Hospital VIP waiting room.
After finishing his tests and treatment, Song Ji-hu was waiting for the person the Association had said would come, his body sunk deep into the sofa and his eyes closed.
He felt throbbing pain all over his body, but nothing showed on Song Ji-hu’s face.
“…… Water.”
When Eun Seo-jin carefully handed him a glass of water, Song Ji-hu opened his eyes. His ash-gray eyes looked at Eun Seo-jin.
“Thanks.”
He accepted the water and drained it in one go. The cold liquid flowed down, cooling his burning esophagus.
“Are you all right?”
“I’m used to it.”
A short answer. But at that one sentence, Eun Seo-jin’s eyes shook.
‘Used… to it?’
To this extreme situation?
To fighting without rest like that, fighting until his strength hit rock bottom? He was used to that? How could anyone become used to that kind of pain?
‘It never became familiar to me, even after years….’
Eun Seo-jin tried to gauge the depth of the overwhelming emotions he had felt in his mental imagery world.
‘No matter how I look at him, he seems to be in his early to mid-twenties….’
How could someone that young carry pain so deep?
“Um….”
Eun Seo-jin moved his lips. He had a mountain of things he wanted to ask.
‘Who on earth are you?’
‘Why did you save me, someone who had nothing to do with you?’
‘Where did that horrific torrent of emotion come from?’
“May I ask just one thing?”
When Song Ji-hu turned his head and stared at him, a gaze whose depth he could not fathom, whose depth he could not fathom, entered his eyes.
The moment Eun Seo-jin met those eyes, he had no choice but to close his mouth.
Not yet.
He was not qualified yet.
He had sworn to become his sword, but in the end, had all he done not been putting on a show in front of the suppression team?
“……No. Later, when I am qualified, I will ask you then.”
The corner of Song Ji-hu’s mouth rose faintly.
“A wise decision.”
At that brief praise, Eun Seo-jin felt one corner of his chest ache. The relief of having been acknowledged.
And an intense instinct that made him want to follow this person.
CREEEAK-
Just then, the door opened, and a man dressed in a suit stepped inside. Neatly combed-back hair, a sharp impression behind his glasses. He was the Association President’s secretary.
‘It’s been a while, Yoon Yeong-su.’
It was a face he had encountered a few times in his previous lives.
He was full of ambition for success, but he was not a bad person.
No, if anything, his practical ability was outstanding enough to be counted on one hand even within the Association.
“Are you Hunter Song Ji-hu?”
“That is correct.”
Song Ji-hu rose from his seat. His movements were so clean that it was hard to believe he had been utterly drained just moments ago.
The secretary bowed politely.
“I am Yoon Yeong-su, secretary to the Association President. I have come to coordinate the details regarding the meeting. We have prepared a separate place. I will escort you.”
“Understood.”
As if he had expected it, Song Ji-hu nodded.
“Let’s go.”
Eun Seo-jin also reflexively rose, but the secretary raised a hand toward him to stop him.
“I apologize, but Hunter Eun Seo-jin must first undergo a detailed examination by the medical staff separately….”
“Mr. Eun Seo-jin is coming with me.”
When Song Ji-hu cut the secretary off cleanly, Yoon Yeong-su swallowed a sigh inwardly. He had lost count of how many times Song Ji-hu had already taken issue with the Association’s process.
And what angered him most was that every single thing he said was correct, so he could not talk back.
“But there are procedures….”
Song Ji-hu’s gaze did not waver.
“He is my comrade. His own will is also clear. Is there a problem?”
A low and calm voice. But what it contained was obvious pressure. Yoon Yeong-su moved his lips. He tried to argue, but for some reason, no words came out.
His instincts were warning him. Do not object to this man.
Eun Seo-jin, too, had not said a single word from the start. As if Song Ji-hu’s opinion was his own opinion.
“……Understood. I will escort both of you together.”
In the end, Yoon Yeong-su took one step back. Song Ji-hu walked toward the door first, and Eun Seo-jin naturally followed half a step behind him.
As the two of them left the waiting room and walked, the gazes of the medical staff and Hunters poured onto them.
“Is that the Mental Barrier guy?”
“Isn’t that Eun Seo-jin beside him? Did he really get better?”
“What on earth did he do?”
“Exactly. Wasn’t he definitely in the late stage of mental contamination?”
“Isn’t that the Association President’s secretary? He shows up on TV sometimes.”
Endless murmurs clung to their backs. But Song Ji-hu paid them no mind. He walked on without turning his head even once.
The composure of his seventh life.
The indifference created by hundreds of years. Eun Seo-jin watched his back and thought.
‘What is this person?’
C-rank. In the Hunter world, rank was no different from class and status.
But although Song Ji-hu’s rank was C-rank, he had a kind of power that could not be explained in words. This strange charisma that made Eun Seo-jin, an S-rank, naturally follow behind him was proof of that.
“This is the place.”
The moment the secretary opened the door, Song Ji-hu slightly lifted the corner of his mouth. Because he felt he knew why they had come all the way here, even though they could have talked in the waiting room.
“It seems you do pay some attention to security in your own way. Soundproofing included.”
“If this gets out, there will be more than one place drooling over it. Though everyone who needs to know probably already knows.”
When Song Ji-hu answered as if he already knew, Eun Seo-jin nodded as if to say, of course.
“So the Association does understand the importance of healing mental contamination.”
