Where Are You?
“Is this… the end?”
“It was terrifyingly many.”
Siwoo and Sia had battled the cult all night.
The clash between the Secret Society and the cult was no ordinary matter.
It was a fight over the passage into the city, where the Gregory cult was secretly smuggling monsters and the Secret Society was trying to stop them.
“Really, those disgusting guys.”
“Yeah, it’s like they’re the same kind of human.”
“I agree!”
From Siwoo and Sia’s perspective, the cult members were terrifying humans who carried worms inside their bodies, worshipped monsters, and tried to revive calamities.
Although the cloaks paid with the blood of many sorcerers were stained, not a single wound marred Siwoo and Sia’s bodies.
Day by day, the siblings’ skills grew more proficient, and within the Secret Society they were now at a level that was second to none.
“Impressive.”
“As expected, you’re the descendants of heroes.”
Even the same-age and upper-generation seniors of the Secret Society looked at Siwoo and Sia with eyes of envy.
Only one person.
Chris alone looked at the two with eyes full of compassion, different from everyone else.
“It’s all my fault.”
Seeing Sia and Siwoo chatting without a care despite their blood-soaked clothes, Chris wore a pained expression.
Since he was the one who had brought them, Chris’s sense of responsibility for the two weighed even heavier.
At first glance they looked sturdy, but they were only fourteen years old.
They were too young to enter the Academy and still needed the protection of adults.
The Secret Society wasn’t protecting these children; it was sending them to the battlefield to become blades that would protect humanity.
The adults who should have protected the children were instead sending them to the battlefield.
And the fact that the person committing these horrific acts was himself made Chris lower his head.
What kind of adult teaches children the technique of getting blood on their hands and forces them to get more?
Trash.
Before being a member of the noble Secret Society, he had been trash himself.
To create an era without heroes, new heroes were needed.
“That’s contradictory.”
Whoosh.
Since he couldn’t show weakness in front of the others, Chris rubbed his face to steady his expression and approached Siwoo and Sia.
“You worked hard.”
“Ah, Chris oppa!”
“You’re here.”
Siwoo and Sia greeted Chris warmly.
During the past two years of special training and missing Tiss, the one who had looked after the two the most was Chris.
He was the benefactor who had saved the two who had nearly died in the park and their mentor, and his role had at least cracked open their hearts a little, even if not as much as Tiss’s.
“How did the contact with the branch go?”
“It was okay. They’re sending a team over here soon.”
They had secured enough evidence that the cult members were sorcerers.
They wouldn’t be able to frame them for massacring innocent citizens.
“That’s good. We thought we’d have to clean up the mess too.”
“Sia, that’s not the problem. It’s good that we got out of the situation where we almost got entangled in a mass murder case.”
“Hey, it’s not the first time this has happened, and if it comes to that, we can just run away.”
“Anyway… it’s good.”
Whoosh.
Sia let out a deep sigh, leaning against a pillar after finally relaxing.
They had cut down monsters and cultists without discrimination all night.
“Are the two of you okay? For now, this…”
“Ah, I’m just a bit tired, but I’m fine.”
Chris took out the high-grade potion he had prepared and handed it to them, but Siwoo and Sia politely declined.
“Shouldn’t you be the one to drink it, Chris oppa? Your face is completely distorted, but you’re fine, right?”
“I’m… fine.”
“Then, it’s good… hey!”
Sia grabbed a stone that had fallen beside her and threw it.
With a thud, the head of the insect that had been pretending to be dead on the floor burst out.
“Now I know why oppa was so desperately trying to recruit us. With something this important, there aren’t enough talents.”
Sia had joked with him first?
This was the side of Chris that he hadn’t seen in the past two years.
“Are you really okay, the two of you?”
“Hey, I’m fine, now that there are no more worries.”
“All that’s left for us is a fun Academy life.”
There was a slight hint of tiredness in the words, but the shadow that had followed Siwoo and Sia’s faces for so long was no longer visible.
