—The dangers of perception-interference items first came to serious public attention following the Christmas shopping mall bombing in New York, 19XX.
WEE-OOH WEE-OOH WEE-OOH— BWEEEEEENG—!
“There’s another explosion incoming! Evacuate the civilians, now!”
“No, no! Rachel—Rachel’s gone!”
BOOOOOM! RUMBLE RUMBLE RUMBLE—
—The terrorist was Derek Farmerson, a 41-year-old C-rank Awakened criminal. He was originally sentenced to seven years in prison for an assault on a civilian at age twenty-two, but multiple prison breaks extended his sentence, and he served a total of eighteen years before being released. The real issue is that, even back then, he had already made several threats of terrorism to people around him.
—“At first, everyone thought he was joking. I mean, he was drunk. But the more he talked, the more detailed his story got. Eventually, the bartender called it in, and from that day on, Hunters started patrolling the area. I had to shut down the pub for ten months.”
—“We were an elite team made up of B-ranks and above. We’d never once lost a criminal we were after. But Derek Farmerson… he just vanished. We only realized after reviewing footage from over a hundred CCTVs—he’d walked right past us, and we let him go.”
—The item he had on him at the time was an A-rank item called Golden Time. It was a perception-disruption artifact that rendered the user completely undetectable—for 612 seconds—by sight, sound, even scent. Though Hunters picked up on his presence with their senses, that information never made it to their brains.
“No! RACHEEEEEL—!”
WEE-OOH WEE-OOH WEE-OOH—
—After the horrific casualties of that day, a flood of legislation concerning Hunters and artifacts—previously stuck in endless debate—was finally passed. Perception-interference items were henceforth classified as high-risk, regardless of rank, and could only be used with special authorization in limited scenarios like undercover investigations.
However, just three years later in 19XX, the emergence of perception-interference skills would once again shake the world to its core…
Thud.
Cha Eui-sung pushed aside the now-silent tablet and stretched out on the couch.
Maybe he’d had the volume up too loud. The voice actor’s pitch-perfect dubbing still echoed in his ears.
“Hoo.”
As he let out a short sigh, the narration that had been circling his mind began to scatter and fade.
Yesterday, after probing Moon Tae-young to his heart’s content, he’d melted into a puddle and somehow made it home. He hadn’t been planning to sleep anyway, so he’d stayed up all night digging through information.
What he scraped together over several hours was a mountain of data on perception-interference.
Cha Eui-sung jammed everything he could find into his head—basic Hunter training material, books, academic papers, videos, anything and everything.
It wasn’t hard. The information about perception-interference from this period matched what he already knew.
Naturally, there wasn’t any newly added intel, and even reviewing summaries for overlooked details turned up nothing new.
Most items only activate for the user and, in rare cases, can affect objects. Targets under its effect distort the awareness of those around them, allowing them to evade detection.
Perception-interference deceives the five senses, disrupts focus, and can even erase sensations like déjà vu or suspicion. Most items, however, are limited to tricking one or two senses.
Skills wielded by humans can have more outrageous effects, but even at A-rank, they’re not powerful enough to completely erase a person’s entire existence.
So in conclusion—while highly abusable, the abilities had clear limits.
The problem was…
Moon Tae-young had already surpassed those limits.
His abilities were far beyond what Cha Eui-sung had guessed.
Tch. Cha Eui-sung clicked his tongue and rubbed his shoulder. The bite mark that had been there when he got home last night was now gone, his skin smooth as if nothing had happened.
He briefly recalled the feel of Moon Tae-young’s breath on his skin, but then yanked his shirt back down and shifted his wandering thoughts toward something more productive—with a skill.
Authority.
If the System were to label it, that’s what the ability might be called. For now, the perception-interference affecting Moon Tae-young seemed the most plausible explanation.
After all, even Cha Eui-sung had never seen a perception-interference skill that extended to photos and videos before.
That’s likely how Moon Tae-young managed to quietly settle in this small, quiet town without a whisper.
Why here, of all places, wasn’t clear—but it hadn’t been a bad choice for going off the grid.
No one in the village knew his past, no one suspected his identity, and no one could sniff out his secret plans. For two whole years, not a single person raised an eyebrow while brushing shoulders with him daily.
If not for the return of one vengeful regressor, Moon Tae-young might’ve lived out the rest of his days in peace—even as the world fell apart.
And of course, that meddling regressor had to be me.
The one to find him was, naturally, none other than a Hero backed by the System. Looking at it that way, it made sense why the veil surrounding Moon Tae-young seemed to waver only in front of him.
Maybe, through that connection as a Hero, Cha Eui-sung had instinctively caught glimpses of Moon Tae-young’s true form.
And then the skill just cranked that instinct up even more, huh?
He still remembered that evening vividly. Each time he kissed his way across Moon Tae-young’s exposed face, it felt like he was biting into a luscious, forbidden fruit, one mouthful at a time.
