By Zephyria Corruption reduces regeneration, but he is also a High-level Awakener, so he won’t die from ordinary wounds. His mind thought it might be best to escape the mad Lee Hyun-muk for now, but his heart refused to follow that thought.
Rather, deep sympathy and gratitude towards Lee Hyun-muk moved Yohan. It wasn’t crying out of fear and dread, but crying for Lee Hyun-muk that Yohan finally reached.
“Hic, huuuh….”
And then he stopped breathing for a moment. A chilling fear washed over him, as if all the blood had drained from his body.
“Gurgle, chk….”
Lee Hyun-muk’s form, seen up close, was indescribably tragic. Bubbles of blood foam rose from his gaping mouth. Even having lost nearly half his body, Lee Hyun-muk, still alive, turned his gaze towards Yohan with vacant eyes. Even as a Madman, Lee Hyun-muk had spoken strangely, but now, not a shred of reason could be found in his eyes.
“My, my arm… Hic, my arm is gone….”
Trembling with a fear that made him feel like he would faint, Yohan searched the surroundings and retrieved the severed arm. However, perhaps due to the excessive injury or severe Corruption, it showed no signs of regeneration even when attached to the torn limb.
“Why, why aren’t the wounds regenerating….”
Perhaps, Lee Hyun-muk’s body, already at its limit due to Corruption, had finally collapsed this time. Yohan, crying miserably, tried to reattach the arm and tend to his torn abdomen, but he flinched. Other Monsters, whose presence had been unseen during the fight between Lee Hyun-muk and the giant Monster earlier, were now shambling into view. Yohan’s hands grew more frantic.
If this continued, both Lee Hyun-muk and he would truly die.
Trembling and searching for a solution, Yohan’s eyes suddenly settled with firm resolve. He sprang up and ran to the backpack he had taken off earlier. He frantically searched for a scalpel and returned. The thought of sterilizing the scalpel blade didn’t even cross his mind.
“Please, please….”
Muttering, Yohan clenched his teeth once and raised one arm. It was an arm still throbbing with terrible pain from the impact when Lee Hyun-muk had thrown him earlier. He placed his swollen arm on his knee. The scalpel, held high, plunged downwards in one swift motion. Pak!
“Nnngh….”
Perhaps due to the pain, as if it were broken, he didn’t feel the sting of the scalpel piercing his palm as much. However, as he looked, trying to feed it blood, Lee Hyun-muk’s eyes began to cloud over. He hastily put his hand into his mouth, but blood only pooled inside, and he didn’t seem to be swallowing any of it. In his desperate attempts to feed him, his lower face became smeared with blood. Despair settled upon Yohan’s face.
And soon after, the Monsters, having keenly sensed the scent of blood, began to charge.
“No!”
Screaming, Yohan instinctively clutched Lee Hyun-muk tightly. He knew that as a non-Awakened, he couldn’t protect Lee Hyun-muk and would merely be torn to death pointlessly, but it was an unconscious act. Just as the leading Monster was about to charge at Yohan, there was a blinding explosion of light.
Radiance spilled from Yohan’s wide-open eyes and mouth, from his screams.
What had been leaking out little by little from his body since falling into the Abyss finally burst forth. It was a brilliant, pure white light, never seen in this Abyss.
Yohan instinctively sensed that something extraordinary was happening to him. Holding Lee Hyun-muk tightly, he unleashed this unfamiliar yet somehow familiar energy with all his might. In doing so, he failed to notice that the body of Lee Hyun-muk he was holding began to regenerate, and that his eyes, once filled with a red glow, were regaining their original light.
Finally, his stopped breath returned. Then, an arm that had once been severed moved and gently gripped Yohan’s body.
“Yohan-ah.”
“Hic, huuuh….”
“Yohan-ah. It’s okay now.”
Barely registering the voice calling him, Yohan lifted his head. His tear-soaked vision was blurry, but after blinking his eyes shut and opening them, he could finally see Lee Hyun-muk clearly. Lee Hyun-muk, his face smeared with his own blood, pushed himself up. So relieved was Yohan that he could barely speak, only shedding tears. Streams of light still flowing emanated from behind his head, shimmering like a halo.
‘Perhaps… I thought I saw sunlight shining nearby.’
‘Sunlight? I’ve been here the whole time, but it’s been dark for two days straight, as if there’s no daytime.’
Lee Hyun-muk gazed, entranced, at the most beautiful sight he had ever seen. It was then that he understood why he had mistaken it for sunlight when Yohan fell, and why Yohan was different from the people who had fallen here.
“…The sun I saw was you.”
Lee Hyun-muk realized this with eyes still faintly tinged with red. With the clearest and purest mind he had possessed since falling into the Abyss, he embraced Yohan, who was weeping loudly, scattering streams of light.