“Sorry. I didn’t think we’d have to mobilize enough people to enter the Academy.”
“There are enough people who can leave right away, so there’s no need to call members from other areas far away.”
“Think of it as having escaped a big problem.”
“Chris oppa, don’t make that face. The atmosphere is already heavy, and you’re about to let it drag on.”
“Heh heh.”
Sia waved her hand and forced a smile, turning her head toward the passage.
“More importantly, I didn’t know there was such a large-scale underground passage and space here.”
After passing through a passage that could accommodate dozens of people moving at the same time, various facilities including residential areas where people lived were set up in the underground.
“It was probably made during the early days of the Gate incident.”
“When Abaddon was here?”
“Yeah, now we can hunt monsters well with abilities and mana, but back then it wasn’t like that.”
Clank.
When Chris opened a box, it was filled with old ammunition.
Looking around, such dusty supplies were placed throughout the underground facilities.
“Firearms were effective against lower-grade monsters, but not against intermediate or higher.”
“That must have been a crisis.”
“Fighting monsters without abilities or mana…”
“It’s unimaginable,” Sia shook her head.
“There were many underground protective facilities and passages made to escape monsters at that time. Maybe some of them are still abandoned today without being discovered.”
“Well, it’s good that we found them before anything big happened.”
“We cleared out the sorcerers too, and we processed all the monsters they were trying to smuggle.”
Was it really over?
“Ask the leader.”
“Right! If it’s the leader, he can see the future with prophecy or fortune telling, right?”
“Let me ask once.”
The biggest driving force for the Secret Society to prepare for crises in advance was the leader’s precognitive ability.
Beep beep!
[It’s 6 AM!]
An alarm sounded from another member’s phone.
Is it already morning?
Checking the time, Chris thought he should send the two back first.
“You two, go in for now.”
“Eh? Is it okay?”
“I’ll handle the cleanup, so don’t worry and go in to rest.”
“Whew, it’s good. Now I can go see Tiss unnie.”
Tiss? It was a strangely familiar name, but Chris decided to dismiss it as a newly made friend.
“First, go wash up at the branch. If you go out like that, you might be chased by heroes.”
“Yes!”
Siwoo and Sia hurried.
They quickly washed and changed clothes.
It would have been tiring, but the worry for Tiss and the desire to see her was greater.
Yesterday, they had only eaten a meal and chatted for a bit, so today they wanted to properly talk about what they hadn’t finished.
“Eh? It’s a message from Tiss unnie.”
When they turned on the phone they had turned off, there was a message from Tiss.
It was a message saying she would be away for a while because she had an important errand in the morning.
Now Siwoo and Sia had sent a reply to Tiss’s message, but the read receipt didn’t disappear, and no reply came.
“Probably because it’s still early.”
Themselves were awake all night, but it was still time for them to be sleeping normally.
It was natural that they couldn’t see the message.
“What if we surprise Tiss?”
“Good! Hee hee. Let’s go shopping and make lunch ourselves.”
In matters related to Tiss, they returned to their appearance from the time they stayed in the orphanage.
So, the two went to the nearby supermarket to buy light groceries and arrived at the hotel where Tiss was staying.
Knock knock.
When they knocked, Dorothy came out to greet them.
“Siwoo oppa, Sia unnie, hello?”
“Hello, Dorothy.”
“Dorothy hello~ Can I come in?”
“Yes! Come in.”
After greeting Dorothy, they entered the room, but Tiss’s presence wasn’t felt.
In the living room, it was Emily who was leisurely enjoying coffee, not Tiss.
Before Emily, there were a few sheets of paper and crayons that Dorothy had been using.
“Emily teacher.”
Whoosh whoosh.
“Now that the exam is over, I’m not a teacher anymore. Since you’re still pre-enrollment, call me Emily.”
“Hunter, I don’t see Tiss unnie. Did you take a break?”
“Unfortunately, Tiss isn’t here. It might be hard for her to come back for a while.”
