Jaehwi sat back down in his seat and gently stroked the back of the hand that was gripping his own tightly. Right now, the most exhausted and struggling person in this place was Raon. Not only physically, but if it was true that he had just wandered through the illusion dungeon together with him, it was obvious he would be mentally devastated as well.
For him, both his own death and the deaths of others were familiar. Killing something was as natural as breathing. On the other hand, all of that would have been foreign to Raon. When he first saw him and embraced him, his body had been rigid and instinctively trembling.
“Team Leader Choi. Jay-ssi. Please leave now. As long as I’m here, this is the safest place in the world, so don’t worry. And call a doctor right away. Raon hyung. He needs stability right now.”
“What am I… Ah… Fuck. Hey. Go get his stabilizer first. Guiding will take some time. No, wait. Hwi-ya. Let’s have you get guiding from another Guide first.”
Unlike when he cursed and spoke in a commanding tone to Hyukjin, when he spoke while looking at Jaehwi, he was as gentle and kind as his original personality.
“Okay. I’ll take the stabilizer and stay here. Hyung should rest a bit more too.”
“Wait. Just a moment… Jay-ssi. Please guide Nox… Esper Min Jaehwi here to the guiding room. I’ll have an A-grade or higher Guide from the center sent right away. And I’ll call a doctor immediately, so Raon, you should get examined too, and after the situation settles down a bit, let’s talk again…”
“Are you crazy? Another Guide? Which Guide? Who’s he going to receive it from!”
“I don’t need to receive guiding.”
Hyukjin, who had been trying to calmly organize the disorderly situation, closed his mouth at the sight of the two firmly cutting off his words. Then he raised one hand to convey that he would withdraw for now, and came outside with Jay.
“…The broken center stairs are also related to this incident, right?”
“The center stairs broke?”
Hyukjin looked at Jay for a moment, who was answering his question with another question. Rushing to fly to the field situation room by helicopter at the mere mention of Nox, fearlessly entering the dungeon alone. Raon, who had entered so recklessly, came out unconscious, cradled in Nox’s arms.
Nox had handed over Raon with an indifferent expression and didn’t seem particularly interested in this matter. He was the one who had been flustered by the report that Nox had left in the middle of using the training room, saying his condition was fine. Moreover, Nox had run out without a word and broke all the stairs while going to Raon, using the stairs instead of the elevator.
Just because they lived together briefly 10 years ago? He wondered how people could change so much in just a few hours. Raon was one thing, but Nox’s change?
“I’ll send a doctor and bring the stabilizer, so if anything happens, please contact me right away.”
Feeling his head throb, Hyukjin took out his mobile phone. First, he had to send a doctor, bring Nox’s stabilizer, and repair the broken stairs as quickly as possible. And before that… it was also his job to find out if there were any problems with the building.
* * *
Jaehwi sat in the chair next to the hospital room bed, watching the sleeping Raon. Although he had insisted he wouldn’t sleep, Raon couldn’t overcome the effects of the medicine, and his hand was firmly holding onto Jaehwi’s. As he fell into a deep sleep and the strength in his hand loosened, Jaehwi adjusted his grip and intertwined their fingers.
Then with his other hand, he slightly pulled up his t-shirt. He had been completely unaware of his body’s condition until Raon checked it directly.
Most of the cracks in his skin occurred in the process of suppressing his ability. Because he was forcibly suppressing the energy that naturally flowed out, only his body was wearing away in between. The skin cracks would disappear as if they had never been there as long as he received guiding and his condition was maintained above a certain level.
But then they would occur again when his condition deteriorated.
However, what Jaehwi was looking at carefully now were other wounds. The burn marks and the marks where a monster’s sharp teeth had bitten his side were clearly injuries sustained inside the illusion dungeon. There would also be traces on his back where a monster had clawed him.
“Haa.”
The people who had appeared so far were Jay, Hyukjin, and 3 medical staff members. It had already been over an hour since coming here from the underground training room. By now, hadn’t the illusion dungeon been broken? Officially, there were three ways to break through an illusion dungeon.
