One year earlier, an S-rank Gate had opened in Busan.

Joo Jihye entered it with her team and suffered a severe wound to her back while they were fighting the boss.

She barely survived after intensive treatment and surgery, but the real problem was the psychological aftereffects.

It was something she had believed would never affect her—the equivalent of a death sentence for a hunter.

Once she learned that these were warning signs of awakened psychosis, she became plagued by anxiety.

After she suddenly developed insomnia, the symptoms seemed to grow worse the less she slept, which in turn intensified her anxiety. Joo Jihye, who had remained perfectly composed even on blood-soaked battlefields, began to feel as though her insides were twisting into knots whenever night fell.

At some point, her mind had gradually filled with noise.

Even though she could still think and function normally, it felt as though her head were clogged with a murky haze. The noise steadily grew, and she could feel herself becoming increasingly irritable along with it. Most frightening of all, however, was that she no longer felt any guilt about mistreating or threatening others.

It was as though the noise had smothered her emotions.

“Hmm...!”

And yet, for some reason, her mind was clear now.

All that remained was the vivid, unmistakable pain etched into every inch of her body—the pleas of her muscles begging her to stop and the screams of her lungs demanding oxygen.

“Haaah...! Haaah...!”

Joo Jihye collapsed and lay staring up at the sky.

She was covered from head to toe in filthy dust, but even someone as fastidious as her had no energy to care.

Tears streamed from her eyes while sweat poured from her body.

“Good work. Since it’s your first day, we’ll stop here. The real training begins tomorrow, so you’d better adapt quickly.”

“N-No way...”

Joo Jihye gazed up at Oh Hyunseong with tears in her eyes.

Those tears had captivated countless male viewers in her dramas.

Oh Hyunseong didn’t even spare them a glance. He simply turned and strode inside.

“You can keep lying there if you want, but tomorrow will be even harder if you don’t go rest properly.”

“You... bastard... Haaah...”

Joo Jihye planted her trembling arms against the ground.

After barely managing to stand, she dragged her shaking legs toward the house.

The moment she entered her room in the annex, she collapsed without even considering washing the dirt from her body.

“...Zzz.”

She fell fast asleep on the spot.

A basket was piled high with roasted sweet potatoes and potatoes.

Once again, Han Suyeon picked out only the potatoes.

That left Oh Hyunseong no choice but to take a sweet potato for the sake of balance, and he didn’t regret his decision in the slightest.

“...This is insane.”

“Shouldn’t you be used to the taste by now, Senior?”

“I don’t think I could ever get used to this, even if I lived forever.”

Chomp!

Oh Hyunseong manfully stuffed the rest of the sweet potato into his mouth in one bite.

Han Suyeon spread the documents she had brought out in front of him.

Time had flown by before they knew it.

The documents compiled all the data they had collected during the past seven days of rehabilitation and training.

“Her insomnia has definitely improved. Her average time to fall asleep over the past week was just 3.18 seconds. At that point, it’s less treatment and more torture.”

“I’d call it the most effective and outstanding form of rehabilitation. What about the other data?”

Her insomnia was only one symptom, after all.

Nor was the figure particularly reliable, since she had only fallen asleep because they exhausted her until she had no strength left.

Of course, falling asleep immediately had eliminated the anxiety that had been eating away at her every night, so it must have contributed to her recovery.

Sleeping properly would also have improved her physical condition.

In any case, the other categories were what mattered now.

Han Suyeon picked up Joo Jihye’s self-assessment report.

“She says that after sleeping at regular hours for several days, she barely felt any fatigue. The trembling in her hands disappeared, and the anxiety she perceived in herself fell significantly. She never lost control or behaved aggressively even during that brutal training, so I think we can consider her psychological state generally stable.”

All her symptoms had improved considerably during her week here.

However, anxiety was inherently subjective.

Because it was a psychological issue, it was difficult to assess and diagnose through external observation.

But that didn’t mean they had no other method.

Mana becoming rougher and the body growing weaker.

Those were symptoms shared by hunters in the period leading up to psychosis.

That was why Oh Hyunseong had spent the past seven days quantifying and measuring her condition under the pretext of rehabilitation.

“Every metric improved substantially during training. Someone undergoing the progression toward psychosis couldn’t possibly show this much improvement.”

“So we’ve addressed the underlying cause.”

The warning symptoms of psychosis that had been eating away at her mind and body had improved.

For Joo Jihye, who had been deteriorating continuously since her injury a year earlier, it was a complete reversal.

That allowed them to be certain.

Her condition had not merely stopped worsening. Her psychological aftereffects had improved noticeably.

“A hunter’s collapsing mind... actually recovered.”

It should have been impossible according to conventional knowledge.

But they had succeeded.

Training alone could never have produced such a result, which meant Oh Hyunseong’s hypothesis that crops cultivated by the spirits might possess healing properties had proven correct.

“I can’t believe something like this is possible.”

“Thank you for helping.”

Of course, the training they had conducted had not merely been for show.

Joo Jihye had been extraordinarily fortunate. The two hunters assigned to her were both legends of the first generation.

Despite the short duration, the stability of her mana had improved visibly, while her stamina—which had only declined since her injury—had increased dramatically.

