Chapter 29: Him
Translator: RaidenTL
Chapter 29: Him
16
The two, completely fooled by Si-ho and Ha-chan’s plan, had been sent flying by Si-ho’s spatial warp.
But they were lucky.
Just as they were sent flying, they were caught in a trap Kaito had set to block Si-ho’s spatial warp.
Thanks to that, although they ended up splashing into the sea, they weren't sent very far.
“Catherine!”
The moment Kaito realized the situation and cried out, Catherine didn’t hesitate. She leaped toward the island, crackling with sparks.
Clutching a bolt of lightning, she hurled it at Si-ho and Ha-chan, who were just about to warp away. The bolt struck true.
CRACK-BOOOOOOM!
With a deafening explosion, the two could be seen tumbling to the ground.
Catherine grabbed the head of Si-ho, the biggest nuisance, and slammed it into the ground to subdue her before lifting her own head.
Si-ho didn’t seem to be moving; perhaps the blow had knocked her unconscious.
Just then, Kaito walked up to Ha-chan, who was still rolling on the ground.
“To think I was beaten by a bug like this. It’s truly humiliating.”
He shuddered, his face contorted with wounded pride.
But Catherine’s attention was fixed on Ha-chan.
Was he really just an ordinary civilian?
The fact that a veteran like her had been bested by such a person felt unreal.
But it was the truth.
If not for the good fortune of getting caught in Kaito’s own trap, she would have lost them for sure.
She had lost the battle of wits but won the battle of luck.
“How dare this trash touch me! I was already pissed off, and now this filth!”
Just then, Kaito’s roar echoed out.
Ha-chan, looking like he was on the verge of death, was clinging to his leg.
Kaito looked utterly repulsed, and Catherine frowned at the sight.
Kaito harbored an extreme hatred for powerless, incompetent civilians.
The fact that one was now holding onto him made him scream as if a bug were crawling on him.
“Si-ho! Get up!”
But in contrast, Ha-chan was a man of grit.
To think that even in that state, he was trying to wake her up so she could escape.
Sorry, but we’ve already subdued you.
Even a spatial warper was helpless now.
His struggle was meaningless.
“Ye-Catherine! Please blast this guy and kill him! He’s so filthy I don’t even want to touch him!”
She hesitated for a moment.
Having inwardly admitted defeat, she felt a pang of reluctance at the thought of killing the man who had outsmarted her.
“Должен ли я даже убить его? (Do I really have to kill him?)”
“Why would you let something like this live!”
But Kaito felt no such compunctions.
So much for the famed samurai spirit of the Japanese.
She let out a small sigh.
In any case, with injuries that severe, the civilian would die soon anyway.
If so, it would be better to give him a peaceful end.
In the end, she gathered an electric current at her fingertips and sent it flying toward the civilian man.
She held no grudge against him, so she sent it with the intent of letting him go without any more pain.
And her intent was perfectly realized.
The man twitched once, let go of Kaito’s leg, and went completely limp.
“How dare this filth! Ugh, seriously!”
As if he couldn’t bear to touch him, Kaito pushed the man away with his cane and began scrubbing furiously at his own arm.
The man, who had rolled over once and collapsed on the ground, didn’t move an inch.
He was dead.
“Ah, ahh.”
At that moment, a sound came from Ha Si-ho.
Having finally regained consciousness at the sound of his voice, she looked up, blood dripping from her forehead. Her face was a mask of shock.
Why didn’t I use my full power until the end?
What was so important about it?
What was so important about an illusion I just summoned from another world?
My real mom is already…
And because of her, another person had died.
The man who had trusted her from beginning to end, who had respected her stubbornness in hesitating to use her power even in this situation.
I killed him.
Me.
“Because, of me, Si-ho… because I, I kept holding on to Mom…”
Tears welled in her eyes as she mumbled incoherently.
It was too late.
Just like when she couldn’t save her mother, she was too late again.
The truth was so agonizing it felt like it would burn her heart to ashes. Si-ho clenched her fists so hard they might shatter.
“I’m… sorry I was late.”
Si-ho decided to let go of the past she had clung to for years.
“I think you’d better hold on tight to that. It looks like it’s about to explode.”
Just then, Kaito, who had noticed the change in Si-ho, approached her with a stern expression.
His hand was already raised, ready to subdue Ha Si-ho.
“We should finish this quickly and head back. It’s about time… they probably arrived…”
And those were Kaito’s last words.
Something shot past.
CRASH!
By the time she registered the thought, Kaito had been slammed into a rock dozens of meters away, out over the sea.
He was embedded so deeply that his figure was completely hidden by the crumbling rock.
A subsequent gale whipped Catherine’s hair about.
Standing before the stunned Catherine was a man drenched in blood.
He was clearly Ha-chan, the civilian man she had just killed.
“What is this? Who put something on this guy?”
The man waved a hand dismissively, and a black liquid splattered from it before evaporating.
It seemed to be some kind of curse.
Then, he clenched his fist.
Crackle—
In that instant, red lightning flared to life, flickering around the man.
Tossing aside his broken glasses, he slowly swept his bangs back.
“Was it you.”
