Chapter 27
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Translator: 8uhl
Chapter: 27
Chapter Title: Monster Tale Specialist Office: Centipede's Child (7)
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“Ugh, what a mess.”
There was a bit of a commotion when Hanseol woke up midway and dry-heaved from his first experience with carsickness, but fortunately, Taeju quickly rolled down the window, preventing him from actually throwing up.
“Was opening the window what helped?”
Woli sniffed the air coming in through the wide-open window. The scent of forest and trees, with a hint of earth. It was the kind of smell you couldn’t easily catch in the city.
“Who knows. Lying him back down and letting him sleep again might’ve done the trick. Anyway, all’s well that ends well.”
- You have arrived at your destination. Navigation ended.
Taeju slowly pulled the car to a stop.
“This is it?”
Woli scanned the surroundings with a skeptical look. Aside from a rundown bus stop, the place was completely empty.
The two quietly got out of the car, leaving the sleeping Hanseol behind.
Up close, the bus stop looked even worse. A filthy bench and a weathered roof that didn’t seem like it could block rain sat precariously, as if it might collapse at any moment. Still, the timetable showed a bus due to arrive soon.
Seeing the state of the stop, Woli turned to Taeju. Her face said she had plenty to say but no words for it.
“This is the right place?”
“The address Sis sent is definitely here. We’re a bit early compared to the planned time, so let’s wait a sec.”
Taeju couldn’t help but chuckle at Woli’s expression. He remembered making a similar face the first time he’d seen a place like this.
People raised in the city might not know, but spots like this were common in the countryside.
“To think people live in places like this…”
“The place we’re headed is probably way deeper in.”
At Taeju’s words, Woli sighed deeply, complaining about how inconvenient the countryside was.
“Sia Sis is probably getting off the bus that’s coming now, right? It’s so remote, the intervals must be pretty long. We’ve got some time to kill.”
“I can’t believe places like this still exist in our country…”
“They’re more common than you think. You see them all the time on TV.”
Woli glanced around once more and plopped down on the bench with a bored look. It creaked loudly.
“Sit gently, it’s gonna collapse.”
“I’m not that heavy, you know?”
Woli said that and then turned to lie down on the bench. It looked risky, but she seemed comfortable enough.
“Mmm~ The air’s nice out here in the country. Not as many bugs as I expected, either.”
Woli took a deep breath while lying down and let it out slowly.
“Yeah. Maybe it’s still a bit chilly?”
Taeju leaned against the car and chimed in. Sure enough, there were no mountain insects buzzing around like you’d expect in a valley.
They were chatting about trivial things when the sound of an engine reached them from afar. In the quiet mountains, the bus noise felt especially loud.
“Oh! Bus is coming!”
Spotting it in the distance, Woli jumped up. Taeju peeled himself off the car and stood beside her.
“No need to wake him?”
Woli pointed at the car with her finger.
“Nah, let him sleep. He must be exhausted.”
Woli nodded in understanding. Soon, the bus pulled up to the stop. It was moving at a leisurely pace.
“Getting on?”
The middle-aged driver, who looked seasoned, opened the front door and asked Taeju and Woli. His eyes sparkled with curiosity at the sight of outsiders here.
“No, thanks.”
The driver nodded, closed the door, and drove off.
In the meantime, Sia got off from the back door. She was in her usual black suit, with flashy accessories on her wrists. But she didn’t give off her typical crisp, spirited vibe. She’d walked a lot investigating the big mountain.
Woli waved happily but then froze and asked,
“Huh, Sis, what’s wrong with your eyes…?”
It wasn’t odd for Woli to blurt it out—Sia’s eye sockets were so hollowed and bruised-looking. Her gaze was cloudy, her hair a bit messy. Sia let out a big yawn and said,
“Just tired. A little sleep should fix it. The Director called me down suddenly before bed last night, and I haven’t slept a wink since.”
She stretched largely, wobbled a bit, shook her head, and headed for the bench.
“So that girl didn’t come with you, argh!!”
The moment Sia plopped down on the bench, it tipped backward, sending her tumbling with it. Taeju rushed over in surprise, helped her up, and steadied her.
“Ow… damn it…”
Sia groaned in pain, cursing under her breath.
“That really hurts... seriously. Why the hell do they even keep crap like this here?”
She lamented almost tearfully.
Woli, thinking the bench broke because of her earlier, panicked and darted her eyes around.
With Taeju’s help, Sia finally stood, her eyes brimming with tears.
“Why does this kind of crap always happen to me? I just wanna sleep, I’m exhausted, sleepy again, and I wanna go home…”
The bold, haughty, glamorous image she showed clients was long gone.
They were used to this side of her when she hadn’t slept, but neither Taeju nor Woli knew how to comfort her, so they just exchanged glances.
‘You do something.’
Woli’s eyes said that to Taeju. He shot back with his own gaze,
‘What am I supposed to do?’
Neither knew how to soothe her pent-up frustration, so they kept pushing it onto each other.
Sia started crying more pitifully, and Woli finally spoke up first.
“Sis… you always work so hard… Um, who else could handle a big job like this if not you…! The office’s top veteran! Taeju still can’t handle things alone, so our best Sis has to suffer for it!”
