Chapter 2

Damn it. This is unpleasantly ominous.

“Which means…” Eui-rim trailed off, dread coiling in his gut.

“The guild member who brought you down here wasn’t a guild member at all,” Hae-gun finished calmly.

Seo Hae-gun snapped his thumb and middle finger, and an incandescence far brighter than before flooded the passageway. The sharp sound from earlier had indeed been the S-rank hunter triggering an illumination skill.

Eui-rim drew a tight breath and focused on the corridor, which had grown so brilliant his eyes stung.

And when the full scene finally unveiled itself in sharp, merciless clarity—

Eui-rim discovered Seo Hae-gun utterly engulfed by the Shadow. Living darkness crept across the Guild Master’s flesh like writhing ink, coiling through what remained of his shattered limbs.

“It seems the Shadow… has occupied this bunker,” Eui-rim breathed, horror tightening his throat.

Even through wounds severe enough to make his features almost unrecognizable, Eui-rim caught the corners of the Guild Master’s mouth curling upward. Had the man’s face been intact, it likely would have formed a mischievous grin.

“Then… ahem.” The healer’s voice came out hoarse and grated against his dry throat. Eui-rim cleared his throat lightly before continuing. “Then was the person who guided me here also a hallucination conjured by the Shadow?”

“That’s right,” Hae-gun confirmed with an easy nod.

The fond, almost indulgent tone—as though the S-rank hunter were praising a student for arriving at the correct answer—drew a dry, humorless chuckle from Eui-rim.

So that’s what it was.

He had rushed into the bunker without a shred of doubt, only to find Seo Hae-gun trapped alone inside. The Shadow had orchestrated every detail from the very beginning. Every hurried step the healer had taken toward this vault, he had taken exactly as the entity intended.

With that realization came a jarring shift in perspective. This darkness was not merely an absence of light, but an encroaching malice that no human strength could escape. Suddenly the entire subterranean room seemed utterly transformed. The concrete walls pressed closer; the air turned razor-thin.

Eui-rim watched in stunned silence as the living darkness gnawed persistently at the Guild Master’s flesh.

It was an offshoot torn from that cyclopean sphere blanketing the heavens.

Created to eradicate even the subterranean depths where the Gaze could not penetrate, that Seed was now germinating—using the man once hailed as the world’s strongest hunter as its living host.

“Uh, Cheongho Guild Master…” Eui-rim ventured cautiously.

“Just call me by my name,” Hae-gun murmured, his head leaning back against the concrete.

“Ah, yes. In that case… Hunter Seo Hae-gun.” Eui-rim winced inwardly at his own stiffness.

Trying to maintain protocol in a situation like this felt absurd, but the Guild Master’s nonchalance was hardly normal either. Catching that quiet chuckle, the younger man marveled in disbelief: Just how ironclad are his nerves that he can stay this composed on the brink of death?

“How long have you been here?” Eui-rim asked. “Headquarters reported communications went dark a week ago.”

“Who knows? My sense of time has completely vanished,” Hae-gun replied casually. “If word was cut off a week ago, I suppose I must have been down here since then.”

“You’ve been trapped in this bunker that entire time?” the healer gasped.

He endured a whole week inside a Shadow-occupied zone? How?

No matter how exceptional an S-rank hunter might be, becoming host to the Seed meant losing one’s sanity in less than half a day. For Seo Hae-gun to hold out for an entire week and still carry on a lucid conversation was utterly unprecedented.

“Fascinating, isn’t it?” the Guild Master remarked, a faint smirk twitching at the unmarred edge of his mouth. “I was a bit surprised myself. To think I’d hold out this long. My body must be pretty sturdy.”

“…I see you can still crack jokes in a situation like this,” Eui-rim said weakly.

“It’s not like I can start weeping in front of someone I’m meeting for the first time,” Hae-gun retorted smoothly.

What kind of person is this?

The sheer absurdity pulled a soft chuckle from Eui-rim despite himself. His entire body had been frozen in terror moments ago, yet the S-rank hunter’s nonchalance proved oddly contagious, draining the paralyzing dread from the healer’s limbs.

“Can’t you purge the Shadow with an active skill?” Eui-rim pressed. “If anyone could do it, Hunter Seo Hae-gun, it would be you.”

“Mmm.” Hae-gun tilted his head, considering the thought. “I tried that early on, but my mana only served as nourishment for the Seed. It absorbed the skill entirely.”

“What about the light skill you used just now?” Eui-rim asked.

“That didn’t make direct contact with the Shadow, so it’s fine,” the Guild Master explained.

The steady stream of unprecedented revelations left the younger man momentarily dazed.

So no matter how lucid a hunter remained, once the Shadow took root, escape was truly impossible.

