…Mold.
Song Ji-hu opened his eyes. A studio apartment filled with damp air. Song Ji-hu staggered to his feet and stood before the small mirror hanging on the wall.
A neat face of twenty-seven. But only his ash-gray eyes remembered the hell of six lives.
Song Ji-hu faced himself in the mirror, the powerless self of the past, and at the same time, one corner of his mouth faintly lifted at the presence of the compass he could feel in his soul.
“This time, I’ll tear your bastard heart apart and see the end.”
Song Ji-hu mechanically picked up the phone on the table. When he turned on the screen, an unchanged number appeared.
[March 9, 2033. 6:23.]
“Same as ever.”
With those emotionless words, Song Ji-hu opened his notes app and, as always, began engraving records of the future.
– March 12: Lottery - operating funds.
– March 14: Total annihilation of the Hunter specialty hospital caused by a late-stage mental contamination rampage.
– March 21: Incheon C-rank Gate (A-rank mutation - everyone dead)
His fingers moved without stopping. Although the six regressions had not been the same every time, there were always events that never changed.
‘I’m changing every method I used before.’
Song Ji-hu loosened his stiff hand and touched the compass inside his clothes. He felt the cold, hard touch of metal.
Song Ji-hu took the Soul Revolver from inside his clothes and tilted open the cylinder. Six empty chambers faced him.
“…This really is the last time.”
Out of habit, he hooked his finger around the trigger of the revolver that had used even its final bullet and tried pulling it, but it would not budge. It was the reaction he had expected.
The revolver whose bullets had vanished was now nothing more than an old keepsake.
There was no way back. This life was the last.
Strangely, he was not afraid.
‘Because there’s a new variable called the compass.’
Song Ji-hu spent nearly an hour finishing a rough outline, then changed clothes. He washed his face, put on an old jumper, and took his wallet.
Because perhaps due to the large amount of energy he had used in the regression, around this time, he always began to feel ravenously hungry.
***
“Welcome.”
After arriving at the convenience store near his home, Song Ji-hu walked between the shelves and picked up cup ramen, a triangular seaweed rice roll, a sandwich, a lunch box, and even an energy drink.
“The first thing to do is secure funds.”
Muttering quietly, before heading to the register, he picked up a lottery slip and marked the same numbers as always.
‘3, 17, 29, 41, 43, 45. The bonus is 12.’
He only needed the minimum funds required to change the current situation. Later, as he sold information and changed the future, money would naturally follow.
“That’ll be 24,800 won.”
After paying for the food and putting the lottery ticket inside his clothes, Song Ji-hu poured water into the ramen, took out his phone, and checked the notes app.
“I need to deal with the hospital problem first… What approach should I use? As expected, maybe it’s best to go classic with a terror warning.”
While waiting for the ramen to cook, he began searching news related to the hospital, just in case anything had changed.
In his previous lives, the number of Hunters who had died in the hospital incident alone had been in the hundreds.
[2,500 Hunters imprisoned in Seoul Hunter Specialty Hospital alone. South Korea’s security situation grows unstable amid an incurable disease showing no improvement.]
[Year 3 since S-rank Hunter Eun Seo-jin locked herself away. Internal erosion still ongoing.]
[Three years after the ‘Guangzhou Calamity.’ 11 S-rank Hunters worldwide have reached the rampage threshold.]
[Hunters’ conditions worsen with each passing day. The only countermeasure is America’s ‘Emilia Jones’ delaying mental contamination.]
A Hunter whose contamination level filled to 100 went berserk.
A C-rank going berserk ended as a disturbance, and an A-rank going berserk was recorded as a disaster. But the moment an S-rank went berserk, the world stripped the rank from them and gave them a new name.
Calamity.
It was a name that had settled in after a single rampaging S-rank wiped Guangzhou off the map in half a day three years ago.
And now, in this hospital, 2,500 candidates for that calamity were locked away.
‘Eun Seo-jin… In the previous regressions, there was nothing I could do anyway, so I didn’t even pay attention.’
