was stiff and her muscles ached. Every time she tried to move, it felt as though every joint in her body were creaking.
"……."
And last of all—
Her arm.
Her right arm… was gone.
"This is… h, haa… haa, haa… what… ungh…! Haa… haa…."
Her breathing turned ragged. The moments before she lost consciousness kept flashing through her mind, playing on repeat. Trauma, looping over and over. Merely realizing her arm was gone was enough to make her throat tighten.
"Haa, haa, haa."
Her breaths came faster and faster. Her throat was closing. She couldn't get the air in properly. Her arm hurt. It had already been severed, and still it hurt. And it burned. She had watched with her own two eyes as her arm melted in the acid it had touched after being cut away. And then her eyes too. Hot, melting, hot again—
Even now.
Even now….
"Mm…."
"…!"
And then—
A figure came into view.
"V… Vice-Chairman?"
Beside the bed sat a small chair, and in it, someone had fallen asleep sitting up.
Why…?
Choi Jeong-hyeon rolled her eyes around, trying to take in her situation. This place appeared to be a hospital, at least — she could see the various medical devices attached to her body. Which meant the person who had brought her here was probably the Vice-Chairman. After all, he was the last thing she had seen.
"U, ungh…."
First things first — she tried to sit up so she could properly understand what was going on. Naturally, it wasn't easy. The treatment might be finished, but the pain remained. Still, she paid it no mind and pushed her upper body upright.
Perhaps it was the noise she made—
"Haaum…."
Lee Jun, who had been dozing lightly, woke at once. The moment his eyes opened, he looked straight at Choi Jeong-hyeon.
"……."
"……."
A brief silence. Their eyes met, and a short stretch of time passed between them.
"You're awake?"
Lee Jun spoke first, his tone perfectly calm. He knew that making a fuss around a patient in moments like this only deepened their confusion.
"…Yes."
"Good. I was starting to worry — you wouldn't wake up for anything."
Saying that, Lee Jun reached for the call button to summon a nurse. But—
Tap—
His hand was stopped short by Choi Jeong-hyeon's.
"Er… Ms. Choi Jeong-hyeon?"
"…The doctor can wait… please."
With those words, she gently drew his arm back down. Her face winced slightly — moving still hurt, it seemed.
Lee Jun did as she asked for the moment. He had no idea what she was thinking, but it was clear she had something to say. They would talk, gauge the mood, and if things looked right, he could move straight into a recruitment offer afterward.
"All right. The doctor can wait — we can call one whenever you like."
Lee Jun said it that way on purpose. The phrasing told her, without saying it outright, that he was willing to hear her out. Choi Jeong-hyeon seemed to understand as much, and she began quietly organizing her thoughts.
"First of all… I want to thank you for saving me."
"No need. Anyone would have."
"Even so… you did save me. So… thank you. Truly."
Choi Jeong-hyeon shifted her upper body and bowed her head. The motion must have brought pain with it, but she gave no sign of it as she expressed her gratitude.
"And… there's something I need to say to you."
Ah. Here comes the real conversation.
"It's… it's a shameless thing to ask, but…."
Choi Jeong-hyeon faltered, unable to finish the sentence. Lee Jun spoke on her behalf.
"Take your time. Say it comfortably — no pressure at all."
"……."
At those words, she clenched her one remaining fist tight. And a moment later, as if steeling herself, she opened her mouth.
"Could you… could you take me into your company, Vice-Chairman?"
"Your management? As a wholly-owned hunter?"
"…Yes."
Choi Jeong-hyeon nodded slightly at Lee Jun's probing question. She probably assumed he was asking because he found it absurd.
But it was the opposite.
Wait — you actually want to join?
Honestly, this was a gift. Lee Jun had set out to recruit her from the very beginning. If anything, he'd been worried she might choose to retire instead. And now he could bring her in not as a scout chasing her down, but as a volunteer applicant?
For Lee Jun, this was the best possible outcome.
And yet, alongside that, a worry nagged at him.
Her mental state.
Why? Her will to keep going is that strong.
That's exactly the problem.
What would the ordinary choice look like, in Choi Jeong-hyeon's position?
Her hunter rank was the very lowest, D-Class — and within that, the most common, unremarkable warrior class of the non-combat-arts variety. She'd failed her C-Class promotion review… and now she'd lost an arm on top of it.
To be fair, quitting wouldn't hand her any brilliant alternatives either. But reaching this decision without a shred of hesitation, this quickly? It didn't sit right.
Choi Jeong-hyeon herself didn't know her Talent Stone results, which meant that as far as she was concerned, she was simply a D-Class hunter with her promotion deferred. And the reason for a deferral was never disclosed. Disqualification from promotion was almost always a matter of character, after all. No one had anticipated a situation like this — so back then, the natural policy was silence.
And yet, in a situation this comprehensively hopeless—
She was saying she wanted to keep being a hunter?
Without even a flicker of hesitation?
No wonder it worried him. This was far too short a time for her to know, herself, what the right judgment even was. That was why Lee Jun feared she might be making a rash decision, driven purely by the pressure crushing down on her.
"……."
As his thoughts stretched on, so did the silence.
It was silence born of deliberating on her behalf — but she took it entirely differently. Convinced she was about to be refused, she stared desperately at his lips, agonizing over every second.
"Um…."
Just as the silence broke and Lee Jun's mouth finally opened—
Choi Jeong-hyeon spilled her words out in a desperate rush, her face full of longing.
"I-I know I'm only D-Class, and my body's ended up like this, but… b-but there's still plenty of use for me! A shield can be strapped to the body, so I could carry it even one-handed — you could just plant me up front as a pure tank and leave me there, and… i-if that really doesn't work, you can put me on menial work! Hauling gear, breaking down byproducts, driving — anything…."
Lee Jun understood then.
She's cornered.
He had it backwards from the start. It wasn't that she might quit because of a situation like this… it was that because of a situation like this, she couldn't quit.
"So…."
"Excuse me, Ms. Choi Jeong-hyeon."
"……."
He could exploit this moment, press his advantage, and walk away with terms heavily in his favor.
But.
He didn't want to.
"…Yes. I'm sorry. I got… too carried away. I'm sorry."
Everything Lee Jun had done at the Association, in the end, had been for one purpose.
Not only for the powerful hunters at the very top — but for the ordinary ones. And for those weaker still.
Hunters strong enough to guarantee their own safety — the S-Class and A-Class — managed well enough on their own. The people Lee Jun had wanted to protect were the ones who couldn't even manage that.
B-Class. C-Class… D-Class.
And beyond them, ordinary civilians too.
"Let's sign the contract."
"Y-yes…?!"
Being unable to protect yourself is a torment. But a far greater pain than that is being unable to protect the people who matter to you.
"I'm saying let's sign. You and my management."
The world Lee Jun wished for—
Was a world where people like her could find happiness again.