Chapter 217
Ting, ting, ting. The bullets blocked by my shield fell to the floor.
Han Seo-hyeon’s pupils burned black. What are you trying to do! I immediately grabbed Han Seo-hyeon’s wrist. When I quietly shook my head, Han Seo-hyeon bit his lip.
—You’re stopping him even in this situation?
‘We haven’t finished talking yet.’
—They don’t seem like they’ll give us time to talk now…
That was the problem. But I couldn’t just let Han Seo-hyeon loose like this either.
“I told you, I’m not mentally prepared yet.”
Han Seo-hyeon pointed at the bullets hitting the shield with an incredulous expression.
“Let’s talk again later.”
“Then what am I supposed to do? Just play around here?”
Han Seo-hyeon’s words were full of thorns. When did I say to play, I asked him to support us.
“How long are you going to talk? They’re bringing out the big stuff.”
As Kim Jae-ho said, the enemy who realized bullets weren’t working was just lifting up a rocket launcher. Damn it!
“Support us like before, you know.”
“…Fine.”
Though his expression was still off like someone with a stomach ache, Han Seo-hyeon nodded at my words.
For now, it was time to deal with the rocket launcher first. I stretched out my hand and wove an ice spear with magic power. Commotion spread inside the building at the ice spear that suddenly appeared in the air.
Before the enemies could prepare, I shot the ice spear through the window.
The window shattered, and the ice spear lodged inside the building. The people who had been sticking to the window firing guns at us were startled and hid in safe places.
As the gun barrels that had been densely packed at the window disappeared, Kim Jae-ho slipped inside taking advantage of the gap.
I glanced back briefly.
Han Seo-hyeon’s face with his mouth tightly shut looked like it had the two characters for ‘dissatisfaction’ pasted on it.
—It was a conversation you had to have someday. The problem is the timing was the worst.
‘Are you comforting me?’
—No, I’m blaming you for the timing being the worst.
Damn, I don’t have a single ally.
[Aaaagh!]
Someone’s scream pierced through my thoughts. It was Kim Jae-ho’s work inside the building. A man thrown out the window tried to get up with a few groans, but it was in vain. Soon the man went quiet. His breath had stopped.
—While Kim Jae-ho is rampaging like that, Han Seo-hyeon is bound to be dissatisfied being held back.
‘Urgh, that may be true… But that’s not the urgent matter right now. Let’s think about it after the job is done.’
—Good grief.
Avoiding Ray’s nagging, I wove another ice spear with magic power. If the previous ice spear served to scatter the people attacking us, now I plan to make a path to go inside.
My spear flew towards a shadow flickering near the window. Thud, the shadow hit by my spear collapsed inwards.
And simultaneously, a dagger thrown by Kim Jae-ho from the shadows flew through the air.
Thud, thud.
The dagger lodged in people’s bodies.
[Die!]
Bullets poured out, but Kim Jae-ho had already melted into the shadows. And behind a careless guy, the dagger that had been lodged in his comrade’s body just now flew in.
The men inside the building were helplessly beaten by the dagger flying around ignoring the laws of physics.
‘Jae-ho alone is enough to end the situation.’
Just as I entered inside through the window and inwardly muttered that. Sand that followed me into the building drew an arrow in the air. Following the direction the arrow pointed, I saw a man hiding behind a pillar catching his breath.
“Oh.”
I immediately gifted the ice spear floating in the air to that man. The man’s head drooped as he became lodged in the wall.
—While you show such horrific scenes just fine, you say they can’t do it themselves.
I pouted at Ray’s words.
‘That’s why I said I’ll think about it later.’
Didn’t I say we’d talk properly later!
I focused my mind again. I slowly moved further inside. The interior was already devastated just by my ice spears and Kim Jae-ho’s daggers.
[D-die! Monster!]
A man whose breath hadn’t quite stopped fired a handgun at me, but unfortunately those bullets didn’t pierce my body. Despair settled on the man’s face as he saw the bullets caught in midair.
As I returned the bullets he shot at me to his head, I inwardly muttered.
‘It’s strange, there are no awakeners in sight.’
Only awakener can deal with awakener.
Of course, people running violent organizations would normally bring in awakeners. But all the people we faced were non-awakeners.
Though they were armed with bulletproof vests and heavy weapons like machine guns, it was insufficient to deal with us awakener.
‘If this is really the gang’s headquarters, it’s a disappointingly weak force.’
It doesn’t make sense, actually.
Even August we saw at the gambling den was an awakener, but there are no awakeners to be seen in this headquarters.
Are they all gathered in the underground space?
They’re not coming up even with all this commotion?
After confirming there were no more living people on the upper floors, I stood in front of the stairs leading underground.
At that moment, Han Seo-hyeon’s voice rang in my ears.
[Are you going down underground?]
“Yeah.”
[Wait, wait a moment.]
“Why?”
[Can’t you feel it?]
Han Seo-hyeon’s sand was trembling finely.
Certainly, the movement of magic power felt from below was not normal. Is a battle happening in there? Or is some horrific research being conducted?