The first was to recognize that it was an illusion dungeon and find something unnatural. However, there were almost no ability users who could succeed at this.
The second was for someone outside to break the illusion. This was the most accurate and concise method. They just had to move those trapped in the illusion outside the dungeon.
The third was to destroy the illusion dungeon itself with one’s ability, as he had done.
After Raon fell asleep, he focused on distinguishing whether this place was inside or outside the illusion dungeon. And what caught his eye were the 3 medical staff members.
The illusion dungeon was a mental attack that gnawed at the minds of those caught in the illusion. Since it created phantoms only from what was in the minds of those caught in the illusion, everyone was trapped in different illusions. Jay and Hyukjin were people he knew, so their appearance wasn’t strange at all.
However, the 3 medical staff members were people he didn’t know. To confirm whether they were actual medical staff or not, he had requested their IDs before they examined Raon and checked them directly.
Now the other way to verify was the wounds on his body. Would the wounds be perfectly healed by guiding, or would traces remain? If it was inside the dungeon, they would heal to some extent, but scars would remain.
If it wasn’t inside the dungeon but reality, then if he just received proper guiding, the wounds would definitely heal without even a trace.
His head felt like it would burst, and his chest felt stuffy.
Jaehwi, gripping Raon’s hand like a lifeline with both hands, closed his eyes.
Whether inside the illusion or in reality, the fact was that neither was easy. Even though they were holding hands like this, the wounds on his body remained as they were. If it was inside the illusion, a situation where one of them died would come again, and if it was reality, they would live the same time again and eventually have to enter the illusion dungeon. Perhaps they would have to keep living like a hamster wheel, repeatedly going between the illusion dungeon and brief reality.
He had tried twice not to keep him by his side. Though in the end he had been greedy. But with results like this… he didn’t want to push this person away and hurt him again.
Judging by the appearance of medical staff, it seemed to be reality, but looking at his wounds that wouldn’t heal, it seemed to be inside the dungeon. Even without this contact, just being by his side seemed to improve his condition, so now he couldn’t feel any energy from him at all.
“…What should we do now?”
With a deep sigh, Jaehwi carefully let out the words inside him.
“Are you going to run away again?”
At the small voice with slurred pronunciation as if not fully awake yet, Jaehwi’s eyes snapped open. Unlike himself who was complicated and troubled, Raon stretched with one hand and didn’t even hide his languid yawn.
“What are you staring at. I asked. Are you going to run away again.”
“……”
“Ugh. Go if you want to go. I’ll just catch you again. Either way, I coax you so you end up coming over anyway. By the way, how long did I sleep?”
Raon, who pulled his hand from Jaehwi’s frozen in surprise, sat up and moved his neck lightly. Then the first thing he did was try to draw up his own energy. The point when they had reunited before. If it was certain they had returned to that point, he shouldn’t be able to feel his energy for at least a day.
After meeting again for the first time in 10 years, Jaehwi had mercilessly drained all of his energy.
As soon as he stretched out his arm to look at his wounds, Jaehwi jumped back in surprise, and Raon clicked his tongue and asked if he had taken medicine.
“Yes.”
“What about guiding from another Guide?”
If he received guiding, he would be much better. Because it was definitely more effective than medicine. But ridiculously, when he thought of Jaehwi receiving guiding from another Guide, a bitter feeling came first. Thinking of him, it was right to receive guiding, but thinking of his own feelings, he should have endured the pain.
“No.”
At Jaehwi’s words that he hadn’t received guiding, Raon shook his head and patted the bed with his hand. Until before falling asleep, he had been sitting on the edge of the bed, but when did he move down to the chair again.
“Min Jaehwi.”
“Yes.”
“Let’s do this properly this time. Whether the damn dungeon wins. Or whether we win.”
Jaehwi once, himself once—they’d died fairly, so now it was time to uproot the dungeon.
