“I’m going to live with you guys from now on?”
“It seems like we’ll have to, right? To safely protect my lifesaver, I need to be by your side first.”
Cha… Woohan? Woodang? Anyway, the right one replied as if it were obvious, pointing to his thigh. A white bandage peeked out beneath his shorts.
I blinked halfheartedly.
While I’d intended to mooch water and food using the debt as an excuse, I hadn’t planned to form a group with them and share our fates entirely. Part of it was that I didn’t completely trust them yet, but more than that, my personal inclinations carried greater weight. I didn’t particularly prefer associating with others or needlessly exchanging opinions and being considerate of each other.
The twins themselves had said they were comfortable surviving just the two of them, hadn’t they said that earlier? So I hadn’t expected them to make a proposal—or rather, notification—to join them.
The left one, who’d been silently waiting while I just rolled my eyes without saying anything, suddenly stood up abruptly. Unlike the right one who was still exercising patience, he seemed to have run out of it long ago.
“Thinking about it, we shouldn’t be doing this—we should show you our awakened abilities first.”
The left one squared his shoulders triumphantly and curled up the corners of his mouth.
“Watch closely with both eyes. You’ll definitely be so impressed that you’ll fall head over heels for me.”
With a deep smile, he extended his right hand toward the air. At the same time, all surroundings were instantly engulfed in silent stillness. Even the presence of monsters occasionally passing beyond the corridor subsided, and the sufficiently stuffy air sank, submerged in a heavy weight.
And then, writhe—the shadow spread at his feet began to undulate. Part of it, which had been squirming like an earthworm soaked in ink, suddenly separated with a pop and abruptly coiled up around its owner’s ankle. The black earthworm that had hidden its traces beneath the hem of his gym shorts revealed itself again at his right hand. It seemed to have climbed up his body beneath his gym clothes.
The black earthworm soon reached his fingertips and swelled in size as if blooming a flower. It didn’t take long for the formless shadow to gain mass and form a long sword.
As I couldn’t take my eyes off that sword, he let out a satisfied laugh. Then he lightly swung the sword he’d re-gripped. Whoosh—the sound of the well-sharpened blade cutting through the air rang dully.
“That’s a combat-type ability.”
I shifted my gaze to the right, following the voice that reached my ear.
“There’s also one mental-type ability.”
He gently tapped his temple with eyes curved into rounds.
‘…Mental-type ability.’
I’d thought they wouldn’t be random riffraff ignorantly showing bravado. Just listening to their casual stories, I could guess that their abilities and skills were formidable.
‘But even so, a mental-type ability.’
“I still need to try a few more things, but I can subtly twist someone’s thoughts or guide them in the direction I want.”
“……”
“And it seems to only work on people. Just in case, I tried it on monsters too but failed. That’s how my thigh ended up like this.”
Fearless and reckless. Being able to act so freely must be because they had that much confidence.
‘Just like how I wander the corridors fearlessly, trusting my own ability.’
“What about you, Hayoung?”
At the question suddenly thrown at me, I slowly asked back.
“What?”
“The ability you awakened.”
“Why are you curious about that?”
“Well, we’re going to share life and death from now on, right? That’s why we told you and even gave you a kind explanation.”
I never agreed to doing that sharing life and death crap.
I was about to retort that when thud—I felt a vibration shaking the floor and turned my head. The tip of the pitch-black sword was stabbing the floor. The left one, who stood crookedly leaning on that sword, smiled brightly while looking down at me.
‘…Is he threatening me?’
Had he drawn the sword with this intention from the start? Was he trying to intimidate me, saying since they’d given me water and a chocolate bar, I should pay my dues for what I ate, and not to think about running away on my own?
And yet, I didn’t feel any murderous intent or intimidation from them before my eyes at all. But I didn’t know how long that inexplicable goodwill would last. While I wasn’t afraid of them, that was all—I had absolutely no desire to be killed in vain.
‘They have lots of water and lots to eat.’
Simply having two more people would be better than living alone. Moreover, they even had powerful abilities.
‘I’ll go along with them for now, then part ways at an appropriate time later.’
