Chapter 83

There stood Seo Hae-gun, drenched in purplish-red blood, with gouges of flesh torn from his exposed skin.

“Seo Hae-gun-ssi.” Eui-rim scrambled to his feet, but his legs gave way, making him sway violently. Planting the gear-toothed blade against the floor like a cane, he barely caught his balance. “Are you all right?”

“I’m fine,” Hae-gun replied casually. “It doesn’t even hurt that much.”

That nonchalant tone—as if he had merely scratched himself—left Eui-rim utterly speechless.

Fine? When raw flesh has been gouged out so deeply? His shoulder is practically shredded. What on earth happened while I was out? It felt like only minutes had passed… Was I mistaken?

“Where is our supply bag? Let’s get you a potion first—”

“I gave it to Chaeyoon,” Hae-gun said calmly. “Just in case.”

“Did the others make it to the upper floor?”

“Not all of them, unfortunately,” Hae-gun murmured.

As Eui-rim blinked in confusion, Seo Hae-gun gestured toward the staircase with a flick of his chin. Eui-rim followed the line of sight in a daze and froze at the grotesque tableau. There sat Kim Si-hoon and the other Association hunter, their shoulders pinned straight to the steps by Ahn Moonhyuk’s halberd. No, ‘sitting’ was hardly the word. They were thrashing violently like fish skewered on a spear, snapping their teeth toward the center of the room.

“Why are those two like that? Weren’t they unconscious?”

“I don’t know the exact details either. I only know what Chaeyoon told me.” Hae-gun gave a wry grimace. “She said that while both of us were out cold, those two suddenly went berserk. Moonhyuk got a chunk taken out of his flank because of it.”

So that’s why the halberd pinning them to the wall was Moonhyuk’s.

Even with a high-grade potion, having a chunk of flesh torn from his side must have been excruciating. Watching the two thrash against their restraints, Eui-rim grimaced. Whenever they snarled like starved beasts, their bloodstained teeth and gums were laid bare.

Which of the two took a bite out of Moonhyuk’s flank? Whichever it was, I hope they don’t remember a thing. Even under the madness of a debuff, retaining the memory of tearing into human flesh would ruin anyone.

“What about you, Hae-gun-ssi? How did you get hurt?”

“Ah, I… Wait. Don’t come any closer.”

“Pardon? Why?”

Puzzled, Eui-rim asked why, but Hae-gun gave no immediate answer. Seeing the outstretched hand warning him back, Eui-rim halted in place. He had no desire to press forward when Hae-gun was clearly resisting his proximity.

Only after checking sidelong to confirm Eui-rim had stopped did Hae-gun speak, leaning heavily on his iron club for support.

“I came to right as Moonhyuk collapsed. And from the sigil… What did you call that pitch-black thing? The shadow?”

“Yes. For now.”

In his previous life, it had become the universally accepted designation, though in truth, Eui-rim still didn’t know who had coined the term. People had simply referred to them as Shadows, and the name stuck. Fortunately, Hae-gun didn’t seem curious about its etymology. Giving a slight nod, he continued his explanation.

“The moment the shadows engulfed the walls, ghouls burst out in swarms. I picked up a few scrapes while clearing them out.”

Scanning the corridor at Hae-gun’s explanation, Eui-rim saw no ghoul corpses left behind. Rubbing his throbbing temples, he winced.

Good grief. Was I out for that long? All I did was receive a weapon from the Gatekeepers and break out of the hallucination. I thought I broke free fairly quickly…

“Did the others head upstairs as soon as the ghouls were cleared?”

“No. Yoo Tae-geun’s condition started deteriorating as well, so I sent everyone up while I stayed behind. I should have sent you up too, Eui-rim-ssi, but I couldn’t move you in that state. I’m sorry.”

“No, it’s fine. More importantly, what happened to Hunter Yoo?”

“He kept oscillating between snapping like those two and regaining his senses. I decided it was safer to bind him, so I handed our supply bag over to Chaeyoon. She’ll have to use every chain we brought to keep him secured.”

A chilling sensation crept down Eui-rim’s spine.

Did it seek out another host after failing to claim me?

Come to think of it, Moonhyuk, Chaeyoon, Hae-gun, and Eui-rim possessed the highest mental fortitude in the raid party. Tae-geun wasn’t weak-willed either, but having nearly unraveled while clinging to his fallen comrade at the second sigil, his defenses were badly compromised.

