Side Effects of Salvation (1)
"Could she have fallen to corruption again?"
"No, that's not it. According to the security team's emergency report, she's thrashing about while fully conscious."
Thrashing about while fully conscious? Now that was a novel way of putting it.
Rebecca checked the tablet, tilted her head with a look of pure incomprehension, then turned to me.
"I think you need to see this for yourself."
On the tablet screen, Baek Soyeon was rampaging, pouring energy out in every direction. The security team tried to close in and restrain her, but they were overwhelmed without a chance of fighting back.
"Ah—I've been listening alone. I'll switch to speaker mode."
She pressed a button, and Baek Soyeon's voice filled the air.
"Lee Jinwoo! Bring me Lee Jinwoo! Right now!"
She was looking for me.
But how had she learned my name?
"There should be an internal defense system. I've heard it can suppress even an S-rank hunter without much trouble."
At the Gangwon-do young master's question, Rebecca looked at me instead of answering.
"Please answer. I'm curious too."
Only then did Rebecca open her mouth.
"That's an accurate point. Atlantis's internal defense system is mysterious and powerful enough to restrain even an S-rank hunter without leaving a scratch."
"Then shouldn't we just activate it?"
I raised the obvious question, and Rebecca answered with a grave expression.
"According to the initial report, the internal defense system activated normally right after Baek Soyeon started her rampage—but it ultimately failed to suppress her."
"You said it could handle an S-rank Awakened easily."
"It seems the candidate's power has had some kind of influence on Hunter Baek Soyeon's Mystery. We aren't certain yet, though."
She added under her breath that further testing would be required.
"Let's go for now."
"You intend to face her yourself?"
I nodded at Rebecca's question.
"She's looking for me. If I show my face, she might calm down. It's worth a try."
"It could be dangerous."
Rebecca voiced her concern, but my thoughts ran differently.
"I don't think Ms. Baek Soyeon would hurt me."
It might not have been much of a reason, but Rebecca stopped objecting.
"Then you'll have to stay right beside me."
Baek Soyeon was alone.
An orphan left by herself in this world.
When she was in elementary school, a drunk truck driver took her mother from her. When she was in high school, an S-rank Calamity that breached Seoul's barrier took the life of her last remaining family—her father. By the time she became an adult, she was alone.
Around the time she entered middle school, abnormal phenomena began to overrun the world.
Calamities moved to annihilate humanity, and humans awakened Mysteries to fight back and survive. Baek Soyeon's father awakened a Mystery as well and began operating as a B-rank hunter.
Being a hunter was a dangerous profession.
Every encounter with a Calamity raised one's mental pollution. Even if you survived a subjugation battle, the fixed, borrowed time of your life gradually became a reaper tightening its grip around your throat.
Soyeon, who had never once surrendered first place in her entire school, understood the relationship between Calamities, Mysteries, and corruption, and so she worried about her father.
"Dad... can't you quit being a hunter...?"
"Don't worry. Dad is strong."
Whenever he came home with chicken or pizza after collecting his pay, Soyeon would whine like a little child in front of him.
After a late adolescence hit her, she grew distant from her father for a time.
Then one day, not long after she entered high school, tragedy struck.
Multiple S-rank Calamities tore through Seoul's powerful barrier and appeared in densely populated districts.
"Kyaaaaaah!"
"M-Mom... Mom!"
"Help me... Kraaagh!"
A Calamity appeared at Soyeon's school as well, and students in their uniforms were torn apart and killed before they could even touch the dreams of adulthood.
"It's an S-rank Calamity!"
"Damn it! An S-rank Calamity in the middle of Gangnam? What the hell were the barrier mages doing!"
"Call the National Mobile Unit or a kill team for support! We can't handle this!"
Hunters deployed from the area as soon as the attack began, but they were no match.
The S-rank Calamity slaughtered the hunters and preyed on the students.
"D-Dad..."
On the verge of death, Soyeon called for her father. More than the thought of dying, the image of her father left alone to grieve for her made her heart ache.
The moment a tentacle reached for her, someone with a sword burst in.
"How dare you!"
Blue light flashed. Sword-light rained down, and the tentacles that had been aiming for Baek Soyeon were carved into pieces.
A familiar back.
