There was no mistaking it. Based on the memories playing around us, I could already pick out a few clues suggesting that Seo Elena had been a hunter in her past.
The dungeon in my home that looked strangely similar to the one in her memories. The creatures that had appeared in her memories. And, most importantly, the codes.
I was certain of it. Both Elena and those creatures could read the codes I saw floating in the air. That was why she'd spent days sitting in the same spot, staring into empty space. She hadn't been looking at the system, as I'd initially thought. No, she'd been trying to decipher the same codes I was struggling to understand.
As much as I wanted to uncover the truth, I couldn't risk Elena's safety just to satisfy my curiosity.
I carefully lowered her to the ground as we crawled through the narrow opening between the roots. The space was damp, and darkness swallowed everything around us. We continued forward until the passage finally widened enough for us to stand.
Beyond it was a massive cave-like place filled with memories stretched in every direction, replaying like scenes from a TV film. They seemed to have been laid out for us to witness, though there was little order to them. Some memories made no sense at all, jumping from one moment to another without any clear connection. Others were more familiar, a mixture of our individual experiences and moments we seemed to have shared.
I couldn't tell why these particular memories had been gathered here, or what we were supposed to find among them.
For now, I had to keep moving.
I stayed close to Elena as we walked, keeping her within arm's reach. If anything happened, I wanted to be able to pull her to safety before it was too late.
But I stopped in my tracks when a particular memory caught my attention.
The scene was anything but peaceful. The sky was stained red, and the surrounding area looked as though it had been reduced to ruins.
And in the middle of all that destruction was Seo Elena, tears streaming down her face as she kissed me. I was returning her affection so passionately it was almost embarrassing to watch.
My first instinct was to check whether Elena had seen the same thing. And judging by her flushed cheeks and the fact that she kept staring at the memory despite her obvious embarrassment, I got my answer.
When she noticed me looking at her, she immediately turned away and pretended to examine the other memories.
"Elena..."
I was about to say something when a presence emerged from the shadows.
The figure wore a mask, and I couldn't recognize their face. But more importantly, their presence felt nothing like that of a human or a hunter.
At first glance, they do look like a human. But there was something distinctly different about their aura.
My eyes followed the symbols floating around their body.
The speed at which they moved was one of the first things I'd learned to pay attention to. The symbols weren't just random strings of information. Their movements offered clues about the nature of the person or creature they belonged to.
For ordinary citizens, the symbols usually moved at around one to three centimeters per second. For lower-ranked hunters, that speed could increase to five to ten centimeters per second, depending on their abilities and physical condition.
The higher the rank, the faster the symbols tended to move. Mine, for instance, moved considerably faster than those of most hunters.
Of course, rank wasn't the only factor.
Monsters born from dungeons each had their own unique patterns and speeds. Some moved sluggishly, while others were so fast that following their symbols with the naked eye was nearly impossible.
The system suddenly appeared in front of me.
『Congratulations! You have made it to the boss room of the Nightmare Dungeon. Defeat the Nightmare Being within the time limit. 』
『 Time: 0:10:59 』
I scrunched my eyebrows at the notification. Ten minutes wasn't that hard to achieve, but it was a completely different story if Seo Elena was here.
The sheer destructive force of my ability could easily sweep Elena into the crossfire, and the last thing I needed was for her to get caught in an attack meant for this thing. No matter how I looked at it, keeping her anywhere near us was simply too dangerous.
"Stay as far away from us as possible, Elena," I warned, keeping my eyes fixed on the figure standing before me.
She nodded without hesitation and ran in the opposite direction, putting as much distance between herself and the fight as she could. Only after I was certain she had moved out of harm's way did I turn my attention back to our opponent.
The shadowy, humanlike figure stood motionless, its face concealed behind a mask that revealed nothing of what lay beneath. It hadn't uttered a single word since appearing, and judging by the way it suddenly lunged toward me, it had no intention of wasting time on conversation.
Its fist came hurtling toward my face with enough force to make the air tremble, but I raised my wrist and blocked the blow before it could reach me. The impact sent a dull shock through my arm, and I immediately retaliated with a punch to its abdomen, pouring enough force into the strike to send its entire body flying into the air.
I followed without giving it a chance to recover, leaping after the figure and driving another punch into its torso before it could regain its balance. The blow sent it crashing toward the ground, and the moment its body struck the concrete, the surface beneath it shattered under the impact, leaving behind a massive crater surrounded by fractured pavement and chunks of broken concrete.
