“About… fifteen, I think.”
When I looked back at Lee Gojun as if seeking confirmation, he hurriedly chewed and swallowed the remaining half of the energy bar he’d been stuffing in his mouth.
“Yeah, yeah. If it’s fifteen people, all the kids who were upstairs came down.”
Not just selecting and sending a few people, but everyone including those who had been acting as leaders came down. That meant nothing was left in their hands anymore, and at the same time it was proof that they’d truly prepared to die.
There was no surge of self-sacrificing spirit to save them. However, if they discovered us while running away desperately for their lives and caused a commotion saying let’s all die together, it would clearly become troublesome in many ways.
Perhaps having the same thought as me, the twin who had been lost in deep thought beside me gave a look to his brother.
“Cha Jeoh, you go out and check the situation. Clean up if necessary too.”
“I’ll catch them all and kill them. So they can’t even get close to this area.”
I didn’t know whether the targets he was talking about catching and killing were only monsters, or if humans were included too. Not that any will surged up to step forward and stop him, so Lee Gojun, who was fidgeting restlessly as if about to stand up at any moment, came into my vision as I stayed still.
While I briefly turned my attention to Lee Gojun, he had reached right in front of the art room door and was re-gripping his sword. Soon the other twin covered my eyes with a gentle touch, and the noise of the door slowly opening and closing echoed through the space.
The large palm that had been blocking my vision fell away. As the warm body temperature that had been enveloping my eyes moved away, a fresh chill seeped in.
Watching me blink shortly and quickly, the twin who remained beside me curved his eye corners with a smile.
“Then we’ll stay here……”
“…I think I should go too, after all.”
Lee Gojun, cutting off his words, stood up anxiously. I immediately shifted my gaze to Lee Gojun.
“Go, where?”
“Outside. To them.”
Why?
Unable to understand, instead of me who lightly frowned, the twin smiled coldly.
“What do you mean? Why would you go to them?”
“I… have a healing ability. If they’re just not dead yet, I can somehow save them.”
“They’re the bastards who tried to kill you.”
“Only Kang Jekyung, Lee Dohun, and Seo Jinyoung did that, the other kids didn’t do anything wrong. They’re all victims in the same position as Hayoung or me, being used.”
The wound I couldn’t properly treat yesterday must still be there, must have gotten worse……
Lee Gojun muttered pitifully in a fragilely trembling voice. After chewing his lips tightly, he soon hardened his resolve and turned his body. He picked up a thick utility knife from the art supplies box.
“Sorry… I’m sorry. If I just hide here comfortably and survive alone, I feel like it won’t be living.”
“……”
“Thank you for saving me yesterday, and for helping me. But this life is still mine, so I’ll bear the price and take responsibility.”
Lee Gojun, who had grabbed the door handle of the art room, looked at me and bloomed a bright smile. It was completely different from the dispirited smile I’d seen while spending yesterday and today, somewhat cowed. The shadowy traces that had been stickily clinging as if they couldn’t be removed no matter how hard he tried to erase them had disappeared.
Lee Gojun was strong and solid. Perhaps that’s why his utterly ordinary appearance seemed to sparkle, surrounded by a golden mass resembling his ability.
Then my vision was plunged into darkness without warning. As the palm that came again made me lower my eyelids regardless of my will, the sound of the door opening and carefully closing was heard in sequence once more.
I wiggled my fingertips while still keeping my eyes closed under the twin’s palm. My index finger tapped the floor near the fluffy blanket, then stopped before long.
“You follow him.”
The hand covering me trembled with a start.
“Follow Lee Gojun? Why?”
“Follow and protect him.”
“…So why?”
Well.
‘Because he sparkled.’
I wrapped my hands around his hand with its graceful lines and removed it from me. He seemed to resist with strength, but eventually gave up without even recovering his investment and withdrew.
“I’ll keep my eyes closed like this. You hurry and follow him out.”
“……”
“Your awakened ability is mental-type, but if we’re just talking about physicality, you’re not much different from the one with the sword.”
His face wasn’t visible beyond my closed vision. I tried hard not to open my eyes and quietly waited for an answer.
After being silent for a moment, he whispered to me in a voice feigning disappointment.
“Are you pushing me into danger right now?”
Lee Gojun, who was no different from a sunfish, would clearly die without lasting long, but.
“You won’t die, right?”
And though I didn’t know why, I hoped that at least for now, Lee Gojun wouldn’t die.
Why?
I asked myself the question the twin had posed to me. And within it, I concluded by producing a vague answer that could hardly be called an answer.
‘…Do I need a detailed reason?’
Isn’t there no particular reason or trigger for being drawn to and falling for a beautiful woman or handsome man? Being helplessly swayed by them is just a natural result that occurs because we’re born with such instincts.
So there was no reason for wanting to save Lee Gojun who sparkled particularly brightly. Just like how I’m staying with the twins for the purpose of food and water without much reason, and planning to leave alone someday in the future.
…No. Was there a reason?
