The first thing I noticed was the sound. Not the stone rumbling of a dungeon, not the wet tearing of monsters, not the heavy silence of the chamber where everything had gone wrong. It was steady, mechanical, repetitive. A soft beep.
My eyelids felt heavy, weighed down as if I had been asleep for days. When I tried to open them, white light stung my eyes. It took me a long moment before I realized I was looking at a ceiling—not one carved of rock or inscribed with strange symbols, but plaster, smooth and ordinary.
My throat was dry. I tried to swallow, but my tongue stuck. Breathing was easier, though I could feel the ache in my chest when I inhaled.
I blinked until the blur cleared, and then I saw it: the narrow hospital curtain that divided my bed from the rest of the ward. A drip line ran into the crook of my arm, taped in place. My body felt heavy, but not in the same way as when I had collapsed in that underground chamber.
I turned my head slightly, forcing my eyes to focus on the monitor beside me. Heart rate, steady. Oxygen levels, stable. I stared at the little green numbers as if reading them would anchor me back into reality.
"…Søster?"
The voice came from the side, soft but trembling. A chair scraped against the floor, followed by the sound of small feet hurrying closer. I flinched at the sudden closeness, then stilled as a familiar face leaned over me.
Hana.
My little sister's eyes were rimmed red, cheeks blotchy from crying. She gripped the blanket with both hands, knuckles white.
"You can hear me, right? Please—say something."
I blinked again, slow, disoriented. My lips parted, but only a faint rasp came out.
Hana exhaled in relief, a sound caught halfway between a sob and a laugh. "You're awake. You're really awake." She reached for my hand and squeezed, careful not to disturb the IV taped to my skin.
The warmth of her touch grounded me more than the machines ever could. My fingers twitched in response, sluggish but steady. I tried my toes under the blanket. They moved too.
The fear in Hana's expression softened just a little, though her grip on my hand never loosened.
I blinked again, slow, disoriented. My lips parted, but no sound came out.
Hana's lip trembled, but her eyes found strength even through the tears. She pressed her forehead briefly to my hand before pulling back.
"I can't lose you too," she whispered, voice breaking. "We already lost Mom and Dad… I can't—" She cut herself off with a shaky breath, swallowing the rest. "You're all I have left, Freya. Please don't leave me."
Her grip lingered for another moment, as though she could anchor me with touch alone. Then, with a sudden burst of resolve, Hana straightened, scrubbed at her face with her sleeve, and whispered fiercely, "I'll get the doctor. Don't move, okay?"
Without waiting for my answer, she turned and hurried out the door, her footsteps quick and determined despite the quiver in her shoulders.
The room fell still the moment the door clicked shut behind Hana. The echoes of my sister's trembling voice lingered, pressing against my ribs more tightly than any bandage.
Parents. She had said it so plainly, like speaking their names into the room might bring them back, as if the memory of them wasn't already carved into my every breath. Their absence was an old wound, but Hana's reminder made it fresh again.
My fingers curled against the stiff sheets. I had promised, once, that I would be the shield for what was left of our family. That I would never let Hana feel the same emptiness they had both grown up in. And yet—just a few hours in a gate, and Hana had been sitting there begging me not to leave.
My chest ached, not from the injuries but from the shame. I hated that Hana had seen me this broken. I hated that I had been so powerless in that dungeon, crawling in the dark while monsters pressed closer, my only thought to survive long enough to see my sister again.
My eyes flicked to the pale ceiling. That place hadn't been natural. It had swallowed me whole, rules bent and twisted beyond the Association's explanations. If not for whatever that serpent wanted from me—the tests, the pain—it would have killed me within seconds.
I breathed slowly, steadying my pulse. No. I couldn't tell Hana any of this. Not yet. Hana needed her sister, not some stranger talking about voices in the dark and system messages that shouldn't exist.
The silence wrapped around me, heavy and absolute. I stared at my hands, at the faint tremor in them, and forced them still. Whatever had happened, whatever I had become in that dungeon—it was mine to bear.
When the doctor came through that door, I'd wear my mask again. Strong. Calm. The older sister who never wavered. Even if, for the first time, I felt the ground shifting beneath my feet.
The door creaked open softly, breaking the fragile stillness that had settled in the room after Hana's hurried departure. A woman stepped inside with the kind of quiet confidence that belonged to someone who had walked these halls for years. She was tall and slim, her posture straight but unforced, with the faint scent of antiseptic and lavender trailing in her wake.
Her white coat was buttoned neatly, though its sleeves were rolled to the elbows as if she preferred freedom over formality. Beneath it, a soft gray blouse peeked out, simple but tidy. She had warm brown skin and dark hair tied back in a bun, though a few wisps had escaped to frame her face. Her eyes—sharp, almond-shaped, and glinting with an assessing calm—moved immediately to me, studying me without judgment but with an intensity that left little unseen.
