Chapter 39
Chapter 39
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Translator: Vine
Chapter: 39
Chapter Title: No Future
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Bang!
A smoke grenade went off.
Han Si-hoo had never experienced a fight like this.
Even when he fought humans, they were almost always Awakeners.
They never released gas or fired guns.
They never used flashbangs or smoke grenades either.
Something had felt off ever since he thought he’d found the Doctor.
A hologram—it was astounding.
Some places were so underdeveloped they lacked electricity, while others were apparently overflowing with money, producing advanced technology like holograms.
"Here I am."
The smoke cleared slightly, revealing the Doctor's figure.
This time, he had to land a proper hit.
He was confident in his ability to unleash a wide-ranging attack.
But with Seo-ah and Yeon-hwa in mind, he couldn't use such a skill.
"[You will now cease all movement.]"
An attempt to stop his attack?
It seemed to be a skill that imbued words with power.
"Shut up."
It didn't work on Han Si-hoo.
Without any hesitation, he sliced through.
His movements weren't restricted in the slightest.
This time, he felt his blade cut something.
It was a little shallower than it looked, but another thrust would do it.
In terms of combat skills, the Doctor might be on the weaker side.
He'd used cheap tricks, but this was the end.
Faster.
Stronger.
The blade pierced straight through.
Again, perhaps because of the smoke, it was shallower than it appeared.
One more time.
He felt his opponent start to crumble.
But the Doctor was still standing.
The Doctor's form remained perfectly composed.
Excessively so.
"A hologram?"
It wasn't real.
But he'd definitely hit something.
"Seo-ah?"
The one who had frozen in place was Seo-ah.
The command to stop had been aimed at Yoo Seo-ah.
Only then did Han Si-hoo realize what had happened.
Seo-ah had been attacked, not the Doctor.
His slashes and thrusts had been aimed at the Doctor.
Her eyes, looking at Han Si-hoo, grew dim.
A fittingly miserable end.
Just let her die like that.
The Doctor will take care of the body anyway.
Shut up. I'll kill you.
Han Si-hoo was failing to keep his mind straight.
Because he kept ending up in the same situation.
Repetition.
Ever since abandoning Seo-ah that one time.
Abandon?
He hadn't abandoned her.
It wasn't like he'd wanted to.
Every choice he'd made, supposedly out of respect for Seo-ah, had come back as poison.
So maybe Seo-ah was the real problem.
Or maybe Han Si-hoo was.
It was certain they both had problems.
"Ah..."
The problem was the murderous intent he felt even as he looked at Seo-ah.
He needed to do something, but he couldn't.
He had to kill the Doctor.
The penalty was too great.
Still, he couldn't break down here.
He tried to think why he couldn't.
For whom?
What had led to this situation?
"As you can see, I have no particular intention of killing you. If I did, I would have had plenty of opportunities."
The Doctor spoke.
His expression was hidden by the gas mask.
"Still, if Miss Seo-ah wishes for it, there is always euthanasia."
The Doctor pretended to listen closely.
Seo-ah was saying something.
A red liquid gurgled up from the corner of her mouth.
What could she be saying?
Han Si-hoo thought he knew.
She was probably asking him to just kill her.
Seo-ah looked at Han Si-hoo and smiled.
The Doctor seemed to have heard Seo-ah's answer.
"Like this, you mean."
He pressed a pistol to Seo-ah's head.
Bang.
What was once Yoo Seo-ah collapsed to the floor.
People die so easily.
Bang. Bang. Bang.
Now, there was no reaction at all.
The Doctor pulled the trigger without any hesitation.
It all happened before Han Si-hoo could process the situation.
"Let's stop here. This building is rather old and weak. There have been discussions about reconstruction, but..."
Han Si-hoo couldn't understand what had just happened.
There was no way Seo-ah was dead.
This easily?
Contextually, it made no sense.
Impossible.
"I think now is the most opportune time."
He couldn't grasp what was supposed to be opportune.
The Doctor killed Seo-ah.
Why?
KABOOM!
The entire hallway collapsed.
CRASH!
The explosions didn't stop.
It was as if a series of bombs had gone off.
He felt the entire building coming down around him.
It couldn't be.
Seo-ah couldn't be dead.
The last thing Han Si-hoo had done for her was stab her with his sword.
Not yet.
"No."
The story shouldn't unfold like this.
Thinking about it calmly, it seemed the Doctor could have killed Seo-ah at any time.
It was unexpected that the Academy couldn't even serve as a minimal line of defense.
From the start, Han Si-hoo had never been capable enough.
That was the truth.
No matter how many magical beasts Han Si-hoo killed, he could only handle those within a certain level range.
It was no different from a game.
If the final boss launched a preemptive strike in the early stages, there was no way to win.
The Doctor, if he had to be categorized, was something close to a boss monster.
Still, the current Han Si-hoo wouldn't lose a fight against the Doctor.
It was just difficult to protect others perfectly.
Seo-ah was dead?
It had to be a lie.
The ceiling caved in, and he could no longer see the Doctor or Seo-ah.
He couldn't protect her.
No, there was still someone he had to protect.
He knew.
This was a critical moment; he had to do what needed to be done.
He had to save Yeon-hwa, at least.
Han Si-hoo lifted the fallen Yeon-hwa into his arms.
He couldn't pick up the swords lying on the floor.
Her braided black hair brushed against his hand.