The moment she heard that low voice, goosebumps erupted all over Catherine’s skin.
Danger signals spread throughout her body, as if a towering, ancient tree were looking down on her.
She was reminded of the moment she faced the evil dragon from the Star System—a disaster in itself, impossible to stop.
Just meeting his gaze was enough for an unprecedented fear to begin consuming her.
Fwoosh!
Forgetting that she needed to restrain Ha Si-ho, she had already put distance between them.
Her hair, standing on end with her electric current, clearly showed just how tense she was.
Her breathing grew ragged and uncontrolled.
The lightning of her Thunder Dragon, sensing the danger, sparked erratically on its own.
The man stared at her for a moment before turning his head.
His eyes met Si-ho’s, who was staring up at him blankly with tear-streaked eyes. He raised a hand and placed it gently on her head.
“It’s okay, kiddo.”
He patted Si-ho’s head a couple of times, and then his figure blurred.
“Gahk?!”
In that instant, Catherine felt a sharp pain in her abdomen as her body bent into the shape of an L.
The impact didn’t stop there.
While still bent over, the remaining force of the blow sent her flying into the air.
Her eyes rolled back in her head.
Her mind couldn’t keep up with the speed; only the pain rang like an alarm bell in her head.
BAM!
A subsequent blow to her head slammed her back down onto the sandy beach.
As she managed to force her eyes open through the pain, she saw a world stained crimson, as if soaked in blood. The man was pressing down on her face, holding it with his hand.
An aura of absolute power flowed from him as he continuously discharged red lightning.
How is this possible?
Just moments ago, he was a normal civilian.
How could he have changed so drastically in an instant?
Did I misjudge him?
What if he was hiding his power from the start, aiming for this?
‘No way.’
If he had this kind of power, he could have subdued them the moment he saw them.
There would have been no reason to engage in such pointless antics.
“Let me ask you one thing. What year is it?”
Catherine’s teeth chattered from the sheer force of the aura leaking from him, but she managed to answer.
“……две тысячи тридцать лет (……2030)”
“What the hell are you saying? Shit, if you're in Korea, speak Korean.”
Catherine felt wronged.
This wasn’t Korea, and she didn’t know Korean.
But without a translation receiver, a conversation with him was impossible.
However, the man showed no sympathy for Catherine’s plight and simply stroked his chin with one hand.
“……The timing is weird. This isn’t the incident I remember, either. Dammit, what about the Tower of Revelation?”
The Tower of Revelation.
Unable to understand the words flowing from the man, Catherine kept her mouth shut.
I’m scared.
She was so scared she felt like she would die.
If I resist even a little, I’ll die.
Knowing this, she closed her eyes, her teeth chattering uncontrollably.
The man seemed lost in thought, ignoring Catherine.
But soon, he shook his head in annoyance.
“And why isn’t she here either? I went through hell to send that prophecy.”
Muttering to himself, he stopped as if deciding it was enough.
Having apparently decided not to dwell on the past, he lowered his gaze to her.
“There’s not much time left, and this body is in terrible shape. What should I do with you?”
The moment he asked the question, Catherine’s eyes shot open.
She flailed her hands, desperately pointing at her ear.
Seeing this, the man noticed something in her ear and pulled it out.
“What am I supposed to do with this?”
Seeing him, Catherine frantically pointed at his ear.
Seeing her desperation, the man made an indifferent face before simply crushing it to dust.
The color drained from Catherine’s face.
“All you’re going to say is ‘Please spare me, I’ll tell you anything,’ anyway.”
Without the translator, the man’s words were incomprehensible to her.
But she knew exactly what he meant.
I’m going to die.
This man is definitely going to kill me.
His eyes held the experience of someone who had slaughtered countless people.
It was enough to terrify even a returnee like her.
That was why he knew her actions would be the same as anyone else’s on the brink of death.
Her will to fight had vanished long ago.
Her pale body trembled.
The murderous demon before her was terrifying enough to drive her mad.
The fear was especially palpable because he wielded the same type of electrical ability as her, allowing her to feel his power directly.
Crackle—
A red spark leaped from the man’s body.
That alone was enough to snap the last thread of Catherine’s sanity.
Drip…
Something began to trickle down her pant leg.
“Ah, shit. Disgusting.”
Seeing what she had done, her eyes rolling back in the face of mortal terror, the man spoke in annoyance and let go of her.
Then, without mercy, he tossed a flicker of red current at Catherine.
Fzzt!
Catherine’s body convulsed, then went limp.
She didn’t even let out a scream.
Confirming this, the man turned his gaze and reached a hand out into the empty air.
“The little bastard is putting up a fight.”
In his hand was a gun made of white wood, looking considerably old-fashioned.
Keraunos Astrape.
What the man held was the gun known as the Spear of Zeus.
The red lightning gathering at the man’s fingertips began to coalesce.
It became a single bullet.
He then pushed the newly formed bullet into the Keraunos Astrape.
Click-clack—
With that, he fired the bullet without hesitation.
BOOOOOOOOM!
And a flash of red light pulsed.
