Chapter 163
***
I stayed up all night, caught between dream and reality.
Everything felt hazy, perhaps due to the lingering effects of the medicine.
Even the memory of a certain voice I heard in my dream was fading.
“You look better than I expected.”
And as soon as the day broke, an unexpected visitor came to see me.
“Branch Chief?”
A fellow Cradle cadet, Muyoung’s superior.
And one of the few who knew my true identity.
A handsome man with a dark stubble, Intelligence Bureau Branch Chief Mok Jinwoo, waved at me from across the partition.
“Ahem, I told you to call me ‘hyung’.”
“…What’s with that outfit?”
He was wearing a bizarre and cumbersome protective suit of some sort.
It looked very similar to what I had seen in books, worn by people called astronauts.
Before humanity lost the sky.
“There’s still a possibility of biological contamination. I barely got permission to visit you as the Branch Chief of the Intelligence Bureau.”
“Biological… contamination…?”
“Well, it just means there’s a possibility. No need to worry too much. From what I know, the quarantine will be lifted soon.”
Come to think of it, the hospital room did look like a closed-off quarantine space.
I followed his gesture and looked down.
My abdomen was wrapped in thick bandages.
A large wound that was still oozing blood, and a throbbing pain that persisted despite the painkillers.
This brought back vivid memories.
The nightmare city where orange smog flashed, the Nun, the people with blank eyes, the monster that seemed to come from another world, with dozens of tentacles…
“…Where is this place? And how long has it been since I collapsed?”
“This is the Cradle intensive care unit. As for the date… it’s been exactly three days as of today.”
At the same time, a certain person’s face flashed in my mind.
“Um, Branch Chief. Do you know about the girl who was with me…”
“Ah, you don’t need to worry about that young lady. She only suffered minor cuts and bruises, and she’ll be able to recover in a few days. Unlike you, there’s no risk of biological contamination for her.”
“Is that so…”
His casual attitude put me at ease a little.
Thankfully, it seems nothing serious happened to her.
But his words raised a question.
The lingering sensation of saliva and a rough tongue still remained on my lips.
This meant that Ddangkong had definitely visited.
But how did that cat get in here?
Into such a thoroughly isolated place.
The cat had always been unusually elusive, even for a cat.
On the day disaster struck our village.
On my birthday, it had also snuck out of the room where I had locked it up and accompanied us.
Considering that cats are naturally flexible animals, and Ddangkong is particularly small… did it somehow squeeze in and out?
I have no idea…
“Yeah. So, you just need to worry about yourself.”
Mok Jinwoo shook his head and shuddered.
“Kid, do you know how worried I was when I heard the news? You seem to cause trouble wherever you go. And only big ones at that. Like with Jinryeong, and now this…”
His assessment felt a bit unfair.
I didn’t cause the incidents.
Rather, I was dragged into them against my will.
“If those women find out about this, how much they’ll nag me… Ah, my head…”
The man rubbed his forehead as if he had a headache.
Those women… is he talking about my sisters?
They must have asked him to look out for me.
My sisters always tended to be overprotective of me…
“I… I’ll explain it to them.”
“Yeah, please do. By the way…”
“?”
Mok Jinwoo suddenly changed his expression and stared at me.
His smile held an unpleasant amount of slyness.
“Why… are you looking at me like that?”
“You’re quite something, really. Huh?”
His sly smile deepened.
“I can understand about the Jeokhwa young lady, but I never expected you to extend your reach to the heiresses of Paechun and Baekgwang.”
“…Excuse me?”
“You’re way better than Sa Jaehyuk. No? This is something even that guy couldn’t have come up with. To think you’d use your handsome looks to seduce the opposing factions… and even someone who has a fiance…”
His sudden words left me dumbfounded.
Reach? Handsome looks? Seduce? Who is seducing whom…?
“You managed to set up three households without the Principal finding out. You’ve got some nerve, huh? I guess Sa Jaehyuk wasn’t wrong to bring you into Cradle.”
“…I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Playing innocent now. I saw the affectionate look in that Paechun young lady’s eyes with my own two eyes. Do you know who personally carried you and rushed you to the Capital? It was none other than the young lady Baek Seoyeon.”
Mok Jinwoo’s mouth showed no signs of closing.
“And that’s not all. I heard she even offered to give you her blood. You woke up after three days, right? You were in critical condition. In a way, she’s your lifesaver.”
His excited voice gradually faded away.
A heavy feeling, like sinking to the bottom of a deep pond, enveloped me.
