September 22nd, 2023
The scent of fresh flowers, which filled this place until earlier, was covered by the sweet scent from Lee Sa-young. The pounding in my heart gradually subsided.
When Lee Sa-young touched the root I was holding, even the last remaining stem became poisonous and died down. Just one use of the ability, the garden of life has become a black poison swamp. Only after confirming that nothing was alive anymore, Sa-young murmured.
“What the hell did you do to the rift’s master? …I heard you were under a weakening curse.”
The last part didn’t seem to be directed at me.
“That’s what I’m saying, guild leader.”
Min-ki, standing a few paces behind me, retorted coldly. He was holding some sort of oxygen mask to his mouth. Sa-young slapped his hand away, which was clamped over my nose and mouth.
‘You’re not going to let go of this?’
When I looked at him in that sense, Sa-young said without looking back.
“Hey, give me that.”
“What?”
“I don’t think you have any extra. Give it to me.”
“……”
“I know you’ve got the tool.”
“Yes.”
A shadow human as big as a hand sticking out of nowhere ran with a small oxygen mask raised above my head. Sa-young lifted his head.
“Grow.”
The shadow man quickly grew to the size of a full-grown man. It handed the oxygen mask to me and then melted away.
[Artisan’s Mass Production Oxygen Mask (A)]
When worn where the poison has spread, it detoxifies a certain level of poison and helps breathing. It would be better than nothing.
Creator: Hong Ye-sung]
Sa-young whispered.
“If you let go of your hand, you can put it on your mouth right away.”
“…….”
“Blink if you understand.”
This guy’s giving orders one by one. When I opened my eyes to the fullest again and shot at him, Sa-young responded with annoyance.
“If you don’t want to vomit again, listen to me.”
No, I have Basilisk’s Poison. My failure to mention a trait was coming back to haunt me in a big way.
Sa-young relaxed hia hand when I blinked. In any case, the item that was told to be worn must be used, so I put a mask on my mouth. The Basilisk’s Poison had worked hard, and it didn’t make much difference whether I used it or not.
The atmosphere became as quiet as possible. My heart, which seemed to calm down a little, started pounding again. It was so loud that even Sa-young, standing right behind mw, could hear it. The strange fire filled me to the brim. I deliberately made his breathing a little louder. Without the sound, I felt like I would be eaten up by the anxiety that had barely dissipated.
Then a strong arm wrapped around my shoulders and pulled me closer. He leaned down and whispered in my ear.
“Breathe.”
“…….”
“You’re surprised now, hyung.”
No, I’m not surprising. No matter how many monsters I’d seen, I was just…
Uneasy.
Tap, tap, a small hand tapped my shoulder in a regular rhythm, a faint noise that pierced the silence and my breathing. I could feel my heart, which was about to beat hard, slowing down a little. I let out a long breath. As my head began to spin a little, I wondered.
‘Why is Lee Sa-young here?’
Why did this guy come to the 5th grade rift? I’d be able to ignore the call. No, I’m going to ignore you, Lee Sa-young.
As the arm wrapped around my shoulder fell, I looked back at Sa-young. Sa-young was wearing gloves again. He glanced at my face and smiled, meaning he knew what I thought.
“Someone will think you saw a ghost.”
“…….”
“Did you think I wouldn’t come?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“There’s no reason to come.”
Sa-young tilted his head slightly.
“You’re so…”
“…….”
“You have no trust in people.”
It was his usual bluntness, but somehow it felt sarcastic. It was a rational conclusion, and he rubbed the back of his neck.
“So why did you come here?”
“I’m here to get you out.”
Sa-young replied and pointed to the black poison swamp with his chin.
“But I can’t believe you’re fighting the rift master.”
Damn it. I’ll just kill it and get out first. It was the moment when I crumpled my face. Min-ki shouted in the distance.
“Guild leader! It’s good of you to take care of your customers, but there’s something you should consider!”
Sa-young glanced back.
