Chapter 76

Exhaling in relief, Yoo Tae-geun collapsed onto the floorboards. Panting heavily, he blinked his bloodshot eyes before meeting Eui-rim’s gaze.

“Haa… his limbs… can they be reattached? Can he be restored?”

“We must suture them immediately. Since this isn’t being done by a high-ranking healer, there will be permanent nerve damage, but he will live,” Eui-rim answered.

Potions possessed miraculous healing properties, but they were not omnipotent. Aligning microscopic nerves and reconnecting severed vascular bundles required delicate surgical intervention, typically reserved for high-ranking specialized healers.

Yet they couldn’t afford to wait. In a mutated dungeon with no clear exit, leaving severed limbs unattached was a death sentence.

“Seo Hae-gun-ssi, assist me with the suturing.”

Gathering his axes, Hae-gun looked up in mild surprise. Looking between Eui-rim and the dismembered hunter, he asked coolly, “You’re going to reattach them yourself, Eui-rim-ssi?”

“Yes.”

“Why not pack them in sterile preservation in the dimensional bag? They won’t rot.”

“Because I’ve already flushed them with recovery potion. If we leave them unaligned, the flesh will scar over and harden. The nerve endings must be joined within the hour for cellular fusion to take hold,” Eui-rim explained crisply.

Hae-gun offered no further debate. Letting out a quiet sigh, he knelt beside Eui-rim on the bloody floor.

“…Understood. Tell me what to do.”

“When I align the severed bone and tissue, pour half a vial of potion directly over the seam.”

As Eui-rim meticulously aligned the severed joints of the legs, Hae-gun watched his nimble fingers with quiet fascination, tilting a potion vial to drizzle the glowing fluid evenly across the margins.

“At this rate, wouldn’t it be more effective to have him drink a vial as well?” Hae-gun asked.

As Eui-rim finished securing the arms, Hae-gun pulled restraints and cuffs from the emergency bag, preparing to bind the patient should hallucinations flare upon waking.

“Reattaching the perimeter tissue took priority. But yes, oral administration will accelerate internal stabilization—provided his constitution can handle high-grade potion toxicity…”

“He will be fine.”

A hoarse voice broke in. Yoo Tae-geun scrubbed a bloody palm over his face before adding, “He is a B-rank vanguard. His physical tolerance can absorb the toxicity without issue.”

“…That’s a relief. If Seo Hae-gun-ssi permits, let’s administer another vial.”

“The bill we’re sending the Association is growing quite hefty,” Hae-gun noted dryly.

Despite the sarcastic quip, Hae-gun gently pried open the unconscious hunter’s jaw, allowing Eui-rim to administer the potion freely.

Carefully trickling the potion down the hunter’s throat, Eui-rim minimized spillage as much as possible. Though over half was swallowed, this alone wouldn’t cleanse the residual psychic trauma… yet being able to walk out with his limbs intact was a mercy.

“Hunter Yoo Tae-geun should drink a vial as well…” Eui-rim said, turning his gaze.

“Why? Is Hunter Yoo injured as well?” Hae-gun asked.

“Your left leg is severely impaired, isn’t it?” Eui-rim addressed Yoo Tae-geun directly.

At the observation, Yoo Tae-geun blanched. Despite his stoic effort to conceal the limp, Eui-rim’s instant detection left him visibly unsettled.

What is he so shocked by? I may have resigned as a civil servant, but I treated his injuries for years—how could I miss a compromised gait?

Approaching to inspect the limb, Eui-rim found a fist-sized gouge torn from the calf muscle. Though Yoo Tae-geun possessed innate regenerative resilience, it fell far short of an S-rank’s cellular renewal, leaving the wound raw and sluggish.

“We need to treat this immediately.”

Eui-rim wasn’t acting purely out of humanitarian concern. In a B-rank mutated labyrinth, every able-bodied combatant was vital.

As if anticipating his thought, Hae-gun produced another high-grade potion from his pack. Pressing it into Yoo Tae-geun’s stiff hands, Eui-rim said, “We need maximum combat readiness. If you recover to full capacity, it will be an enormous asset to our survival.”

Of course, the high-tier resources belonged entirely to Cheongho Guild.

Well, as an affiliated contractor, I suppose my authorization counts just the same.

“…Then, I accept with gratitude.”

After a moment of conflicted hesitation, Yoo Tae-geun unstoppered the vial. A flicker of discomfort crossed his face, clearly loath to incur a heavy debt to Cheongho Guild.

Yet the fact that he swallowed his pride proved his situational awareness was razor-sharp. His judgment was intact, untainted by the madness of the debuff.

Had his earlier daze simply been the raw shock of wrestling a squadmate on the verge of possession?

“We made it!”

A welcome voice rang out through the shattered wall. By then, the potion had taken effect, knitting the gouged flesh on Yoo Tae-geun’s calf.

“Do you know how terrifying it was to find an axe buried in the wall like a murder scene? The floor was sickeningly slick, too… Whoa, what in the world happened here?!”

Ahn Moonhyuk hauled the Divine Steed into the chamber, Kim Si-hoon still lashed unconscious across its saddle. Confronted with the blood-soaked abattoir, his voice cracked in disbelief.

“Wait… Hunter Yoo Tae-geun?”

Son Chaeyoon slipped into the room right behind him, her eyes widening in recognition. Yoo Tae-geun bowed his head in stiff greeting.

“It has been some time, Hunter Son.”

“Yes, it has… But what happened here? The screaming stopped so suddenly—was it him?” Holding Hae-gun’s retrieved hand-axe, Son Chaeyoon pointed toward the amputated hunter before returning the weapon to its owner. Hae-gun took it with a slight nod. “Yes. Eui-rim-ssi saved his life.”

