Crisp footsteps of dress shoes. Behind them trailed a quiet presence, its existence deliberately muted.
The cat's ears pricked up at the familiarity. Then it stepped over Seo Sinwoo's body and went pattering toward the source of the sound.
Where it arrived was at the feet of the man walking behind his superior.
“Nyaang…”
The cat made a coquettish sound and rubbed itself against the lean leg.
At that, the man lowered his stance and scratched the cat under the chin.
When the cat purred and flopped over completely, a hand with knobby joints stroked the melted-puddle of a cat.
The other one, meanwhile, paid it no mind and pressed forward.
The sound of hard shoe soles striking the ground grew steadily closer.
Cough!
A heavy cough echoed through the alley.
A pair of suit trousers entered Seo Sinwoo's dimming vision. The figure who'd appeared stopped in front of him.
The man exhaled smoke like a sigh. The familiar smell of cigarettes pricked at his sense of smell.
Seo Sinwoo weakly stared at the shoes set before his eyes.
Once he knew the other's identity and let his tension ease, his vision blurred even further. Now only a black shape was barely visible.
At some point his body had slowly slid down, until he was nearly lying on the ground with only his shoulder just barely propped against the wall.
A cigarette butt dropped between Seo Sinwoo's legs. A shoe ground out the smoldering thing with a firm stamp.
The toe of the shoe, after rubbing back and forth to snuff the ember, lifted Seo Sinwoo's chin.
“…”
He could feel a cold gaze sweep across every part of his face.
Soon, a hoarse voice rang out languidly.
“The mutt looks… a wreck.”
A familiar voice that cracked at the ends.
Seo Sinwoo raised his half-shut eyelids.
He barely managed to look up at the person before him. A suit, the jacket neatly fastened. A black necktie… and.
Thwack!
A foot swung sharply and struck his cheek.
A tooth that flew out rolled across the floor.
As Seo Sinwoo's body toppled sideways, the shoe stamped down on his head.
Hearing the impact, Go Sangwon withdrew his hand from the clinging cat. He quickly came to his superior's side and spoke.
“He's unconscious.”
It wasn't to stop the violence.
It was simply a dry voice relaying a fact.
So that his superior wouldn't accidentally kill the dog he treasured.
“…”
“Will you kill him?”
Han Yukyung looked down at the collapsed Seo Sinwoo.
Wherever he'd discarded his jacket and vest, he was in just a shirt and trousers. He had only one shoe on, too.
Covered in some unidentifiable dark-red liquid, even his skin color was hard to make out.
From head to toe… without exception, all of it was a mess of wounds.
An ugly state.
“No.”
Venting his anger wasn't enough yet. But the situation didn't allow for it right now.
Han Yukyung gestured to Go Sangwon, just like that.
Go Sangwon peeled off his glove and hoisted Seo Sinwoo onto his back. Then he reached toward the cat swishing at his feet, and stopped.
A single tooth had fallen on the ground.
“…”
Go Sangwon picked up the blood-soaked tooth, tucked it into his pocket, and grabbed the cat by the scruff with one hand.
Whoosh—….
Wind blew, and fallen leaves were pushed into the alley.
After the chilly wind stopped, the four of them had vanished without a trace.
In the alley that no one entered, only the fallen leaves tumbled about.
[Congrats! Achievement 〈Karma Reduced by 500〉 unlocked!]
[A reward will be granted.]
Dark. It felt like being inside a cave. My body was hard to move, like it was sunk in a swamp.
On top of that, lumps of flesh kept falling from above, hindering my investigation.
I was barely moving, pushing off the floor with my elbows to dodge them.
The one fortunate thing amid the misfortune was that it wasn't pitch dark all the way through.
Glowing eyeballs, unidentified fluorescent berries… the monster had apparently swallowed all sorts of things. I moved by relying on those faint lights.
Wading through the squishy objects, I pressed forward.
Flailing, I dug through the garbage.
And so, after all kinds of hardship, I finally found it.
An ornate jewelry box that fit in one hand.
The box, plated all over in gold, had various gems set into it.
I'd put up with all that hellish grind until now for this artifact.
[Mysterious Jewelry Box: Can store any object.]
I pressed the largest crimson gem among the decorations on the top of the lid.
Click.
The jewelry box opened. I immediately stuck my hand in. The small opening sucked in my hand—larger than the opening—without trouble.
As I groped around thinking of the core, a round shape came into my grasp.
A black sphere about the size of a fist. The core of this dungeon.
The moment I pulled it out to destroy it.
Seo Sinwoo.
A hand covered in scars emerges from the darkness.
His hand gently wrapped around my wrist. The grip wasn't strong, but I couldn't shake it off. My motion to crush the core was blocked.
…
Did you think you could run away?
A corpse-like face emerges from the darkness.
Flash!
“Hah!!”
