Chapter 14
The head of Baekho Guild.
Han Yura.
One of only three S-rank Hunters in Korea, and the woman who was once called Korea's entire Hunter force.
She first made a name for herself twenty-eight years ago.
It was on the day an A-rank dungeon appeared in the heart of Seoul.
At the time, Baekho Guild was not yet the guild known for information warfare and covert operations that it was today.
To be precise, that identity had not yet taken root.
Back then, Baekho was an organization that crushed its way through high-difficulty dungeons with the overwhelming force of a single monstrous Hunter, Han Yura.
A-rank dungeon raid.
Subjugation of disaster-class monsters.
Single-handedly sealing a gate on the verge of collapse.
As she set one absurd record after another, a single S-rank Hunter changed the standing of an entire nation.
Han Yura was living proof.
And now.
Publicly, she was said to have withdrawn from the field to train the next generation of successors.
A legend who had stepped back from the front lines to raise Baekho Guild's next generation of Hunters.
That was how the media presented it, and that was what the public believed.
But the truth Han Sora told me was different.
“My mother suffered serious injuries eight years ago⋯ while raiding an A-rank dungeon that appeared in Korea for the first time in twenty years.”
At the time, something unprecedented happened in the Gangseo District of Seoul.
Two A-rank dungeons emerged simultaneously.
A disaster-class dungeon capable of crippling an entire country on its own.
And there were two of them at once.
The situation was so serious that even Japan, China, and Russia considered offering emergency assistance to South Korea.
But accepting aid would have amounted to admitting it.
Admitting that Baekho Guild, which was responsible for defending western Seoul, could not even handle a dungeon that had appeared in its own territory.
So Han Yura, who was the guild master at the time, made a decision.
Deploy all of Baekho Guild's main forces to one of the A-rank dungeons.
And enter the other one 'alone.'
A solo raid.
Normally, the term was used when a high-ranking Hunter entered a dungeon two or more ranks below their own and safely claimed all the rewards.
An act in which the strong trampled a weak dungeon.
But Han Yura used it against an A-rank dungeon classified as a disaster.
Judging by the outcome alone, it was a success.
Baekho Guild closed both A-rank dungeons in less than a month.
Even Geumseong Guild, once called Korea's strongest, could not hide its admiration, and foreign media praised Baekho Guild's response speed and Han Yura's combat ability.
But there was no way it came without a price.
Han Yura was pierced through the waist and pelvis by the dungeon boss's venomous stinger.
A fatal injury that tore through the area around her spine and penetrated into her pelvis.
It was an injury that would have killed almost any professional Hunter on the spot, but the healers and Hunter specialists at the scene barely managed to stop the bleeding and close the external wound, keeping her alive.
The problem began after that.
The dungeon-borne contamination and bacteria clinging to the stinger remained trapped inside her body instead of being washed out.
On the outside, she appeared healed, but inside, the infection was slowly spreading.
Into the vertebrae.
Into the tissues around the pelvis.
And finally, far enough to form an abscess around the spine.
Simply put, the treatment had saved her life, but at the same time, it had trapped the disease inside her body.
And now.
I was facing that legend inside Baekho Guild's secret treatment room.
Beep. Beep. Beep.
The room was dark.
Only a faint light fell around the patient's bed.
Under the stark, cold-white light of an operating room, a woman lay on the bed.
White hair resembling Sora's.
Only more mature, with an even more overwhelming presence.
Even with her eyes closed, a strange dignity remained on her face.
But beneath it, her condition was horrific.
A tube that appeared to be a central venous catheter ran into her neck, while an IV line and medication infusion device were attached to her arm.
The monitor beside the bed continuously displayed her heart rate, oxygen saturation, and blood pressure.
Her lower body was covered by a sterile drape, but even through it, I could tell her condition was serious.
Her lower back and pelvis.
That was where the problem lay.
“So this is⋯.”
I murmured softly as I looked down at the woman on the bed.
One of only three S-rank Hunters in Korea.
The guild master of Baekho Guild, Han Yura.
A name I had seen even in my elementary school textbooks.
A figure teachers had mentioned time and again as an example of a great person—the symbol of Korea's Hunter disaster response, a hero who had protected the country.
Someone who seemed to belong in a biography was lying motionless before my eyes as if she were dead.
It felt strange.
I was not surprised because she was famous.
The fact that someone once called a legend was this broken felt strangely unreal.
But from a doctor's perspective, there was no time to indulge in sentiment.
Her complexion was surprisingly healthy.
Her heart was still beating.
Her breathing did not seem to be completely dependent on a machine, either.
The problem was, as expected, lower down.
Her lower back and pelvis.
And her nerves.
I slowly approached the side of the bed.
“I'll take a look at the wound.”
It was just as I was about to lift the sterile drape and check her condition.
Grab.
Someone seized my arm.
It was a woman who appeared to be part of Baekho Guild's dedicated medical staff.
She stopped me, openly flustered.
“Wait. You can't just touch her!”
“I need to examine it to make a diagnosis.”
