Chapter 5

“Are you picking a fight with me?” Eui-rim frowned.

“No,” Hae-gun murmured. “It’s admiration.”

“…It doesn’t sound like praise in the slightest,” Eui-rim muttered, unconvinced.

“I mean every word. Truthfully, I can’t quite fathom it—carrying that brand of remorse over failing to heal others when your own life is in immediate peril.” Seo Hae-gun stared thoughtfully into the empty dark before murmuring in a subdued cadence, “Was failing to save your family during your awakening such an indelible scar?”

“You certainly possess a knack for plunging straight into a person’s sorest wound without warning,” Eui-rim muttered. Even though he had opened up about his past during their conversation, he hadn’t anticipated Hae-gun turning it back on him so sharply. Thank goodness his temperament leaned toward the phlegmatic; had he been thin-skinned, he would have flared up in anger already. No—truth be told, a sensitive person would have lost their sanity the moment their boots touched the Shadow’s blasted soil.

“Healer Kang Eui-rim,” Hae-gun called out, all trace of levity stripped from his voice.

Just as Eui-rim was about to deflect the jab as another fleeting remark, that solemn tone arrested him. Pressing a thumb against his knitted brow, he turned to look at Hae-gun.

“Tell me… what if,” Hae-gun began, his voice dropping low.

“Pardon?” Eui-rim asked, pausing.

“If there existed a possibility of turning everything back,” Hae-gun asked, his blue-gray eyes fixing on Eui-rim, “would you be willing to plunge headlong into that chance?”

“…”

For several heartbeats, Eui-rim could not comprehend the meaning of the words.

A possibility of turning everything back? Where in this ruined world could such a miracle exist?

“Is there truly a way to turn back time?” Eui-rim finally asked, his voice catching.

“Who knows?” Hae-gun murmured.

Hae-gun’s answer was infuriatingly evasive once more.

Is there a way, or isn’t there?

“I’m merely posing a hypothetical,” Hae-gun responded softly. When Eui-rim offered no reply, he continued at an unhurried pace. “Supposing there exists a possibility of turning back, and supposing that opportunity were granted to you, Healer Kang Eui-rim… I found myself wondering what choice you would make.”

“Naturally, I’d stake everything on that possibility,” Eui-rim answered without a second of hesitation.

“Even if a monstrous price is demanded of you in return?” Hae-gun asked, his voice low.

Eui-rim’s mouth snapped shut mid-breath. Despite telling himself this was merely an idle hypothetical, the chilling gravity behind Hae-gun’s words clung to his thoughts. As he weighed his own mortal limits, Eui-rim let out a quiet breath. No matter how he turned it over in his mind, such a question offered no simple answer.

At Eui-rim’s lingering silence, Seo Hae-gun elaborated, his tone almost gentle. “It might demand unimaginable agony. Nor is there any guarantee your memories would survive the passage intact.” Then, slipping back into that deceptively airy cadence, he added, “Furthermore, even if you endure every trial, you cannot choose your destination in time. If you wake ten years in the past, that would be fortunate—but if you emerge right after the Shadow descended, you would merely relive the exact same slaughter. Even knowing that, could you truly stake everything on such a sliver of possibility?”

The warning, far too intricate and specific to be a mere flight of fancy, sent an icy shiver down Eui-rim’s spine. The conviction that this was no idle philosophical game settled heavy in his gut, making it difficult to breathe, as if a heavy boot were pressing against his ribs.

He isn’t joking. Seo Hae-gun truly possesses a means of turning back time.

Yet if Hae-gun possessed such a miraculous method, why speak of it only now? Couldn’t he have triggered it long before falling into this ruined, dying state?

“Your hypothetical is excessively cruel—and far too specific,” Eui-rim said. A storm of confusion, fragile hope, and creeping terror clashed wildly in his chest. After a long, agonizing pause, he forced the question past his lips. “Is this truly just an idle thought, or do you genuinely hold the means to do it?”

A faint glimmer sparked within Seo Hae-gun’s clouded blue-gray eyes. His shadow-veiled expression relaxed into a faint curve, and he spoke as casually as if discussing the morning weather.

“If something so fraught with uncertainty can still be called a method, then yes—there is one,” Hae-gun answered.

“…”

“I hold a skill I acquired from the Tower of Time,” Hae-gun revealed calmly.

What? The revelation struck Eui-rim like a physical blow to the sternum. Stunned into disbelief, he stared at Hae-gun. “In every press conference, you stated there was no clear reward for clearing the Tower of Time!”

“Yes. I certainly said that,” Hae-gun replied breezily.

Eui-rim’s jaw went slack at the shameless admission. He struggled to marshal his spinning thoughts as a fresh wave of vertigo washed through him.

