Chapter 12
When she found a B-rank Hunter from the Venus Guild in a dungeon where a Chaos phenomenon had occurred.
Han So-ra's very first thought was simple.
“Damn. This is bad.”
Was she about to get caught in the crossfire of a fight between whales, like a shrimp whose back got broken?
Her objective was simple.
A dungeon whose difficulty had suddenly increased.
The rewards would grow accordingly.
She would confirm the information and, if possible, quietly take whatever she could before leaving.
But what she encountered inside was a Venus Guild party on the verge of annihilation.
And right at its center was a B-rank Hunter who had apparently taken the lead and held out to the end, only to collapse covered in blood.
“This⋯ is hopeless.”
She wasn't a doctor.
But as a Hunter, she had seen dying people more than once or twice.
Injuries that could be treated, and injuries that were already too late.
She could distinguish between the two.
And that one was already too late.
His limbs were twisted in every direction, and blood continued to flow from the corner of his mouth.
Above all, his abdomen was in terrible condition.
That area was grotesquely sunken, as though something that should have been there had vanished completely.
He looked less like a living person than a corpse that simply hadn't been officially pronounced dead yet.
“Still, as a fellow Hunter, I should at least show him a little mercy.”
Unfortunately, a Venus Guild member wasn't someone Baekho was responsible for.
But she couldn't simply pretend she hadn't seen him, so she fired the rescue flare that every Hunter carried before entering a dungeon and considered the matter handled.
Then she quickly left.
If she stayed at the scene for too long, people might misunderstand and think Baekho had attacked the Venus Guild's B-rank Hunter.
Sneaking into a rival guild's managed dungeon was dangerous enough as it was.
But days later.
While cautiously checking on the situation, Han So-ra heard unbelievable news.
“They⋯ treated him?!”
He had survived.
That B-rank Hunter.
He had been admitted to the intensive care unit and would need time to recover, but regardless, he had survived.
It made no sense.
Han So-ra had studied abroad in Western Europe, which was considered centuries ahead of Asia when it came to the Hunter system.
She had seen dungeon accidents, Hunter trauma, and dying people until she was sick of them.
That was why she had been so certain.
His condition had been beyond repair.
It couldn't be done with any ordinary surgery or treatment technique.
It was practically a miracle, forcibly holding someone who was almost dead to this world.
But if there really was a doctor who had accomplished that⋯
‘Could that person's wounds be treatable, too?’
Han So-ra's eyes changed.
There was someone she desperately wanted to save.
If the doctor who had saved that B-rank Hunter was the real deal, then perhaps there was hope for that person, too.
So she spent a week digging up information on Daehan Central University Hospital.
The official announcement.
The press conference video.
Hospital entry records.
The Hunter Trauma Center's duty roster for that day.
And at last, she found the person who had been closest to the surgery.
Na Ha-young.
To find the real surgeon.
And somehow bring that doctor over.
But⋯
“No, I told you I treated him, didn't I?”
“Guh⋯!”
Han So-ra was genuinely getting a headache.
She had thought she was almost there.
She was certain she had reached the answer's doorstep.
But where on earth had things gone wrong?
Han So-ra's unique skill.
Veritas Eye.
In other words, an ability known as the ‘Eye of Truth.’
Its origins lay in combat.
The moment a person's breathing stopped.
Where their gaze was directed.
Even the order in which their muscles contracted just before an attack.
Veritas Eye read all those minute changes and predicted the opponent's next move, making it a combat precognition skill.
For an ordinary Hunter, that would have been the end of it.
Dodging an opponent's attack, striking their openings, and countering half a beat faster.
That alone was powerful enough.
But Han So-ra was different.
She didn't use that ability only on the battlefield.
Just as a person's body trembled right before they swung a sword, it trembled right before they lied, too.
No matter how carefully they arranged their expression.
No matter how much they composed their voice.
The heart reacted first, breathing lost its rhythm, and the fingertips betrayed their owner.
Han So-ra read all of it.
She had honed a skill meant for combat prediction into one suited for psychological and information warfare.
As a result, through countless interrogations and negotiations, Veritas Eye had become something more than a simple combat skill.
And Na Ha-young had a habit of her own.
Tap tap.
Whenever she lied, she unconsciously tapped the desk twice with her finger.
Han So-ra had already confirmed that through the hospital's CCTV footage and the press conference video.
But⋯
“I really treated him.”
Tap tap.
“That's a lie!”
“No. I'm telling you, I did it.”
Tap tap.
The situation was becoming seriously irritating.
“So there were three people in the operating room, then?”
“No?”
Silence.
“⋯Huh?”
Her finger hadn't moved.
It was the truth.
“Was there a doctor who secretly came in from outside?”
“No.”
Silence.
Another truth.
“What about a Hunter specialist unofficially invited from overseas?”
“There wasn't one.”
Silence.
Truth again. And again.
Han So-ra's smile gradually stiffened.
Na Ha-young's claim that she had treated him was a lie.
But her claim that there had been another doctor in the operating room was also a lie.
An outside specialist had not been invited, either.
Then there really had been only two people in the operating room.
Na Ha-young.
