95. A Butterfly That Lost Its Wings
95.
Yu Ha-yeon.
My date with my childhood friend was the same as always.
"...This isn't hitting right."
"Stupid Han Si-jun. You can't even hit that? You didn't go to the army, so what good are you?"
"...Heroes don't go to the army. Anyway, this gun is weird. I think it's broken."
Yu Ha-yeon and I were at an arcade, shooting targets.
Yu Ha-yeon was picking a fight as usual, I was shooting back, and the atmosphere was just like everyday life.
Aside from holding hands, it wasn't a particularly special date.
But I liked this ordinary life.
I have a childhood friend, so I don't have to worry about marriage.
I have plenty of money, so I don't need to worry about funds.
I'm strong, so I don't need to worry about my life.
A life that flows by without any incidents or accidents.
That was my dream.
But dreams have a way of not coming true.
'...But why am I out here seducing girls.'
Unintended self-reflection.
I was already far from an ordinary life.
It's a bit much for me to say this, but
if I got stabbed to death by the girls around me right now, I'd have no room to complain.
"Yu Ha-yeon."
"What, Han Si-jun."
"Do you think I'll be able to die peacefully?"
"...Are you thinking about dying peacefully this late in the game, Han Si-jun?"
...Have I come too far?
The road back seems to have collapsed, anyway.
Yu Ha-yeon took the arcade gun from me.
She put her eye to the scope — whose purpose I'd always questioned — and rested her finger on the trigger.
Bang!
a rubber bullet shot forward from the muzzle.
Bang!
Bang!
Every time she pulled the trigger, a target doll flopped over backward.
Yu Ha-yeon knocked down the three target dolls I hadn't been able to hit at all.
She looked at me and said, triumphant.
"The gun. Not broken, is it?"
Yu Ha-yeon, ego completely maxed out.
How could I take her down a peg?
With my pride a little bruised, I turned my back on the arcade, mulling it over.
"Must have fixed itself while we were at it."
"How? Who fixed it? Does the gun just fix itself out of nowhere?"
"Shut up. The air's bad in here, let's go."
So I walked outside, leaving Yu Ha-yeon behind me yelling 'He's sulking, Han Si-jun!'
"...It's already night."
Outside, the sky had darkened to black.
The moon in the sky was shining white.
Yu Ha-yeon followed me out.
She looked at the sky outside and quickly shouted.
"Han Si-jun! What time was the train, the bus...?"
"Right about now, they're probably running the last one?"
"W...wait! Then we can't be taking it this easy, can we?"
A reasonable statement.
However, I had no reason to follow Yu Ha-yeon's opinion.
"I'm not going back home today, actually...?"
"You...you...!"
The incident that would break out any moment.
Episode 3.
For me — no, for us — there was no time to return to the Academy.
'Childhood friends share one mind, after all. Right, Yu Ha-yeon?'
I grinned at Yu Ha-yeon while thinking that to myself.
Not knowing that Episode 3 was about to start, Yu Ha-yeon stared at me with suspicious eyes.
"What... what are you thinking..."
"Huh?"
"You're deliberately keeping me from going back to the Academy... Where are you planning to take me...! Pervert...! Die...!"
Just what kind of misunderstanding is this?
Yu Ha-yeon's behavior was incomprehensible.
I decided to tell her the truth.
"Pervert...? I think I'm less of a pervert than someone who tries to tie a perfectly healthy person to a bed..."
"W-why are you bringing that up here!"
Yu Ha-yeon clamped her hand over my mouth.
I mean, did I say something wrong?
Contrary to appearances, I could confidently say I hadn't done anything perverted.
Just then, while I was tussling with Yu Ha-yeon,
smoke began to rise into the already dark night sky.
Kwaang—!!
"Kyaaak...!!"
"A-an explosion...!"
A massive roar echoed through the city.
Citizens scattered in panic, fleeing away from the source of the blast.
Judging by the street, it was where the NAVI Building stood.
It was clear that Episode 3's boss, the Chimera, had started the incident.
"...It's starting, then."
"What are you doing, Han Si-jun! Not running away!"
"Yu Ha-yeon. Let's go."
Without a single moment of hesitation, I ran toward the scene of the incident.
Yu Ha-yeon shouted from behind, 'Hey, where do you think you're going!'
If she were alone, she would have gone to the scene.
But because I was here, she seemed reluctant to head there.
Hearing Yu Ha-yeon's voice like that, I chuckled to myself.
'...The one I'm trusting isn't me.'
I trust.
Yu Ha-yeon.
You'll protect me if something happens, right?
Yu Ha-yeon, hailed as the strongest of the future S-ranks.
