* * *

Of course, the grandmother who lured me here and the men in black suits in the car had already fled far away.

I couldn’t chase after them without exposing my rank, so I had no choice but to let them go.

Still, it left me with a sense of regret.

Baek Gunho, however, seemed to find my actions absurd.

“Why would a civilian try to capture criminals? Be glad you got out in one piece.”

“I’m S-rank, you know.”

“And that’s the only reason I’m letting this slide. If you were just a civilian, I’d have chewed you out for even trying to talk to them.”

Who does he think he is to scold me?

Instead of grumbling, I decided to recount what had happened earlier.

“Do you know someone named Im Nayoung?”

“Im Nayoung?”

I had assumed he would know, but his expression suggested otherwise.

“She’s apparently a seer from the Black Sea Guild.”

“Her name’s Im Nayoung?”

“You didn’t know?”

“I didn’t know her name. Im Nayoung, Im Nayoung…”

Baek Gunho muttered her name repeatedly, as if trying to pull it from his memory.

When that yielded no results, he frowned.

“Seems like even you don’t know everything.”

“There’s a lot I don’t know. It would be nice if I did, though…”

The way Baek Gunho spoke felt unusually grave, likely because of Im Nayoung’s cryptic words.

“What did Im Nayoung say to you?”

“She said a bunch of nonsense.”

“What kind of nonsense?”

The sharp look in Baek Gunho’s eyes intensified as I hesitated.

“Tell me.”

“She knew I was an S-rank Awakened. But according to her, only she knows, not the Baekmyeon Sect or the rest of the Black Sea Guild. And…”

She said you’re a regressor.

She claimed that my dreams and hallucinations weren’t fabrications but memories of events that actually happened.

That you and I had been enemies who killed each other, and that this time, you saved me from the Black Sea Guild.

I had to relay this nonsensical claim to Baek Gunho.

But the words wouldn’t come easily.

Baek Gunho saving me wasn’t a bad thing—if anything, I should be grateful.

But this wasn’t a simple matter.

It was much more tangled and complicated.

Anxieties bubbled up inside me.

There were so many things I wanted to ask, yet I couldn’t bring myself to ask a single one.

My mind was a storm of confusion.

…No, there’s no need for this.

There’s no reason to let Im Nayoung’s nonsense shake me or entertain such absurd assumptions.

“And?”

Growing impatient, Baek Gunho pressed me further.

I looked up at him, his steady gaze filled with concern.

“…She said someday, you and I will end up opposing each other, and that I’ll need those people.”

My voice came out unconsciously hoarse. B

ut given the gravity of the content, it didn’t seem out of place.

Baek Gunho extended his hand toward me, his large, firm grip enveloping my cold hands.

With a frown, he pulled my other hand into his, wrapping them both warmly.

The comforting warmth spread through me.

“Heewon.”

“…Yeah.”

“It’s nonsense. Don’t dwell on it.”

Baek Gunho spoke firmly.

He was always like this—steadfast and unwavering, believing in and pursuing what he thought was right.

That steadiness anchored my easily shaken heart.

The storm in my mind gradually calmed.

“Yeah, I know.”

“I’ll deal with Im Nayoung soon enough.”

Relieved, I nodded slightly.

---

“…A member of the Black Sea Guild, you say. That’s surprising.”

As I drifted into my thoughts, a word caught my attention.

I raised my head to look at Assistant Manager Lee.

“What is?”

“The person who was arrested at the club for dealing drugs. Turns out they’re part of the Black Sea Guild.”

“Oh…”

“Really?”

“Yeah, it’s in the news.”

I had already heard about it last night.

The girl who looked somewhat younger than me but strangely familiar.

She had been passing drugs to Kim Inseok—a dealer who was, in fact, a former lab subject.

Her name was Ahn Seyoung.

Though once a victim, Ahn Seyoung had become a perpetrator.

She wasn’t saying much, keeping her lips tightly sealed.

But unlike Kanghoon, whose memory had been deliberately erased, capturing Ahn Seyoung had been a sudden development.

It seemed the other side hadn’t had time to manipulate her memories or prepare.

This might finally be a breakthrough, my uncle had said as he worked late nights for days on end.

Honestly, why does the bureau dump all its work on him?

“She’s young, isn’t she? Why would someone with a bright future deal drugs?”

