novelraw Chapter 105 : Chapter 105
Chapter 105 : Chapter 105
Chapter 105: Order
‘It's warm.’
Savoring the warmth of the cocoa in my hands, I exhaled deeply.
Thanks to Do Haru's snot mixed with tears, I woke up and was able to sit on a rock fragment and take a rest.
I sat with a blanket over my shoulders, but my body was still trembling.
"There don't seem to be any external abnormalities, but there might be a problem with your nervous system. It would be better to get a detailed examination later."
The healer scratched her head as if finding it strange while examining my condition.
Of course it's strange, because the pain I'm feeling is not 'normal' pain.
Usually, one suffers pain from receiving a shock or getting injured.
Being hit by a fist, cut by a knife, or a bullet lodging in the body.
There is a clear cause, and as a result, pain naturally follows.
But the pain I feel is quite twisted in that regard.
A burning sensation as if the soles of my feet are being seared, pressure as if a press machine is crushing my shoulders, and even a bizarre stimulation as if a sharp net is pressing down on my whole body.
These pains I'm feeling right now were all close to phantom pain.
There is no external cause whatsoever.
[‘Settlement’ begins.]
It's just the price paid for using skills.
"I'll prescribe painkillers for now. Please wait while taking them."
Two pills were placed in my hand.
I swallowed them immediately.
Unfortunately, they probably won't be very effective.
‘Settlement’ isn't called settlement for nothing. It was the act of paying a price.
Essentially repaying a debt, pain that follows persistently like a loan shark.
I think she said there was no external cause earlier, but thinking about it now, there is.
[Kihikihik! Good! Delicious!]
It's exactly this guy.
Mimic was trembling with excitement.
It seems the pain I feel is a Michelin 3-star feast for this guy.
‘Damn it.’
Would it hurt to do it for free without settlement sometimes?
I'm starting to get worried about fainting every day.
In the unlikely event that I cannot return to reality, I have to continue living in this body.
If it goes on like this, my body won't hold up.
Letting out a sigh, I turned my gaze.
Wind blew over the debris.
Rescue personnel moved busily, and stretchers, bandages, and patients were tangled together.
The incident had already entered a lull, and the order phase.
Cleaning up the remnants was also entering the final stage, and an announcement that the villains had retreated had been made.
Now the remaining work was settlement and healing.
Seol Hayun lying on a makeshift bed a little distance away caught my eye.
They said it was magic power exhaustion.
Sweat drops were dried on her pale face.
Since she used strong spells like Fire Vulture and Flame Octopus for a long time and consecutively, it was inevitable that she pushed herself.
Do Haru was squatting next to her.
She tucked Seol Hayun's disheveled hair behind her ear.
Her eyes were swollen, showing how much she had cried.
‘Everyone suffered.’
Large-scale terror, a huge disaster.
Someone must have lost a precious person, and someone must have grown through this incident.
After being immersed in short thoughts, I raised my body.
It would be right to be by my friends' side now.
Just as I was about to move my steps, someone's footsteps approached.
"Good work."
Low baritone voice.
Turning my head, Kang Mooseong was standing there.
"Fortunately, I wasn't late."
Many meanings were mixed in those words.
Relief that I was safe, evaluation of enduring until he arrived.
On one hand, I accepted those words differently.
‘……Actually, it was fortunate you were slightly late.’
I recalled the moment Kang Mooseong came to rescue.
Rescue arrived while I was confronting Chief in a state mimicked as Balzac.
Something really big almost happened.
Because I almost showed Kang Mooseong a scene of peacefully conversing with Chief.
"Thank you for saving me."
"Protecting cadets and citizens is something I naturally have to do. There is nothing to thank me for."
Kang Mooseong took something out of his pocket.
What he took out was candy.
Throwing it to me as if flicking with his thumb, he continued speaking.
"Eat it, something sweet helps more than medicine after battle. It's my own tip."
"Ah, thank you."
Sweet scent spread in my mouth.
Certainly, this was better than painkillers that had little effect on settlement pain.
Even though my body was trembling, I could feel the sweetness.
"I heard from Spike Blue."
Kang Mooseong brought up the topic slyly.
"You faced a monster? Not that ox-head, but the one that transformed into a monster."
At those words, I nodded.
