Because of this, Yeo Dowoon didn’t lose confidence despite Yoon Minoh’s advice. Espers who had learned how to become prey didn’t need to undergo training to become hunters.
Those who knew how to escape from snare-like pursuits were bound to show talent in conducting inescapable pursuits as well.
“Haa…, you know how to do everything!”
The glacier was born silently and threatened Yoon Minoh. Yoon Minoh, who had been dodging attacks by entering the school building, soon felt beads of sweat forming on his spine.
The fact that the power hadn’t weakened at all despite pouring out attacks while silencing the sound to this extent made him gasp.
The place where they were engaging in a chase was the first-floor corridor. Since it was Saturday, most of the staff hadn’t come to work either, so only the footsteps of the two people echoed exceptionally loudly.
Yeo Dowoon threatened Yoon Minoh by reshaping the glacier before it melted. Yoon Minoh barely escaped from the glacier blade that had come close enough to slice his nose and muttered.
“……How about we stop here and settle the rest through conversation? We’re civilized people, aren’t we? Hm?”
If he were to show himself in front of people, he too would have nothing to gain, so he quickly changed his attitude and made a proposal. He thought that once they entered the school building, although Dowoon would be upset, he would know to tone down his aggression, but he was mistaken.
Yeo Dowoon instead spurred on and cornered him. Thanks to that, it was he himself who had become the prey. The atmosphere was such that the moment he got caught, his neck would really be cleanly severed and then some.
“Heu, sunbae-nim….”
Yoon Minoh struggled, unable to set coordinates. Even if he attacked with the most secluded spot as coordinates, it would obviously cause a tremendous noise, so for now he had no choice but to put all his energy into just frantically running away.
Still, the fortunate thing was that morning self-study would soon end, and it would be time for students to come pouring out en masse. Yoon Minoh first took off his hoodie and wrapped it around his forearm.
To disappear mixed in with the crowd, being dressed in a school uniform would be advantageous. As he loosely undid a few buttons, he whined.
“This is completely ruined. I really just wanted to exchange farewell greetings with hyung….”
“Were you from Demeter too?”
But Yeo Dowoon only focused on resolving his doubts.
“Is this solo action, or the Guild Leader’s orders?”
He was already treating the assumption that Minoh was from Demeter as a foregone conclusion. If he hadn’t been trained at a large guild of that caliber, he wouldn’t have been able to run away from him to this degree.
At best, he thought he’d be a punk who was active at a mid-tier guild level and got caught, but he was a brat with an even more annoying background.
‘What the hell is this situation.’
Yeo Dowoon was confused the whole time.
Whether viewing it as an independent situation or a situation by the Guild Leader’s orders, there were many aspects that didn’t sit right. Could it be that even accidentally discovering Yoon Minoh in the pterosaur-type monster’s nest was planned from the start….
“From beginning to end, it’s all solo action.”
“……”
“Haha! I was lying though…!”
Kwaang! The glacier he sent out without controlling its intensity noisily battered the corridor.
Yoon Minoh got his arm sliced by a hair’s breadth and bled bright red blood. However, Yeo Dowoon didn’t even glance at his injury and surveyed the surrounding movement.
“Ah…, my arm……”
If someone were startled by the sudden explosive sound and came running out, he planned to tie up Yoon Minoh tightly with ice chains and completely take off himself.
Yoon Minoh, who confirmed that the door to the teachers’ office located at the end of the corridor was opening with a click, wrapped his injured arm tightly with his hoodie and called out to him.
“Hey there, cold-hearted sunbae-nim.”
Yeo Dowoon had to take shelter by opening any random doorknob in sight without even having time to create chains. Yoon Minoh greeted him in a cheerful manner.
“Then let’s meet on the rooftop.”
While pushing the door closed with his back and catching his breath, Yeo Dowoon heard a voice shouting about why he was outside during self-study time and took off his jumper.
He wondered if his body temperature had risen along with his frustrated feelings. Because he was so hot and irritated, he had to create a small glacier and place it on his forehead.
“I’m dying from a headache……”
If Yoon Minoh was really an illegal miner raised at Demeter, and if by chance he had been marked as his resignation letter, his identity should have been problematized at the base too.
Demeter was famous for granting membership qualifications only to Espers who hadn’t even had birth registrations. But Yoon Minoh was an upstanding citizen of the Republic of Korea with a legitimate identity.
Unless the Guild Leader was crazy, there was no way they would abandon their beliefs and take him in as a miner, right?
-Near Hwagok Station Exit 2, Dusan High School
-Request support
Since there were aspects that seemed fishy no matter how he looked at it, Yeo Dowoon intentionally hid important information even while contacting the base.
Thoughts that seemed within grasp yet out of reach kept urging concealment.
Perhaps…, it might not be Demeter.
If it had been Demeter, just as they had done with him, the moment they lost one miner to the hands of the Esper base, they would have chosen the method of cutting off the tail and running away.
