“I’m really sorry.”
“It’s okay.”
“No, seriously. I had a weird dream, and I just…”
“Don’t worry about it.”
“No, I am going to worry about it. I should.”
Cha Eui-sung burned with self-directed rage as he accepted the first-aid supplies.
“Your shoulder. Hurry.”
Moon Tae-young shook his head repeatedly, but when Eui-sung looked dejected, he finally sat down in front of him.
“Take it off.”
“You already stretched it out anyway, so I think I can just pull it down.”
With a sigh, Moon Tae-young tugged at the frayed neckline of his tattered T-shirt.
“I’ll buy you a new one.”
“I’m fine.”
“I haven’t even given you the cardigan or the rest of the clothes yet.”
“You can give them to me later.”
As Eui-sung rubbed his broad shoulders, he could feel the contours of bone and muscle pressing clearly beneath the skin. His smooth skin somehow felt nice to the touch. As he applied ointment to the red handprint, Moon Tae-young kept turning his gaze away.
Honestly, an injury like this would heal completely within a day even without treatment. Still, it was his doing. And he wanted to lift Tae-young’s mood somehow.
Lately, Eui-sung had only approached him through accidents or messes. Sure, they were growing closer—but the bad reputation, the wrecked body, it all came crashing down at once. Unless the Savior Gauge was at, say, 80%, he couldn’t let the guy start pulling away. And right now, they weren’t even halfway there.
“…To be honest, I wasn’t planning to give you the clothes.”
He started making small talk while rubbing the ointment in again. Since Tae-young didn’t ask why, he answered on his own.
“Just wanted you to come over and hang out.”
It didn’t feel like there was any real damage to the bones or muscles, but the pain must’ve been pretty bad. Tae-young’s shoulder suddenly tensed.
Come on, a guy your size whining like that?
Then again, how often would someone like him have his shoulder squeezed that hard? He wasn’t being sent on assignments all the time, and whatever schemes he was up to, he mostly spent his time sitting around. Living like some Invincible Iron Body type, then suddenly getting hurt—it made sense he’d be uneasy.
Tap. Moon Tae-young suddenly grabbed Eui-sung’s wrist.
“That should be enough.”
His voice was faintly trembling. It was a clear signal to stop, so Eui-sung let go cleanly.
As he wiped the ointment from his hands with a tissue, he glanced at Tae-young’s face—only to be struck by the stiffness there, so stark it felt off.
He’d been fine just moments ago. What had gotten under his skin now? Clicking his tongue inwardly, Eui-sung stared blankly at Tae-young’s back as he put away the medical supplies.
“I won’t be able to come by for a while.”
He crumpled up the tissue and spoke casually. Tae-young didn’t even turn his head, just rummaged around the first-aid kit.
“As I said before, you really don’t need to worry about me.”
“Well, thanks, but I’ve got somewhere to go for a few days.”
He did need to worry. About what had happened to him. About this gnawing anxiety that needed to be erased.
Moon Tae-young finally looked at him. The tips of his ears were tinged red.
“It probably won’t take long. I’ll grab some drinks on the way back.”
Eui-sung forced a smile, stretching his lips wide, and Tae-young gave him a vaguely bitter expression.
“I’ll just leave that there.”
He nodded toward a bean bag, half-flattened from use. The sudden comment made Eui-sung chuckle.
“Sure. But when I come back down, you’re gonna have to come to my place, you know? There’s nothing left here.”
At first, he’d thought Tae-young had cleared everything out on purpose before he came over. He muttered the words silently to himself—ones he couldn’t bring himself to say out loud—as he slipped on his shoes.
***
The place where Cha Eui-sung underwent his Reawakening—and his first grave, where he died.
Incheon148, also known as the Shopping District Dungeon, used to be an ordinary B-rank dungeon.
But then, rumors began to circulate among Hunters and Porters that people were starting to get injured there.
“They say it might turn into an Unstable Dungeon.”
Minor changes in internal terrain or monster count weren’t unusual. But when the modifications were on the scale of tectonic shifts, or the number of monsters suddenly spiked, or entirely new species started to appear—monsters that had never shown up before—that’s when things got serious. Once a report was filed, the Bureau of Regulation would monitor the situation and, after an assessment, label it an Unstable Dungeon. From that point on, management would become stricter, and only parties of a rank or two higher than before would be allowed entry.
The real issue was that Incheon148 had suddenly become disproportionately profitable compared to its rank.
“They say the pay for Porters there is three times higher than average these days.”
“But didn’t three people already get injured there? Why hasn’t it been reported?”
“The entry restrictions are already tight as hell. If it gets labeled Unstable, there goes the goldmine. The Bureau’s bound to catch on eventually, so everyone’s just trying to squeeze as much out of it as they can in the meantime.”
Of course, not many were willing to risk their lives for something that wasn’t exactly a gold rush. Only the truly desperate gathered there. That’s how Cha Eui-sung, under normal circumstances unqualified, managed to snag a Porter spot.
He hadn’t planned to stay long. Just a few quick runs to cover some overdue interest, then he’d return to safer work.
But as luck would have it, on the very day he went, the dungeon began a massive upheaval.
Maybe it was because he’d ended up in a stingy-ass party where he was the only Porter. Whatever the reason, he was left behind—alone in that dark and perilous dungeon.