Because it is right to claim credit clearly.
At my response, Kang Mooseong's eyes narrowed thinly.
"Then, was it also you who smashed the Viking?"
"Ah, that was……."
I trailed off.
Can I say it honestly?
Utilizing the Viking was a certain way to catch the berserk Gonta.
But a reason I couldn't admit it obediently came to mind.
‘Repair costs.’
If told to pay for it since I broke it on purpose, my life would be ruined at that moment.
At least hundreds of millions, I would be sitting on a pile of debt.
Seeing me speechless like that, Kang Mooseong opened his mouth first.
"You can speak honestly. Repairs due to disasters are handled by the disaster recovery team, you know? They won't hold you responsible."
"Ah, that was me."
Then I should admit it.
"As expected, it was so."
Kang Mooseong grinned and continued speaking.
"I always say to maintain composure on the battlefield."
He stroked his chin and narrowed his brows.
"But most cannot keep it. They lose their presence of mind and stick to simple judgments. Do you know what happens then?"
"What happens?"
"They miss countless possibilities. The battlefield is not a simple contest of strength. Momentary judgment creates dozens of results. If you are not composed, you lose all of that."
As he paused for a moment, wind laden with smoke swept the surroundings.
Amidst that, Kang Mooseong's gaze turned to me.
"You were composed."
It was a short remark but heavy.
"You lured the monster to a place without people, and finished it using the terrain."
He nodded satisfactorily.
"Thanks to that, damage was minimized. Just surviving in front of a berserk monster is extremely rare, but you even controlled the situation. Well done."
Was it because the words came from the mouth of the Monster Instructor Kang Mooseong?
It had been a long time since I felt burdened by praise.
"Thank you."
Somehow feeling embarrassed, I scratched my cheek.
Brief silence fell.
While catching breath slowly, the sound of rescue workers' radios was heard faintly.
"I will ask one thing."
Kang Mooseong's voice resonated low.
His gaze was directed at me but seemed to be looking at something else.
"That ox-headed guy. Is it true that he arrived after the berserk monster fell?"
"Yes."
I answered lightly.
Because it was actually so.
Short silence.
Suddenly, Kang Mooseong's gaze lifted toward the sky.
His eyes narrowed again.
[Kang Mooseong]
[Suspicion, Doubt]
And at that moment, the emotion window reflected in the Eye of Deception conveyed new information.
‘……What is it?’
What kind of suspicion did the conversation just now create?
The moment I had doubts about the sudden change.
"Ryu Jinwoo, is it okay if I ask one more thing?"
"Yes? Ah, yes."
"That ox-headed guy, what did he say to you?"
As expected, it's this way.
But inwardly I was prepared.
I just have to tell it as it is frankly.
Except for facts disadvantageous to me.
"He said he liked the way I disposed of the monster. Then he said he wanted to take me and do some experiment……."
I didn't miss appealing that I had no idea what was going on at all.
Suddenly an unidentified villain grabbed me and threatened me. This was the stance I had to take.
"Is that so?"
Kang Mooseong shrugged his shoulders.
"Why do you ask?"
"Well, I wondered if he had other ulterior motives."
"Other ulterior motives?"
"Yeah."
Kang Mooseong's words were these.
If he intended to kidnap me with determination, he could have run away long before he arrived.
And that even after he arrived, he ran away with an strangely obedient attitude.
‘It is strange.’
Certainly, it was enough for Kang Mooseong to feel uncomfortable.
Actions and judgments Chief made because he mistook me for Balzac were enough to feel strange from a third party's perspective.
I silently observed Kang Mooseong's movements.
Because what was important was what Kang Mooseong was thinking inwardly.
"What I am curious about is this. There were a total of three people at that place, you, that ox-headed monster, and Seol Hayun, right? Aside from the giant monster you caught."
And it was the moment Kang Mooseong asked me.
‘As expected.’
Actually, there was one thing I was concerned about too.
In the situation mimicked as Balzac, I got scratched by Chief's provocation-like provocation and raised my momentum.
While doing so, as Kang Mooseong came closer, mimicry was released in an instant.
Probably [Mimicry Instinct] was released automatically to hide my identity.
The problem was the momentum itself.
If it was Kang Mooseong, he would have already felt that momentum while approaching.
