Kieek!
Sticky blood splattered on Yeoul’s cheek after eliminating an animal-type monster. Yeoul, who carelessly wiped it off, opened his mouth slightly.
“Ah.”
It seemed his cheek was injured, perhaps because the monster’s blood had sharp substances mixed in. The scratched cheek stung. A senior esper from another guild who was beside Yeoul made a fuss, asking if he was hurt. He was overdoing it because he wanted to get close to Yeoul from Sau Guild.
“Am I bleeding?”
Yeoul pointed to the stinging area with a blank voice. His voice and expression were drained of energy as if he’d just woken up. This was Yeoul’s usual tension.
He only became lively when Dawoon was by his side. He only showed interest in Dawoon’s affairs, laughing and crying.
“Um… it’s mixed with other blood so I can’t distinguish well. You don’t seem to be bleeding.”
Then Yeoul’s expression became strangely sullen. Don’t tell me he wanted to bleed? Leaving behind the puzzled esper, Yeoul went to eliminate the remaining gate.
Too bad I thought I was hurt.
Yeoul, who had missed the opportunity to receive treatment from Dawoon, manifested his ability with an even more listless face. Since he could attack from long range, the risk of injury was very low. When monsters attacked, he reflexively deployed his ability and cut off the enemy’s breath before the attack could even reach him. Because of this, opportunities to receive treatment from Dawoon were significantly fewer than others.
The water he controlled was a useful ability that could unfold flexible and wide-ranging attacks. Though not as much as leader Ryu Taeha, Yeoul was also an A++ grade senior esper. He possessed ability values that could reach S grade if he put his mind to it.
However, the reason he couldn’t reach S grade was entirely a matter of his will. Yeoul didn’t take pride in his power like others, nor did he have ambition for work.
What Yeoul desired was only one thing: peace.
Only one person existed in the peace he desired. He didn’t want anything else besides that person.
“Yeoul.”
Taeha, who suddenly appeared out of thin air, grabbed Yeoul’s wrist.
“I told you not to do this kind of thing.”
As soon as he finished the meeting, he scolded Yeoul. Yeoul had been forcibly pressing and widening the wound on his cheek. So the wound would get bigger.
“If you do this again, I won’t let you get treated by Dawoon.”
“I was scratching because it was itchy.”
Yeoul, who shook off Taeha’s hand, trapped the monster rushing at them in a water barrier. The monster died, bursting from water pressure while trapped in the transparent water barrier. It was the attack Yeoul used most often.
“The meeting ended late.”
“Yeah, everyone had a lot to say.”
“Because of those things?”
Yeoul pointed to the horde of monsters pouring out from all directions. Though the danger level was low enough to eliminate without difficulty, there was no time to rest. The number of gates was steadily increasing today as well.
“Why don’t I see Dawoon?”
Taeha, who had been scanning the surroundings as if looking for someone, asked. As soon as he appeared, the gate that had been noisy with monster wavelengths became quiet in an instant. He easily eliminated dozens of monsters without even looking at them.
“He wasn’t feeling well so he went back first.”
“You sent him alone?”
“He said he’d go alone.”
Taeha, who ran his hand through his hair, nodded and told him to finish work.
“Double the gate elimination quota. When things calm down I’ll give you a long vacation, so don’t think about resting for the time being.”
As if he was also going to respond to backed-up calls, he opened a map with a hologram and checked the gate danger levels.
It was an attitude that didn’t worry about the sick Dawoon at all. Even though he’d rushed out in the middle of a meeting when his younger brother merely got a paper cut on his finger.
Yeoul stared at Ryu Taeha and muttered.
“The leader is trash, right?”
“Play with the gates if you’re bored.”
Taeha ignored their youngest picking a fight. He was about to leave, but stopped moving at Yeoul’s following words.
“Don’t make Dawoon hyung suffer. You know his body is weak.”
“What could make Dawoon suffer? He does the least work in our guild.”
“I’m saying don’t make his heart suffer.”
Taeha, who chuckled, turned off the hologram and faced their youngest.
“Yeoul. He’s not that weak.”
“How would the leader know that?”
