Chapter 52
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Translator: 8uhl
Chapter: 52
Chapter Title: Petals Left Behind
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* * *
O Bongsu opened his eyes under a tree.
A loud noise had woken him, but he was too dizzy to stand.
“You’re awake. Don’t get up just yet. Your head will hurt since the puppet ability just wore off.”
A familiar voice. When he turned his head, he saw a familiar face.
“S-Sir?”
O Bongsu struggled to sit up. Where on earth was this?
Looking around, he saw the landscape of a snow-covered mountain.
“What’s the last thing you remember?”
“Pardon?”
“Your last memory. Tell me.”
“The last… uh, well…”
O Bongsu tried to retrace his memories.
While suffering from a persistent illness in the slums, the clothing store owner, Mr. Bak, had come and pressed some bus fare into his hand.
[No matter how I look at it, this doesn't seem like a cold. Go to the Hunter Association and get tested. As for the fare, you can pay me back double when you've made it big. Got it?]
The envelope was handed to him with those playful words.
O Bongsu had bowed to Mr. Bak again and again.
And so, he had taken a train to Silver City.
He arrived at the association branch, got tested, and was told that it was indeed a sign of an awakening.
Before he could even process his bewilderment, they explained what his ability was.
“They told me I was a rare ability user. That the teleportation ability itself is common, but they’d never seen a case like mine with so few restrictions on its use…”
He had been so happy when he heard that.
He remembered being told to wait in the lobby for a moment and being handed a drink.
“My memory cuts off after I drank that. No, I have the memories, but… something’s strange. They don’t feel like my own. It’s like I’m peeking into someone else’s memories.”
“You must have fallen under the puppet ability then. Well, if you have the memories, I guess I don’t need to explain the situation.”
Cheon Doun pointed to O Bongsu’s forearm.
“Roll up your sleeve.”
When he rolled up his sleeve, three blue bars, etched like a tattoo, were revealed.
One of them was considerably shorter than the others.
“What is this?”
“Your lifespan. The time you have left.”
O Bongsu’s expression hardened at the unexpected words.
“It’s the price for amplifying your ability. That power converts a person’s life force into energy. The more you draw on it, the more your lifespan shrinks.”
“I-I never asked for anything like that!”
“I know.”
Normally, it was an ability that shouldn’t be used without the other party’s consent.
The time O Bongsu had left was the equivalent of three bars. One of them was now severely shortened.
“It seems one bar is about twenty-four hours.”
“Ah…”
So that meant he had about two and a half days left.
O Bongsu’s face fell in despair.
Just by crossing the Gate and moving the Mandragora, decades of his life had been shaved away.
The unbelievable reality left him feeling utterly lost.
“Was I… used by the Hunters?”
“Yes.”
“Those people, they were just going to use me and throw me away, right?”
“That’s right.”
O Bongsu clenched his fists. He gritted his teeth in frustration.
“I’m so angry. I don’t want to die. Why do I have to die? I want to find the people who did this to me and beat them to a pulp.”
“You do? Then once the work is done, beat them until you feel better.”
The nonchalant reply made O Bongsu wonder if he had misheard.
Cheon Doun pointed down the hill with his hand.
There, about a hundred workers were carrying lumber and constructing a building.
“The Hunters who used you are right over there. Once the research institute is built, go beat them up.”
“A research institute? What do you mean…”
“Manager Kim said he wanted to build a research lab on the snowy mountain. After I had him do this and that, it seems he needs a proper place to manufacture his potions.”
Manager Kim was an A+-rank ability user. He could easily withstand the altitude of the mountainside.
It was tough, of course, but he couldn’t pass up a location where highly pure demonic energy flowed down.
Of course, none of this made sense to O Bongsu. What did he mean, building a research institute inside a Gate?
He scanned the figures constructing the building below.
“Hey, that person…!”
Among them, he saw the man who had handed him the drink.
“That person over there, too! I know him, too!”
The Hunter who had deceived him and those who had stood by and watched. They were all there, engaged in hard labor with haggard faces.
