Night Play (3)
Black stars stained the night that belonged to the two of them.
Boom! Crash!! Roaaar—!!!
Beams of light poured down as black spheres repeatedly battered the asphalt. Watching the devastation, the hunter knit her brow. Her prey was still far in the distance, and so far, she hadn't landed a single clean hit. At this rate, it was nothing more than a pointless waste of mana.
“Ugh…! Scurrying away like a little rat, aren't you? Just you wait until I catch you!”
After going through all the trouble of putting on a dramatic transformation, this was downright embarrassing. No matter how fast Ha Seojin was, that speed defied all logic. Breaking free from her Mystic Eyes of Charm was one thing, but at this point, it was safer to assume he wasn't human at all. He didn't seem aware of it himself, though.
If that was an advantage, she would gladly take it. The upper hand was still hers. In the end, Ha Seojin would offer everything he had to her.
The time limit was sunrise. Once dawn broke, the Repelling Barrier would dissolve, and she would no longer be able to sustain her physical form. That was why this was a night play—a sudden-death match between 'it' and the prey. The hunter had to secure today's sustenance, and if the prey was caught, that was the end of the line. Whoever won, ruin was the only thing awaiting the loser.
Slacking off made no sense. She had to go all out, committing every ounce of strength she possessed. Burning what little Existence Power she had into magical energy, the hunter tore through the night sky, rocketing down the street in hot pursuit.
Patter, patter, patter!
I ran. I just kept running. Stopping wasn't an option. My speed had already crossed into the realm of madness, tearing forward like a motorcycle whose brakes had completely failed. One wrong step, and I was going to wipe out hard.
“Haah… haah…”
Even so, this full-sprint chase had been dragging on for thirty minutes straight. The sweet, metallic taste of exhaustion coated my throat, and my clothes clung to me in an uncomfortably clammy film of sweat. I had never run this hard in my entire life. My legs felt ready to pop out of their sockets, my arms flailed like dead weight, and the only thing propelling me forward was the violent surge of momentum pulsing through my veins.
The vitality that had coursed through me at the start was nearly scraped clean by the relentless pursuit. This was bad. I had managed to pull ahead by a decent margin, but the moment Han Yurin picked up her pace, she closed the distance in the blink of an eye. Glancing back over my shoulder, I saw the devil chasing me against the backdrop of the moonlight.
Ah, seriously, she’s so damn gorgeous it’s unfair.
As if being my ideal blonde gyaru wasn't enough, throwing on a gothic dress and black tights was practically a low blow. True to her nature as a succubus, she was an absolute master at captivating a man's reason. I zoned out for a split second. It was an involuntary, helpless reflex, but that fleeting lapse opened up a lethal opportunity.
Swooooosh—!
An attack I had never seen before lanced down from the night sky straight toward the pavement.
“Crap…!”
A black thermal beam closed in right before my eyes. In that instant, mortality stared me dead in the face. There was no way to dodge this.
“!”
Without warning, my body snapped in a direction no human joint was meant to bend. It wasn't my conscious mind moving me. The blood boiling in my veins suddenly surged in an explosive wave, wrenching my limbs entirely of its own accord. I narrowly evaded a fatal disaster, but having lost control, I was now completely at the mercy of my rampaging blood. Left. Right. Twisting through impossible, inhuman contortions, I dodged the onslaught raining from above.
It felt as though my entire body had been tossed into a furnace, my flesh serving as kindling while my blood burned with violent fury. If anyone saw me right now, they would have screamed bloody murder. My body was still gruesomely contorted, and I didn't have the faintest clue how to snap it back to normal. Spurred by mortal peril, every single droplet of my blood thrash around, desperately fighting to survive. It was like harboring a total stranger inside my own skin. If there was any silver lining, it was that it didn't hurt.
“Gah! I totally thought I had you with that one!” Yurin fumed overhead.
Unlike me, she didn't show the slightest hint of fatigue. Watching her drove home the stark reality that we were fundamentally different creatures. She was a demon who inhabited the night, far removed from humanity. If daytime belonged to humans, darkness was their undisputed domain, and the sky was her personal playground. The outcome of being hunted from above was painfully obvious: eventually, my drained body would grind to a halt, waiting only for judgment from the hunter of the night sky.
Continuing to sprint out in the open like this was an idiot's game. If the board was rigged against me, there was no reason to play along. The smarter move was to change the battlefield entirely.
Having grown slightly accustomed to my rogue body, I managed to wrench my direction and threw myself into an Abandoned Commercial Building. The dilapidated five-story commercial complex showed not a single trace of human life, hollowed out ever since the neighborhood died during the Great Disaster a decade ago. The shopkeepers had relocated elsewhere long before now.
Only the dim, flickering lamp of a rusted elevator weakly illuminated the gloomy hallway. Right beside it was the emergency stairwell. Without a second thought, I kicked off the floor and bolted up the steps.
