The door shut with a muted click behind me. For a long moment, I leaned back against it, letting the sterile quiet of the corridor replace the faint hum of the machines inside. My chest rose slowly, deliberately, as I breathed out.
Freya Seo-Hallrún. C-rank support hunter. Twenty-three years old. Injuries that should have killed her. Yet there she was, breathing, recovering. And those resonance readings…
I pushed away from the door and adjusted my clipboard against my side. Indulgence in hesitation wasn't my habit anymore. If something unsettled me, it belonged in the data. Numbers. Charts. Hard facts. Emotion was for the families left behind, not for me.
I made my way down the hall, passing the overnight staff. A couple of nurses offered polite bows; I returned them with a faint nod. They didn't need warmth from me—competence was enough.
The lab was quiet when I entered. Rows of diagnostic equipment sat in neat order, the faint buzz of mana stabilizers filling the background. I set Freya's file on the desk and activated the display screen. Her resonance scan floated up, translucent blue lines forming the outline of a body.
At first glance, the flow was normal. Mana veins traced through arms, chest, legs. Circulation was smooth for the first thirty seconds of the capture. But then the glitch appeared: a flare at the sternum, pulsing erratically. A knot of energy, unstable and alive, pushing against the natural flow.
I replayed the sequence three times, zooming in. Each cycle was worse than the last. New filaments branched out like tiny roots from the knot, extending into channels that had no anatomical basis. I checked again against the Association's database of recorded anomalies. Nothing matched.
Not even close.
I rubbed the bridge of my nose and exhaled through my teeth. This wasn't simple mana strain. Strain left tears, burnout scars, broken circuits. This was growth. Improvised rerouting. Her body was rewriting itself around something foreign.
And I'd seen it before.
Not in this hospital. Not in Seoul. Not in the sanitized walls of medical practice. No—the last time I'd seen readings this violent was ten years ago, in the field, standing ankle-deep in blood with my healing barriers stretched to the breaking point.
I shook my head once, forcing that memory back down where it belonged.
My gaze flicked to the file:
Patient: Seo-Hallrún Freya.
Mana Rank: C (support, unaffiliated).
Current Status: Stable. Unconscious for 72 hrs. Anomalous recovery noted.
Stable. That word felt false. There was nothing stable about what I had just reviewed.
I tapped the console, encrypting the scan under my personal access code. Not the Association's, not the hospital's. Mine. The fewer eyes that saw this, the better.
This wasn't simple mana strain. Strain left tears, burnout scars, broken circuits. This was growth. Improvised rerouting. Her body was rewriting itself around something foreign.
I'd seen something like this before. The last time I'd seen readings this violent was eight years ago, on the west coast of America.
The Kamish raid.
The first S-rank gate, opening in California. The world's strongest gathered—over a hundred hunters at the peak of human ability. And still… Kamish slaughtered them. Fire that melted steel, claws that tore apart fortresses like paper. The sky itself burned red.
I had been there. A healer among many, barriers raised until my mana veins screamed. My hands never stopped glowing with recovery light, even as I waded through ash and blood. But it hadn't mattered. Not against a dragon that was less a beast and more a natural disaster given form.
Hundreds died. Entire cities flattened. And in the end, only five walked away alive—names that would be etched in history as National Level Hunters. I wasn't one of them. I had survived, yes, but barely. My team hadn't. My patients hadn't.
That was the day Rhea Min Seo-jin, S-rank healer, The White Aegis, died too. What remained was Dr. Min, physician, buried in her work and stripped of the arrogance to believe she could save everyone.
And now—this girl.
Freya Seo-Hallrún was moderately attractive, sure, but that had nothing to do with why I kept replaying the scan. I'd treated hundreds of pretty faces in my career. They blurred together. What didn't blur was survival where none should have existed. That was what gnawed at me.
The sound of the door sliding open broke my concentration.
"Working late again?" a voice drawled.
I didn't need to look up to know who it was. "Byung-ho."
Dr. Han Byung-ho, senior trauma surgeon, stepped inside with his usual unhurried gait. He smelled faintly of smoke, though we'd told him a hundred times not to light up on hospital grounds. His hair was peppered with gray, his expression carved into lines of tired experience.
"Another anomaly?" he asked, eyes narrowing at the frozen scan on my display.
