episode_0028

“Si-eun unni, So-eun unni, and I’m Cho-a.”

“Yes…”

“I’ll call you A-yeong unni.”

Kim A-yeong drinks her tea, trembling.

She flips the blanket and her eyes are swollen. The women introduce themselves to each other as Kim A-yeong enters the room.

After bringing Kim A-yeong to the room, Kim Shin looks at the women and leaves without a word.

“Unni, did you give birth?”

“Give birth?”

“Yes. Haven’t you yet?”

“…”

Kim A-yeong shakes her head and sighs.

“Are you asking if I had sex with that man?”

“Yes. Usually, they get pregnant on the first meeting, but when I saw your belly…”

Kim A-yeong couldn’t take her eyes off the bellies of the women in their underwear.

There was a clear pregnancy line below the belly button. Compared to them, she seemed fine, so she guessed why Baek Cho-a asked.

“Yes. I fell for him. But he said something strange… not right away.”

“Not right away? Hmm. Anyway, don’t worry about us for now. Don’t worry too much, Unni.”

Baek Cho-a reassures Kim A-yeong.

Kim A-yeong nods.

She looks at each woman’s face staring at her and speaks up.

“You and Cho-a, everyone is so beautiful. Let him judge our faces.”

Everyone smiles at Kim A-yeong’s joke.

Under her leadership, they discuss recent events and draw the structure of this temple on paper, exchanging opinions. As a civil servant, she leads the women with her unique drive.

After a long discussion, Kim A-yeong speaks up.

“We should escape after all.”

“I’ve been thinking about running away every day, but I can’t find an answer. There are too many soldiers guarding us.”

When Kim A-yeong suggests escaping, Baek Cho-a responds as if she had been waiting.

“Is the strongest one here that big guy?”

“Yes. Probably.”

“Um, well…”

Listening to Kim A-yeong and Baek Cho-a, Chae Si-eun, with a mole on her nose, hesitates before giving her opinion.

“Why, Si-eun unni?”

“There was a creature that could speak.”

“A cr-creature… that can speak?”

Kim A-yeong’s eyes widen in surprise.

“Yes. Unni. It even has a name. Agni. It’s really strange.”

“Cho-a, tell me everything. This is really important information.”

“Yes. It’s usually not visible, but I heard it’s immersed in phones or computers. It didn’t seem strong.”

Kim A-yeong quickly takes notes as Baek Cho-a provides information about approximate troop numbers and special individuals.

Having witnessed the abilities of the man who raped her, she now knows for sure.

Kim A-yeong plans to record everything here to give to her sister.

She is confident.

She says that Luna Guild, including her sister, will be nearby looking for her.

She must somehow obtain helpful information to pass on.

“Speaking means it’s intelligent, right?”

“Yes. By the way, he suggested a way to fix So-eun unni’s eyes.”

“Eyes? Unni, where were you hurt?”

Kim A-yeong’s gaze falls on Yi So-eun.

She sits silently, smiling gently and shaking her head.

“When I was first caught, my eyes were injured. I couldn’t see anything, but God healed me.”

“God…? Do you call that man that?”

Kim A-yeong feels uneasy looking at Yi So-eun’s calm face, unlike Chae Si-eun and Baek Cho-a, who seem anxious and eager to leave.

Even though she was not interested in the conversation, she saw Soeun going back and forth to the bathroom, fixing her makeup in front of the mirror and combing her hair.

“Yes. After fixing my eyes, I let go of the conversation…”

“Ha. Soeun Unnie! You’ve been acting strange lately!”

Baek Cho-a shouted towards Lee Soeun.

“That bastard fixed Unnie’s eyes like fixing a broken toy. Don’t you understand? We’re just sex slaves who give birth to monsters because of that guy!”

“Cho-a, I’m just grateful.”

“Don’t you have a family too, Unnie? Don’t you miss them? Your boyfriend was murdered, right? Surely not? You don’t like villains, do you?”

Kim A-yeong sitting next to her calmed Baek Cho-a down.

In the end, with tears streaming down her face, Lee Soeun bowed her head.

[Teeheehee.]

“Eek!”

Suddenly, a creepy laughter was heard.

The women screamed in terror, looking around the room. There was no monster anywhere, but the sound was unmistakable.