It was a familiar scene.
He had saved Yeon-hwa from danger before.
The reason Yeon-hwa, who always spoke formally, used informal speech only with Han Si-hoo.
But was this right?
He knew that saving people was the right thing to do.
It was obvious.
But it seemed Seo-ah was dead.
Of course, it must be a joke.
He must have seen it wrong.
That she could die so easily.
No, it didn't make sense.
She had made a few friends, hadn't she?
She had gotten to know people.
In the future, there would be some meaningful event involving him and Seo-ah.
They were awkward now, but it would be different later.
Seo-ah was sick now, but everything would be fine in the future.
A much better future than this.
A future.
A future.
A future.
There was no future.
[Achievement: Awakening Rate 100% Reached!]
In truth, it wasn't that strange.
The world doesn't change just because one or two people die.
Yoo Seo-ah was high-risk.
It wouldn't have been strange if she had died at any moment.
Still, Han Si-hoo had never lost anyone close to him until now.
If his friends were in danger, he saved them all.
He could always see a path to victory in battle.
So, if things followed this pattern, he was supposed to reach a conclusion where everything got better.
A so-called happy ending.
But Yoo Seo-ah had been running down the opposite path.
One person who naturally made good friends, and another surrounded by bad people.
A lucky person and an unlucky one.
One headed for success, the other for failure.
One with a bright future, the other with no future at all.
In the end, Seo-ah won.
No matter what Han Si-hoo tried to do, she fell to ruin.
Trying to stop it only broke them both.
Were these dark thoughts because of the penalty?
No matter how much Han Si-hoo agonized over it, there was no answer.
In fact, whether there was an answer or not no longer mattered.
Because Han Si-hoo had figured out the way.
Just power.
He needed power.
He had abandoned Seo-ah because he lacked power.
He couldn't protect her because he wasn't powerful enough.
He couldn't even uphold the justification for protecting her.
The epitome of weakness.
It was the fault of his environment, the parents who abandoned them, the oppressive society, the people who only sought to exploit them.
If he wanted to cast blame, he could blame everything around him.
But what if he had been a little stronger?
If he had been stronger.
He should have been stronger.
Han Si-hoo muttered endlessly.
This wasn't just about physical strength.
The Doctor was superior in some other way.
He had a knack for deceiving and manipulating people.
The amount of information he possessed was overwhelming.
Han Si-hoo, on the other hand, was just a student.
A mere kid from the slums who had only just begun to make a name for himself.
If a crisis occurred before his growth arc could even be written, there was no way to stop it.
Seo-ah's death had become the catalyst for his growth.
People need a pillar that will not crumble.
A steadfast fortress wall that abandons no one.
"Si-hoo?"
"...Yeah."
Rena was beside him.
"I'm sorry."
"Yeah."
He didn't know what she was sorry for.
He still thought it didn't make sense.
There was no way Seo-ah was dead.
Impossible.
"You know... that medicine seems to be something used by certain military units... It was too strange for something supplied by the Academy. I should have realized sooner."
An investigation into the medicine she was taking.
Come to think of it, he had asked for an investigation into the first medicine Seo-ah was taking as well.
He'd asked Lee Yoo-ram.
But no results ever came back.
Lee Yoo-ram wasn't interested in treating Seo-ah.
From the beginning, Seo-ah had been nothing more than a research subject to her.
He had to find out the source of the medicine.
Were there others in a similar situation to Seo-ah?
People he had to protect.
Ironically, just protecting them wasn't enough to protect them all.
If he had power, he could annihilate them all.
He had to eliminate the threats first.
"Professor Lee Yoo-ram is really strange, too. The Academy itself... why is it like this? If the other teachers knew, who are we supposed to trust?"
"We have to find out who ordered it."
"...Ordered?"
"There's no way someone like Lee Yoo-ram could have procured that medicine on her own."
Was it the Doctor?
The one who gave Lee Yoo-ram the medicine.
He knew that Lee Yoo-ram had a younger sister.
She probably thought she'd hidden it well, but she hadn't.
In the end, the problem was that he had trusted Lee Yoo-ram.
He had never heard that they were using military-grade medicine on Seo-ah.
What was important to Lee Yoo-ram wasn't some random child, but her own sister.
Han Si-hoo understood.
Anyone would consider their own family most precious.
"I'll find out soon."
It felt strange, as if he were learning from what the Doctor did, but there was a way.
He just had to take Lee Yoo-ram's sister hostage.
He had already found out where she was.
The tracking device he'd planted on Lee Yoo-ram's bag had been useful.
The Doctor hadn't held back with his technology, so Han Si-hoo learned from him.
The Doctor had committed a despicable act, so Han Si-hoo learned from him.
He was practically a father figure.
Like a parent who had appeared for the orphaned Han Si-hoo.
Why did he kill Seo-ah?
For a while, Han Si-hoo just kept crying.
It was understandable; he was still young.
Even an adult would cry if a family member died.
Because of the monstrously accumulating responsibility and pressure, Han Si-hoo had never once shown tears.
There was a time before when Han Si-hoo had been crying.
He'd forgotten the reason.
He remembered Seo-ah patting his back, telling him it was okay.
"It's okay. It's okay."
And what else had she said?
"I'll always be with you."
You can lean on me.
Then she would give a small smile.
Bang.
The Doctor shot her.
He had to kill the Doctor.