Chapter 7

Who said you could go?

As the emergency room’s automatic doors opened, the smell of disinfectant hit me along with shouts from the medical staff.

“Amputation patient coming in!”

“How long has it been since the arm was severed?”

“About 30 minutes. The severed arm has been placed in a preservation pack.”

Baek Seorin’s older brother was lying on the stretcher that had gone in ahead.

Faint groans leaked from beneath his oxygen mask.

Blood continued soaking into the compression bandage wrapped below his elbow.

“The arm?”

“It’s here.”

The severed arm was inside the preservation pack.

Maybe because it had been specially treated with mana, it looked perfectly intact, as though it had still been attached moments ago.

‘Not something I want to stare at for long.’

I looked away and pressed my hand against my side.

A damp sensation spread across my palm.

“Patient, come over here too.”

The nurse standing by the reception desk brought over a wheelchair the moment she saw the blood on my hand.

“I can walk.”

“Being able to walk and being allowed to walk are two different things. Sit down.”

...I feel like I’ve heard something similar before.

Apparently, the stitches had opened again when I bent down in the foundation’s conference room.

It wasn’t bad enough that I couldn’t walk right now.

But if I stubbornly pushed myself here and the wound opened farther, it would only make the treatment drag on.

“Understood.”

Might as well behave and listen.

“We transferred the ledgers and confiscated materials to headquarters. We also requested travel bans for everyone whose name was listed.”

“Don’t miss a single one.”

“Yes.”

Baek Seorin and two Association employees entered the emergency room after us.

One of the employees was flipping through screens on a tablet even as he walked.

“Oh, and... Huh? Mr. Jaemin? What’s with that blood?”

Baek Seorin looked down at the blood on my hand.

“I think the wound opened a little.”

“Then why are you still here?”

“I just arrived and was checking in.”

“Even so, you should get inside quickly.”

Baek Seorin immediately grabbed the handles of my wheelchair.

“Where do I go?”

“O-Over there...”

The nurse pointed inside with a trembling hand.

The wheelchair started moving at once.

It was going so fast I couldn’t tell whether I was riding a wheelchair or a cart.

“A-Aren’t you going too fast for a hospital?”

“You’re bleeding right now.”

“No, the speed isn’t the problem... It hurts because it’s shaking so much.”

The wheelchair immediately slowed down.

Only then did my body, which had been rattling around moments ago, settle back into place.

“Then you should’ve said that.”

“...”

And so we returned to a proper wheelchair speed and arrived at the treatment room with a relatively comfortable ride.

“Patient, take off your shoes and lie down here for a moment.”

When I got onto the bed, the nurse lifted the hem of my hoodie and peeled back the gauze.

The bandage, soaked with blood, had stuck to the wound, and every time she pulled it away, my side tugged painfully.

“Aghhh...”

“This looks like it was stitched recently. Was it done not long ago?”

“Yes. Yesterday.”

“Yesterday? What did you do for it to open up this badly already?”

“Hmm...”

At that moment, one of the Association employees called Baek Seorin from outside the treatment room.

“Hunter Baek Seorin. There’s something you need to check for a moment.”

“Now?”

“We found some additional materials from the foundation.”

Baek Seorin looked down at my side once, then asked the nurse.

“Will this be over quickly?”

“We need to disinfect it and treat it again, so it’ll take a little while.”

“...Got it.”

Baek Seorin turned to me.

“Stay here.”

“Where would a patient go?”

She looked at me for a moment, then followed the Association employee out of the treatment room.

Not long after the door closed, the nurse examined the wound again.

“So what did you do for it to open up this badly already?”

“Hmm...”

I glanced toward the direction Baek Seorin had just left.

Even though she had gone outside, I had no idea how good an S-rank Hunter’s hearing was.

It probably wouldn’t be a good idea to say I flinched so hard after watching her cut someone’s arm off right in front of me that my wound opened again.

“I moved around a little.”

“This wouldn’t happen from moving around a little.”

“...I think I moved around a little too much.”

“Really? Hmmm... All right. Let’s disinfect the wound first.”

The nurse stopped asking questions and brought a red-stained piece of gauze toward the wound.

“Ughhh...”

“Just bear with it a little. It’ll be over soon.”

The moment the gauze touched me, my side burned hot.

The pain itself was bad enough, but for some reason the sting of disinfectant was even more irritating.

“Ah, wait. Wait a second.”

“Stay still.”

“It feels like my flesh is burning right now.”

“It’s not burning~.”

“R-Really?”

“Yes. Really~.”

The nurse answered every one of my complaints while pressing the gauze down again.

“Aghhhh...”

I gripped the edge of the bed tightly.

