Sunday morning, in front of Exit 2 of Bulgwang Station.
Woo-joo arrived at 8:43. Seventeen minutes early. It was a lawyer's habit. Arrive before the other party, read the location, read the atmosphere, and establish his position. Whether in a courtroom, a café, or in front of a rift, it was always the same.
The morning air was cold. It was November in Eunpyeong-gu. There were few people on the sidewalk in front of the exit. He bought a can of coffee from the convenience store across the street, drank it, and surveyed the area.
Two Hunter Administration vehicles were parked there. Black vans. Yellow barrier tape had been strung beside them, and two Administration employees stood holding tablets. Seo Kyung had said the rift was about two hundred meters away, inside an alley in a residential neighborhood. It felt strange that a C-rank rift had opened in a residential alley, but rifts did not discriminate between locations. That was a fact he had read hundreds of times in legal documents.
8:51. Han Si-a arrived.
She wore a black coat and had a short bob haircut. She gave the same impression as she had yesterday at the café, but today she was wearing a high-necked knit sweater beneath her coat and carrying a small crossbody bag over one shoulder. She walked quickly. When she spotted Woo-joo, she changed direction and approached him.
“You’re early.”
“It’s a habit.”
Han Si-a nodded and stood beside Woo-joo. She looked toward the Administration vehicles. Her gaze swept over the license plates, the employees’ agency markings, and the range covered by the barrier tape. They were the eyes of someone gathering information.
“You said the rift was C-rank, right?”
“According to the information I heard from Seo Kyung, yes.”
“Under the Administration’s classification standards, a C-rank rift has magical beasts inside with maximum levels between forty and fifty-five. If the party’s average level is higher than that, it can be raided safely. If it’s lower, the risk goes up.” Han Si-a looked at Woo-joo. “You’re E-rank, Mr. Kang Woo-joo.”
“Yes.”
“You understand that this is dangerous, right?”
“I do.”
Han Si-a did not ask anything else. If he knew and had come anyway, there had to be a reason, and she had probably judged that this was not the place to press him for it. She was someone who understood the right timing for questions.
At exactly nine, Seo Kyung appeared.
Rather than appearing, he burst onto the scene. He bounded up the subway exit stairs two at a time, then raised a hand when he saw Woo-joo and Han Si-a.
“Oh, you’re both here!”
He wore a black jumper and cargo pants, with a large duffel bag slung over one shoulder. It looked like it was packed with equipment. Two more people came up behind Seo Kyung. One was a man bigger than Seo Kyung, and the other was a slender woman.
“Let me introduce you. They’re members of my guild party.” Seo Kyung pointed behind him with his thumb. “Min-jae, our tank, and Soo-bin, our damage dealer. The support ended up dropping out.”
Min-jae nodded. He seemed like the taciturn type. Soo-bin looked back and forth between Woo-joo and Han Si-a before asking,
“These are the people you told us about, Seo Kyung?”
“Yeah. Kang Woo-joo, the lawyer. Han Si-a, the Administration consultant. He’s going in with me, and she’ll wait outside.”
Soo-bin looked at Woo-joo. There was a question in her eyes, but she did not voice it. She knew as well as anyone that an E-rank entering a C-rank rift made no sense by any reasonable standard.
Seo Kyung opened the duffel bag. He took out a lightweight set of armor: a chest guard, arm guards, and knee guards. They were all black, and they had been sized to fit Woo-joo.
“I got them ready last night. I picked them out based on what I vaguely remembered of your build, so they should fit.”
Someone who remembered the build of a person he had met only once and prepared equipment for him. He was rough around the edges, but he had a thoughtful side. No—not thoughtful, exactly. It was a sense of responsibility toward someone he had promised to take with him.
Woo-joo accepted the armor and put it on. It was his first time wearing equipment like this, but it fit his body. The weight of the chest guard felt unfamiliar, though it did not interfere with his movement.
“What about a weapon?”
“You don’t need a weapon. Your weapon is your eyes, isn’t it?”
Seo Kyung laughed as he gathered his own equipment. Reinforced gloves. They were black gloves worn on both hands, with metal plates embedded across the backs. Close-combat equipment for an Awakened person with a physical enhancement ability type.
At 9:15, a Hunter Administration employee approached them.
“You’re the Frontier Guild raid team, correct? I’ll brief you on the rift’s condition.”
