Ch.12040. Soso’s Confession (2)

I met Soso’s eyes.

Her eyes were trembling. I could feel how nervous she was as she asked me that question. Instead of answering, I pulled her into a tight embrace.

When I didn’t respond, Soso seemed to grow anxious.

“H-hurry up and tell me! When people like each other… they’re supposed to date!”

I couldn’t remain silent any longer. Like Soso had done moments ago, I gently kissed her lips before answering.

“I can’t be in a relationship right now.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?! Another ridiculous excuse like last time!”

As expected, Soso was angry. Then her demeanor suddenly changed.

For a brief moment, the mana pressure around us intensified as if she had violently accelerated her mana. True to her mastery of the Heavenly Demon Divine Technique, she completely restrained my body with that mana pressure.

Soso climbed on top of me. Her jet-black long hair cascaded down over my face. The slightly dull look in her eyes that she usually had was nowhere to be found.

Eyes filled with deadly intent were staring down at me.

“You said you like me! What nonsense is this about not being able to date! If you’re just playing with me again…”

I had never played with Soso. But I couldn’t help thinking about how I had treated her back when I was Eins.

I had accepted her help to stay close to Yuri. And even though I vaguely knew she had feelings for me…

My feelings for Yuri were so strong that I never considered how Soso might feel. Rather, not wanting things to become awkward with Soso, not wanting to grow distant from her, I kept her by my side as a friend until the end.

‘And yet, in my third year at Eins, I even rejected Soso’s pair proposal.’

But now it was different. I like Soso. That feeling was completely different from when I was Eins, when I thought of her only as a friend.

“Was everything you just said about liking me a lie too?”

“No. It wasn’t a lie.”

I said, looking directly at her. Soso seemed overwhelmed with emotion in that moment. Tears welled up in her eyes and fell onto my cheeks.

“How does that make any sense? Then why can’t we date? Is it because of Yuri? Or is it because of Arin…”

I shook my head. Still not believing me, Soso suddenly gripped both my wrists tightly with her hands.

“Or is it because of Jung Yuha from Red Breakers?”

I almost laughed at that. Jung Yuha, the team leader at Red Breakers. She was an excellent swordswoman with a pretty face that made her quite popular among hunters in Busan.

But I had never once spoken to Jung Yuha privately, outside of guild business.

I shook my head. Soso cried out in response.

“If it’s not because of another woman, then why can’t we date?”

“No dating within the team. I need all of Flame’s strength. If even one person leaves our elite team, we won’t be able to face the Red Lake.”

Soso immediately understood what I meant.

“So in the end, it’s because you’re worried about Yuri and Arin! You’re lying to me again…”

“No, it’s different. I don’t have feelings for either of them. You’re the one I like. I plan to officially date you after everything is over.”

This statement was a mix of truth and lies. If my core mana continues to drain like this, I probably won’t survive even a year.

That’s why I have no intention of opening my heart to Yuri and Arin. But like the dream that overlapped earlier…

Deep in my heart, I still had feelings for those two. Emotions that I couldn’t explain in words remained.

However, despite those feelings, I was sincere when I said I liked Soso. If I weren’t living on borrowed time, even though my feelings for Yuri and Arin weren’t blank, I would have definitely chosen Soso.

“I don’t understand! We should just date! If I’m okay with it, why do you need to worry about those two!”

Soso shouted. She continued to cry and sob. But soon she fell silent too. My words were absurd, but she knew they were true.

Yuri, the S-rank hunter and guild master of Flame.

And Arin, who might awaken as a Holy Maiden—Soso, as Flame’s raid team leader, couldn’t deny that their powers were desperately needed by Flame right now.

If I were to officially date Soso, the already complicated emotional dynamics of Flame’s elite team would fall apart.

“If that’s the case, we could date secretly! If it’s a secret relationship that no one knows about…”

“You know that’s impossible.”

Soso couldn’t respond to that. Yuri was a guild master who possessed an information team with intelligence capabilities surpassing major corporate guilds.

And Arin was someone who had been casually coming in and out of my apartment. So trying to completely deceive those two and maintain a relationship would be tantamount to giving up on Flame’s mission.

Soso seemed to have calmed down a bit. The mana pressure restraining me decreased.

***

I quickly said to her:

“So please believe me. That my words are sincere. That right now, my only priority is to erase the Red Lake from this world.”

Soso released my wrists. The cause of my intense hatred for the Red Lake—Soso’s other self, the Blood Demon, certainly had a part in it.

Of course, the origin of that Blood Demon lay with me, but I knew well that the tender-hearted Soso couldn’t brazenly ignore the Blood Demon’s wrongs.

“I guess… there’s no choice.”

All the mana pressure restraining me disappeared. But instead of moving away from me, Soso buried her face in my chest.

“I’m happy that you said you would date me. But if your feelings change in the meantime… the future is uncertain.”

Still with our bodies pressed together, Soso hugged me tightly. I whispered in her ear.

“No need to worry. It won’t take that long.”

From Justice’s takeover of Busan to the final phase of the original story—it took less than half a year to reach the point just before the series was discontinued.

Of course, since the original was discontinued, I don’t know how much longer it would have taken to reach the point where the Red Lake was destroyed.