‘What on earth is happening to…’
Before I could continue speaking, with a boom sound the door shattered and something flew out. As the stairs and nearby walls were destroyed too, bricks flew in all directions.
I quickly surrounded myself and Kim Jae-ho with a magic shield.
“Damn, what is this…”
The person who came out through the wall was black all over.
Though not clearly visible due to the dust, the body covered in smooth carbon material looked as hard as steel.
I quickly scanned the person behind the dust. The visible silhouette looked dull, but the speed shown just now was considerable. It means only the appearance looks dull.
As if noticing the intruder beyond the dust, he immediately took a defensive stance looking at us in front of him.
Friend or foe.
We continued to face off with the dust between us. And when the dust settled and we could see each other’s appearance.
[What, are you on our side too?]
I frowned at the voice coming from the steel man.
[Nikki? Is that you?]
[Yeah! It’s me! Damn it, so you were on their side too. I guess there was a reason for luring me out after all!]
I hurriedly said to Nikki who immediately got angry:
[No, you misunderstand! I’m on the side trying to rescue you!]
[Rescue me?]
[Yes! I heard you went somewhere else alone, so I went to the casino… and a guy there told me about this place.]
Nikki narrowed her eyes as if suspicious of me, but after checking the people collapsed below us, she dropped her suspicion.
[Then who are those people behind you?]
Behind me, Kim Jae-ho holding a dagger with a fierce expression and Han Seo-hyeon who had come running at some point were standing guard.
[They’re my friends. They willingly lent a hand to rescue you, Nikki.]
[Oh, thank you. To come rescue me when you barely know me.]
Kim Jae-ho and Han Seo-hyeon kept their mouths shut at Nikki’s greeting.
At a glance, they looked like they had English-speaking anxiety rising to their throats.
‘Hmm…’
Our native English teacher hasn’t done his job yet… It can’t be helped.
[My friends are, well, not very talkative.]
[They seem beyond just not talkative though?]
I hurriedly changed the subject.
[Anyway, what happened?]
I heard she was taken away unconscious… but the Nikki visible in front of me looked not just fine, but very healthy.
[That’s what I want to ask… When I came to my senses, I was tied up so I smashed everything and escaped.]
[You smashed everything?]
[Uh-huh.]
[Is that your ability?]
[Huh? Oh! Cool, right?]
Is it transforming her whole body into a different substance?
If only the silhouette didn’t look so dull like a gingerbread man, it might have looked quite cool…
With her hands and feet rounded too, really…
It might be rude to say this, but she looked cute.
The unnecessarily sparkling look in Kim Jae-ho’s eyes was ominous.
[So you don’t know what happened inside?]
[They seemed to have done something to my body. My ability feels very dull, and my body got heavier too…]
Nikki who frowned looked at her hand and shouted:
[No! Why is my hand like this!]
[Ah.]
So that was a side effect. It seems her body wasn’t originally this dull and round. I did think the overall silhouette was too round.
[If it’s alright with you, we’d like to investigate inside.]
[Inside there?]
[Yes.]
We can only know the details if we go in and look, right? At my words, Nikki hesitated without answering easily.
[Don’t tell me you killed everyone?]
This can’t be! I haven’t even asked who made the artifacts yet! Seeing me aghast, Nikki hurriedly shouted:
[Who do you think I am, a murderer?]
—That’s right. They say you only see what you want to see.
‘Urgh.’
I roughly explained the situation to Kim Jae-ho and Han Seo-hyeon.
“So we need to look around that basement, right?”
“Yeah.”
“What are we going to do with this woman?”
“We should move her to a safe place for now.”
After telling Han Seo-hyeon that, I told Nikki to stay in a safe place and…
[I want to go down to the basement too. I couldn’t figure out properly what they did to me earlier because I was out of it.]
I was refused.
With no choice, the four of us decided to go down to the basement together.
The basement half-destroyed by Nikki was a mess. Seeing the dust falling from the walls, Han Seo-hyeon said:
“Is this going to collapse like this?”
“No way…”
[What are they all saying? What language is that anyway?]
“Ah.”
I looked at Nikki and said:
[We were worrying if this place might collapse.]
There was only one answer to two questions, but fortunately Nikki didn’t cling to my words.
[It probably won’t collapse all at once, right?]
What’s with that subtly deflating tone?
Fortunately, the basement didn’t collapse while we went down the stairs.
The basement was quite spacious. There seemed to be at least a few rooms. The problem was that the entire basement was destroyed…
[You must have been really angry.]
At my words, Nikki turned her gaze away as if embarrassed. Kim Jae-ho who found a person among the destroyed debris gestured to me.
“There’s someone alive here.”
“I’m not sure if we can call this alive.”
The man with his waist bent as if hit by a truck looked in bad shape at a glance.
[I thought you said you didn’t kill them.]
[…Oh my.]
Nikki played dumb.
The walls were destroyed in several places as if a huge truck had plowed through. We slowly moved following those clear traces.