A familiar blade.
Baek Soyeon recognized her savior at once.
"Dad!"
"My daughter. Dad was late, wasn't he?"
Even meeting her father, Soyeon could not rejoice. The state of the man who had thrown himself into the embrace of an S-rank Calamity to save her was too horrific.
That was the price a B-rank hunter paid for standing before an S-rank Calamity to protect his daughter. It would not have been strange if his breath stopped then and there—but he held on.
To protect his daughter.
"Soyeon, listen carefully. Dad won't last long."
He prepared for farewell with quiet calm.
"Dad will buy time. Run. If you escape through the back gate, there will be other hunters."
"No! I don't want to hear it! If I die, we die together!"
She meant every word.
She did not want to be left alone in a world that had gone mad with the outbreak of abnormal phenomena.
"I promised your mother I would protect you."
To protect his daughter, he raised his sword and stood before the tentacle monster.
"So please—listen to Dad."
Soyeon squeezed her eyes shut and ran for the back gate. Only then could her father smile.
Even facing death, he smiled. Because he could protect his daughter.
Even as the tentacles tore his body apart, he gritted his teeth and smiled—afraid that a scream slipping free might catch at his daughter's ankles and drag her back.
That day Soyeon lost her father and was left alone. The next day, she awakened a Mystery.
"It's an S-rank Mystery. Estimated to be of the magic type."
"Magic type? She only fires slashes."
"They're invisible slashes, and she deploys a domain with butterflies, so for now it would be best to classify it as magic type."
Officials from the Phenomenon Interpretation Bureau designated Soyeon's Mystery as magic type.
She could use other magic as well, but she insisted on slashes. Whenever she unfurled butterflies and sent formless cuts flying, she felt as if her father—who had wielded a sword Mystery—stood at her side.
Having gained the power to butcher Calamities, she grew as a hunter.
As if carrying out her father's revenge, she charged at any Calamity with fire in her eyes and cut them down. Thanks to that, her mental pollution skyrocketed in no time—but she did not stop.
She reached a point where it would not have been strange for her to corrupt at any moment, yet she endured. To take revenge for her father.
She had so little attachment to life that she believed it would not matter even if she corrupted into a Calamity and met her end as a human—yet ironically, at the moment of corruption, she thought she wanted to live.
"D-Dad..."
Her father had wanted Soyeon to live a long life. That was why he had burned his own life to save his daughter.
Understanding her father's will too late, she cried out that she wanted to live—but her silent scream reached no one.
Is this how I become a Calamity...
She thought so.
At present, humanity knew no method to prevent an Awakened's corruption or purify mental pollution. Once corruption began, an Awakened soon lost their humanity and became a Calamity.
I'll become a monster too.
Just as she was about to give up everything and close her eyes, someone reached her through the waves of crushing negative energy.
"I finally made it."
It was F-rank healer Lee Jinwoo.
At the warm voice that seemed to stitch her collapsing mind back together, the desire to live burned even stronger.
Soyeon strained with everything she had and reached for Jinwoo. She moved her lips and forced her will into words.
Save me... I want to live...
I want to live.
I don't want to die like this.
I want to live and build a family.
I want to visit Father's grave every year.
Someday I want to start a family, have a son, and show him to Father. And someday, when my lifespan ends and I reunite with him—
I want to tell him that thanks to him I lived happily, and that I am truly grateful.
"We've come this far. That much isn't difficult."
Jinwoo reached out even as he suffered under the torrent of negative energy.
Heal
The moment his hand touched her forehead and the Mystery of healing activated, a warm power began to spread through her entire body.
As the negative energy polluting her mind was purified, she felt the power of the Mystery settled within her grow steadily stronger.
It felt like a shard of glass embedded in her chest was being pulled free. Painful—yet somehow refreshing, and deeply comforting.
The Mysteries are resonating.
She realized belatedly that her Mystery was resonating with Jinwoo's power.
The empty space left after the rotten parts were cut away began to fill with Jinwoo's energy.
Soyeon did not fully understand it, but Jinwoo's Mystery drove out the negative energy while simultaneously imprinting its own mark on her body.
So when she opened her eyes in an unfamiliar place, it was only natural that she could not endure the crushing sense of loss—and went berserk.