Even a monster the size of a house would have struggled to withstand that kind of punishment, yet when the dust finally began to settle, the figure was already pushing itself back to its feet as though the attack had done little more than inconvenience it.
I stared at it for a moment, unable to hide my surprise.
It was still standing after taking those hits head-on?
Before I could examine it more closely, the figure suddenly disappeared, leaving nothing behind but the lingering dust and the wreckage scattered across the ground. My instincts flared almost immediately, warning me of the incoming attack just as I twisted out of the way, its fist tearing through the air where my head had been a split second earlier.
I caught its arm before it could pull back and yanked it toward me, using its own momentum to drive my knee into its chest. The impact forced the air from its lungs, or at least it would have if the thing even needed to breathe, but I didn't give it time to recover before swinging it into a nearby wall with enough force to send cracks spreading across the surface.
The entire structure shuddered from the impact, and for a brief moment, the only sound left was the rumble of settling debris.
Then, through the broken concrete and rising dust, the figure emerged once more, walking out of the rubble as if it hadn't just been thrown through a wall.
My expression hardened as I studied it, trying to make sense of what I was dealing with. I had already landed several direct hits, each one powerful enough to leave most monsters incapable of moving, yet this thing continued to get back up without showing any obvious signs of injury.
What the hell was this thing?
Suddenly, the creature's speed increased so drastically that I barely had time to react before it closed the distance between us and seized me by the throat.
Despite the sheer amount of pressure it had endured without so much as flinching, I had expected its offensive capabilities to be just as overwhelming. If it could withstand my attacks, then surely it possessed enough strength to return the favor. Yet, instead of crushing my windpipe or slamming me into the ground, it simply held me by the neck, its fingers wrapped tightly around my throat.
Its grip wasn't particularly difficult to break. I could have easily forced its hand away and freed myself, and I was already preparing to do exactly that when the creature suddenly brought its face closer to mine.
A faint cracking sound came from its mask.
I froze as thin fractures spread across the surface, gradually splitting it apart until the mask finally began to crumble away, revealing the face hidden beneath it.
Seo Elena.
She was standing right in front of me, her eyes brimming with tears as she stared at me with an expression that made my chest tighten.
"I'm sorry, Jinhyuk-ssi. I'm sorry..."
For a moment, I couldn't make sense of what I was seeing. The creature that had just withstood my attacks without suffering any visible damage had somehow taken on Elena's appearance, and before I could even begin to understand what was happening, the hand around my throat loosened.
My first instinct was to tear myself free, but not to attack. The moment I was released, I reached for her instead, only for Elena to collapse onto the ground and cover her face with both hands as her shoulders began to tremble.
"W-what's wrong?" I crouched down in front of her, my confusion giving way to immediate concern as I tried to get a better look at her face. "Why are you crying? Did you get hurt anywhere?"
"I'm just so tired of it all," she admitted, her voice trembling beneath the weight of everything she had been holding back. "We made a promise to live together when everything was finally peaceful, but when is it ever going to be peaceful?"
She slowly lifted her head and looked at me, her tearful eyes searching my face for something I couldn't quite understand.
"I don't know what you're talking about," I replied, trying to make sense of her words.
"You..." Her lips parted slightly, and she stared at me as though she couldn't believe what she was hearing. "You forgot?"
Before I could ask what she meant, I realized the scenery around us had changed.
I didn't know when it had happened or how long we had been standing there, but the ruined battlefield had disappeared, replaced by the rooftop of my guild building beneath the dark night sky. The wind swept across the tower, whipping through Elena's hair as she stood a short distance away from me, her expression painfully empty.
Then she turned around and walked toward the edge.
"I just want to end it all."
"Wait! NO!"
I immediately ran after her, pushing my body to its limits as I tried to close the distance between us, but no matter how fast I moved, I couldn't seem to reach her. My hand stretched out desperately, my fingers barely missing hers as she stepped beyond the edge of the rooftop.
It made no sense.
I was an S-rank Hunter, someone capable of keeping up with even A-rank Hunters who specialized in speed. There was no reason I shouldn't have been able to catch her, no reason my legs should have felt so heavy or the distance between us so impossibly vast.
And yet, despite everything I knew about my own abilities, I couldn't reach her.
"Elena!"
I lunged forward, but my hand grasped nothing but empty air.
Why?
Why couldn't I catch her?
