Chapter 128
Krrg, krrrrgk...
Left alone, Jin-Seo walked aimlessly, her sword dragging by her side. Although she should have gone up to her classroom earlier, she didn’t feel like it. She crossed the field to peek around the building that Sun-Woo had gone into and even went in and explored buildings she had never been to.
The school grounds were extremely big. She vaguely remembered exploring the school with her mother under her father’s guidance. However, the school seemed to be bigger than what she remembered.
She had grown bigger since her childhood days. Had the school grown in size as well?
It was an absurd thought. She laughed.
The reason why the school was strangely quiet was probably not just because other students were still in class. The school was as empty as it was spacious, and even the bustling students couldn't fill all that space with noise. In other words, the school was quiet because it was simply too large. Amongst all that spacious and quiet space, she was utterly alone.
"...."
The air was cold, and the sky hung low. She felt lonely and scared. She tightly gripped the blade handle to suppress the trembling of her fingertips.
With no clear destination in mind, she soon returned to where she started. Tired from walking, she sat down and stared at the ground. Five ants were walking in a line.
Crunch.
“Oh.”
Someone had approached her and stepped on the ants. Four out of the five ants died. The remaining ant circled around the dead ants.
Jin-Seo jerked her head up. The culprit was looking down at her with a slight smile.
"What were you up to?"
"...I was looking at the ants."
"Ants?"
"You just killed them."
Hearing that, Sun-Woo jumped up and lifted his foot.
"Oh, my bad. I really didn't know..."
"You don't have to apologize to me," Jin-Seo said with a smile.
She found his flustered appearance funny and cute. She put her hands on her knees, stood up, and looked at Sun-Woo. He was staring at the ground as if he still felt sorry for the ants he had accidentally stepped on.
"What did they say at the principal’s office?” Jin-Seo asked, gently nudging Sun-Woo's shoulder with her head.
Sun-Woo observed his shoes and the ground when he started walking away as if he had been pushed. Jin-Seo walked beside him. Sun-Woo then looked up at the sky absentmindedly.
"We didn't talk about anything serious."
"Okay, but what did you talk about?"
"Various things. Well... there seemed to be a misunderstanding, you know, about the Satanists," Sun-Woo said nonchalantly.
Jin-Seo nodded slightly. After hearing the phrase ‘considered an act of rebellion against the Romanican Church’ from the announcements, she vaguely suspected that it would have had something to do with the Satanists. That was why she had been anxiously circling the building.
Anyway, according to Sun-Woo, it seemed like the misunderstanding had been resolved. This also meant that Sun-Woo was not a Satanist. Although she had never doubted him, she couldn’t help but feel relieved. Sun-Woo looked at Jin-Seo as if he was looking at something cute.
"Were you waiting for me?"
"...No."
"Really?"
"Y...Yeah," Jin-Seo said while glaring at Sun-Woo with narrowed eyes.
Sun-Woo smiled faintly.
They walked in silence for a while. Suddenly, Jin-Seo realized that her grip on the handle of her blade had loosened. Her body was no longer trembling. She looked up and saw the remnants of the wound near Sun-Woo's neck. It hadn't completely healed yet.
"It's almost healed."
Jin-Seo gently touched the wound with her fingertips. Sun-Woo cautiously nudged her hand away.
"The wound wasn’t that deep in the first place." L1tLagoon witnessed the first publication of this chapter on Ñøv€l--B1n.
"What about your hand?"
"Hmm... that wound was a bit deeper."
Sun-Woo clenched his fist, covering up his wound. He seemed reluctant to show it.
‘I would like to see it,’ she thought.
However, Jin-Seo understood Sun-Woo's feelings to some extent, so she nodded and turned her gaze elsewhere. Something sharp was sticking out of his pocket, swaying with each step he took.
"What's that?"
"Oh, this."
Again, Sun-Woo took the object out of his pocket as if it were nothing. The object he brought out was an anti-demon mask. Her father had told her in the past where the anti-demon mask was stashed.
Jin-Seo tilted her head in confusion. Why was the mask that was supposed to be in the chairman’s office in Sun-Woo's pocket? Although she was curious, she didn’t become suspicious of Sun-Woo because of how confident he seemed. Sun-Woo put the mask back in his pocket.
"The chairman asked me to take it. The Satanists might take it if it was left in his office."
"Aha." Jin-Seo nodded.
It was unlikely that Sun-Woo, who even made a fuss about stepping on a few ants, would steal the mask from the chairman's office. Sun-Woo probably wouldn’t have known that there was an anti-demon mask in the chairman's office, so it seemed like he was telling the truth.
Silence fell upon them once again.
At this point, it seemed as if they would circle the entire perimeter. The school felt small when she was walking with him, just like how it felt when she wandered with her mother during her childhood.
"...What...run away..."
"...Save...what..."
