Yoon Minoh let out a “seup” sound.
“Anyway, don’t trust the wave examination too much, hyung. Even if you want to believe it, don’t get the injection. Avoid it even if you have to half-kill a few researchers.”
Yeo Dowoon traced back Yoon Minoh’s actions of breaking the wave examination room and escaping right after being dragged to the base. It was none other than himself who had pursued him. He had bound him with ice restraints and blocked his escape.
“Whether what goes into hyung’s body is poison, monster bodily fluid, or an activator…, surely even the person administering it won’t know. Ah. Seo Jinwoo-ssi would know.”
“……”
“Then shall we leave the rest for Researcher Seo to explain? How frustrating it must have been for someone who rose to chief researcher to be playing the role of a math teacher.”
Yoon Minoh was advising him like someone who would soon be leaving. He looked at Seo Jinwoo and grinned cutely. Seo Jinwoo’s eyes widened as if he had encountered a monster.
As if he had been waiting, Yoon Minoh clearly lifted his front hair to show his face. He even struck a V pose.
Anyway, that researcher wouldn’t recognize him. The test subjects were all underweight children with buzz cuts.
Their facial features were also generally similar. Since they only received drugs and consumed controlled diets, everyone’s eyes were sunken and their complexions were pale.
Yeo Dowoon, who had roughly mapped out the rooftop’s scope in his head, snapped irritably.
“You still haven’t answered my question.”
He had no intention of obediently letting Yoon Minoh escape like this. Farewell greetings my ass.
Kukukoong! The rooftop floor began to freeze thinly.
“Are you really a spy sent by Demeter? Did the Guild Leader go senile? They should’ve kept their mouth shut and lived in hiding, so why are they suddenly doing things they never did before….”
“Demeter was disbanded long ago after hyung joined hands with the base. Because the Guild Leader died.”
Yeo Dowoon was momentarily at a loss for words. Yoon Minoh, who had grabbed the nape of the mental-type Esper who was sitting there blankly and pulled him to his feet, added indifferently.
“I heard it was suicide, but I think everyone knows it’s just covering one’s eyes and going ‘boo.'”
There were no following words. Yoon Minoh just kept poking the mental-type Esper’s side who couldn’t get his act together at all. Yeo Dowoon’s head spun.
He hadn’t particularly liked Demeter’s Guild Leader. The Guild Leader was merely the head leading the illegal business called Demeter, and he was just an illegal miner working under them.
So he didn’t feel powerless at the news of the Guild Leader’s death.
What made Yeo Dowoon wander was rather a sense of betrayal toward the base.
There were people in Demeter. People who chose freedom, abandoning the ordinary daily life they could have had. But they were also more ordinary people than anyone.
Someone had bought him a birthday present with the wages earned from selling dungeon materials, and another had secretly shaken him awake in the deep dawn to teach him soccer and basketball.
There was also a hyung three years older who taught him how to do handstands. Though he lost his life not long after, caught up in a dungeon explosion.
Yeo Dowoon reflected on that winter day when he had stamped his red seal on the contract with Kwon Hyeokun across from him.
‘It’s fine as long as I’m the only one here, right?’
After experiencing a bitter defeat in battle with the Esper base and being dragged before Kwon Hyeokun, he had sneered and rejected the contract. There were many times when he had threatened that he would rather serve time.
But the Esper base was clever and cunning. The condition they put forward was Demeter’s safety. They lured Yeo Dowoon out by saying they would also send back the miners who were already imprisoned.
‘Fine. I’ll sign the contract.’
There was no reason for Yeo Dowoon not to accept.
It wasn’t that petty comradeship had held him back, but rather because he wanted to show respect to a certain Esper who had died trying to protect him through it. Compensation for his sacrifice that had made his insides heavy.
Yoon Minoh clicked his tongue saying it was unfortunate. Only then did Yeo Dowoon escape from his thoughts.
“Uurk……”
As if the mental-type Esper was exerting himself, an alien headache invaded.
Yeo Dowoon furrowed his brows sharply. When he showed a fierce rejection reaction, the mental-type Esper also spurted streams of blood from his nose and ears.
But no matter how much pain he seemed to be in, Yoon Minoh only urged him to show off his skills.
“I don’t want to deal with that guy. You take him. You’re the one who dragged him in.”
The man being held by the scruff of his neck dangling went “phew” and complained. His slender arm that didn’t have a speck of muscle kept hitting Yoon Minoh. But Yoon Minoh shamelessly threw a fit.
“What kind of disloyal talk is that. Try using your strength as much as you can. Now, start.”
When he squirmed trying to escape from his grasp, Yoon Minoh deliberately applied more strength and wouldn’t let go. The man who would normally be waking up around 3 PM to play games timidly objected.
“Where do you and I even have loyalty….”
