It was cold on a completely different level from before. The cold of one who now stood wholly on his own, and who had found what he had to protect.
The twin swords changed. They became longer, sharper, and clearer. Instead of transparent blue light, they emitted a pure white radiance bright enough to make the eyes ache.
“What a sorry sight, unworthy of the alias Frost Swordmaster.”
The black Eun Seo-jin aimed the tip of his sword at Eun Seo-jin as if mocking him.
“Frost Swordmaster….”
Eun Seo-jin murmured and raised his sword.
“Yes… That was my alias.”
Yes, there had been a time like that.
The black Eun Seo-jin screamed and charged. Sword met sword.
SHATTER-!
One exchange.
In just one exchange, the black Eun Seo-jin’s sword split in half.
“Th-this can’t be possible…!”
“It’s possible.”
Eun Seo-jin spoke coldly.
“Because you’re a part of me. I just have to overcome you.”
The second sword swung.
The black form split in half and screamed.
“Hoo….”
The moment Eun Seo-jin surpassed his limit, there was something only Song Ji-hu could see.
Black mist. Formless darkness that brushed past from the remains of the shadow.
And for a fleeting instant, blood-red eyes flashing within it.
A familiar voice rang in his head.
<Oh… To think you destroyed my carefully cultivated seed. I do not know what move you used, but….>
Goosebumps rose all over Song Ji-hu’s body.
<How amusing, my little farmer. I shall look forward to this life.>
At the voice of the bastard he had not forgotten for even a single moment, Song Ji-hu glared at the disappearing black mist.
‘This time will be different.’
He clenched his teeth.
‘Wait for me.’
Song Ji-hu’s ash-gray eyes were dyed blood-red.
‘This time, without fail… I’ll tear your bastard heart out.’
While Song Ji-hu once again renewed his vow of revenge, Eun Seo-jin did not notice this strange phenomenon and was panting after cutting down his own shadow.
“Now we should return.”
Song Ji-hu looked for a long while at the spot where the Abyssal Monarch had disappeared, then stood up from the collapsing wasteland, dusting himself off.
The dark-red sky cleared, the ice melted, and light poured down. As if the nightmare of three years had come to an end.
“How do we return?”
Eun Seo-jin, who had shaken his head and come to his senses, hurriedly came looking for Song Ji-hu.
“Don’t worry. Once you clear the stage, the mental imagery… spits you out on its own.”
Together with those words, light wrapped around the two of them.
And as Song Ji-hu left the mental imagery world, blue energy followed him.
***
CRACK—!
The ice that had frozen the entire building split from the inside.
CRUMBLE-
The cracks spread farther and farther across the entire building, then scattered as ice crystals. Song Ji-hu staggered, and Eun Seo-jin supported him.
Eun Seo-jin’s eyes opened. His eyes were still cold, but they were no longer empty.
“…Why did you come to save me?”
Eun Seo-jin asked. His voice was terribly dry and cracked. It was because these were the first proper words he had spoken in a long time.
A person with no connection to him whatsoever had risked his life and dived into his mind by some method he could not understand.
Song Ji-hu wiped the blood from his lips with the back of his hand and answered calmly.
“Because I need your sword.”
It was a cold and calculating answer, but Eun Seo-jin felt something within it.
That man was not lying.
‘And even if that is not all there is to it….’
Eun Seo-jin slowly knelt on one knee, bowed his head, and spoke.
“…Then my sword is yours.”
Song Ji-hu looked down at Eun Seo-jin. No emotion appeared in his ash-gray eyes.
But after a moment, the corner of his mouth rose faintly.
“…Get up.”
Song Ji-hu held out his hand.
“There’s a lot to do.”
Eun Seo-jin took that hand and stood. The first comrade of his seventh life.
“My name is Song Ji-hu.”
“I understand.”
And the first sword for his revenge.
***
Song Ji-hu’s knees buckled just as he was about to leave the isolation room.
His vision blurred, and a sharp ringing continued to echo inside his ears. The sensation in his fingertips had long since vanished.
‘…As expected, that was too much.’
The price of scraping down to the bottom of an S-rank’s mental imagery world and fighting there with a C-rank vessel, and an unprepared body at that, was harsh.
If not for his mental fortitude, trained for more than 100 years, he would already have lost consciousness and then some.
Leaning his back against the wall, Song Ji-hu barely held up his body, which had grown as heavy as soaked cotton. Gasping harshly as if his lungs were being torn apart, he left the isolation room.
“Don’t move! Hands up!”
A shout rang thunderously through the corridor. A heavily armed suppression team had surrounded the entrance of the isolation room in a semicircle. Over a dozen weapons aimed at Song Ji-hu all at once. The medical staff watched from a distance with frightened expressions.
“Hands up! Right now!”
“Step away from the patient!”
Song Ji-hu did not even have the strength to answer. He merely stared at them with blurred vision.
That was when it happened.
SLASH-
Along with a chilling sound, the air in the corridor turned cold in an instant, and the guns, sliced in two, clattered to the floor.
The man who had been kneeling under the weight of guilt for that long stretch of time was now blocking the way in front of Song Ji-hu.
“Lower your weapons. How dare you….”
Even faint killing intent lingered in Eun Seo-jin’s low voice.
“This man is my benefactor.”
The suppression team leader’s face twisted. His expression was a mix of confusion and wariness.
“Hunter… Eun Seo-jin?”