〈2〉
Swamp
Yohan had never cried like he did then in his life. He had never been so terribly afraid either. The Monsters were scary, and he was scared Lee Hyun-muk would die…
“I, I really thought, Mr. Lee Hyun-muk, was, hic, going to die… and it wasn’t regenerating, ugh…”
Even knowing he was fine, Yohan checked Lee Hyun-muk’s condition repeatedly. Tears still welled in his eyes, and his choked voice trembled like a goat’s.
“Yes, yes.”
Lee Hyun-muk gave a perfunctory response and carefully lifted Yohan’s injured arm, who was crying like a child. He then took off his padded jacket to assess his condition. Rolling up the sleeve revealed a severely bruised and swollen forearm. Lee Hyun-mook gently pressed with his fingertips, sending a minute current that Yohan wouldn’t notice, and cursed under his breath after assessing the condition.
“I’m sorry. It seems your arm broke when I threw you earlier.”
“It’s, it’s okay. I survived thanks to you…”
“Mm, yes. Then let me apologize one more time.”
Crack!*
Yohan’s scream was a beat late. While soothing Yohan, who was wailing from the agony of bone setting, Lee Hyun-mook fashioned a splint from a nearby branch and bandages. As he put the padding back on, Lee Hyun-mook explained.
“You haven’t Awakened for long, so your regeneration will be unstable. If left alone, it’s likely to heal crookedly, so I had to fix it quickly.”
“Sob, A, Awakening…”
Despite crying until his face turned red, a faint smile crept onto Yohan’s lips. He finally managed to recall the memory from earlier. The dazzlingly bright and brilliant light… How he had envied his Hyung, Yang Yosep, for his Awakening. Even though he had fallen into the Abyss, he was overjoyed to have Awakened. Yohan, unconsciously excited, looked down at his hands.
“Ah!”
Yohan exclaimed. Recalling the sensation from earlier, he tried to draw out the power within his body, and faint streams of light flickered around his hands. Lee Hyun-mook gazed at Yohan’s eyes, which already sparkled normally, now shining even brighter under the light. His tear-soaked eyes swelled. They looked as if they contained the Milky Way.
“Then I guess I’m a light-attribute Dealer!”
Since emitting light, the Monsters had stopped attacking, so Yohan assumed he was a Dealer. He was sure he had defeated the Monsters. However, Lee Hyun-mook shook his head firmly.
“No.”
Disappointed by Lee Hyun-mook’s curt reply, Yohan looked at the streams of light floating above his palm. Looking at them again, he was sure that while Lee Hyun-mook’s power was intimidating just to look at, his own felt gentle and mild rather than offensive.
“…No? I thought I was a ranged attacker… Then, a Supporter?”
The Rift Management Bureau classified Awakeners by front-line or back-line roles, but ordinary people used more colloquial terms. Those terms were as follows:
Dealer, Tanker, Healer, Supporter.
While they could be further subdivided, they were broadly categorized into four types: offense, defense, healing, and support. And in Lee Hyun-mook’s case, he was undoubtedly a Dealer. He wielded the difficult-to-control lightning strike, and his control was so overwhelming that he rarely harmed allies. Yohan had also wished to be a Dealer like Lee Hyun-mook or Yang Yosep, but it seemed that wasn’t the case.
Lee Hyun-mook also shook his head at the suggestion of being a Supporter. Then, frowning in concentration, he hummed and opened his mouth.
“If we have to classify you, you’re probably a Healer.”
“A Healer?!”
Healers were people who used their abilities to enhance an Awakener’s regeneration. Seeing that Lee Hyun-mook’s wounds had completely healed, Yohan nodded, thinking he was a Healer, but then tilted his head.
“But I defeated all the Monsters earlier… Healers don’t have offensive abilities.”
“It’s true they don’t have offensive abilities.”
After saying that, Lee Hyun-mook looked at the frowning Yohan and spoke in a soft, gentle voice.
“You are a High-level Awakener. Your ability is probably… Purification, I’d say.”
“High-level Awakener and Purification… What?”
Yohan, who had been following along without much thought, doubted his own ears.
“Me? I’m a High-level Awakener?”
Awakeners were divided into High-level, Intermediate, and Low-rank. This wasn’t an official government classification but rather a classification that Awakeners themselves felt and used.
More accurately, this classification could be described as Upper-stream, Middle-stream, and Lower-stream. This was because the flow of Awakening was like the source of a river. Only after High-level Awakeners appeared did Intermediate Awakeners flow down, and around Intermediate Awakeners, Low-rank Awakeners emerged. Because of this, there were only a mere double-digit number of High-level Awakeners worldwide.
And Lee Hyun-mook was telling Yohan that he was one of those rare High-level Awakeners.