Chapter 67: Girasung, Again
Translator: RaidenTL
Chapter 67: Girasung, Again
16
Leaving Jo Si-a, who seemed to be mulling something over, I finished class and started walking with Ahyu.
Since that was the last class of the day, my plan was to kill some time, grab dinner, and then head back to the dorms.
‘Speaking of which, that Eunnamu kid is taking a while.’
I tilted my head, thinking of Eunnamu, who still hadn't returned.
‘Is the interview really taking this long?’
Then, my thoughts drifted in another direction.
‘Could she have run away because she knew Ahyu and Eunhyeon were here?’
I suspected she might be a member of Girasung.
She was a returnee and was hiding her appearance, so there were many reasons to be suspicious.
If I was right, should I tell Ahyu?
Ahyu, who was walking beside me while sucking on a popsicle with her red lips, met my gaze and pulled the treat from her mouth with a soft pop.
"What is it? You want a bite too, Doremi-oppa?"
"Why would I eat something you've been eating?"
I said, taking a bite of the fish-shaped ice cream I was eating.
"Then I'll have some."
"Hey, wait."
Before I could stop her, Ahyu took a bite out of the top of my fish-shaped ice cream, right where I had just bitten.
Chewing with her small mouth, Ahyu soon stuck out her tongue and gave me a mischievous smile.
"Is it good?"
"Tastes like you, Doremi-oppa."
"Since when was I on the menu?"
"I'm not done yet. I'm just nibbling for now."
Seeing her delighted expression, I debated again whether to bring up Eunnamu.
As if sensing my thoughts, or perhaps not, Ahyu leaned her head against my shoulder as we walked.
"Hey, it's hard to walk like this."
"I'm tired from working today, too. Let me lean on you. Or will you carry me to bed?"
"Stop talking nonsense. You're not going to walk properly, are you?"
"Hmph, Ahyu's legs hurt. Carry me."
"Since when were you so cutesy?"
I had to give a wry smile, seeing Ahyu so busy being playful, her Heavenly Demon persona nowhere in sight.
For some reason, I didn't want to see Ahyu and Eunnamu fight.
"...Manager?"
It was at that moment.
A voice called out, accompanied by the sound of something dropping to the ground.
When I turned, I saw Si-ho, who had dropped a black plastic bag that seemed to be holding ice cream.
‘When did she teleport here?’
"Si-ho."
The moment I called her name, Si-ho vanished in a spatial warp.
She reappeared in front of Ahyu and immediately started tugging at her collar, trying to pull her away from me.
While I stared wide-eyed, Si-ho was already glaring at Ahyu with a furious expression. Ahyu, meeting her gaze, looked utterly dumbfounded.
"Hey, kid, what do you think you're doing?"
"Manager is Si-ho's boyfriend!"
"What? No, whaaat?! Doremi-oppa!"
In that instant, Ahyu's eyes began to burn fiercely.
Flustered, I quickly tried to explain to Ahyu.
"Wait, Si-ho, you can't just say things like that. Ahyu, you calm down, too. There's a reason for this..."
"A reason?! Why would there be a reason! What did you two do?!"
We didn't do anything.
"Manager and I decided to date. So get away from him."
"Y-y-you, pedo! Loli-con! You criminal, laying your hands on a minor!"
I haven't laid a hand on anyone.
My head throbbing, I just watched Si-ho and Ahyu bicker without saying a word.
I was getting a little pissed off myself, seeing them fight without listening to a word I said.
I was here worrying about Eunnamu, and I couldn't help but get annoyed with them acting like this.
After squabbling for a while, Si-ho and Ahyu gradually quieted down.
They started sneaking glances at me, testing the waters, before finally lowering their heads, looking dejected.
"Oh, look at that. The guy who never gets angry finally does, and it works like a charm."
Baeksan snickered beside me as if it were none of his business, but I ignored him.
"Are you two done?"
When I asked with a smile, they both flinched, their shoulders twitching.
"Are you going to keep going?"
They both immediately started shaking their heads.
"S-sorry, Doremi-oppa. I got angry without listening to you at all, right? I was wrong. Okay, okay? Please don't be mad."