No, I don’t even know if destroying the Red Lake—preventing the resurrection of the Evil God—was even possible.

But I had to accomplish this before my life ran out. Because that was the only way to appease the vengeful spirits of Eins’s tragedy, those sacrificial lambs.

Soso replied to me:

“I’m still anxious… I can’t believe it. I’m not sure if I can believe that you like me…”

Soso burst into tears again.

“If you really, really like me, give me some assurance. Like when I lost you to Yuri… I’d rather die than feel that heart-wrenching pain again. Sob…?”

I wrapped my arms around her neck and silenced her lips. Soon my tongue moved past her lips, but Soso pushed my face away.

“Are you trying to gloss over this with just a kiss again? I’m not a fool… huh?”

I sat up. Then I laid Soso down on the bed. Unable to anticipate my sudden action,

Soso looked very flustered. I said to her:

“You want to know my true feelings, right?”

Soso didn’t answer right away, but soon she seemed to understand my intention and finally nodded.

Soso was wearing a hotel robe as pajamas. I untied the belt at her waist. As the robe opened, I could see her pale white skin.

My hand moved down to her torso. The clasp of her bra came undone. Soso squeezed her eyes shut in embarrassment, but finally spoke to me.

“I-I’m a virgin…”

“So am I.”

Involuntarily, I recalled the intimacy I had shared with Yuri in this hotel, in this room, but I hadn’t crossed the final line with her.

Of course, with Soso now, I intended to cross that line.

Soon all the clothes covering her bare skin disappeared on the bed. Until then, Soso had been breathing shallowly without saying anything.

Trembling with nervousness about her first time, she finally said to me:

“Be gentle.”

I nodded. That night, the two of us joined our bodies together.

***

A month had passed since the events in Busan concluded.

During that time, many things had happened at Flame. It had already been a month since we returned to headquarters. Having arrived early, I greeted Information Team Leader Seo Duho, who had arrived even earlier.

“Good morning. You’re already here?”

As I was about to respond to his greeting, I noticed that Team Leader Seo’s dark circles had deepened.

“Good… morning. Did you stay up all night, Team Leader Seo?”

Team Leader Seo nodded. We headed to the smoking room together. Before he could take out his lighter, I lit his cigarette for him, and he bowed his head gratefully.

“Thank you, Minsu. Phew…”

He exhaled a cloud of smoke and then said:

“It’s good that the guild has been upgraded to SS-rank, but this workload is impossible to handle even if I stay up every night.”

As he said, Flame had been upgraded to SS-rank a few days ago. The SS-rank guild classification was a special grade only given to guilds recognized as major corporations.

So naturally, the workload increased proportionally with the rank. That’s why Team Leader Seo’s dark circles had been getting darker lately with his constant overtime.

“Well, it was just as busy when we were in Manseong, but honestly, it’s other things that are more troublesome than the work.”

He took out a canned drink from the vending machine and handed it to me. I drank it and replied:

“Is it because of the situation in North America?”

“Yes. It seems the situation is worse than what I told you recently.”

After the Red Lake’s great uprising, the world had fallen into great chaos. The world was already in turmoil due to the threat of villains and monsters before that.

But now the Earth was clearly heading toward an apocalypse. As evidence, the United States, once the dominant power on Earth, had been fractured by the Red Lake not long ago.

Since civilian unrest affects national stability, even that information was controlled from the public. But as an SS-rank guild, Flame received real-time information.

Sigurd, which had been the second-largest corporation in Korea after Manseong. And behind it, the giant distribution conglomerate, the Udillunt Group.

‘They’ve sided with the Red Lake.’

Since Dead Arms, which was Sigurd’s satellite guild, had already allied with Lee Seonwoo, it was expected. Flame receiving the SS-rank was also the Association’s choice to fill the void left by Sigurd.

“Now the Red Lake is no longer just a terrorist organization but essentially a state-level entity. The world will become even more chaotic.”

I nodded at Team Leader Seo’s words. He too had lost his wife and child to the Red Lake. His hatred for the Red Lake was no less intense than mine.

“So we must defend Japan at all costs.”

“Yes, you’re right. But Japan was originally a place where the Udillunt Group had strong influence. Especially after the Soul-Devouring Demon Seo Munyeom took control of eastern Japan, the situation has worsened. I’m worried about what’s to come.”

As he said, villain forces centered around the Red Lake had greatly expanded their influence even to Asia.

While the bilateral alliance and the forces of the Stateless maintained control in parts of the Far East where national administrative power still functioned, Southeast Asia and eastern Japan had already been occupied by villain forces.

‘It’s already flowing like the final chapter of the original story.’

If that’s the case, the only way to prevent that destruction would lie with Flame, which had replaced the original characters. Team Leader Seo, who had lit another cigarette, suddenly looked at me and said:

“But we have to find a way somehow. We can’t just die with our eyes open. And fortunately, there’s also good news.”

“Good news… are you talking about Arin?”

“Yes, the Holy Maiden manifestation. Hasn’t the guild master spoken to you about it?”

I said yes.

Shortly after the headquarters’ daily routine began, Yuri summoned me to the guild master’s office.