Chapter 87
Chapter 87
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Translator: penny
Chapter: 87
Chapter Title: Colosseum (3)
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A student with jet-black straight hair grown out to her waist.
She was dressed in a neat gray school uniform. Asil strode toward the student, who looked like she had just come home from school.
Barbie let out a voice full of bewilderment.
“Where are you going?”
It seemed a minor had caught his eye.
I awkwardly got to my feet as well. It wouldn’t look good for the rookie to just sit there blankly while the senior moved.
A high school girl sitting not far away.
There was no particular sense of incongruity in the way she carefully held an opera glass in one hand. No charisma or aggression like that from the elders. No stinging gazes from their lackeys lurking nearby.
She was just an utterly ordinary student, with nothing of the sort detectable.
From behind, Ricardo muttered, “That meddler anyway…”
I followed and stood behind my detective senior.
“What are you doing here?”
The senior jumped right in.
The high school girl looked up.
Asil fixed the wide-eyed student with a stiff voice.
“Coming in here is illegal in itself.”
The answer didn’t come right away.
The student simply sat quietly amid the noisy stadium, staring up at Asil. She was a plain girl. No makeup, no alterations to her uniform, no fancy accessories.
Just holding an expensive-looking opera glass in her hand.
An old-fashioned opera glass with a long handle attached to one side. I shifted my gaze from her puzzled face to examine the opera glass closely.
It was high quality.
Not some shoddy item made from cheap materials. Every intricate pattern engraved on the handle bore the touch of a skilled hand.
It must have cost a pretty penny.
Where did she get it? It’s not something you see just anywhere.
Was it inherited?
Why was I staring at the opera glass so intently?
The moment I grew puzzled by my own behavior, the student spoke up.
“Uncle, didn’t you come to watch the matches too?”
Sharp observation.
I let out a small awkward laugh, but Asil didn’t so much as twitch an eyebrow.
The senior asked in a truly cop-like tone.
“Where are you from? School?”
“It’s already over. I came straight here right after school ended.”
She tugged down the hem of her gray skirt that covered her knees.
“Didn’t even have time to change. The uniform has the school crest. And here’s my name tag.”
Below the school crest on the yellow name tag was written “Marie” in rough script. Asil furrowed his brow even more upon confirming the neatly embroidered student’s name.
“Do you know what kind of place this is? It’s no place for an underage student to come alone.”
The senior lectured with a stern face, but Marie wasn’t fazed.
She looked up at Asil with an expression of complete incomprehension.
“Why not?”
“It’s illegal, for one. And it’s full of lowlifes. A minor who can’t protect herself could end up in who knows what kind of trouble.”
“But I love these matches so much!”
A smile spread across the student’s face.
It was such a radiant smile that it made the viewer pause for a second.
It brimmed with pure, genuine joy.
“Creatures versus illegal Enhanced Body possessors! Isn’t it so thrilling and fun?”
“If you want to see that stuff, go to a movie theater or watch YouTube.”
“But neither can compare to seeing it live.”
Marie didn’t wipe the smile from her face.
I took in the sight of her bringing the opera glass up to her eyes. She seemed more eager than anyone for the match about to start. The warnings from the scowling man standing right beside her apparently fell on deaf ears.
Something’s off.
The student lowered the opera glass and turned back to us.
“My dad was an illegal Enhanced Body possessor too.”
“Ah.”
“He was always showing off his strength at home to me and Mom. But then.”
The plain student’s smile grew again.
Amid the increasingly noisy stadium, Marie finished her words with a smile full of conviction.
“One day, he got utterly crushed and killed by a Creature!”
Waaaaah!
Cheers engulfed the surroundings.
I looked up and saw the main MC appearing in the stadium. A typical white guy with sleek blond hair and an eerily white smile.
Dressed in a tuxedo, he waved to the crowd from atop a massive drone.
A hologram window popped up beside him.