A ragged breath burst out. When I jolted upright on reflex, I could feel my heart pounding like crazy.
I clutched my chest, muttering curses.
A nightmare…
It was just a dream.
I'd made it out of the dungeon safely.
With the artifact I'd been aiming for in hand, too.
I took a long, deep breath.
Once my breathing settled, the smell of medicine registered belatedly.
Looking around, an interior like a hotel room came into view. I was lying in a hospital bed that gave off an out-of-place atmosphere within it.
A hospital…
The thought struck me anew.
Been a while since I was hospitalized.
There was a team inside the hideout dedicated to treatment.
Most decent treatment was handled there, but occasionally, if you got badly hurt, you'd be admitted to a hospital.
The truth is, using the people around you as meat shields meant you didn't get hurt much, but.
So how on earth did I end up here?
My memory after getting my side punctured was almost entirely gone.
On the bedside table I saw clothes folded neatly. It was the same suit I'd been wearing before losing consciousness.
My original clothes must have been reduced to rags, so this was probably a new set someone had fetched.
The moment I reached for the clothes.
“Seo Sinwoo?”
The door opened and a man in a white coat appeared.
The man, after meeting my eyes, drew closer. He looked clearly like a doctor, so I asked about my lost memory.
He moved busily. After checking this and that, he confirmed, last of all, that my consciousness was intact, then spoke.
“You'd lost a severe amount of blood, so it's not strange for your memory to be hazy. You came in with a colleague, so ask him about what happened before.”
Then, looking at a tablet, he began his explanation.
“Your fractured legs and torn organs were knitted back together with my ability. Faint scars will remain. And as for the tooth…”
The explanation went in one ear and out the other.
A tooth?
“…”
Why does my cheek feel sore?
The inside of my mouth felt swollen.
But it was my forehead I got hit on by the monster.
Hm…
Come to think of it, I think I got kicked in something before I lost consciousness.
An injury not in my memory left me uneasy.
As I quietly rolled my tongue, the doctor asked.
“Is the pain severe?”
He'd apparently mistaken my reaction for something else.
The truth was, in the past I would've made a huge fuss about dying from the pain, yet surprisingly, it didn't feel like it hurt much.
Maybe because over these past few months I'd had every place that could hurt hurt already.
Or maybe it was because I'd been tortured by a crazy bastard.
No. I can bear it.
If I said that honestly, there's no telling what the other would think. I chose to lie.
“Well… it hurts like hell all over.”
“We're administering painkillers, but it'll hurt a lot. There's no need to hide it. I'm a doctor, you know…”
The man, blinking his sleepy-looking eyes, made an ah sound, then added.
“I'm someone who relies on the Boss for all sorts of help, so you don't have to worry about being reported.”
“Yes… of course I trust you.”
There's no way the Boss would entrust work to just anyone. This was surely someone bound by a contract.
“If you wait just a little… um, your colleague will be here.”
A colleague?
“Let's do another thorough examination then.”
The instant the doctor finished speaking, the hospital room door opened.
My question was answered right away.
“So you've come to your senses.”
Cold-looking single-lidded eyes, black hair slicked neatly back, an overall clean impression like an office worker.
It was Go Sangwon. The Boss's personal teleporter.
He had an ability convenient for getting around all over the place, so he stuck close to the Boss almost like a secretary.
Which meant he had more points of contact with me than the other members.
Maybe that's why.
“Hey there…”
It was nice to see a familiar face after so long.
Those dead-fish eyes are the same as ever.
A face that should look far younger than in my memory… but I felt almost no change in how old he looked.
I don't know his exact age, but he looks precisely six years older.
Or maybe the Go Sangwon of six years later looks six years younger.
As I was having such pointless thoughts, Go Sangwon shot me a puzzled look.
“What is it?”
“It's nothing.”
He let it pass without much comment and picked up the clothes on the table. Then he held them out toward me and spoke in a husky voice.
“I'll explain the situation later. Get changed. The Boss is calling for you.”
“Right. More importantly, my belongings?”
My artifact… the jewelry box was nowhere to be seen.
“If you mean that, the Boss took it.”
“Ah, yes…”
Fuck.
When I took the clothes, the doctor cut in.
“You're going now? We need to run tests, and you should rest for several weeks.”
At that, Go Sangwon propped his chin.
“Is that so. How troubling.”
The face saying it didn't look troubled in the least.
“Moving right away is something we should avoid, but…”
The doctor put on a vexed expression.
“Seo Sinwoo.”
Go Sangwon turned to me and asked.
“What will you do?”
I smiled as I undid the buttons of the patient gown.
“Why ask? Let's go right now.”
In the end, Go Sangwon and I went off to the hideout hand in hand, the best of friends.
I took advantage of the brief lull to ask something I was curious about.
“By the way, how old are you, if I may ask?”
“Thirty-three.”
So he really does look six years older.
