Chapter 49
Watching someone completely absorbed in what they were doing could sometimes stir something strange in the person observing them.
An entertainer standing beneath the lights of a stage.
A laborer moving without rest.
A Hunter confronting a monster....
The sculpture in front of Kim Seul-gi was the same.
It depicted a sculptor staring fiercely into empty space.
A hammer in one hand.
A chisel in the other.
Maybe it was because there was nothing in front of the sculptor.
He almost looked as though he were carving the world itself.
As though he were raising his hammer despite every hardship the world threw at him, determined to finish the piece called the world.
It might have been a ridiculous interpretation.
Maybe the sculpture simply showed a sculptor absorbed in his work.
And yet, she couldn't stop feeling that the man in the sculpture was fighting against something.
The heat radiating from his entire body looked too much like fighting spirit.
Even the simple motion of swinging a hammer with all his strength contained desperation.
A determination bordering on life or death.
For a moment, overwhelmed by the intense emotion pouring from the sculpture, Kim Seul-gi was dragged into the past.
Ah....
It was the moment she'd most clearly witnessed someone's desperation.
Their resolve.
Their fighting spirit.
And it was also the moment that decided her future.
Yeonwoo Guild became Kim Seul-gi's goal before she'd even Awakened.
She had been in her first year of high school.
Final exams had just ended.
More excited about being released from school early than about her grades, she'd headed toward a nearby shopping district with her friends.
Their plans were completely ordinary.
Eat tteokbokki.
Get dessert.
Go to karaoke.
Then stop by a café....
The perfectly ordinary day of a group of high-school girls.
Until an Eruption-Type Gate appeared near the café.
And it was an Eruption-Type Instant Gate too.
Monsters appeared in the middle of the shopping district without warning.
The most common monsters were B-Rank Moss Golems.
Exactly what the name suggested.
Golems formed from moss-covered stone.
They lumbered forward slowly, destroying everything in front of them.
Roads shattered.
Buildings collapsed.
People were kicked away by the golems.
Screams and explosions filled every direction.
Kim Seul-gi had been inside one of the buildings that collapsed.
Her entire body was soaked in blood that might not even have been hers.
She couldn't feel anything below her waist.
Everything around her had fallen apart so completely that she couldn't even understand what was happening anymore.
Kim Seul-gi had only been an ordinary high-school student.
She fell into a panic.
She couldn't tell whether the friend beside her had gone silent because she'd fainted from shock...
Or because she had already stopped breathing.
All Kim Seul-gi could do was hyperventilate and curse the world.
How long had that lasted?
Long enough for her to curse every Gate, every monster, and every Hunter in existence dozens of times over.
Then...
As if it were a lie, light began shining down over her forehead.
"Team Leader! We have survivors here!"
That single beam of light through the rubble belonged to the very Raid Team Four she was now part of.
She could still remember every face from that day.
Their expressions.
Their voices.
Even the drops of sweat running down their skin.
"P-Please save me. I can't feel my legs. Don't leave me.... Please, please...."
She'd been breathing like she was choking to death, so her pronunciation had probably been completely mangled.
Hunters didn't have some special ability to perfectly understand slurred speech.
To the man who found her, her words must have sounded like incomprehensible mumbling.
But Raid Team Four acted as though they understood.
They cleared away the rubble.
Then they began rescuing survivors.
Saving people before the battle had even ended was brutally difficult.
Maybe it had smelled the blood.
One of the golems suddenly turned toward the rescue site.
When that enormous shadow fell over the beam of light again, Kim Seul-gi gave up in despair and closed her eyes.
Then she heard a voice.
"Everyone except me and the vice captain, continue the rescue!"
"Team Leader! Two people aren't enough!"
"Shut up! We'll figure something out! Just get them out!"
Even in that desperate situation, Raid Team Four didn't abandon the survivors.
Kim Seul-gi herself had already given up on everything.
Yet they were the ones fighting more desperately than anyone.
BOOM.
By the time every survivor had been rescued and the Moss Golem finally collapsed, Kim Seul-gi was sobbing.
Partly from relief that she had survived.
But more than that...
From shame.
Regret that she'd begged them to save her first in the middle of a battle.
And....
Shame that while everyone else kept fighting until the end, I was the only one who gave up.
That was why, after Awakening, she'd joined Yeonwoo Guild.
More specifically, Raid Team Four.
So she would never give up again.
And so she could show that same light to people like the girl she'd once been.
That was the reason Kim Seul-gi had chosen to stand against this unreasonable world.
"What do you think?"
Artist Do Hwa-in spoke to her.
There was warmth in the simple question.
His voice almost seemed to wrap around her heart.
And before she realized what she was doing, Kim Seul-gi muttered,
"I guess I need to go outside and look up the address for the Dowon fan café...."
The sudden burst of laughter snapped her back to reality.
Kim Seul-gi's face turned bright red.
She started rambling, repeatedly thanking him and blurting out how incredible the sculpture was.
She tried desperately to make herself sound casual.
It didn't work.
No matter how hard she tried, she couldn't hide the moisture or trembling in her voice.
It took quite a while before Hunter Kim Seul-gi finally calmed down.
Pretending to be composed, she took a sip of green tea and cleared her throat.
"Ahem. The reason I came into the workshop was...."
"It's fine. You didn't interrupt me. You probably came because I hadn't shown my face for too long and you were worried."
"Y-Yes. That's right. Have you eaten properly?"
"Haha. Embarrassingly enough, I skipped a few meals."
"Your jaw looks thinner. You should eat first. Should I order something for you?"
Kim Seul-gi hurriedly pulled out her phone.
I waved my hands and stopped her.
It wasn't like I was short on money.
And it wasn't like there was no food in the house.
The cupboard was stacked high with instant rice that only needed a microwave.
There was nothing to worry about.
"Still...."
"Don't worry. I'll make something right away. If you're worried, you can stay and make sure I eat before you leave. You can keep looking at the sculpture while I eat too."