And a male medical student who had only recently entered medical school and briefly appeared on the news.
Wasn't his name Seo Jihoo?
But even so, he was only a man.
‘There’s no way that man operated on a B-rank Hunter.’
That wasn't deduction. It was insanity.
The idea that a frail man who would faint for three days just from seeing a corpse had opened a B-rank Hunter's chest and stopped abdominal bleeding⋯
It made no sense.
“I'm telling you, I really treated him!”
Tap tap.
“Guh⋯!”
But that was another lie.
Han So-ra wanted to clutch her head.
Na Ha-young was lying. There had been no other doctor in the operating room.
Then who had done it?
“Dr. Na Ha-young.”
“Yes.”
“Was that male medical student really just an assistant?”
“Yes. Well⋯ he was an assistant.”
Tap tap.
“That's not true!”
“No, he did assist, so it's not technically wrong.”
“Don't play word games with me!”
Han So-ra gritted her teeth.
Then, as if she could take no more, she squeezed her eyes shut.
This hospital.
It was even more vicious than she had expected.
A monster doctor so valuable that they were willing to use a male medical student as a smokescreen to hide him.
If this was someone they wanted to conceal that badly, who could it be?
‘All right.’
But even when the sky falls, there is always a way out.
‘I'll pierce that shield myself.’
At that moment, Han So-ra's deduction veered completely in the wrong direction.
***
Before she knew it, the special observer program at Daehan Central University Hospital was drawing to a close.
Three more days.
If I endured exactly three more days, I could safely advance to my second year.
Of course, things hadn't been easy in the meantime.
“Jihoo. How about changing your mind? The Hunter Trauma Center needs you!”
“I'm opening a private clinic.”
“Guh⋯ If that's the case, I have no choice but to cross the line too!”
“Then I'll report you to the Ministry of Men and Family Affairs.”
“Eek?! That terrifying ministry that supposedly does anything men ask except turn those women into men?! But I can't give up⋯!”
Ms. Na Ha-young came by almost every day.
She said I should join the university hospital, that the Hunter Trauma Center was my home, and that if I became her assistant, she'd let me use an entire operating room by myself.
She said all sorts of things, enough to make my head spin just listening to her.
“Haa⋯”
That day, too, I had barely shaken off her persistent persuasion and returned to my apartment under the escort of the Men's Safe-Return Service.
Apparently, in this world, it was common sense that a man walking around alone at night was out of the question.
Thanks to that, I had a practically forced escort all the way from the hospital to home.
The special observer program had exhausted me, Ms. Na Ha-young had exhausted me, and so had this world's system for protecting men.
So I decided to relax comfortably at home, and the moment I opened the door and stepped inside⋯
“Ohohohohohoho!”
“⋯⋯.”
I froze in place in the entryway.
A woman was sitting on the living room sofa.
She was clearly wearing an outfit in the hanbok style.
But it wasn't an ordinary hanbok.
White fur trim wrapped around her shoulders and the ends of her sleeves, while the skirt was neat like traditional clothing yet exaggerated in places like a Western dress.
Her hair was strange, too.
It wasn't the elegant tied-up style that would have suited her East Asian clothing, but drill curls straight out of subculture media.
And yet, strangely, it didn't look tacky.
If anything, that bizarre combination suited her surprisingly well.
Her haughty eyes.
The faint upward curl of her lips.
Even the way she covered her mouth with the back of her hand as she laughed.
In a single phrase, she was a suspicious young lady.
⋯No, a young miss?
Anyway, that was the impression she gave.
“Heh-heh. I've been waiting for you, Seo Jihoo.”
“⋯A male stalker.”
“How rude. I'm not a stalker. I'm a guest.”
“Guests who break into someone's home without permission generally aren't called guests.”
I quietly reached for the doorknob again.
Let's leave first.
Then report her to the Men's Safe-Return Service.
No, was this a matter for the Ministry of Men and Family Affairs? The police? The Hunter Association?
While I was pondering that, something suddenly caught my eye.
“My name is Han So-ra.”
“⋯⋯.”
“I'm an A-rank Hunter from the Baekho Guild.”
Something about the Baekho Guild.
Something about being an A-rank Hunter.
Something about why she'd come looking for me.
But honestly, less than half of what she said reached my ears.
Instead, perhaps it was an occupational hazard.
Her right eye, the one looking my way.
‘Only one side is bloodshot.’
It was extremely subtle.
An ordinary person would have assumed she was simply tired and let it pass.
But on closer inspection, the condition of her two eyes was different.
Her right eye blinked noticeably more often.
Whenever her gaze turned toward a bright light, her eyelid reacted first, and several times while she was speaking, her hand started to rise toward her eye before stopping.
It was the movement of someone who wanted to rub their eye but was consciously holding back.
And it was a reaction that often appeared when the cornea was irritated.
“Excuse me. Haven't you been blinking your right eye a lot lately?”
“⋯Yes?”
“Sometimes only one eye gets slightly bloodshot, and you squint first whenever you look at a light, right? I've also noticed you stop yourself from touching the area around your eye several times.”
The moment she heard that, Han So-ra's smile began to stiffen.