Chapter 131
Chapter 131
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Translator: Ryuma
Chapter: 131
Chapter Title: Night That Falls in the Day (7)
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“Ah...”
I watch Ha-eun's back as she gradually walks away.
‘No.’
I press my hands against the ground.
Biting my lip, I muster every last ounce of strength and pour it into my arms.
But.
-Thud!
“Keuk!”
My arms give way.
My face slams into the ground, and blood gushes from my nose.
“Don't... go...”
I reach out a hand pitifully toward her retreating back.
I try to get up by pushing with my legs this time, but they won't respond, as if my Achilles tendons have been severed.
“You can't... go.”
I remember what happened six years ago.
Her, lying in a hospital bed, trembling and crying in an unfamiliar darkness.
I couldn't leave her in that cruel darkness again.
“...Ojini.”
Ha-eun glanced back at Oh-jin, biting her lip hard.
She held the Dragon Orb close to her left eye and continued.
“I'll call the Association and have them take Ojini away. I'll give you the eye after that.”
“Hmm. How can I trust that those Association bastards will only take Noerang?”
“We can call them after we've left. If you really can't trust me, then just forget about the Dragon's Eye and everything else.”
Ha-eun waved the Dragon Orb menacingly right in front of her left eye.
It was so close that if it slipped even a centimeter, the Dragon's Eye would be instantly incinerated.
Cheon Do-yoon could easily tell she wasn't bluffing.
“Hoholhol. What a bold child. I like you very much.”
He nodded, the corners of his wrinkled mouth turning up.
“Very well. Let's leave this place together, then call the Association to take Noerang.”
“Alright—”
*Thwack!*
Cutting Ha-eun off.
A dull thud echoed through the clearing.
“Don't... give me... that bullshit.”
“Ojini...?”
Staggering.
He stood on trembling legs.
But it was only for a moment. His staggering body collapsed pathetically to the ground.
Red blood seeped from the wounds that riddled his body, soaking the dry earth.
“O-Ojini!”
Ha-eun rushed over to the fallen Oh-jin.
His entire body was so horrifically mangled that his clothes were soaked in blood, their original color unrecognizable.
“You... you bastard...!”
Ha-eun glared sharply at Cheon Do-yoon and bit her lip, but she couldn't bring herself to charge at him, driven by rage.
“Nunna...”
Oh-jin's voice was barely a whisper.
Ha-eun squeezed her eyes shut and stood up.
“Hoholhol! What a tear-jerking sight! What exactly is this boy to you that you're so desperate?”
Cheon Do-yoon looked down at Oh-jin with eyes full of mockery.
Oh-jin clung to his fading consciousness, taking in Cheon Do-yoon's taunt.
“...”
*What is Nunna to me?*
“Ah, ugh.”
He crawls.
Miserably, he moves his limbs, crawling toward Cheon Do-yoon.
It was a pathetic, unsightly spectacle.
“Hah! Hah! Hah!”
It doesn't matter.
No matter how unsightly, no matter how pathetic.
Even if people pointed fingers at me for being an orphan.
Even if I was beaten to a pulp for no reason.
—As long as she was there.
I could endure it. I could bear it.
I could move forward.
Because she was.
The first thing I ever had.
“Ah, ugh, ah.”
Dragging his unresponsive legs, he stops, then begins crawling toward Ha-eun.
Was it because he'd lost so much blood?
A faded, distant memory, from a time he could no longer place, suddenly flashed through his mind.
-You're the new kid, right?
A girl with auburn hair.
The girl, who was something of a leader among the orphanage kids, extended a hand with a bright smile.
-Your name is... Oh-jin? What does it mean?
With her clumsy knowledge of Hanja, she read the name written on my name tag.
The name I hated to death.
-Oh-jin (汚塵)...? Does this mean... dirty dust?
That's right.
The name my faceless parents had left me was 'Oh-jin,' meaning 'dirty dust'.
A name that showed just what those people who called themselves parents thought of me.