“……Yoon Minoh, that son of a bitch.”
Yeo Dowoon suffered from a throbbing headache until the bell announcing the end of self-study time spread out in clear tones. Since he was engaging in a battle of wits that wasn’t in his destiny, even his body seemed to be showing a rejection reaction.
Only after the noisy presence of people swept through the corridor did he head to the rooftop according to the invitation of that rude junior. The path was quiet since the students had rushed to the cafeteria like an ebbing tide.
‘Tartaros? Come on, that’s actually a guild that doesn’t exist. I also wandered around wanting to join a guild and met all sorts of scammers, and they all said the same thing. That it’s pure lies. If it existed, I would have joined there. Demeter is honestly, what they demand is too extreme. It’s because it’s you that you enjoy doing it…, it’s hard for an ordinary Esper to endure.’
Yeo Dowoon ruminated on the rumors about ‘Tartaros’ he had heard during his miner days.
‘I will definitely go to Tartaros, Dowoon-ah.’
Then suddenly, the voice that had made promises to him while believing in the existence of that guild, which was no different from a legend, also lingered in his ears. Even now, he didn’t think he was ridiculous.
He just missed him a little.
***
The iron door connected to the rooftop had been torn off entirely. Seeing how both sides were dented unevenly according to handprints, it seemed like it had been touched by a physical-type Esper, though he didn’t know who.
Yeo Dowoon abruptly stopped his movement of stepping forward just before entering the rooftop. Bzzzz, a weak vibration rang from around his waistband. It was a call from a number not registered in his contacts.
-Oh, you answered. Hyung! You need to turn off your phone before coming in, okay? Otherwise I’ll be in trouble.
The lively voice coming from the receiver was, as expected, Yoon Minoh’s. Actually, even without hearing it through the phone, he could quickly notice who was cheerfully chattering away.
“There’s not even enough time for a heartwarming farewell, so if hyung tries to pull tricks, I’ll be really upset.”
Beyond the empty space where the door should have been, the jokes he was throwing poured out. Yeo Dowoon threw his phone forcefully into the rooftop as if smashing it.
The phone screen, which was largely cracked, instantly turned pitch black. It was dead without even needing to turn off the power. The moment he pressed his first step onto the rooftop floor, Yoon Minoh boasted proudly.
“My sunbae-nim is really…, hot-tempered, right? But sometimes he acts like a pushover fool, and when he does, just go with it even if he presses his lips to you.”
“…Just looking at his face, he looks like he has quite a temper. I’d be disgusted to press lips with you too.”
Then the man who had been wandering his hazy gaze here and there beside Yoon Minoh answered meekly. The man soon massaged his eyelids with his palm as if his eyeballs hurt.
Yoon Minoh, leaving such a man behind, smiled broadly.
“Dowoon hyung!”
He flung the phone he was holding anywhere and waved his hands excitedly. But the expression was instead washed away from Yeo Dowoon’s face.
This was because someone with an unfamiliar appearance was kneeling below Yoon Minoh. Yoon Minoh, who had personally lifted that person’s chin high, spoke in a deeply sunken voice.
“Since Dowoon hyung is here too, you should look properly, ajeossi. That way you’ll remember properly.”
A thin-ice-like coldness dwelled in his eyes.
Yeo Dowoon immediately began to determine the direction of attack. He couldn’t leisurely leave Yoon Minoh alone when he was committing such coercive acts toward a subject presumed to be a civilian. For the past 10 years, he had lived prioritizing civilian safety above his own well-being.
Kieeeeeek! But that was when it happened.
“Urk……!”
Yeo Dowoon, who had been creating a glacier with the purpose of stopping Yoon Minoh, lost his aim point due to the eerie sound that suddenly pierced his ears.
Kwang! The glacier that hit the rooftop railing broke into several chunks. As Yoon Minoh shrugged his shoulders saying it was fortunate, the man with a haggard impression muttered bluntly.
“…The control isn’t working well.”
He swept back his disheveled hair to widen his field of vision and spied on Yeo Dowoon with sinister eyes.
“Interesting. He already deflected it.”
The sight of him forming another glacier without even stumbling once seemed very intriguing.
Earlier he was nitpicking about whether he really had to accompany him too…. Yoon Minoh didn’t take the man’s change of heart positively. He retorted curtly.
“I told you from the start. He wouldn’t be an easy opponent.”
“Even accounting for him being S-class, the resistance waves are severe. I don’t know if I’ll succeed cleanly.”
“Haha. What can you do? You’ll have to fight on.”
Even with Yoon Minoh’s manner of speaking that seemed to deliberately get on people’s nerves, the man seemed to have developed immunity and acted nonchalantly.
“Okay. Fighting.”
As the scream that had been tearing at his eardrums suddenly disappeared, Yeo Dowoon ground his teeth, asking what dog-like bastards were having a collective seizure.
At that moment, the sound of metal scraping across a blackboard forcefully intruded.