By the third or fourth day, even Joo Jihye had begun to show some composure while keeping up with the training.

Oh Hyunseong knew all too well how to push high-ranking hunters to their limits and draw out the greatest possible growth from them.

Of course, we’ll need to observe her for longer to determine whether this is only a temporary improvement or a fundamental cure. But one thing is certain... She’s getting better.

Joo Jihye sat alone in her room with her knees drawn up.

The old her would have been wearing a miserable expression and thinking only of how to escape. Instead, she stared blankly out the window.

“...It’s beautiful.”

Clouds floated lazily across the sky.

Bluish mountains and forests stretched into the distance.

As the hectic days of training passed, she had begun to notice things that had somehow disappeared from her sight.

Slide!

Just then, Oh Hyunseong opened the door and entered.

Joo Jihye immediately sat up straight and stiffened her back.

“Did you sleep well?”

“Yes! I slept soundly!”

“Good. Pack your things and come outside.”

“...Pack my things?”

“That’s right. Your training is over.”

“What? But... why?”

Joo Jihye asked without thinking, visibly flustered.

Of course she was glad that the hellish training had ended.

But every day had been so frantic that she had lost track of how much time had passed.

On top of that, a part of her still felt that she had far too much left to learn.

“The agreed period is over. Jeongil contacted me as well. He said you have to return because of your schedule.”

Thump.

He returned the phone that had been confiscated from her.

An entire week had already passed.

Joo Jihye looked bewildered.

Her body, however, was already moving according to Oh Hyunseong’s instructions and packing her belongings. When she stepped outside, Oh Hyunseong and Han Suyeon were standing by the front gate.

“You worked hard, Jihye.”

“You endured it without complaint far better than I expected. You have every right to be proud of yourself. The time we agreed upon is over. Now descend the mountain.”

“Instructors...”

“I said the training is over. Stop calling us that.”

“B-But is it really all right for me to leave? What if my insomnia comes back?”

Joo Jihye hesitated.

It had been an incredibly difficult period for her, yet it had also brought her comfort.

She had been nearing her psychological limit after becoming trapped in an endless vicious cycle. This had been the only place where she could live without worrying about anything.

Oh Hyunseong handed the motionless woman the large box he was carrying.

When she opened it, she found it packed with fresh strawberries.

“If you start feeling anxious, eat one.”

Joo Jihye looked at him in surprise, and Oh Hyunseong smiled.

“It may have been brief, but you completed my training program. Those I trained never died easily, no matter where they went. So don’t let some pathetic illness scare you.”

Her violently trembling legs refused to stop.

Inside the waiting room at a drama set, Joo Jihye bit her nails with a tense expression.

She had been told there was nothing to fear or worry about, but it could never be that simple. Once she left Oh Hyunseong’s home and returned to familiar surroundings, the anxiety that had seemingly disappeared began creeping back to the surface.

“Hey, she isn’t going to ruin today’s shoot too, is she?”

“We’ll be lucky if she doesn’t throw another fucking tantrum at us. Why did they even bring in a woman who completely destroyed her last drama?”

“Exactly.”

She heard the staff whispering outside the waiting room.

They might have thought they were keeping their voices down, but Joo Jihye’s hearing allowed her to catch every word.

“If you’re going to talk shit about me, at least do it where I can’t hear you.”

Joo Jihye muttered with a scowl.

Only a few days earlier, she would have immediately stormed outside and smashed those idiots to pieces.

She would have turned the entire set upside down.

But Joo Jihye merely shook her head.

She couldn’t dismiss their words as complete nonsense.

She had received an enormous fee for her last drama, only to ruin it and face criticism for the worst acting of her entire career.

Her Gate accomplishments had already become scarce, and now people were calling her a washed-up has-been whose acting career was completely finished.

Her fall was as precipitous as her former popularity and the expectations placed upon her had been high.

“Whew...”

Joo Jihye looked down at her trembling hand.

She couldn’t calm herself.

Then she became even more anxious, wondering whether feeling this anxiety meant her aftereffects were worsening again.

“Oh.”

But then her eyes fell upon a single strawberry in a small package.

Come to think of it... he told me to eat one if I started feeling anxious.

After hesitating briefly, Joo Jihye carefully reached out.

The moment she ate the strawberry, its fantastic flavor burst across her tongue, just as she remembered.

But it wasn’t only the taste.

She remembered the piece of strawberry she had eaten after completing training so grueling it had nearly killed her.

The time, the place, and every sensation from that moment when it had tasted better than anything else returned to her.

The memory soon expanded.

The cool night air. The sky glittering with countless stars. The tranquil scenery.

The city lights she had once craved had done nothing but conceal the stars, while the chirping insects that had disturbed her sleep on the first night had eventually made her hum along.

For some reason, remembering those moments calmed her restless heart.

“Let’s begin.”

Joo Jihye rose and strode out of the waiting room.

She stood confidently before the countless staff members and cameras. The instant the director gave the cue, the look in her eyes transformed.

It was as though she had become someone else.

No—she captured within a single scene a radiant moment that only Joo Jihye, the actress, could create.

As that profound resonance everyone had forgotten filled the set, every person present stared at her in a daze.

Chapter 20

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