Chapter 147: The First District (4)
Translator: RaidenTL
Chapter 147: The First District (4)
“I… request… your help.”
Grrrind!
Finally, something worth listening to.
It wasn’t the answer I wanted, but it was close enough to be in the ballpark.
The fact that she was still speaking so curtly, and the way she ground her teeth at the end…
If I had my way, I’d send her back for another round, but I decided to let it go.
“I’m not exactly thrilled… but this will have to do for now.”
Living in this world, I’d learned that there was no such thing as a perfect item or an ideal situation.
Even if I could create one, that would be a problem in itself.
After all, if someone has nothing in their hands, the only thing they can aim for is the back of my head.
If I hold ninety percent, I have to let them hold ten percent. That way, they’ll at least hesitate for a moment before trying to stab me in the back.
“Then let’s end this battle.”
The moment I finished speaking, I reset the targets of the fifty-odd Fire Balls I had prepared as a bargaining chip.
Farewell, my tentacle buddy.
It was brief, but we were a perfect match.
“Hmph.”
Suppressing a surge of emotion, I unleashed a volley of Fire Balls at the creature, which still hadn't sent a single tentacle my way.
Boom! Boom! Boom!
Fwoosh—!
At the spectacular fireworks display unfolding before her, the Masked Woman stared with wide eyes at the tentacle monster flailing and dying in the flames.
Kuuuwoooaaar…
The Masked Woman swallowed hard as she watched the tentacle monster let out a mournful cry.
She was probably thinking she’d made the right choice asking for help.
She must be thinking that if things had gone wrong, she could have been the one dying in those flames.
Who knows.
If the Masked Woman had refused my offer to the very end, what choice would I have made?
I’m not so sure myself.
After the tentacle monster’s corpse had completely melted away, I extinguished the still-roaring inferno.
Just as I expected, an old notebook lay in the spot where black smoke was rising.
“Bingo.”
I picked up the notebook, which had only been singed in the intense heat, its form still intact.
In that moment, the Masked Woman snapped to her senses and pointed her sword at me.
“Wait.”
“What is it?”
“That notebook… you’re not planning on reading it alone, are you?”
It seemed she was worried I’d grab the notebook and run.
Such a needless worry.
“Of course not.”
If my only goal in joining hands with her was to get this notebook, I might have.
To be precise, I did consider it at first, but I had a change of heart along the way.
While killing the tentacle monster, I thought of another use for her.
“Choose.”
“…Choose what?”
I waved the old notebook at her as she shot me a wary glare.
“Will you read it with me, or will you take it after I’m done?”
After a moment of hesitation, the Masked Woman spoke.
“I’ll read it with you.”
She then began to approach me with hesitant steps, stopping about three paces away.
It seemed she had calculated that three steps was the minimum safe distance to evade an attack if I were to launch a surprise assault.
“…Can you see from there?”
“This is sufficient.”
“Hah.”
Her confident reply made me snort involuntarily.
This woman still hasn’t properly assessed herself.
Why doesn’t she realize that if I really wanted to, it wouldn’t matter if she were three steps away or thirty?
“Then I’m opening it.”
【XX/XX/2XXX】
【I found a firmly shut door deep inside the cathedral we’re using as a base.】
【I tried to open it to see where it leads, but I failed.】
【I pushed, pulled, and even hammered it with all my might, but I couldn’t even leave a scratch.】
【We were too busy trying to survive to bother with some door, so we eventually gave up on opening it.】
【But sometimes, whenever I pass by the door, I can’t help but wonder.】
【What in the world is inside?】
A firmly shut door that won’t even scratch when hit with a hammer.
“Looks like we’ve found our answer.”
“I agree.”
“The problem is, where is this cathedral…?”
“…Uh, um.”
Her reaction to my question was anything but convincing.
When I turned my head toward the Masked Woman, she turned her head to follow mine.
“I-I think it would be best if we split up to search.”
“…I suppose so.”
“Then I’ll head that way.”
The Masked Woman unilaterally decided her direction and began walking away with brisk steps.
“Wait.”
At my call, she stopped dead in her tracks and turned around with the stiff movements of a machine.
“Is there more to say?”
“Yes. What’s the signal?”
“The signal?”
“…I believe it’s proper etiquette between partners to send a signal when one finds the cathedral.”
“Ah, r-right! You’re right. Um.”
The Masked Woman stammered as if she had something to hide.
“When I find it, I’ll shoot a large blade of Sword Ki into the sky. That should be easy to see, right?”