‘I knew about you guys……’
From quite a while ago, it seems.
The air of the library that was only quiet because students rarely visited, the dust on the corner window frame that remained because it wasn’t meticulously cleaned, the scent characteristic of autumn that poured over me through the creaking window opening.
There, it seems I passed by you.
***
Someone suddenly grabbed the collar of Lee Gojun, who was running down the hallway with a utility knife tightly gripped in one hand. Thanks to that, Lee Gojun, who tilted for an instant, barely regained his balance and turned his head.
“This isn’t just crazy, but completely out of his mind. You came out planning to offer up your cleanly washed neck?”
Cha Jeoh, who had scowled fiercely, was glaring at Lee Gojun. After seeming to spit out words after deliberation several times, he ground out vicious curses as if his irritation couldn’t be relieved that way.
“Why are humans rampaging like this without even survival instincts?”
“Let go. I have to go.”
“…What?”
Taking advantage of the gap when Cha Jeoh was flustered by the unexpectedly calm reaction, Lee Gojun pushed him away. Then he shamelessly retorted.
“I got permission from Hayoung to come out. But I don’t want to be a nuisance, so don’t bother protecting me, you can just do your thing.”
As soon as he mentioned Kim Hayoung, Cha Jeoh obediently shut his mouth. As he softened the atmosphere that had been on edge, Lee Gojun seized the moment and kicked off the floor to run.
Cha Jeoh didn’t chase after Lee Gojun even while watching his receding back. Instead, he raised his sword and cut down in one stroke a small beast-type monster that had already approached nearby.
Since he said Hayoung had given permission and there was no need to particularly protect him, to Cha Jeoh, Lee Gojun was no longer a subject to be concerned about.
However, that thought was overturned before even a minute had passed.
“…Cha Woodan?”
He could see Cha Woodan running while following the exact direction Lee Gojun had run from. Soon he stood before Cha Jeoh with a neat appearance without a drop of sweat.
“Where did Lee Gojun go?”
“I don’t know. He was running in that direction though.”
“Ugh… he went damn far.”
When Cha Woodan moved his legs to run again, Cha Jeoh hurriedly blocked him.
“What are you doing? Move aside.”
“Why are you chasing him? That bastard already got permission from Hayoung, was that a lie?”
“Lee Gojun got permission on his part. I’m doing this to carry out the mission I was assigned on my part.”
“What does that mean?”
“You handle the monsters and hunt as many as possible. I’ll take care of the bastards who came down from upstairs on my own.”
Soon Cha Woodan, passing Cha Jeoh, moved far away at a fast speed. Cha Jeoh, who had been following him with blank eyes, belatedly raised his voice.
“What about Hayoung! Is he alone in the art room right now?”
However, Cha Woodan didn’t answer and disappeared around the hallway corner. While Cha Jeoh clicked his tongue irritably at that, monsters whose attention had been drawn by his loud voice prepared to rush at him while slinking closer. Swallowing a sigh, he moved his steps while firmly gripping his sword.
Lee Gojun, who had turned the hallway corner, stopped in his tracks without realizing it. However, that was only momentary, as he hurriedly ran to them with a face where relief and anxiety crossed.
“Huh? Hey, over there!”
“…Lee Gojun? You were alive?”
More than half of them huddled in a corner of the hallway were already bleeding, and among them, several had become cold corpses early on and were sprawled on the floor.
On the wall beside them, the passage where stairs going down to the second floor should have been was blocked. It was a fire door that was firmly locked and would never open. As if to prove that students had already tried to open that door numerous times, bloody handprints were smeared all around the door handle.
The relatively uninjured ones were stepping forward and confronting the monsters on the opposite side from the direction Lee Gojun had run from, but they weren’t doing well. Everyone there knew well that they wouldn’t last long.
Lee Gojun knelt beside the injured without any leisure to be lost in more thought. Then he reached out both hands toward the blood gushing out abundantly.
“W-wait, hey! Your ability…!”
“It came back. I can heal.”
When Lee Gojun retorted firmly, the person who had tried to stop his touch obediently offered their wound. Soon the golden aura rising from Lee Gojun’s body began to gently wrap around the raw wound.
“Where did the other kids go that only you guys are here? Didn’t you all come down to the third floor together?”
“Other kids?”
“Kang Jekyung and Lee Dohun… those guys anyway.”
A female student leaning against a nearby wall while waiting for her turn to be treated wrinkled her face fiercely.
“Those bastards abandoned us and ran! Crazy bastards, when did they threaten us with food and work us like dogs.”
“They ran? Where to?”
“How would we know? As monsters started gathering, they drew aggro to us and then just ran away.”
“They probably got caught by monsters and died deservedly, or they’re hiding like rats and prolonging their lives. Then from their perspective, if we reduce the monster numbers and die, it’s jackpot for them.”
The male student receiving Lee Gojun’s treatment added his rambling. His two eyes were burning with hatred and anger no less formidable than the female student’s.
