Seoyeon had seen a lot of strange things since dungeons started appearing seven years ago. She'd watched a C-rank goblin shaman summon lightning from its fingertips. She'd seen a berserker tear through a stone golem with his bare hands. She'd even witnessed a dungeon break where reality itself seemed to glitch and stutter.
But nothing had prepared her for watching a half-dead stranger slowly come back to life on her bedroom floor.
It took three hours.
Three hours of his body convulsing, of strange black veins crawling across his skin like living things before fading away. Three hours of him gasping for air like he'd forgotten how to breathe. She'd moved him to her couch after the first hour, mostly because dragging him out of her bedroom felt slightly less insane than leaving him there.
Now he sat upright, back rigid, that mechanical bow still clutched in one white-knuckled hand. His eyes—those too-old, too-empty eyes—tracked her every movement as she brought him water.
"Drink," she said, keeping her distance. Her knife was in easy reach on the coffee table.
He stared at the glass like he'd never seen one before. Then, slowly, he reached out with his free hand. It trembled so badly that water sloshed over the rim. He brought it to his lips and drank, and something in his expression cracked—just for a moment—before smoothing over again.
"Thank you," he said. His voice was rough, like he'd been screaming for years. Maybe he had been.
Seoyeon sat in the armchair across from him, maintaining distance. "Who are you? What were you doing in my bedroom? And what the hell was that portal?"
The boy—she still didn't know his name—set the glass down with exaggerated care. His hands were still shaking. "How long has it been?"
"What?"
"Since the Towers appeared. How long?"
Seoyeon's eyes narrowed. " Like Seven years. Why?"
Something flickered across his face. Pain? Relief? She couldn't tell. He adjusted his broken glasses with careful fingers, and she noticed the scars on his hands—dozens of them, overlapping like a roadmap of violence.
"Seven years," he repeated softly. "I was... I was in there for seven years? It felt longer."
"Where?"
He looked up at her, and Seoyeon had to suppress a shiver. "The Void."
The word meant nothing to her. She shook her head. "I don't know what that is."
"I know." He took another sip of water, this time managing not to spill it. "No one would. The system called it... let me remember..." His eyes unfocused slightly. "Void Realm - Classification: Unreturnable."
"Back up," Seoyeon said. "Start from the beginning. Who are you?"
"Kang Jihoon." He said it like he was testing whether the name still fit. "I was... I am sixteen. A high school freshman. Or I was, before—" He stopped, jaw clenching. "Seven years ago, when the Towers appeared, I was taken. Pulled into the Korean Tower."
Seoyeon felt something cold settle in her stomach. "That's impossible. Only seven people were taken from Korea. The Seven Heroes. Everyone knows that."
"Eight," Jihoon corrected quietly. "There were eight of us."
"No. I've read every article, watched every interview. There were seven. They saved the world."
"They did." His voice was flat, emotionless. "The seven heroes completed the Tower, defeated the final boss, and came home. I was left behind."
This was insane. Seoyeon's hand inched toward her knife. "The heroes would never—"
"They would. They did." Jihoon's grip on his bow tightened. "When the portal opened, they walked through. I didn't. The Tower collapsed, and I fell into the Void."
"What is the Void?"
He was quiet for a long moment, staring at nothing. When he spoke again, his voice was distant, like he was reading from a script. "The Void is where the system discards failures. Universes that didn't join the multiverse. Dimensions that were... incomplete. It's a black space—infinite, as far as I could tell. No air. No light. No concept of time, just void." He paused. "Just the remnants. The things that were left behind."
"Things?"
"Monsters. Eldritch horrors. The broken pieces of dead worlds." His eyes refocused on her. "I spent seven years fighting them. Seven years with no air in my lungs, surviving on mana alone. Seven years waiting to die."
Seoyeon's mind was racing. This was either the truth—which meant the Seven Heroes, the people the entire country worshipped, had abandoned someone to literal hell—or this was a very elaborate lie.
Or he was something else entirely.
"You're a monster," she said slowly. "Aren't you? Something from a dungeon, taking human form. That's why..."
"I'm human." Jihoon's voice was sharp, the first real emotion she'd heard from him. "I'm human. I was born in Busan. I lived with my parents in a small apartment near the beach. I got straight A's. I was the top student in my school at the time. I liked science fiction novels and hated gym class. I'm human."
"Prove it."
"How?" He spread his hands, and she saw the way they still trembled. "What proof could I possibly give you? I look human? Monsters can do that. I speak Korean? Maybe I learned it. I remember Earth? Maybe I stole those memories." His voice cracked. "There's no way to prove it. You either believe me or you don't."
Seoyeon stood up. This was too much. Too insane. She needed to report this—let the Hunter Association figure it out. They had Awakeners who could verify identities, detect monsters, scan for—
"What are you doing?" Jihoon asked as she pulled out her phone.