“Good. Then I’ll shoot a flame into the sky. A flame as large as the one that just swallowed the tentacle monster whole.”
As I spoke with a subtly threatening tone, the Masked Woman’s bravado faltered for a moment.
But it was only for a moment.
“Hmph. Suit yourself.”
She scoffed and turned her back.
“Then, I’ll be going.”
With that, the Masked Woman leaped out through the gaping hole in the outer wall.
Making a mockery of the seven-story height, she landed lightly on the ground and, without a single glance back, began to run in the direction she had chosen.
Like someone who already knew her destination.
“…I should probably follow her, right?”
At this point, even without saying it, wasn’t her entire body language screaming for me to follow?
* * *
The Masked Woman, who had been running frantically to put as much distance as possible between us, came to a halt.
Before her stood a building, so precarious with spiderweb cracks covering its outer walls that it looked like it could collapse at any moment.
Spotting a cross crushed beneath a pile of cement nearby, the Masked Woman finally let out the laugh she had been holding back.
“Ahahaha!”
The moment she learned that the door to the Sanctuary was hidden in a cathedral, she had inwardly rejoiced.
Because when she first fell into this place, wandering aimlessly, the very first thing she had discovered was this cathedral.
Back then, the building looked so unstable that she had only peeked inside the entrance before leaving, but now she had a reason to enter.
“Hoo… good.”
She took a deep breath and stepped inside the cathedral.
Just before entering, her promise with the man she’d been forced to partner with came to mind, but she quickly erased it.
“Hmph. It was an unwanted alliance.”
It was an alliance she hadn’t wanted in the slightest.
In fact, it was barely an alliance at all.
She had simply been blackmailed.
If it had been a true alliance, she would have kept her word, but she felt no obligation to keep a promise to a scoundrel like him.
“Tch…”
Despite that, she felt a pang of guilt, but she quickly shook her head to clear the thought.
He knew the door to the Sanctuary was in a cathedral anyway.
Even if she didn’t tell him, he would find his way.
It would just take him a little longer.
‘This is the price for humiliating me.’
Forcing herself to think that way to ease her conscience, she entered the cathedral.
The interior was desolate, not a single object left intact, as if a great battle had taken place.
With her hand on the hilt of her sword, she warily scanned her surroundings and moved forward slowly.
“It definitely said deep inside the cathedral…”
The Masked Woman paused, contemplating.
Which way would lead her to the deepest part of the cathedral?
“Hmm…!”
Just as she was lost in thought, a voice suddenly rang out, instantly solving her dilemma.
“What are you thinking about? Obviously, you have to go underground.”
“Right, the basement…!”
Her joy at the unexpected hint was short-lived.
Realizing that the voice was one she shouldn’t be hearing here, her body and mind froze solid.
Click. Clack.
The distinct sound of dress shoes approached.
Kim Do-jin walked past the frozen Masked Woman at a leisurely pace, then turned around.
He looked down at her rigid form with a dry gaze and spoke.
“Are you prepared to pay the price for breaking your promise?”
“Kgh…!”
The Masked Woman, who had been poised to draw her sword at any moment, relaxed her stance.
He was right.
She had broken her promise.
Although it was a partnership forced upon her by despicable means, a promise was a promise.
If they hadn’t run into each other, she would have ignored it.
But now that they had, she had to pay the price.
She wasn’t callous enough to act defiant after breaking her word to someone.
“…I will pay the price.”
“I like your straightforwardness.”
A small fireball formed at Kim Do-jin’s fingertip, and the Masked Woman bit her lower lip hard.
Just as the memory of the tentacle monster screaming and dying in the inferno made her knees weak, the fireball at his fingertip shot out without warning.
“Hk…!”
The Masked Woman squeezed her eyes shut.
She tensed her entire body to brace for the impending pain, but something unexpected happened.
Fwoosh!
The pain that should have arrived by now never came. Instead, she heard a small explosion from behind her.
Startled, the Masked Woman quickly turned around.
There, a zombie that had appeared out of nowhere was silently burning away.
As she clutched her pounding heart, a voice came from behind her.
“I’ll only let it slide once.”
She was momentarily stunned by this unexpected turn of events.
Then, she replied in a firm voice filled with resolve.
“…I’ll keep that in mind.”
She thought to herself.
Perhaps the man before her wasn’t as bad as she had thought.
* * *
It seems I’ve met an interesting person.
To think there was someone who would actually offer up their body so obediently when I told them to pay the price.
Is she pure, or just stupid?
Look at her now.
I let her off once, pretending to be merciful, and now she’s leading the way with her back completely exposed, as if we have some kind of unbreakable bond.