So, that look in her eyes… it really wasn’t my imagination.
Then, did she really… me…
“…”
The absurdity of the situation was simply baffling.
Mok Jinwoo doesn’t know about my past with her.
I hadn’t told the Principal or my sisters about it either.
Probably no one in this world knows.
She wouldn’t have gone around talking about her own ‘nightmare’ either.
Mok Jinwoo seems to think that I somehow worked my charm to gain her favor… but I never tried anything like that.
But an affectionate look? And even a blood transfusion…
A non-responder child from a frontier pioneer village, and a member of the Five Families, Heukryeon.
Is the difference in value really that great…
“…It’s not what you think.”
“Yeah, well, you would say that. That’s how it has to be, at least on the surface. After all, we’re talking about Heukryeon and Paechun here…”
“It’s really not…”
“I said I got it. No need to worry. I’ve been controlling the situation since you arrived in the Capital. Nothing will leak out, so rest assured and enjoy yourself. You rascal…”
His voice, oblivious to my inner turmoil, was still full of amusement.
This guy. He has no intention of listening to me…
“Anyway, even so, the fact that the Paechun heiress was the first to respond to your emergency rescue request is already widely known. In that case, it would be good to have a formal gesture of courtesy.”
“A gesture… of courtesy?”
“Yes. Even if you’re enemies, it’s good to be thorough with such things. It’s best not to give anyone something to criticize, don’t you think?”
“…”
Come to think of it, she had also given me a defensive magical artifact as an apology for the Jeokhwa incident.
She ended up leaving it behind this time after some consideration… but does that mean I need to show a similar gesture?
“…Thank you for the advice. I’ll keep it in mind.”
Just thinking about it made me feel down.
I didn’t really want to think about it right now.
“More importantly, what brings you here?”
I changed the subject.
I had a rough idea.
City 1, one of the seven major cities directly connected to the Capital.
I later heard that 70% of the Republic’s industrial capacity was concentrated in that city.
For unknown monsters to have nested in the underground of such a place, it was bound to cause an uproar.
And right now, there are only two people who can testify about the whole incident.
Besides simply checking on my well-being, this was also a matter that the Branch Chief of the Intelligence Bureau needed to address personally.
“…Currently, City 1 has lost almost all of its functions as an industrial city.”
Mok Jinwoo replied with a slightly more serious tone.
“Well, thanks to you, we were able to barely avoid the worst outcome. You’ve done a great service. The Supreme Council will probably strengthen Heukryeon’s position even more because of this. Though, the two of them seem to be more concerned about your well-being…”
He said, gesturing towards the ward visible through the window.
“Actually, I already heard testimony from the Baekgwang young lady before coming here. But there were many things that were hard to believe. So, I came here for… cross-verification.”
“…Most of what she said is probably true.”
I explained to Mok Jinwoo what I had experienced as thoroughly as possible.
And the part that caught his attention the most was, unsurprisingly, the story about the Nun.
“Even when her limbs were severed, they regenerated, she kept moving even when her heart was pierced, and she possessed unknown abilities…”
The playfulness in his voice was completely gone.
I watched him as he murmured, lost in thought.
But soon, a strange sense of incongruity washed over me.
All the events that took place in City 1.
If I had heard it from someone else without experiencing it myself, I probably wouldn’t have believed it easily either.
However, his expression didn’t show any signs of 고민, fear of the unknown enemy, or doubt about the testimony.
Rather, it felt more like he was dealing with a difficult opponent he had clearly encountered before.
Maybe it’s just my imagination…
“…”
And there was still a part I hadn’t told Mok Jinwoo.
Reflecting on the woman’s words, there were more than a few suspicious points.
The woman observed my movements and then asked about my relationship with someone called the Great Adversary.
It was a title I had never heard before, but it was clear that the movements she saw were based on the Predictive Techniques the Principal had taught me.
In addition, the feeling that we were very close.
The way she was horrified as soon as she felt my power.
And she even mentioned the word ‘Polaris’ that I definitely heard in my dream.
The answer is clear.
That woman clearly knew about this unknown power embedded in my body.
Just like the Principal.
“…Could it be… that the Principal went to the Southern region because of…”
Mok Jinwoo was still deep in thought.
He was a close friend of the Principal, someone who had helped me in many ways, and a member of the Intelligence Bureau, which oversaw almost all the secrets of the Republic.
Suddenly, a suspicion arose.