“Yeah, Sis. I’m still… Hey, I admit you’re the best. But saying I can’t handle work?!”
“If you could handle it, would Sis have to suffer?!”
Their bickering to cheer her up made Sia chuckle.
“Cute kids.”
There was still a hint of tears, but at least her mood seemed a bit better. What a relief.
“Sis, you’ve been at it since dawn. Good work.”
* * *
Sia was sitting in the passenger seat of the car, dozing off lightly. Taeju stood by the bus stop, lost in thought, while Woli leaned against the car until she saw Hanseol stir, then got in and sat beside him.
“Sorry… I’ve never felt like this before…”
Hanseol had slept some but still looked queasy, his complexion poor.
“If your carsickness is this bad, you should’ve said something before we left! Oh, wait, no. It’s your first time, right?”
Woli gently patted his shoulder with a worried expression.
“Thank you… urk…”
Hanseol kept dry-heaving, his stomach still unsettled, but his color was improving bit by bit. Good.
Seeing him awake, Taeju opened the driver’s door.
“Sis.”
Sia cracked her eyes open at Taeju’s call. A short nap seemed to have refreshed her.
“Our protagonist is up.”
She said that and straightened her outfit. It was a habit she’d cultivated to refresh the mood and draw attention.
But it didn’t help much here. It was too familiar to Taeju and Woli, and Hanseol didn’t seem to catch the meaning.
With no shift in atmosphere, Sia’s face flushed slightly on her own, and she cleared her throat.
“Ahem, anyway, I’m beat, so I’ll spill all the info I got. You guys piece it together.”
Taeju nodded and sat in the driver’s seat.
“As always, the boundary zone is like another world. It’s bound to be very different from what we know.”
Taeju nodded.
He’d entered boundaries a few times himself, but it always felt unreal.
“So don’t take what I say as gospel. The best I can tell you is ‘that’s how it should be normally.’ No clue what it’s actually like.”
“Sis! Enough scaring us, just tell us what you found already.”
Woli grumbled, as if tired of the long lecture. Sia laughed helplessly and continued.
“Got it, got it. Straight to the point, then? Judging by the setup, this boundary is at least a thousand years old. The oldest boundary spell I’ve seen was about a millennium, and this one’s even more primitive.”
“At least a thousand years? It’s been here that long? That doesn’t make sense.”
Taeju said, startled.
Unless it was drawing power from some external source, maintaining a boundary for over a millennium was impossible.
“No. I mean the method dates back a thousand years, not that it was created then. Something that ancient made it. But here’s the weird part: the method is super primitive, yet the medium used is something very recent.”
“What does that mean?”
Woli asked, completely lost.
“Hmm, okay, a boundary is about drawing a line, right? Sounds simple, but it’s tricky in practice. How do you separate ‘here’ from ‘there’ in an empty space?”
Woli, caught off-guard by the sudden question, didn’t answer right away. Surprisingly, Hanseol spoke up first.
“Uh… draw a line or mark it somehow?”
Taeju nodded at Hanseol’s words. Sia smiled, pleased. It was an unexpected source, but correct.
“That’s the idea. But drawing a line across a huge mountain? It wouldn’t be visible. So you need a clear marker that screams ‘boundary.’”
At Sia’s explanation, Woli jumped in quickly. She seemed bothered by answering slower than Hanseol.
“Like those totem pole things? Those markers?”
Sia nodded. Woli beamed, proud her guess was right.
“Yeah. Those are needed. They’re more for protection, but they also signal ‘this is definitely different territory now.’ If you saw a tall pole with a human skull hanging high while walking, what would you do?”
Woli thought for a moment and said,
“I’d just keep going. No matter what pops out, I’d win anyway?!”
It wasn’t the answer Sia wanted, but for a werewolf like Woli, it fit, so she just furrowed her brow and went on.
“Hmm, yeah, you would. But a normal person would avoid it—or at least be super cautious.”
Woli nodded. Hanseol listened intently, finding it fascinating.
Sia, puffed up by their attention, started veering into more theoretical territory, so Taeju cut in with a question fast.
He didn’t want to spend the whole day on boundary spell theory.
“So, what’s acting as the boundary marker this time?”
“Oh, right, that’s where I was. Fog and road signs. Traffic signs, I mean. One was stuck right in the middle of the mountain.”
“Road signs?”
Compared to fog, a traffic sign was way too modern.
“But… that’s possible precisely because it’s modern.”
Road signs had no spell value, but their meaning was crystal clear. That very clarity could serve as a boundary.
“Yeah. It’s unique. Never would’ve imagined it.”
A simple medium plus fog to form a boundary.
Basic of basics, but pulling it off meant whoever did it had serious power.
“Anyway, it’s trouble. Whoever set this up gets traffic signs, so they understand modern stuff.”
Taeju’s face hardened at Sia’s words. It implied more than he’d thought.
The centipede had intelligence, or some intelligent being helped set the boundary.
Worst case, both.
Not just a big dumb beast—intelligence was a huge variable.
“Well, my part’s done for now. I’ll crash nearby and pick you up tomorrow.”
Seeing Sia’s hollow eyes, Taeju decided to let her go.
“Happy hiking, then.”
Sia teased.
At that, the three looked toward their destination.
“Ugh—”
There was no path.
“We’re screwed, for real.”