Once he recognized the situation, another sight came into view.
“Come on, come on! No slacking over there! Move with a little more pep in your step! Who do you think you’re fooling, trying to slack off!”
Manager Kim, wearing yellow teddy bear pajamas, was gleefully urging the Hunters on.
The absurd scene left O Bongsu speechless.
“The institute will be completed today. With a hundred A-rank Hunters on the job, it’s only natural. As soon as it’s done, they’ll bring in the necessary tools and start working. Just wait.”
“Working?”
“They took your lifespan without your permission. You have to get it back.”
O Bongsu’s eyes widened. Was such a thing possible?
He wanted to ask, but he held back. What Cheon Doun was offering might just be a small glimmer of hope, a ‘let’s try.’
But O Bongsu didn't want to let go of even that small hope.
He didn’t want to die after being manipulated by the greed of strangers.
“Don’t worry. You’re not going to die.”
O Bongsu froze at the firm declaration.
“You have to live and be my guide. And your ability is teleportation, right? Perfect. Polish it until you can use it freely.”
“Wh-Why?”
“Why do you think? You’re going to be my shuttle. It’s what you used to do in the slums, so you’ll be good at it. You have a talent for being a shuttle.”
*Is that so? I have a talent for being a shuttle?* He said it so matter-of-factly that O Bongsu found himself nodding.
He was being openly treated like an errand boy, but the confident tone assuring his survival left no room for other thoughts.
“I have something to take care of, so I’ll be going. Stay here.”
“W-Wait a minute. We’re inside a Gate. What if a Monster comes?”
“It’s fine. He’ll be with you.”
Cheon Doun pointed up at the tree. O Bongsu looked up and stiffened.
A muscular man with the head of a bird was sitting in the tree.
As he froze in shock, Yu Beom leaped down from the tree.
“You should count yourself lucky, kid. That guy might be a lunatic, but he takes surprisingly good care of people in his circle.”
The Monster was talking. Now that he looked closer, it was wearing clothes, too.
The attire looked like something out of ancient Egypt, but it was enough to know it possessed intelligence.
As O Bongsu stood frozen like a statue, Yu Beom sat next to him and grinned.
He meant to ease the tension, but it only made O Bongsu’s knees tremble.
Seeing a bird head smile was far more terrifying than he could have imagined.
“I hear you’re from the slums, kiddo?”
“Y-Yes! Th-That’s right, sir!”
“Relax. This hyung is from the slums, too.”
“Uh… what? Y-You too… Mr. Bird?”
Not knowing what to call him, he awkwardly tried out “Mr. Bird.”
“Call me Uncle Sparrow.”
“U-Uncle Sparrow?”
“The poodle-like kid on our side calls me that. Guess I look like a sparrow to him. Got to protect a child’s innocence, you know.”
At the word “sparrow,” O Bongsu looked at Yu Beom’s face.
No matter how he looked at it, this was a fierce bird of prey. Its shimmering golden eyes sent a chill down his spine just by looking at them.
And more than anything, that physique. This sparrow was way too buff.
“Th-Then, Mr. Sparrow.”
He couldn’t bring himself to use the familiar term “Uncle.”
“You’re from the slums, too, Mr. Sparrow?”
“Yeah. From District 11. Wonder if the name’s changed by now. Where are you from?”
“District 12.”
“What do you know. We’ve got the whole set from 11 to 13 here.”
The bird siblings. From District 11.
O Bongsu. From District 12.
Cheon Doun. From District 13.
Yu Beom laughed, but O Bongsu couldn’t.
Being from the slums meant he wasn’t a Monster. Then was he perhaps a Chimera Hunter?
‘I heard Chimera Hunters have low intelligence. But this person speaks incredibly well. What is he? Some kind of special Hunter?’
There was no one to give him an answer.
A-rank Hunters forced into labor on a mountain in the Demon World.
The man in teddy bear pajamas nagging those A-rank Hunters.
A well-spoken, buff sparrow.
