The Truth (2)
"...Lady Great Order?"
"Wh-Where are you going?"
Heroes who had come sprinting desperately toward the Seminar Central Conference Room caught sight of Great Order trudging blankly down the corridor, calling out to her in frantic confusion.
"..."
She did not answer. She merely dragged one foot before the other, moving forward in an empty daze.
"Th-The person in your arms..."
"Is that a victim?"
"Are they still alive?"
Cradled limply against her chest was the lifeless corpse of Oh Ji-seok.
Her slow, heavy footsteps echoed hollowly against the floor. Every ounce of vitality had bled out of him, leaving his body completely devoid of warmth. The freezing chill seeping through his skin pressed into her own flesh, a merciless reminder that he had crossed a river of no return.
"Haa, haa..."
Just as Kang Maru's body began to tremble violently, ragged gasps broke through the corridor from the opposite direction.
"Over there!"
It was Ariel. She had pushed herself beyond her limits to guide the arriving heroes, and now she came barreling down the hallway with whatever strength she had left. Her legs were covered in scrapes and bruises from falling repeatedly along the way, but she gritted her teeth, desperate to reach the place where Professor Oh Ji-seok had been.
"He was definitely..."
Ariel suddenly caught sight of what lay ahead, and her pace faltered.
"...right here..."
Her wide eyes locked onto Kang Haneul—dead in the guise of Oh Ji-seok—cradled in Kang Maru's arms.
Silence slammed down upon the corridor like a lead weight.
"...You said you wouldn't die."
Ariel took a slow, trembling step forward. A fragile murmur broke from her shaking lips.
"You promised me, Professor."
Stepping directly into Kang Maru's path, Ariel reached out and seized Oh Ji-seok's dangling, limp arm.
"Get up right now."
"Student, please—"
"Professor..."
"Calm down, student..."
Grief-stricken heroes stepped in, gently trying to pull her away. But Kang Maru's pupils quivered violently as she finally recognized who stood before her—Ariel Everray, the younger sister of Justia.
Ariel refused to let go. Clinging fiercely to his arm, she wrenched Kang Haneul out of Kang Maru's grasp and pulled him into her own embrace.
"...Ah."
She rubbed his hands and legs with desperate fervor, but all she met was the freezing chill of death. When her trembling fingers pressed against his wrist and felt no pulse whatsoever, her head dropped slowly forward.
A suffocating quiet enveloped the hall once more.
"Why couldn't you protect him?"
Ariel was shaking from head to toe, her bowed head masking her expression. When her voice broke through the silence, it was terrifyingly cold.
"You're a Top-Ranking Hero, aren't you?"
"..."
Kang Maru wanted to offer some kind of excuse, some answer, but her tongue felt like lead. Nothing came out.
"Why couldn't you keep him safe?"
How could she speak? Far from protecting him, she was the one who had throttled his neck until his fading lifespan shattered entirely.
"Someone like you... someone so many times stronger than me..."
"..."
"You could have saved him... I know you could have..."
Tear-choked fury tore from Ariel's throat as she glared at the frozen, statue-like woman. But then, her breath caught.
"...Wait."
Ariel's eyes widened in disbelief.
"What is this?"
Circling Kang Haneul's throat were vivid crimson bruises shaped like fingers, embedded with deep fingernail gouges.
"This isn't... a wound from a magical beast..."
Muttering under her breath, Ariel slowly lifted her head.
"..."
Her gaze locked onto Kang Maru's hands—stained bright with fresh blood.
"...Did you kill him?"
Ariel noticed the torn skin clinging beneath Maru's fingernails and the shredded fabric matching Oh Ji-seok's collar. She pushed herself up from the floor, her voice sinking into a venomous whisper. "Did you kill him?"
"St-Student, wait—"
"Why did you kill him?!"
As Ariel took a measured, predatory step forward, the last shred of rational thought vanished from her eyes. "The professor gave everything to save me... He was torn to pieces protecting me! So why..."
"..."
"Why did you murder him?!"
Her crimson eyes burned with a dark, suffocating madness, pinning Kang Maru where she stood.
"You're a kaijin."
A violent, crimson aura began to swirl around Ariel's entire frame, the atmospheric pressure plummeting in an instant. "You have to be a kaijin. There's no other reason on earth you would ever murder him."
Kang Maru's face drained of all color. Stumbling backward in sheer horror, she caught her heel and collapsed onto the rubble.
Then, the world shattered.
"Wh-What is this?!"
"Student, calm down! Stop!"
Ariel's erupting aura went completely berserk, the shockwaves tearing into the corridor walls and rattling the entire foundation.
"AAAAAAAHHHHHHH!"
A howl of pure, unadulterated agony tore from Ariel's chest as she charged forward through the ruined wreckage. But right at that very moment, the shadows cast by the debris began to twist and churn.
"Ah... ahh..."
The nightmarish entities that had always dwelled within Kang Haneul's shadow were now writhing within Kang Maru's own shadow.
They met her gaze. Countless beastly eyes opened from the dark floor, curving into sickening smiles.
"No... no, please..."
She couldn't understand their gutter language, yet somehow, the intent behind those dark, leering eyes pierced straight into her mind.
It's been a while.
So good to see you again.
The monsters bound to Kang Haneul's shadow were pouring into hers, sinking their tendrils into her spiritual core.