They probably didn’t intend to share fortune and misfortune with me until the very end either. It wasn’t like we had that kind of relationship or familiarity, nor had we shared any particular emotions or memories. Perhaps they just needed a conversation partner who would pass time with them moderately, and who wasn’t strong enough to betray or threaten them.
So I answered, responding to the alliance with the two of them.
“An ability to thoroughly lock doors and windows.”
Of course, it was the same lie I’d told Kang Jekyung’s group.
‘It’s better to hide it as much as possible.’
I had quite a rich imagination, and perhaps thanks to that, I often imagined the worst futures. Being used as bait to lure monsters while having my vision and voice controlled, or being pushed around with my life as leverage to become a slave fetching daily necessities. No matter how much my physical abilities had increased compared to before, I myself wasn’t skilled in fights or combat, so if I ended up in such a situation, I wouldn’t be confident in shaking it off and running away.
Even if the twins before me wouldn’t commit such unethical acts even knowing my ability, there was no such thing as an eternal secret in this world, and eventually my information would spread to others. So I wanted to conceal and hide it as long as possible to protect my own safety.
But unfortunately, there was something I hadn’t considered.
“Then walking with your eyes closed in the corridor was?”
My body, which had maintained an indifferent attitude all along, flinched.
“And only opening your eyes and answering after all the doors and windows were closed?”
I stared at the right and left who were interrogating me in unison, then pressed my trembling lips tightly together.
If they’d only caught me walking with my eyes closed in the corridor, there might have been room for excuses. That I did it because I was scared to see monsters, or something got in my eye so I closed them briefly. Even if it was a suspicious evasion, it could have been passed over somehow.
But now that they’d caught on that all doors and windows had to be closed for me to open my eyes, and that only afterward could I make a sound, no plausible excuse came to mind.
It seemed they’d already concluded that those actions were connected to my ability, and if I babbled clumsy lies, I’d only raise unnecessary suspicions. Going further, there was a possibility of losing even the goodwill the two were showing me.
“…I misspoke. Thoroughly locking doors and windows—that’s not my ability.”
The right one smiled knowingly as if he’d expected that.
“Then?”
“Do I… have to say it? It’s an ability that’s not particularly useful for hunting monsters or helping others survive anyway.”
“Still, it’s good to know. We’re comrades who’ve promised to be together for life.”
When exactly was the word ‘life’ added?
But I couldn’t postpone answering forever, so I opened my mouth to say something. Just as I’d barely found an excuse after brief contemplation and was about to speak—
Boom!
A sudden roar erupted and the school shook. Even after that instant passed, faint trembling remained lingering like residual heat in the building walls and floor touching me.
I raised my head quickly and looked around. But neither inside the art room nor beyond the windows illuminating the corridor was there any element that could create such strong noise and vibration.
Was it a monster? Or had something attacked the school building from outside?
‘There doesn’t seem to be a monster nearby capable of delivering this much impact to the building.’
“Ah, that must be it.”
A small exclamation grazed my ear. Following that, when I looked to the left, he was standing with his hands on his hips with empty hands where the sword had disappeared.
“Wolf.”
“Wolf?”
A wolf?
When I asked back halfheartedly, the right one added an explanation.
“It’s a wolf-type monster that’s called Wolf at Hanul High. They originally ran wild in the annex building, but Cha Jeoh killed them all clean a while ago.”
The culprit of that vibration just now was really a monster?
‘I can certainly feel something causing a disturbance on the lower floors, but… it’s not a particularly strong presence.’
“I did hear that one Wolf that escaped to the main building at the end had offspring. It seems they’ve already become adults.”
Perhaps because I, lost in thought, looked frozen in fear, the left one exaggerated in a dismissive tone.
“There’s nothing much to worry about. All the entrances going up to the third floor are blocked, and I’ll go down tomorrow to check and come back.”
“Wolves are just brutally strong, they’re not actually powerful. Even if five or six Wolves came, it wouldn’t be enough to give us trouble with our combat abilities.”
Combining the right one’s following words, it seemed that thing called ‘Wolf’ wasn’t a monster on the danger level requiring caution. Or perhaps, compared to the twins before my eyes, Wolves might just belong to the category of insignificant monsters.
Boom!
Feeling the vibration traveling up my body again, I nodded slowly.