"Calling this in. This is above my level."
"Don't."
She started dialing. "I'm sorry, but I can't just—"
He moved.
One second he was sitting on her couch, exhausted and trembling. The next he was in front of her, his hand wrapped around her phone.
Seoyeon jerked back, but he held on. Not crushing it—just holding it with an iron grip that suggested he could snap it like a twig if he wanted to.
"Let go," she said, her other hand dropping to her knife.
"I can't let you call them." Jihoon's voice was steady now, those empty eyes locked on hers. "Not yet. Not until I understand what happened. Why they left me."
"Let. Go."
"Please." Something in his expression shifted—desperation bleeding through the emptiness. "Just listen—"
Seoyeon's knife was out and moving before she'd consciously decided to attack. A quick slash toward his hand—not to kill, just to make him release the phone.
He let go and stepped back, and her slash cut only air.
She pressed forward, switching to a low thrust toward his stomach. It was a textbook move, one she'd drilled a thousand times. Against most opponents, it would have landed clean.
Jihoon's hand came down, deflecting her blade with the side of his palm. The motion was economical, precise—and he didn't even look at the knife. His eyes stayed on hers.
Seoyeon spun, going for a high slash. He swayed back, the blade missing by centimeters. She feinted left, then right, then thrust again.
He caught her wrist.
Not roughly. Not painfully. Just... caught it. His fingers wrapped around her wrist with a grip that felt like it could bend steel, stopping her knife dead.
"I don't want to fight you," he said quietly. "You helped me. I'm grateful."
Seoyeon tried to twist free. Couldn't. She was a B-rank Awakener—her strength stat alone was 187. She could lift twice her body weight, punch through concrete.
He held her wrist with one hand like she was a child.
She brought her knee up toward his stomach. He turned slightly, taking the impact on his hip. It didn't even make him flinch.
"Please," he said. "Just listen."
Seoyeon's mind was calculating frantically. She'd landed a knee strike that should have cracked ribs. He'd acted like she'd poked him. Her strength, her speed, her combat training—none of it mattered.
She stopped struggling.
"Good," Jihoon said, and released her wrist. He stepped back, putting distance between them. "I'm sorry. I shouldn't have grabbed your phone. But if the Hunter Association takes me in, I'll never get answers." His jaw clenched. "I've had enough of being helpless."
Seoyeon rubbed her wrist, though it didn't actually hurt. "What are you? Your stats... they're not human."
"They are. Or they were." He looked down at his hands. "The Void... it changed me. Made me stronger by forcing me to battle horrible creatures. But it also..." He trailed off, then seemed to come to a decision. "Do you know what a debuff is?"
"Of course. Status effects that weaken you."
"The system gave me one when I came back. It's called Void Touch." He pulled up his sleeve, and Seoyeon's breath caught.
Black veins spider-webbed across his forearm, pulsing faintly with a darkness that seemed to drink in the light. As she watched, they writhed slightly, like living things beneath his skin.
"It's eating me," Jihoon said flatly. "The Void is still inside me, consuming my stats, my mana, everything. My real stats—the ones I earned in the Void—are all above ten thousand. But right now?" He let the sleeve drop. "They're between two and five hundred. And dropping."
[STATUS WINDOW - KANG JIHOON]
STRENGTH: 342 (12,847)
AGILITY: 289 (10,293)
STAMINA: 456 (15,672)
MANA: 198 (11,934)
[VOID TOUCH: SEVERE - TIME REMAINING: 46 DAYS]
Seoyeon stared at the numbers he'd somehow projected into the air between them. "Those base stats... even reduced, you're stronger than most A-rank hunters."
"For now. In forty-six days, I'll be dead. Dissolved into nothing." He dismissed the window. "That's why I need time. I need to find out why they left me. I need to understand what happened."
"They?" Seoyeon asked, though she already knew.
"The Seven Heroes." His voice was ice and emptiness. "The people who saved the world. The people everyone worships." He met her eyes. "The people who betrayed me."
The apartment was silent except for the hum of the refrigerator and distant traffic. Seoyeon's mind was still catching up. Everything he'd said was insane. Impossible.
But she'd felt his strength. Seen the black veins. Watched a portal tear open reality itself.
"Let's say I believe you," she said slowly. "What do you want from me?"
"Help." The word seemed to cost him. "I've been gone seven years. I don't know how the world works anymore. I don't have identification, money, records. I'm legally dead, if I was ever legally alive." He gestured vaguely at himself. "I need... I need someone who knows how things work now."
"In exchange for?"
"What do you want?"
Seoyeon thought about it. This was insane. She should call the Association. But... if he was telling the truth. If the Heroes really had abandoned someone, covered it up, let everyone believe there were only seven...
