Chapter 13
How dungeons appear.
Where they surge up from.
The principle behind that has yet to be uncovered, even after the passage of countless years of human history.
Modern science, mana engineering, and Awakener research have produced all sorts of theories, but the origin of dungeons remains one of humanity's greatest unsolved problems.
Yet after all those long years, there was one fact humanity had barely managed to uncover.
Dungeons appeared more frequently and with greater force in places where people were densely gathered, as though they harbored some hostility toward humanity.
The more populous a city was, the more frequently dungeons appeared, and the greater their difficulty became.
Conversely, in regions with almost no people, dungeons themselves appeared rarely, and even when they did, their danger level was relatively low.
That was why, if you asked why all four of South Korea's representative guilds had established themselves around Seoul, the answer was simple.
Because Seoul had the most people.
Dungeon appearance frequency.
Mana concentration.
High-risk dungeon occurrence rate.
In every one of those figures, Seoul overwhelmed the other regional cities.
Even Busan, the second-most populous city in South Korea, was several levels lower in danger compared to Seoul.
“Urgh⋯!”
And about two months ago.
That was precisely why something went wrong in Seoul.
The highest danger level of dungeons appearing in Korea was usually classified as A-rank.
Considering that the country's total population was less than 100 million, dungeons above that level hardly ever appeared.
But an astonishing B++-rank dungeon rose up in Seoul's Gangseo District.
Just below A-rank.
It was too dangerous to simply call B-rank, with its internal mana concentration and monster danger level excessively high, yet its measurements were still too ambiguous to confirm it as A-rank—a dungeon right on the boundary.
The news that such a thing had appeared in the heart of Gangseo alone was enough to throw the entire country into an uproar.
Baekho Guild, which managed the area, immediately suspended every dungeon-clearance schedule.
Even lower-rank dungeon raids.
Reconnaissance missions.
External support contracts.
They postponed everything.
Instead, they committed every bit of their core strength to clearing the B++-rank dungeon.
It was the kind of raid that would have taken even a major Hunter power months, even with the military mobilized.
Baekho finished it in just one week.
At the time, the incident received considerable attention throughout the global Hunter industry.
It was another case that demonstrated South Korea's speed of response and Baekho Guild's organizational strength.
The name Baekho of Gangseo carried even greater weight after that incident.
But it wasn't all glory.
There was also a price that remained unknown to the outside world.
Baekho Guild's core strength.
Han Sora's right eye.
‘That day, I pushed myself too hard using Veritas Eye to clear the dungeon quickly.’
Inside the B++-rank dungeon, Han Sora activated her skill almost without rest.
Reading the monsters' movements.
Avoiding traps.
Covering her allies' blind spots.
Analyzing the boss monster's patterns.
Veritas Eye was originally an ability that read an opponent's minute movements.
But the strain it placed on the eyes and nerves was just as great.
Especially inside a dungeon filled with highly concentrated mana, using it at high output for an extended period placed a direct backlash on the user's vision.
As a result, a tiny mana-induced injury remained on the surface of Han Sora's right cornea.
It wasn't serious enough to cost her the eye.
Her vision hadn't become completely blurred, and she hadn't lost the ability to fight.
For an ordinary person, it was the kind of condition they might dismiss as slightly dry eyes, frequent stinging, or a tendency to squint in bright light.
But it was different for Han Sora.
Because she was a Hunter who fought with her eyes.
Veritas Eye read a person's gaze, breathing, and muscle tremors to see through their next action.
For someone like her, the minute damage to her right eye was more than a mere inconvenience.
The slightest delay in blinking.
A momentary glare when exposed to light.
A foreign-body sensation that appeared after using her skill for a long time.
In battle, even that half-beat difference could determine whether she lived or died.
So she hid it.
A lasting injury had been left on one of the guild's core members.
The moment that fact became known to the outside world, Baekho's enemies wouldn't remain still.
It was a guild that had made countless enemies through information warfare in the first place.
Once a weakness was exposed, they would obviously swarm in from every direction and bite down.
Besides, Baekho had another source of anxiety right now.
‘That person.’
Even the person who should have stood at the center of the guild was no longer in perfect condition.
In a situation like that, they couldn't afford to let Han Sora's injury come to light as well.
She used special lenses to suppress the redness and an auxiliary device that blurred the mana response on the surface of her eye.
She left no hospital records behind.
It was a secret known by only a very small number of people within the guild.
And yet the man seeing it for the first time today—someone who was only a first-year medical student—had pinpointed it in an instant.
“H-how did you figure that out?”
Han Sora's voice trembled.
Seo Jihoo, on the other hand, tilted his head as though he found the question strange.
“Even if you ask how I knew⋯ it just stood out.”
“Stood out? The damage to the surface of my cornea that I hid even with special lenses?”
“Were you wearing lenses?”
“⋯What?”
What was going on⋯.
What the hell was this man?!
For a moment, she was struck speechless.
It was far too precise to be a coincidence.
Her symptoms were barely visible from the outside.
Even most of the guild members close to her had failed to notice, and Hunters from the other three major guilds had never reacted whenever they met her.
But Seo Jihoo was different.
A very brief conversation.
A few blinks.
A subtle reaction to avoid the light.
With only that, he had pinpointed the weakness she had been hiding most carefully.
At that moment, the pieces that had never fit together began surfacing one by one in Han Sora's mind.
The B-rank Hunter from Geumseong Guild whom she had been certain was dead.
The impossible surgery that had saved that patient.
The male medical student who was said to have been in the operating room.
And the man who had identified the damage to her eye in an instant.
The wall called common sense began to shake.
No, it was practically collapsing.
“⋯So it really was you?”
“Huh?”
Han Sora's gaze locked onto Seo Jihoo.