This was a place where his common sense no longer applied. O Bongsu felt his mind reeling.
* * *
As Cheon Doun descended the hill, the Hunters’ gazes focused on him.
He was dressed casually, with no armor or weapons. Just by his appearance, it seemed like they could take him down in an instant.
The very fact that he could wander around the Demon World in such attire was a testament to his danger, but the Hunters, exhausted from forced labor, were swayed by the visual information.
‘There are 150 of us. We were caught off guard by the surprise attack at first… but if we combine our strength and attack, couldn’t we manage something?’
The Hunters exchanged glances.
Winning wasn’t the goal. They just needed to retrieve their confiscated return stones and retreat.
Just as they were looking for the right moment to act, a calm voice reached them.
“There are a hundred people to work. If about twenty of you die, it won’t even be noticeable. Right?”
The low voice was as serene as if reading from a book.
That quiet warning instantly crushed the Hunters’ morale. Cheon Doun looked at them with a relaxed expression.
“There won’t be a second time. Next time, I’ll kill you without warning, so keep that in mind.”
Their broken morale was ground into dust.
He meant it. No one here was foolish enough not to know that.
As the Hunters resumed their work, Cheon Doun looked up at the tree.
Yu Jia was sitting there, serving as the final on-site supervisor.
She was the reason the Hunters were obediently following Manager Kim’s orders.
“I’m going to head home for a bit. I think it’ll be fine with Nam Giseok there, but I’m a little worried leaving just Kim Nari and the Chimera kids.”
“Go ahead. My brother and I will watch things here.”
“I feel a bit bad. You two should be going home, too.”
“It’s fine. We’ve always been used to sleeping out anyway. We only made a home because we like the security of having a place to return to, but we rarely ever went back to sleep there every night.”
The free-spirited siblings had lived a nomadic life.
Their daily routine was to fly around here and there, and when the sun set, they would find a nearby tree to sleep in.
“It’s actually pretty fun living here. My brother thinks so, too. So you don’t have to worry.”
Sincerity was evident in Yu Jia’s words.
The siblings, who had spent most of their lives with only each other for company, were enjoying their current, bustling life with others.
‘Right. They aren’t the types to do something they hate.’
These were the siblings who had jumped into a Gate for the sole reason that they hated being cooped up.
Considering their personalities, it was certain they were staying because they were enjoying the current situation.
“Alright. I’ll be back then. Hold down the fort.”
Cheon Doun flicked his hand toward the sky. Blue, who had been watching him from a distance, saw the gesture and immediately flew over.
As Cheon Doun climbed on, the leader of the nearby Mandragora pack, the Captain Root, came running out.
-Hoo, hoooong!
My great helper. Where are you going? Are you trying to leave alone again?
The root ran, then stopped.
A sixty-year-old déjà vu. It had run toward him just like this back then, too. But Cheon Doun had simply vanished.
Would it be the same today?
The root’s eyes trembled minutely. Cheon Doun, sitting atop Blue, looked down at it.
A breeze blew between them, sending pink flower petals fluttering through the air.
Standing at a distance, Yu Jia pretended to gaze at a faraway mountain as she let the petals fall. With an occasional flap of her wings, she sent them flying.
‘Seriously, those two siblings are a bit strange.’
Cheon Doun chuckled and jumped down from the bird’s back.
“Come here. Let’s go together.”
It couldn’t understand human words, but it understood the feeling conveyed by the tone.
The root ran. It ran just like it did all those years ago. This time, it ran carefully so as not to trip over a stone.
-Hoooong!
*Leap.* A dive from a reasonable distance. Cheon Doun caught the root and put it in his pocket.
‘Come to think of it, the ones in the garden were taken from this one’s pack. I should let them meet.’
Cheon Doun took the root and climbed back onto Blue.
In the spot they left behind, Yu Jia sent the flower petals soaring high into the sky with a final flap of her wings.
‘Nice. It was perfect this time.’
It was hard work, but rewarding. Beneath her bone helmet, Yu Jia smiled in satisfaction.