“What is it.”
“There is a possibility that the rift owner stones have melted together because you melted the rift owner at once!”
As if waiting for that word, the whole rift began to shake. The ground, the sky, and even the air was twisted. Min-ki shrugged his shoulders.
“It’s already started, could you lend me your shadow?!”
Rift stone is a kind of mana stone cherished by the rfit master, and when it is broken, the rift disappears. It is a different concept from when the master rift dies. When the rift disappears, all the people caught up inside bounce back to where the rift entrance was, without distinction between a corpse and a survivor.
In other words, it was also said that the survivor would see the body of another victim caught up with right under his nose. The bodies suffered by monsters were terrible, so the rescue team would dissipate them and extinguish the cracks to minimize the trauma of the survivors.
Fortunately, there won’t be any deaths this time, but… There was another problem with the prostitute.
‘At this rate, I’ll run into the rescue team!’
I looked around in alarm and locked eyes with Sa-young. Sa-young shrugged.
“It’s an unexpected situation. What do we do now?”
“What do you mean.”
I pulled Sa-young by the collar. And I looked directly at the purple eyes over the lens and said one word after another.
“You’re not going to wait for the rescuers, are you? You don’t want to get caught removing the rift stone, do you?”
“……”
“Memorize everything I’m about to say. Say it.”
The corners of Sa-young’s mouth slowly rose as he listened to Ui-jae.
Yang Hye-jin, who bounced out of the rift as if she were spitting out, tried to focus by closing and opening her blurred eyes. She felt nauseous as if she had ridden the roller coaster 50 times in a row, and her whole body hurt as if she had been beaten repeatedly with a bat. There was only one thought in the midst of dizziness.
‘Lee Sa-young, you crazy bastard….’
The rescue operation hadn’t even finished yet, so why was he making a fuss about destroying the crack? Yang Hye-jin grimaced and barely raised her upper body from the ground. The sensation of being forced out of the rift was still terrible. She heard the sound of busy footsteps.
“All the hunters who entered the rift have returned!”
“O… Observation confirmation of rift dissipation!”
“We will check the survivors.”
“How did they catch the rift master so quickly? It’s been less than half an hour since they entered.”
When Yang Hye-jin looked around through the commotion, the Rift Management Agency’s hunters, which entered together, were suffering from a loss of mind as if they had not overcome the shock that was suddenly thrown away. Yang Hye-jin, A-rankn, was the first to come to her senses.
Still dizzy from her dizzying vision, she leaned down and saw a pair of black shoes in front of her and stopped. She looked up with a frown on her face.
Jung-bin, with a gentle smile, stood. If she had known thay the support hunter from the Awakening Management Bureau was him, she would have held off that bastard Lee Sa-young a little longer before entering.
“Are you all right? Yang Hye-jin.”
“Yes… I think I’m going to throw up a little, but I’ll get better soon.”
Jung-bin reached out to hold her. Hye-jin took his hand and looked around. Jung-bin followed her gaze and asked.
“Are you looking for someone?”
“Guild leader, Lee Sa-young… Where is he now?”
She couldn’t let this go. This was a violation of the hunter’s code of conduct that must be followed when assisting in a rift. What would you do if there was a dead person and the survivors gathered together? Jung-bin pointed behind her with an embarrassing smile.
“It’s over there. But…”
“Yes?”
“Well, I’ve had a look at it, but… he has a very good reason for doing this, and I’m sure you can see it too.”
Jung-bin stepped aside. Several ambulances stood side by side in the parking lot of the district office. Among them, a black figure was sitting cross-legged in the outermost ambulance, unmistakably Lee Sa-young.
He was incredibly neat as anyone who had entered the rift, but the last conscience seemed to be that he had covered his shoulder with an orange blanket of an ambulance. Next to him, however, was someone else.
It was a familiar face.
‘…Huh??’
