"They're almost certainly international, and it's not like people rank criminals anyway. But what I meant is that it wouldn't be hard to find someone that has powers that could've been enough for this, the hard part is knowing who specifically it was, and tracking down whoever paid them for it. And people like that don't share who their clients are, that'd be bad for business."

"I assume the way to track these people down would be psychic espers, like mindreaders or postcogs."

"Yeah. We'd need a postcog who can additionally pierce through whatever this illusionist had up, or who sidesteps it somehow."

"Sidesteps it?"

"Someone who doesn't perceive things directly with, like, eyes and stuff, but more like, causal nexuses and what-have-you."

"...you have someone in mind, don't you."

"Maybe. I'm not sure. I'll need to dig up some contacts. It's a lot harder now that the dungeon's closed..."

"But you think you can do it."

"I said maybe."

"So we should come up with more plans, then?"

"Yeah. Definitely."

"Should we leave long-shot planning like that for when we have everyone around and try to focus on immediate practicalities for how they can survive the next couple of days?"

"Yeah, maybe. Probably, even."

"Well, they're not doing dungeons tomorrow, so if we could push it forward and meet everyone tomorrow then..."

Hana takes off from Nightmare duty earlier than usual. She's obviously allowed, there aren't set hours to her work, it's just - inconveniencing a lot of people, and causing people trauma, and maybe getting people killed, and she's anxious about it and hates it so much because she likes being dependable, but.

She has other priorities, too.

Woo-young gets a notice that she's done with work for today, and a request for siloing, please.

The most important part is that she's alive. Everything else is secondary; she's alive and she's stable and now they're going to be spending an hour in an ICU snuggling and doing nothing else and it's fine. Not that he thought she wouldn't be fine, necessarily; Tae-gun would fuck her cooling unconscious body if necessary to kick her regen in, and it's very unlikely she'd die in the process, but having her be in a hospital is very relieving.

Woo-young would be lying if he said he wasn't having thoughts of forbidding either of them from ever entering a dungeon again, though. That's twice over a single confluence.

He's ruminating over those thoughts in their silo when he gets the request and accepts immediately.

Then here is his partner, tall and hard to read and a little awkward.

"Hi. Um." She fidgets. She doesn't ask if he's okay. "How can I support you?"

"God, I wish I knew."

"Okay. Then, may I hug you?"

"Yeah. Please."

She very carefully and very gently hugs him, then just as gently and carefully arranges so that he is on her lap and she is wrapped around him like some kind of shield from the horrible world.

"I can also pet you if you would find that soothing," she adds, when he is so arranged.

He laugh-sobs and nods. "I would."

Okay. Then he's going to be very gently and very carefully petted. Pet pet pet.

"Please let me know if there's anything else you want, okay?" Pet pet pet.

"I want whoever did this to die screaming."

"...sorry, that was gruesome."