A crack formed in Yeoul’s smooth brow. He was burning up inside whenever Dawoon hyung coughed up blood and collapsed. In contrast, the leader didn’t waver at all.
“What are you going to do if Dawoon hyung gets really seriously sick?”
“Our Dawoon is a competent healer. He can treat his own body sufficiently.”
Taeha lightly patted Yeoul’s broad shoulder and told him to mind his own business.
“Like the youngest you are, just worry about your own body. Dawoon does well on his own.”
Yeoul looked down at Taeha with his head tilted crookedly. He was taller than leader Taeha. Though Taeha was on the small side for a senior esper.
“Dawoon hyung says he dislikes the leader now.”
“He said he didn’t like me, not that he disliked me.”
“You eavesdropped on our conversation?”
“Oh, was it a secret conversation?”
For something like that, you talked quite openly about it. Taeha, who retorted cheekily, threw a candy as if soothing the angry youngest.
“Let’s stop. Eat something sweet and cheer up.”
Yeoul didn’t refuse the candy. After glaring at the leader who deliberately carried around peppermint candy he liked, he finally asked.
“Doesn’t it bother the leader at all?”
“What?”
“That Dawoon hyung has changed lately.”
Recently, Dawoon had changed enough for everyone to notice. He, who always just moderately filled his quota, suddenly showed tremendous passion for work and even volunteered for tasks he wasn’t assigned.
The biggest change was his attitude toward the leader. He treated Ryu Taeha so coldly, it made one wonder if he’d become a different person.
“People originally change often.”
Taeha, who murmured lowly, jerked his chin toward a newly opening gate. It meant to focus on work now.
“Um, excuse me…”
Then, someone approached Taeha and Yeoul. The man who spoke very carefully was an ordinary mid-level esper.
“What is it?”
Taeha tilted his head slightly, and Yeoul didn’t pay attention, looking elsewhere. Annoyed by the conversation with the leader, he vented by randomly stabbing monsters with ice spears.
“I’m sorry for the suddenness. But I thought I should tell you.”
The man was a teleportation esper, the person who had given Dawoon the suppressant.
He was on his way back from taking Dawoon to the dormitory. Dawoon had told him not to tell anyone, but he thought the guild leader should know, so he came looking. Since the condition of a guild member was directly connected to life and death, he judged it wasn’t something to carelessly hide.
“…So he’s at the dormitory now.”
The man who had conveyed the entire situation gulped and swallowed dry saliva.
Seeing the expressions of Taeha and Yeoul who had heard his story, he seemed to understand why Dawoon had asked him to keep it secret.
“Tsk tsk tsk, you crow chick. Come here.”
Sau Guild’s dormitory was on the top floor of a luxury dormitory building used only by senior guilds. A crow was circling a place so high that even ordinary birds rarely came up, holding a kitten by the scruff of its neck.
“Please come when I’m asking nicely. This is all yours.”
As soon as Dawoon saw this, he rushed to the kitchen and brought out a can of tuna he’d hidden as a drinking snack. Since he couldn’t very well throw himself from this high building, luring with food was the only method.
Caw! Kak!
When he opened the living room window wide, the noisy crow’s cries pierced his ears. The kitten didn’t even cry, just desperately flailed its short legs. Oh dear, just stay still. That makes it more dangerous. Dawoon’s insides burned with anxiety.
“This is tastier. Tsk tsk, give me that baby and eat this. Okay?”
Dawoon made his voice as calm as possible so the crow wouldn’t fly away. To lure it with the tuna smell, he even stuck his upper body out the window and stretched out his arm.
He worried it might not be interested, but fortunately the crow looked at Dawoon. The gaze of the kitten, who had been scratching at the crow’s feet, also turned toward Dawoon.
“That’s right, come here and eat this, ugh!”
As Dawoon shook the opened tuna can, he was attacked by other crows that flew in out of nowhere. There were two of them.
Kak! Caaaw! Caw—!
Crows with unusually large bodies compared to ordinary crows stabbed at Dawoon indiscriminately with their sharp beaks and claws. Wounds appeared on Dawoon’s body in an instant.
Nevertheless, Dawoon stretched out his arm to the end. He didn’t care about the pain of his flesh tearing. He only thought of saving the kitten in danger.
