Chapter 4

“…Pardon?” Eui-rim asked, blinking.

“It wouldn’t be fair if you were the only one who knew my name,” Hae-gun remarked breezily. “Not when we’re walking the road to the underworld together.”

“Didn’t you check my status window earlier?” Eui-rim pointed out.

“I can’t read personal details like real names,” Hae-gun explained. “And I can only glimpse a small fraction of skills and traits, too.”

“I thought you could view a person’s entire status window,” Eui-rim said, surprised.

Wasn’t that how his ability had always been portrayed to the public?

Instead of elaborating, Hae-gun merely offered a faint, cryptic smile.

So 〈Mirror Gaze〉 had its limits after all. It could only read a fraction of a status window—not the entire profile.

While Eui-rim quietly absorbed this revelation, Hae-gun prompted him once more: “So, are you going to tell me your name or not?”

The persistent question made Eui-rim flinch for no discernible reason.

It’s not as though I lied, yet my conscience stings all the same. Let it go.

“I apologize,” Eui-rim said, clearing his throat. “I zoned out for a moment.” Straightening his posture against the wall, he formally gave his name. “I am Kang Eui-rim.”

“Kang I-rim?” Hae-gun tested the syllables.

“Eui-rim,” Eui-rim corrected gently.

“Aha. Kang Eui-rim,” Hae-gun repeated, rolling the name across his tongue.

The casual, unhurried cadence caught Eui-rim off guard. Even amid the stench of ash and decaying flesh, a faint spark of admiration stirred in his chest.

Even with a mangled jaw and cracked lips, Hae-gun had cleanly enunciated the subtle Korean vowel between ‘I’ and ‘Ui.’ Aside from his late mother, almost no one had ever pronounced his name with such precision. The simple accuracy touched Eui-rim far more deeply than he cared to admit.

Whenever Eui-rim had watched him on television broadcasts, the Guild Master’s voice had always been remarkably pleasant to the ear. Facing him now in a tomb of concrete and shadow felt tragic in more ways than one.

As Eui-rim swallowed his bitter thoughts, another unexpected question flew his way through the gloom.

“By any chance, haven’t we met somewhere before?” Hae-gun asked.

After a beat of utter bafflement, Eui-rim pointed an index finger toward his own chest.

“Me?” Eui-rim asked, bewildered.

“Yes, you,” Hae-gun confirmed.

“Uh… No. Never. Why do you ask?” Eui-rim managed, shaking his head.

Eui-rim stared, utterly at a loss. Hae-gun’s torn lips twitched into a lopsided, faintly amused grin. Uninjured, that smile would have been devastating; the public had long hailed Seo Hae-gun’s face as a visual miracle no camera lens could fully capture. Now Eui-rim had finally met the legend in the flesh, only to find him carved to ribbons. Even if he crossed paths with his clinic colleagues in the afterlife, he wouldn’t be able to boast of having seen that legendary face.

“Mmm. I was curious what you looked like, but my sight is practically gone right now, Healer Kang Eui-rim,” Hae-gun murmured. “I figured if we’d met before, I could rummage through my memories to picture you.”

So that was why the man had paused earlier. Perhaps finding it distasteful to confess weakness, a subtle shade of irritation had colored his low voice.

He truly is remarkably composed. To possess the mental room to care about such trivialities even in a death trap like this.

Swallowing a wry chuckle, Eui-rim shook his head. “Unfortunately, we haven’t. Before all this, I was merely an ordinary clerk shuttling between home and the district health center.”

“Dear me.” Seo Hae-gun let out an exaggerated sigh of theatrical disappointment. “Why on earth did you live such a dreadfully boring life?”

…He isn’t wrong. Why did I live so mundanely? Had I known the world would end like this, I wouldn’t have bothered saving a single penny.

“Thinking back on it now does give me pause,” Eui-rim admitted with a quiet huff. “I suppose I should have lived with a bit more flair.”

“A shame, but what can you do?” Hae-gun retorted lightly. “Truthfully, I wasn’t expecting much of an adventure anyway.”

Then why ask in the first place? Now I’m sitting in the pitch-black dark regretting my entire existence.

As Eui-rim stared at the profile more than half-devoured by shadow, Hae-gun spoke in a tone so airy it felt as though a light breeze might scatter it away.

“Describe what you look like, at least,” the wounded man coaxed. “I’ll do my best to sketch it in my mind.”

“I just look thoroughly ordinary,” Eui-rim muttered.

“Come now, you must have some distinguishing features,” Seo Hae-gun countered, a playful edge in his rasp. “Not even a prominent beauty mark somewhere?”

“None at all,” Eui-rim stated flatly.

“Then how am I supposed to recognize you on the other side, Healer Kang Eui-rim?” Hae-gun teased softly. “We ought to know each other’s faces if we’re going to cross paths in the afterlife.”