A miserable, wretched name.
-So what?
Thinking back now, a stupid name like that shouldn't have mattered.
But I reacted sensitively, questioning her confrontationally.
-Oh, it's nothing. I didn't mean anything by it... You're just always so quiet, I got curious.
-You don't need to bother paying attention to me.
I turned my head away coldly.
The girl scratched her head with an awkward expression and continued.
-Uh... um. Oh-jin... no, you don't seem to like that name very much.
After thinking for a moment, she clapped her hands, her eyes sparkling.
-Ojini! Right, I'll call you Ojini!
-…
At the crude nickname that wasn't even worth a scoff.
For some reason, my heart skipped a beat.
-Why are you up here? Did you come to hide from that bastard director too?
-...That's.
The rooftop of the four-story orphanage.
This rooftop, which should have been securely locked, had been left open for months due to the director's negligence.
-...
I hadn't come up here to hide from the director like she had.
Unlike the girl who always defied the director, I was the quiet type.
The most that happened was getting smacked on the back of the head when I was unlucky.
The reason I had snuck up to the roof, ready to be punished.
-This is... my... se-secret base.
After discovering by chance that the rooftop door was unlocked.
I had started to decorate this place as my very own secret base.
It was just a shabby secret base made from discarded boxes and wooden planks.
To me, who had nothing.
To me, who had no parents, no relatives, not even friends.
This place was the first 'thing of my own' I ever had.
-Kyahaha! What kind of secret base is this?
-…
The girl clutched her stomach, bursting into laughter.
I could only lower my head, as if to hide my blushing cheeks.
Right.
Even as I called it a secret base, I actually knew.
That this rooftop was not 'mine' at all.
That nothing in this world belonged to me.
I was young, unable to even properly memorize the multiplication tables, but I knew that much for certain.
-Hehe. Just kidding. Hmm, so this was your secret base?
-N-No, it's not.
-You said it was a secret base just now, didn't you?
The girl approached with a playful smile.
Her auburn hair swayed like fire.
At the sight of the girl, so beautiful that I was momentarily mesmerized, I gulped without realizing it.
-Let's see... If it's a secret base, you don't just let anyone in, right?
-U-Uh-huh.
I avoided the girl's gaze for no reason and clenched my fists.
-Even if my mom... and dad came, I wouldn't let them in. Ever.
Was it the childish vengeance of a young boy?
I had sworn that even if my faceless parents returned for me one day, I would never let them into this secret base.
-...Is that so?
Watching me speak with clenched fists, the girl smiled bitterly.
Right.
The girl and I both already knew.
We had realized it faster than we'd learned our multiplication tables.
The fact that the people called parents would never come back for us.
-Then what about your nunna?
-...Huh?
-Will you let your nunna in?
The girl asked with a smile as beautiful as a jewel.
-Nunna... you say?
-I'm two years older, so I'm your nunna!
-…
-Mom and Dad aren't allowed, but your nunna is, right?
-Huh? O-Oh, yeah.
Hearing my flustered reply, she strode into the shabby secret base.
Into my pathetic life, which had contained nothing.
She entered.
-Hehe. Now that I'm in here, you have to call me Nunna from now on, okay?
The girl with the bright smile.
Thinking back now, she probably hadn't said it with any special meaning.
Just teasing.
Just words spoken in passing.
—She probably doesn't even remember saying it.
But.
That one phrase, that childishly simple joke.
How much of a salvation it had been for me.
Does she know?
“St-Stop it, Ojini!!”
“Hah, hah, hah.”
Exhaling breaths laced with blood.
I press my trembling hands to the ground.
“Ah, ugh.”
My body, pushed beyond its limits, screams.
Creaking, staggering.
It wails that it shouldn't move anymore.
-Tiring!
[Warning. The Awakened's physical condition is too damaged to maintain mana.]
[The Stigma's mana is running rampant.]
[Entering 'Overload' state!]
[Entering 'Qi Deviation' state!]