It might have looked strange to make a bigger fuss when disinfectant was applied than when I was actually injured.

But personally, this kind of stinging pain was harder to endure.

“What’s the BP?”

“92 over 58. HR 118, SpO₂ 97.”

“Stump bleeding?”

“Compression is being maintained, and there’s no active bleeding.”

“Condition of the amputated part?”

“Cold ischemia time is short and preservation is good.”

“Good. Secure an OR and call vascular and plastics together. We need to assess the possibility of replantation.”

Beside me, the medical staff surrounding Baek Seorin’s older brother were talking nonstop.

After exchanging a bunch of words that didn’t even sound like Korean, a gray-haired doctor pulled open his eyelid and shone something like a small flashlight into it.

Hmm... Right.

I had no idea what they were saying, but at least I could tell it was an urgent situation.

Even if I couldn’t understand the words, I could hear plenty of urgency in their voices.

No matter how much medicine had advanced after the appearance of gates, reattaching a severed arm couldn’t be easy.

Then something like a small flashlight in the doctor’s hand suddenly caught my eye.

A pink rabbit sticker was attached to its black body, one ear half peeled up and dangling.

It was a pretty cute sticker for something an older doctor seemed unlikely to have chosen himself.

“This is urgent. Move quickly! Hurry!”

As the doctor hurriedly turned around, the tip of his glove struck the flashlight lying on the table.

Roll—.

The flashlight rolled across the floor and stopped beneath my bed.

“Ah...”

“Patient. If you bend down right now—”

The nurse tried to stop me when I bent over, but my hand reached it first.

[Rescue Target Tracking]

[Medium Confirmed: Penlight]

At that moment, blue light began seeping out between my fingers, and a single blue footprint appeared beneath the bed.

The second footprint appeared in front of the wall across from me, passing through the curtain.

The third barely formed the shape of a heel before scattering away.

“...Huh.”

“Patient! Are you listening to me? I told you not to bend over.”

The nurse was saying something beside me, but it barely registered.

My attention was already occupied by something else.

I had seen this phenomenon once before.

I looked down at the object in my hand.

A flashlight.

No. A penlight.

When I let go, the blue footprints on the floor immediately disappeared.

When I picked the penlight up again, the footprints reappeared.

Holding the penlight, I slowly looked around.

But there were no further footprints continuing beyond them.

It ended at the third mark.

“Then now... huh?”

While I was still trying to understand the situation, I heard the flustered voice of its owner.

“Where did my penlight go?”

“Doctor. It’s here.”

When I raised my hand, the doctor approached with a relieved expression.

A name tag on his coat read ‘Han Dojin.’

“Ah. So that’s where it was.”

“It fell on the floor, so I picked it up.”

Before returning it, I spun the penlight between my fingers.

A name written in permanent marker remained beneath the rabbit sticker.

Han Doa.

“Did you put this rabbit sticker on yourself?”

The doctor accepted the penlight and pressed the lifted ear down with his thumb.

“My daughter put it on. This isn’t mine.”

The edge of the sticker lifted again as though it wanted to peel off.

The doctor rubbed it down several times with practiced movements, then switched the penlight on.

A white light flashed once and went out.

“It’s old, but as you can see, it still works perfectly well, so I keep using it.”

The doctor ran his thumb once over the name written on the side of the penlight.

His gaze lingered there for a moment.

The look in his eyes seemed wistful.

“Doctor. We secured what you asked for.”

“Ah. Understood.”

Only then did the doctor seem to come back to himself and lower the penlight.

“I’ve talked too much. I have something urgent to take care of, so I’ll be going first.”

After briefly bowing his head, he immediately headed toward the bed where Baek Seorin’s older brother lay.

The medical staff had already finished preparing to move him.

The doctor quickly checked the chart, then spoke.

“Take this with us too. We’ll image it there first and send him up immediately. We’ll determine whether reattachment is possible during surgery.”

The bed wheels were unlocked, and the doctor and medical staff took the patient out of the treatment room.

The surroundings became quiet again.

Only the penlight from earlier remained sitting by itself on the mobile table.

‘He ended up leaving it behind...’

One ear of the pink rabbit sticker was still slightly lifted.

So that was the medium for the next rescue target...

I started to reach for it without thinking, then remembered the look in the doctor’s eyes earlier.

‘...’

It didn’t seem like something I should touch carelessly.

I looked away from it and picked up the phone lying beside my bed.

Out of boredom, I opened the news section for a moment and found it in complete chaos.