A cool, neat-looking young man leaned against Lee Sa-young, crouched under an orange blanket. The slightly sweaty bangs were tangled and attached to the forehead, and the color of the face was particularly pale. It was a face Hye-jin knew well.
She… ate the hangover soup that the young man made for her last night! Hye-jin asked carefully.
“Isn’t he the part-timer at a haejang-guk house in the alley?”
“Yes.”
Jung-bin nodded.
“The part-timer woke up and came to get tested… and got caught up in this whole mess.”
“Oh, my God…”
Hye-jin felt genuinely sorry and checked her wristwatch. It was time to prepare the ingredients for haejang-guk house. Yang Hye-jin sighed heavily at the heartbreaking news of a good and sincere young man, and Jung-bin spoke up.
“According to Lee Sa-young, the rift master had the power to attract the awakening. Originally, I was going to stay near the master and stall for time until the rescue was over, but by the time Sa-young arrived, the possessed part-timer was already right in front of the master….”
“Are you saying he killed him?”
“That’s right.”
What happened while saving people… Yang Hye-jin made a face, grunted, made a noise, and then sighed heavily.
“…I shouldn’t let it go, but he was trying to save someone’s life, so I can’t blame him.”
“Haha, right? But that’s it, and he has to be fined.”
Jung-gbin, who was looking at the ambulance with warm eyes, said refreshingly. After a moment of silence, Hyejin frowned.
“But… Is it okay to leave the part-timer next to Lee Sa-young like that? He must have used his ability to deal with the rift master. Is there any negative effect on the patient?”
“I don’t know about that.”
“Is it okay to put it that simply?”
“I tried to say it, but Lee Sa-young looked at me like he was going to kill me, so I ran away. hahaha….”
Jung-bin shrugged and laughed. Hye-jin looked at Jung-bin with her flounder eyes open, and when she spotted the newcomer gagging, she rushed over to him.
And in the ambulance a short distance away, my head resting on Lee Sa-young’s shoulder, I was performing the trick of whispering without moving my lips.
“Are they gone?”
September 22nd, 2023
The scent of fresh flowers, which filled this place until earlier, was covered by the sweet scent from Lee Sa-young. The pounding in my heart gradually subsided.
When Lee Sa-young touched the root I was holding, even the last remaining stem became poisonous and died down. Just one use of the ability, the garden of life has become a black poison swamp. Only after confirming that nothing was alive anymore, Sa-young murmured.
“What the hell did you do to the rift’s master? …I heard you were under a weakening curse.”
The last part didn’t seem to be directed at me.
“That’s what I’m saying, guild leader.”
Min-ki, standing a few paces behind me, retorted coldly. He was holding some sort of oxygen mask to his mouth. Sa-young slapped his hand away, which was clamped over my nose and mouth.
‘You’re not going to let go of this?’
When I looked at him in that sense, Sa-young said without looking back.
“Hey, give me that.”
“What?”
“I don’t think you have any extra. Give it to me.”
“……”
“I know you’ve got the tool.”
“Yes.”
A shadow human as big as a hand sticking out of nowhere ran with a small oxygen mask raised above my head. Sa-young lifted his head.
“Grow.”
The shadow man quickly grew to the size of a full-grown man. It handed the oxygen mask to me and then melted away.
[Artisan’s Mass Production Oxygen Mask (A)]
When worn where the poison has spread, it detoxifies a certain level of poison and helps breathing. It would be better than nothing.
Creator: Hong Ye-sung]
Sa-young whispered.
“If you let go of your hand, you can put it on your mouth right away.”
“…….”
“Blink if you understand.”
This guy’s giving orders one by one. When I opened my eyes to the fullest again and shot at him, Sa-young responded with annoyance.
“If you don’t want to vomit again, listen to me.”
No, I have Basilisk’s Poison. My failure to mention a trait was coming back to haunt me in a big way.
Sa-young relaxed hia hand when I blinked. In any case, the item that was told to be worn must be used, so I put a mask on my mouth. The Basilisk’s Poison had worked hard, and it didn’t make much difference whether I used it or not.