"D-Don't come near me!" Cold sweat poured down Maru's face as she shrieked at the top of her lungs. "Stay away from meeeee!"
The world dissolved into a blinding crimson flash.
A colossal explosion swallowed the hallway whole. When the thunderous roar finally subsided, an eerie, dead silence fell over the decimated ruins.
"D-Doctor! The patient is awake!"
"...What?"
When Kang Maru opened her eyes again, several days had already passed. She found herself lying in a quiet hospital room.
"Can you hear me? Can you understand what I'm saying?"
"..."
"Ma'am? Can you hear my voice?"
Where am I? Just a moment ago, I was at the Hero Seminar... Was it all a nightmare?
Pushing her upper body off the mattress, Maru stared blankly into space until her gaze drifted toward the television mounted on the far wall.
The realization that none of it had been a dream struck her like a sledgehammer. Swaying unsteadily, Kang Maru threw her legs over the side of the bed.
The moment Kang Haneul's disguised face flashed across the screen, she ripped the IV needle straight out of her arm and stumbled blindly toward the door.
"Wait! Where are you going?!"
"You must not move yet!"
"Please, someone help hold her down!"
The magical beasts that had clung to her until she lost consciousness were nowhere in sight. Yet every step she took felt impossibly heavy, as if hundreds of unseen hands reaching out from the shadows were dragging at her ankles.
"Haa, haa..."
Her knees buckled under the phantom weight, and she crashed onto the hard floor in a cold sweat.
"See what I told you?! You can't be walking right now—"
"Pl-Please... get out of my way."
"What?"
As the nurses tried to haul her back onto her feet, Kang Maru's voice shook with a desperate, broken plea. "There's somewhere I have to go."
The overwhelming authority of a Top-Ranking Hero was nowhere to be found.
"Right now... I have to go there right this second..."
Her face was stark white, her eyes vacant and trembling on the verge of total collapse. Watching her, one of the nurses turned to the doctor and whispered anxiously, "She appears to be suffering from severe acute psychological trauma."
"Hmm..."
"Ma'am, if you need to contact someone, I'll lend you my phone," the nurse said gently, soothing her like a frightened child. "So please, let's just get back into bed first, okay?"
"L-Let go of me..."
She tried with all her might to shake off their hands, but several staff members swarmed in, pulling her firmly back toward the mattress.
"Let go... please..."
A sudden wave of vertigo crashed through her skull, tearing open a locked drawer in her memory.
"Let go of me..."
The memory of someone clinging desperately to her, holding on for dear life, tore violently into her mind.
"Ugh..."
Kang Maru clutched her throbbing head, groaning in agony.
"Ma'am?"
"..."
"Ma'am! Can you hear me?"
The nurse's voice snapped her out of the haze. She blinked and glanced at the wall clock—thirty whole minutes had slipped away while she was trapped in that vision.
"Are you feeling any better?" The nurse let out a soft sigh, pressing a smartphone into her palm. "I'm lending you my personal phone. Please use this to make your call, and promise me you won't try to run off again."
Kang Maru sat in silence as the medical staff finally left the room, closing the door behind them.
Staring blankly at the illuminated screen, she opened the browser and typed in a search query: OO Orphanage.
Finding the contact number listed on the portal, she dialed with shaking fingers and pressed the phone to her ear.
"...Hello?"
A warm, nostalgic voice answered from the other end. The voice of a motherly older woman.
Kang Maru's voice trembled uncontrollably. "...It's Kang... Maru."
"What?" The voice on the phone gasped, suddenly laden with emotion. "Is that really you, Maru?!"
Her hands began to shudder violently.
"...Wait a second. Was your name Maru?"
Exactly one day had passed since Kang Haneul's death. Across the country, the effects of his Altering Common Sense ability were beginning to unravel.
"Hold on just a moment, dear! It's been so many years, let me pull up the old records to be sure."
Both Kang Maru and the orphanage director had been bound beneath that very technique.
Kang Maru stared down at the documents and photographs sent to the email address she had provided. Her face turned deathly pale.
"Ah, yes. Seeing the pictures brings it all back," the director's voice echoed through the speaker. "How on earth did I manage to forget all this completely?"
"..."
"You always wore such a gloomy face back then, poor thing."
The photographs depicted a reality entirely different from her memories. Staring back at her was a sullen, isolated little girl with a dark expression, sitting completely alone in a corner away from the other children.
"I was worried sick about you when you were adopted."
"..."
"Have you been eating well, dear? Why don't you come by sometime for a warm bowl of kimchi stew?"
Kang Maru trembled uncontrollably as she looked at the files. The moment the director's warm, good-natured chatter washed over her, a blinding, splintering headache struck her like lightning.
"Ugh... ahhh!"
The world around her plunged into pitch darkness.
"Oh? What's the matter, Maru?"
"Ah... ahh..."
The true memories of her past came flooding back, crashing through the shattered dam of her mind.
"Who... are you?"
"Hello there, little lady."
A kind-hearted couple—the very couple who currently lay in comas in a hospital ward—had walked up to the little girl sitting alone in the orphanage corner, smiling warmly down at her.
"From today on, your name is Kang Maru."
"Take good care of us, won't you, pretty lady?"
The river of time, once frozen solid, began to surge with terrifying force.
'It's a lie...'
On the hospital bed, Kang Maru collapsed onto her knees, gasping for breath as her entire world crumbled to dust.