Where the crimson lightning had erupted, the blind man, Kaito, was sitting collapsed. He was trembling as he stared at the sea, which had been blown away all the way to the horizon.
The sight of the displaced ocean rushing back with crashing waves showed just how insane the firepower of that single bullet had been.
“A mon-monster, a monster.”
“Hey.”
The man called out to him curtly.
Then, loading the next lightning bullet, he aimed the muzzle at him.
“Undo what you did to the kid.”
At those words, Kaito’s shoulders flinched.
Just before the first blow had landed, Kaito had luckily survived without injury thanks to the auto-reflex illusion magic he always kept active.
What the man thought he had blown away was merely his illusion.
It hadn’t been him.
Having lost one of his spare lives in an instant, Kaito had immediately tried to flee.
But then, his eyes fell on Si-ho, sitting limply on the ground.
His mission was to bring the S-rank spatial warper, Si-ho, to Girasung.
Catherine might not have known, but it was necessary for the greater cause.
Remembering that, he got greedy.
While the man’s attention was on Catherine, he had tried to kidnap Si-ho and escape to Girasung.
However, contrary to his expectations, Catherine hadn’t bought him any time at all, and now he himself was on the verge of death.
‘But if I can just get to Ha Si-ho now.’
The man had ordered him to release the spatial movement inhibitor he had placed on Ha Si-ho.
That meant he wouldn’t be stopped if he approached her.
Kaito’s mind began to race.
His spatial warp ability could cover nearly 100 kilometers in a single jump.
At maximum speed, the warp distance was 10 kilometers.
Considering the bullet the man just fired reached the horizon, its effective range was about 5 kilometers.
That meant that as long as he could use his spatial warp, the man’s attack couldn’t reach him.
‘I can do it.’
If he could just warp once with Ha Si-ho, the man wouldn’t be able to attack him, for her sake.
Once his thoughts reached that conclusion, he walked toward Ha Si-ho with a cautious expression.
“I-I’ll do it. So please don’t kill me!”
His pride was shattered, but Kaito put on a thoroughly servile expression and plopped down beside Ha Si-ho.
As he began to release the spatial inhibitor on her, he simultaneously started preparing a spatial warp.
The man simply watched him, the gun resting on his shoulder.
The killing intent flowing from him pricked at his skin, but Kaito endured it with gritted teeth.
Cold sweat dripped down his face.
Carefully.
I have to be as careful as possible.
He thoroughly concealed the fact that he was casting two spells at once.
And soon, he completed both spells simultaneously.
“I-I’m doing it now!”
He spoke deliberately to avoid suspicion and activated both spells at the same time.
In that instant, his vision began to shift.
Success!
As he watched the man who was watching him and Si-ho vanish at high speed, he showed a reaction drunk on victory.
The spatial warp had already been activated.
No matter how skilled he was, he couldn’t possibly catch up to an activated warp.
“Honestly, guys like you always pull this shit the moment you’re given an opening.”
Just then, an arm reached through the fabric of space and seized Kaito by the collar.
His body was already in the middle of warping away, but the man had grabbed him as if it were nothing.
WHOOSH!
“Hyaaaak!”
Forcibly pulled out of the spatial warp, Kaito screamed as he was thrown to the ground.
Ignoring him, the man pulled Kaito toward him, set down Si-ho whom he had been holding, and simply aimed the gun at him.
Click-clack.
The sound of a bullet being loaded echoed from within.
“Ugh, khuk!”
Kaito struggled desperately and activated his spatial warp.
I have to run.
I have to escape, no matter what.
I have to tell Girasung that there’s a monster.
He had never seen a monster that could interfere with spatial warps, not even before he returned.
As he hastily activated his warp, for some reason, the man didn’t pull the trigger.
Whether by chance or something else, Kaito warped desperately, trying to live.
I’m alive.
That thought flashed through his mind.
And in that same moment, the world before the blind man’s eyes was dyed in a white flash.
A single bolt of lightning flew to the exact spot where Kaito had warped, erasing him from existence before he could even register it.
With the single bullet that had erased even the clouds from the sky, the man blew on the muzzle of his gun.
Then, following his gaze, he turned his head and saw Ha Si-ho looking at him with a wary expression.
“……Who are you? Where’s my manager?”
Hearing the question, the man nonchalantly tossed the gun to the ground.
“What’s a kid going to do with that information?”
“I’m not a kid.”
When Ha Si-ho shouted back, seeming offended, the man chuckled before turning his head away.
There was a hint of sorrow in his eyes, which made Ha Si-ho momentarily wonder, but he quickly changed his expression.
Then, as if the timing was perfect, he opened his mouth.
“Looks like this is the limit. Good timing.”
“What does that…”
Before Ha Si-ho could ask more, the man simply crumpled to the ground.
Seeing this, a startled Ha Si-ho rushed to catch his body.
And then she saw Ha-chan’s face, his eyes closed as if he were asleep.
He’s different.
The man from a moment ago and Ha-chan were completely different people.
Who in the world was that just now?
For some reason, the way he had stroked her head felt familiar. Ha Si-ho touched the top of her own head for a moment, then looked up.
Because she could see new people appearing via a spatial warp.
It was time to go back.