Chapter 37
Chapter 37
-----------------------------------------------------------------
Translator: penny
Chapter: 37
Chapter Title: Rescue Mission (3)
-----------------------------------------------------------------
He didn't answer.
Instead, he rolled his cold eyes around, scanning the surroundings. I smiled awkwardly again.
Part of the tower had collapsed. The door was blocked by fallen rubble, and the civilian and I had been pelted by a rain of stones. We'd nearly ended up as squished rats.
Dashing under the awning had been the best move. It had held up against the onslaught.
It looked like Kudo had cleared some of the rubble piled around the awning. Squinting against the pouring light, I shoved the man beside me.
This guy's nerves were made of steel. In a situation like this, spacing out wouldn't have been unusual.
"Go on out and stay put."
Even as my legs shook, I called out to the man's back as he stubbornly headed toward his senior.
"And don't cause any trouble."
"What trouble am I causing? And why'd you take so long to get here? You guys can lift cars like books, so you could've cleared this stuff in no time!"
He staggered along, grumbling nonstop.
What a guy. I let out a hollow laugh as I watched him complain even after surviving a brush with death.
Jonathan Kudo didn't spare him a glance.
"What?"
Kudo looked down at me for a long moment before breaking the silence.
I blinked once and met his gaze.
"Pardon?"
"Look at your back."
Ah.
He meant the burn on my back.
The Supreme Commander had passed along word that my recovery was weakened, but the seniors wouldn't fully grasp it until they saw it for themselves.
But Jonathan Kudo didn't seem worried about me.
It was more like pure curiosity. Like John Mullen's curiosity about me. He really was as difficult as they said.
My recruits were kind. Their masters worried about my imperfect recovery too. No need to mention Ami, and I could see Ricardo grumbling while looking after me.
...Choi Yoon was a sociopath, so best not to think about him.
Anyway, the point was that this senior was a bit different from the others. He'd save people because it was the mission and save me because I was his junior. But this man wouldn't care whether my name was Hildebert Talib or Hesy Lyle.
Best not to be a burden.
The state of my ankle, hit by rubble, had improved a lot. Dragging my leg, which no longer throbbed as much, I stood up with a smile.
"My recovery's a bit down, that's all. Thanks for pulling me out, Senior."
"Can you move?"
"Of course."
Kudo turned his head.
His demeanor said he'd confirmed I wouldn't be in the way. Without looking back, he headed out through the path of ruin I'd created.
I walked briskly toward the flood of light too.
Rumble rumble crash
"Argh! What the hell!"
"Urk."
The civilian's frantic shout hit my ears along with a heavy vibration. I stumbled, hurriedly regaining my balance.
Wow. It's about to come down soon.
"No! My building!"
The man looked up at the ominously shaking structure and wailed.
"My life's work!"
No wonder he kept refusing to leave. He was the building owner.
I gave a weary smile as I surveyed the situation. Rumble, rumble—the building shook heavily for a while before coming to a stop.
The tense calm before the storm.
I let out a sigh and looked around.
Visually, things didn't look as bad as I'd thought.
Part of the tower had collapsed. The entrances were buried in the rubble. But the lobby center, where the creature had been, was fine. The tower was structured around a central fountain that had blown wide open. That's why that spot was relatively intact.
"It's barely been open that long...."
The building owner clutched his face in despair.
"And it was supposed to rival Etak...."
Splash.
Water lapped at my ankle. The floor was flooded.
From a burst pipe? Or did it come from breaking the Sugar Aquarium tanks?
Come to think of it, what about Shu?
A chill settled in my gut as I turned to the senior.
"Senior, what about Senior Shu?"
"She got out, probably."
Kudo replied flatly as he scanned the floor.
"Comms are busted, so no contact."
"What?"
The despondent building owner looked up.
He stared at the senior's clean face, a mix of Eastern and Western features, then spoke.
"Comms are down? Then how are we supposed to contact the outside!"
"No phone?"
I pulled mine from my pocket and waved it.
"Is yours busted?"
The building owner stared at me for a long moment.
Then he slowly moved his arm to fish his phone from his pocket. He'd apparently forgotten he had it.
That happens.
Silence descended over the ruined lobby. The building owner panted as he buried his face in his phone amid the newfound quiet. I exhaled deeply, taking in the flood of sensations.
The sound of water somewhere. Concrete dust sifting down from the rubble piles. The acrid smell of stones.
Should we make our own way out? Or wait for outside help?
The senior didn't seem inclined to tell us. No idea what he was looking at. He was walking the lobby, swishing his knife through the rising water.
