Echoes of Hollow

"Voice...?"

Her long red hair sways, and with her red eyes, her first step through the door after Samantha is followed by a thorough scan of the entire room.

"Yes, whose voice was that just now from inside here?"

"No, it’s just that..."

With his heart racing, Hye can't take his eyes off the red-haired woman. She touches the wall, frowning and clicking her tongue quietly. Noticing his gaze, she turns.

"Oh, so this is your nephew?"

Smiling, she approaches.

"Yes, ma’am. I’m not exactly sure what level he’s at but..."

Placing one hand on Hye’s shoulder, Samantha frowns, not even looking at him as she applies pressure with her fingers, causing his body to lean to the side.

"...I believe he’s at least above rank A."

"Above A..."

As her red eyes scan over his body, Hye feels a strange heat surrounding him. It’s something he can’t see or touch, but although it’s not physical like fire, he can still feel it.

"So, if that’s the case, it means he already has quite a lot of dungeon experience, right? Is this really necessary?"

"Plenty of experience... I don’t know..."

Samantha glanced at him, increasing the pressure on his shoulder. She knows it’s practically impossible for Hye to have gone into a dungeon while he was with her, which means he must have done it after going to Korea. But... reaching something like rank D in just a few days would already be a miracle, now rank A...

"Do you?!"

"Experience... Ow! No! No, I’ve only been to one dungeon... well, two now."

"Two dungeons, that’s..."

Such pure and immense energy that it reminds her of one person... Theodore, the only one she’s seen personally who possesses such purity in his mana.

"It’s really hard to believe... But if that’s really the case, how did you evolve this far without entering dungeons?"

A question she herself had wanted to ask for a long time but couldn’t. Now, hearing it come from someone else’s mouth, Samantha turned her gaze back to Hye.

"You’re the second person to ask me that..."

"You?!"

His bones crack as if they were breaking. At that moment, it felt like a lightning bolt shot through his body, causing Hye to widen his eyes while his body slid down the bed.

"Ma’am! You’re the second person to ask me that! Is that better?!"

With her fingers finally releasing, the pressure vanished, allowing him a brief sigh of relief.

"They’re missions..."

Rising again, he placed his hand on his shoulder, trying to stretch it out a bit. But the pain didn’t let him do it immediately.

"I leveled up by doing daily missions. That’s how I reached level 131 before my first time in a dungeon."

"Level 131?!"

Without realizing that her mouth was hanging open, Samantha’s eyes widened.

"That means you were already rank C, but how? How didn’t I notice something like this...?"

"Oh, that...? I don’t know if it’s because of that or not, but some people said that apparently, I don’t have mana..."

"Don’t have mana? That’s ridiculous, you wouldn’t be alive if that were true. Who told you something like that?"

"Who...?"

Hye shifted his gaze, finally landing on the red-haired woman, who, for some reason, seemed to be looking at him with an expression of discovery, as if she had just caught him in a lie.

‘No mana?’ thought the woman, analyzing the contours of his body. ‘Don’t be ridiculous.’

"If you don’t have mana..."

Taking a step forward, the woman pointed a finger toward him, as if touching something invisible, even to Samantha’s eyes, let alone Hye’s, who couldn’t even sense normal mana from other people.

"What would you call this...?"

As she touched the thin layer surrounding him, the mana expanded, enveloping the entire hospital.

‘How dare you..., mere bird!’

The windows shattered, the pillars cracked, and without understanding why, the woman found herself on her knees before a simple hospital bed. This scene brought back a distant memory, energy so powerful... forget Theodore... this energy reminded her of someone else.

‘What are you doing? Stop! You’ll destroy the building!’

‘...Consider yourself lucky, bird... You won’t get a second chance.’

"Ma’am, are you alright?!"

Samantha rushed over, kneeling beside her. Her eyes flickered, her body trembled, with no strength left in her legs glued to the floor, forced to support herself on the bed. A being who didn’t need to breathe found herself struggling for the next time air would touch her lungs.

"Sorry, I forgot to mention, this is what I was about to talk about before we entered the room. It turns out that, right now, in his body..."

Looking toward the door, the chaos in the hallway filled the small space created by the shattered glass. As Samantha’s words slowly reached her, her breathing gradually stabilized.

‘An angel... of course. What other creature would be so invasive as those who see themselves as superior to most beings? And among so many angels, why him...? The worst among them all...’