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It was an unfortunate part of hunting that “what happens in the dungeon, stays in the dungeon.”
Woo Jinchul could attest to it personally, after all. Before the Bureau, he’d killed dozens of people in Dungeons, civilians and hunters alike. And after his job appointment, he was still exposed, entrenched, in the lawlessness of dungeons. Murder, assault, robbery, rape; it was hard to track, harder to prove, and nearly impossible to prosecute. Jinchul had personally ended Hunters who had become monsters themselves.
Maybe that was why he recognized the numb expression on Hunter Sung’s face.
He’d kept an eye on the Hunter, initially curious due to the double dungeon, even as a weak E Rank, barely more than a civilian, he kept surreptitious tabs on the man. His surveillance had become less surreptitious and more blatant the more time when on, as Sung Jinwoo seemed to have more strength, more presence each time they interacted. And less softness, less kindness. The kid he first met, only a few years out of his teens, was nowhere to be found, in body nor in mind. He’d gotten the report from the C Rank disaster with Hunter Hwang. He’d noticed the little detail that the surveyor was a little unnerved by how quiet the E Rank was, noting that there must be trauma lingering. But Jinchul also saw how numb, how dead Hunter Sung looked after the debacle with Kang Taeshik. And Hunters who felt nothing were Hunters who were damgerous.
And perhaps that worry was why he stopped. Or maybe he stopped because he recognised the numb look on Jinwoo’s face. Or maybe it was just the fact that despite the heavy downpour, the hunter stood against the brick wall of a building, empty gaze staring out at the road.
Jinchul should have kept walking. He was off the clock (not that that fact mattered much), and had no obligation to actually babysit a hunter, E Rank or not. But he didn’t.
“Hunter Sung?”
Jinwoo didn’t flinch. He didn’t move. Just his eyes slid up, up until they met his own. Jinchul had never specifically taken notice of Hunter Sung’s appearance, but he was very aware of the pale, almost icy blue eyes that Sung possessed. They were always sharp and very blue, keen and attentive. Bright and friendly when he first met him. Now, they were dull and resentful.
Without an invitation but neither a rebuke, Jinchul stepped closer, close enough to hold his large umbrella over the both of them. “Something the matter, Hunter Sung?”
He could hear the breath, even over the loud pattering of the rain. It wasn’t quite a sigh, but wasn’t quite just an inhale.
“Just… thinking.”
Jinchul wasn’t in the habit of listening to strangers and their woes. He was a man with little free time and little patience for inane chatter. He wasn’t a therapist and he didn’t even know Hunter Sung enough to call him a friend. But something made him want to ask, made him want to know what was so worth standing out in the rain, brooding.
“Might I ask what about?”
Jinwoo looked at him again, as if judging him. Jinchul wondered whether he’d be found wanting. He certainly didn’t market himself as a caring person, necessarily.
“Two hunters attacked me in a dungeon today,” he said, his hands finding home in the pockets of his soaked hoodie. “Trying to steal some of my gear, no doubt, but one was more interested in hurting me personally.”
Was he assaulted in a dungeon? Did he report it to the association?
“I killed them.”
Jinchul didn’t move. He knew what happened in dungeons, he knew there were plenty of crimes that went on. He knew the adage of “what happens in the dungeon stays in the dungeon.” And yet, he also knew that most people would be horrified about killing someone, in self defense or not. Not that they should, given that it was only self preservation, but it was common among survivors who had to kill someone. But Sung Jinwoo didn’t seem particularly broken up about it.
Looking closer, Jinchul could also see the blood under his fingernails, a splatter on his jacket, all but washed away with the rain.
“I killed two people and I don’t feel anything. It’s not the first time another Hunter has attacked me. It probably won’t be the last. I’m an E rank, afterall.” He could see the bitter swallow Hunter Sung took. “But I don’t feel…guilty. Or angry or hurt. I ended two people’s lives and I’ve killed half a dozen other people in the past three months after they attacked me. And I don’t feel anything. I don’t know if I even can, or if that’s something else that’s been taken away from me.”
