Chapter 176
Chapter 176
-----------------------------------------------------------------
Translator: Ryuma
Chapter: 176
Chapter Title: Living Armor (1)
-----------------------------------------------------------------
“Hmm… I didn’t know places like this existed in Korea.”
The streets of Yonghyeon-dong, where I had arrived with Isabella.
The rubble of collapsed buildings, trash strewn across the ground, and the foul stench of urine hanging in the air—it was, as she said, a far cry from Korea’s reputation as a relatively ‘safe country’.
“Well, this place wasn’t completely spared from the damage, just less affected.”
Oh-jin said, looking around at the desolate streets.
Even if it was a far cry from Korea’s image, the atmosphere wasn’t unfamiliar.
The house he had lived in before becoming an Awakened was on a street with a similar vibe.
‘Isabella probably finds this strange.’
She was the daughter of one of Europe’s most distinguished families.
A street with a post-apocalyptic feel like this would likely be foreign to her.
“Is a place like this a bit unfamiliar to you?”
“Hm? Oh, no, not at all.”
Isabella shook her head with a bright smile.
“I used to come to places like this often for volunteer work.”
“Ah.”
Right, Isabella often volunteered to help the gypsies.
The things I’d seen of her since then were so shocking that I’d completely forgotten.
“If anything, this is quite civilized.”
“…This is civilized?”
“Things have gotten a bit better now, but… the situation in Italy was much more serious.”
More serious than this ghost town littered with trash and filth?
“After the monster crisis began, the entire country was under the control of the mafia.”
She must be talking about the Marco Family.
“On streets like this, mixed in with the trash and filth… there were bodies lying around too. Children, adults, the elderly, it didn't matter.”
“That’s…”
I could now understand what she meant by the situation being more serious here.
Oh-jin stared intently at Isabella’s profile as she walked with a bitter expression.
Was the face she was making now a mask for her role as the ‘Saintess of Rome’, or was it her own?
‘I don’t know.’
Looking back, I realized I knew very little about Isabella.
Not the Saintess of Rome, not the Leech Queen of the Black Star Organization.
But about the woman named ‘Isabella Colagrande’.
“Isabella, why did you join the Guardian Guild?”
“Hm? Didn’t I tell you earlier? I heard you were a part of the Guardian Guild, so I contacted them myself, asking to join.”
“I mean, why did you join just because I was here?”
The question that had lingered, refusing to disappear.
Why was Isabella so interested in him?
Of course, he knew she had a strong obsession with his ‘blood’.
But was that really enough reason to go this far?
Frankly, if all she wanted was his blood, she could have just kidnapped him, locked him up, and drawn his blood to drink.
“Because I wanted to see you, Oh-jin. Is that not reason enough?”
Isabella smiled as beautifully as a star.
Faced with that beautiful smile, which gave no hint of a blood-crazed witch, Oh-jin was at a loss for words.
“It was the first time.”
“The first time for what?”
“For someone to protect me like you did, Oh-jin.”
Isabella looked up at the sky, filled with gloomy, dark clouds, as if reminiscing about the past.
“Weren’t there people from your family?”
It made no sense for him to be the ‘first person to protect her’ when Isabella had professional bodyguards.
“Hmm. They were protecting me in exchange for payment. That wasn’t the case with you, was it?”
“That’s true, but.”
“You were the first, Oh-jin. The first person to protect me without any compensation.”
Isabella said, her eyes crinkling into a pretty smile.
‘I was the first, huh.’
A question naturally came to mind.
“…What about your family?”
“Fufufu.”
Isabella covered her mouth with one hand and let out a light laugh, as if something was amusing.
“Right. You wouldn’t know much about my family, Oh-jin.”
“What do you mean?”
“The Colagrande family offers no protection to its children. Not until they ‘survive’.”
“……”
Her voice was laced with a sticky unpleasantness.
Oh-jin narrowed his eyes, demanding an explanation.
Isabella opened her mouth with a bitter expression.
“The children of the Colagrande family are exposed to various dangers from a young age. Things like assassination or kidnapping.”
“And the family provides no protection?”
In that sense, she was no different from him, who had been abandoned by his parents at birth.
No, in some ways, her situation was even worse.
At least Oh-jin hadn’t grown up under the threat of assassination or kidnapping.
“To be precise, we only receive the family’s protection until the age of ten. After that… we have to survive somehow until we are designated as the ‘heir’.”
“What a fucked-up family.”
“……”
Isabella’s eyes widened like a rabbit’s at Oh-jin’s unfiltered assessment.
“Why?”
“Ah, no. It’s just that you’re the first person to curse my family so blatantly.”
Isabella muttered the curse Oh-jin had uttered several times in a small voice.
“A fucked-up family… Fufu. Ahahaha!”
Isabella finally burst into laughter.
It was the most ‘genuine’ laugh he had ever seen from her.
“You’re right. They really… *were* a bunch of complete fools.”
The fact that she spoke in the past tense made me wonder if they had all died during the monster crisis.
Or perhaps.
She had killed them with her own hands.
Isabella wiped the corners of her eyes, where tears had welled up slightly from laughing too much, and nodded.