I could have jumped after her. I could have reached out and grabbed her, even if it meant risking my own life in the process, but for some reason, I hadn't done either of those things. I had stood there, watching her disappear beyond the edge, as though some invisible force had pinned me in place.
No. That wasn't right.
I wouldn't have done that. I couldn't have.
My body began to tremble as I looked down at my hands, only to find them drenched in blood. It coated my palms and seeped between my fingers, warm and horribly real, and no matter how hard I tried to make sense of it, I couldn't escape the thought that kept repeating itself inside my head.
Seo Elena was dead because of me.
Because I had been too much of a coward to save her.
I had let her die.
My chest tightened until every breath became a struggle, and I couldn't seem to draw enough air into my lungs. The blood on my hands blurred before my eyes as I stared at them in disbelief, unable to understand how something so terrible could have happened when I should have been strong enough to prevent it.
"Elena..."
Her name slipped from my lips, barely audible beneath the howling wind.
"Elena... Elena..."
I whispered it again and again, clinging to her name as though repeating it enough times might somehow bring her back, as though it were a spell that could undo what I had done.
But the rooftop remained empty.
And Seo Elena was nowhere to be found.
I dropped to my knees and slammed my fist into the ground, the force of the impact doing nothing to ease the agony twisting inside my chest.
"No... Bring Seo Elena back!" I screamed, my voice breaking as I struck the ground again. "I want her back! Give her back to me!"
I kept shouting until my throat burned, repeating the same words over and over as though sheer desperation could somehow undo what had happened. I didn't care how pathetic I sounded or whether anyone could hear me. I just wanted her back. I wanted to see her again, to hear her voice, and to have the chance to tell her all the things I'd never gotten around to saying.
Then, without warning, the howling wind fell silent.
When I finally lifted my head, the rooftop had disappeared, and I found myself sitting inside a café with a cup of coffee in front of me. Warm light spilled across the tables, filling the little space with a familiar sense of comfort, while Seo Elena stood beside me, looking as lovely as I remembered as she finished serving my coffee.
For a moment, I could only stare at her.
Had I gone back in time?
Come to think of it, my memories told me that I was a regressor, someone who returned to the past whenever I died. If that was true, then was this how it worked in this lifetime as well? Could I really return to the past simply by dying?
The possibility was absurd, but I couldn't bring myself to dismiss it. After everything I'd experienced, I wasn't sure there was anything left that could surprise me.
More importantly, Seo Elena was right in front of me.
I could see her face, hear her voice, and watch the way she moved about the café as though nothing terrible had ever happened. The sight filled me with a happiness so overwhelming that I almost forgot to question how I'd gotten here in the first place.
"Are you okay? You're spacing out," she said, her gentle voice drawing me out of my thoughts.
I nodded despite the throbbing pain in my head, unable to tear my eyes away from her.
"Yeah," I murmured, before getting to my feet and pulling her into my arms.
Elena stiffened in surprise before pushing me away, her cheeks turning a bright shade of red as she looked up at me.
"Didn't you tell me you had work to do?" she scolded, straightening her clothes. "You should finish your work before coming home instead of dumping everything on Kim Taewon. Don't you feel bad for him?"
"Home?" I repeated, barely registering anything else she'd said.
She blinked at me before reaching up to press the back of her hand against my forehead.
"Honey, are you sick?"
The moment her warm palm touched my skin, I instinctively caught her hand and held it against my cheek.
She was warm.
Her skin was soft beneath my fingers, and I could feel the gentle pressure of her hand against my face. It wasn't some distant memory or an illusion conjured by my guilt. I could touch her. I could feel her warmth.
She was real.
This was real.
"No, I'm fine," I assured her, reluctantly letting go of her hand. "I'll be back, then."
I turned toward the door, but before I could take another step, Elena's voice stopped me.
"Aren't you forgetting something?"
I looked back at her, genuinely confused. "What?"
She puffed out her cheeks and let out a small sigh before walking over to me. Without another word, she caught the front of my clothes and pulled me down toward her.
For a brief moment, I thought she was going to whisper something in my ear, but instead, I felt the soft brush of her lips against my cheek.
I froze.
My mind went completely blank as I stared at her, unable to process what had just happened. I had faced countless monsters and survived battles that would have driven other Hunters to their knees, yet a simple kiss on the cheek had somehow left me utterly defenseless.
Elena pulled away, her cheeks still flushed as she gave me a small smile.
"I'll see you later."
I stood there for another moment, unable to stop the smile spreading across my face.
"Yeah," I replied softly. "See you later."