“I know. But the guild master's wound isn't ordinary. Even slight stimulation could send her into pain shock, and the infected area could rupture again.”
“So?”
I looked at her.
“Have you been too afraid to properly open it until now?”
“⋯⋯.”
The medical staff member's expression hardened.
At that moment, Han Sora, who had guided me here, spoke quietly.
“Everyone, step aside.”
“M-Ms. Sora⋯! But!”
“This person is my guest.”
The trembling voice she had used moments ago was gone.
A candidate for the next guild master of Baekho Guild.
A-rank Hunter Han Sora.
The cold gaze befitting that name swept over the dedicated medical staff.
“And perhaps someone who can treat my mother. What kind of rudeness is this?”
“⋯⋯.”
The medical staff fell silent all at once.
Perhaps it was because this concerned her own mother.
The woman who had clung to me in tears until just moments ago was, at this moment, the very embodiment of a Baekho Guild executive.
Taking advantage of the opening, I carefully lifted the sterile drape.
And then.
“⋯Damn.”
A curse slipped out before I knew it.
I had expected her condition to be serious.
An old, contaminated wound running through her lower back and pelvis.
On top of that, I had heard that after the healers closed only the external wound, the infection had become trapped inside.
I had pictured the worst possible scenarios in my head again and again.
But seeing it in person was different.
The affected area had already gone beyond the point where it could be described simply as an injury.
The tissues around her lower back and pelvis were discolored from the longstanding infection, and some of them had hardened completely.
Although it appeared closed on the outside, pus had pooled deep inside, creating pressure.
Around the spine.
More precisely, in the area extending from the lower back into the pelvis.
That was the problem.
‘The abscess is pressing on the nerves.’
Medically speaking, this was chronic infectious spondylitis.
Along with a paraspinal abscess.
The contaminated tissue had already burrowed close to the bone and was compressing the nerve roots around the spine.
Now I understood why she had begun suffering from paralysis of the lower body and urinary dysfunction.
The problem was that this was not the end of it.
‘Necrotic tissue is mixed in, too. Dead tissue, infected tissue, and living tissue are all tangled together.’
An ordinary person would have died long ago.
No, she should have died.
The fact that her heart was still beating in this condition made no sense.
I had thought something similar when I saw Jang Mi-hyeon, the B-rank Hunter.
How was she still alive in that condition?
But the body of the S-rank Hunter lying before me now was beyond comparison.
It was a body that had truly transcended the limits of humanity.
A body that was a miracle simply because it was alive—and all the more horrifying for that same reason.
“You’ve managed to stay alive in this condition.”
At my words, Han Sora quietly caught her breath.
“That’s probably only possible because she’s my mother. Honestly, if it had been me, I would have died long ago.”
I couldn't deny it.
She couldn't die.
But she couldn't recover, either.
For eight years, this body had endured, rotting away from the inside.
I clenched my teeth.
‘What I need to do is clear.’
Drain the abscess pooled around the spine.
Then remove the contaminated and dead tissue and relieve the pressure compressing the nerves.
If necessary, stabilize the weakened pelvis and the area around the spine.
“Hunter-only scalpel.”
[The skill activates.]
A familiar sensation took hold in my fingertips.
The scalpel that had opened the chest of a B-rank Hunter.
That sensation of reading the grain of mana-reinforced tissue and finding the thinnest gap to enter.
I moved my hand over the affected area.
First, I had to open it.
Open it, examine it, drain the pus, and remove the rotting tissue.
That was what I was thinking when it happened.
[Warning! Warning!]
A red status window suddenly appeared before my eyes.
[Target: S-rank Hunter Han Yura]
[The current output of your job equipment is insufficient to incise the target's reinforced tissue.]
[The cutting power of Hunter-only Scalpel Lv.1 is insufficient.]
[The mana hardening in the target's skin and fascial layers exceeds the equipment's limits.]
“⋯What?”
My hand stopped.
The status window coldly displayed the next messages.
[Forced incision carries a high risk of blade damage and rupture of the surgical site.]
[With the current equipment level, you cannot reach the infected area around the spine.]
[The output of Hunter-only Suction Device Lv.1 is insufficient to drain a high-concentration mana abscess.]
[The gripping force of Hunter-only Forceps Lv.1 is insufficient to secure the hardened tissue of an S-rank Hunter.]
[The equipment lacks the minimum output required for treatment.]
[Insufficient level.]
“⋯The equipment can't get through?”
I clenched my teeth.
It wasn't that I couldn't diagnose her.
I could see what needed to be done.
I had to drain the abscess pooled around the spine, remove the rotting tissue, and relieve the pressure on the compressed nerves.
The problem was that I couldn't reach it.
The scalpel that had opened a B-rank Hunter's body trembled faintly against Guild Master Han Yura's skin.
It felt as though I were holding a shard of glass rather than a blade.
If I applied even a little more force, it felt as though my equipment would break before the patient's body even opened.
If a B-rank Hunter's body was like steel, an S-rank Hunter's body was a living fortress.