With both eyes blocked, it wasn’t easy to grasp the situation. I ignored the student council president muttering in an unpleasant voice. I judged that making Cha Jeoh come to his senses somehow was first priority. But no matter how much I tapped and hit him, he didn’t show even a speck of reaction.
Then suddenly, a dizzying sensation of my body sinking downward covered me. While instinctively curling my body, my back collided with the cool floor.
It wasn’t that great pain was felt. Rather than being thrown to the ground, it was closer to just being laid down carefully, and Cha Jeoh’s large hand even showed considerate care in supporting the back of my head.
But that didn’t mean my heart pounding soaked in tension would calm down quickly.
I felt tight pressure on my body. The thigh muscles of my legs forcibly lifted also ached. Due to Cha Jeoh’s presence positioned excessively close, I could no longer feel the presence of the student council president and his group of survivors, and that was sufficient to stimulate my survival instinct and sense of crisis that had been dulled.
Should I speak? Should I make a sound? As I moved my mouth lost in confusion, I felt the cloth covering my eyes gradually losing strength. At that, fumbling the floor urgently, I found Cha Jeoh’s hand and roughly grabbed it.
The nails I’d raised without knowing dug into his wrist. However, without being aware of that act, I didn’t loosen my strength but rather firmly held him and endured. Cha Jeoh also didn’t let out even one pain-filled groan.
Until then, I’d harbored a sliver of hope that ‘this kid hasn’t completely lost his mind.’ But it didn’t take long for that worthless hope to shatter completely.
“That’s too much…”
The sound of small muttering settled down over my head.
‘Too much, what is?’
Though I desperately wanted to demand an explanation, now wasn’t the situation for that. There wasn’t even a proper solution. Instead, taking advantage of this time when Cha Jeoh seemed to have regained some reason, just as I gripped his wrist even more fiercely to completely wake him.
The already close body stuck together as if to wholly share each other’s warmth, then unfamiliar breathing tickled around my neck. Soon orderly teeth touched my skin that flinched.
The bite that at first was just touching and testing gradually intensified. The skin that had only been pressure without pain ached as if it would break at any moment. If I struggled wrong, it felt like flesh would really be torn off, so I couldn’t move rashly.
I gasped for breath raggedly and struck down Cha Jeoh’s shoulder with my fisted hand. Then when I reached a point where I could no longer endure, I raised my voice sharply.
“…Ngh, hey. Cha Jeoh!”
Cha Jeoh showed no sign of stopping with just one call. After clenching my teeth and swallowing the pain briefly, I opened my mouth again.
“Get, your mind! Together!”
“……”
“Hey…!”
I could vividly feel the monsters that had been nearby detecting my voice and turning direction one by one. However, having already spouted several words, I couldn’t give up like this and close my mouth.
Above all, without exaggeration, I didn’t think I could endure any longer the sensation literally of flesh being chewed. Perhaps if eaten alive, wouldn’t it be like now—I swallowed my breath while making such terrible thoughts.
“You…!”
Leaving the hand gripping Cha Jeoh’s wrist as is, I moved my other hand and fumbled his upper body that had covered me. Soon I buried my fingers inside his fluffy hair and grabbed his hair.
Without a moment’s hesitation, with the mindset to somehow tear it out, I exerted all my strength trying to remove his head. But Cha Jeoh seemed to have dulled senses due to losing his mind. Or perhaps soaked in terrible adrenaline, pain wasn’t felt.
Either way wasn’t good news for me. Having bitten my curled lips so much, a fishy blood scent spread in my mouth.
‘I should have come with Cha Woodan, not Cha Jeoh.’
I should have anticipated in advance the situation of encountering the student council president. Both I and the twins were too careless. Repeating meaningless regret while putting strength into the hand gripping Cha Jeoh’s head, before I could recognize it, a huge presence that had approached close made a low cry.
Grrr-.
It was a sound a bit shallower and lighter than the wolf’s cry I’d heard before. By personal guess, like a beast closer to felines than canines…
Before that thought could end, a chilling noise of slicing off a lump of flesh echoed through the space. Even with vision that couldn’t see, as I sharply turned my head like instinct, Cha Jeoh’s movement and the trajectory of that arm were vaguely conveyed.