The atmosphere became as quiet as possible. My heart, which seemed to calm down a little, started pounding again. It was so loud that even Sa-young, standing right behind mw, could hear it. The strange fire filled me to the brim. I deliberately made his breathing a little louder. Without the sound, I felt like I would be eaten up by the anxiety that had barely dissipated.
Then a strong arm wrapped around my shoulders and pulled me closer. He leaned down and whispered in my ear.
“Breathe.”
“…….”
“You’re surprised now, hyung.”
No, I’m not surprising. No matter how many monsters I’d seen, I was just…
Uneasy.
Tap, tap, a small hand tapped my shoulder in a regular rhythm, a faint noise that pierced the silence and my breathing. I could feel my heart, which was about to beat hard, slowing down a little. I let out a long breath. As my head began to spin a little, I wondered.
‘Why is Lee Sa-young here?’
Why did this guy come to the 5th grade rift? I’d be able to ignore the call. No, I’m going to ignore you, Lee Sa-young.
As the arm wrapped around my shoulder fell, I looked back at Sa-young. Sa-young was wearing gloves again. He glanced at my face and smiled, meaning he knew what I thought.
“Someone will think you saw a ghost.”
“…….”
“Did you think I wouldn’t come?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“There’s no reason to come.”
Sa-young tilted his head slightly.
“You’re so…”
“…….”
“You have no trust in people.”
It was his usual bluntness, but somehow it felt sarcastic. It was a rational conclusion, and he rubbed the back of his neck.
“So why did you come here?”
“I’m here to get you out.”
Sa-young replied and pointed to the black poison swamp with his chin.
“But I can’t believe you’re fighting the rift master.”
Damn it. I’ll just kill it and get out first. It was the moment when I crumpled my face. Min-ki shouted in the distance.
“Guild leader! It’s good of you to take care of your customers, but there’s something you should consider!”
Sa-young glanced back.
“What is it.”
“There is a possibility that the rift owner stones have melted together because you melted the rift owner at once!”
As if waiting for that word, the whole rift began to shake. The ground, the sky, and even the air was twisted. Min-ki shrugged his shoulders.
“It’s already started, could you lend me your shadow?!”
Rift stone is a kind of mana stone cherished by the rfit master, and when it is broken, the rift disappears. It is a different concept from when the master rift dies. When the rift disappears, all the people caught up inside bounce back to where the rift entrance was, without distinction between a corpse and a survivor.
In other words, it was also said that the survivor would see the body of another victim caught up with right under his nose. The bodies suffered by monsters were terrible, so the rescue team would dissipate them and extinguish the cracks to minimize the trauma of the survivors.
Fortunately, there won’t be any deaths this time, but… There was another problem with the prostitute.
‘At this rate, I’ll run into the rescue team!’
I looked around in alarm and locked eyes with Sa-young. Sa-young shrugged.
“It’s an unexpected situation. What do we do now?”
“What do you mean.”
I pulled Sa-young by the collar. And I looked directly at the purple eyes over the lens and said one word after another.
“You’re not going to wait for the rescuers, are you? You don’t want to get caught removing the rift stone, do you?”
“……”
“Memorize everything I’m about to say. Say it.”
The corners of Sa-young’s mouth slowly rose as he listened to Ui-jae.
Yang Hye-jin, who bounced out of the rift as if she were spitting out, tried to focus by closing and opening her blurred eyes. She felt nauseous as if she had ridden the roller coaster 50 times in a row, and her whole body hurt as if she had been beaten repeatedly with a bat. There was only one thought in the midst of dizziness.
‘Lee Sa-young, you crazy bastard….’
The rescue operation hadn’t even finished yet, so why was he making a fuss about destroying the crack? Yang Hye-jin grimaced and barely raised her upper body from the ground. The sensation of being forced out of the rift was still terrible. She heard the sound of busy footsteps.