I hesitated, just for a second. He caught it, of course. He always did.
"Not sure yet," I said, keeping my tone even.
He came to stand beside me, hands in his coat pockets. Together we watched the blue wireframe pulse with that unstable knot. His brow furrowed deeper. "That's not strain."
"No," I admitted quietly. "It isn't."
He gave me a sidelong glance. "You're encrypting it?"
"Association doesn't need to see this yet."
His grunt was noncommittal, but I knew him well enough to read the meaning: You're protecting the patient.
"She's young," he said finally. "And she looks like she's already been through hell. Don't get attached, Rhea. Not again."
The words landed harder than I wanted them to. I kept my gaze fixed on the scan, jaw tight. "I'm not attached. I'm thorough."
"Mm." He didn't sound convinced. With a pat on my shoulder, he turned toward the door. "Go home when you're done. Don't make Ara drag you out again."
When the door shut, I allowed myself a single, slow exhale.
Attached. That wasn't it. It wasn't supposed to be it.
But as I looked again at Freya's chart, at the impossible resonance branching through her chest, I knew Byung-ho was wrong about one thing.
This girl wasn't just another patient.
I worked for an hour or so, then left the diagnostics lab, only the steady beep of machines and the soft roll of carts broke the silence. I walked the length of the ward until I reached the staff lounge. The door slid open with a soft chime.
Kim Ara was already there, feet propped up on the coffee table, cradling a paper cup of tea. Her dark hair fell loose around her shoulders, and her green scrubs were wrinkled from a long day. She glanced up at me with a smirk.
"Still haunting the labs, Seo-jin?" she asked, her voice laced with amusement. "One of these days, I'm going to drag you out by your hair."
I raised a brow. "Try it, and I'll sign you up for double shifts."
She laughed, setting her cup down. "Threats already? You must've found something interesting."
Ara was more perceptive than she let on. She'd been a hunter once, before her injury ended that life. Her instincts remained sharp, and she could always tell when something weighed on me.
I poured myself tea from the pot on the counter and sat across from her. "The resonance scan on the Seo-Hallrún girl."
"The one they pulled out of that gate looking like death warmed over?" Ara asked, leaning forward.
"Yes. Her body should've collapsed under the strain, but instead…" I hesitated, then tapped my fingers lightly on the table. "It's adapting. Building new channels."
Ara's eyes widened. "Adapting? That's not strain. That's—"
"—evolution," I finished quietly. "But uncontrolled. Dangerous."
She studied me, her teasing tone gone. "And you're not reporting it?"
"No." I took a sip of tea, letting the warmth anchor me. "Not until I understand more. The Association would lock her in a cell and poke her until she broke. I won't allow it."
Ara gave me a long look, then leaned back in her chair. "There it is. That protective streak again. You sure you're not slipping back into old habits?"
The jab was light, but the meaning sharp. Ara was one of the only people who knew who I'd been—The White Aegis, S-rank healer, the woman who had kept hunters alive through impossible raids until one day, she hadn't.
I set my cup down carefully. "This isn't about me."
Ara smirked faintly, though her eyes softened. "Maybe not. But don't forget—you can't save everyone, Rhea. I'd hate to see you bleed yourself dry trying."
Before I could answer, the lounge door opened again. Dr. Lee Hyun-tae strode in, crisp white coat swinging slightly, his expression already smug. His youth radiated from the cocky set of his shoulders—late twenties, bright, sharp, and insufferable.
"Dr. Min," he greeted, ignoring Ara completely. "I just pulled the resonance logs from your session with the Seo-Hallrún girl."
My jaw tightened. "Those were encrypted under my clearance."
He tapped his tablet with a smirk. "And I have departmental override for research anomalies. Don't look so surprised."
Ara groaned softly, muttering, "Here we go…" under her breath.
I stood, meeting Hyun-tae's gaze levelly. "Those results are confidential. Patient privacy comes first."
"Patient privacy?" He scoffed. "Come on, Min. You saw those readings. They're unprecedented. Self-generated mana pathways? Improvised rerouting? That's research gold. If we log this properly, the Association will send a grant team within the week."
"Which means they'll take her apart like a specimen," I snapped. "She's a twenty-three-year-old girl, not a lab rat."
