Chapter 103

“Is that so?”

Kwon Haeju gave a small nod. He was sharp, dark, and profoundly unstable. In the past, he would have reacted sensitively to Nam Shin-hoo’s every little movement; now, he seemed entirely submerged, like a man completely drained of the energy required to even be sensitive. He resembled a corroded engine, rusted and dried out without a single drop of oil.

Guided by the younger man, Nam Shin-hoo moved to the bedroom, where Kwon Haeju naturally directed him to the exact spot he used to sleep in.

“…Are we sleeping in the same room again?” Nam Shin-hoo asked.

“Yes,” came the immediate, matter-of-fact reply.

Right. To soothe this deeply unstable bastard, it was probably unavoidable. Resigning himself, Nam Shin-hoo rested his head against the pillow. As he rolled over, an artifact he hadn’t seen in a long time entered his line of sight.

[S-Rank: Mirror of Nemesis]

The effects of this familiar artifact were a brutal double-edged sword. While it could project brief, blissful illusions, the danger it posed was immense; since the criteria it used to judge “wickedness” remained completely unknown, a single misstep could plunge the user into an eternal nightmare.

As silence stretched between them, Kwon Haeju carefully draped a cloth over the mirror to avoid direct contact before storing it away in his inventory. Their eyes met.

Had the sedatives not been enough? Did he really resort to relying on hallucinations just to endure? Nam Shin-hoo couldn’t begin to fathom just how thoroughly Kwon Haeju had shattered during the years he was absent. Beneath that seemingly intact exterior, there was simply no telling how deep of a well of despair had been carved into his soul.

“Lie down,” Nam Shin-hoo instructed.

“I am fine. Missing a single day of sleep won’t—” Kwon Haeju began, only to stop as Nam Shin-hoo pushed himself back into a sitting position.

If this was a contest of who could endure sleep deprivation longer, Nam Shin-hoo would never lose. Besides, he had just woken up from a two-day drug-induced slumber; he was only trying to sleep now to recover his physical strength, not because he was actually chased by exhaustion.

“Lie down next to me. I’ll put you to sleep,” Nam Shin-hoo offered.

“…It won’t work.”

“I’ll be the judge of that.”

Tugging at his arm, Nam Shin-hoo pulled the unresisting man down onto the mattress beside him. “Close your eyes.”

Looking incredibly reluctant, Kwon Haeju obeyed, casting a soft shadow over his neatly resting, long eyelashes. Without a second thought, Nam Shin-hoo wrapped his arms around the younger man, pulling him into a firm embrace.

A sharp intake of breath hissed from Kwon Haeju’s lips as his entire body went rigid with shock. Ignoring the tension, Nam Shin-hoo simply hugged the massive frame tighter, gently patting his back to soothe the awkward rustling until the stiffness melted away. After a few half-hearted attempts to pull away, Kwon Haeju finally surrendered to Nam Shin-hoo’s stubbornness, letting his muscles go slack.

Despite his confident declaration, Nam Shin-hoo actually had no idea how to put someone else to sleep. While he was busy agonizing over whether he’d actually have to sing a lullaby if the stubborn man refused to drift off, the heavy body in his arms completely relaxed. The forced, desperate breaths smoothed into a slow, rhythmic cadence.

It was almost frustratingly simple. Kwon Haeju’s tense shoulders slumped, and his tightly clenched fists unfurled. The man who had insisted sleep was impossible, the man who had resorted to extreme toxins and dangerous artifacts just to snatch a few fleeting moments of rest, succumbed to exhaustion in mere minutes—as if chased down by years of accumulated fatigue.

Gazing down at the sleeping face, Nam Shin-hoo realized this was the first time he had ever studied Kwon Haeju from this close. In the past, Nam Shin-hoo had always fallen asleep first, leaving it to the younger man to comfort him through his endless nightmares.

A faint, permanent crease now marred the space between Kwon Haeju’s brows—a wrinkle that hadn’t been there before. That wasn’t all. The deeply hollowed eyes and the razor-sharp jawline were far too severe to be written off as the mere passage of time. Continuing his steady, rhythmic patting, Nam Shin-hoo felt his own eyelids growing heavy.

“…Sleep well. Have sweet dreams,” he whispered, finally returning the gentle greeting he had always received in the past.

***

When he woke next, it was past midnight. The clock read 3:00 AM—the darkest hour of the night, long after the moon had set and well before the sun dared to rise.

Blinking open his eyes, Nam Shin-hoo carefully shifted his weight. Perhaps due to the consecutive deep sleeps, his body felt surprisingly refreshed. The crushing fatigue had lifted, and the mind-numbing fog from the sedatives had finally dissipated. In his arms, Kwon Haeju remained dead to the world. Only after verifying the steady, rhythmic rise and fall of the man’s chest did Nam Shin-hoo slip out of bed.

Moving silently, he accessed his inventory. Everything was exactly as he had left it before entering the EX-Rank dungeon—from Balder’s Tear to the Return Stone he hadn’t been able to activate. For Nam Shin-hoo, it felt like waking up from a brief, vivid dream, yet the world around him had irreversibly changed.

Deep within the inventory, he spotted his old smartphone. While its cellular service was undoubtedly dead by now, connecting to Wi-Fi would theoretically allow him to contact Choi Kanghyeon. He debated it for a moment before shaking his head. Since Kwon Haeju had promised to handle the communication, Nam Shin-hoo resolved to quietly abide by his wishes for at least a few days.