Song Ji-hu stopped muttering and stared hard at the name Eun Seo-jin.
“There’s nothing I can’t do now.”
Because when the compass had been engraved into his soul, it had clearly said it would purify the source of contamination.
On top of that, not all S-ranks were the same S-rank. Someone on Eun Seo-jin’s level was a top-tier Hunter even among S-ranks.
If everything had been the same as in the previous six regressions, he might have been able to afford a little leisure.
But this time, since there were many variables, he had to move somewhat busily.
‘Six days… It’s tight, but it’s enough.’
If he could save Eun Seo-jin, he would certainly be a great help on the journey ahead.
‘At the very least, I can make them owe me a debt….’
For now, in order to save Eun Seo-jin, his priority was to understand the compass’s ability precisely.
***
After filling his stomach and returning to his studio apartment, Song Ji-hu sat cross-legged on the floor.
“First, Awakening.”
Others believed Awakening was coincidence. A miracle that suddenly bloomed at the crossroads of life and death, or amid extreme emotion.
But Song Ji-hu knew how to force open the door of the Ego in order to awaken.
“Hoo-”
With a short breath, his consciousness sank into the deepest abyss within him. All external senses disappeared, and there was only a silence in which he could feel the center of his soul.
‘The Ego is the center of the soul. The source of power.’
He steadied his breathing and pushed his consciousness deeper.
The senses of his body grew faint. He no longer felt the touch of the cold floor, nor the cold winter air seeping in through the gap in the window.
Only his inner world existed.
And then-
THOOM-
The sensation of the door of his soul opening.
A hot current piercing through his entire body climbed up his spine.
When he slowly opened his eyes, a translucent window appeared at the edge of his vision.
[Awakening Complete.]
[Measuring rank….]
B-rank melee damage dealer. This, too, had been a result that had never once changed over six Awakenings.
However.
[ERROR]
[ERROR]
[Measurement Impossible]
“…What?”
Song Ji-hu’s eyes shook. It was a message he had never seen, not even once.
[Warning : The compass is beginning to interfere.]
The system window flashed like a warning light, and a new string of text he had never seen before appeared.
[Name : Song Ji-hu]
[Level: 1]
[Type: Mental-type (-)]
[Skill 1: Mental Detection - C-rank]
[Skill 2: Mental Barrier - C-rank]
[Skill 3: Residual Thought - C-rank]
[Skill 4: Thought Projection - C-rank]
[Skill 5: Mental Dive - EX-rank]
As Song Ji-hu blankly stared at the window, a hollow laugh escaped his mouth.
“Suddenly mental-type…?”
Even when he clenched his fist, there was no change in his physical strength. Instead, the world began to look different.
The fear of the man asleep in the room beyond the wall, the anxious emotions of the woman walking down the hallway. The hidden side of the world he had not been able to see before now felt as vivid as his five senses.
“Huh… It’s full of variables from the very beginning.”
As if answering, the compass inside his clothes vibrated hotly.
Deep within his eyes as he stood before the mirror, a soft silver aura like the Milky Way was lingering. It was the mark of a mental-type Hunter.
“Mental Dive?”
Song Ji-hu slowly read down the description of the [Mental Dive] skill in the skill window.
[Mental Dive - EX-rank]
– Directly enter the target’s mental world and explore their inner self.
– Locate and purify the source of mental contamination.
– Danger increases in proportion to the target’s rank and mental contamination level.
– Upon purification failure, the caster’s soul suffers direct damage.
“So this is how it works… According to this description, for a mere C-rank to dive into an S-rank mind would be suicide, but….”
After reading the skill description, Song Ji-hu let out a deep sigh. From the description alone, it looked as if the system were warning him not to do it.
‘Still, this is the only answer.’
First, he needed to confirm how Mental Dive was executed, so Song Ji-hu turned on his laptop and accessed a Hunter community.
Among its boards, he entered one where Hunters suffering from mental contamination gathered.
Those who had lost comrades in dungeons, witnessed horrific sights, or hovered on the threshold of death.
It was no exaggeration to say that 99% of combat-class Hunters were in the early stages of mental contamination.