He tilted his head, smirk widening. "Funny, coming from you. You, of all people, should know what it means when someone survives the impossible. Isn't it your job to make sure we understand why?"
Ara stood now too, folding her arms. "Hyun-tae, back off. She's not wrong—the Association doesn't exactly treat anomalies kindly. You've read the case reports."
"Exactly," Hyun-tae said smoothly, turning toward her as if to win her over. "Which is why this needs oversight. If Min hides this, and the girl destabilizes in the field, who do you think they'll blame? The hospital. Us."
I stepped closer, lowering my voice. "This stays in-house. No reports to the Association until I've confirmed the nature of her condition. That's final."
For a heartbeat, silence stretched between us. Hyun-tae's eyes gleamed with that dangerous hunger for recognition. Then he smirked again and gave a mock bow. "Fine. For now. But if she burns out, her blood is on your hands, Min."
He left without another word, the door hissing shut behind him.
Ara exhaled loudly. "Gods, that man's ego could fill an entire wing."
I sat again, running a hand across my face. My pulse was still high, though I kept my expression calm.
Ara leaned forward, studying me. "You're protecting her. And you're butting heads with Hyun-tae, which is practically a sport at this point. Just… be careful, Rhea. He's ambitious, and ambition like that doesn't care who gets stepped on."
I nodded, though my thoughts were already turning back to Freya Seo-Hallrún. The knot in her chest, the branching veins, the quiet strength she'd shown even half-dead. There was something there—something I couldn't yet name.
And for the first time in years, I felt the stirrings of something I thought I'd buried alongside The White Aegis.
Interest.
The hospital at night was a different creature. The corridors hushed, the overhead lights dimmed, and even the machines seemed to beep softer, as though respecting the hour. I preferred it that way—quieter, cleaner. No interruptions to thought.
I sat alone in my office, Freya Seo-Hallrún's file spread open across my desk. The resonance charts glowed faintly from the monitor, looping the same thirty-second capture over and over. I didn't need to replay it anymore; the image was burned into my mind. The knot of light in her chest. The branching filaments. The pulse like a second heartbeat.
I leaned back, arms crossed, staring at the ceiling.
It had been years since I walked out of the raiding world, yet the memories pressed in like they'd happened yesterday. The Kamish raid.
The first S-rank gate, opening on the west coast of America. The world's strongest gathered, over a hundred hunters at the peak of human ability. And still… Kamish slaughtered them. Fire that melted steel, claws that tore apart fortresses like paper. The sky itself burned red.
I had been there. A healer among many, barriers raised until my mana veins screamed. My hands never stopped glowing with recovery light, even as I waded through ash and blood. But it hadn't mattered. Not against a dragon that was less a beast and more a natural disaster given form.
Hundreds died. Entire cities flattened. And in the end, only five walked away alive—names that would be etched in history as National Level Hunters. I wasn't one of them. I had survived, yes, but barely. My team hadn't. My patients hadn't.
I closed my eyes, jaw tightening. That was the day Rhea Min Seo-jin, S-rank healer, The White Aegis, died too. What remained was Dr. Min, physician, buried in her work and stripped of the arrogance to believe she could save everyone.
I looked again at Freya's chart. By all accounts, she should have been another line in the casualty reports. Yet she wasn't.
I opened the encrypted folder again and reviewed the notes I hadn't yet logged officially. Her vitals should have flatlined. The wound in her chest suggested complete perforation of the sternum—fatal in ninety-nine cases out of a hundred. And yet her body had already begun rerouting mana to compensate before we even stabilized her. Not just survival. Adaptation.
I rubbed my temples. Lee Hyun-tae would salivate if he saw this. He'd package her data, send it up the chain, and within days she'd be dragged into an Association vault, stripped of freedom, dissected under the excuse of "research."
That wasn't going to happen. Not while she was under my care.
The door creaked open softly. I didn't need to look up to know who it was.
Kim Ara slipped in, carrying two cans of coffee from the vending machine. She set one on my desk and flopped into the chair opposite, her injured leg stretched out stiffly. "Knew you'd still be here. You're predictable."
I snorted, opening the can. "You should be sleeping."
"So should you," she shot back, then tilted her head toward the monitor. "Still staring at Seo's file?"
