By the time they escaped Sector T-27, the outside had begun to brighten in earnest.
The first to react to the sunlight coming in through the car window was, of course, Cha Seohu.
As his bright yellow hair returned to its original black, his already pale complexion worsened even more gravely.
“Fuck, Cha Seohu.”
Kang Haeil, who was holding Cha Seohu’s upper body in the back seat, noticed the change first.
“Breathe. Open your mouth and breathe properly.”
Kang Haeil forced open Cha Seohu’s mouth as he kept unconsciously clenching his teeth from the pain, helping him breathe. The body that had been barely holding on through an S-rank’s self-healing returned to a Supporter’s body, and blood began bursting out again.
Ryu Sunghyun, grasping the situation in the back seat through the rearview mirror, raised the speed even further with an anxious face. The car raced down the early morning road.
After leaving Sector T-27, it took another forty minutes to enter Gangnam and arrive at Yesung Guild.
As soon as the car was parked roughly in front of the guild building’s main entrance, Kang Haeil lifted Cha Seohu into his arms and ran. Kwon Taehyuk, who had arrived slightly earlier than the car on his motorcycle, led the way, and Ryu Sunghyun followed behind him.
“The healer?”
“I called him! We have to wait about ten more minutes. Until then, I’ll call another healer!”
After answering Ryu Sunghyun’s question, Kwon Taehyuk guided them to the guild infirmary inside the first floor.
The healer on night duty heard the commotion and hurried over. Startled when he faced Kwon Taehyuk, the guildmaster, the healer stammered as he asked,
“Representative. Is this a patient?”
“Yes. Please take a look at him.”
Kang Haeil entered the nearest empty sickroom and laid Cha Seohu carefully on the bed.
“Hah, ugh......”
As his body was laid down and strong pain spread through him, Cha Seohu groaned even while unconscious. The faint sound of suffering seemed as if it might cut off at any moment.
His pale face was soaked with cold sweat, and his lips had no color. At the state he was in, where it would not have been strange to think he was a corpse, Kwon Taehyuk’s mouth went dry.
“My God.”
The healer, who let out a small gasp of horror, quickly approached the bed.
When the cloak covering his shoulder was pulled aside, the shoulder pierced through by the sword was revealed clearly. Fresh red blood was still flowing from the wound visible between the torn fabric.
“I’ll treat him right away.”
The healer placed his hand near the shoulder and used his skill. But the wound did not close or heal easily.
Kang Haeil, who had been standing beside the bed with a cold face, spoke sharply.
“What are you doing, fuck. Are you even using your skill?”
The healer, who had been trying hard enough for sweat to bead on him, pulled his hand back in confusion.
“N-no, this person, the treatment......”
At Kang Haeil’s sensitive reaction, Kwon Taehyuk let out a short sigh and stepped in as if mediating.
“Is there another healer on duty today?”
“O-one moment!”
The healer, looking as if he might cry, ran out of the sickroom to call a colleague.
As soon as the healer left, Kwon Taehyuk spoke to Kang Haeil in a warning voice.
“That healer is B-rank. If treatment didn’t work despite him being B-rank, then the problem isn’t the healer. It means there’s some other reason related to Hunter Cha Seohu. And the healer coming now is probably C-rank, so they won’t be any more help.”
Ryu Sunghyun asked with a stiff expression,
“What about the healer you said you called separately?”
“He’s S-rank. We have to place our hopes on him.”
Kwon Taehyuk looked out the window. Outside, morning had arrived, and it was bright.
Meanwhile, one hour earlier.
Dan Yeoun had woken up to Kwon Taehyuk’s call and immediately had to throw only an outer coat over the comfortable T-shirt and sweatpants he wore to sleep, then run to the parking lot.
Starting the car and leaving his private residence around dawn, Dan Yeoun headed straight for Gangnam, where Yesung Guild was located.
He had been ready to receive speeding tickets and had stepped on the accelerator hard, so he expected he would arrive at the guild sooner than estimated.
“Hah... Are you seriously insane?”
As if mocking Dan Yeoun, the roads in central Seoul were already chaotic with cars even in the early morning.
It was only this manageable because it was still close to dawn; if he had delayed his departure even a little, he would have been trapped in the middle of the road.
“Please, come on.”
Turning the steering wheel with hands damp from cold sweat as he picked up speed, he finally saw the Yesung Guild building across from him.
But there was a problem.
He was in the lane on the opposite side from the guild building’s main entrance, so he had to make a U-turn to get over there.
He would have to drive again to a place where he could make a U-turn on the road that was starting to clog, make the turn, and then return to the guild building.