Clack, clack, clack, clack.
With every flight I took, the rhythmic thud of my frantic footsteps echoed loudly through the hollow structure. It was an old building, and the stairs were steep. Through the grime-streaked windows, I could see Han Yurin hovering outside in midair.
…I was worried she might just obliterate the whole building, but thank God.
She didn't seem quite as reckless as I had feared. Or maybe my dying would just be a problem for her, since a dead catch couldn't provide any vital energy. The fact that I was still trapped inside the building no matter where I ran was probably another reason she stayed her hand. Once I ran out of steam, the curtain would fall all the same.
Bottom line: ducking into the building had been the right call. The gamble had paid off.
A bizarre thrill coursed through me at the realization. I was having way too much fun. This game of tag, this night play between just the two of us, was sickeningly exhilarating. My adrenaline was on the verge of exploding, more than enough to blow away the lingering haze from our first night together.
Before I knew it, I reached the fifth floor. Just above lay my destination: the rooftop. Kicking open the locked access door, I burst out into the night air.
Han Yurin was already floating above, looking down at me. Drenched in the moonlight, she was breathtakingly beautiful. Even in a situation like this, that was the first thought that crossed my mind—that was how perfectly she matched my ideals. I was definitely going to regret not getting to grope those breasts.
“So, is that the end of tag? I wouldn't mind playing a little longer,” she said softly, an unmistakable air of composure radiating from her entire being.
The rooftop was the ultimate dead end. Stranded on the ground, there was no way to escape a hunter who owned the sky, nor was there any way to retaliate. In that sense, her relaxed posture was completely justified—by all conventional logic, that was the textbook conclusion. But that only applied within the bounds of normal common sense.
Did she let her guard down? Her altitude wasn't very high. In that case, it was worth a shot.
I kicked off the rooftop railing with everything I had—and launched myself straight into the sky.
“No way—!!”
SLAM—! CRASH-BANG-RUMBLE!!!
Leaving her brief shriek behind, our bodies collided midair and rolled violently across the gravel-strewn rooftop. The delightfully squishy sensation pressing against my chest felt pretty damn good.
“Ugh…”
We regained our senses almost at the exact same moment. My brain was buzzing. I tapped the side of my head a few times and forced myself to stand. Fortunately, it looked like the battle was over. Han Yurin had already reverted to the appearance she had when we first met. I wasn't in great shape either, but I could feel my body rapidly knitting itself back together even now.
“I won tag. So you’d better start talking. Why did you pull all of this?”
“…If I tell you, will you give me what I want?” Yurin asked weakly, looking as though she had resigned herself to her fate. She seemed detached, like someone who had let go of everything—a look far too melancholic for a demon.
“Ah, of course. That makes sense. I guess this really is the end… Fine. Big sis will tell you everything you want to know.”
A brief silence fell between us. She hesitated for a moment before finally parting her lips.
“I’m definitely a succubus, just like you thought, but the reality is a little different. I was born from a rumor.”
If it was a rumor, it had to be the urban legend Lee Hyunwoo had mentioned.
“You’ve heard it, haven't you? The story about the girl who’s sweet to everyone. When people’s hearts grow weak, we appear to them. And once their emotions ripen, we harvest the fruit. We can only survive by taking Existence Power from corporeal beings with physical bodies.”
Even though all the other ones died out.
Yurin let out a hollow, aimless lament. If I remembered correctly, she had mentioned tonight was her first time. I couldn't even begin to guess what kinds of feelings were swirling inside her right now.
“You know what…? Honestly, the time I spent with you was really fun.” Yurin beamed, flashing a smile so purely brilliant it was hard to believe she was an apparition of the night. “I don't know who created me. But I guess this is goodbye. In the end, I'm just…” Her lips trembled faintly. “A kind of phenomenon. A fleeting dream that vanishes the moment you wake up in the morning—”
She was still smiling, but there was something heartbreakingly fragile about it. It was obvious she was forcing the corners of her mouth up. If she truly felt fine, she wouldn't be wearing a face that looked ready to crumble to pieces at any second.
“So it's fine. I had plenty of fun. Asking for anything more would just be greedy.”
Why the hell was she jumping to conclusions and giving up all on her own? I couldn't stand listening to it anymore.
“What are you talking about? I can just give you that Existence Power or whatever.”
Not only would I enjoy it, but if it meant saving a cute girl's life, spending a couple of months in a hospital bed was a bargain. Besides, my body had turned absurdly durable, so recovery might not even take that long anyway.
“Hmph, and here you were rejecting me so hard earlier.”
That was true, but I still hated goodbyes.
“You said it yourself. You promised you'd let me touch your boobs. It'd be a huge problem if you just vanished on me.”
More than anything, it wasn't like I disliked her.
“Pfft, you're hilarious. Seriously.”