Chapter 117
Chapter 117
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Translator: penny
Chapter: 117
Chapter Title: Encounter (1)
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In the world.
At Lucia's innocent question, I gaped open-mouthed.
The others, including Dawson, turned to her with shocked expressions.
Yoon raised his head emotionlessly, but she continued speaking.
“I didn’t get to eat dinner because of the emergency assembly in the evening.”
“Here!”
The one who swiftly cut her off was Isaac, who frantically rummaged through his pockets and pulled out a chocolate bar.
He stretched out his arm, handed the chocolate bar to Lucia, and gave her a troubled smile.
“Want this? Chocolate bar!”
“A chocolate bar isn’t dinner, though….”
“Lucia Kwon.”
Everyone except Lucia flinched at the Master’s emotionless call.
The senior with the round bobbed haircut asked blankly.
“Yes?”
“Should I boil the maggots outside for you?”
By now, even Lucia seemed to realize something was wrong.
She stared at the squad leader, whose face was ghostlike and expressionless, then spoke in a shrinking voice.
“I’m fineee….”
“Once the mission’s over, everyone gather to comfort her.”
Of course, there was no way it would just pass like that.
“Aren’t you managing your junior properly?”
Isaac Lane smiled bitterly, Jerry Jones groaned and rolled his eyes upward, and the sociopath pair blinked.
Since the Master moved after saying that, no voices of protest emerged.
No one had guts that big.
While Lucia fumbled to unwrap the chocolate bar, people moved to their positions.
I headed to the rooftop with Yoon.
***
“So, you remembered?”
“Huh?”
As I lit the cigarette dangling from Yoon’s mouth, the question flew at me.
I blinked and snapped shut the Zippo lighter’s lid.
“What do you mean?”
“How the Titans control Creatures.”
Yoon exhaled a puff of smoke and leaned against the rooftop railing.
“Or how Level 10s kept coming back to life.”
I shoved the Zippo lighter into my pants pocket.
My kin had already sensed me. Though quite a distance from Zone 5, I couldn’t pinpoint exact locations or numbers, but I definitely felt they had shifted targets.
But that wasn’t what the Master was asking.
“They’re two different techniques. I’ll explain the latter first.”
“Go ahead.”
“Think of it as an intuitive way to acquire nutrition.”
Thinking of Ray sank my mood.
“It’s resurrecting by sucking in the energy from living beings. But hardly anyone could actually use it. Just me, Kyle, Ray…. And it’s not a technique you can use lightly.”
“Because you burn out?”
“Yes. There’s a limit to how much energy the body can handle.”
Yoon had clashed with Ray too.
He hadn’t seen Ray’s end, though.
I felt an urge to light a cigarette—even a tasteless one—and cast my gaze beyond the rooftop railing. The ruined city was buried in darkness.
Once, I might have strolled these streets with Ray, eating ice cream.
The returning question was dry.
“Why could only you three use it? If you’d taught it to your kin, you would’ve won the war.”
I let out a short laugh.
I’d thought that often.
But it wasn’t something you could learn, nor was it granted only to the talented.
“It’s hard to grasp with Earth concepts, but it’s not a learned skill—it’s a scar left only on survivors.”
Yoon silently urged me to continue.
I traced back to my growth years, which now sometimes felt like fantasy novels.
“It’s like a scar left on those who survive the curse from invoking a tree’s wrath. Think of it as a constitution change after surviving an illness.”
“I want to rebut that the whole sentence makes no sense, but whatever—it’s how your world worked.”
I laughed again.
A very Yoon-like response.
The explanation was the unvarnished truth. With my hand on the sword hilt, I gazed into the distance and continued the story.
Even there, most trees were just trees. But some weren’t—ones blessed by magic, grown in enriched soil, or born with talent from the seed.
Those grew into Divine Trees.
Anyone who cuts a Divine Tree is cursed and slowly dies.
“Why cut it then?”
“There were things we could only fight with swords made from Divine Trees.”
It happened before I turned twenty.
“The norm was to buy or obtain swords made from already-dead Divine Trees. But we had no means for that. War broke out, making survival impossible from the start.”
The temple burned.
The priests who raised me with love were torn apart by the enemy. It was an era where violence was daily life. I, an orphan protected and raised in the temple, could call myself fortunate. But eventually, the temple got swept into the flames of war. The enemy squeezed oil from the priests’ corpses and used it to fuel the fire that burned the temple.
I cut a Divine Tree to make a sword and slit their throats.
After revenge, I buried the corpses that were barely intact.
After burying 300 priests, I prayed for their souls and set out on a journey to lift the curse.
“Did you meet Kyle and Ray on that journey?”
“No. I met them after lifting the curse.”
But isn’t this story boring?