Bitten and battered, he somehow managed to find a hiding spot by sheer miracle— And then, something appeared before him. A monster he had never seen before, not even once.
Its form resembled vines with geometric patterns, tangled together like hair clogging a drain. In the gaping hole at its center, a blue pupil twisted and twitched.
When a claw lashed out from that void and grabbed his ankle, Cha Eui-sung had the absurd, chilling thought— That it was smiling at him…
***
“I can’t really intervene with dungeons. You know that’s not my jurisdiction.”
“I know, Assemblyman. Wouldn’t dream of asking you to do that kind of work. I’m not planning to enter the dungeon illegally, either. Just want to look around the perimeter for research. With the season being what it is…”
Drip. The sky, viewed over the rim of a coffee cup, was bright and clear.
He’d already made the call. If he stalled for about an hour, he could head over near the dungeon. Officially, entry within 800 meters of a Dungeon Gate was forbidden without authorization. But there were plenty of things in this world that could be handled with a single phone call.
Cha Eui-sung had come up to Incheon at the crack of dawn. Lately, memories of the past were surfacing too frequently, stirring up his emotions. He’d even dreamed about the “No-named” one again, as if landing the final blow in his guilt. It was better to just go and confirm things—set his mind at ease.
It wasn’t completely unheard of for undiscovered monsters to show up. With the countless dungeons that sprang up and vanished like mushrooms after the rain, new monsters occasionally emerged as well.
If a monster hadn’t yet undergone full assessment and was not officially registered, it was called a “No-named” in Korea. That window usually didn’t last more than a week.
So under normal circumstances, an F-rank Porter should never have even laid eyes on one.
“Lucky” enough to Reawaken and then even undergo Regression because of it—was that good luck or bad?
After Regression, Cha Eui-sung deliberately avoided thinking about his time as an F-rank. There was nothing to be gained from dredging up memories filled with nothing but self-loathing and pain.
Maybe that’s why even in dreams, he’d never once seen that nameless monster he encountered in the end.
Only once had he revisited the thought— On the day he turned twenty-eight for the second time.
“An accident? No, there haven’t been any reported Unstable Dungeon incidents.”
“Then what about Incheon148? Anything unusual there?”
“Funny you should ask—that’s actually what I was going to mention. It was decommissioned. About two weeks ago.”
This was different from before. In the original timeline, a No-named monster should’ve emerged from there. He scoured reports of new monster sightings, but couldn’t find anything resembling the one he’d seen.
It was eerie and unsettling… but also oddly comforting. It felt like everything tied to that incident had vanished completely along with the No-named.
After that, he didn’t pay it any more attention. Sure, he had the occasional nightmare, but he never actively went looking into the past.
And yet now, the dream has returned. As if, just like Oh Se-dan had come back, the dungeon had returned too.
Maybe he’d pushed it out of his conscious mind for too long. To be honest, he hadn’t even recalled the monster right after Regression.
Back then, all he could think about was how he’d have to go through the same damn suffering again— And how Oh Se-dan was now with the Hunter Association.
Was it because of the strange title of “Hero” that had landed on him? Because he was being forced to stay in Cheongseri? Or because he was stuck with Moon Tae-young, the Demon King himself?
Memories from before Regression were starting to resurface and seep into the present.
A mess of people, Demon Kings, and dungeons… What a goddamn circus.
Where had the version of him gone—the one who swore to live peacefully the moment he got his second life?
What did a “happy life” even look like? Would it ever come? Or was he just stumbling through a fog with no end in sight?
Retirement really is the answer. Just retire.
But he still had 65% left before he could ditch the Hero gig. Glaring bitterly at the System window, Cha Eui-sung crunched down hard on the ice in his coffee.
***
“Are you the one here for the investigation?”
“Yes, yes. I believe someone from above called ahead.”
“Please present your belongings for inspection.”
He casually tossed over his bag. Inside were latex gloves, a chisel of indeterminate use, and a glass jar—nothing else. Everything had been scraped together from a local discount store: 1,000 won for the gloves, 1,000 for the chisel, 2,000 for the jar, another 1,000 for a cloth, and a 3,000-won energy bar.
“There’ll be an official dungeon entry soon, so you’ll need to move farther away.”
“I won’t go near the Gate when that happens.”
After collecting his bag and passing the checkpoint, he could see the Dungeon Gate in the distance—torn open in a jagged, haphazard shape. The portal swirling at its center looked disturbingly normal, with no obvious abnormalities. And somehow, that made it even more unsettling.
Thump. Thump. His heart pounded with every step closer.
Honestly, one of the main reasons he’d come was to see if there were any anomalies not recorded in the current timeline’s data. But more than that, this was about resetting his mental state.
He needed to see the dungeon looking ordinary, with no changes, so he could tell himself:
There’s no need to stress. It’ll vanish on its own six years from now, and no one will even remember it existed.
He needed to scold himself, calm himself down, and move on. Once he stopped by here and felt that sense of relief, he’d head back to the hotel, get a wellness therapy session as part of the service, and return to normal.
No more floundering in old memories like a PTSD-stricken veteran. No more struggling to control his emotions.
Just thinking that made him feel better.
As Cha Eui-sung approached the portal, humming along to the clattering rhythm of his bag’s contents—
BEEEEP—
