Chapter 148
Chapter 148
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Translator: penny
Chapter: 148
Chapter Title: Small Progress (1)
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My mind returned slowly.
Ah.
I furrowed my brow at the pain starting to throb in my leg again. I could also feel the other body supporting mine. It was a sensation that hit me every time I woke from the dream voice.
I drew in a breath of cold air.
“Senior.”
Why is my throat so scratchy?
“Sorry. I’m awake now, so please put me down.”
“You’re awake~?”
Gasp.
The nape of my neck prickled.
In an instant, all my senses sharpened, and the situation snapped into crystal-clear focus.
That dilapidated building in the distance, where I’d fought my senior hand-to-hand—it was spotless now. The fog that had blanketed the streets was gone.
Streetlights and shadows cloaking the road.
Kudo was carrying me horizontally.
And two pairs of eyes looking down at me.
“Your leg hasn’t healed yet.”
“…I can walk.”
Why is Ricardo here?
I shoved my hands into my pockets and avoided the green gaze staring down at me. I quietly responded to Jonathan Kudo’s words while wriggling to plant my good foot on the ground.
My senior faintly furrowed his brow and refused to set me down.
“Your wound will reopen. Stay still.”
“…The creature….”
“Taken care of.”
Kudo replied briskly.
I pressed my lips into a thin line and blinked awkwardly.
It didn’t surprise me. Ricardo and Kudo must have handled the Ashen Cloak. It was something you could deal with easily if you didn’t get shaken by its illusions.
Illusions….
Ignoring the churning in my gut, I studiously avoided Ricardo’s gaze.
Why is he really here?
Did he come after seeing the missed call log?
Wasn’t that call deliberately ignored? Or did he not get it?
Lacking the nerve to speak first, I looked everywhere else.
“Hilde….”
Why are you calling me?
Pretending not to feel the awkwardness, I rolled my eyes.
They met his deep green ones.
Ricardo was staring at me with an inscrutable expression.
“Yes, Senior?”
“Let’s talk later~….”
Ah, why?
“After you’ve fully recovered.”
I was trying not to show my dread when Kudo cut in.
Fortunately, he looked fine and showed no sign of putting me down.
Ignoring my flailing good leg, he started walking.
A car was parked right there. My seniors were trying to lay me in the back seat of the vehicle with its hazard lights on. It seemed to be Ricardo’s car. No clutter, clean seats, dark green….
Isn’t this a Maserati?
I was meekly trying to climb into the back seat when I freaked out and refused.
“Blood will get on your car, Senior!”
“What’s this bullshit now…. Just get in~.”
“The seats are suede!”
Ricardo shot me a look of utter disdain.
But I was dead serious. Do you know how much this car costs?
My minor rebellion was overruled.
Kudo shoved me into the back seat in a flash. My protests about blood not coming off suede seats were completely ignored. They crammed me into the car, got in the front seats, and drove off.
I stared anxiously at the car’s ceiling.
Then I slowly lifted my injured leg to check the back seat….
Ah.
“Sorry, Senior. I’ll cover the cleaning fee….”
“Shut up and lie down~.”
“This thing costs a fortune….”
“How do you normally treat him for him to react like that?”
Kudo, who had been sitting silently in the passenger seat, suddenly chimed in. His voice carried genuine curiosity.
Ricardo raised his voice in reply.
“Wow~! This is so unfair! It’s his overreaction, not my fault~?!”
“Given your behavior….”
“Neither of you. I’m being perfectly reasonable.”
Of course, if it were Colton’s car, I wouldn’t care.
The guy has so many cars they’re rotting away, so it wouldn’t matter. Besides, I felt like I could brazenly ask Colton for favors now. After trying and failing to kill each other, what would hurt his feelings about a few requests?
I couldn’t remember why I’d tried so hard to kill him.
It felt important.
The dream voice had upended my memories, stabbing at my insides. What had I been about to say to Kyle? Why had I been so utterly devastated that I couldn’t kill Colton?
That damn thing—if it was going to mess with my past, it should’ve flipped it completely.
Ah.
I bolted upright.
“Kudo Senior.”
Kudo turned to look at me.
“Did you keep the ring safe?”
You didn’t drop it during the scuffle, right?
The answer didn’t come right away. Kudo stared at me for a long moment with an unreadable face.
Had I crossed a line? I still didn’t know what his relationship was with this Sarah Perry person.
Should I apologize? As I hesitated, Kudo nodded.
I let out a relieved sigh and lay back down in the seat. Silence filled the car, mingled with cool fragrance and the smell of blood.
God, the seat getting sticky with my blood is really bothering me.
“Don’t even think about paying for cleaning….”
How did you know?
I gave an awkward smile while gazing at the ceiling. Exhaustion hit me out of nowhere. I lay still as a corpse, listening to the tires gliding over the road.
The green sedan smoothly arrived at Black Badger headquarters.
***
“Hildebert?”
I’d just finished treatment for the thigh wound and was sitting in my hospital room when a visitor arrived.
I’d been staring blankly into space, having just been told to stay for two days. Hospital stays no longer felt miserable; I was relieved it was only two days. I planned to lie there and mull over the fragmented past memories and my scattered mistakes that had surfaced.
That’s when Sarah Perry showed up.
She had a much stronger presence than when she’d been next to Kudo. Her vibe felt completely different.
Caught off guard, I blinked repeatedly.
“May I come in?”
“Ah, yes. Of course.”
I gestured to the chair beside the bed.
Sarah strode in and took a seat.
Clear blue eyes. Sharper and without hesitation, unlike before.