“What… what do you mean?”
“Oh, didn’t you get the message? Because she was hurriedly taken away, she couldn’t leave a message?”
Taken away?
From the words, a surge of killing intent rose from Siwoo and Sia simultaneously, but Emily’s words instantly suppressed their momentum.
“Calm down. No one was kidnapped. Tiss went willingly.”
“So, what happened?”
“There was a call from Hunter Lionel. He offered to teach vision technology to repay a favor related to the Academy exam, and Tiss is training to receive that technology before the entrance ceremony.”
“But… we didn’t receive any such contact?”
“It probably wasn’t intentional. Maybe Tiss forgot? Or she’s really busy with special training right now.”
From those words, Siwoo and Sia felt a pain in their hearts.
Why?
But to them, it felt like a completely different meaning.
Emily Hunter could explain the situation to Dorothy and them sufficiently, but why not to them?
To them, Tiss was as precious as a brother and sister, a blood family.
But… maybe… Tiss wouldn’t.
Ha ha ha!
“Sia!”
“I’m… fine.”
When she thought that, suddenly her breath quickened and her head throbbed painfully.
Like a prank by fate, Tiss didn’t think of such things even for a moment.
It was just a slight timing mismatch.
She suddenly appeared like a teleport jump from the air.
Lionel’s lecture on transferring the most important skill.
And Katie urging her to eat her clone.
In that situation, she simply didn’t have time to take out the phone.
She had sent a message early in the morning, so it was a situation where she could send an additional one before lunch.
Ring!
“Ah.”
“It’s Tiss unnie.”
Actually, the two received a message from Tiss not long after.
It was sent as the situation ended, but they had already been one step behind and knew all the circumstances.
Why…? Why…?
Sia’s heart felt like it was tearing.
“Is it… hurting here?”
She was more frustrated because she didn’t know why her chest hurt.
Sia didn’t understand why she felt this way; she couldn’t understand her own emotions.
Plop. Click!
[Siwoo! Sia!]
Ah.
That dark feeling was calming down in the bright voice of Tiss coming from the speaker on Siwoo’s phone.
“Tiss unnie!”
“Is Tiss okay?”
[I’m fine. Sorry, I just saw the message. The contact was a bit late. I had something to do for a while.]
Yeah, it could be.
Thinking again, Tiss unnie didn’t completely ignore their contact.
She sent the message in advance, right?
It was just a slight timing mismatch.
Positive thoughts grew in Sia’s heart.
[Tiss comrade, what is that? Why are you talking to a square iron piece?]
[Whoa! Katie, wait!]
If the voice of another girl hadn’t been heard from beyond the phone, the small darkness in Sia’s heart wouldn’t have sprouted.
She was receiving training from Lionel?
She looked at Emily sitting there, but she couldn’t see any sign that she was joking with them.
Then, why was there another girl’s voice coming from Tiss unnie’s phone?
Or rather, she didn’t want to understand it in the first place.
Dub dub.
[… is waiting while taking it off. Eat it quickly. Why are you not eating even though I’m feeding it? Is it not looking tasty?]
“Tiss unnie… what are you saying?”
“Tiss?”
Sia asked in a weak voice. Siwoo just called Tiss’s name in confusion next to her.
In her mind, countless imaginations unfolded.
“Taking it off and waiting? Feeding it…? What is this situation?!”
Is it possible that Tiss unnie is in such a situation with another woman?
Sia bit her wriggling lips.
Stream.
A stream of blood flowed from the corner of Sia’s mouth.
[No, that’s… you step back! The kids are misunderstanding!]
Tiss’s panicked tone was clearly revealed in the voice.
Tiss hurriedly ended the call, saying she would contact again after sorting out the situation here.
Tu. Tu. Tu.
Only the cold ringing tone from beyond the phone echoed in the space.
“Um… delicious.”
Emily observed the scene and enjoyed her tea.
Emily was just smiling.