Regardless… a sweep of his inventory revealed absolutely no new items. Opening his skill window and checking his status screen yielded the exact same empty result.

‘Didn’t it say it would give me a gift?’ The entity identifying itself as Nuckelavee had explicitly promised a reward, claiming that was the entire reason it had summoned him. Yet, Nam Shin-hoo had woken up empty-handed. He clearly remembered the sensation of something shifting the exact moment he lost consciousness, meaning something had definitely changed—he just couldn’t find it. The only thing that remained perfectly clear was the phantom sensation of collapsing while clutching his chest in agonizing pain.

Shaking his head to clear the complicated thoughts, Nam Shin-hoo sighed. The sheer shock of Kwon Haeju’s horrific deterioration had momentarily distracted him, but what he had experienced inside the dungeon was far from a trivial matter. There was simply too much to consider. The impending catastrophe… If Nuckelavee wasn’t just a simple monster, but a primordial entity that had existed since ancient times… then the preparations Nam Shin-hoo had made thus far would be laughably inadequate to counter it.

A deeply frigid breath escaped his lips, the air filling his lungs feeling much colder than he remembered.

Looking back down at the sleeping man beside him, Nam Shin-hoo solidified his priorities. Calming Kwon Haeju down has to come first. Since Kwon Haeju was the one who voluntarily suggested contacting Choi Kanghyeon, he would likely keep his word. Until then, Nam Shin-hoo needed to stay in this house and provide whatever reassurance he could.

Reaching out, he gently pulled the slipped blanket higher over the man’s shoulders. Even that microscopic movement caused Kwon Haeju’s brow to furrow. Frowning in his sleep, the younger man blindly reached out beneath the covers, his hand frantically searching until it locked onto Nam Shin-hoo’s arm in a bone-crushing grip.

Kwon Haeju’s lips parted slightly. Even at a whisper directly next to his ear, the voice was painfully fragile and difficult to discern.

“…take… me too…”

The fragmented, broken words repeated like a skipping record. Take me with you. It was the desperate plea Kwon Haeju had truly wanted to scream in their final moments inside the EX-Rank dungeon.

***

[How could you do this to me? Was all the time we spent together a lie?]

He clicked the remote.

[Mayday! Mayday! The operation is a failure! Return to base—]

He hit the directional pad again.

[An unprecedented new Hunter variety show begins now! What will the newest mission be…]

“Is it entertaining?” Kwon Haeju asked smoothly.ß

“…Does it look like it?” Nam Shin-hoo muttered, turning off the utterly useless television.

Kwon Haeju had approached without a sound, leaning his weight affectionately against Nam Shin-hoo’s shoulder with a soft expression. Three days had already passed since they returned to the house. The harrowing instability Kwon Haeju had displayed on that first day seemed to have vanished entirely, replaced by a terrifyingly composed demeanor. His dead, blackened blue eyes now sparkled with captured light, and his previously grim lips curved into a perpetually gentle smile—as if he didn’t have a single care in the world.

“I don’t understand how people find these tedious broadcasts entertaining,” Nam Shin-hoo grumbled.

“Shows like this are generally much more popular than the news,” Kwon Haeju replied.

True to his word, Kwon Haeju placed very few restrictions on Nam Shin-hoo’s actions. He explicitly stated that Nam Shin-hoo could do absolutely anything he pleased—provided he stayed by his side. There was only one strict exception: watching the news was absolutely forbidden.

From Nam Shin-hoo’s perspective, this ban on the news effectively severed his only lifeline to the crucial information he desperately needed. Nevertheless, he accepted the unreasonable demand. He could easily catch up on current events once he finally contacted Choi Kanghyeon anyway; there was no need to deliberately agitate Kwon Haeju just to advance his intelligence gathering by a few days.

Perhaps owing to Nam Shin-hoo’s accommodating efforts, Kwon Haeju’s face brightened whenever their eyes met, and he smiled far more freely than he ever had in the past. He appeared so incredibly stable that it was hard to reconcile him with the broken man from their first day.

On the surface, at least. Nam Shin-hoo couldn’t forget the chillingly casual tone the man had used to threaten his own suicide. A darkness that profound—an emotion so dense it made his very breath ache—could never evaporate that easily.

“If there are no programs worth watching, shall we eat first?” Kwon Haeju suggested, perfectly acting the part of someone completely fine.

“Am I eating alone again today?” Nam Shin-hoo asked quietly.

“Yes. I already ate while I was cooking,” came the smooth reply.

Nam Shin-hoo stared at him in silence, completely seeing through the blatant lie.

“You must taste-test a lot,” Nam Shin-hoo remarked drily, “considering you’re always full just from cooking.”

“It’s because I’m trying this recipe for the first time. Do you like jjimdak?” Kwon Haeju deflected seamlessly.

It was always like this. In the few days they had spent together, Nam Shin-hoo hadn’t seen the man eat a single proper meal. Using flimsy excuses like ‘I ate while cooking’ or ‘I grabbed something outside,’ Kwon Haeju would merely sit and watch Nam Shin-hoo eat. They were obvious fabrications; Kwon Haeju hadn’t taken a single step outside the house since Nam Shin-hoo arrived.

At first, Nam Shin-hoo hadn’t thought much of it. He assumed the younger man just enjoyed watching him eat, or that his crippling anxiety made it physically impossible to tear his eyes away. He had dismissed the behavior as a minor quirk born of trauma.

But as the days bled together, a sickening realization dawned on Nam Shin-hoo. The situation was far, far more sinister than a simple loss of appetite.