Minjoon shook his head in annoyance and went back to shooting.
“So damn many of them. Like cockroaches…”
Cursing under his breath, Minjoon kept firing at the monsters drawn by the scent of Haeyoung’s blood.
His special gun didn’t require bullets—Minjoon, who could manipulate earth, used his ability to form dirt or stone into projectiles.
An Esper’s powers were especially deadly to monsters.
Through repeated training, Minjoon had mastered hitting the monster’s core in a single shot.
That was only possible because Minjoon was an S-class Esper.
But right now, Haeyoung didn’t care about any of that.
All he wanted was to escape the pain.
He wondered—wasn’t this amount of blood loss enough to kill someone?
But while the pain was unbearable, he didn’t feel dizzy or like he was dying.
Probably because Kang Haeyoung was an Esper.
He wondered if he could use his powers too—but unless he made physical contact with another Esper, he couldn’t use any abilities.
That was why Kang Haeyoung had been treated this way in the novel.
‘Huff… huff…’
He gasped for air.
Not dying didn’t mean it didn’t hurt.
His vision blurred again with tears.
I couldn’t understand why I had to be treated like this—it felt so unfair.
But there was no one I could complain to.
The one who had clung desperately to this team despite the abuse, Kang Haeyoung, wasn’t here anymore.
I didn’t know why I had to suffer in his place.
My teeth ground together in frustration.
If you asked me whether I resented Kang Haeyoung, the answer wouldn’t be no.
But that resentment was now directed at the man standing in front of me—Yoon Minjoon.
“You didn’t have to do it this way…!”
Even though they could’ve hunted the monsters the normal way, they found it too bothersome and instead used Haeyoung as bait.
Sure, Haeyoung had said he’d do anything—but this went way beyond that.
If Yoon Minjoon had just touched him once, Haeyoung could’ve used a similar power.
There was a cooldown, of course.
Haeyoung didn’t know exactly how long it was, but even with that limitation, it would’ve been a hell of a lot better than this.
In the novel, until Haeyoung became the key to the world’s destruction, he had never once used his powers properly.
If this wasn’t a dream, Haeyoung had no intention of living that way anymore.
His jaw clenched again.
This pain, so sharp it made the whites of his eyes bloodshot—he vowed never to forget it.
“How much time has passed…?”
Haeyoung blinked slowly, heavy eyelids lifting and falling.
He was lying on the floor of a massive cave, and it felt like quite a while had passed since his stomach had been pierced.
At first, the monsters had swarmed him like mad, but their numbers had gradually dwindled.
Now, there was no trace of any “miracle” happening around him.
Same for Yoon Minjoon.
He hadn’t eaten or drunk anything, yet he didn’t feel hungry or thirsty.
Every nerve in his body was focused on the wound in his abdomen, pierced by a jagged stone.
Haeyoung’s body, being that of an Esper, tried to heal the wound.
But since the stone hadn’t been removed, his body attempted to heal around it.
And each time it tried, the embedded rock twisted violently inside him.
And when it did, the blood would gush out again.
“Kuhuk… kuh… haaah… haah…”
Hot, ragged breaths escaped his lips.
His head was spinning.
Thinking about how Haeyoung had endured this kind of treatment made his mind reel.
This pain made it crystal clear—this was no dream.
No dream could hurt this much.
“Still alive, huh.”
“Watch your mouth, Seungmin. If Haeyoung dies, what happens to our team?”
“What happens? Shit, we go from a shitty team to a complete dumpster fire, that’s what. What’re you staring at?”
Even though he hadn’t sensed them approach, three men stood around him now, throwing out casual remarks as they stared down at him.
Yoon Minjoon clicked his tongue, then flicked his fingers.
At that exact moment, the stone embedded in Haeyoung’s abdomen crumbled with a crackling sound.
When he looked down, the rock had turned to dust and disappeared.
He had tried so hard to remove it himself, and yet with a single gesture from Yoon Minjoon, it was gone.
“Every damn time, I wonder—are you really an S-rank? I mean, come on. Even if it’s Minjoon-hyung’s ability, how the hell were you not able to pull that out yourself?”
Lee Seungmin approached and examined Haeyoung’s condition, tilting his head in mock curiosity.
His eyes were filled with scorn.
Then, without hesitation, he reached for the bag strapped around Haeyoung’s waist and pulled something out.
It was only then that Haeyoung realized he’d even been carrying a bag.
Not that it mattered—just like before, he had no room to care about things like that.
“Ugh—! Haa… Agh—front… hnnk…!”
Just because the stone was gone didn’t mean the pain was.
The agony of having his organs pierced and twisted remained all too real.
With a frustrated grunt, Lee Seungmin uncapped a bottle and shoved it into Haeyoung’s mouth.
“Wanna try it yourself? See if you can pull it out next time.”
“…No thanks. You go ahead and suffer all you want, hyung. I’m good.”
Seungmin grimaced at Yoon Minjoon’s glib remark, clearly disgusted.
Minjoon only clicked his tongue in fake disappointment.
Meanwhile, Haeyoung had no choice but to gulp down the liquid flooding his mouth.
He knew exactly what it was now.
When the staff had first handed him the bag, he hadn’t remembered, but now it was clear:
A healing potion infused with an Esper’s restorative power.
It wasn’t a cure-all, but it helped mend most wounds fairly quickly.
Espers had exceptional self-healing, but that too worked through internal “waves.”
When those waves were disrupted, healing became much harder.
Especially if the wound was something like a punctured abdomen—it would take forever to recover without proper guidance.
The way they were using Haeyoung like this inside the Gate—only these three knew about it.
So if an S-rank Esper like Kang Haeyoung went around outside looking half-dead, it wouldn’t make any sense. Especially without anyone guiding him…
“Pfft… haaah… haa…”
Once the bottle was completely emptied, Seungmin pulled it away and let it fall to the ground.
Haeyoung gasped for air, breath ragged.
Every breath still brought pain.
Even though the potion was healing his body, the pain hadn’t vanished.
No—maybe his body didn’t feel it anymore, but his mind was still in agony.
It felt like the words were directed at him, so Haeyong turned his body.
Haeyong was feeling a chilling sense of reality from the cool air wrapping around his entire body and the energy felt from deep within the gate’s cave.
In fact, it felt much stronger inside than outside the gate.
It felt as if it were telling him that this was not a dream.
That felt strangely odd.
“Haeyong. You need to help us find the missing people. You moved so slowly today that we’ve been delayed even further. Won’t you feel guilty if those people die?”
“Ah…”
Haeyong let out a sigh at Choi Juhoon’s words.
Haeyong didn’t think it would be his fault even if the missing people died.
But separate from that, he felt he should find them.
That was the kind of existence Espers were.
Haeyong, who had just woken up in this body, didn’t quite feel like an Esper yet, but he thought he should try to do something since he was already here.
“…What should I do?”
He decided to think about things after finding the missing people and leaving the gate.
Everyone would have their own job to do once they entered a gate.
Haeyong thought, ‘What role did Kang Haeyong play in the novel?’