That was a story. A big one.
And more than that—those stats. That combat skill. If she could recruit him for her future hunter team...
"You need documentation," she said. "Identity papers, at minimum. For that, you need to either be registered with the government as a citizen, or..." She paused. "Or you need to pass the Hunter Exam. Awakeners who pass get registered automatically, even if they don't have prior records."
"Then I'll take the exam."
"It's not that simple. You need to have graduated high school. Or at least be enrolled and near graduation." She looked him up and down. "How old are you, really?"
"Sixteen. I haven't aged since I fell into the Void—time didn't work normally there."
"So you're physically the age of a first-year high school student, but you've been gone seven years." Seoyeon pinched the bridge of her nose. "That's... actually maybe workable. The government's been lenient with Awakeners who got pulled into dungeons. They let them re-enroll at their appropriate age level."
"So I go back to high school?" Jihoon sounded uncertain for the first time.
"You'd have to. Attend classes, take tests, graduate. It's the only legitimate path to taking the Hunter Exam without raising red flags." She fixed him with a hard stare. "You'd have to act normal. Fit in. Not display superhuman strength or talk about the Void or hunting down national heroes."
"I can do that."
"Can you? You've spent seven years fighting monsters in an airless hell. Can you really sit in a classroom and pretend to care about trigonometry?"
Jihoon was quiet. Then: "If it gets me closer to answers, I'll do whatever it takes."
There was something in his voice—a coldness, a determination—that made Seoyeon believe him. This was someone who'd clawed his way out of the Void itself. High school would be nothing.
"Okay," she said. "Okay. I have some connections—my mom works in education administration. I can probably get you enrolled at my school. You'd be a first-year, so we wouldn't share classes, but..." She trailed off, realizing what she was agreeing to. "I must be insane."
"You're helping me." Jihoon stood up slowly, and she noticed he kept most of his weight off his left leg. Injury, or just exhaustion? "Why?"
Seoyeon considered lying. Considered giving some noble reason.
"Because if you're telling the truth, it's the biggest story in the country. And if you're lying..." She smiled without humor. "Well, at least I'll have a front-row seat when you reveal yourself."
"Fair enough."
"Also, I'm charging you rent. Once you start making money from gates, you're paying me back for all of this."
For the first time, something that might have been amusement flickered across Jihoon's face. "Deal."
"You'll sleep on the couch. Don't touch my stuff. Don't leave without telling me. And if you try anything—anything at all—I will call every S-rank hunter in the country down on you."
"Understood."
"Good." Seoyeon headed for her bedroom, then paused at the door. "Kang Jihoon?"
"Yes?"
"The Seven Heroes. You really think they abandoned you on purpose?"
His expression went empty again. "I know they did."
"How?"
"Because Lee Seyeon kissed me, and I couldn't move my body after. Her skill lets her create poisons. The paralysis was deliberate." His voice was steady, but she could hear the pain underneath. "They all knew. They all agreed. And then they walked through the portal and left me to die."
Seoyeon felt her stomach turn. She'd seen the Heroes on TV, read their interviews. They seemed so genuine, so heroic. The idea that they'd done something so cruel...
"She kissed you?"
"Get some sleep," she said, not knowing what else to say. "Tomorrow we'll figure out the school situation."
She closed the door before he could respond, leaning against it and taking a deep breath.
What had she just agreed to?
On the other side of the door, Kang Jihoon sat back down on the couch, his bow finally resting beside him. He stared at his hands—scarred, trembling, marked with black veins that pulsed like a heartbeat.
Forty-six days until the Void consumed him completely.
He'd spent seven years surviving. He could survive forty-six more days.
Long enough to find answers.
Long enough to understand why.
And maybe—just maybe—long enough to make them regret it.
[SYSTEM NOTIFICATION][INDIVIDUAL: KANG JIHOON - STATUS UPDATE][CURRENT LOCATION: SEOUL, SOUTH KOREA]
[VOID TOUCH PROGRESSION: 2% INCREASE]
[ESTIMATED TIME UNTIL TOTAL DISSOLUTION: 45 DAYS, 19 HOURS]
[ALERT: HEROIC SIGNATURE DETECTED WITHIN 50KM RADIUS]
[IDENTIFYING...]
[MATCH FOUND: KIM JAEHYUN - HERO #4 - "SHADOW BLADE"]
[LAST KNOWN LOCATION: GANGNAM DISTRICT]
The system window appeared in Jihoon's vision, visible only to him.
He stared at Jaehyun's name for a long time.
Then he dismissed it and closed his eyes.
Not yet.
First, he needed to survive. Needed to understand this new world. Needed to gather information.
The revenge could wait.
It had waited seven years already.
What was a little longer?