“…She’s practically a rare breed.”
I suddenly started to feel a pang of conscience.
The truth is, I only let her go because she’s still useful…
We searched the cathedral high and low and found a passage leading to the basement.
After clearing the large debris blocking the stairs, we reached the fourth basement level.
A long corridor with an eerie wind blowing through it stretched out before us.
And at the very end, we could faintly see an old door.
“Looks like that’s our destination.”
“I suppose so.”
“I’ll take the lead.”
The Masked Woman walked forward as if it were the most natural thing in the world.
I followed behind her just as naturally.
Finally, we reached the end of the corridor.
“Hmm…”
After examining the worn-out door before us, she asked me, “Do you want to go in first?”
I shook my head.
“You go first. I don’t mind going after.”
The real reason I’d brought the Masked Woman all the way here was because she had something I didn’t.
The key to this door.
A thought had occurred to me.
Could I slip through the crack of a door that someone else had opened and entered?
The chances seemed slim, but I decided to give it a try.
What’s the harm in trying, right?
To test this possibility, I inevitably had to let the Masked Woman go first.
To her, it seemed to be a deeply moving gesture.
“…I seem to be indebted to you in many ways.”
Judging by the absurd misunderstanding she was having.
Her untainted misconception felt like quite a burden, but it was manageable.
“You can pay me back later.”
“I will.”
After all, it meant I had gained a small card to play—a naive woman I could use at the right time.
“Then I’ll open it.”
The Masked Woman took a key from her pocket.
Just as she was about to insert it into the keyhole below the doorknob, she suddenly turned to look at me.
What is it?
Did she sense something strange about me?
Just as a hint of tension began to rise, she spoke.
“Let’s exchange names.”
“…Exchange names?”
“Yes. I need to know something about you if I’m to repay my debt.”
“So you want us to exchange our names?”
She shook her head at my question.
“No. We’ll exchange our numbers.”
“Numbers…”
She couldn’t possibly be asking for my phone number out of the blue.
The number she was talking about was probably… the order in which we received the ‘One with Aptitude’ trait.
That would certainly be a fitting way to introduce ourselves while still hiding information.
As I was marveling at her idea, she told me her number first.
“I am Number 496.”
A high number, not too far from my own.
I had expected as much, seeing how she was weaker than I thought.
Well, I guess it’s my turn.
“Nice to meet you, 496. I am… Number 504.”
The moment I revealed my number, her eyes widened slightly.
What’s with that reaction?
“Don’t tell me… you’re that psycho from the face-to-face meeting?”
“…Psycho?”
Calling me a psycho out of nowhere.
Am I being treated like a madman because of the shocking performance I put on back then?
“I knew you were no ordinary person, but to think you were 504…”
Was it just my imagination, or did that feel like a roundabout way of calling me a psycho?
After muttering to herself in constant amazement, she finally looked up and spoke to me.
“Thank you for your mercy, 504. I will be sure to repay this debt.”
Why is it that every time I see those righteous eyes, I can’t help but let out a laugh?
“I’ll be looking forward to it, 496.”
Only after we exchanged a brief nod did she turn back and resume what she was doing.
She pushed the half-inserted key all the way into the hole and turned her wrist.
Click!
With a sharp sound, the doorknob turned smoothly.
Then, the door began to open silently, without a sound.
All that could be seen through the crack was darkness.
“Well then, I’m going first.”
After a final farewell, she pushed herself through the door.
The Masked Woman vanished as if sucked into the darkness between the doors.
I watched the scene blankly, and just as the door began to close, I hurriedly followed her.
I tried to force my arm through the gap, but…
Thud!
“Ah.”
The darkness that had just readily absorbed 496 now pushed me back with great force.
“So it doesn’t work.”
As expected, I guess…
In the end, this shitty situation played out after all.
I went through all that trouble, only to end up staring at an old door instead of a Sanctuary.
“Sigh.”
I let out a small sigh and took Kkamseul-i out of my pocket.
The little guy had an innocent expression, as if it knew nothing.
“If only you hadn’t eaten the key, you’d be a perfect little guy…”
Ugh.
As I let out another deep sigh, Kkamseul-i, who had been sitting quietly on my palm, suddenly started hopping up and down.
Wondering what was wrong, I looked down at it, and an amazing thing happened before my eyes.
The creature’s pudding-like, bouncy body suddenly melted and began to change shape.
The cute and adorable Kkamseul-i was gone, and what was left on my palm was…
“A key?”
It was a key identical in shape to the one the creature had swallowed whole.