Chapter 193: In the Land of Freedom
Translator: RaidenTL
Chapter 193: In the Land of Freedom
[This is Seoul, the site of the monstrous creature catastrophe. The stream of condolence visitors has been endless for days…]
[The victims rescued by the monster are reportedly still in quarantine, as it is unknown what effects they may have suffered. The treatment of these quarantined individuals is now becoming a source of controversy—]
[—What’s up, bros! This is a piece of the creature’s flesh I managed to get my hands on! Now, I’m going to find out what a monster tastes like, right here on—]
“Fuck. Who is that bastard?”
Yohan, who had been scrolling through videos recommended by the YouTube algorithm, glanced at the person beside him.
Hekaterina, who was drinking water, was glaring at Yohan’s smartphone with a look of disgust.
Yohan shrugged as if he had no idea.
“Who knows? It’s probably fake, right?”
“Of course it’s fake. There shouldn’t be any left. And even if there were, how would a civilian get their hands on it?”
But whether it was fake or not wasn’t the point. To put what Hekaterina had experienced into human terms, it was no different from someone getting ahold of her hair or fingernails and filming themselves eating it.
It was utterly repulsive, regardless of whether the piece was actually hers. If she were a celebrity or a public figure, it was the kind of thing that would have let her sue that YouTuber.
But she couldn't do that this time. The fame she had wasn't earned as her true self. In the first place…
“No one probably even knows you’re human.”
“Hmph, some people figured out my identity. They’re saying the angel who stopped the drone attacks in the city a few days ago is the source of that flesh.”
“Who’s saying that?”
“How should I know? It was some research institute.”
What Hekaterina had seen wasn't a real research institute, but a far-right political YouTube channel called the ‘Korea Situation Research Institute.’ She couldn't easily grasp that this channel was just the moniker of a single individual, not a group of actual researchers.
After a rather lengthy explanation, she finally realized she’d been duped and fumed with anger, but there was nothing she could do.
“Aish! Hey, Makina! Do you know where this bastard lives?”
“…Why are you asking me that?”
“You’re good with computers. Don’t you know?”
Makina let out a hollow laugh at Hekaterina’s ridiculous request and proceeded to ignore her.
Watching the two witches bicker, Yohan realized that the incident was now being treated more lightly in the news.
People must be starting to recover from the aftereffects.
When the victims first appeared, right after the incident broke, most people had reacted emotionally.
They shed tears for the dead, agreed to spend tax money for them, and cried out for the cause of the incident to be investigated.
Now that time had passed, such emotional displays had become less frequent, and people were beginning to act more rationally.
Surprisingly, no one has come looking for me.
The incident had occurred after the government had taken him, so it wasn't a difficult leap to assume he was connected to it in some way.
The same went for finding the culprit. The fact that a regular YouTube channel was spouting such nonsense meant that some people had begun to suspect Hekaterina, and finding her identity should have been simple.
The internet was flooded with photos and videos of the supercar she had been driving recklessly. In the 21st century, there were plenty of ways to find a person’s resident registration number, and even their home address, just from a license plate.
Yet, even days after the incident, no one had come looking for Yohan.
“Yohaaan～ Don’t you wanna go on a date?”
Perhaps because she’d been cooped up inside for over a week, Evangeline, longing for the outside air, hugged Yohan and began to whine.
Yohan briefly wondered if it was okay to go out, but then he realized he had nothing to be ashamed of and nodded.
Leaving behind the few witches who disliked going outside, Yohan stepped out of the house, only to freeze at the sight of men in uniform running toward him.
“So you’ve finally come out.”
“…What the hell is this.”
“We had no way to contact you inside, so we waited. Ah, this is who I am.”
The man at the front pulled a business card from his pocket. On it was written NSA, and the name John Smith.
“NSA?”
“You may not be familiar with it, so to put it simply, it’s like the National Intelligence Service of the United States.”
“Why does an NIS agent have a business card?”
“I had it specially made for today. I heard that people in the East consider exchanging business cards important.”
Yohan realized the man before him was confusing Korea with either Japan or China. He looked and sounded like a native speaker, so Yohan had no idea how he’d made such a mistake.
Yohan crumpled the business card and handed it back.
“We don’t have that tradition in Korea.”