“You’ll be crossing over well before me anyway,” Eui-rim shot back dryly. “Where exactly do you plan on waiting until I die?”

“Hahaha!” Hae-gun’s sudden laughter rang out, rich and unburdened.

Refusing to let himself be pushed around by the man’s relentless teasing, Eui-rim had fired back without thinking—only for Seo Hae-gun to erupt into full, genuine mirth. Even rasped raw by ash and coagulated blood, the sound rang startlingly clear against the stone. If unearthing amusement in the face of annihilation was a talent, Hae-gun had perfected it into high art.

Hae-gun’s laughter proved thoroughly infectious, coaxing a quiet, helpless chuckle from Eui-rim. The absurd banter worked like a soothing balm, untangling the frantic knots in his chest until the lingering dread melted away into the cold air. Resting his chin atop his knees, Eui-rim closed his stinging eyes, feeling strangely relaxed enough to drift to sleep right there on the frozen floor.

In the hush of the subterranean bunker, their conversation drifted effortlessly from one subject to the next. Hae-gun offhandedly dispensed survival tips and high-tier combat knowledge—advice that might serve Eui-rim well should he somehow find a way back to the surface. Most were closely guarded secrets or critical truths the general public had wildly misunderstood, leaving Eui-rim wide-eyed in astonishment at every turn.

Yet the exchange was by no means a one-way lecture. Before parting with each crumb of classified intelligence, Hae-gun extracted his toll, ruthlessly grilling Eui-rim about his personal life—his mundane hobbies, his family history, how he had passed the grueling civil service exam, and the petty office politics of the clinic—demanding every microscopic detail.

Looking utterly nonplussed, Eui-rim finally asked, “…Why on earth are you so curious about mundane things like that?”

The protest burst out of him the moment Hae-gun extracted the final details of his background. It had suddenly struck Eui-rim that this interrogation was scarcely distinguishable from an elite guild recruitment interview.

Hae-gun merely shrugged with his intact shoulder, replying in his customary breezy drawl, “Because it’s fun.”

“Didn’t you just berate me for living a dull life?” Eui-rim retorted.

“That was regarding your daily radius of activity being far too narrow,” Hae-gun countered smoothly. “Healer Kang Eui-rim himself is plenty entertaining. Quite fascinating, in fact.”

Eui-rim wondered what on earth the distinction was supposed to be, but he chose not to pursue it. He doubted the man would offer a straight answer, and even if he did, Eui-rim doubted he would understand.

Moreover…

Swallowing dryly, Eui-rim observed Seo Hae-gun with mounting concern.

He looks far paler than before. Is he approaching his absolute limit? Eui-rim’s own throat scorched with thirst and his stomach gnawed with hunger. Several hours must have slipped away into the abyss, but with no timepiece in the dark, the creeping uncertainty gnawed at his resolve.

Silence descended once more, heavy and sudden.

The subterranean air stiffened with oppressive quiet, rendering the easy chatter of moments ago feel like a fleeting dream.

Feeling the icy claws of dread creeping back into his chest, Eui-rim clenched his fists tight against his knees.

It’s fine. Not yet. It will be fine…

“Don’t you feel resentful?” Seo Hae-gun’s voice cut through the dark before Eui-rim could steel himself to break the quiet.

Striving to keep his tone level, Eui-rim asked, “About what?”

“You’re trapped in a hole like this, doing nothing but waiting for your own demise,” Hae-gun murmured. “When you could have slipped away toward the southern safe zone while the Gaze was turned.”

“Who knows…” Eui-rim answered after a moment’s thought. “Rather than that, rushing down here to save someone’s life only to be incapable of casting a single healing spell feels far more frustrating.”

“Even backed into a grave like this, that’s what bothers you more?” Hae-gun asked, a thread of disbelief in his tone.

“Am I not allowed to feel that way?” Eui-rim countered softly.

“If you hadn’t crossed beyond the perimeter, you wouldn’t have had to perish down here with me,” Hae-gun pressed, his blue-gray eyes boring into the shadows. “You truly harbor no regret over that?”

Eui-rim hadn’t pondered the concept of regret in a very long time. From the day of his awakening, people had relentlessly drummed into him that a healer existed only to sacrifice for others, making Hae-gun’s blunt inquiry feel strangely disarming.

“Remaining within the defensive perimeter was hardly safe either,” Eui-rim murmured at last. “I don’t hold any great resentment.”

“Are you the type who believes a healer is inherently obligated to save others, Healer Kang Eui-rim?” Hae-gun asked.

“I don’t carry such a grandiose sense of mission,” Eui-rim admitted, feeling an embarrassed heat warm the back of his neck. He rubbed his nape with dusty fingertips. “It’s just… when the world is crumbling, if I possess the ability to offer even the smallest measure of help, I feel I ought to do it.”

“Hopelessly, pointlessly good-natured,” Hae-gun muttered.