“So what happened between the two of you?"

Seunghyo couldn't help but laugh to himself when Jinyoung blurted out the question. When Hana revealed Jinyoung's identity, Seunghyo had assumed there were only two options. One was that Hana had already spoken to her long-lost brother and explained their relationship. It certainly wasn't outside the realm of possibility.

The second was much simpler. Hana had told him little to nothing of their relationship. And, judging by the tone and manner in which Jinyoung had lobbed the question his way, it was the latter.

“I’m surprised she left the Academy,” he said instead. “She loved it there.”

Jinyoung flinched just the tiniest bit. “Yeah?”

Seunghyo ducked into a room and scanned the interior before closing the door and returning to the corridor. “Yeah. I still remember the first day I saw her there, she looked better than she had in weeks.”

Jinyoung opened a door leading into a laboratory. The equipment was covered in a thin layer of dust and was otherwise undisturbed. “Were the two of you still married then?”

Seunghyo shook his head. “No,” he replied, locking another door behind him. “We were already through by then, but I stopped by to talk to Johann.”

He saw the confused look on Jinyoung’s face and smiled. “He mentored me during the last year of Academy and we kept in touch after. You know, like Seah and Hana?”

Seah and Hana? Jinyoung thought to himself.

If Seunghyo noticed the pause, he didn’t let on. “I was just glad that Johann could find a place for her.”

For the next few minutes, they worked in silence. Doors opened and wary eyes peered around corners looking for any hint of danger. But there was nothing. Just the remains of hundreds of people that had been left behind.

Eventually, Jinyoung broke the silence. “When was the last time you and Hana spoke?”

“Oh, it’s been at least seven years. Give or take.” Seunghyo’s voice trailed off.

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“Seunghyo?”

Seunghyo took a deep breath. “Yeah?”

He knew what was coming next. He’d half-considered leaving Jinyoung behind so he could clear the corridor alone. Chances of running into anything were slim, but he didn’t want to call attention to himself either.

“What happened between the two of you?”

The pathfinder closed his eyes and looked at the corridor ahead. There was another gate-lock chamber just ahead. Similar to the one that had held the wraith earlier, but this one would be empty. Henry would have made sure of that.

Seunghyo walked forward and motioned for Jinyoung to follow him. Quietly, he motioned at the gate-lock. It only took a minute to activate the panel and close the gate-lock. It wasn’t soundproof, but it’d keep prying ears out of what was coming next.

“After Cyrus and Seah left, Hana struck out on her own for a bit,” Seunghyo explained.

It had been a difficult time for the both of them. Seunghyo remembered being busy with missions being assigned to him by the Society while Hana was taking on more prestige quests from larger clans backed by corporate sponsors.

“We started seeing the first major corporations starting to gather power then. Burdock, Series, Myosis. They started by taking over mining rights to dungeons for mana stones before moving on to sponsoring players and then eventually clans.”

“It sounds like they were raising armies,” Jinyoung said.

Seunghyo nodded. “They were.”

Hana and Seunghyo had kept their distance for a time, but corporate sponsors started hiring freelance players to help guide their own players through missions. It wasn’t much different from what Academy instructors did, but the pay was triple and the corporate sponsors supplied weapons, armor, and everything else.

“Hana had already made a name for herself with the Phoenix. People were already starting to call her the Shield Knight of the Blade.”

Jinyoung nodded. He’d heard enough to know that Hana had a legend about her. Back at the Seorak outbreak, more than a few players had approached her to express their awe and gratitude.

“Then what happened?”

The pair had been walking back to the dormitories. Seunghyo looked around them and chose a small laboratory. Inside, there were neat stacks and shelves of glassware. A handful of pieces were left out, as if someone had been running labs just an hour or two ago.

Seunghyo sighed. “She took a job. It was an expedition to a dungeon just south of the city.”

It was in late-January which meant the country hadn’t quite thawed yet. Aside from being cold, it was the time of year that new dungeon spawns appeared most.

Dungeons were dangerous, but they were also profitable. Monsters provided valuable materials while the dungeon itself could be home to rare minerals and resources like mana stones. So it was common for players and clans to take on expedition missions set up by corporate sponsors looking for their next gold mine.

“Was it a corporate-sponsored clan?”

Seunghyo grimaced. “No. It was worse.”