Chapter 205
Chapter 205
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Translator: penny
Chapter: 205
Chapter Title: Closing Down! (2)
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Scientists approached and helped me up.
They sat me down in a chair and handed me a canned coffee from who knows where.
I snapped back to my senses after feeling the chill of the cold can for a while.
“Why are you closing up shop?”
I grabbed Hiroshi’s arm and asked desperately.
“Why on earth…?”
“The boss is retiring.”
“Retiring?”
He’d even set up a franchise, and now suddenly retiring?
It’s not like there weren’t any customers.
I stared blankly into space. I couldn’t accept the current situation.
One of the few joys in my life was vanishing just like that. I couldn’t believe it.
This couldn’t be reality.
Byeongaebaek muttered in a baffled tone, “Are you making this fuss because the shop’s closing right now?”
I ignored his reaction. I also ignored Sophia’s disbelieving “Huh.”
Ami and the scientists patted my shoulder.
Yoon, sitting across from me, crossed his legs and scoffed.
“Finally, the world’s turning right.”
My master glanced indifferently at his phone.
“It should’ve gone under ages ago.”
“Ah~. That shitty franchise~?”
Ricardo, sitting next to Yoon, looked up from his phone.
“It hasn’t gone under yet~?”
Too much.
Life was too much, and the seniors’ reactions were too much.
I leaned back on the sofa in a daze.
Sean picked up my phone from the floor and carefully placed it in my hand. Hiroshi kindly opened the canned coffee for me. I drank the canned coffee of unknown flavor while blankly holding the phone.
I sat slumped in the chair like that for a long time.
Until the call came from Aide Ska.
***
“You’ll have to contact Falcon yourself.”
The command staff seemed to have racked their brains over the bomb I’d brought in.
It was only natural. Byeongaebaek was a bomb who might bolt at any moment. In fact, he’d been rolling his eyes the whole way to the HR Director’s office, searching for an escape route.
Fortunately, the HR Director greeted him with a smile.
As he sent out a woman from the office who anyone could see looked like his lover.
“Thank you for your hard work!”
Byeongaebaek stared blankly at the HR Director, who was smiling like flowers were blooming behind him.
“Come on in. What would you like to drink? Coffee? Tea? Or just water?”
I left the rest to him.
Interrogation was the HR Director’s domain, he’d said. I bowed my head, asking him to take good care of it, then headed up to the command staff office. There, I faced the aides with troubled expressions.
Ye-hyeon had an unavoidable official schedule.
That’s what Ska, who’d been pressing his forehead with his fist, said as soon as I closed the door.
“Falcon will guarantee his identity the best. You’ve got that contract from before too.”
“I’ll make contact.”
“If it’s inconvenient, we can do it for you.”
Ska narrowed his eyes and looked me over.
I let out a small laugh.
“I’ll do it.”
I had some questions to ask too.
“I’ll upload the report soon.”
“It’s your first time writing one, right? Get help from Yoon.”
That’s what I did.
Yoon grumbled about it being a hassle but readily reviewed my report. I had to endure a barrage of nagging while writing it.
There was a specific format for after-action reports, specific terminology to memorize, and I had to edit and upload footage from the cameras embedded in my earrings or weapons, so it took quite a while.
The seeds I’d collected had already been submitted to the science lab by Kal, apparently.
Everything from the dragon except one claw had been submitted too. The scientists had been over the moon about it.
I finished writing the report in a gloomy mood.
After wrapping up the miscellaneous tasks, I returned home with my master.
I grabbed Yoon, who was heading to his house across from mine, and handed over two games.
“Can you find out who I and R are?”
“Yeah.”
Yoon took the games.
“I’ll let you know tomorrow.”
After getting home, I prepared to take a call from Colton.
More precisely, I prepared to receive his call. I’d left a message asking him to call if he had time today.
He’d call when it suited him.
It was already evening. The days were getting shorter, and it was dark outside.
I gazed at the bluish darkness settling beyond the cabin window.
The fact that I could no longer order Rexy Knoodles hit me painfully.
This was reality.
I didn’t want to believe it.
Lost in grief, I searched for articles on my phone.
While scouring news articles and community reactions that had no substantial info, the phone rang.