Could it be that this person also knows the true nature of my power?
Otherwise…
“…”
The Principal had said he would tell me the truth when I graduated from Cradle and returned, but I couldn’t just wait idly for that time, not knowing when another being like her might appear.
How many more like her might there be?
“…Branch Chief.”
“Hmm?”
After much deliberation, I finally spoke.
Perhaps he could shed some light on my doubts.
It was worth a try.
“Have you… heard about my ability?”
“…And if I have?”
His unexpectedly calm response was a bit flustering.
And I could tell for sure.
Someone like the Branch Chief of the Intelligence Bureau would have no trouble deflecting such a question.
But to respond with a question like that… it meant he had already considered this possibility.
Or he had been given prior notice.
“That woman, no… that creature knew about my ability. I’ve never told anyone except the Principal and my sisters.”
“…”
He had a deeply troubled expression.
Finally, after a long silence, he spoke.
“Sigh… I didn’t expect something like this to happen… If this is true, then what that guy said was right…”
His voice, uncharacteristically filled with anguish, could be heard.
“Don’t blame Sa Jaehyuk. He was worried about you, so he gave me a little heads-up.”
“I don’t particularly blame him. I genuinely trust you, Branch Chief.”
“What? Hehe, this kid… all grown up already…”
He raised his eyes slightly and let out a frivolous laugh.
Soon, a crackling announcement began to sound from the amplifier installed on the ceiling.
-Crack… Branch Chief Mok… your visiting hours are almost over… please proceed with the exit procedures…
“Tsk, time’s up already…”
He clicked his tongue lightly, looking up at the ceiling.
“You asked me what a witch was last time.”
As he turned to prepare for his departure, he brought up a random topic.
“Did you find the answers to your questions?”
“… মোটামুটি, yes. I read the materials that Muyoung brought me.”
“Oh? And how was it?”
“It wasn’t as much as I thought. Isn’t it just a given that there are more powerful and vicious criminals among women? After all, women are often more magically gifted than men. But is it really necessary to label them as witches…”
“It’s probably natural for you to feel that way. The materials you saw were probably heavily censored before being released…”
He said, stepping out of the isolation room.
“It’s difficult here… but come to the Intelligence Bureau branch later when you’re fully recovered. I’ll tell you everything you’re curious about then.”
And he added a mischievous remark.
“Even if you’re bored, just bear with it. The quarantine will be lifted soon. It must be tough, being surrounded by such strong-willed young ladies… Hehe.”
***
As he said, the quarantine was easily lifted after just one day.
It was initially a precaution, but they said the quarantine period had already ended when I lost consciousness.
And early in the morning on the day the quarantine was lifted.
-Bang!
The door opened with a loud bang, as if it were about to break.
Turning my head, I saw a familiar female student.
Two eyes shimmering with red particles, and an uncharacteristically haggard complexion.
“Senior?”
“…”
No response came.
Yeon Minha just stared at me with a cold gaze.
A sensation pricked at my skin.
I could tell that she was extremely angry right now.
What is that young lady so upset about this time?
Isn’t this a bit too much?
If you think about it, we ended up in that den of monsters while investigating the Jeokhwa incident.
I didn’t do it for praise… but still, I feel a bit hurt.
“Senior. It’s been a while…”
-Thump, thump, thump.
Yeon Minha ignored my words and walked towards me with heavy steps.
She showed no signs of stopping even when she was right in front of me.
-Thud.
“Senior?”
Yeon Minha buried her head in my chest as if she were ramming into me.
“…Uh.”
And she muttered something.
Clenching her delicate hands into fists, she repeatedly struck me.
-Thump, thump, thump.
The punches held no strength at all.
Rather, they were trembling violently.
-Thump, thump.
“Die. Just die.”
“Senior?”
-Thump, thump.
“Die. Just die. If you’re going to worry me like this… just… just…”
…It seems she wasn’t angry after all.
“Die. I don’t even want to see you. Just die…”
“…”
I knew that no words would reach her right now.
I raised my hand and gently stroked her back.
Hoping that some of my warmth would reach her.
***
Outside the hospital room.
A girl with black hair stood leaning against the wall in the hallway.
“…Ugh.”
A man gently stroking a young lady in his arms, as if handling a precious work of art.
Seeing this, she shrank back.
Clutching her chest where a sharp pain had struck.
The girl, who had been standing there, eventually staggered towards the outside.
What remained in that empty space was, without a doubt, the scent of forget-me-nots.
End of Chapter