A clipboard rested lightly in her hand, but she didn't glance at it right away. Instead, she closed the door behind her with a gentle click, the sound somehow final, as though she'd just shut the outside world away.
"You must be Freya," she said, her voice low and steady, carrying just enough warmth to soften the clinical edge.
She crossed the space between us with measured steps, the kind that were practiced to neither rush nor linger. When she reached the bedside, she finally consulted the chart, then set it aside on the nearby table.
"I'm Dr. Min Seo-jin," she introduced herself, offering the faintest curve of a smile that felt more professional than personal. "Your sister was quite… persuasive about making sure I came right away."
Her gaze returned to me, searching, as if weighing what to say next. She didn't ask how I was feeling—she seemed to already know the answer. Instead, she reached for the stethoscope draped around her neck and adjusted it with careful fingers.
"Shall we begin?" she asked quietly, her tone less a question and more a steady reassurance that whatever had brought her here, she was ready to face it with her patient.
Dr. Min slipped the earpieces into place and warmed the stethoscope's diaphragm briefly against her palm before pressing it lightly to my chest.
"Deep breath in," she instructed. Her voice was calm, deliberate.
I inhaled, the paper gown crinkling as my shoulders lifted. The cold disk against my skin made me tense, but her steady hand kept it in place.
"And out," she said softly, listening as the air left my lungs. She moved the stethoscope in small, practiced motions, pausing each time, her brow faintly furrowing as though cataloging the smallest details.
We repeated the rhythm several times—inhale, exhale—until she finally pulled the stethoscope away and let it hang around her neck again. She scribbled a note on her clipboard with quick precision before reaching for the blood pressure cuff.
The cuff tightened around my arm, squeezing until my fingers tingled. Dr. Min kept her eyes on the dial, expression even, only making a small hum of acknowledgment as the numbers settled. With the same efficiency, she slid the cuff off and set it aside.
The paper gown rustled as I shifted, keeping my hands folded tightly in my lap. Dr. Min adjusted the stethoscope around her neck, the faint smell of antiseptic clinging to her coat as she took notes on a small clipboard. Her expression was calm, but her eyes missed nothing.
"Your blood pressure is elevated, and your pulse is still irregular," Dr. Min said, sliding the blood pressure cuff off my arm. "You've been unconscious for nearly three days. That's not something to brush aside."
"I probably just… overdid it," I replied lightly. I forced a small smile, though my voice sounded thinner than I'd hoped. "Happens when you're in the field too long."
Dr. Min arched a brow. "Overdid it?" She glanced at me, then jotted something down. "You were brought in by hunters who said you collapsed in the middle of a gate. You weren't moving, you weren't responding, and you were ice cold to the touch."
I looked away, staring at the tiled floor. "It's not as bad as it sounds."
"That's exactly what every hunter says before I end up signing their discharge papers for the morgue," Dr. Min replied evenly, her tone clipped but not unkind. She set the clipboard aside and leaned forward a little. "Tell me honestly. What happened inside that gate?"
I hesitated. The memory of blood on stone and the crushing silence of the double dungeon flickered at the edges of my mind. I clasped my hands tighter. "I just got caught off guard, that's all. A few bad hits. Nothing unusual."
"Nothing unusual doesn't leave you in systemic shock," Dr. Min countered. "Your body temperature dropped dangerously low, and your mana flow registered erratic surges. That combination doesn't happen without something extreme."
I exhaled slowly through my nose, trying to keep my composure. "You're reading too much into it."
Dr. Min straightened, regarding me with an expression that was more pity than frustration. "I've treated hunters for years, Miss Freya. I can tell when someone is hiding details. And the ones who downplay what they've seen… they're usually the ones most at risk of dying next time."
My jaw tightened. I wanted to brush it off again, but Dr. Min's words sank deeper than I expected. Still, I shook my head. "I'll be fine. I just need rest. That's all."
Dr. Min studied me for a long moment, then sighed. "Rest, yes. But I'm not clearing you until I run a mana resonance scan. If there's an instability in your channels, ignoring it could kill you the next time you step into a gate."
The air between us grew heavy. My fingers twitched in my lap. "Is that really necessary?"
"Yes." Dr. Min's tone left no room for argument. She softened it a fraction after a pause. "I'm not your enemy, Miss Freya. My job is to make sure you survive long enough to walk out of here. But I need you to meet me halfway."
I finally looked up, meeting her eyes. For a moment, I considered telling her the truth—the strange pulse of power, the system window that had burned into my vision. But the words caught in my throat. Instead, I nodded once, stiffly.
"Fine. Do the scan."
Dr. Min gave a small nod, as if she'd expected that resistance all along. She picked up the clipboard again. "Good. Then we'll see what your body isn't telling me."
Dr. Min moved to the counter along the wall and opened a slim, black case. Inside lay an array of polished instruments, each etched with fine, silver markings. She selected one—a crescent-shaped band no wider than two fingers, glass-like in its clarity yet lined with faint threads of light that shifted like veins beneath the surface.