I sighed and answered Colton’s call.
[You’re back, I see.]
“Yeah.”
I replied gloomily, lowering my eyes.
“I need a favor.”
Colton conveyed his consent with silence.
I stated my request matter-of-factly. I’d captured one of his kind outside the Core, and he was currently under interrogation at Black Badger HQ. I didn’t know how the interrogation would end, but once things were sorted, blend him seamlessly into society without issues.
That was the content of our contract.
Colton stayed silent until I finished explaining.
[I’ll handle it.]
No chit-chat.
[Is that all?]
…No.
Actually, I wanted to ask more. So much more.
But I hadn’t made up my mind yet. I couldn’t gauge how far I could pry.
So I pressed my forehead to my clasped hands and whispered.
Thinking of Sophia and Byeongaebaek.
“Why can’t I sense the presence of my kind?”
The presence of my kind living inside the Core.
“Did they sever their senses?”
[You wouldn’t be able to sense them.]
I heard the sound of pages turning over the receiver.
[But if they want, they could detect your presence. They’ve only erased their own, but they can still sense others’.]
My eyes widened.
It was an instinctive reaction. I lifted my head, which I’d bowed with eyes still wide.
I stared at the phone screen on the table.
The screen showing the contact “Bad Blood.”
“…Is that possible?”
[Didn’t you ask for perfect concealment?]
Colton spoke in a tone asking why I’d pose a question with an obvious answer.
[You requested perfect hiding. Since you did, we found the best way to fulfill it.]
Because that was the promise.
I couldn’t speak for a long time.
I thought he’d hang up midway since he was busy, but Colton silently turned pages without ending the call.
Thanks to that, I finally came to my senses after a while and asked again.
“They’re all doing well, right?”
My voice trembled faintly.
“They’re all… safe inside, right?”
[Want a status update?]
The bad blood asked back in an emotionless voice.
I reflexively almost said yes.
But I hurriedly swallowed the words rising in my throat.
Because what he’d told me minutes ago weighed heavily on me.
Colton’s words that they could sense my presence.
There was no way those like Kairos hadn’t sensed me. I remembered how hypersensitive they were to presences, and over a year had passed since I fell here, yet they hadn’t come looking.
So…
“No.”
I swallowed bitterly.
“Just knowing they’re inside is enough.”
[I can guarantee that much.]
“Yeah.”
I rubbed my dry face and bowed my head.
“That’s enough….”
It was heartbreaking for a moment.
But I quickly reined in the emotion. A lot of time had passed since the war. Hesy and Tom were at an age where they didn’t know Earth before the war.
That much time had passed, so surely a lot had happened, and they’d changed a lot too.
I pressed the back of my hand firmly against my eyes.
“This matter’s settled.”
Better end the call quick and compose myself.
“One last thing.”
I’d been debating whether to ask, but I had to.
“For reference, this is just a personal question.”
[You, of all people.]
“I’m desperate.”
I said earnestly, hands clasped.
What’s a friend for if not this.
I lowered the hand pressing my eyes. Placed both hands neatly on my knees, lifted my head, and looked at the call screen.
A voice I hated, but one I desperately needed right now.
Reading the “Bad Blood” on the screen, I asked.
“Do you know Rexy Knoodles?”
Colton didn’t answer for a long time.
The man finally let out a heavy sigh.
[I’m hanging up.]
“No, hey! Hear me out!”
Click.
The call ended.
The beeps followed: beep, beep, beep.
I stared blankly at the screen.
Cold bastard. After all these years, you can’t even hear me out.
Glared at the phone and flopped onto the beanbag.
I lay there until sleep overtook me, trying to process the various new facts I’d learned.
***
The next day.
My day off.
I felt something wrong with my body as soon as I woke up.
“Huh?”
I sat up in bed, clutched my throat, and blinked.
“Why does my throat hurt?”
It wasn’t just hurting.
It hurt unusually bad. It was a sore throat of an intensity I’d never experienced.
What the hell.
Startled by the unexpected situation, I couldn’t move right away.
It was bewildering.
Really bewildering? Back when the blue plague was rampant, I’d shared food with confirmed cases and chatted in cramped rooms. I’d pulled all-nighters taking over their duties.