That giant hologram board looked like the betting panel for the matches. The constantly shifting numbers made my eyes dizzy.
So tacky.
I was furrowing my brow when Barbie’s voice came from behind.
“You have to go!”
Ricardo and Barbie were right behind me.
Barbie grabbed Asil’s arm as he glanced back, frowning.
“Go quick! I’ll look after this kid!”
“Bye, Marie~.”
Beside Barbie, who was pulling Asil along, Ricardo grinned with wide eyes.
It was the attitude of someone who’d seen plenty of rebellious teens full of bravado and twisted curiosity coming to the stadium. Ignoring the MC’s microphone spiel of “Finally! He’s back! Overcoming all sorts of hardships! Finally! Back by your side!” with breezy cheer, Ricardo looked down at Marie.
“After one match ends, wanna go grab hot dogs with us~?”
Marie blinked several times.
While she pondered briefly before nodding yes, Asil quickly slipped out of the stadium. Thanks to Barbie’s urging that we’d handle the meddling.
Ricardo kept chatting with Marie.
It felt like being at a massive concert hall—ears ringing, air thick and stuffy.
While my seniors bustled about, I scanned the betting board and the frenzied crowd. The cops were supposedly going to raid all at once and haul everyone away later, but I doubted it’d go smoothly.
There’d definitely be tramplings. And surely some with weapons.
Is this even possible…?
Someone tugged my elbow.
“Over here.”
It was Marie’s voice.
Sometime while I wasn’t looking, my seniors had sat down on either side of her. I gave a faint smile as I watched her hand a caramel popcorn tub to Barbie.
“What is it?”
“Sit and watch with us, then we’ll go get hot dogs.”
Marie spoke in the bright tone of a student cheering at a live baseball game.
And flashed a fresh smile. One that carried a completely different vibe from the usual delinquent teens who frequented this place.
Her radiant smile grew even bigger.
“The first match is about to start!”
The sound of iron gates opening.
Cheers dropping off in an instant. EDM cutting out abruptly. I gazed down at the student with shining eyes, then slowly turned my body. My heightened hearing picked up the progress of the match. Hesitant footsteps approaching. The thudding steps of the Creature emerging from the iron gate.
The MC’s voice.
[The first match begins!]
Cheers shook the stadium.
***
The first match ended quickly.
I hadn’t expected one of the ousted elders to be the first sacrifice. In fact, the first victim was just a drug-addicted illegal implant. Had he impulsively gotten the illegal Enhanced Body and failed to pay up? Or some other backstory I couldn’t guess?
Either way, he died pathetically with his head smashed open.
The wild boar Creature with its mouth torn to its ears greedily lapped up the brains splattered across the stadium floor.
“Ah, too short. Such a shame.”
Marie, who had been avidly watching through her opera glass, sighed.
She set the opera glass neatly on her lap and murmured in a disappointed voice.
“Can’t I watch just one more before I go?”
“You’ve got unique tastes~.”
Ricardo, arms crossed and legs propped up, chuckled softly.
Barbie couldn’t accept the bizarre high school girl next to her. She shot Marie a glare, unable to mask her expression.
Ricardo, on the other hand, was laid-back. He turned his eyes to the stadium with his signature sharp smile.
I observed my senior, who looked like he was watching a boring holiday special movie.
“What’re you staring at~?”
“You look bored.”
My blunt reply made the green eyes roll.
I met the intense green gaze head-on.
“All of this.”
Cheers announced the start of the second match.
Ricardo, who had been eyeing me with an inscrutable look, turned his gaze forward.
I threw my eyes back to the stadium as well. The second implant was entering to face the wolf Creature with its torn mouth.
I figured he wouldn’t answer, but the senior replied bluntly.
“What these bastards are doing is all predictable…”
Crime syndicate stuff, huh.
“The cops’ll take a while to get ready… So after this ends, let’s step out for a bit…”
The second fighter wasn’t one of Colton’s sacrifices either.