[The nightmares won’t stop. Please help.]
[My hands tremble whenever I see a dungeon.]
[I… I killed them. My party member….]
Amid countless screams, his gaze stopped on one post.
The author was Butterfly92. The date posted was three days ago.
[…Five people died because of me. I survived. Why was I the only one who survived? Every night, their faces curse me. Please, someone kill me… I don’t have the courage to face them anymore…]
Most of the comments were words of comfort, but what Song Ji-hu focused on was the location information at the bottom of the post.
– I’m near an abandoned factory around Tanhyeon, Paju City.
‘The final resting place of the mentally contaminated.’
Song Ji-hu closed the laptop without hesitation and stood up.
***
2 p.m. A slum near Tanhyeon, Paju City.
The world had changed when Gates appeared 20 years ago. A new class called Hunters had emerged, and wealth and power had been reorganized around them.
But on the other side of that were the abandoned.
Those who had survived dungeons, but whose minds had broken. Those who had been ostracized from society along with mental contamination. Places like this slum were where they gathered and lived.
Abandoned factories, collapsed buildings, deserted containers. Trash was scattered across the streets, and the air was thick with a rotten smell.
Song Ji-hu took out the compass that had been trembling faintly inside his clothes the entire time.
As soon as he arrived here, the needle had begun spinning madly, displaying all sorts of information before his eyes.
Song Ji-hu began walking slowly in the direction written on the community post. He passed through a narrow alley, slipped between crumbled bricks, and finally arrived in front of an old container.
A faint light leaked through the crack in the container door.
When he activated [Mental Detection], he sensed the presence of one woman inside, filled with despair.
The corner of his mouth rose coldly. He had found the right place.
Knock, knock, knock-
He sensed movement from inside. A moment later, the door opened with a creak.
A woman’s face appeared through the crack in the door.
A bloodless face that looked to be in its late twenties. Her hair was disheveled, and dark circles sat heavily beneath her eyes. But what stood out most were her eyes.
They were empty. As if her soul had slipped out.
On top of that, there was even the physical mutation that was the representative symptom of mental contamination.
“Please… go away… I… I’ll do it again… No.”
She muttered as she looked down at her own hands. A rainbow-hued aura was seeping out from her fingertips.
“Rainbow light means… a healer?”
The needle that had been spinning madly stopped, pointing precisely at her, and a window appeared.
[Target Detected]
[Mental Contamination Level: 74% (Middle Stage)]
[Mental Dive Danger: D]
Toward the woman looking up at him with terrified eyes, Song Ji-hu silently reached out a hand.
“No! Don’t come near me! I’ll do it again….”
Out of fear that she might hurt someone again, she tried to back away, but Song Ji-hu was already holding her wrist.
“I’m here to help.”
“Help…?”
The woman gave a pain-filled groan, as if scoffing.
“Ah… finally….”
The inside of the container was filled with nothing but unidentified medicine bottles. Song Ji-hu firmly shut the container door, then set up his phone for recording.
“Please make it painless.”
At Kim Su-bin’s plea, Song Ji-hu shook his head.
“First… I didn’t come here to kill you.”
Song Ji-hu’s voice was cold and firm. Unless he had seen it for himself, he could not know whether that mistake had been due to mental contamination, panic, or intent.
“Then why?”
“What is your name?”
“…Kim Su-bin.”
“Kim Su-bin, from now on, I intend to treat you.”
“Treat me? Is that… possible?”
“I don’t know. This is my first time. But you have nothing to lose anyway, don’t you?”
At the cruel truth, Kim Su-bin lowered her head. As Song Ji-hu had said, all that remained before her was to go berserk like this and meet her death.
She whispered in a trembling voice.
“…Please do it.”
Song Ji-hu nodded and held out his hand. The moment Kim Su-bin took his ice-cold hand.
A strange sensation, as if something were connecting, swept across Song Ji-hu’s entire body.
“Entering.”
“Kuuuugh-!”
Together with Kim Su-bin’s scream, the world twisted.