FLIA 144

“Hu, huuh.”

A clicking sound made Park Seungmin jump in fright and he looked around furtively. His eyes were bloodshot red with veins spreading out. The aftereffects of his recent abduction caused that. Even the smallest noise made his body react oversensitively, so he could not sleep properly. Because he was a purifier, sedatives or similar medicine did not work well.

“Fuck, fuck, huuhk, fuck, this is fucked….”

Park Seungmin tore at his hair irritably. The ceremony for the Abyss returnees a short while ago had been a nightmare. The corrupted suddenly appeared and only rushed at him, and when he screamed for his life in that chaos, people cursed at him as pathetic.

However the most horrible thing was something else.

After the ceremony attack, Park Seungmin feared that corrupted might appear again to assault him, so he requested thorough security from the Rift Management Bureau. Special Suppression Unit members guarded him with double and triple layers, so he could feel a little relief. Yet somehow that tight security had been breached without resistance.

In the middle of the night, foreign mercenaries abducted Park Seungmin, and he had to endure a time of horrific torment. Because they were cautious of him being a high-level awakener, they tied him so tightly that blood barely circulated, and they left him in a trunk for hours. The pain was so severe that by the time they finally released him, he could not even move properly.

‘Isn’t he being too feeble?’

‘As long as his life stays intact, it’s fine. He is a high-level awakener after all. Will he die just because we tied him up?’

Foreign words he could not understand flew above his head. Park Seungmin was dragged like a dog. He could not even know where he was being taken. The place where he ended up had a monster. A being so corrupted that it hardly looked like a person squirmed in chains.

Soon a man with his face covered approached. He had earphones in his ears and kept speaking to someone unknown.

‘My employer wishes Awakener Park Seungmin to purify this person. If you only purify, wealth and honor will follow.’

Someone’s agent interpreted in clumsy Korean. Park Seungmin swallowed his dry saliva. The person chained there was even more seriously corrupted than Jeong Siyoung. He had not been able to purify even Jeong Siyoung’s arm properly, so there was no way he could purify that person.

“I-I can’t! I said I can’t!”

But they seemed to take it as Park Seungmin resisting pointlessly. Merciless torture followed. Water, fire, and electricity…. Because he was an awakener, his regeneration made them show no mercy. When Park Seungmin’s body turned ragged from the torture, they called in a healer to treat him. No rest was given. They did not let him sleep even a single breath.

The level of torment rose higher and higher. In a deranged state, Park Seungmin tried to use whatever purification power he scraped up from the bottom to heal the other. But no matter how much he struggled, it did not work. This was beyond him. His purification power was far too lacking. The one who wanted most of all to purify that monster was none other than Park Seungmin himself….

After several days of such torment, he barely got rescued by the Special Suppression Unit. The culprit was some wealthy foreigner. His child, an awakener, had become heavily corrupted, and in desperation to heal him, the man searched everywhere, then after hearing rumors that a high-level purifier had appeared in Korea, committed the deed.

There was a reason people said torture destroys a person’s soul. The past few days had been a ghastly experience that made his body shudder. Under his blanket, crying, Park Seungmin rubbed a molar with his tongue. That tooth was not originally his. During torture, he had lost a tooth somewhere, so they implanted a fake one.

“Why, why is my purification power not recovering….”

Park Seungmin murmured in anguish. Among the things that tormented him most during torture was that his purification power hit bottom and refused to recover. The omnipotence and massive purification power of his first awakening had vanished, and compared to then, now he had barely enough to fill the bottom. And it did not go beyond that.

As if this had been only a vessel from the start.

“No, I-I am a high-level awakener. I am a high-level awakener….”

While crying, Park Seungmin checked the internet discussions. The news of a high-level awakener’s abduction had been headlined everywhere and made known to the entire nation. People were enraged at the fact that the precious high-level purifier was abducted and not even found for days. They shouted that he must be given the highest security. Seeing that, Park Seungmin regained himself.

An enormous amount of tax money had been spent to rescue him this time. That sum proved his value. He was a person so precious that no one could replace him.

He reassured himself that way, Park Seungmin barely got up and went to work at the Sunrise Guild. Since his purification power had somewhat recovered, he wanted to purify guild members and receive their gratitude.

“Purifier Park Seungmin! Are you feeling any better?”

“Can’t you tell that I am not?!”

Park Seungmin shouted at the secretary who spoke to him kindly. And on the way to the guild, he cursed nonstop and vented his anger on that person. When he arrived, the Sunrise Guild felt somewhat different from usual.

‘…As expected, while I was gone, everyone realized even more how precious I am, right?’