“Shut... up...”
It can break.
It can shatter.
As long as I can stand up this one time, I don't care if I can never get up again.
“Plea...se.”
I slammed my fists into my trembling legs.
“Please... move.”
For the first time, there was something I wanted.
There was one thing I wanted to protect, even if it cost me everything.
In my life, which was as dark as a starless night, she was the only one who shone.
“Oji...ni?”
I looked back at her, at her trembling eyes watching me.
-BOOM!!!
“Hraaaaaaaaaaah!!!”
I roared and forced myself to my feet.
I stood firm on the ground and straightened my back.
“Hah! Hah!”
Panting raggedly, I took a step toward her.
Staggering, swaying.
But not falling.
“Ojini... why...? Why are you going this far?”
“Why... am I going this far?”
Is that something a woman who's about to gouge out her own eye to save someone else's life should be asking?
“You can't just barge into someone's secret base... and then try to leave.”
“What? Wh-What are you talking about?”
So she really doesn't remember.
It doesn't matter if you've forgotten.
Even if you forget.
I will remember.
“Hoholhol!! To think you'd actually stand up in that state!”
Cheon Do-yoon's mocking voice rang out.
“But—what changes just because you stood up?”
It won't be easy to change things.
The world doesn't just fix itself because you endure and persevere.
No matter how hard I grit my teeth and stand.
The gap between Cheon Do-yoon and me is still immense.
‘However.’
I have a plan.
‘That bastard definitely said the Dragon's Eye is used to control the mana contained within the Dragon's Heart.’
If that's the case.
Then perhaps the Dragon's Eye holds the power to control not just the mana of the Dragon's Heart, but the mana of the dragon vein as well.
“Nunna, no matter what happens from now on, don't move.”
“Wh-What are you going to do?”
“No time to explain.”
Oh-jin carefully reached a hand toward her left eye.
A black cloud flowed from his fingertips and gently covered the area around her left eye.
“Kyaaaah! Wh-What is this?!”
“Stay still.”
He delicately controlled Heukcheon so as not to harm her, gently absorbing the power of the Dragon's Eye.
And then.
-Wooooooooong!!!
The mana of the dragon vein, which had been coiled loftily within the black sky.
Slowly began to raise its head.
-Tiring!
[Some conditions required for the release of 'Gaecheon (Opening the Heavens)' have been met.]
With the sound of a clear bell, a line of text appeared before my eyes.
[Αυτοί που με προσπερνούν στον κήπο των αναστεναγμών]
An indecipherable phrase of unknown origin.
It was the phrase written in the description for 'Gaecheon'.
Oh-jin raised his head and looked at the phrase floating before him.
For some reason.
The meaning of the once-incomprehensible phrase flowed into his mind.
He quietly opened his mouth and recited the incantation that had entered his head.
“Those who pass by me, to the garden of sighs.”
Beginning with the ominous-sounding incantation.
“—Ah.”
The sky.
Opened.
-Crackle!! Crackle-crackle-crackle!!
The blue lightning that had been blazing around Oh-jin's body gradually turned black.
The blood that had spilled onto the ground turned into a dark cloud and was sucked back into Oh-jin's body.
As if he had drunk an elixir, the wounds that riddled his body began to heal rapidly.
“Wh-What?”
Watching the fiercely burning black lightning, Cheon Do-yoon flinched.
An unknown, ominous energy pressed down on him.
*Clack clack clack!*
His teeth chattered loudly.
He hadn't felt such overwhelming fear even when facing the Constellation of Polaris.
‘What is this...’
He stared at Oh-jin, his face pale.
-Crackle! Crackle-crackle-crackle!!
Oh-jin, wreathed in black lightning, looked up at the sky with a somewhat dazed expression.
Why was it?
Even though the sun was shining so brightly it stung his skin.
The sky he looked up at was endlessly dark.
“The sky is so dark.”
He said, looking up at the cloudless blue sky.
He asked in a strangely excited voice.
“Don't you think?”