“Man, what a relief. I was terrified we’d find another corpse,” Moonhyuk muttered, wiping cold sweat from his brow.

“Another corpse?” Yoo Tae-geun stepped forward sharply, his breath hitching. “When the dungeon shifted, our strike force was fractured. Yoon-jae—Hunter Choi Yoon-jae, whom you just saved—and I were trapped here. The others were scattered in all directions. We had no way of knowing who survived.”

The dungeon shifted?

From the entrance to the first sanctum, the geography had matched the original layout. Had internal sectors restructured dynamically, just like the manifestation of this detour?

Glancing around at the grim faces, Eui-rim turned back to Yoo Tae-geun.

“Did anything abnormal occur before the dungeon rearranged itself?”

“Nothing seemed out of the ordinary at first, but…”

“I need to verify the mechanics at play. Please recount every detail, no matter how insignificant it might seem.”

At Eui-rim’s urgent tone, Yoo Tae-geun’s eyes wavered. Still reeling from the mention of a corpse and faced with pressing interrogation from a former clinic healer, his confusion was evident.

Yet he didn’t stall. Exhaling a ragged breath, Yoo Tae-geun spoke in a subdued voice, “Initially, the raid was textbook. The injured civilians had been evacuated, so our objective was simply a rapid clear.”

“Did you pinpoint the vector of the hallucination debuff?”

“No. Clearing the boss was our priority, so our reconnaissance was flawed. Everything collapsed when that chamber appeared…”

“A chamber? What kind of chamber?”

“An altar room completely alien to the hospital architecture. A stone monument stood at the center, carved with a weeping one-eyed identical to the sigil on this floor.”

Recounting the memory seemed to inflict physical pain; Yoo Tae-geun’s features tightened. Covering his eyes with a calloused hand, he steady his breathing. “The nightmare began the moment Hunter Shin Kwon-ho touched that monolith. The ground bucked, and a pitch-black substance erupted from the stone.”

“Why did he touch it? Did you order him to inspect it, Hunter Yoo?”

Yoo Tae-geun shook his head firmly. “No. He broke formation without warning, sprinting to the stone and stroking it like a man possessed.”

Eui-rim’s mind flashed back to Kim Si-hoon’s testimony in the negotiation room.

The healer who had entered with Kim Si-hoon’s team had done the exact same thing—babbling incoherently before making contact with an occult trigger.

“Did he utter anything while touching the monument?” Eui-rim pressed.

“Utter anything?”

“Yes. Any raving about the end of days, or returning to an origin?”

Yoo Tae-geun furrowed his brow, searching his memory. “He said nothing like that. But… he laughed continuously.”

“He laughed?”

“Yes. Right up until the black entity erupted, he stroked the stone, giggling like a lunatic. We assumed he had succumbed to a psychic debuff,” Yoo Tae-geun said.

“If it were an atmospheric debuff, the entire squad would have been compromised simultaneously. Hallucinatory curses don’t isolate single targets without a vector.”

Yoo Tae-geun nodded grimly. He had clearly harbored the exact same suspicion.

Turning toward Son Chaeyoon, Eui-rim asked, “Hunter Son. Was the corpse we discovered in the first hall Hunter Shin Kwon-ho?”

“Yes. His name tag read Shin,” Chaeyoon confirmed.

“And he was a C-rank vanguard.” At Yoo Tae-geun’s confirming nod, Eui-rim stepped beside Hae-gun, letting Chaeyoon deliver the grim conclusion.

“Hunter Shin Kwon-ho’s corpse was found in the initial chamber,” Chaeyoon said quietly. “Only his upper torso remained.”

“…What?” Yoo Tae-geun whispered, stunned.

Chaeyoon swept her bangs aside, her face grim. “A hollow husk with no internal organs or skeletal frame left. We withdrew before we could secure the remains, assuming the horde had overtaken it.”

“No. It fled,” Hae-gun cut in.

The curt declaration drew every eye in the room to Hae-gun. Looking around at their shock, Hae-gun added with icy precision,

“The corpse mobilized and escaped. While time was frozen.”

Startled gazes immediately pivoted to Eui-rim, silently begging for clarification. Knowing Hae-gun rarely deigned to elaborate, they sought answers from Eui-rim.

“The blood pooled around the floor sigil was absorbed directly into the hollow shell. The moment it fed, the corpse animated,” Eui-rim explained.

“Are you saying the corpse became an undead ghoul?” Moonhyuk asked, his face greening.

Eui-rim shook his head. “No. It was no ordinary zombie. The body was a mere husk—it was puppeteered by an autonomous intelligence.”

Though he couldn’t divulge the cosmic terminology, the reality was obvious.

The parasitic entity that had burrowed into the hospitalized healer was identical to this one.

A Fragment of the Origin was actively harvesting corpses to construct vessels.

Looking at his comrades, Eui-rim saw deep dread settling over their features. Dealing with an anomalous B-rank labyrinth was perilous enough; facing an intelligent parasite manipulating corpses pushed the mission into uncharted horror.

Eui-rim proceeded to detail their skirmish in the first chamber—how Hae-gun’s S-rank water skills had failed to inflict an ounce of damage on the animated horde.

“…So that’s why you were confident our skills would be useless,” Chaeyoon murmured.

Breaking the silence, Chaeyoon rubbed her chin thoughtfully. “Just to be clear… will this horde spawn every single time we erase one of those rotten sigils? Armies of monsters entirely immune to magic?”