She could no longer regard the man before her as a smokescreen.
A shield?
Bait?
A protected male student?
No.
That assumption had been wrong from the very beginning.
“It really was⋯.”
Han Sora's voice trembled in a tiny whisper.
“Were you the one who saved Geumseong Guild's B-rank Hunter back then?”
The moment she realized that, astonishment appeared in her blue eyes.
And through that astonishment, a tiny hope began to seep in.
The hope that he might be able to save that person⋯.
An absurd hope, but one she had no choice but to seize now.
***
There was a name that appeared often enough on television.
Korea's Big Four guilds.
Geumseong in Gangnam, Baekho in Gangseo, Hyeonmu in Gangbuk, and Cheongryong in Gangdong.
An A-rank Hunter from one of them, Baekho Guild, was sitting in my living room.
The top 0.1 percent of Hunters.
A superhuman among superhumans.
And she even knew about the surgery on the B-rank Hunter I'd begged everyone to keep secret.
“⋯So, what exactly is going on?”
When I asked without managing to hide my wariness, Ms. Han Sora bit her lip for a moment.
The refined-lady act from earlier, when she had been laughing Ohohoho, had vanished, leaving only her blue eyes trembling strangely.
And then, the next moment.
“P-please perform the surgery!”
As I thought.
So it was about that.
I cast a sidelong glance at Ms. Han Sora's right eye.
‘I saw this in one of the Hunter medicine textbooks at the university.’
A Hunter's body was strong.
Mana-reinforced skin and muscles could, depending on how extensively they were trained, even deflect a modern tank's shell.
But in a hospital, that strength was actually poisonous.
Hunter surgery basically involved cutting, spreading apart, and opening up that enhanced body to reach the affected area.
It was called surgery, but by ordinary human standards, it was practically construction work.
But the eyes were different.
The cornea, lens, retina, and optic nerve.
Not one of those parts could be forced open with strength.
Even the slightest mistake could ruin a person's vision, which would very likely lead directly to a loss of combat ability.
As a result, techniques for opening a Hunter's body had advanced, but techniques for saving sensitive areas like the eyes had yet to catch up.
That was probably why she had come to find me.
That right eye.
The subtle injury she had been forced to hide even with special lenses.
Since I had opened up and saved the B-rank Hunter last time, perhaps I could fix her eye as well.
She had come hoping that even this last straw might hold.
But⋯.
“How rude.”
“⋯Huh?”
“You suddenly barge into someone else's home, and your first words are ‘surgery’? Besides, I'm still a medical student without even a license.”
“Th-that⋯.”
“And you dug up someone else's surgical records without permission, then waited inside my home without even contacting me⋯ At this point, isn't this less a request and more coercion?”
I had encountered plenty of people like this in my previous life.
People who demanded to be seen first because they were lawmakers, because they were relatives of a conglomerate chairman, or because they knew the hospital director, regardless of whether the patients waiting ahead of them lived or died.
Perhaps those memories had overlapped with the present.
My voice came out colder than I expected.
“Unless you're a patient who has collapsed and is on the verge of death, please leave. Before I call the Ministry of Men and Family Affairs.”
It was a firm response.
It might have sounded a little harsh.
But at least Ms. Han Sora's right eye was not a matter of life and death at this very moment.
It might have been a weakness for a Hunter, but she wasn't a patient dying right then and there.
For a problem like that, this was the right line to draw.
That was my judgment.
So I turned away, intending not to exchange any more words with her.
But then.
Thud.
“⋯⋯.”
I heard something touch the floor.
When I turned around, Ms. Han Sora was kneeling.
The A-rank Hunter who had been laughing like a noble young lady moments ago, the woman said to be a candidate for the next guild master of Baekho Guild.
She was clutching my arm in a servile posture.
“Please⋯.”
“Haah.”
My brow furrowed.
“Please. Lend me your strength. I'll compensate you somehow for what happened today⋯. I'll make restitution for everything, both entering without permission and investigating you. Whatever you want⋯.”
Money?
In the end, it was that again.
Thinking there was nothing more to hear, I tried to shake off her hand.
At that moment.
Plop.
Something fell onto the back of my hand.
It was a droplet.
Tears were falling from Ms. Han Sora's blue eyes.
“My mother⋯.”
“⋯Yes?”
“My mother is so sick⋯!”
My hand stopped.
Han Sora gritted her teeth and looked up.
The proud look in her eyes had crumbled, and her lips were trembling faintly.
“Actually, I'm⋯ the only daughter of Hunter Han Yura, the guild master of Baekho Guild.”
“Wait. The Baekho guild master?!”
“Yes⋯.”
She drew in a breath as though swallowing a sob.
“My mother⋯ might die soon⋯.”
“⋯⋯.”
“I didn't ask you to perform the surgery because of my eye⋯. I don't care about my eye⋯. I came here because I want to save my mother⋯ my mother.”
I couldn't answer her.
Until moments ago, I had thought she was the same kind of person as the powerful figures I had been sick of seeing in my previous life.
But the gaze clinging to my arm was different.
That gaze wasn't begging for her own life.
Nor was it asking me to heal her own pain.
It was asking me to save someone else.
The kind of gaze a doctor found hardest to turn away from.
“Please⋯ help me.”
Ms. Han Sora spoke in a trembling voice.
“If you would just do that, I'll do anything for you⋯.”
“Anything?”
“Yes! Anything.”
“⋯⋯.”
I looked down at her.
Trespassing.
A background check.
An unreasonable demand.
There wasn't a single appealing thing about any of it.
But I simply couldn't push away that look in her eyes.
It had been the same in my previous life.
I remembered the eyes of guardians begging me to save someone far longer than I remembered the patients' eyes.
And Ms. Han Sora had exactly that look in her eyes now.