“I will not say it again. Put your weapons away.”
Eun Seo-jin’s eyes narrowed. A bloodless face, limp silver hair.
The traces left by three years of isolation were clear, but his eyes alone were vividly alive.
No, they had come back to life.
“If you do not lower those muzzles, I will lower them myself.”
The pressure of an S-rank Hunter filled the corridor. The air grew heavy, and the shoulders of the suppression team members instinctively shrank.
“…Lower your weapons!”
The suppression team carefully lowered their gun barrels.
Through his blurred vision, Song Ji-hu looked at Eun Seo-jin’s reliable back. A faint smile spread across his lips.
‘As expected, my eye wasn’t wrong.’
“Please cooperate for a moment. Just a moment. We have procedures, too.”
When Song Ji-hu nodded toward Eun Seo-jin, Eun Seo-jin lowered his sword, and the suppression team leader pressed the radio button with trembling hands.
“H-headquarters. This is Isolation Room 13. A situation has occurred.”
– Report.
“The patient… Patient Eun Seo-jin is normal. He is conscious and lucid, and his contamination symptoms are… completely absent.”
A cry of shock, almost a scream, burst from beyond the radio.
– What?! What are you talking about?!
“He is currently fully conscious, and no mental contamination symptoms are being observed.”
– Are you certain?
“Yes, I’m certain. He is right in front of me.”
Using the noisy radio chatter as background sound, Song Ji-hu closed his eyes.
‘Yes. If I want to make an impact, it has to be at least this much.’
Everything was as expected.
***
Hunter Association Headquarters, emergency response conference room.
The air around the oval table was stretched taut.
Medical, combat, and intelligence. The core executives under the Association President who moved the South Korean Hunter world all wore expressions of disbelief.
“A late-stage mental contamination patient… recovered?”
The Combat Department Head slammed the table.
“What, are you writing a novel right now? Do you think that makes any sense?”
Mental contamination.
The worst curse and incurable disease born from this era.
This phenomenon could be slowed, but never reversed.
Not once in human history, anywhere in the world.
The word ‘Recovery’ had never been used.
“Please watch the CCTV first. I doubted my own eyes as well, but….”
When the Medical Department Head pressed a button with trembling hands, footage of Eun Seo-jin and Song Ji-hu walking out of the isolation room began playing on the screen.
“We were able to confirm that the external symptoms of mental contamination had clearly decreased. The detailed numbers must be verified through later examination, but according to our opinion… it is certain he has dropped at least from the late stage to the very edge of the early stage.”
“……This is insane.”
The Intelligence Department Head uttered it like a groan.
“You are saying that the very Eun Seo-jin we were going to deal with within this month is now at the mental state of an ordinary person?”
“Yes, and….”
The Medical Department Head switched the screen. In the blurry footage, the scene of Song Ji-hu walking out of the isolation room was enlarged.
“Who is that?”
“According to identity verification….”
The Medical Department Head displayed his Hunter registration photo.
[Name: Song Ji-hu]
[Rank: C-rank]
[Attribute: mental-type]
“C-rank?”
The Combat Department Head furrowed his brow.
“You are saying some C-rank small fry went in there?”
“Wait. This name…”
The Intelligence Department Head quickly flipped through his tablet, then narrowed his eyes.
“I found him. He is the rookie who caused a stir during the rank examination not long ago. The possessor of the ‘Mental Barrier’ skill. The Hunter who blew off every major guild even when they offered signing bonuses of several billion won and then disappeared.”
Silence swallowed the conference room.
It was the moment scattered points connected into a single line.
Mental-type Hunter. Mental Barrier. And history’s first case of complete recovery.
“Surely….”
Someone swallowed dryly and muttered.
“Are you saying a C-rank… treated an S-rank’s mental contamination?”
Everyone was thinking the same impossible thought, but no one could answer easily. Because clear evidence was floating before their eyes.
“If this… is real….”
It was a major incident that would overturn the entire landscape of the global Hunter industry. No, the very power structure itself.
“The world will turn upside down.”
The answer was obvious if one considered the treatment Emilia Jones in America received for being able to slow mental contamination.
“I will meet him myself. Both Eun Seo-jin and that fellow Song Ji-hu.”
At that single sentence from the Association President, everyone present fell silent.
“I will deliver it immediately.”
The Association President’s secretary nodded and immediately called the person in charge on-site.
“This is the Association. The Association President says to bring the two of them to headquarters immediately.”
The conference room stirred. It was truly rare for the Association President to act personally. Unless it was something on the level of an S-rank Awakener emerging.
“Uh, do you think this is a joke? It is the Association President. The Association President!”
The secretary kept whispering into the phone, then finally shouted.
“U-um… Mr. President.”
The secretary looked at the Association President, cold sweat trickling down his face.
“What is it?”
“He says he is too exhausted right now, so it would be difficult immediately, and that he would like to go to the hospital first and talk later….”
At the reply that even though the Association President was summoning him, the man would rest first and meet later, the Association President burst into laughter.
“Pffft… What an audacious bastard….”
While the other department heads grew restless, the Association President tapped the table.
“Do not send him anywhere else. Book him an appointment at our hospital, and when his treatment is over, go yourself and set an appointment. Eun Seo-jin, too.”
“Yes, I will handle it immediately.”
“We need to make a good impression in advance, even like this. If he can truly deal with mental contamination….”
If it was true, they absolutely could not let him go.
Even if they had to give him everything.