Chapter 47

On screen, blurred news footage showed injured hunters being carried out on stretchers. Likely because their external healer had succumbed to the hallucination debuff before administering triage, every single raider was drenched in blood, thrashing and screaming in visible agony.

“The hallucination debuff incident…” Eui-rim whispered, his eyes locked on the screen.

“Hm?” Hae-gun asked.

“In the Isolation Ward… they just reported a mass hallucination incident…” Eui-rim managed to say.

“Ah, that.” Following Eui-rim’s fixed stare, Hae-gun gently took the remote from his trembling fingers and clicked off the television. “Definitely not something to watch over breakfast. If your stomach is turning, should I order some soda for you?”

“…I’m fine. Just startled, that’s all,” Eui-rim murmured.

To be completely honest, it went far beyond mere surprise—a chilling dread gripped his spine. A mass hallucination incident, of all things. Why on earth had this occurred? Could his refusal to sign with Kim Si-hoon have triggered such a catastrophic ripple effect?

Given that the news referred to it as the second such incident, on the surface it appeared completely unrelated to his actions. Yet having cleared the Isolation Ward in the past timeline, he couldn’t shake the creeping horror taking root in his chest.

Fundamentally, the Isolation Ward was a hospital-themed dungeon where humanoid monsters—ghouls and undead—spawned. Among B-rank gates, it leaned toward the easier end of the spectrum, to the point where he and Kim Si-hoon had cleared it ahead of schedule with just the two of them in the previous life.

Of course, the boss monster guarding the core ward had been a grueling battle. Eui-rim had been forced to pump continuous heals into Kim Si-hoon throughout the clash. But even that stubborn boss had possessed no hallucination abilities whatsoever; it was simply exceptionally durable and hit hard. Even back then, it had never struck him as an extraordinary creature.

Lifting his head amid the confusion, Eui-rim met Hae-gun’s gaze as the Guild Master knelt before him. Straining to ignore the chaos swirling in his mind, Eui-rim spoke with heavy deliberation.

“Originally… I was scheduled to be drafted for the Isolation Ward,” Eui-rim said.

“You were, Eui-rim-ssi?”

“Yes. Back when I worked at the public clinic, Guild Master Kim Si-hoon designated me as their support healer. It fell through when I resigned, though.”

“Sounds like the bastard was clinging to you pretty persistently.”

The undisguised contempt in Hae-gun’s tone coaxed a sudden, breathy laugh from Eui-rim. As Eui-rim gave a dry chuckle, Hae-gun’s lips curled upward as well, his expectant look silently prompting him: And then?

“Because it diverged so heavily from what I knew, I was shaken. I still can’t quite make sense of it.”

“Mmm. It’s true that there shouldn’t be any monsters in there capable of inflicting debuffs,” Hae-gun said.

“Did you know about the Isolation Ward as well, Hae-gun-ssi?”

Surprised by the response, Eui-rim had asked—only to be met with a spoonful of porridge. Hae-gun had risen halfway from his seat and was holding the spoon directly to Eui-rim’s lips.

Only after Eui-rim began chewing did Hae-gun look satisfied enough to continue.

“I know practically every dungeon in the country inside out.”

Hae-gun then began pouring hot coffee into an empty teacup. Tearing open a packet of sugar as though it were second nature, he glanced at Eui-rim as if recalling something.

“Did you mention you don’t take sugar?”

“Uh… yes. I drink it black.”

“A moderate amount of sugar is good for blowing off stress, though, so take the opportunity to drink some today.”

…Then why did you even ask?

In the blink of an eye, half the sugar was tipped into the cup and stirred briskly with a teaspoon. Across the surface of the coffee where a shallow whirlpool formed, pale white granules swirled like snowflakes before dissolving into the dark brew.

When Eui-rim took the proffered cup in a daze, a glass of iced orange juice clinked lightly against it. The sound of ceramic meeting glass was so crisp and refreshing it brought to mind the ring of wind chimes swaying in a breeze.

“How is it?”

As Eui-rim stared down at what was essentially sugar syrup masquerading as coffee, Hae-gun’s expectant gaze pressed him for a verdict. Eui-rim was about to point out that he hadn’t even tasted it yet, but instead simply swallowed a mouthful of the lukewarm brew.

“It’s far too sweet.”

“Still, don’t you feel considerably better?”

If only he could deny it. Irritating as Hae-gun’s smug confidence was, the tangled confusion in Eui-rim’s head had indeed dissipated somewhat. While a lingering uneasiness remained, the dull throb at the back of his skull had neatly cleared away.

Glancing at Hae-gun leisurely returning to his seat, Eui-rim mashed the omelet with his fork. Perhaps because the sweet coffee had warmed his stomach, a sudden flush of heat rose within him, completely dulling his appetite.