As I headed toward him to speak, the building owner shouted.
"Inside, I said!"
His voice was booming.
"Inside the tower! Call for help quick. Get me out of here! Didn't you see it shaking?"
A fish flopped down from above onto the frantically calling man.
The building owner flinched, I chuckled softly, and Kudo ignored it.
Pitifully, the owner slapped the already-dead perch onto the floor.
Splash!
"Damn it!"
"Senior, should we just wait here quietly?"
"He'll let us know the safest escape route soon enough."
Kudo replied matter-of-factly, eyes still fixed on the flooded floor.
"Since a celebrity's trapped. And it's a building in the heart of Zone 1's bustling district, so it's high-risk."
"Celebrity?"
Was he talking about himself?
I blinked in confusion, and an awkward silence fell. The building owner, clutching his phone and yelling, shut his mouth tight.
He stared at me with a look of disbelief.
"What. Why do you look like you've got question marks popping up behind your head? You don't know me?"
"Yes."
I answered straightforwardly.
How would I know you? Talking like some psycho with caller ID blocked.
But the owner's jaw dropped, and even Kudo looked up at me, so I'd messed up again.
This guy was the celebrity?
"You really don't know me?"
"Sorry. I'm a bit slow on current events."
"No, but still. You don't know me?"
"No idea. Tower owner?"
"Hey! I'm the chairman of Cureus Company!"
Some big corporation?
I glanced over, and my eyes met Kudo's. He was still swishing his knife through the water, staring right at me. Like he was checking if I really didn't know.
Like a cat eyeing a bug on the wallpaper.
Must be a well-known company.
But was that really important right now?
As if answering my thought, the phone rang.
I snatched it up, and an unfamiliar voice echoed through the tower.
[Please head to the stairs by the south entrance and escape via the underground parking garage.]
I looked up at the senior.
He approached me slowly, face unchanging.
Then he took the phone from my hand. The dried blood stuck to various parts of his body seemed to be his own. Even after getting caught in the explosion and recovering, he looked the most unscathed among us.
"Tower status?"
[It doesn't seem like it's collapsing right this instant, but you need to get out as fast as possible. Keep in mind the ceiling could come down.]
"Outside support?"
[Not easy. Touching it carelessly could accelerate the collapse.]
"Can't see the creature's corpse."
Jonathan Kudo dropped the bomb casually.
The building owner's face went sheet-white. I blinked slowly.
So that's why he'd been slashing the rising water with his knife. Looking for the creature's body.
And it was there. I thought it was just some fireball getting extinguished by the water.
The voice on the phone fell silent briefly.
[The creature's status is uncertain, then? Get out even faster. No other civilians besides the Cureus Company chairman?]
"Not seeing any."
"Wait a sec."
I jumped into the conversation.
The building owner, who had been biting his lip and scanning around, and the senior, replying flatly—both their gazes shot to me and pinned.
I met Kudo's gaze, devoid of even a speck of interest.
"A woman earlier was trying to come in because she couldn't see her kids."
[Her kids?]
"What?"
The senior startled.
I nodded to him, eyes wide.
"She was stopped by Shu and couldn't enter."
"They'd be dead even if they were inside!"
The building owner shrieked hysterically.
"We don't know if the creature's dead or alive, don't know when the building'll collapse, so why search for kids who might not even be there and might be dead already!"
"Any guess where they might be?"
"There's faint noise from upstairs."
"What?"
The building owner shot me a look that said this guy's spouting nonsense again.
But no matter how much contempt he threw my way, no matter the stare like I was the world's biggest idiot or Yoon's gaze implying my IQ was below a chimp's—I was inured to it.
I relayed my guess to the senior glaring at the owner.
"I've been hearing rustling from above since earlier. Plus, Senior Shu moved everyone in the tower to the second floor temporarily, so I'm checking around there."
"Got it."
Kudo replied promptly.
"You can check and get back safely."
The half-collapsed second floor.
With Kudo's permission, I ascended the buried escalator unsteadily and found a small brother and sister there.
***
"What."
The building owner panicked.
"Why are the kids here."
"I found something suitable temporarily and splinted it."
The seven-year-old boy's foot was a mess. Hit by falling debris, probably. Holding the four-year-old girl on my left and the seven-year-old boy on my right, I reported.
"The four-year-old girl is unharmed."
Kudo strode over and closely examined the boy's splint.
Only after the bold boy said, "What're you staring at so long," did he look up.
"We need to get out fast."
He looked straight at me.
"Impressive. Have you already learned civilian first aid?"