It was because I trusted her that I was running to the place where Episode 3 was happening.
"Hey! Han Si-jun! Stop!"
I wondered if she even knew that in the future world, she would be hailed as the strongest.
Right now, it was obvious she had no idea.
"Just keep up, Yu Ha-yeon."
"I worry about you and you make a fuss. Wanna die? Who told you to talk like that...!"
And so, Yu Ha-yeon and I dashed toward where Episode 3 was beginning.
How had that ordinary place changed?
Wondering that,
'Na Yu-na. I hope she's okay...'
I had no choice but to hope that Na Yu-na was holding on.
***
NAVI boasted a tall, tall building.
NAVI prided itself on having one of the tallest buildings in Seoul.
"..."
Night light illuminated the ground.
There, where people could be seen walking, an old man stood with his hands behind his back.
A guest who had come suddenly.
Perhaps it was because the person who was his own blood had returned.
Unlike usual, his eyes as he looked down at the people seemed deeper and darker.
That old man.
Na Sang-cheol, the chairman of NAVI Group, did not turn around, but muttered softly.
"...I heard that bastard came here."
"T-that's... Father..."
"We are inside the company. Na Jin-sang."
Na Jin-sang was flustered.
'Why on earth... did that bastard come to the company...? He didn't seem to have the slightest intention of leaving the Back Alley...'
Na Jin-sang had been spending time at a nice sauna outside the company.
Until he heard the news that Na Jin-woo had come to the company.
Na Jin-sang had a memory from long ago of fearing Na Jin-woo would take his position, so he had framed him and driven him out.
And when Na Jin-woo rose again through his own abilities,
he had approached Na Jin-woo and proposed a partnership, so now he stole a sideways glance at his father.
'Could it be... he's trying to reveal that I partnered with him...?'
Nervousness was evident in Na Jin-sang's heart.
Was he trying to let his father know they had colluded?
He trembled inside, staring at the elevator coming up.
Ding.
The sound announced the elevator had arrived.
And as the door opened, Na Jin-woo — someone both familiar to some and unfamiliar to others — emerged from inside.
At the sight, Na Jin-sang snarled, showing open hostility.
"How dare you show up here...!"
"...Was it a place like this. My memory is not entirely intact."
The Chimera looked around the 50th floor, the chairman's exclusive floor.
Some parts matched its memory, but so much time had passed that many things had changed.
The Chimera shifted its gaze and glared at the man making a racket, as if it would eat him alive.
"..."
"Wh-what kind of look is that..."
The man from its memories.
Was his name Na Jin-sang?
He was a being who had colluded with Na Jin-woo.
In the Chimera's eyes, he was a man on the same level as Na Jin-woo.
"...Over there. Wait."
"..."
Something overwhelming.
At that, Na Jin-sang could not utter a word.
'Was that bastard always this strong a presence...?'
Cold sweat trickled down Na Jin-sang's forehead.
The Chimera walked past him, approaching the old man with his hands behind his back.
Na Sang-cheol, the root cause of this situation.
"It has been an incredibly long time. A time of constant agony."
Resentment.
Na Jin-woo, who had tormented the Chimera, was dead, but the Chimera felt its revenge was not yet over.
Because there were still people alive in this world who had tormented it.
And to properly eradicate the cause of this vengeance,
perhaps because Na Jin-woo's memories had seeped into the Chimera,
it began to internalize the word 'responsibility.'
'Who is it that made me this way?'
An S-rank Magic Beast with intelligence, born of human greed.
Tracing that question back led to one person: Na Sang-cheol, chairman of NAVI Group.
'It's all because of that bastard. Na Jin-woo. Na Jin-sang. They all came from that fellow.'
Na Sang-cheol had to take responsibility.
The responsibility for having caused me pain.
The fault lies in your failure to raise your children properly, so take responsibility for it.
With such a heart, the Chimera glared at the old man Na Sang-cheol, who stood with his hands behind his back.
"..."
Perhaps because he felt the Chimera's hostile gaze,
Na Sang-cheol, who had stood with his hands behind his back, released them and turned around.
"You... you are..."
His son's completely changed appearance after twenty years.
Yet something was different.
That fellow is not my son.
The moment that thought struck his mind, his normally expressionless face rippled with agitation.
"You... are not my son..."
Those were the last words to echo from Na Sang-cheol's hollow voice.
The NAVI Building, which had drawn the gaze of everyone upward, began to crumble downward under a massive impact.
A night when all the office workers had gone home.
The end of a company that had been more solid than anything: the acts of an abandoned chairman's son leading to a moment's collapse.