18 – Breaking the Company (4)
He stepped on the ground.
But something was strange about the ground.
It was clearly a road paved with concrete, but it was split long as if an earthquake had occurred.
He looked around.
Then, he looked again at the paper with the address written on it.
According to his memory, this place used to be a city near a metropolis that served as a satellite city. It had a large population and was relatively large in size.
But now…
Buildings everywhere were demolished, unrecognizable from their original form.
Fragments of concrete were scattered haphazardly on the road.
There was no sign of life on the streets.
Trees were growing chaotically without any human touch.
Surely, this place was once the center of the city, but now it was like a ruin that had been bombed.
It exuded a gloomy atmosphere.
It was obvious that this place was beyond the reach of the government. There was no presence of security to maintain in a place like this.
In a place like this, it was possible for someone like Giseok to kidnap people indiscriminately.
Thump, thump.
Yeoul took slow steps.
He felt the gazes following him.
There were no openly walking people, but he could tell from those gazes that people were hiding in every corner of the ruined city.
The reason they were hiding was probably due to frequent kidnappings and crimes caused by low security.
Yeoul, who walked without giving any attention to the lingering gazes, stopped in front of a relatively intact building in the vicinity.
Although it was worn out from not receiving any care from humans, the building still maintained its original shape.
According to Giseok’s information, this was the high-rise part of the building.
Yeoul entered the building.
The interior was even worse than the relatively decent exterior.
Wires with stripped insulation hung from the ceiling as if rats had nibbled on them.
Dust that was thickly accumulated blurred the sight.
In one corner, there was even snow piled up from a hole in the wall.
The chilly air of December filled the entire building.
The footsteps of Yeoul headed towards the stairs.
There was still no sign of a human shadow to be found.
She had to go up a little higher.
* * *
Thud, thud.
How many stairs had she climbed?
-“Today… that one….
-As for him… the brand new…
-Well then… the goat…
-Good….
The voice was as if people were having a conversation….
───!
A sharp scream echoed throughout the building.
It wasn’t far away.
After climbing the stairs for a while and cutting off the accumulated fatigue in her body, Yeoul opened the door to the floor where the loud noise had come from.
“────!!”
“Hey, can’t you just stay still, you damn idiot!”
“───, ───, ─────!!”
“What are you saying, you beast…! Why isn’t this coming off easily…!”
“Hey, I’ll take care of this bastard next time.”
“Damn it, this time I’ll go first.”
“If you’re confident, then fight better than me.”
Yeoul gently closed her eyes at the scene that unfolded before her.
Memories emerging.
After cutting off emotions, she had never felt a headache like this in a long time, itching her head.
There was no need to hesitate.
She would kill them all.
“Hey, you there─”
That person─
Instead of words, only the sound of air escaping a neck flew up towards the sky.
From the woman lying underneath, one by one starting from the closest.
Two, three, four.
As if they were not originally one, the heads fell off their bodies one by one.
“Ah, ah…”
The one furthest away.
He trembled in fear as he looked at the round heads around him.
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“H-h-help…”
In the end, even his own head bid farewell to the body it had been attached to every day, accompanied by tears.
Yeowool looked at the scene of carnage she had created with her own hands. She took off her coat and approached the trembling woman among the headless bodies.
He put the coat over the woman’s bare back.
“──. ──. ──.”
The woman, who muttered incomprehensible words and trembled, lifted her head as she felt the fabric against her bare back.
Their eyes met. Judging from the straight pupils and the horns attached to its head, it seemed like a goat-man hybrid.
Tears glistening in the corners of her eyes, she looked at Yeowool with a puzzled gaze.
He left her behind and walked towards where he had slaughtered the men.
A tight iron grille that completely enclosed one side of the wall.
Behind it, dozens of different races were trapped.
His head tingled once again.
It felt like his past experiences were being overlaid onto reality.
Even so, there was no turmoil of emotions. …Perhaps.
Maybe it was because she had seen Yeowool ruthlessly kill the men.
Beyond the iron grille, people of the same species clung to each other, trembling.
Just watching that scene made Yeowool’s head ache even more, so he swung his sword and cut through the iron grille in one stroke.
The iron grille, made of magically engineered dark iron, which couldn’t be scratched no matter how much force was used, cleanly cut as if it was being drawn by a blade. They looked at it with fearful eyes.
“You can leave.”
Yeowool pointed to the stairs leading down.
At first, they hesitated.
But then, one person gathered the courage to climb over the fallen iron grille and passed by Yeowool’s side. And from then on, one by one, they started to escape, realizing that Yeowool was still standing still.
They were all wearing worn-out and dusty clothes, as if they had rummaged through a clothing collection box.