“We lifted the curse at different times, it seems. I was alone the whole journey to lift mine.”
“How do you lift the curse?”
“You go to the World Tree standing in the ruined city.”
The problem was dying before reaching it.
With the curse worsening your condition, Creatures swarming you. I learned only after lifting mine that cursed ones formed parties to reach the World Tree.
I got lucky.
Even with a party, survival odds were under 5% in that city.
“But are you really curious about this boring tale?”
“Quite.”
“What good does it do you? It’s a ruined world anyway. You couldn’t go even if you wanted to.”
“Level 10s….”
Yoon exhaled a puff of white smoke.
The chilly air scattered and erased it.
“…killed thousands of humans alone.”
Back to Ray.
I nodded, fighting off the gloom, my heightened senses detecting Creatures closing in.
But still some distance, so I continued the talk.
“Until the sclera burned, they orchestrated Creatures.”
“Yes. Controlling Creatures and absorbing them are completely different techniques. The former can be learned, but the latter, as I said…. The reverse eye is one trait of the latter. The sclera starts burning the moment you begin using it.”
“There’s a reason Ye-hyeon became a hero of chaos.”
The flat words wounded my heart.
I gripped the supply dagger tightly.
“Survivors of the First War hate it.”
Yoon flicked his finger, dropping the cigarette butt below the building.
“Those who remember the First War fear it. Later generations just recall it as the final boss of that era.”
“…Well. It’s the tale of one who’s gone now.”
“Don’t ever let it slip that you’re mourning the one you accidentally killed.”
I must have frozen like an idiot.
Yoon narrowed his eyes, observing me.
Then added.
“Ami was in a coma for two years after getting caught in your kin’s rampage. If she hadn’t woken from that, she might’ve tried to kill you just for being kin to that thing and having ties to it.”
“…And now you’re fine with it?”
“For me, only Ami and Ye-hyeon’s lives matter.”
Yoon shrugged, then drew his gun.
The distance had closed to dangerous levels. How did this man sense it so ghostlike without my level of perception?
I heard Leonard and Sylvia below chambering rounds.
Unbelievable Badgers aplenty, but three with solid skills.
At this speed, they’d reach B-7 Zone in 10 minutes.
“Don’t bother saving the stragglers. If you do, they’ll run off to save their own skins.”
“They run?”
I knew they’d deliberately herded the wrecks here, but I hadn’t realized it was bad enough for battlefield desertion?
How were these guys still Badgers?
Humanity was in a wartime state right now, after all.
“Is desertion tolerated?”
“No. Desertion’s execution.”
Right. That’s normal on a battlefield.
But then the story didn’t add up. As I furrowed my brows at Yoon, he smirked, curling one corner of his mouth.
“They’re just lucky no footage caught them at it.”
“Ah. No evidence to punish them, then.”
“So far. Who knows about today.”
He seemed excessively pleased.
Sounds started reaching us. The footsteps of approaching Creatures tickled my ears. About 7 minutes left. Assuming local Creatures didn’t block them.
I saw Yoon key the radio to relay the situation to the team.
But before he could speak, a voice burst from it.
[Zone 7!]
It was Richard Green.
[It’s Level 9!]
Ah.
And I sensed a familiar presence. My kin’s presence.
Among kin, one I knew.
The presence of one I’d roamed battlefields with.
She was the famous general the Empire adored.
[Heading to Grid!]
Hecate.
I’d see your face again.
You wanted a serious fight with me—that was your wish. Feeling her approaching presence, I smiled bitterly. What face are you making now that it’s happening?
She led the pack.
“Sylvia’ll be thrilled.”
Yoon muttered.
Why call Sylvia Kip just Sylvia, not Kip?
Tucking away the trivial curiosity, I drew my supply sword.
“You’re the type loved by weirdos, it seems.”
“Senior Sylvia’s love is kinda scary.”
Those on the 3rd and 1st floors seemed in minor panic, but I ignored it.
If needed, I’d jump to the ground, one foot on the railing.
The wind tousled my white hair.
“Any specific plan?”
“Nope.”
They were starting to appear now.
Creatures crawling heavily from the darkness.
My green-haired old comrade.
“Just move as you want, and get some shooting practice in.”
Yoon nodded at the gun I hadn’t even thought to draw.
As gunfire erupted, the man donned his helmet.
“Don’t trust anyone at your back, and don’t die from stupid mistakes.”
“Got it.”
“And you’ve seen battlefields, so you know.”
Even with his face covered by the helmet, I could see the Master’s smile.
A grin full of malicious expectation.
“Mutiny and desertion are execution.”
The Master clicked off the safety and started pulling the trigger.
“Deal with the enemy.”
Flesh bursting sounds came with a thick fishy stench.
The battle began.