Ch.42Aquamarine 5

In my hand, I hold a sword.

And my opponent is bound, unable to escape.

What should I do in this situation?

It’s simple.

I should behead him with my longsword.

But I didn’t do that.

I want to give him a more impressive, more narrative death.

How should I kill this man before me?

What if he experiences his own methods firsthand?

Dying while feeling the pain of those he’s killed.

Perfect.

“—!”

I dropped the sword.

The loud metallic sound strikes the ground.

Seeing this, a glimmer of hope blooms on Changyun’s face.

The Ranker asks me:

“Are you trying to fight fair and square? Good. With that attitude, I’ll give a good evaluation to the facility.”

The Ranker says something ridiculous.

Does he not understand his situation?

“What are you talking about?”

“…”

Changyun’s face twitches.

Soon his gaze gradually lowers toward his own body.

Because my hand has completely penetrated his abdomen.

“You think… you’re the only one… with strong hands?”

He can’t say anything, experiencing pain like never before.

He only makes choking sounds with his mouth slightly open.

The slimy sensation of digging into flesh.

Feeling it makes the centipede crawling in my mind writhe.

It expresses joy with its entire body as if having eaten delicious prey.

I shuddered at the pungent smell of blood.

Soon I twisted my penetrating hand, stirred it around, and savored the feeling.

It’s a fresh sensation, like focus filling my clouded eyes.

“Anna…”

But that thrilling sensation was soon completely shattered.

Because I heard a familiar voice.

My battered eyes look toward the voice.

It’s Seonye.

She approached me, dragging herself while bleeding profusely.

A long trail of bright red blood marks the path she crawled.

With bluish lips, she looks at me with a sorrowful face.

Her half-closed eyes are pitiful, as if begging me for mercy.

I respond to that mercy by looking at Changyun.

But when I came to my senses, he was already dead.

He had stiffened coldly with an expression crushed by fear, unable even to close his eyes.

“Run away… They’ll definitely send another Ranker.”

Honestly, I don’t need to listen to her words.

I wanted to face that man called the “First Ranker” from the laboratory again.

But…

Seeing this girl dying before my eyes makes that feeling disappear completely.

A desire to save this child immediately wells up.

At first, I couldn’t understand that emotion.

Is it because I truly love this child?

No.

It’s because if she dies without hearing the truth, I won’t know if our shared memories are fiction or real.

If I don’t even know that, the meaning of my existence will completely vanish.

My mind is split in two, with one personality wanting slaughter and the other wanting the value of life.

So for now, I want to save her.

Save her and sincerely ask.

If she regrets the time she spent with me.

I immediately went to her.

I took off my outer garment and wrapped it around Seonye’s wound.

“Bear with it. It’s going to hurt.”

“…”

When I applied strong pressure, Seonye exhaled with labored breath.

For a moment, I feared she might die with that sound.

But fortunately, Seonye looked up at me steadily with half-closed eyes.

She seems able to endure for now.

Relieved, I placed my hands on her legs and waist.

And slowly lifted her up.

“Where should we go?”

I looked at the broken window and the main entrance in succession.

Bright light was flickering again, just as I had seen earlier.

The follow-up unit.

Breaking through them and escaping isn’t difficult.

But it’s impossible to take Seonye out with me.

If a bullet were to hit her while escaping…

I don’t even want to imagine it.

“—.”

While thinking this, my hair stands on end.

That strange sensation prompts me to slowly look around.

The ceiling?

No.

Not the wall, like when Changyun ambushed Seonye.

It’s from beneath the floor of the store.

I feel subtle vibrations coming through the floorboards.

Could they have invaded even here?

“—!”

I almost stomped on the floor.

But before I could, someone came up through the floor.

More precisely, by opening a hidden secret door.

Eventually, the second person I could trust emerged.

“Daehyuk…”

“How many times do I have to tell you to add ‘mister’ at the end?”

He climbs up the passage, grunting.

His thick belly almost got stuck between the door.

“Lieutenant Han?”

“Here…”

I didn’t even know she was a lieutenant.

But from the context, I instinctively knew that lieutenant was Seonye.

“Not good. She’s lost too much blood…”

“I don’t know where to go.”

When I asked, he pointed to the passage he came from.

As if he had anticipated this situation.