His mood that had hit rock bottom improved a little. With his head raised and walking proudly, Park Seungmin soon realized that he was completely mistaken.

The guild members surrounded someone in a lively and friendly atmosphere. The voices were gentle and the attitudes were kind. While he was abducted and tortured, they had been thriving. Suddenly irritated, Park Seungmin pushed aside guild members and went forward. When he saw an unfamiliar face he had never once seen in the guild, he asked in a harsh voice.

“Who is that you let in here so carelessly? This is not a place just anyone can enter! Why does no one follow the rules?!”

Park Seungmin glared at the guild members who had carelessly allowed an outsider in, but no one sided with him, and they only stared at him blankly. The unfamiliar outsider scanned Park Seungmin up and down with a curious gaze. His face showed a strange expression, but it soon hid behind a smile as he greeted him energetically.

“Hello, Purifier Park Seungmin. My name is Kim Daeun, and I awakened as a low-level purifier the day before yesterday! Please take care of me.”

Park Seungmin froze, he felt stunned and he forgot his words for a moment.

That was right. If a high-level awakener existed, then it was natural for mid and low-level awakeners to appear as well. Yet why did he feel such a shock? He forced himself to ask calmly.

“…Purifier? You?”

“Yes! I just finished my contract with the government yesterday, and I have been dispatched to the Sunrise Guild.”

Even though the other spoke to him rudely, Kim Daeun bowed once more politely.

In truth, he had wanted to go to the Taeyang Guild, but the Taeyang Team had all left for an island with a treatment facility. While he agonized over that, the government first proposed a contract. The conditions were good, so he accepted readily, and he was sent straight to the Sunrise Guild.

He had expected that with Purifier Park Seungmin already in place, his position would not be very good, but contrary to that, the guild members welcomed Kim Daeun warmly. Even though a high-level purifier existed, there were still many lightly corrupted in the guild, which confused him somewhat, but when he worked diligently to purify them, his workplace became very comfortable….

During that time, Park Seungmin, who had been abducted, returned.

‘Something feels strange?’

Kim Daeun felt an odd impression from him. His rank seemed lower than his own. Perhaps because he was a high-level awakener, his ability control was that refined…? It could not be that he was not a high-level awakener, so Kim Daeun thought only that.

Park Seungmin felt that ever since Kim Daeun joined, the attitude of the Sunrise Guild members toward him had been changing rapidly. Unlike Park Seungmin, who purified stingily and in such tiny amounts that they could hardly feel it while he acted as if he bestowing a favor, Kim Daeun was earnest. If someone asked for help, he rushed without fail and purified to the best of his strength, so they inevitably started comparing the two.

While he tailed Kim Daeun under the pretext of mentoring, Park Seungmin’s face grew rigid little by little. He followed intending to pick faults and harass him, yet he felt as if Kim Daeun’s purification power surpassed his own. It had to be an illusion. How could a mere low-level purifier possess greater purification power than himself…?

Growing restless, Park Seungmin stopped a guild member who had just finished a rift exploration and was coming out clean from the guild’s corruption removal chamber, and he asked.

“…So, do you want me to purify you?”

He thought that the guild member would gratefully receive his purification, but the guild member rejected immediately.

“No, it’s fine. Purifier Kim Daeun already did well. He comes right away whenever I ask, and it’s really great.”

Then that person brushed past with a gaze that mocked him. Park Seungmin clenched his fist. He rushed to Go Jaewon, intending to protest about bringing in a purifier without consulting him. But Go Jaewon, drunk on liquor and drugs, only grinned foolishly. Park Seungmin almost purified him just to return him to sanity, but he stopped.

‘My purification power is still at rock bottom.’

It felt too wasteful to spend on someone who would lose sense again. In the end, he scolded his secretary harshly and returned home. Lost in thought, he did not even realize that he was biting his fingernails.

‘If a low-level awakener has that much power, then a mid-level awakener must be far stronger….’

He was certain that others, when comparing them to himself now, would feel that a mid-rank awakener was stronger. Park Seungmin flinched. His nails had torn, and blood was flowing.

“What exactly is the problem…!”

Why did his purification power not recover though he was a high-level awakener? That agonizing question he had carried dozens and hundreds of times surfaced again. Park Seungmin kept recalling the overflowing power of his first awakening. Was it because of the torture that his recovery failed? Was it just because his condition was poor…? He thought something must be wrong with his body, but he could not even bring himself to undergo proper examination.

He told himself again and again that it was only a temporary problem. Then a vibration buzzed on his phone. A peculiar light crossed his eyes as he checked it. When he answered, a person suddenly came to mind. At that moment he wanted to relieve his crushing stress on someone, anyone.