She returned to my bedside, holding it with the same care she'd shown her stethoscope. "This is a resonance scanner. It'll map your mana channels and look for disruptions. You'll feel a faint pull—like static under your skin—but it won't hurt."
Her voice carried the confidence of someone who'd said those words many times before, but her eyes lingered on me as if waiting for the smallest flicker of hesitation. I kept my hands folded tighter until she gently gestured for my right wrist.
I offered it reluctantly. The band was cool against my skin, and she secured it with practiced ease, pressing her thumb lightly against the rune at its center.
A low chime answered her touch, and faint light bled across the etched runes, glowing to life.
The room grew quiet except for the soft hum of the scanner. Dr. Min adjusted the glass-like device strapped to my wrist, a crescent-shaped band threaded with faintly glowing runes. It shimmered in pale blue light as it began to pulse in rhythm with my heartbeat.
"Just hold still," Dr. Min instructed, eyes narrowing at the readings on the wall-mounted monitor. "This will track your mana flow in real time."
I nodded, lips pressed thin. My body tensed as the device tightened, warmth flooding up my arm. The scanner whirred, projecting lines of faint blue light across my body like a wireframe. Slowly, patterns of mana veins came into view: a branching river that flowed from my core outward, bright and steady—at first.
But then the image stuttered. Where my mana should have flowed evenly, some channels flickered erratically, pulsing in jagged bursts. In my chest, near the heartline, a knot of bright, unstable light throbbed like a second heartbeat.
I frowned. "…That's not normal, is it?"
Dr. Min leaned forward, her brow furrowing. "No. It's not." She tapped the screen, enlarging the anomaly. "Your flow is irregular—see here? It's like a resonance loop. Mana should circulate in a closed rhythm, smooth and even. Yours is spiking in bursts, then collapsing back on itself."
"Maybe it's… just stress?" I offered weakly, trying for nonchalance.
Dr. Min shot me a look. "Stress doesn't create new pathways." She gestured at the projection, where thin threads of mana branched out from the knot, reaching into places they shouldn't—my ribs, my spine, even the edges of my lungs. "These are forming independently, like your body is… improvising."
I swallowed. "Improvising?"
"Trying to reroute something it can't contain," Dr. Min said flatly. She keyed in a command, and the scanner zoomed in on my sternum. The knot of light pulsed brighter, almost fighting the containment of the scan. The air in the room vibrated faintly.
I winced, gripping the edge of the bed. "It… feels hot," I admitted through clenched teeth. "Like it's pressing outwards."
Dr. Min immediately powered down the scanner. The lights on my wristband dimmed. The hum of the machine cut off, leaving only the sound of my unsteady breathing.
"That's enough for now," Dr. Min said, her tone unusually sharp. She scribbled something into her tablet, lips tight. "Your body is resonating with mana in ways it shouldn't. I don't know how you're even walking around with this kind of feedback loop."
I managed a strained smile, trying to brush it off. "Guess I'm just stubborn."
Dr. Min didn't smile back. She folded her arms and looked directly at me. "Stubborn doesn't explain this. Something happened in that gate, Miss Freya. Something you haven't told me yet. And until I know what, I can't protect you from what's coming."
The silence that followed was heavy, broken only by the faint hiss of the monitor cooling down.
I narrowed my eyes at the pushy doctor. "That's not your job, though."
Dr. Min blinked, taken aback, before her brows drew together. "Excuse me?"
I shifted against the pillow, ignoring the tug of the IV in my arm. "Your job is to make sure I don't die on this bed. That's all. Whatever happened in that dungeon… that's not something you need to involve yourself with." My tone came out sharper than I intended, but I didn't take it back.
The doctor studied me in silence for a moment, then folded her arms across her chest. The faint creak of the clipboard in her grip punctuated the quiet. "You're right. I'm not a hunter, and I don't set foot inside gates. But when a patient walks out of one alive despite wounds that should have killed her, with mana readings that make no sense, I don't call that 'none of my business.'"
I looked away, my jaw tightening. The knot of light from the resonance scan burned in my memory.
Dr. Min's voice softened, but her words remained steady. "I'm not here to pry into guild politics or your secrets. I'm telling you this because if I don't understand what's happening inside you, then the next time your body misfires, I might not be able to save you."
The air between them grew heavy again, thick with unspoken truths. I wanted to argue, to hold the line she'd set—but Hana's words still echoed in my ears: I can't lose you too.
My lips parted, but nothing came out.
Dr. Min let the silence linger a few heartbeats longer, then sighed and picked up the clipboard again. "Fine. We'll run another scan tomorrow after your body stabilizes. You don't have to talk today. But don't think you can keep avoiding this forever, Miss Freya."
She turned toward the door, leaving me with my own thoughts, the hum of the machines, and the faint sense that someone else now knew—at least a little—that something inside me had changed.