He seemed like someone lost between bloated self-importance and a reality that couldn’t keep up, heading toward ruin. Overly self-conscious, every action felt unnatural.
But unlike the first victim, he had a will to live. He gripped his weapon and tried to survive the match.
He failed.
The second participant was eaten alive.
The sound of the illegal implant’s muscles and bones crunching echoed through the stadium.
The crazies had even mic’d up the Creature’s back.
Ricardo still wore his bored smile.
“Now, shall we go get those hot dogs~?”
As the participant’s death cries cut off, the green-eyed senior rose with a grin, hands in his pockets.
He looked down at Barbie, whose appetite had clearly vanished, and Marie, who was entranced.
“If we’re late, it’ll be crowded… Let’s go quick…”
We exited the stadium.
Noise fading in an instant. Vision darkening. We rode the elevator down and stepped outside, fresh air rushing in.
I felt a small sense of liberation as my vision cleared sharply.
That distant food truck had never looked so welcoming.
The hot dog truck was to the left of the beer truck.
We headed there, crossing a spot where hardly anyone was around except the truck staff. A wasteland lit only by the lights around the food trucks. Braving the chill wind biting our cheeks, we reached the truck.
Just one item on the menu.
Ricardo ordered hot dogs for our group.
Five hot dogs sliding into the oil together. While they fried to golden perfection, Asil came running up—he’d gotten Barbie’s message.
“Go with this kid.”
Barbie said, spotting Asil running through the darkness.
The senior, who had hurried over, nodded with a complicated look at Marie.
“Yes. Seems their prep is taking a bit longer…”
“Tell them to hurry it up. Their incompetence isn’t that surprising, but…”
“I’m on it.”
“Here.”
Marie thrust out a hot dog.
“Hot dogs are ready!”
Freshly fried golden hot dogs.
Dusted with sugar and squirted with ketchup. I watched my seniors pause their talk and take the hot dogs. They gripped the sticks that Marie handed them. Barbie took the first one, Asil accepted the next with reluctance, and Ricardo smiled as he took the third.
Then me.
Marie offered me a freshly fried hot dog.
I reached out with a faint smile.
“Thanks…”
Ah!
What was that?
My eyes widened reflexively.
What just happened?
My hand stung.
“A bug?”
Mosquito bite?
The moment I lifted my hand to check the spot, I spotted cops approaching from afar.
“You there, young lady! Come here right now!”
Unfortunately, a familiar voice.
I rolled my eyes slightly and saw a cop striding over aggressively, hands jammed in his aviation jacket.
Regina walked toward Marie with a grim expression.
“You know what kind of place this is and you still come here?”
A small scuffle broke out behind us.
The high school girl refused to go with the cops. Regina refused to let Marie go. They bickered in front of the food truck for a while. But while Regina’s high-handed words, Asil’s grumbling, and Barbie’s nagging continued, I was busy examining my hand.
Weird.
It definitely stung, but where did it bite?
Ever since reuniting with Jaeyeon, my senses of pain and touch had sharpened—I could feel a mosquito needle prick. Yet I couldn’t find any bug bite mark on my hand.
Didn’t seem like a hallucination…
I kept staring at my hand until Marie finally relented and decided to go with Regina.
Until Ricardo, who had been quietly observing me, tossed out a question.
“What’re you looking at so intently?”
The moment I looked up at Ricardo, Marie waved goodbye as she walked off with Regina, Barbie waved half-heartedly and muttered “She was nuts,” and I widened my eyes at my seniors’ hands.
“Ricardo.”
My sharpened vision caught tiny wounds on my seniors’ bodies—battle-hardened from long missions, numb to pain.
Tiny wounds, so small they probably hadn’t even felt them.
Injection marks, needle in and out.
“Why isn’t the blood stopping?”
Tiny beads of blood, needle-prick sized, welled up on my seniors’ hands.