"I'm sorry, Manager. Si-ho just said whatever she wanted. I won't do it again."
They even held hands to show they wouldn't fight anymore.
I watched them for a moment, then rubbed my throbbing forehead before speaking.
"First of all, the boyfriend thing Si-ho mentioned is because of Jo Si-a."
I calmly explained to Ahyu what had happened at the academy.
As she listened, Ahyu's expression flared up in the middle of my story, but after looking at my face, she suppressed her anger and just fidgeted with her feet.
"...So that's why the Iron-Blooded sent me here."
She muttered to herself as if she'd realized something, but said nothing more.
"And Si-ho, you can't just say things like that either. We had an agreement about this."
"Mmm, Si-ho was wrong."
Si-ho lowered her head and couldn't seem to lift it back up.
She seemed genuinely remorseful, so I decided to let it go.
"Anyway, Ahyu, there's something I wanted to talk to you about."
BOOM!
Just then, an explosion roared in the distance.
As I, who had been about to tell Ahyu about Eunnamu, turned my head toward the sound, Ahyu's phone started ringing.
The caller ID read 'Eunhyeon'. Ahyu met my eyes and nodded.
"Looks like remnants of Girasung have shown up."
‘Dammit, so Eunnamu really is with Girasung.’
"Ahyu, what are you going to do?"
"I'm heading over right now. What about you and the kid, Doremi-oppa?"
"We're coming with you."
"Figured you would. Well, it shouldn't be too dangerous. Aside from that Asura bastard, we've caught all the ones worth catching in Korea."
An arrogant smile spread across Ahyu's face.
"Besides, my side is the safest place to be."
Spoken like the true Heavenly Demon she was.
"Let's go now."
As soon as I spoke, Si-ho quickly extended her hands to Ahyu and me.
The moment we took her hands, her spatial warp activated, and we found ourselves on the rooftop of the building where the explosion had occurred.
Below the collapsed rooftop ceiling, centipede-like dimensional entities were crawling about haphazardly.
They were much larger than humans, which was probably why the students couldn't even fight back and were just screaming and running away.
Their appearance was indeed too grotesque for inexperienced students to handle.
"Those are Millennium Centipedes from Star System 6. It means a dimensional gate has opened."
Since it was a dimensional entity I knew about, I mentioned it, and Ahyu's gaze shifted somewhere.
There, amidst the centipedes, a single cell phone was emitting a bright light.
It was an artificial dimensional gate created by Girasung.
"Looks like they're planning to buy time with an artificial gate and escape."
Just as Ahyu said, I could tell the artificial gate was just a diversion.
At that moment, the sound of something collapsing echoed from other locations.
The sounds echoing from all over were clearly the sounds of more artificial gates opening.
It seemed they had been prepared in advance for an escape, as artificial gates were opening one after another across the academy grounds.
"Ha-chan hyung-nim! Si-ho!"
Just then, Seo-ho called out to us from below.
The instructors also seemed flustered by the sudden crisis, and I could see them scrambling to fight the dimensional entities.
A few students were helping, but most of them lacked real combat experience and didn't seem to be much help.
Amidst the chaos, Jo Si-a was quickly leading students to safety.
"Seo-ho! There should be an electronic device where the dimensional entities are thickest! It's an artificial gate, so destroying it should solve the problem! I'm counting on you and Jo Si-a!"
"Yes!"
Seo-ho responded immediately, creating a path of ice and starting to run.
‘What a reliable guy.’
While he was on the move, I turned back to Ahyu.
"Ahyu, where's Eunhyeon?"
"I don't know. She sent one text and then disappeared. She might be chasing them on her own."
Ahyu frowned, saying her detection skills were terrible.
In that case, I decided to leave the Girasung member to Ahyu, but there was one person on my mind that I needed to mention first.
"Ahyu, there's a classmate named Eunnamu."
"Eunnamu? What kind of name is that?"
"She's probably a returnee. No, she's definitely a returnee."
At my words, Si-ho, who also knew Eunnamu, widened her eyes.
"But I don't know if she's with Girasung yet."