I’d done every imaginable thing to get infected, yet I never caught the blue plague.
So I thought maybe I was asymptomatic, or immune.
And I don’t get colds, either.
Even healers and knights acknowledged my ironclad immunity…
“Now, of all times?”
I muttered blankly ahead.
At least humans weren’t getting this disease.
“But after decades?”
Ah.
Even muttering to myself hurts my throat.
Snapping out of my stunned daze only after feeling a stabbing hunger, I dragged my waterlogged body downstairs, stumbling. I shuffled to the fridge, flung it open, and grabbed something random.
What do I do now?
If I stay home all day and sleep, will it get better?
I’ve never had a cold before…
Wandering in confusion, I force-fed myself breakfast and concluded I’d stay home all day sleeping.
It’ll be better after sleep.
It always had been.
***
It wasn’t.
“Hey.”
Walking sluggishly through HQ, I lifted my head at the voice ahead.
And faced an unexpected face.
“Senior Tvein. Senior Chen.”
“Oh? You remember my name?”
The man I’d met at the year-end party, whom Ami called “Lee Jin-i,” replied as if it were amusing.
I smiled faintly.
“Yes, Senior. Long time no see.”
“What’s with that look?”
Tvein raised an eyebrow in his usual slouchy pose.
“Your face is a mess?”
My throat pain hadn’t subsided.
On top of that, a headache had started. That’s why I’d driven to HQ. To buy throat cold meds at the pharmacy attached to the clinic.
I’d reported my condition to Yoon yesterday.
As promised, when he came to the cabin after finding out I and R’s names.
Yoon had casually told me the names.
‘Igor and Rose.’
‘My god.’
Why had these completely unexpected people left something for me?
…At least they were both alive and well inside.
Anyway, Yoon had spotted my odd condition the moment he saw my face, and after hearing my confession, he’d scoffed.
As if he’d expected it.
‘Go to Samuel.’
I mumbled that sleeping all day might make it better, but it didn’t fly.
‘Did your kind get better sleeping all day?’
‘…No, but I really have strong immunity. No fever either.’
‘Make an appointment. You’re not critical, so you won’t get seen today, but get some meds.’
That’s why I was here buying meds today.
I’d asked for throat meds and was heading to the cafeteria to take them with water.
Looking into Tvein’s blue eyes, I smiled thinly.
“Just a bit of a cold coming on. Was heading to the cafeteria to take some meds with water.”
“Lunch?”
Chen leaned to one side and said.
“What, you going for lunch too?”
Ah.
This context can’t be.
“By yourself?”
No.
No…
***
I got dragged along.
I couldn’t refuse. More precisely, they wouldn’t accept a refusal. They couldn’t even imagine a junior refusing a senior’s invitation.
With even the so-called “Three Strikes”—ones Ami said to absolutely avoid—showing up, the situation worsened.
I wanted to go home and rest.
I gloomily glared at the chicken curry.
Staring at the food that showed no sign of decreasing, I turned my head.
Late hour, nearly empty cafeteria.
Faint sounds leaked from the TV mounted on one wall. Clinking dishes and TV noise filled the emptying space.
Wincing at the worsening headache, I blankly turned my gaze to the TV.
The seniors, who’d grilled me nonstop while getting food, were now chatting among themselves about club stuff.
Hurry up and finish so you let me go.
Can’t even taste it.
Thinking that, I sullenly watched the sports channel.
An awards ceremony was on.
Formula 1.
Pro auto racing event…
Clink!
I dropped my spoon.
“What?”
Tvein, chuckling while drinking cola, looked up.
“What’s with you?”
No energy to reply.
I was busy staring at the screen. Half out of it from the splitting headache.
I frantically scanned the face of the person walking to the podium.
I’d planned to seek out Asil right away upon return but gave up after Colton’s words.
Before the call, I’d asked if maybe he hadn’t stuck in Ricardo’s memory, but got no positive answer.
So I’d thought I might never see him again.
Those dazzling, sun-like eyes.
Sparkling with the joy of victory.
“Kairos?”
He lifted the F1 trophy high, smiling radiantly amid the confetti.