Jinchul tallied up the death tolls from the incidents Hunter Sung was involved in. Six from the C Rank Gate that had evidently been Hunter Sung’s doing, rather than the D Rank involved. Kang Taeshik. That was him too, not Hunter Song. And now two others, it seemed.
Jinchul had killed plenty of rogue hunters. He’d gotten used to the weight in his chest and the nausea as he washed the blood from his hands, but it never fully went away, merely lessened. He didn’t necessarily mourn them; they were violent, dangerous people that wouldn’t have faced justice in the court system, as unfortunate as that was.
He looked at Hunter Sung. Catalogued the changes since he’d met Hunter Sung in that hospital room. He was taller, fitter. The E Rank he met was all lanky limbs and knobby joints, even at twenty four, but this man was taller than him, and Jinchul wasn’t a small man. But aside from the physicalities, Sung was… duller than he had been after the double dungeon. If anything, it should’ve been the other way around, a traumatized kid turning into a stronger, self assured man. But all the hope and exuberance was gone, replaced by a cold hardness that seemed not to appear over night, but like the coldness had consumed the last smouldering ember in the past few months. He looked numb. Tired and numb.
“It was so easy. I remember how a hunter I knew a few years ago killed another hunter who tried to assault her and she was broken up about it for months, even though she’d only defended herself. Atter I killed Hwang Dok-su, the most emotional thing I thought was that I was glad I forced my sister to bring an umbrella that day, since it started raining. I thought maybe I was just in shock or something.”
Jinwoo finally looked over at him. If Jinchul didn’t know any better, and he wondered if he didn’t, he would say that the rain streaks across Jinwoo’s apathetic face looked more like tear tracks.
“But I waited and waited and I felt absolutely nothing. Not even satisfaction of getting rid of scum. When I think of what would happen if Jin-ah found out, the only thing I feel is regret if she was sad or scared. Regret that she found out, that is. I don’t even care about what my sister thinks about me, just as long as she’s safe,” Jinwoo huffed. Jinchul could see the way his grit his teeth. “I don’t care. I can’t care. And I hate that I have to force myself to even care that I can’t care.”
Jinchul sighed, watching as Hunter Sung’s fists clenched, knuckled turning white, nails slicing into the skin of his palms, pinprick of red popping up. He wondered what exactly he should do when a Hunter admits to killing nine hunters, even if in self defense. He couldn’t, or maybe wouldn’t, arrest him. He couldn’t condemn him, nor could he absolve him. And he certainly wasn’t qualified to be a therapist.
He stood against the wall, umbrella still held over Hunter Sung and watched a car go by, splashing in the puddled road.
“We cannot choose how our minds respond. There’s no use agonising over it. We can only choose our actions.”
Jinwoo looked up at him again, almost as if realizing that he was actually there, and that he really did just admit to killing other Hunters. Jinchul pushed on, tasting the words on his tongue before speaking.
“But, you’re here and thinking about it. You may feel nothing, but if I had the choice, I’d choose that over exhilaration. At the very least, you’re standing here questioning it.” Jinchul sighed, his sunglasses, much too dark for this weather, slipping down his nose. He pushed them up.
Jinchul let his eyes wander again, taking in Jinwoo’s ripped, soaking hoodie. “Would you like me to call someone?”
A huff. “No. I don’t want to talk to Jin-ah like this. I just… need to get home.”
Jinchul hesitated. He wasn’t in the habit of letting just anyone in his car. But he supposed he could lay down a towel or something to protect the leather.
“Would you like a ride home?”
“…sure.”
Jinchul offered a hand.
Jinwoo hesitated. Then took it and he hauled the hunter up, stepping off the curb toward the car park, waiting for Jinwoo to move to stay under the umbrella.
Neither spoke anymore as they crossed the rain slicked street.
Jinchul kept the umbrella angled between them as they got to the car, holding over the passenger door as Jinwoo slid in.