Aimlessly wandering around the school, Jin-Seo was suddenly met with a cascade of students. Their faces were distorted in fear, and they were all screaming about something. A broadcast was flowing from the speakers installed throughout the school. The sound echoed in her ears but soon disappeared.
Thump.
She collided with one of the students who was running away. Her legs gave out. Staggering, she wanted to collapse and sit down. She had met the taxidermied Sun-Woo earlier and had killed it by hacking away at its throat with her sword.
Then where was the real Sun-Woo? Even amongst the pouring students, Sun-Woo's face was nowhere to be seen. The Satanists could have kidnapped him. Or he could have disappeared for some other reason. Or maybe the broadcast telling him to come to the principal's office was a trap, and Sun-Woo might have gotten caught up in it and died.
What about her father?
The anti-demon mask had been in Sun-Woo’s possession, and that was originally supposed to be in the chairman’s office. Her father might have been killed, too.
"Ah..."
Her head hurt. She kept walking in a random direction. It felt like she was lost. The school was too vast, its empty space so large that it couldn't be filled even with the screams of the students pouring out.
Shoosh....
By the time she came to her senses, it was raining. Her school uniform and hair were soaked. A cold and cool sensation stuck to her skin. Her steps felt heavy as if they were tied to lead. Her consciousness was clouded.
Keeyaaak─!!
At that moment, a gigantic demonic beast suddenly appeared in the field out of nowhere. The eerie scream, which was neither human nor animal-like, brought her back to her senses.
With its six legs, the demonic beast was chasing the students who were running away, making it hard to make out their faces. Sun-Woo might have been among the fleeing students, but she couldn't tell because of the demonic beast.
Her whole body was on edge. The sudden threat against her life sent a jolt of signals throughout her body. Nevertheless, she didn't stop walking. Instead, she inched closer to the demonic beast.
"Please, just go away..." Jin-Seo muttered as she approached the demonic beast.
The demonic beast stared at her with its six eyes and revealed its dirty and rough teeth. Her heart pounded fiercely as if it would burst out of her body. With each step, the ground of the field sank deeply. It felt like her body was sinking below the ground.
The demonic beast rushed toward her. She raised her sword. The demonic beast had three heads. She couldn't cut off all three heads with one blow. So she simply aimed at the head in the middle.
She had no particular reason for it. She had simply chosen the head that seemed easiest to cut.
Keeiiieek!
Jin-Seo swung her sword toward the demonic beast that was charging at her while letting out a terrorizing scream.
Boom!
At that moment, a strike of light momentarily took away her eyesight. Her vision turned white and soon returned to normal. As she came to her senses, she saw that the demonic beast in front of her had fallen, with the head in the middle completely destroyed by the lightning strike.
Kieeek, kieeek...
The demonic beast groaned in pain.
Crack! The beast's body twitched, sparks surging from it. Another lightning strike descended upon the beast. Its movements ceased completely as its body turned into ashes, melting into the ground, staining it black.
Crash!
It wasn't over yet. Another lightning strike came down. The light sliced through the demonic beast's abdomen.
The situation felt similar to when she was surrounded by the bird demonic beasts at Eiden Hill. The only difference was that Sun-Woo was there back then, but now he was not. Jin-Seo looked around.
It felt like he was secretly watching her from somewhere.
"Where are you..."
She couldn't see him anywhere. She was delusional to think that he would be watching her in the first place. It was only natural. She just wished that Sun-Woo was watching her.
"..."
She silently lowered her head. Raindrops fell on the back of her head.
Plop, plop.
The raindrops trickled down her hair.
Kieeek, kieek...
At that time, the demonic beast let out a weak roar.
Its spilled intestines from its burst belly had turned into smoke. The smoke looked like it was rising up to the sky, but with a sudden change of pace, it settled on the ground. The black smoke wrapped around the students.
Seeing this, Jin-Seo belatedly regained his senses and fixed her stance with her sword. She was going to put an end to the remaining breath of the weakened demonic beast.
Keyaak... Kek!
However, the breath of the demonic beast finally ceased completely. Along with its last breath, something poured out from its mouth. It was covered in gastric acid and saliva, but it contained chunks of gold and swords.
"I-it's gold. It's gold...!"
"Is it real gold? Really?"
"It must be real gold! It's like a reward for defeating the boss monster! It came from the demonic beast!"
The students who had inhaled the smoke from the demonic beast's intestines approached the gold eagerly.
Even the students who hadn't inhaled the smoke showed interest at the mention of gold and hesitantly approached the demonic beast’s corpse.
The only one who kept their distance from the gold was Jin-Seo.
"Look, it's real gold! If I sell this..."
"Hey! That's mine!"
"Why is it yours? You damn idiot, have you gone blind?"
The demonic beast's intestines continued to emit black smoke. The eyes of the students who had inhaled the smoke started to lose focus.