The problem is that no shadow is clinging to Kim Si-hoon or the Association hunter…

“Was there anything pitch-black clinging to Hunter Yoo’s body?”

“Are you asking if there was any part swallowed by the shadow?”

When Eui-rim nodded, Hae-gun seemed to ponder the question before shrugging. “I’m not sure. My own head was spinning, so I couldn’t look closely. While carrying you to the corner, I started seeing things again.”

“You saw things? What did you see?”

“Mm.” Hae-gun hesitated, his voice unusually strained. “Whenever I look at you, Eui-rim-ssi, I see a student in a school uniform. An afterimage flickering over you.”

“…”

“That’s why, even now, it’s difficult for me to meet your eyes. I can’t afford to lose my grip on reality again.”

So that’s why he backed away when I tried to step closer. Seeing me triggers the hallucination of that student.

Then earlier, when he called me ‘kid’ and mumbled under his breath, was he talking to that student?

It was peculiar, but not unprecedented. Even now, Eui-rim’s own auditory hallucinations unfailingly mimicked his family’s voices. In his previous life, Kang Yura had nearly gone mad watching the phantoms of patients she failed to save flicker before her. What seemed unusual here was that the reaction was anchored to a single specific person. Yura had suffered phantom voices whenever she encountered any frail patient, but Hae-gun’s trigger was fixated squarely on Eui-rim.

Given the sheer variety of psychological symptoms, it wasn’t impossible… but a persistent question lingered. Why did looking at me bring that specific student to mind?

“You didn’t happen to commit some terrible deed during your school days, did you?”

“What?”

“Like doing something to a classmate who resembled me that left you with a guilty conscience.”

At Eui-rim’s cautious remark, Hae-gun let out a dry chuckle. Shaking his head in disbelief, he asked, “Why? Is what I’m seeing some ghost from my past?”

“Usually, yes. If not that… you see or hear whatever provokes the deepest emotional turmoil.”

…It should be safe to tell him this much, right?

Eui-rim waited to see if a nosebleed would start or if crushing pressure would bear down on his skull. Sensing no penalty, he swallowed a quiet breath of relief.

Good. This much is permitted.

It seemed that when the Gatekeepers bestowed the weapon, the boundaries of what he could disclose expanded with it. The Balance had likely tilted significantly while the Shadow ran rampant.

Hae-gun looked intrigued, yet he refrained from pressing further. Mindful of the violent nosebleed Eui-rim had suffered at the second sigil, he deliberately swallowed his questions.

“Sorry to disappoint you, but it’s a uniform I’ve never seen in my life. And the face was too shadowed to make out.”

Hae-gun chuckled softly, still finding Eui-rim’s suspicion amusing. Eui-rim pressed, “Did it speak to you?”

“No… at least, I don’t think so. The moment the shape came into focus, my mind went blank.”

This is getting complicated. Still, if he only sees the phantom when looking directly at me, have we avoided the worst-case scenario?

Though Eui-rim couldn’t fathom why a student beyond Hae-gun’s conscious memory appeared, Hae-gun’s reaction suggested it wasn’t a total fabrication. The memory was likely buried deep within his subconscious, or locked away by the status abnormality. In a true hallucination, a victim was simply bewildered before being entirely consumed—just like the phantom that had lured Eui-rim into the bunker in the previous timeline.

Is this also tied to the memory lock from his status condition?

“So. What are we going to do now?”

“And yet?” Hae-gun asked, catching Eui-rim’s hesitation.

“I have an unsettling feeling,” Eui-rim confessed. “I’m reluctant to charge in blind like before.”

Above all else, the fact that the third and fourth sigils shared the same chamber was deeply disturbing. When he had struck the third sigil, the entity had scuttled across the floor to fuse with the fourth, disgorging shadows to expand its domain. Even if the third mark was gone, what lay ahead was unpredictable. If he pierced the fourth sigil, what was to stop a fifth from mutating? What if the final mark unleashed an apocalyptic backlash? Could he even withstand it?

Most troubling of all was the bisected corpse he had seen on the stairs. He had distinctly seen it snickering at them from the landing below. Yet when they finally reached the bottom floor, every trace of that corpse had vanished.