"Yes."
Ara studied me a moment, then said quietly, "You care too much sometimes ."
I met her gaze. "She shouldn't be alive. And yet she is. That deserves answers."
Ara's lips curved into a wry smile. "Always answers with you. Never just… acceptance."
I shook my head. "Acceptance gets people killed."
For a moment, neither of us spoke. The soft hum of the monitor filled the silence.
Finally, Ara sighed. "Fine. But promise me something. If you're going to protect this woman, don't do it out of guilt. You already carry enough of that."
I didn't reply. Instead, I reached over and shut off the display. The screen went dark, leaving only the stack of paper charts on my desk.
After Ara left, I sat there a long time, the cold coffee can warming in my hands. I thought about the Association, about Hyun-tae's hungry eyes, about Byung-ho's warning not to get attached. And I thought about Freya Seo-Hallrún, lying in that hospital bed, her sister clutching her hand like she was the only anchor left in the world.
I knew then what I would do.
The file would remain locked. The anomaly would stay between me, Ara, and Byung-ho. The Association would see nothing until I decided otherwise. If that meant bending rules, so be it. If that meant resurrecting a piece of the White Aegis I'd buried, then perhaps she wasn't gone after all.
Because if the world was once again moving toward calamity—if shadows were gathering on the horizon, like they had before Kamish—then someone needed to make sure people like Freya Seo-Hallrún weren't crushed under the weight of it.
I stretched slowly, feeling the ache in my shoulders from hours at the desk. Outside, dawn had begun to gray the sky.
Time for a few hours of sleep. Then one last test on Seo before I could sign the release papers. Only then would she be cleared to leave.
The morning light slanted through the blinds, painting pale lines across the hospital floor. I stood at the foot of Freya Seo-Hallrún's bed, clipboard in hand, the familiar weight of a stethoscope against my neck. She looked better than she had three days ago—skin no longer bloodless, eyes sharper, her posture less fragile.
But appearances meant nothing. I'd seen hunters walk out of triage smiling, only to collapse dead minutes later. Numbers mattered. Proof mattered. This test would decide if she walked free.
"Sit up," I instructed.
Freya obeyed, though the stiffness in her movements betrayed the soreness still lingering in her muscles. Hana sat anxiously in the corner, a schoolbag slung across her shoulder, chewing her lip raw. I gave her a look—steady, wordless. She stilled.
I slid the resonance cuff around Freya's forearm. "You know the routine. Deep breaths, slow."
The machine hummed, mana threads flickering into view on the monitor. I studied them carefully. Her baseline was surprisingly smooth—cleaner than when she'd first been admitted. No burnout scars, no broken channels.
But there it was again: the flare at the sternum. The knot of light. Smaller than before, but pulsing with stubborn rhythm, like an ember refusing to die.
Freya shifted. "Is it bad?"
"Quiet," I said, more brusquely than I meant to. I adjusted the capture, zooming in. The filaments that had branched out before were… retreating. Not gone, but consolidating, like roots folding back into soil. My fingers tightened on the stylus. That wasn't how mana behaved. It didn't self-correct.
I ran the scan twice more, then powered down the machine.
Her eyes searched mine. "Well?"
I kept my expression neutral. "You're stable enough for discharge. But you're not cleared for dungeon work for two weeks. Minimum. I'll file the restriction with the Association."
Relief flashed across Hana's face; Freya only frowned.
"Two weeks?" she asked.
"Yes." My tone brooked no argument. "You're lucky to be leaving at all, Miss Seo-Hallrún. Don't squander it."
She lowered her gaze, muttering something under her breath. Hana reached over and took her hand, squeezing tight.
I signed the release papers with deliberate strokes. Stable. Cleared for discharge. Follow-up in fourteen days. My handwriting was steady, but the knot of light from the scan burned in the back of my mind.
I handed her the form. "Go home. Rest. Eat properly. And if you notice anything unusual—fatigue, dizziness, sudden mana surges—you come straight back. No exceptions."
Freya nodded reluctantly.
I gathered my things, pausing just before the door. "One last thing," I said without turning back. "Don't mistake recovery for invincibility. Hunters who do that don't live long."
Then I left them, Hana's grateful smile following me out into the hall.
It was truly unfair how attractive her older sister was.