“Who knows what’s going on in their heads?”

“She probably wanted easy money,” Chief Choi remarked harshly.

I thought about making an excuse for her but decided against it.

I was lucky, as far as lab subjects went.

Seeing others who weren’t as fortunate always got under my skin, even though my success wasn’t at their expense.

A strange heaviness settled over me.

---

Work wasn’t going smoothly today, leaving me with unfinished tasks.

Instead of pushing them to tomorrow, I volunteered for overtime.

Despite staying late, my progress was slow.

Only after everyone else had left did I finally slump onto my desk.

“Heewon! Heewon!”

“What are you doing out here?”

I scolded Noeul, who had emerged uninvited from the shadows.

I kept my voice lower than usual, though his clear, ringing tone still carried further than I’d intended.

“Heewon!”

“Get back inside.”

Noeul begrudgingly tucked himself into my pocket.

“I said go back into the shadows.”

“No!”

“…Fine, just stay quiet.”

“Okay!”

With that, Noeul curled up silently.

I adjusted my awkward posture to avoid squishing him, hurrying to finish my work.

“Done.”

“Good job!”

“I told you to be quiet.”

As I chided Noeul for his cheerful outburst, he hung his head, looking dejected.

Feeling a pang of guilt, I gently patted his head with my finger.

He nuzzled into it happily.

“I’m heading home. Are you staying here?”

“No!”

I had expected him to stubbornly insist on tagging along, but his response was unexpected.

Even so, he didn’t return to the shadows.

“Then what is it? What do you want?”

“Just up ahead, take me there!”

…Just up ahead?

The way he pointedly specified unsettled me.

“What do you mean, ‘up ahead’?”

“The gate!”

My body froze.

Did he mean the gate near the office?

The one still open…?

A sense of foreboding washed over me.

My uncle’s stern warning against entering dungeons alone echoed in my mind.

I shook my head firmly.

“No. I’m not going.”

“But we have to!”

Whatever I say, I have no intention of leaving.

I sighed and shoved Noeul into my pocket.

If I leave him like this, he’ll probably settle into the shadows on his own.

“Aaaah!”

Then, a scream rang out.

It wasn’t far off.

A sense of foreboding shot through me like a warning signal, and I immediately dashed toward the direction of the sound.

It was almost predictable in this kind of scenario…

The scream came from the direction of a gate that hadn’t yet been closed.

“Mm! Mmmph! Mm!”

Instead of a scream this time, there were muffled cries.

Feeling I couldn’t stand by and do nothing, I hurried toward the gate.

What I saw there was… an amorphous black substance forcing its way out of the gate, spilling into the outside world.

“Mmpphh!”

Amidst the viscous, creeping blackness, a person caught my eye. He groaned faintly as our gazes met.

I recognized him.

It was the Hunter who guarded this place, someone I’d passed by several times before.

The Hunter was in a wretched state.

The black substance clung to him on all sides, covering his nose and mouth so tightly that it seemed impossible for him to breathe.

The Hunter struggled desperately as the black substance dragged him back into the gate, trying his best to resist.

The situation was urgent.

I quickly reported the incident to the Hunter Administration Bureau and assessed the man’s condition.

“Mm… mmm…”

His frantic struggles gradually subsided, and he went limp, seemingly unconscious.

With his resistance gone, the black substance started pulling him back into the gate with increasing force.

I couldn’t just stand by and let it happen any longer.

Smashing a nearby CCTV camera, I decided to act.

I aimed to tear away the black substance and save the Hunter.

But things didn’t go as I’d hoped.

The moment I used my power, the black substance reacted as if it had been waiting for me.

It surged toward me, rushing in as though my power had opened a path for it…

“…”

Just as I tried to block it, my vision was swallowed by inky blackness.

The world flipped upside down.

Time reversed, flowing backward.

Vibrant colors drained, leaving everything in a dull, faded gray.

Before me stood a child.

It was me—my younger self, from before I had been sent to the research facility.

The child who had been sold for a pittance.

---

‘If you stay here, Daddy will come to get you later.’

The man who had contributed to my birth uttered a hollow excuse he had no intention of fulfilling before disappearing without a second thought.

I cried my heart out as a researcher took my hand and led me into the facility.

Dreams—or memories—of the past. The truth of what had happened back then washed over me.

* * *