Chapter 43
Chapter 43
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Translator: penny
Chapter: 43
Chapter Title: Liar (4)
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"I'll walk on my own now. Put me down."
Jin Seohyun, who had been carried on his back, suddenly made the request.
He knew exactly what was behind those words, so Han Yujin quickened his pace.
"We're almost there, so no need to worry."
It wasn't an empty platitude to spare her feelings.
The landscape was growing closer and closer to the one in his memories.
If they kept heading in this direction, they'd reach their destination soon enough.
But Jin Seohyun didn't let up.
"Hide your breathing first before saying that. Honestly, Uncle, your condition isn't normal either, is it?"
She cut her words short.
It was hard to even joke that he was fine.
The 'Corruption' from the 'Plague Crow' was eating away at him bit by bit every moment.
By now, his entire abdomen was probably blackened and rotting.
He hadn't died yet, so it seemed it hadn't burrowed into his organs.
It wasn't at a level he couldn't endure.
"It's not serious. More importantly, we need to hurry—"
"Uncle."
A soft call. His breath caught in his throat.
Jin Seohyun had whispered directly into his ear.
Her arms wrapped tightly around his neck, drawing their already close distance even nearer.
The clear sensation of her skin pressed fully against his made his head spin.
"......You don't have to lie about something like this."
Jin Seohyun whispered gently.
Her voice held a mix of emotions.
Concern for his body, a petulant plea not to lie about even the small things.
There was no hint of the suspicion he'd feared, so he finally exhaled the breath he'd been holding.
Was it an unconscious act?
"Yeah. My mistake."
Even knowing it was pointless, he'd tried to deceive her out of habit.
He'd meant it as consideration, but would she take it that way?
Probably not.
She'd said she trusted him. Said she wouldn't pry.
For someone like Jin Seohyun, there was only one way to repay that.
Honesty. He decided not to hide it anymore.
"I've been hit with a curse called Corruption. But it's not enough to kill me right away. I can get it treated once we're out."
He tried to frame it positively, but Jin Seohyun wasn't dull enough to miss the implication.
Her voice grew a touch colder.
"How much longer can you hold out?"
He hesitated before answering.
"I can still move for at least half a day, so it's fine."
"Put me down right now."
Even in the most optimistic scenario, it was a maximum of six hours—after that, survival wasn't guaranteed.
Jin Seohyun no longer spoke in jest.
Her voice froze him solid; he couldn't even think of retorting.
The weight pressing on his shoulders vanished.
When he turned, Jin Seohyun was glaring with cold fury.
"So? How do you plan to escape?"
"When a gate-connected entrance appears, we'll go out through it."
The Endless Abyss, connected to all dimensions, could appear in any gate.
It was the same method Raid Leader Oh Seung-hoon had sought to rescue Jin Seohyun.
He'd entered through a gate glitch exploit, but that didn't mean there were other escape routes.
In the end, exiting through a gate-connected entrance was the only way out.
Nam Soyul had dismissed Oh Seung-hoon's plan as unrealistic.
Not only was the chance of finding an Endless Abyss entrance inside a gate extremely low, but once opened, it only stayed active for a short time.
Finding Jin Seohyun and extracting her within those few minutes in an infinite space was logically impossible.
But if certain conditions were met, it could be done.
Search for a gate where an Endless Abyss entrance appears?
No need. He knew of a fixed gate with one.
So before falling into the Endless Abyss, he'd given Nam Soyul those coordinates.
Time the entrance stays open isn't enough to find and retrieve Jin Seohyun?
No need to search. She just had to be there the moment it opened.
That's why he had to fall in.
He was the only one who knew where the entrance would appear.
The plan had two hurdles.
First: Could he find Jin Seohyun?
With no clever trick, it was pure luck. In the worst case, he might find her too late, already dead.
But he'd succeeded; she was alive right in front of him.
So only the second remained.
Second hurdle: Could he time it right?
They needed to be at the spot exactly when the Endless Abyss entrance opened.
Too early wouldn't work—a closed entrance didn't reopen.
Too late was impossible; the Endless Abyss wasn't a place you could survive indefinitely.
The set timing was four hours after he fell in.
To survive in the Endless Abyss, he needed to maintain his abilities constantly.
Even drinking potions, his mana wouldn't last longer than that.
It wasn't generous, but even this was an optimistic estimate.
Just, he'd found Jin Seohyun faster than expected, leaving some extra time.
"Even accounting for travel time, we have about 30 minutes to spare."
That's why he could explain so calmly.
It was lengthy, but since he'd resolved to be honest, he'd told her everything without omission.
"…."
True to her word, she didn't demand to know how he knew all this.
But she couldn't hide her expression—her anger had vanished, replaced by sheer bewilderment.
"Anything else you want to ask?"
"......How much mana do you have left?"
"Just enough, I guess. Got one potion left, so no issue."
"What kind?"
"It rapidly restores mana for about an hour..., ah."
At that point, he realized his slip.
Unlike stamina recovery potions, mana restoratives without side effects were extremely rare.
Jin Seohyun could easily guess from his abruptly cut-off words.
"It has side effects too, doesn't it?"
"...It's nothing major. Mana just won't recover much for the rest of the day."
He downplayed it, but she zeroed in on the core.
As a D-rank, he couldn't sustain his abilities long. To last hours, he needed potions. Each lasted an hour.
"So, how many have you taken?"
"......Two."
"Ha!"
Jin Seohyun let out a disbelieving scoff.
She glared precisely at where his face was, making him flinch despite the darkness.
"And you planned to take a third? Are you insane?"
One of the top rules listed for consuming alchemy potions:
Do not take multiple doses of the same potion in a short period.
Beyond diminishing returns, side effects amplified dramatically.
Two doses didn't just double the backlash—at least three or four times, exponentially more with quantity.
Three bottles of Cold Thirst probably would've left him mana-less for a month.
But it wasn't life-threatening, so he'd risked it.... Apparently, Jin Seohyun saw it differently—very differently.
"Hand over everything you have left."
Her tone carried ironclad resolve not to let him drink more.
Her glare was so fierce he unwittingly pulled out the last bottle, but he hesitated to hand it over.
If his abilities cut out, monsters would swarm.
"The monsters here would be tough even for you. Better if I—"
Tap. Jin Seohyun snatched the potion from his hand.
An impossibly precise grab for the pitch darkness.
Has it been like this since earlier? Just his imagination?
Pop!
The glass stopper came off, and Jin Seohyun gulped down the blue potion without hesitation.
She wiped her mouth and shot him a look.
"I'll protect you even if a meteor falls. You just shut up and lead the way, Uncle."
A meteor might be pushing it.
He almost objected, but her face was dead serious, so he clamped his mouth shut.
Why take jokes so earnestly?
Soon, Jin Seohyun approached him.
She grabbed his left hand precisely and urged him onward.
Exactly in the direction they'd been heading.
"Let's go."
He couldn't hold back at her absurd action.
"Wait... don't you not need to hold my hand?"
"What nonsense?"
"How are you moving so precisely when you can't see? Be honest—can you actually see me?"
"Look."
As if to check for himself, she shoved her face close.
Her pupils, indistinguishable by color in the dark, looked normal up close. No dilation issues.
She hadn't secretly taken a night vision potion.
"...Unbelievable. It's not like you can sense ahead without eyes or anything......"
So it really was just his imagination.
Muttering, he turned to resume leading.
He felt a faint tremble in their clasped hands but brushed it off.
Probably the darkness playing tricks.
Leading ahead, he couldn't see her face.
If he'd looked back then, would he have noticed?
"......Yeah."
Jin Seohyun squeezed his hand tightly.