He swayed listlessly like a palm tree fruit and blinked, letting the bloody tears pooled in his eyes flow down.
“If waiting is hard, can I knock that person out? That’s the only method left now.”
At those words, Yoon Minoh hesitated for a moment then nodded. He had more or less accomplished his goal.
“It doesn’t matter. I’ve roughly finished everything I absolutely had to say.”
Yeo Dowoon couldn’t find an attack point even with them right in front of him whispering and chatting. His brow bone throbbed as if it would break. It was a headache beyond limits.
Even nausea struck, troubling Yeo Dowoon. Yeo Dowoon firmly grabbed his head that felt like it would shatter with a crash. His vision kept growing dim.
“Take care, hyung!”
Yoon Minoh greeted him purely. Thinking that he was really saying farewell made one corner of his heart ache.
“My feelings for hyung…, they were real! Really sincere!”
“……”
“Hyung is my first love!”
Tomorrow, Yeo Dowoon would forget all about him.
In other words, he was scheduled to remember everything except for the human called ‘Yoon Minoh’ and the mental-type Esper who erased his memories.
He would remember today’s conversation but wouldn’t recall who the conversation partner was.
Therefore, Seo Jinwoo would become a gift for the confused Yeo Dowoon. A small kindness and trace he could leave for and bestow upon his first love.
He hoped that Yeo Dowoon, who would come to doubt the true nature of the Esper base, would make good use of Seo Jinwoo.
Seo Jinwoo seemed to sense the ominous atmosphere and wiggled his buttocks trying to retreat. But he couldn’t even escape 1 meter before he stumbled and fell over.
“The researcher’s side is done….”
When Seo Jinwoo fainted, the mental-type Esper surveyed the surroundings with terribly reddened eyes.
“That person is taking a long time.”
He wondered while looking at Yeo Dowoon. But he knew it was only a matter of time. The moment he exceeded his limit point, no matter how strong-willed an Esper might be, his mind would snap and he would collapse.
‘What the hell is that bastard!’
Yeo Dowoon felt doubt at the appearance of a mental-type with abilities even more powerful than Kwon Jeonghoo.
He couldn’t understand at all how such an inhuman bastard could have evaded the eyes of the Esper base.
If Demeter had been disbanded, it was as good as there being no large guilds at all that could hide an Esper of this caliber.
But how? Under whose protection had he been hiding his abilities?
Yeo Dowoon struggled to shake off the sense of déjà vu. He denied it before making a judgment.
“Yoon…, Minoh.”
…A cognitive-type Esper said to belong to the guild ‘Tartaros’.
Yeo Dowoon lost his center and thud, knelt on one knee. The very fact that he was still holding onto his consciousness without fainting was miraculous.
“Wow…, he’s enduring for a long time. That person.”
When the mental-type Esper expressed admiration, Yoon Minoh snapped back roughly.
“Shut up. Dowoon hyung just called my name affectionately.”
“Don’t we need to start leaving soon?”
“I’ll go after listening to what Dowoon hyung says.”
Yoon Minoh raised his concentration to the maximum and listened carefully. He pushed aside even the mental-type Esper as if he was in the way and blinked his eyes rapidly.
If it was Yeo Dowoon’s voice, he wanted to engrave every single letter in his heart without missing any.
“You, didn’t answer, my question…, bastard….”
But contrary to Yoon Minoh’s expectations, Yeo Dowoon didn’t whisper sweet words.
“Huh? A question?”
Yoon Minoh asked back as if displeased. Soon he chuckled saying it was regrettable but nothing came to mind.
“…Yeah. I can’t remember either.”
That was enough. Yeo Dowoon carried out an attack aiming for the moment when Yoon Minoh separated from the mental-type Esper.
Kwang! A surging blizzard marvelously covered the mental-type Esper. It was when the man stumbled backward in panic. Thanks to that, a slight gap was created in the invisible force that had been strangling Yeo Dowoon.
Yoon Minoh let out a shrill scream.
“Ah, aak! Hyung! My ankle! At this rate my ankle will be crippled!”
Seuuuut!
The rooftop floor froze over. Yeo Dowoon didn’t throw ice restraints or build up barrier-like walls to bind him as before.
His vision had become too dark for that. No matter how much he blinked his eyes open and closed, it didn’t change. Instead, he completely froze the floor around Yoon Minoh with ice about 45cm thick.
He tried to bind that mental-type Esper bastard together while he was at it, but contrary to his intention, the range didn’t seem to extend that far.
Because….
“Hey, Yeo Dowoon! Fuck! Don’t sleep, don’t sleep!”
His eyes were too heavy. They were stiff and tense as if sandbags had been placed on them.
Yoon Minoh, who knew the fact that only he couldn’t handle the glacier Yeo Dowoon made, shouted, but he didn’t respond.
Anyway, Yoon Minoh’s escape spectacularly failed this time too.