“Is that so? My apologies. In any case—could we have a moment of your time to talk?”
“Sorry, I’m a little busy right now—.”
“America? Yohan, that’s the place, right? The one with some kind of goddess statue.”
Yohan, who was about to refuse John’s offer to go on a date with the witches, froze when he saw Evangeline show interest in America.
His own thoughts didn’t matter much. What was important was their opinion.
Hearing Evangeline, John smiled brightly and spoke immediately.
“That’s right. The Statue of Liberty. The Statue of Liberty is in our country.”
“I wonder if we can go too.”
“If you wish, we can prepare a private jet right away. The nearest airport is… let’s use Osan Air Base.”
“Yohan, some bug has been buzzing around for a while now.”
The next moment, Evangeline looked at John as if he were an actual insect.
“Should I get rid of it?”
Startled by her gaze and tone, which clearly didn't see them as human, the agents clamped their mouths shut and stepped back.
They knew that Evangeline was a superhuman being whose power far transcended that of a human, and that she was the hero who had saved people during the Seoul monstrous creature incident.
But there was one thing they had failed to realize.
These damn bastards…! What? Heroic aspects?
According to the analysis of American behavioral psychologists, the witches were supposed to possess heroic traits, willing to make sacrifices.
But meeting them in person, he saw no such self-sacrificing aspects. Instead, he caught a glimpse of a psychopathic side that didn’t view others as fellow human beings.
“Teacher. Do you want to go to America?”
“Yeah! I haven’t been to any other country since I came here. The people here are all nice, but it’s hard to tell their faces apart.”
“From my perspective, it’s harder to tell Westerners’ faces apart… Well, if that’s what you want, shall we go?”
The agents, who had been eavesdropping on Yohan and Evangeline’s conversation, let out a sigh of relief and turned their attention to Yohan.
They were confident that while communicating directly with the witches was dangerous, talking to Yohan would be fine. They made their offer to him.
“Mister Yohan. If you wish, we can have a private jet ready at any time…”
“Margaret, let’s go.”
“Pardon? Mister Yohan? What do you mean—.”
John, who was about to guide Yohan to the US military base, froze as Yohan and his group suddenly vanished from before his eyes.
He blinked several times, but the disappeared party did not reappear.
Only then did they realize that someone in Yohan’s group was capable of teleportation. They hadn't realized it because radar records had shown the other witches flying to Seoul.
“Oh, dear.”
Even if a nuclear bomb had been dropped on his homeland, he wouldn't have felt a shock like this.
Realizing the gravity of the situation, John quickly tried to contact his home country.
He had to report this as soon as possible.
-
America.
The Land of Freedom.
People’s eyes widened at the sight of the six people who had abruptly appeared there. It was because most of the group consisted of women so beautiful it made one’s eyes go round.
True to the country’s nickname, the people living there immediately began to approach the beauties.
“Whew, hey there, beautiful.”
“Wow—look at those tits. How much did they cost?”
“After you have a kid, they’ll be a waterslide.”
Words that would have been considered sexual harassment in Korea were treated as mere lighthearted flirting here. And so, they were spoken without hesitation.
The men who kept talking to them belatedly noticed that there was an Asian man among them.
“Bullshit, what’s a stinking monkey doing here…”
“Why don’t you hang with us instead of this yellow guy?”
Fortunately for them, most of the witches present didn't understand English.
Unfortunately for them, Yohan had begun to adopt the mindset of a man with a devil’s heart.
Roughly understanding the words “monkey” and “yellow” directed at him, Yohan let out a smirk and walked toward them. Then he flicked one of them on the forehead.
That was it. His body, enhanced by magic, was strong enough to cave in a man’s face with just that much force.
“Uh, uhh—?”
Yohan looked with pity at the man who ran away, abandoning his friend who was bleeding profusely from a crushed nose. He offered a word of comfort to the man collapsed on the ground.
“You’re in big trouble. Got good insurance?”
Pat, pat—after stroking the man’s cheek a few times, Yohan stood up and looked at his Teacher.
The witches were watching him with peculiar expressions.
Yohan just shrugged once and opened his mouth.
“What are you doing? We have to go see the Statue of Liberty.”
“—Ah, right.”
Leaving the fallen man behind, the group made their way toward the tourist attraction.