Still, the monster’s presence was deeper and more vividly felt to me than Cha Jeoh’s. Even if it was a body cut in half by a weapon, all that scene seemed to appear vividly to me as if witnessing it right before my eyes.
Thud, then roll roll roll. That round form rolled away on the floor. As blood poured out from the monster’s body sprawled powerlessly on the floor, a strong and thick scent incomparable to what had been leaking from my lips dyed all directions.
It was a stench uniquely fishier than survivors’ blood and stimulating primitive instinct. As I slightly wrinkled my nose, sticky liquid spread under my hair touching the ground. A pool of blood seemed to have spread this far.
I could tell another monster that had been lowering its posture as if to charge right after was hesitating. Whether scared by the slaughter Cha Jeoh had just committed in one stroke, or just pressed by the momentum Cha Jeoh was emitting, its pitiful body trembling couldn’t subside.
As I silently swallowed a sigh, Cha Jeoh stabbed his swung sword into the ground. The sharp blade seemed to have wrongly grazed the cloth being used as my blindfold. The white cloth piece covering my eyes slipped down smoothly.
At the sudden empty chill, I unconsciously opened my eyes. Following what entered one side of my vision blankly reflecting the blue sky, I moved my gaze. What I saw first was an arm trembling precariously, a hand barely gripping the sword handle and trembling, and a sword entirely pitch-black.
‘…Why?’
Among them, what most caught my gaze was the pale hand. Even while gripping the sword, it fidgeted anxiously unable to stay still, just kept fiddling with the innocent handle.
‘Just like being nervous or scared.’
Was he that nervous from just killing a monster?
‘That can’t be.’
How many monsters had Cha Jeoh killed until now—there was no way he’d be shaken by the mere act of swinging a sword once. He hadn’t been injured by a monster, and hadn’t he cleanly slaughtered the monster in one stroke?
‘…Because there are more monsters left to kill? Or because he can feel other monsters gathering here?’
Whatever the reason, Cha Jeoh wasn’t the personality to worry about such things, and even less so someone who would tremble from fear.
‘Then what on earth…’
‘That’s too much.’
The words Cha Jeoh had muttered in passing earlier suddenly came to mind and disturbed my head. To me slowly blinking, the monsters’ presence, countless cries, the blood soaking my hair, even the pain in my nape gradually faded.
‘What among my actions did he feel was too much?’
The grip that had been tightly pulling Cha Jeoh’s hair loosened.
‘Come to think of it, even at the orphanage, there were many kids who would act disappointed when I couldn’t remember or seemed to confuse their names.’
Was he indeed harboring discontent about only now being able to call the twins’ names accurately?
‘So being swayed like this by the ability the student council president used, bursting with anger at me…’
My hand that had lost strength, instead of leaving Cha Jeoh’s head, gently stroked the back of his head. The sensation of hair digging through spread fingers and tickling wasn’t bad. Was this what the mood of an owner stroking their pet that I’d occasionally seen through videos felt like… A frivolous thought bloomed.
‘…Ah, but.’
“Cha Jeoh, I…”
My vision that had been reflecting the world well faded without warning. I tried to endure with unfocused pupils, but it wasn’t easy. Though there didn’t seem to be any particularly painful place, tinnitus that had started piercing my eardrums without me noticing bloomed into a throbbing headache.
“Any, way. Blood…”
‘I think I’ve lost too much…’
Even if I fainted, I tried to grasp my mental thread with the single-minded intention of explaining the situation before closing my eyes. But it wasn’t very effective. Unable to voice the drowsily subsiding voice and moving my mouth, I gave up and let my body go limp.
‘This kid is skilled enough to survive and escape even if placed in the middle of swarming monsters.’
There seemed to be no need to worry. Though worrying about and fussing over others itself didn’t suit me in the first place, if Cha Jeoh died, there might be problems with my survival from now on too. Feeling relief that wasn’t quite relief, I lowered my eyelids.
“…Cha Jeoh!”
Beyond the senses becoming distant, I perhaps also heard another familiar voice calling out to the one covering me.