Thanks to that, he’d been able to grasp—through excitement—how the Hero’s Right skill actually worked.
Those flickering images of Moon Tae-young’s true self from before were likely just his heightened instincts at play.
The System had somehow scraped together spare “operating funds” from who knows where and cobbled together a low-cost skill that sidestepped most restrictions.
“To just let me look at his face?”
He muttered out loud, but even that seemed unfair to the man’s face. Once the annoying glasses vanished from his well-sculpted features, even the subtlest details became deliciously satisfying.
Maybe the System was trying to toss him a bone—a visual treat to comfort him for all the crap he’d put up with.
“…Yeah, no, that’s a load of bullshit.”
This was the same stingy bastard who didn’t even hand out episode updates for lack of funds. There’s no way it suddenly cared about a Hero’s eye-candy needs.
Even their last conversation had ended with that arrogant lecture: “Take care of your own damn mental health.”
Bastard. Cha Eui-sung cursed under his breath and tapped on the tablet. The time in the corner read 11:00 a.m.
Perfect. Moon Tae-young would be holed up at that teeny-tiny branch school, teaching kids right about now.
“Let’s move,” he murmured and sprang to his feet, pulling on his coat.
He flinched a little at the faint trace of Moon Tae-young’s scent still clinging to the fabric, but didn’t hesitate and zipped out the door.
Something had just clicked in his head.
After all I’ve been through with the System, if I still can’t read its intent, I should just turn in my regressor badge.
Honestly, at this point, it wasn’t the Demon King or some Outer God he wanted to punch the most—it was the damn System.
Naturally, that made him think of the Demon King’s secret, sinister hideout—a place he’d guessed the location of long ago, but for some reason had never been able to trace.
When he thought about all the hell he went through combing through dungeon data just to find a hint about that place, this skill felt like a reward handed down at just the right time.
Would’ve been nicer if it had come earlier, though. Still, maybe he should count his blessings.
As he walked steadily toward the village outskirts, Cha Eui-sung flipped through the files stored in his cloud storage.
The wind began to pick up where the road started to blur, making his coat flap wildly.
With a swift motion, he swept the hem of his coat behind him—his hair rippling with it in gleaming gold.
***
The place Cha Eui-sung casually referred to as an “open lot” wasn’t so much empty as it was abandoned—sparsely dotted with trees and utterly neglected.
It was far from any residential area, with soil so poor it was practically unusable. No one had any reason to develop this land, especially when cheap plots were plentiful elsewhere.
Even the few local kids never played anywhere near it. It was, in the most literal sense, just land. Nothing more.
Still, it had the perfect conditions for something like a hidden dungeon to be embedded beneath it…
At one point, Cha Eui-sung had felt like Moon Tae-young could somehow sense whenever someone came near this place. After hearing about the secret base, he’d started secretly pacing the area, measuring distances.
But no matter how many times he came and went, he never once saw Moon Tae-young rush out into the open lot.
There had to be some ambiguous method Tae-young was using to detect him.
Guessing as much, Cha Eui-sung glanced down at the dry, yellowed soil where weeds were crisping under the sun.
Scattered leaves didn’t hint at a dungeon’s presence—just the slow passage of time.
If it weren’t for that damn ‘Save the World’ message, would I even have come here?
He drifted into idle thoughts. Even if the System hadn’t reached out to him, he probably wouldn’t have returned to the Hunter Association. He had no intention of repeating that grueling ten-year cycle.
Seeing Oh Se-dan again would’ve been a whole new level of awkward. More likely, knowing everything that would happen in those ten years, he would’ve just schemed to make money, blow it like water, and wring out whatever fleeting happiness he could.
But he would have found Moon Tae-young, one way or another.
The bastard who shattered all the hardships of his second life—he would’ve been curious enough to find out what kind of miserable state that guy was in a decade ago, even if just to see it for himself.
Even without discerning his true identity, he’d probably have been intrigued by the so-called Demon King and poked around a little.
I doubt we’d have gotten this close, though.
If he hadn’t lashed out for revenge and dragged Moon Tae-young into trouble, maybe—though he didn’t really get why—they could’ve become a little friendly.
After all, the guy smiled a lot and was kind. Even if the smile seemed performative, Cha Eui-sung would’ve sensed that the consideration behind it wasn’t fake.
It was ridiculous, really, thinking like that about the vile Demon King who’d murdered him…
Ugh, fuck…
Irritated, Cha Eui-sung swore silently.
Lately, just thinking about Moon Tae-young made something churn strangely inside him. A weird flutter deep in his chest, softening his thoughts before he realized it.
On impulse, he nearly kicked a rock—then stopped, not wanting to leave any trace of himself. Instead, he just glared holes into the nearest tree, itching to smash something.
He wanted to kick the damn thing, rip it from the roots, and watch it launch through the air and impale itself somewhere.
That was the kind of violent fantasy chewing at his mind as he ground his teeth—
…?
Something rippled—subtly—through the air in his field of vision.