“──. ──.”
Some people were speaking unintelligible words and bowing their heads. It seemed like a gesture of gratitude.
Come to think of it, no one seems to be able to speak Korean.
He had always assumed that he could communicate with other species.
This was because every species he had met so far spoke Korean fluently.
Even the other world he had been transported to communicated in Korean, so it was not unreasonable for him to assume so.
But, maybe reality is different.
It seemed that they not only couldn’t speak Korean, but also couldn’t communicate with each other.
So, for a while, people formed a line exiting the building.
Even the goat humanoid, who wore a dress of waves over its bare torso, went down the stairs with the person taking her.
People wearing tattered clothes.
Among them, there was a woman who stood out because she was the only one who appeared not to be wearing worn-out clothes, or more accurately, pretended not to. She approached Yeoul.
“Thank you for saving me…”
She had tear marks running down her white cheeks and bowed her head with reddened eyes.
Her hair flowed down the long pointed ears.
An elf.
“….”
Yeoul didn’t bother to respond to her gratitude.
Just.
He looked down at her bowed head, thinking that today’s events only reminded him of the past.
“….”
She, who had been looking at Yeoul in silence for a moment, soon moved her steps to leave the building.
“Wait.”
“….Yes?”
That elf, her face feels familiar for some reason.
Where have I seen her before?
There can’t be many elves I’ve seen on Earth.
“….”
“….?”
“No, it doesn’t matter who that elf is. It has nothing to do with me.”
She wiped her trembling heart as Yeoul suddenly called out to her and went down the stairs.
Everyone had left.
Only the swirling body, head, and Yeoul remained there.
As the situation was considered resolved, the headache that had been tormenting him subsided, and a cold rationality took its place.
He pondered on the actions he had taken today.
Slight discomfort. It was certain that he had come out just to confirm that.
By some accident, he ended up killing the CEO of Soyung’s company.
According to his own thinking, what had dominated him today was impulsiveness, which was contradictory for someone who lacked emotions.
Impulsively killing the CEO, impulsively coming here.
Impulsively killing men, impulsively slashing iron bars.
His actions, which seemed to care about nothing afterwards, could only be explained in that way.
Even though he had clearly cut off his emotions, was he still haunted by the past?
Feeling that his body was tired for some reason, he tore through space to go home.
He had done something unforgivable to Soyung.
He had killed the CEO of the company she worked for.
As he transcended space, he thought to himself.
* * *
“Where did she go…?”
Her sister hadn’t returned home since the day before yesterday.
Yeah. Her sister, being an adult unlike herself, could stay out overnight.
She had thought like that until yesterday.
But leaving the house empty for two days. Her sister had never done such a thing before.
And she wasn’t even able to contact her.
She couldn’t help but think of something bad happening.
“I told her not to go there…!”
The place her sister regularly visited.
A place where outcast species who had been marginalized by society gathered and lived, her sister often went there to distribute food and clothes.
Since they themselves had received help when they lived there before, now that they were well-off, they should give back, she used to say–
But she had always tried to stop her sister from doing that.
Because they knew better since they had lived there, one thing in particular. The public safety in that place was completely shattered.
A place where people who had laughed and talked together until the previous day would disappear and be gone the next day, as if it was a daily occurrence.
Her sisters had also experienced numerous crises. They had witnessed humans approaching the place where they stayed.
In such a place, how could they prevent someone from leaving?
Furthermore, her sister was not a supernatural being like her.
But her sister never gave up.
She had said that everything would be fine, that these days there seemed to be fewer incidents of people suddenly disappearing.
But then, what is this─.
Although they had filed a missing person report with the police, the handling of the case was lackluster due to the unique characteristics of this species.
She could only sit quietly and worry.
If she didn’t come back by today, she would gather her friends from the specialized high school for superhumans where she currently attended, and go search for her sister.
That’s what she had thought at that time.
Then, she heard the sound of the door opening─
“Sister…?”
Her sister came back to the dimly lit room, looking exhausted.
“Sister…!”
Sobbing, they embraced each other.
After the tearful reunion.
When her younger sister asked what had happened, her sister answered.
She said that a certain human man had saved them when they were being kidnapped.
“But that person… He was a bit frightening at the time, but now that I think about it, he was really cool….”
“Are you saying that now?”
“No, really….”
After calming down her muttering sister, her sister described the man’s appearance.
Pale skin, long black hair, and the unique atmosphere formed by his cold expression.
“……Huh?”
Wait.
That, completely….
Listening to her sister’s description, she felt a strange sensation.
The person she had asked for his number at first sight when she met him on the street last time.
He felt similar to the person who had said he didn’t have a contact number…?
Oh, no way.
It couldn’t be.