"I - I," they stutter. "Yes Kang Jaeha-nim." The bar slides aside.

The door handle is higher than eye level but reachable, and once the door is open, he immediately clears the mark from and shields the victim.

Which doesn't... really change anything in their environment. Presumably Nightmare can just keep its nightmares up even if it can't see its target anymore to torment them.

The victim - a small skinny man - stands there, trembling, not meeting Jaeha's eyes.

Back when he used to use his power he'd be able to figure out directly if what this person wanted was a hug or space or verbal encouragement or what. He'll just have to do his best.

"What's your name?" he asks, softening his face and his voice.

("Nightmare can't see him anymore but it can still send things after us here so I'll want to get a move on soon,") he tells Haru.

Haru nods.

"Ji Dong-sun, Kang Jaeha-nim."

"Ji Dong-sun-shi, Nightmare can't get to you anymore. You're completely invisible to it. Once we leave, you'll be safe. So come with us?"

"Yes Kang-jaeha-nim." He doesn't super believe this but he's in a very obedient frame of mind at the moment.

Yeah, that's okay if he doesn't. He is safe, and that's what's important. ...or, well, he will be.

("Are you visible to him?")

"Not, yet, should I be now?"

("Yeah, I think so, he's shielded and it'll be easier for you to carry him.")

"Ji Dong-sun-shi, my partner is about to become visible, please do not be startled. He can fly, and he will carry both of us to the exit so that we'll be out as rapidly as we can."

Which is probably a good idea because esper hearing only gives them so much headstart on the noises of something approaching.

Haru appears while Jaeha's speaking, and bows, and says, "Hello, I'm Suwan Masaharu," and picks up Ji Dong-sun in his arms, and when Jaeha's climbed on his back: zoom.

The doodad is now presenting them with a path in differently-coloured petals, back the way they came. They don't pass by whatever other creature Nightmare was about to send their way, and with Haru's flight the return trip goes a lot faster than the way in did.

Ji Dong-sun isn't talkative so Haru's chattering to Jaeha on the way, subvocalization-style so they don't have to bother the poor guy about it. "Is this the high end of cooperativeness? Or for that matter the low end of medical acuity?"

("Hmm, some people throw themselves at me and are extremely eager to follow me out, I think that probably ranks as more cooperative? And most victims aren't medical emergencies, Nightmare prefers it when its food lasts very long. Sometimes they're catatonic, though.")

Haru's taking the trip in sort of a series of flying leaps, launching himself in a burst and arcing through the air on momentum alone before catching himself with his power again. "I'm glad the monster looked like a monster."

("...yeah. But we're definitely going to run into monsters that don't, a lot.")

"Can you tell or do you have to figure it out from context?"

("Figure out from context. Nightmare can create minions that are indistinguishable from humans to power senses, so I couldn't even use that.")

"I'm worried about making a mistake there."

("Yeah. To state the obvious, err in recoverable ways. Perhaps more snappily, if uncertain, don't shoot.")

"Yeah. But if a situation's moving fast..."

("I can use my powers on them. Nightmare's minions don't actually have minds, as far as anyone can tell the dungeon is personally puppeteering them individually, so it can't really fake human reactions to my illusions that well. I could maybe do an overlay for you of what I'm showing each potential person so you can also keep track of who seems to be acting weird. But we can't do much better than use our best judgment, in the end.")