“Don’t dwell on it too much. The Association agreed to handle that incident.”

“The Association is handling it?”

Hae-gun nodded and pulled the bowl of hangover soup toward himself. “As the news mentioned earlier, this isn’t the first time an incident like this has occurred. Even before the Ice Plaza they cited, there was another dungeon. And that one fell under our jurisdiction.”

“But the news stated this was only the second time.”

“That’s because the government didn’t want the information leaking out. Dungeons managed by the Cheongho Guild must appear completely flawless at all costs.”

I see.

It wasn’t hard to understand. If word leaked that an anomaly had occurred in a Cheongho-managed dungeon, public opinion—along with the Association, which held no love for Hae-gun—would undoubtedly seize the chance to meddle.

“For the record, Moonhyuk went through quite an ordeal on our side. He spent about two weeks quarantined. Thankfully, the kid is simple enough that mental-type skills don’t stick well to him, but anyone else might have suffered far worse.”

“Is he entirely all right now?”

“Yeah. Shim Woo-joo treated him. Remember when I mentioned she stopped by the guild to treat you before? It happened around that time. As you saw, he’s perfectly fine now, with zero lingering effects.”

If so, that was a tremendous relief. Though Eui-rim didn’t know the exact nature of the debuff, mental contamination tended to leave persistent aftereffects even after successful treatment.

While Eui-rim picked at his crushed omelet, Hae-gun uncovered a fresh bowl of rice. Counting the porridge, this was already his third bowl, yet he showed no sign of fullness. He truly eats like a monster. In all his life, the only person Eui-rim had seen eat this voraciously was Yoo Tae-geun. No—perhaps Hae-gun surpassed even him…

…Wait.

Come to think of it, when I ran into Yoo Tae-geun outside the clinic, didn’t he say he was injured subduing hunters afflicted with a hallucination debuff?

—“I was grazed while subduing hunters afflicted with a hallucination debuff.”

There was no mistake. That day, Yoo Tae-geun had rescued hunters who entered a dungeon without a healer, sustaining injuries severe enough to warrant a visit to the clinic. The bleeding had been severe enough that Eui-rim had treated him immediately on the spot. If so, was the dungeon where Yoo Tae-geun rescued them the Ice Plaza?

No wonder.

Eui-rim had no recollection of Yoo Tae-geun being injured around that time in his past life, which had left him puzzled as to where the injury had come from. While he had brushed it off as an oddity back then, now that the Isolation Ward had also deviated from history, this was almost certainly another anomaly.

“What happened to that dungeon? The one under Cheongho’s jurisdiction where Hunter Ahn was debuffed, I mean. Did the Association rescue them as well?”

“No. Since Cheongho’s jurisdiction was our responsibility to clear, our guild members brought him out alongside government officials. Fortunately, Moonhyuk managed to fight his way to the core room even while debuffed, so retrieving him was fairly straightforward.”

“Has nothing similar happened since then?”

“Presumably not. Once cleared, that dungeon’s entrance stays shut for half a year. We’ll probably have to wait until it reopens to know for sure… Is something bothering you?”

“A perfectly ordinary dungeon suddenly mutated. Just like Utopia.” Lowering his gaze, Eui-rim noticed undissolved sugar crystals clinging to the bottom of his empty cup. Tilting the pot, he poured fresh coffee over them as he continued, “I’m worried these errors will keep occurring. No matter how much the Association steps in, there are bound to be limits.”

At this juncture, the anomaly in the Isolation Ward had to be considered his own doing. The cause, after all, was the Scales tilting to one side because they couldn’t balance his status window.

Then were the other two locations affected from the moment I began crossing the timeline?

That might very well be true. Going by his subjective perception, crossing the timeline hadn’t happened in an instant. It wouldn’t be strange if considerable time had elapsed during the regression process.

Sipping the lukewarm coffee left his mouth feeling sticky. A cloying sweetness clung persistently to his tongue.

“You mentioned we’re heading back up today, right?”

As if still chewing over Eui-rim’s words, Hae-gun belatedly looked up from his thoughts. “Yes. I need to stop by Moonseong regarding the Utopia matter.”

“Then should I report to work on Friday as scheduled?”

The original plan had been to fly down to Jeju on Monday night and enter Utopia on Tuesday morning. But with the timeline derailed, he had no idea what schedule to follow. Furthermore, since the raid had wrapped up in a single day, his calendar through Thursday was completely wide open.

“Why? Don’t want to head up with me?”

“No, it’s not that… I just wanted to confirm my schedule. Since I have some free time, I was thinking of visiting someone in the hospital.”

“A hospital visit?” Hae-gun’s brow furrowed in incomprehension.