episode_0193

Cheon Soyul and Baek Ayun returned after roughly clearing out the monsters roaming the surroundings.

“…Her gaze is truly murderous. Seriously.”

“Hm.”

Cheon Soyul, who had glanced at Eileen, shivered and turned back to look at me. Her gaze implied, “What on earth did you do to make her like that?”

Of course, I wouldn’t tell her myself what I did to Eileen, but…

Interpreting Cheon Soyul’s chilling gaze, it seemed to imply, “It’s obvious what you would do,” even without her saying anything.

“…Ahem.”

With an unidentifiable awkwardness, I let out a low cough and subtly stood up.

The pain in my temples had subsided quite a bit, and it felt like it was time to do something.

I mentally prepared myself for a moment, then walked to one side. Cheon Soyul flinched, and Baek Ayun trembled slightly, and even I really didn’t want to approach her.

However, I had just heard that ‘that thing’ – the unique monster, an anomalous entity close to a rogue one, that had fallen from the Gate – would soon move again.

Baek Muyeom said he heard that information from Eileen… so it must be Haru’s knowledge related to the original story, right?

“You—”

If so, I needed to hear more details. What exactly was that monster, how powerful was it, and would it be possible for us to defeat it with just our current strength?

*Clang!*

…If Eileen hadn’t drawn her iron rod as soon as I got within five meters, I would have certainly asked her all sorts of questions.

“Hm…”

Regrettably, her hostility towards me hadn’t seemed to disappear yet. But wasn’t I the one who should be wary of the villain?

Personally, thinking about how she and Haru had turned Jeokho Academy into a mess, I still felt quite uneasy, but…

Still, no one had died except for minor injuries, and now that I understood the Moonlight Sect’s grand objective, my enmity wasn’t as strong as before.

“Do you really have to… keep that edge?”

Moreover, aren’t we about to unite our strength to face a common enemy?

If we can’t even get along now, how are we going to catch such a monster?

I tried to persuade Eileen based on that rational logic, but she coldly muttered as if it didn’t matter.

“If Gwon Hwang hadn’t stopped me, I would have killed you long ago…”

“…”

“Don’t you think you should be grateful that I’m letting you live right now?”

Hm.

Her ferocity was beyond my expectations.

She looked at me with more hatred than I had imagined, which stung a little, but I nodded without showing it.

“I understand how you feel.”

And I spoke.

“Of course you’d be angry after being sexually assaulted. Yes, yes. That’s right. I can completely empathize with you not seeing me in a good light.”

“Then why don’t you bite your tongue and kill yourself?”

“…”

That’s a bit much.

I closed my mouth and rolled my eyes. Eileen, as if it were obvious, scoffed and menacingly jabbed her iron rod forward.

A dark red aura shimmered at the tip of the seemingly solid rod…

It clearly conveyed her intent to blast me to smithereens with her power of explosion if given the chance.

I smiled awkwardly and raised both hands to show I had no intention of fighting.

“Still, aren’t we going to have to work together for a while anyway? Haru must have had a purpose sending you here, so isn’t it—”

*Boom!* And finally, an explosion occurred, forcibly shutting my mouth.

To be precise, it wasn’t aimed at me, but it was an attack aimed between my legs.

…It was a sneak attack that made me seriously fear where she had been aiming. I gulped, and Eileen warned me in an even more chilling voice.

“I think you should speak more formally. There’s a limit to how much I can tolerate a junior constantly speaking informally to me.”

“Ah.”

I let out a short gasp of realization. Come to think of it, I’d been speaking informally far too naturally, hadn’t I?

‘Is it because she’s a villain?’

It was a sudden thought, but now that we were on the same side, I couldn’t unnecessarily upset her.

I wasn’t the type to have difficulty swallowing my pride, and besides, speaking formally to elders wasn’t even related to pride in the first place.

I scratched the back of my head and replied briefly.

“My apologies.”

“…”

Eileen’s expression grew even colder. Was that not right?

Should I have been more polite?

As I fell into deep contemplation, wondering if I should correct my words, Eileen sighed deeply with an indescribable expression.

Perhaps she had finally given up.

“…I don’t think I was asking for much, but I don’t know why the Pontiff likes a scoundrel like you so much.”

And from her next words, I learned one thing: Haru, the Pontiff, apparently liked me quite a lot.

I suspected it was because we were from the same ‘home country,’ but I had no particular feelings about it.

It wasn’t that I felt no sense of welcome.

Nor was I particularly happy.

I simply found a small comfort in the fact that I wasn’t the only one caught up in this reincarnation-like phenomenon.