“If you go through the passage, you’ll reach a collapsed subway. Follow those rails straight ahead.”

“What about you, mister?”

I ask him as he takes out a shotgun from under the counter.

Daehyuk smiles slyly while loading red bullets.

“You’ve even started worrying about others now?”

“This is no time for jokes. Aren’t you coming with us?”

I know.

Surely he doesn’t want to die in this situation.

He has a daughter.

What father would want to die leaving behind a daughter he cherishes enough to send to an expensive academy?

But Daehyuk just laughed at my thoughts.

“I’m a bartender. I have to protect my bar.”

He skillfully loaded the shotgun with one hand.

As a former mercenary for the facility, he knows reality better than anyone.

If we all flee together, we’ll be tracked and inevitably caught.

Someone has to stay behind to buy time.

Knowing this fact, he says:

“Go. Don’t get caught again.”

“Live freely for the rest of your life, Anna.”

Freedom…

I repeat that unfamiliar word in my mind.

Eventually, I nodded.

Given the situation, I have no choice but to use him to my advantage.

I threw myself into the dark passage.

Soon the light pouring from the store completely disappeared.

Loud gunshots echo above the ceiling.

Shotgun shells fall to the floor in droves.

“—.”

I run.

Since becoming an S-rank hunter, I’ve rarely panted while running.

But I ran like mad, my heartbeat audible to Seonye.

After running for some time, I soon discover a signpost on the wall.

“Gasan Digital Complex Station”

A station name I’ve never seen before.

Since coming to Korea, I immediately experienced the Gate incident, so I never had the chance to see the subway lines.

“Seonye, where should we go?”

Seonye’s body trembles at the sound of my voice.

Soon she opens her eyes again and groggily looks at the signpost.

“We need to… leave Seoul.”

“Seoul?”

“All of Seoul is within the facility’s radar. We need to escape to the outskirts…”

She says, coughing.

Dark red blood flows from her bluish lips.

That hot blood soaks my shirt.

That heat urged my steps even more.

A place outside Seoul…

I turned the corner and ran toward Line 7.

I climbed over debris scattered across the rails.

And unlike the previous station, I see a very simple signpost.

“Cheolsan”

Climbing over the debris, the night sky spreads across the heavens.

A melancholy crescent moon was shining down on us.

My legs are trembling.

I somehow dragged my feet into a secluded hill.

I went to the top of the hill and leaned her against a tree.

“Wait here. I’ll request a support helicopter from the association.”

I quickly took out my mobile phone.

Since signals didn’t work in the underground passage, I had no choice but to come to such a high place.

“—.”

Damn it.

Is it because it’s late at night? No one is answering the phone.

Please, someone answer.

Only council members have direct authority to dispatch helicopters.

I go through the names of all the council members I know.

Those who said they would help me anytime are of no help when I actually need them.

No one answers.

No one…

I almost dropped my phone in resignation.

“Hello?”

But hearing a woman’s voice through the screen, I immediately gripped the phone again.

And shouted without hesitation:

“Helicopter.”

“Ms. Anna? I didn’t expect you to call first.”

“Helicopter.”

Surprised by the sudden two words, there’s a long silence on the other end.

But soon, sensing the situation, a meaningful voice returns from the phone:

“Where are you?”

“Cheolsan. A hill with an abandoned apartment.”

“I’ll be there right away. Wait somewhere with signal.”

The call ended first.

I stuffed the phone into my back pocket.

And I approach Anna leaning against the tree.

“Wait. A helicopter will come soon.”

Seonye smiles broadly.

I don’t understand why she’s smiling despite such deep wounds.

“Why… did you bring me with you?”

In a situation where she might die, she asks a strange question.

“Because I have something to ask you.”

“About the truth about me?”

Seonye speaks preemptively, as if she had anticipated it.

But I calmly shook my head at those words.

“No, about our relationship.”

“Poor Anna… You still believe in me?”

Seonye smiles with her eyes half-closed.

White breath rises faintly from her mouth.

“Anna, I’m actually… not a facility inmate like you.”

She holds my approaching hand.

Her hands, which had always been warm throughout her life, are as cold as ice today.

“And you’re actually… not a survivor kidnapped by the facility.”

“What…?”

I knew it.

That Seonye wasn’t an ordinary inmate.

But to say that I wasn’t kidnapped by the facility either?