“What about destroying the bunker and breaking out of the contaminated zone?” Eui-rim suggested urgently. “If we reach high-ranking Healer Shim Woo-joo, she might be able to devise an alternative treatment.”

“Do you truly want me to do that?” Hae-gun asked quietly.

The counter-question was soft, almost gentle. Only upon hearing it did the healer realize what he had just proposed. If Seo Hae-gun unleashed his full power to shatter the bunker and emerge, the surrounding western sector would be instantly reduced to scorched ash.

“…No. I apologize,” Eui-rim whispered, bowing his head.

“No need to apologize. It was actually amusing to hear a healer suggest something even my guild kids wouldn’t dare utter,” the Guild Master chuckled.

Whether he was genuinely amused or not, a dry, rasping laugh filtered from the Hunter’s throat. Eui-rim watched the darkness slowly creeping over the man’s remaining shoulder before asking, “Is there anything at all I can do for you?”

“No. Leaving quickly is the best way you can help me.” The rough voice softened by a fraction. “You’re a healer—you know better than anyone that this cannot be cured.”

Once again, the Guild Master’s words were impossible to deny. No matter how extraordinary a healer might be, channeling restorative skills within a Shadow-occupied zone was out of the question. Healing was an act inherently tied to cellular regeneration, carrying an overwhelming risk of accelerating the Seed’s parasitic growth and expanding its blighted territory. Several frontline healers had already perished under those exact conditions.

Furthermore, even high-grade recovery potions were useless in this state. With the man’s entire body already devoured by the Shadow, first aid served no purpose whatsoever. Yielding to reality was far more practical than attempting a futile cure—and Eui-rim hated how readily that bitter arithmetic surfaced.

“How long… do you think you can hold out?” Eui-rim asked, the question slipping out far quieter than he intended.

“Mmm. A day at most?” Hae-gun answered languidly. “I’m reaching my limit soon as well. I can’t say for sure.”

The Guild Master’s nonchalant tone—as though he were discussing someone else’s misfortune—drained the breath from Eui-rim. Had the civil servant not understood the horrific gravity of the situation, he might have believed the man was merely playing a grim prank.

Yet this was stark, irreversible reality, directly tethered to death. The living Shadow that had consumed more than half of Seo Hae-gun’s face in the span of mere minutes stood as gruesome proof.

With the darkness thickening around them, the S-rank hunter’s features began to dissolve into the shadows. Watching the man’s silhouette slip further into the gloom, Eui-rim forced his dry lips apart.

“If there is any message you’d like to leave, please tell me,” the healer offered. “I will deliver it to the survivors outside.”

“Wow. You’re even offering to record my last words in a situation like this?” Hae-gun let out a breath that sounded like a raspy laugh. “That’s incredible mental fortitude. Are you sure you aren’t secretly an S-rank rather than a D-rank?”

Eui-rim had steeled his resolve to make the offer, so receiving such flippant banter in return left him thoroughly deflated. Swallowing a wry laugh, the younger man shook his head.

Isn’t your composure the truly terrifying thing? Cracking jokes even in this state.

“Since healing is impossible, I only asked so I could convey whatever you wanted to leave behind,” Eui-rim explained patiently.

“I don’t have anything to leave,” Hae-gun replied without hesitation.

The reply came so swiftly that it struck the healer speechless yet again. Pressing a hand against his throbbing temple, Eui-rim asked, “Truly not a single thing?”

“With the world ending anyway, what lingering attachments could I possibly have?” the Guild Master murmured. “Nearly everyone I ever knew is dead.”

For just a fleeting instant, a shadow of profound solitude flickered behind those flat words—there and gone before Eui-rim could name it.

“…Ah, does hearing that hurt your feelings, Healer?” Hae-gun added with a self-deprecating chuckle. “Since we’ve officially become acquainted now, I mean.”

…He doesn’t let the air stay heavy for even a second. Was that fleeting loneliness a moment ago just my imagination?

Since the man tossed out a joke as though he were simply unwilling to let the silence stretch, Eui-rim had no idea how to respond. Had the Guild Master always been this irreverent? Probably. Back when the Tower of Time collapsed, Seo Hae-gun had smirked and bantered through the press conferences, drawing furious public backlash. At the time, Eui-rim had wondered whether the S-rank hunter acted that way because the United Nations officials were being insufferable, but perhaps that breezy detachment was simply woven into his nature.

“Is all your business done now?” Seo Hae-gun asked, adopting an exaggeratedly breezy tone to smooth the way for their parting. The oppressive atmosphere felt artificially lightened. “Then get going quickly. Don’t let the Shadow bewitch you into coming back.”