“What happens to the children who aren’t chosen as the heir?”
“They are all disowned from the family and forcibly exiled.”
“Without a single penny?”
“Penny? Ah, you mean money. Yes, that’s right. They are literally just thrown out onto the streets. In a distant foreign land, to ensure they can never return.”
“…Hah.”
A dry laugh escaped Oh-jin’s lips.
The world was full of all kinds of crazy families.
“So after you became the heir, Isabella…”
“Yes. My older sister was also cast out from the family like that.”
A hidden sadness could be felt in Isabella’s calm voice.
But it was only for a moment.
Isabella wore her usual innocent smile and gently pulled on Oh-jin’s arm.
“Hehe. Now do you understand why I was counting down the days until I could see you, Oh-jin?”
“Hmm.”
Oh-jin swallowed hard, feeling the soft touch traveling up his arm.
It was possible that the image she was showing him now was all a lie to make him let his guard down.
She could be approaching him with a different objective.
‘Isabella’s true identity is an Executor of the Black Star Organization.’
As long as he didn’t know the goals of the Leech Faction, he couldn’t afford to be complacent.
However.
“Well… I get it.”
Just for once.
He felt like it might be okay to be deceived by her words.
“Then let’s start looking for the monster!”
Isabella exclaimed in a cheerful voice and started walking with big strides.
Oh-jin let out a small laugh and followed behind her.
“Is it okay for the supporter to go ahead like that?”
“Ah.”
Isabella let out a short gasp and blushed.
“I-I got a little excited because I was embarrassed.”
“You seemed pretty proactive for someone who was embarrassed.”
“D-Don’t say things like that!”
Isabella stammered, flustered.
Oh-jin shrugged lightly and walked past her.
They had talked enough; it was time to start tracking the monster, as she had said.
‘No obvious tracks.’
He patrolled every nook and cranny of the alleys.
But since the streets were already so ruined, he couldn’t find anything that looked like monster tracks.
“By the way, what type of monster do you think it is?”
“I wonder. With so few obvious tracks, I don’t think it’s a large one.”
If it were a monster over ten or twenty meters tall, it would be impossible for it to move around without leaving any traces.
‘At most, it’s probably human-sized.’
Monsters with a humanoid physique weren’t rare, so it was entirely possible.
“Let’s look around a bit more for now.”
“Ah, have you heard anything from the other teams?”
“Not yet.”
Thirty minutes had passed since they started the search, but the communication orb hadn’t lit up once.
“Let’s search for another thirty minutes and then contact them.”
“Yes, Oh-jin!”
Isabella nodded with a bright smile.
She looked like a puppy wagging its tail, which brought an unconscious smile to his lips.
And so, he searched the surrounding area with Isabella for another thirty minutes.
Just as they were about to finish searching their assigned section.
—Sssshhhhhhh.
A faint sound.
A chilling noise, like gas leaking from a pipe, echoed through the darkened alley.
“…Oh-jin.”
“Yeah.”
Oh-jin pulled a palm-sized iron rod from his waist.
*Whirrr, click!*
As he channeled mana into it, the iron rod transformed into a spear.
“I’ll cast a buff on you!”
Isabella shouted, raising her staff.
A brilliant golden light flowed from the golden gem at the end of the staff and seeped into Oh-jin’s body.
Vitality began to course through his body, where a dull ache remained from his not-yet-fully-healed internal injuries.
‘This won’t be enough to completely cover the internal injuries.’
Still, it should be possible to raise his mana to a level where he could fight.
—*Clank, clank.*
Next, a metallic sound echoed.
Would it sound like this if someone walked in a full suit of iron armor?
Oh-jin pointed the tip of his spear in the direction of the sound.
The tension was palpable.
Just one alley away, he could feel the monster moving.
‘It’s coming.’
*Crackle!*
Blue lightning sparked at the tip of the spear he held out.
And then.
*Sssshhhhhhh.*
Like air escaping from a tube.
The sound that had been echoing in the alley began to fade into the distance.
“What the?”
Oh-jin frowned and rushed past the alley.
Was he hearing things?
The eerie sound that had settled over the dark alley had vanished without a trace.
‘Where did it go?’
Oh-jin narrowed his eyes and kicked off the ground.
He ran through the maze-like alleys, chasing after the monster.
After about a minute of frantic running.
When he lightly jumped over a crumbling wall.
—*Splash!*
The sound of a viscous liquid splashing.
A familiar metallic smell stimulated his nostrils.
‘This is.’
He looked down to see a large pool of blood on the ground.
In the center of the pool of blood was.
“…Fuck.”
The head of Jegal So-yeong, split in two, lay on the ground.
“O-Oh-jin, this is!”
Isabella, who had arrived late, trembled with a pale face.
On the surface, she looked like she was trembling in fear.
But Oh-jin knew.
He could see that her eyes had grown cold.
‘No way… it can’t be, right?’
An ominous thought suddenly crossed his mind.
Oh-jin’s gaze naturally turned toward Isabella.
*Gulp.*
He swallowed a dry lump down his throat.