“All the hunters who entered the rift have returned!”
“O… Observation confirmation of rift dissipation!”
“We will check the survivors.”
“How did they catch the rift master so quickly? It’s been less than half an hour since they entered.”
When Yang Hye-jin looked around through the commotion, the Rift Management Agency’s hunters, which entered together, were suffering from a loss of mind as if they had not overcome the shock that was suddenly thrown away. Yang Hye-jin, A-rankn, was the first to come to her senses.
Still dizzy from her dizzying vision, she leaned down and saw a pair of black shoes in front of her and stopped. She looked up with a frown on her face.
Jung-bin, with a gentle smile, stood. If she had known thay the support hunter from the Awakening Management Bureau was him, she would have held off that bastard Lee Sa-young a little longer before entering.
“Are you all right? Yang Hye-jin.”
“Yes… I think I’m going to throw up a little, but I’ll get better soon.”
Jung-bin reached out to hold her. Hye-jin took his hand and looked around. Jung-bin followed her gaze and asked.
“Are you looking for someone?”
“Guild leader, Lee Sa-young… Where is he now?”
She couldn’t let this go. This was a violation of the hunter’s code of conduct that must be followed when assisting in a rift. What would you do if there was a dead person and the survivors gathered together? Jung-bin pointed behind her with an embarrassing smile.
“It’s over there. But…”
“Yes?”
“Well, I’ve had a look at it, but… he has a very good reason for doing this, and I’m sure you can see it too.”
Jung-bin stepped aside. Several ambulances stood side by side in the parking lot of the district office. Among them, a black figure was sitting cross-legged in the outermost ambulance, unmistakably Lee Sa-young.
He was incredibly neat as anyone who had entered the rift, but the last conscience seemed to be that he had covered his shoulder with an orange blanket of an ambulance. Next to him, however, was someone else.
It was a familiar face.
‘…Huh??’
A cool, neat-looking young man leaned against Lee Sa-young, crouched under an orange blanket. The slightly sweaty bangs were tangled and attached to the forehead, and the color of the face was particularly pale. It was a face Hye-jin knew well.
She… ate the hangover soup that the young man made for her last night! Hye-jin asked carefully.
“Isn’t he the part-timer at a haejang-guk house in the alley?”
“Yes.”
Jung-bin nodded.
“The part-timer woke up and came to get tested… and got caught up in this whole mess.”
“Oh, my God…”
Hye-jin felt genuinely sorry and checked her wristwatch. It was time to prepare the ingredients for haejang-guk house. Yang Hye-jin sighed heavily at the heartbreaking news of a good and sincere young man, and Jung-bin spoke up.
“According to Lee Sa-young, the rift master had the power to attract the awakening. Originally, I was going to stay near the master and stall for time until the rescue was over, but by the time Sa-young arrived, the possessed part-timer was already right in front of the master….”
“Are you saying he killed him?”
“That’s right.”
What happened while saving people… Yang Hye-jin made a face, grunted, made a noise, and then sighed heavily.
“…I shouldn’t let it go, but he was trying to save someone’s life, so I can’t blame him.”
“Haha, right? But that’s it, and he has to be fined.”
Jung-gbin, who was looking at the ambulance with warm eyes, said refreshingly. After a moment of silence, Hyejin frowned.
“But… Is it okay to leave the part-timer next to Lee Sa-young like that? He must have used his ability to deal with the rift master. Is there any negative effect on the patient?”
“I don’t know about that.”
“Is it okay to put it that simply?”
“I tried to say it, but Lee Sa-young looked at me like he was going to kill me, so I ran away. hahaha….”
Jung-bin shrugged and laughed. Hye-jin looked at Jung-bin with her flounder eyes open, and when she spotted the newcomer gagging, she rushed over to him.
And in the ambulance a short distance away, my head resting on Lee Sa-young’s shoulder, I was performing the trick of whispering without moving my lips.
“Are they gone?”