Actually, there were a total of 3 people at the place where we were, Chief, me, and Seol Hayun.
I was in a state mimicked as Balzac.
But from Kang Mooseong's perspective, there were Chief, me, Seol Hayun, and another person.
However, when he actually arrived, that one person had disappeared.
‘Probably even now, it remains as the biggest mystery to Kang Mooseong.’
I decided to utilize that to the maximum.
To Kang Mooseong asking if it was correct that there were 3 people, I frowned and answered as if pondering.
"Yes, there were 3 people."
An answer affirming it.
But mixing an attitude of not being sure.
"Is there something bothering you?"
Kang Mooseong asked.
"I don't know. At that time, my condition wasn't good and I was barely breathing because my neck was grabbed. But something……."
I continued speaking, directing my gaze upward as if recalling.
"It was brief, but I think the ox-head who grabbed me was surprised. While looking at something behind me."
"Behind?"
"Since my neck was grabbed, I was in a situation where I couldn't see behind. But it's clear there was something."
I don't know what that is either.
But there was definitely something.
It's a lie but a plausible setting.
This should be enough.
Kang Mooseong would fill in the rest on his own.
Kang Mooseong's gaze came down slowly.
There were no words.
Instead, his gaze deepened.
Will he let it pass like this, or dig further?
I quietly caught my breath waiting for his reaction.
***
‘As expected, someone was there.’
Kang Mooseong felt clearly.
That momentum bursting out ominously before reaching the scene of the incident.
His body reacted first.
The energy of a 'Top Predator' that a hunter senses instinctively.
It was an eerie sensation as if dozens of snakes were crawling along the skin.
However, it was strange.
‘Gone.’
The existence that was suppressing the vicinity until just before disappeared without leaving a trace the moment Kang Mooseong reached there.
Even while fighting the ox-headed monster after that, that existence still occupied Kang Mooseong's mind.
Overwhelming momentum not hiding the desire for domination at all.
Yet the eeriness of disappearing in an instant.
Furthermore, the ox-headed monster ran away completely erasing the will to fight for some reason.
A series of bizarre events.
There existed a missing puzzle in the middle of it.
When asked Ryu Jinwoo, he answered.
That someone was there.
That he didn't know the identity but there definitely was.
Kang Mooseong intuitively felt that 'someone' was the last puzzle piece.
That person must be a strong individual impossible to gauge.
Perhaps the true mastermind controlling everything.
‘I must remember clearly.’
The eerie sensation seeping into the skin at that moment.
The energy climbing up the body like a thrill.
Kang Mooseong decided not to forget.
Intuitively sensing that there will be a day he faces it again someday.
***
Kang Mooseong's expression settled seriously.
At the same time, a small sigh of relief flowed inside me.
For now, it was flowing in the desired direction.
Kang Mooseong was immersed in thought alone, forgetting me.
It was certain that Kang Mooseong felt Balzac's energy.
It is also clear that he is conscious of that existence.
But at least he wasn't suspecting the connection between me and Balzac.
Creating a non-existent third party was a success.
‘This mimicry is also a really headache-inducing ability.’
Especially mimicking Balzac.
Cheat-key level performance in front of villains, but a time bomb in hero society.
What if I use it wrong and get caught by hero society?
No, what if I get caught by Kang Mooseong?
My peaceful academy life would be goodbye as is.
I would be imprisoned immediately and a full course of hell experience would await me.
‘How did it come to this.’
I looked at Mimic.
[Kihit! More! Moooore!]
This guy still giggling and spinning round and round.
Everything went twisted the moment this guy swallowed Balzac.
Of course, I cannot deny the fact that I survived thanks to that.
Life seems to be getting more complicated and miserable.
‘To think I would miss the life of repeating training every day.’
There is no other way.
Because surviving somehow is important.
Looking at Kang Mooseong who was deep in thought, I opened my mouth.
"Instructor."
"Hmm? What is it."
"Do you happen to have one more candy?"
Kang Mooseong stared at me, then smirked and took out a candy from his pocket and threw it.
"Next time, pack it yourself."
"I should do that."
Still amidst the pain wrapping around my whole body, I savored the sweet taste.
Sweet candy.
This was enough for now.
Because tomorrow will have tomorrow's comfort.