When I spoke with uncertainty, Ahyu hummed, "Hmph."
Then, her eyes turned red, the edges of her clothes were dyed the color of camellias, and her outfit transformed.
Having returned to her form as the Heavenly Demon, Cheon Hong-ryeon, she held a sword in her hand and spoke.
"You want to try talking to her first, I assume."
"I'm being too selfish, aren't I?"
"That's the part of you I like, so it's fine."
As she said this, the tips of Cheon Hong-ryeon's ears were tinged with red.
"I will find and capture her for you. Describe her appearance."
"Well, she has black, neck-length hair and is disguised as a man. And even I got a strange feeling from her. You'll probably be able to recognize her right away."
"Disguised as a man. A man... wait, a man?!"
Cheon Hong-ryeon's eyes flew open as she whipped her head around to look at me.
Si-ho also suddenly grabbed my collar.
Caught between their gazes, I remained silent for a moment before speaking.
"...Can I explain later?"
I couldn't possibly explain every little detail in the middle of this chaos.
Hearing this, Cheon Hong-ryeon made a displeased face but eventually accepted it.
"Then I'll go with Si-ho and close the other gates."
"It would be better if you didn't leave my side..."
This is a situation where we need all hands on deck.
As if realizing we couldn't talk any further, she sighed, said, "Don't get hurt," and leaped down from the broken rooftop.
The sight of Cheon Hong-ryeon landing and immediately annihilating the Millennium Centipedes was truly terrifying.
"Si-ho, are there any artificial gates that opened in areas without buildings?"
"Yes."
Given the nature of my ability, I needed a place without buildings or people to use Brain Thunder.
So, I planned to head to one of those areas intentionally.
I summoned Kerape from thin air and immediately spoke to Si-ho.
"Are there people there?"
"A few. It looks like they're being chased."
A true prodigy among spatial ability users, Si-ho was grasping everything with her wide-ranging spatial awareness.
"Good. Take us there, please."
"Okay, I will."
With that, Si-ho activated a spatial warp for the two of us.
We arrived in a forest within a park on the academy grounds.
The slightly hilly forest wasn't very large, but it was a time of day when few people were around.
"Aaaah!"
Just then, two men came tumbling out of the forest with a scream.
Drenched in sweat and panting heavily, they froze mid-stride and stared at us with wide eyes.
At the same time, I recognized them.
"Lee Su-ho's cronies?"
Lee Su-ho and his girlfriend weren't there, but the two guys who were always with them were.
"...The F-rank? Shit, this is no time for this! A gate opened, and dimensional entities are pouring out!"
Just as he shouted urgently, a plant vine shot up from the ground.
"Aack!?"
One of Lee Su-ho's cronies was ensnared by the vine and hoisted into the air, while the other collapsed to the ground in shock.
Then, from between the trees, a dimensional entity that looked like a tangled mass of plants walked out.
It was a plant-type dimensional entity called a Delpharis.
Judging by the commotion deeper inside, there were probably more of them.
Click—
I immediately raised Kerape and took aim.
I wouldn't use Brain Thunder.
Instead, I fired a small bullet formed with 0.1% of my power.
Bang! Snap!
The lightning bullet flew out, severing the plant entity's vine with a shower of sparks.
"Uwaaah!"
With the vine now severed, the captured man began to fall.
"Si-ho."
At my call, Si-ho already had her hand raised. The two men, who had been screaming as one of them fell, were teleported right next to us.
The moment she pointed her index finger at the Delpharis, its body crumpled.
Even while using her powers for something else, Si-ho was still an A-rank hunter.
A D-rank dimensional entity like the Delpharis was no match for her.
As the two stared at us with shocked eyes, I was about to tell them to run, but a thought stopped me.
"Where are Lee Su-ho and his girlfriend?"
"W-well..."
Seeing them unable to answer, I realized what had happened and clicked my tongue.
‘It's obvious they abandoned them to save themselves.’
"Let's go, Si-ho."
Deciding they weren't worth talking to, I shouldered Kerape and began trudging deeper into the forest.
The two could only watch us go, dumbfounded.