“Of course. Wasn’t it because Hunter Song Ji-hu knew that, too, that you acted in a way that let it spread all over the place?”
“It did get a bit big, didn’t it?”
When Song Ji-hu grinned, Yoon Yeong-su simply looked at the documents and said what he had to say instead of answering or asking a question.
“Today, we will only coordinate the schedule and proceed with basic identity verification. The official meeting has been set for tomorrow at 3 p.m. Does 3 p.m. work for you?”
When Eun Seo-jin met Song Ji-hu’s eyes, he nodded.
“Three o’clock is good.”
Of course, even if it was the Association President, it was unfortunate that he was fussing over schedules and procedures as if playing a power game, even over something as important as healing mental contamination.
‘Not bad. Rather, I’ve gained time to prepare.’
When Song Ji-hu accepted it obediently, the secretary’s expression brightened considerably. He quickly brought out the next item.
“And regarding Hunter Eun Seo-jin’s return procedure as well….”
The secretary turned his gaze toward Eun Seo-jin.
“Because there was an isolation period of three years, a reexamination and health checkup are necessary. We will set a separate schedule….”
“Eun Seo-jin’s return procedure.”
Song Ji-hu set down his teacup and abruptly cut him off. The clink rang unusually loud.
“We will discuss it directly with the Association President at tomorrow’s meeting.”
“Pardon?”
The secretary’s eyes went round. Was this C-rank Hunter saying he would skip the Association’s administrative procedure however he pleased?
“Hunter Song Ji-hu, this is regulation. It must first be verified at the working-staff level….”
“Who conducts that verification?”
Song Ji-hu looked straight up at the secretary. His eyes gleamed coldly.
“And who approves it?”
“Th-that is….”
“Isn’t the return of an S-rank Hunter to active duty an agenda item the Association President decides personally?”
Yoon Yeong-su closed his mouth at Song Ji-hu’s question. Because it was not wrong.
“And if you run the tests today, you should be able to measure his mental contamination level immediately.”
An S-rank Hunter was a national strategic asset. Their return to active duty was not a simple administrative procedure, but a matter requiring the Association President’s direct approval.
“…Understood.”
In the end, it was the secretary who raised the white flag. He wiped away cold sweat and took one step back.
“I will put it on the agenda for tomorrow’s meeting.”
This was not the sort of rhetoric that should come from the mouth of a C-rank Hunter. This man knew the inner workings of the Association, and the structure of power, far too well.
“Then… the two of you….”
“We’ll handle ourselves.”
When Song Ji-hu rose from his seat, Eun Seo-jin also naturally stood.
.
.
.
.
.
By the time they finished the follow-up procedures and left the hospital, the sun was setting.
The sunset was dyeing the forest of buildings orange, or from a certain angle, a blood-red color.
“Tomorrow at three.”
A strange heat lingered in his low murmur.
“There are things I need to organize.”
Eun Seo-jin, standing at his side, asked carefully.
“What… will you organize?”
Song Ji-hu turned his head and looked at him.
In his ash-gray eyes, backlit by the sun, an unknowable light flashed past.
Song Ji-hu twisted the corner of his mouth into a smile.
“Everything.”
Before meeting the Association President, he had to finish preparing to overturn the board.
***
Song Ji-hu returned alone to his old studio apartment.
Eun Seo-jin had wanted to follow him as well, but between the size of the room and the hospital’s earnest request, they decided to observe his condition for one more night.
Since a man who had been no different from a vegetative patient for three years had become fine overnight, it was no wonder the medical staff were aghast.
CREEEAK-
The rusted hinges opened with a scream. The smell of mold filled the space of barely sixteen square meters.
Song Ji-hu sat heavily on the bed and stared blankly up at the ceiling.
“……Hoo.”
Once the tension loosened, physical pain rushed in like a tide.
It was the price of recklessly tearing through an S-rank’s mental imagery world with the vessel of a C-rank. Each of his joints creaked like a rusted machine, and one side of his head throbbed as if being stabbed with an awl.
But ironically, his mind was clear. No, if anything, it was moving more sharply than usual.
He took his phone from his pocket and opened his notes. The records of the future he had written out of habit immediately after regression filled the screen.
– 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)
…….
Song Ji-hu’s finger moved across the screen without hesitation.
[Delete?]
“I’m discarding every existing route.”
When he pressed the confirm button, the text on the screen vanished without a trace.
‘Mental Dive.’
The moment this incredible variable came into his hands, the strategies of the previous six lives became scraps of paper.
In his past lives, Song Ji-hu had been obsessed with preventing and suppressing the events that would occur. He gathered as many S-rank Hunters as possible, organized the strongest army, and clashed head-on with the ‘Abyssal Monarch.’
The result?
Six total annihilations. Six soul harvests.
A miserable defeat without a single exception.
‘But this time is different.’
Now, he could eliminate the cause. He could heal souls going mad and raise broken blades again.
Song Ji-hu began writing a new list in the empty notes.
‘The range of choices has become much wider.’
– Eun Seo-jin - complete
– Yu Han-gyeol
– Matsumoto Leo
– Ollie Barclay
He wrote a list of Hunters scheduled to be harvested through mental contamination. He might not be able to save them all.
Since there were restrictions each time he entered, there would certainly be limits.
‘As long as I can finish that bastard off….’
Because the situation that had not changed across the previous six lives, across more than 100 years, was changing now.