[Breaking] “The S-rank thought dead has returned” Baek Seorin returns after 7 years... South Korea once again a ‘Hunter Powerhouse’

[Exclusive] ‘Sword Saint’ Baek Seorin, declared dead, makes shocking return... Association: “Identity confirmed through fingerprints and DNA”

[Video] “Seven years have passed and she still has that figure?” Baek Seorin. Attention focused on visuals unchanged from before disappearance

It seemed the Association had lifted the embargo.

The internet was quite literally covered in Baek Seorin.

There was already even an article with a photo of Baek Seorin’s back as she entered the foundation building today, taken by who knew who.

[Exclusive] Less than a day after returning, she heads to her own memorial foundation... The first place Baek Seorin visited was ‘here’

[Photo] “Who is that man?” Mysterious young man enters foundation beside Baek Seorin, ‘interest explodes’

[Exclusive] ‘My dead sister came back’ Baek Seorin’s biological older brother rushed to emergency room during board meeting... What on earth happened?

[Stocks in Focus] Hunter-related stocks rise across the board after Baek Seorin’s return after 7 years... Who is the ‘biggest beneficiary’?

‘I was photographed?’

When I opened the article, part of me wearing a hoodie had been captured in one corner of the photo.

Fortunately, my face wasn’t visible.

‘Wow. That’s terrifying.’

So this was the private life of an S-rank Hunter.

When I scrolled down, the number of comments had already passed four digits.

― So who’s that guy?

― She comes back and immediately starts bringing a guy around lol

― Isn’t he her boyfriend? They went to the foundation together

― So what stock am I buying?

― He looks like a player just from the vibe

― How can you tell when you can’t even see his face?

― So what stock am I buying?

― What’s with people already deciding he’s her boyfriend when his face isn’t even shown?

― ↑ She came back after 7 years and the guy she’s taking everywhere is just a friend?

― So what stock am I supposed to buy?

“...”

I was already exhausted.

I closed the news window and searched for Han Doa instead.

The top search result was an article from five years ago.

The Yeonhwa Gate Rampage.

It said a large number of the raid team and medical support personnel had gone missing, and after repeated search attempts failed, the entrance was sealed.

At the very top of the missing persons list was a familiar name.

A-rank Healer Han Doa.

I stared at the screen for a long time.

Only now did I understand the look in the doctor’s eyes when he stared at the penlight.

It had belonged to his daughter.

I could still chase after him right now and tell him.

That when I held the penlight, strange footprints appeared.

That maybe they led to where his daughter was.

But all I had seen was a trail two and a half steps long.

Whether there was a living person at the end of it or a corpse.

Or whether there was nothing but an abandoned object, no one knew.

‘I still haven’t even properly figured out my Awakened ability.’

It was still too uncertain to offer something like that as hope.

Meanwhile, the nurse who had gone to fetch supplies returned.

“This will sting a little.”

It didn’t take long to quickly restitch the anesthetized wound and cover it with fresh gauze.

“Don’t run today, and don’t lift anything heavy. If it opens again, you’ll have to be hospitalized next time.”

“What about moving around lightly?”

“If you want to be hospitalized, tell me right now.”

“... Yes. Understood.”

The nurse gathered up the tools she had used and went out beyond the curtain.

I didn’t move immediately and waited for a moment.

Only after confirming that her footsteps had faded did I get down from the bed and straighten my hoodie.

The mobile table holding the penlight was slightly out of the way from the exit.

There were also a few people around, so openly walking over there would probably draw attention.

‘No need to go all the way over there.’

As I walked toward the curtain, I slightly curled the index finger of my right hand.

A small weight caught on my fingertip, and the penlight flew toward me without a sound.

Tap.

Without stopping, I caught it in my palm and slipped it straight into the front pocket of my hoodie.

My temple throbbed slightly, but I had successfully brought it over.

At this point, I was getting pretty used to my ability—

“You’re getting pretty good at it, huh? Even stealing now.”

I had no idea how long she had been watching.

But she had definitely seen the penlight fly into my hand.

I casually rested a hand over my pocket.

“I didn’t steal it.”

“Oh? Then?”

“... I’m just borrowing it for a while.”

“Hah. Seriously.”

Baek Seorin let out a hollow laugh and walked toward me.

“Whose is it?”

“Hunter Han Doa’s. The healer who used to be famous as a promising talent...”

“Ahh. That kid? She went missing too?”

... Apparently, she had figured it out.

Was this what being an S-rank Hunter was like?

Actually, this worked out better.

Unlike the place I had entered last time, the Yeonhwa Gate was a confirmed B-rank gate.

Going in alone was practically impossible, but if I could get Baek Seorin’s help, that changed things.

“Hunter Baek Seorin. Would you perhaps come with me—”

“Ah. But.”

Before I could even make the proposal, Baek Seorin cut me off.

Her red eyes fixed directly on me.

“Who said you could go?”