“Eek. Unnie, behind you!”

Baek Cho-a’s face turned pale blue.

The direction she was pointing to was where Kim A-yeong was sitting.

Unable to turn her head, Kim A-yeong froze in place.

Trembling in fear up to her chin, her expression was overwhelmed by terror.

Swish.

“You were telling quite an interesting story, so I was listening. You’re quite a smart female.”

A monster suddenly appeared in the air, speaking.

A green monster leaned towards Kim A-yeong.

It was Agni, the only entity capable of speaking.

Agni picked up the paper Kim A-yeong was writing on. His golden eyes quickly read the writing.

Laughing again, Agni opened his mouth.

“How should I pass this on to them?”

“Ah… Sob.”

Kim A-yeong slowly turned her head to meet Agni’s eyes.

She immediately closed her eyes tightly and shed tears.

The note she had written with a glimmer of hope was exposed in less than a few minutes.

“Hehehe. Writing this to request help from a higher-ranked human? Hehe. Female. You’re thinking wrong. No one can stop us no matter who comes. My father’s power is great, and I am by his side.”

Agni grabbed the cookies the women were eating.

Chewing on them, he walked towards the door. Turning his head, he looked at Kim A-yeong.

“Because you carry a strong warrior in your womb, I’ll pretend not to see it this time. But if you play tricks, even my father’s female will be burned alive. Hehe.”

Whoosh.

Flames erupted from Agni’s hand, the flames being blue.

In the blink of an eye, he disappeared.

The women’s eyes all focused on Kim A-yeong’s abdomen. Kim A-yeong, too, was staring at her belly, trembling all over.

“Aaah!!”

Screaming, Kim A-yeong collapsed unconscious.

***

“Lady Bugilma! Have you arrived!”

Men crowded around and bowed to greet Kim Lumi. She looked around anxiously.

A neighborhood packed with small studio apartments.

The steep road boasted a crazy slope where barely one car could climb.

Feeling suffocated by the scenery, she received reports from her subordinates.

“We are searching through all the buildings in the area. It should be completed by tomorrow.”

“What about the report?”

“We took testimony from a witness who claimed to have seen a strange sight.”

“What was it?”

Kim Lumi received the tablet handed to her by her subordinate. A video was playing, showing something quickly passing by in the street.

“What is this? It’s not clear.”

“It’s footage taken accidentally while testing the camera inside the room.”

“So?”

The man adjusted the playback and showed the video again. Kim Lumi’s eyes widened.

“Do you see it? By the way, the recorded time is dawn.”

“No matter how you look at it, it’s suspicious…”

“Yes. It seems like something is loaded on the rickshaw. And look at what’s on the head. Doesn’t it resemble the clothes worn by the guy who was with Bugilma?”

The appearance of a giant pulling a rickshaw in the video catches her eye.

A scene that needs to be slowed down to the lowest speed.

Wearing a helmet, the giant runs pulling the rickshaw at an astonishing speed.

Kim Lumi had a hunch.

It’s like they’re on the same side as the guys who kidnapped her brother.

“When was this footage taken exactly?”

“They say it was last week. When I asked if there was anything suspicious, they willingly showed it.”

“Their route?”

The man reached out his arm and pointed somewhere.

“It seems like they are heading towards Mount Gwanak.”

“Alright. Room searches are meaningless. Everyone will be reorganized to thoroughly search Mount Gwanak.”

“Yes. Bugilma.”

Over a hundred skilled individuals began to line up and march. Watching this, Kim Lumi spoke to her subordinate again.

“Make sure female guild members are grouped with men. Do you understand what that means?”

“Yes. I’ve done that. Oh, and they said they also dispatched agents from SRS.”

“How many?”

The man looks at Kim Lumi and answers with a smile.

“They say fifty are coming.”

“So many?”

“Yes. Seems like their pride has been greatly hurt.”

Sending fifty people from the elite SRS of about a hundred.

That was evidence of how badly the organization’s pride had been hurt.

The deaths of consecutive agents and the City Hall terror incident were the biggest reasons for the unfavorable public opinion.

“We have to find them first. Let’s go.”

“Yes! Bugilma.”

Due to the skilled individuals gathering one after another, a sense of impending crisis loomed over the mountain area.

It was truly the calm before the storm.