What does this mean?

“Actually, you were born there. Your awkwardness with emotions isn’t just because of drugs and training.”

“…”

I was born there?

Then my life in America and coming to Korea to see my mother…

“Your childhood was all artificially created, following an AI algorithm, the 32nd sample of the most ordinary human girl’s memories.”

My eyes tremble at her detailed explanation.

My eyes turned pale, truly like an emotionless machine.

“You were born combined with the genes of a famous swimmer. That swimmer was the greatest talent ever and also a psychopath who killed 50 women.”

So that’s why I instinctively swam when I fell from the facility.

Due to these matching truths, my entire body itches unbearably.

“You were born with the talents of both the greatest athlete and a murderer. To become Tolkin’s secret weapon.”

I look at my hands.

Rough hands with deeply lined palms.

Were this skin and these cells originally those of a murderer?

Through the gaps between my fingers, I ask Seonye:

“So everything happy I’ve experienced in my life so far was all fiction?”

Seonye didn’t answer that question.

She just barely nodded with her trembling head.

“I see.”

The wind blows.

Perhaps because of the high altitude, cold wind sweeps through my body.

“Then what about you?”

“Me…?”

Seonye’s face contorts.

She doesn’t seem to understand my question right away.

“Was the time you spent with me all fake too?”

“…”

Seonye didn’t answer this either.

No, she couldn’t.

“The way you waved at me first, making me cocktails with beer and champagne…”

“And even kissing me, was it all…?”

It was a first.

The tightness in my nose.

My eyes, pale all my life, turn red.

Perhaps due to my flushed face, my eyes grew hot.

“Yes.”

Seonye smiles faintly with her eyes narrowly open.

In that moment, I realize.

Who is the psychopath and who is the villain?

Is it Tolkin whom I’ve witnessed so far? Or Changyun who killed countless people?

No.

The greatest murderer was the woman right before my eyes.

She killed something inside me.

Tore it apart like a cruel psychopathic murderer.

That murderer soon begins to cough.

Surely if she hadn’t spoken, the coughing would have stopped and she could have lived longer.

But she deliberately coughed even more loudly, as if she had resolved something.

“Stop it.”

She disregards my words.

I stick close to her and forcibly insert my fingers into her mouth.

I feel saliva-covered fingers and teeth.

Through those teeth, Seonye expels her voice:

“Do you regret it now? The time you spent with me…”

Regret.

In the past, I certainly would have.

I was deceived by everyone, I’m still alone, and I’ll be alone forever.

How could I trust anyone again after experiencing this?

But…

I decided not to regret anymore.

Even if everything was fake, in those moments, I was truly happy.

That was… an undeniable reality.

“No, I don’t regret it.”

I barely confessed with trembling lips.

Having confessed, now it’s my turn to ask.

“What about you?”

I hope she thinks the same as me.

I hope she was happy during the time she spent with me.

Thinking this, I tightly closed my eyes.

Soon a faint breath reaches my ears.

That breath whispers to me:

“I regret it.”

The moment I heard those words, my trembling lips froze.

I slowly open my closed eyes and look at Seonye.

“I started this after being promised they’d take care of my family for life.”

“But, on the verge of completing the mission, I wavered because of you.”

She mutters with her eyes half-closed.

But soon her eyes begin to close slowly.

“If I die like this… what will happen to my brother Siho?”

“A poor child with no abilities…”

The boundary between Seonye’s pupil and white blurs.

Already losing focus, they move on their own.

“I’m sorry, Anna. I shouldn’t have given you even a shred of affection…”

“I’m sorry for making everything turn out so terribly…”

With those words, Seonye moved no more.

Her blood-covered hand falls lifelessly to the ground.

I stared blankly at that hand.

Seonye’s palm is covered with wounds from working at the bar.

From burns from pouring hot water,

To cuts from hurried dishwashing.

Those hands made me Aquamarine.

Made me Black Velvet.

Caressed my face.

Those hands have now completely stiffened cold.

A brother?

Even as she died, all she thought about was that damn brother…?

It’s futile.

My lifelong companion closed her eyes muttering about some other girl.

“Is this the end?”

The night sky remains serene.

The crescent moon still steadfastly illuminates me.

Seoul, viewed from the hill, is shining.

The city will never know what I’ve been through.