The employee explained while looking at the tablet. C-rank rift. Seventy-two hours since its emergence. The internal structure was an underground cave system. The estimated depth was three floors. The confirmed magical beast types were petrifying magical beasts and shadow magical beasts. The boss monster was unidentified.
Petrifying magical beasts. Insight reacted in Woo-joo’s mind. The moment he heard the words petrifying magical beast, the creature’s attack pattern surfaced in his thoughts. It fired petrifying breath from a distance and struck with its tail at close range. Its weakness was the joint beneath the neck.
How did he know that?
Had he read it in the legal documents? No. The documents had not contained specific attack patterns for magical beasts. The statement, “I was hit by a petrifying attack,” was about as detailed as it got. But what had surfaced in his mind now was far beyond the level of a witness statement. It was as vivid as if he had seen it himself.
Was it Insight? Or a memory?
Woo-joo set the thought aside. This was not the time to analyze it.
The briefing ended. Seo Kyung gathered the party members.
“All right. Min-jae goes first, I’m second, Soo-bin’s third, and Woo-joo brings up the rear. Don’t come forward under any circumstances. If you see anything, just tell us. Got it?”
“Got it.”
Seo Kyung’s eyes widened.
“Wait, did you just drop the formal speech?”
“You told me to.”
“I mean, yeah, but hearing it now is really weird.” Seo Kyung laughed. “Still, I like it. It’s better this way.”
Han Si-a approached and looked at Woo-joo.
“Be careful.”
“Thank you.”
“If you see anything inside, remember it. You can tell me about it when you come out.”
Woo-joo nodded. Han Si-a took a step back and stood beside the Administration vehicles. She put her hands in her coat pockets and looked toward the rift. Her face was cold, but her eyes kept moving. She would not stop working even from outside.
They walked into the alley.
It was a residential alley. Low walls and villas lined both sides, and the rift waited at the end. It was a rift he had never seen before. A vertical tear in the air. Light tinged purple and black seeped from within. It was large enough for two people to enter side by side.
Woo-joo stood before the rift and looked at it.
Insight activated. He read the structure of the rift. The energy density at the entrance, the depth of the space leading inward, the texture of the mana flowing out from within. He was seeing all of it for the first time, yet he could read all of it.
And there was one more thing.
He felt as though he knew the air beyond this rift. Damp, cold air that smelled of stone. The same air he had smelled in his dreams.
“You okay?” Seo Kyung asked beside him.
“I’m fine.”
“Then let’s go.”
Min-jae entered the rift first. His large body disappeared into the purple light. Seo Kyung followed. Soo-bin went in third.
Woo-joo stood before the rift last.
He took one step forward.
Purple light enveloped his vision. It felt as though his body were being pulled inside. One second, two. The light receded, and his feet touched solid ground.
He opened his eyes.
It was a dark, spacious place. The ceiling was high. Stone walls stretched away on both sides, and the floor was rough rock. Damp air filled his lungs. Somewhere, the sound of dripping water echoed.
It was the place he had seen in his dreams.
It was exactly the same. The texture of the stone floor, the humidity of the air, the height of the ceiling, even the angle at which the faint light reflected off the walls. The space he had walked through dozens of times in his dreams was now beneath his feet.
And Seo Kyung was walking ahead of him.
His broad back. His black jumper. Seo Kyung’s back as he led the way through the darkness overlapped with the back Woo-joo had seen in his dreams. The outline was the same. The rhythm of his steps was the same. Even the angle at which he slightly lowered his head to watch the path ahead was identical.
Woo-joo’s heart gave one heavy beat.
It was a memory.
This was not a dream. It was a memory. He knew this place, and he had walked behind this back before. He did not know when. He did not know the circumstances. But his body knew. His feet knew the texture of this ground, and his eyes knew the depth of this darkness.
“Don’t fall behind,” Seo Kyung said from ahead without turning his head.
“I know.”
Woo-joo walked behind Seo Kyung. Just as he had in the dream. No—as he had in the memory.
The dungeon’s first passage stretched ahead. Dark, damp, and quiet. There was no sign of magical beasts yet. But Insight was telling him that this silence was not empty. It was waiting.
Woo-joo narrowed his eyes as he walked. Insight’s resolution was increasing. It was on an entirely different level from how it worked in everyday life. He could read everything: the patterns in the cracks along the walls, the flow of mana beneath the floor, even the subtle vibrations in the air.
Insight worked differently here.
The moment he confirmed that fact, Woo-joo understood why he had needed to come here.