“Come here.”
The kitten, watching this, blinked slowly. Dawoon filled the white eyes with their mysterious color mixed with gray and blue tints.
The kitten clearly captured in its eyes the slender arm beckoning it to come and the bold human who didn’t avoid even when the crow stabbed at his eyes with its beak.
Is he trying to save me? With that small, weak body?
The kitten, tilting its head at an angle, spat out the crow’s black feather that had gotten in its mouth. After thoroughly shaking off the flesh stuck in its claws as well, it puffed up its dandelion-fluff-like fur and put all its strength into its body.
Caw?!
“No!”
In the blink of an eye, the kitten’s body fell from the crow. At the same time, Dawoon stretched his arm even longer and shouted, and the crows also flapped their wings as if shocked.
Regardless, the kitten threw its body toward the window with its legs spread wide and a brave expression. Everything happened in an instant.
Nyak.
Naturally, the cat that couldn’t fly fell before even reaching the window. Just as its small body was about to drop down, Dawoon, who threw his body out the window, grabbed it by the scruff of its neck.
“I… caught you.”
Dawoon also didn’t have the ability to fly through the sky. However, thanks to an esper’s excellent motor skills, he barely managed to save the cat by hooking his foot on the window frame.
“It’s okay now.”
Dawoon, holding the cat in his arms, quickly came back inside the window. Fortunately, the crows stopped attacking and just watched Dawoon and the cat quietly, as if their souls had left them.
“Those wicked brats.”
After closing the window, Dawoon raised his hand toward the pitch-black crows gathered like a gang of villains.
“Shoo, go away!”
Don’t even dream of the tuna can. Saying that and glaring at the crows outside the window for a moment, Dawoon’s body, dripping blood and gasping for breath, tilted backward with a thud.
“Ah… this fucking hurts.”
Dawoon, sprawled out spread-eagle, restored one torn eye first. For just crows, they were so strong that they felt more threatening than monsters.
“Are you hurt anywhere?”
He asked while stroking the back of the cat held tightly in his arms. He wanted to examine the little one quickly, but his body wouldn’t cooperate. Now he’d gotten exhausted just from having a bit of a tussle with crows.
“I’ll… look at you. Haah, just a moment.”
Maybe he was just tired. Dawoon squeezed his eyes shut at the sudden feeling of fever rising again. He’d definitely taken medicine, but strangely, heat gathered in his stomach again.
“Ugh, hey… don’t press there.”
The kitten happened to press down hard with its front paw on his throbbing lower abdomen. Dawoon flinched and set the cat down on the floor for a moment.
However, the cat crawled up onto Dawoon’s chest on its own. As if it liked his embrace, it now lay down on top of Dawoon.
“Well now.”
Dawoon, who chuckled, took out the suppressant from his pants pocket and opened his eyes with difficulty. As he was about to take the medicine first, he made eye contact with the kitten lying on his chest.
The cat was staring down at Dawoon. Dawoon’s gaze was stolen by the mysterious color of the cat’s eyes. In doing so, he belatedly noticed that the cat’s appearance was a bit strange.
“You…”
Dawoon, who examined the kitten’s face and paws with puzzled eyes, tilted his head.
“Are you really a cat?”
Something was strange. Do cats originally have paws this big? And it’s a kitten… why is it so heavy?
Dawoon’s eyelids gradually grew heavier as he held the cat’s blunt paw and muttered. The heat that had heated up in his stomach weighed down his body heavily.
Perhaps because of that, the kitten felt even heavier. Even as his eyes were closing, Dawoon steadily held the cat and stroked its fluffy fur.
He soothed the cat that must have been startled by being caught by the crow and put the pill in his mouth. Just as he was about to chew and swallow the suppressant without water, something moist touched his chin.
“Ah…”
When he wondered what it was, it was the cat’s nose. The cat, who rubbed Dawoon’s chin with its moist nose tip, pressed down firmly on his solid chest with both front paws. With a strangely smiling expression.
Do cats even smile…?
Dawoon’s eyes, pondering with a dizzy head, soon closed smoothly. Because he fainted, he didn’t notice the rough tongue touching his lips.
Nor that the tongue changed into a soft human tongue.