In any case, there was no reason to worry about that crazy woman who wasn’t currently here.

“Anyway, so, there’s something I want to ask you.”

I immediately got to the point. Eileen looked back at me with displeasure.

…It seems I really need to be careful with my tone.

“That, um, about that monster that’s unusually different from the others.”

I began, and Eileen responded in a blunt voice.

“The Pontiff called him a Mutalisk.”

“…What did you say?”

“Mutalisk.”

For a moment, I couldn’t hide my surprise and made a foolish expression.

Eileen eyed me as if asking why I was reacting so intensely, but—

‘That woman…’

I merely thought one thing to myself. Haru seemed to have liked online games quite a bit in her past life…

“…That, um. I see. Anyway, do you know exactly what that Mutalisk is?”

“Of course I do.”

Eileen nodded at my question.

A brief silence followed, and I frowned deeply before speaking again.

“Please explain it to me.”

Then Eileen nodded as if she had been waiting. I wondered what she was trying to do, but without showing any such reaction on my face, she continued.

“I’m only relaying what the Pontiff told me, but… she also described that entity as the genesis.”

“…The genesis?”

“Yes. Before the end approaches, it’s the first and last signal that the other dimension beyond the Gate sends to humanity in this dimension.”

My face darkened, and I fell silent. Eileen, with a somewhat cautious expression, rubbed her iron rod and added one more word.

“Forty-nine days.”

Her red eyes, gazing up at the Gate still floating high in the sky, looked utterly unstable.

“It’s the last grace period left for our world.”

“…”

Perhaps I had expected it, but it was hard to believe.

No, perhaps I didn’t want to believe it—

‘Forty-nine days.’

…Hearing that, I felt a throbbing in my heart I had never experienced before and bit my lip hard.

After the series of events in Busan, I had vaguely suspected that this world was like a terminally ill patient, but… receiving this confirmation made my chest feel utterly stifled.

‘Can I stop it?’

I just vaguely wondered. The end, is it possible to stop it? Can it be stopped? The apocalypse that even the monstrous Haru had to tremble in fear of.

Rather than trying to stop something like that, wouldn’t it be more reasonable to lend my strength to her objective and somehow strive for survival?

Which one, I mean…

What’s the right thing to do?

“…”

It was then that Eileen, who had been staring at me as I was lost in thought, spoke again.

“Wouldn’t what needs to be prioritized be clearer than complex worries?”

“…Excuse me?”

“What is it that we need to do right now?”

It was a sudden question. I stammered, opening and closing my lips, and Eileen, after a brief pause, answered her own question.

“As someone who follows the Pontiff, I’ve come here to prevent the world from being ruined by an anomalous entity while the plan is still incomplete.”

“And you… perhaps to save Gwon Hwang, but regardless, aren’t you an Awakener who wants to stop the threat of the Gate?”

“You arrived in this city with that purpose. And this city… will likely be utterly devastated soon if we don’t act.”

For a moment, it felt as if my mouth was clamped shut.

I frowned slightly.

“…Anyway, our interests align, so you’re saying we should fight together, something like that? Someone who just heard the world only has 49 days left would hardly find such composure.”

“Your Gwon Hwang was the first to request my cooperation.”

“…That’s not what’s important right now.”

“Don’t speak informally. Respect your elders.”

As my mouth opened slightly again, unable to speak, Eileen, with the first gentle expression I’d seen from her, poked me in the chest.

With that iron rod, of course. It was unnecessarily solid and blunt, and it stung a little.

“For the fate of humanity… are you willing to lend your strength to this matter?”

She asked me, and I could only close my lips again.

But… there was probably only one answer I could give.

I merely didn’t utter that word, but instinctively checked the mana in my body, and suddenly asked the black-haired woman before me something that came to mind.

“You.”

“Why?”

“Are you truly a criminal who has been murdering S-class Awakeners?”

“…”

Eileen’s reaction to those words was slightly unusual. She showed a flicker of turmoil for the first time, then quickly erased it, twisting her lips.

“Yes.”

She gave a clear affirmative answer.

“I killed them. Those people.”

And the next moment, everything in my sight turned pure white, and a thunderous roar shook the ground as if heaven and earth were being torn apart.

*Rumble—!*

“…”

As I looked up at the sky in surprise, my vision returned around that time, and soon I was able to perceive the presence of something.

Something the size of a house floating high in the sky. Probably a monster.

*Screech!*

Gazing at the creature flapping its wings and letting out a terrifying shriek, I widened my eyes and thought of only one thing.

That bastard…

‘It really does look like a Mutalisk.’

It seemed Haru’s naming sense was quite excellent.