Could it be that he refuses to acknowledge anything as a reward unless it’s a tangible artifact? But wouldn’t a brand-new skill be infinitely more valuable than any clumsy item—especially when skills are so exceedingly rare as dungeon clear rewards?

“Isn’t an innate skill considered the greatest reward of all?” Eui-rim pressed, incredulous.

“It’s a skill that can only be invoked a single time,” Hae-gun explained, “and it comes with conditions so restrictive I couldn’t simply trigger it on a whim.”

That was unprecedented. Once acquired through awakening or clearing, a hunter’s skills were permanent fixtures of their status.

“Are the activation conditions that severe?” Eui-rim inquired.

“There are stipulations that would make anyone balk. I suppose you could say it demands a certain level of resolve.” Hae-gun attempted to shift his shoulders in a shrug, only to freeze. “Ah, damn it. My limbs won’t even obey my commands anymore,” he muttered, a rare flicker of genuine irritation edging his raspy voice.

Eui-rim waited until Hae-gun’s unseeing gaze found him once more before speaking. “Then I assume all those necessary conditions are met right now.”

“Hm?” Hae-gun murmured.

“You wouldn’t have brought this up to a dying stranger merely to boast,” Eui-rim said steadily.

It was a staggering secret to divulge in a subterranean tomb like this. Seo Hae-gun had secured a single-use temporal regression skill from the legendary Tower of Time—an ability capable of rewinding the world itself. What revelation could possibly be more earth-shattering?

“What are the specific requirements?” Eui-rim pressed, leaning forward.

“Mmm…” Hae-gun hummed softly, hesitating.

After a brief pause, Hae-gun answered with evident reluctance: “It requires the caster and a single collaborator willing to bear the collateral burden. More specifically, it must be someone capable of self-healing even after enduring the caster’s lethal output.”

The requirement was disturbingly specific. A condition that severe could never leave its participants unscathed. Hae-gun had likely kept the ability sealed until this very moment because the lethal toll weighed too heavily upon his conscience.

Eui-rim waited for further explanation, but Hae-gun seemed disinclined to elaborate on the gruesome mechanics. To pierce the heavy stillness, Eui-rim let out a long breath and asked, “What if we fail to reach the past? Is there any risk that the skill might misfire entirely?”

“The skill absolutely ensures a return to the past, so there is no need to fear failure on that front,” Hae-gun replied with quiet certainty.

“So there is no risk of outright failure, but the landing point and the toll are completely unpredictable,” Eui-rim summarized.

“Precisely,” Hae-gun agreed.

“Can both the caster and the collaborator return together?” Eui-rim asked.

“No,” Hae-gun replied flatly. “Only the collaborator returns.”

The blunt answer struck Eui-rim rigid. The absolute, unhesitating finality in Hae-gun’s voice chilled him to the marrow.

Hae-gun spoke as though he had long foreseen the exact horrific cost of invoking the skill. His refusal to divulge the gruesome specifics, paired with the total absence of self-pity in his posture, made that truth painfully transparent.

Eui-rim clicked his tongue softly and rested his cheek against his drawn-up knees once more.

This truly is an insidious skill. No wonder Seo Hae-gun couldn’t bring himself to call it a reward.

If misfortune struck, the ultimate trump card could be squandered in vain, hurling someone back to an inconsequential juncture in time. The survivor might remember nothing of the future, and without the legendary caster by their side, the collaborator would be left entirely alone to shoulder every consequence and every horrific price… The longer Eui-rim contemplated the sheer weight of it, the more he wanted to laugh from pure absurdity.

Even so, he couldn’t help wondering what would have happened had Hae-gun made this proposition to a high-ranking healer like Shim Woo-joo. Yet Eui-rim could finally understand why Hae-gun had refused to trigger the spell carelessly.

Turning his head, Eui-rim watched the pitch-black corruption of the Shadow creeping like frost across the back of Hae-gun’s remaining hand. Steeling his nerve, he addressed the man waiting quietly for his verdict.

“It’s certainly daunting,” Eui-rim admitted. “Even if it succeeds, there are far too many volatile variables.”

“I suppose so,” Hae-gun began, a resigned sigh in his voice. “As expected, this idea is—”

“—Still, if there is even the faintest chance, I want to try,” Eui-rim cut in firmly.

The cynical curve vanished from Hae-gun’s lips just as he seemed prepared to drop the matter. A rare flicker of genuine astonishment crossed his unseeing eyes as they drifted through the darkness, as if searching for an anchor just out of reach.

Even knowing Hae-gun could no longer see him, Eui-rim offered a faint, resolute smile. “That is, of course, if you are willing, Hunter Seo.”

Even as the words left his mouth, the thought that ignorance bred reckless courage crossed his mind. After receiving warnings that dire, any sensible Awakened would have recoiled in terror. That he was willing to leap toward such a treacherous gamble surprised even himself.