She elegantly brushed back her bright hair.
“I came to say thank you.”
“Ah. Are you feeling okay?”
“Thanks to you. Thank you for saving me. I have something to tell you about Jonathan.”
Hm?
The conversation felt off….
“He said it was okay to tell you?”
She smiled faintly at my puzzled look, as if she’d anticipated my reaction.
“He said it’d be better if I explained.”
“You, Perry?”
“Call me Sarah.”
The woman replied straightforwardly.
I nodded slowly and looked at her. Glad to see her unharmed, but I had no idea what to say to someone I’d barely spoken to properly.
But before I could ask, she continued.
“As you’ve probably guessed, we’re not married.”
Her tone was light.
“We’re bound by a contract.”
“Yes?”
A dumb sound escaped me.
I couldn’t process her words for a while.
Sarah laughed brightly.
But there was no chance to ask questions. The explanation kept going, as if she understood my feelings but wanted me to hear her out first.
“His late wife was someone he was deeply attached to. He’s never made any demands that crossed the line, but my role is to dress and act like her.”
“Yes? Role… yes?”
“I’ve played real people in indie films a few times, and he somehow knew that.”
“No.”
“It’s not all day, just when he gets home from work—the show starts. He’s like a stone who barely holds hands, so this is a great gig for me, and for him…. It’s mutual help.”
I stared at her, at a loss for words.
Sarah grinned and met my eyes directly.
Her gaze said my reaction was perfectly reasonable.
But her next words carried pity.
“He lives in the past.”
“Ah.”
A brief memory flashed and vanished in my mind. My senior stubbornly using an outdated phone that puzzled me.
Refusing to change it.
The story about rebelling against orders to remove his ring….
“He can’t move on from that happy time.”
“…That’s why he clings to old things.”
“Is it just things? Probably with relationships too. He won’t even bother getting to know people he’s met since the Second War, right?”
That’s why he couldn’t remember my name early on.
If I were young, I wouldn’t have accepted his behavior. I might’ve distanced myself, calling him weird. Judgmental, creepy even.
But I grew up in an era riddled with violence and had seen its aftermath often.
Mental scars manifesting in different ways.
Desperate struggles to reverse the irreversible.
“Well, I’m acting to help with his patient’s rehab therapy.”
Sarah said slowly.
“Circumstances I can’t explain to others.”
“And Kudo wanted you to tell me this?”
“I was surprised too. He’s never said anything like this before.”
Sarah smiled faintly and studied me with a grin.
I sat there blankly on the bed, unable to grasp the meaning of her smile.
Until the dazzling blonde woman apologized for the late hour and left.
“It seems you’re an exception.”
Her amused voice mingled with the sound of the closing door, echoing in the room.
I stared at the closed door for a long time.
***
“How do you endure it?”
Around 3 a.m.
This time, Kudo came. I’d thought he’d gone home.
I didn’t answer his question for a long while.
Only when the ticking clock became unbearable did I speak.
“Is enduring so burdensome for you?”
I asked softly, and Kudo slowly sat in the chair by the bed.
I knew his silence affirmed it. My senior, in his usual neat clothes stained with my dried blood.
Loss never gets better.
There’s no end to loss; where a precious person once was, a pitch-black hole remains, never to be filled. I knew this man staggered because of that massive void.
The beautiful pre-war scenery….
I spoke slowly.
“I have things I need to wrap up.”
Kudo blinked.
I smiled faintly.
“I’m burning with purpose, living to clean up the messes.”
Kyle….
Killing him won’t magically restore Earth to its old glory. I’d seen many creatures I’d never encountered before. Lifeforms that didn’t seem born from where I was.
Even if I killed my own kind, they wouldn’t vanish.
I need to figure out where those weird things come from.
But for now, I have to stop Kyle.
And until then, I don’t want to die if possible.
“Senior. Sorry for peeking into your past without permission.”
“…Tit for tat.”
Kudo replied like a murmur, crossing his legs.
I smiled at him, looking far more human now.
I used to think he resembled John Muir.
“Even if enduring is burdensome, please keep enduring.”
His gaze rose from my shoe tips.
“For the sake of our remaining recruit comrades.”
Kudo stared at me blankly.
That signature unreadable face. The cat-like eyes observing a bug, like when we met in the collapsed tower.
He slowly broke the silence.
“I told Rick not to visit until you’re discharged, so rest easy.”
“Yes?”
“You seemed uncomfortable around him.”
My senior said clearly.
His next words carried conviction.
“Visiting would hinder your recovery.”
I burst out laughing.
His words struck me as hilariously unbearable. I didn’t know exactly why it was so funny. Maybe it was funny seeing Ricardo treated like this by a close friend, or funny that this man acted so human around his friend.
Either way, I laughed heartily.
He’d probably hate me too if he knew who I was.
Until then, I’d enjoy his small kindness.
With that thought, I gathered my laughter.
Leaving a faint smile, I expressed my thanks.
“Thank you for caring, Senior. I’ll be back on duty soon. They said two days.”
“…Focus on fully recovering.”
“It’ll heal in two days. The doctor said so.”
After discharge, I need to buy a phone and contact Ye-hyeon.
And I should keep a close eye on this senior from now on. He might make an extreme choice when he’s in a bad state.
I quietly saw him off as he left, still not grasping exactly what Sarah meant by “you’re an exception.”
***
Two days passed in a flash.
Discharge day.
I ran into Ricardo in the hospital lobby.
My senior approached, and I flinched reflexively.
His green eyes narrowed menacingly as he observed me avoiding his gaze.
“Hilde~… Shall we talk now~?”