It was a process that would take at least five minutes, maybe as long as ten.
Dan Yeoun, who had already heard from Kwon Taehyuk that Cha Seohu was in extremely critical condition, thought seriously.
'Should I abandon the car?'
Without abandoning it, he truly could not think of any other way.
Having no choice, Dan Yeoun pulled the car over close to the nearest sidewalk, stopped, and was just about to get out and run toward the crosswalk.
Clatter!
The sound of chains striking each other rang out clearly.
Before he could even turn his head toward the direction of the sound, someone roughly snatched Dan Yeoun around the waist and flew into the air.
“What, what the......!”
As Dan Yeoun looked up in alarm, a masked man summoned a new chain and flew toward the building beside them, speaking dryly.
“I’m giving you a ride. Don’t thrash around uselessly. I might drop you from the air.”
The hair fluttering in the wind gleamed silver in the morning sunlight.
Recognizing him as the Awakener who had helped Cha Seohu during the Rift incident that had occurred in front of the hotel last time, Dan Yeoun stopped resisting.
Using the chains to fly swiftly over buildings and roads, Eun Woojeong carried Dan Yeoun under his arm and landed precisely in front of Yesung Guild’s entrance. It had not even taken thirty seconds.
As soon as his feet touched the ground, Dan Yeoun ran without any time to catch his breath. Eun Woojeong followed beside him.
“This way, Hunter Dan Yeoun!”
Kwon Taehyuk, who had already come out into the corridor in advance, gestured to Dan Yeoun, who had arrived earlier than expected.
Dan Yeoun, panting for breath, arrived at the sickroom and found Cha Seohu lying on the bed.
For a moment, Dan Yeoun mistook him for a corpse before barely regaining his reason and striding over.
He did not even say that he would treat him. Without hesitation, Dan Yeoun reached both hands toward his shoulder and used his skill.
Unlike when the B-rank healer had treated him earlier, this time the wound visibly improved.
The bleeding stopped, and flesh could be seen filling the split gap and joining together.
Cha Seohu’s complexion improved slightly, and the sound of his breathing, which had been ragged with pain, became much calmer.
By contrast, as Dan Yeoun poured his power into him to the limit, his face rapidly turned white and cold sweat formed on him.
“Hunter Dan Yeoun, are you all right?”
“...Just a little more.”
Biting his lip and pouring in his power until the very end, Dan Yeoun ended his skill and immediately braced himself against the bed mattress, utterly exhausted.
Cha Seohu’s shoulder was not completely healed, but with the blood stopped and the split area joined again, it was far better.
Now it would be enough for him to rest while receiving further treatment from another healer in the morning, or recover by turning into an S-rank on his own at night.
After drinking the water Kwon Taehyuk had brought him, Dan Yeoun finally calmed down and opened his mouth.
“Something’s strange. Hunter Cha Seohu is in his Supporter state right now, isn’t he? I treated him before, too, when his side was injured in the Great Dungeon. This is too different from back then.”
At Dan Yeoun’s words, Ryu Sunghyun asked with a tense face,
“Do you mean something has happened to Hunter Cha Seohu’s body?”
Dan Yeoun lowered the water bottle and looked at Cha Seohu with complicated eyes before answering firmly.
“If it were an ordinary sword wound, there’s no way my power would drain away like this. The speed was too slow, too. So to answer your question, yes.”
Cha Seohu’s face as he slept quietly, freed from the pain, looked better than before, but additional measures were still necessary.
The most urgent thing was replenishing the blood he had lost from excessive bleeding.
After giving orders to the healer on standby, Kwon Taehyuk turned his gaze to Dan Yeoun.
“Can you tell the reason? Or is it a problem that requires a medical examination?”
“...I’m not sure. What I can tell you is this.”
After thinking for a moment, Dan Yeoun carefully explained.
“It felt as though something inside Hunter Cha Seohu’s body was blocking the skill. I don’t know what it is. This is my first time experiencing something like this as well.”
Something blocking a healing skill.
There was no one in this sickroom who did not understand the weight of those words.
If Kwon Taehyuk had not called ? NоvеIight ? (Original source) Dan Yeoun, Cha Seohu would have failed to accept treatment even with a healer present and would have died.
Dan Yeoun hesitated, then continued.
“I don’t know what it is... but unless you resolve it, or find it and remove it, Hunter Cha Seohu will remain in that state. If he gets injured, he’ll be in more danger than anyone.”
“......”
No one could answer easily. A cold silence settled over the sickroom.

Comments

Loading...