By Zephyria “It’ll be there. I hope it is. That friend from earlier said he could find it, too.”
The man rolled up his sleeves with a determined look. It was the most proactive he’d been so far.
His parched face even had a reddish tinge, as if he were quite nervous and excited.
The client strode purposefully toward a secluded room filled with broken furniture. It seemed to have been used as a shower room at one point, with shower hose still attached to the walls where the heads had been.
A dreary space where not even a drop of water came out anymore. The man began to thoroughly search the ruins, where not even bugs seemed to be alive, let alone the sound of a dead rat.
Then, he let out a short exclamation and lay flat on the dusty floor. He seemed to have found something. Mu-hae scanned Joo-oh, who had rushed over before him, and approached the man.
“It… it fell here.”
He groped at the cracked floor. The metal flooring was badly dented around the edges, as if it had been damaged by something, and a gap about the width of a finger was slightly open.
The man swept away the dust around it with his bare hands and began rummaging through the bag he had brought. The object he pulled out was a long, coiled wire.
The Adam’s apple protruding from his gaunt neck bobbed. As if he were swallowing.
“…I was only staying one night and was about to leave. I accidentally spilled a drink on a company item and came in here to secretly wipe it off. But when I took it out for a moment to keep it out of the way, I dropped it…”
As he gave an explanation to no one in particular, he bent the end of the wire and dug out the dust from the crack.
Once the dust, which had hardened like a lump over time, was removed, a hollow space was revealed in the middle of the gap where the interior material had melted away.
The man shone the light of his flashlight into the small hole.
A glint. Something reflected the light from deep below. His haggard face instantly brightened with hope.
“It’s there. It’s there! I was worried, but it’s still…”
“Are you going to pull it up with that?”
“Yes, yes. Do you think it’ll work? I tried a similar method at home, and the wire worked best.”
Click, click, the man vigorously poked at the dirty floor. However, it seemed that hooking the object onto the end of the wire was not as easy as he thought, and beads of sweat formed on his forehead.
“Ugh!”
Before long, he even hurt his hand on the sharp edge of the crack. If he left it like this, he would get tetanus before his illness got worse.
As red drops of blood fell on the floor, Mu-hae couldn’t bear to watch any longer and pulled him away.
“Don’t get excited, and go wash your hands first. I’ll check it out.”
After a moment of hesitation, he received the wire, which was wet with blood. Jin Mu-hae grimaced and shone the flashlight around to locate the object.
“Can you get it out?”
Joo-oh, who had been quietly waiting until then, chimed in.
The corners of his eyes, which he glanced up at, curved slightly. He was unusually quiet, but he looked like he was dying of curiosity.
‘Every guy who smiles like that before a job is out of his mind.’
Still, it was a relief that his strange behavior was decreasing.
Mu-hae twitched his eyebrows and examined his handsome face. When he thought about it, Joo-oh was changing day by day.
He was still spacing out whenever he had the chance, but at first glance, it was hard to believe that he was a crazy person.
How should he describe this? It was as if a creature raised in the wild was belatedly adapting to human society.
As if he were rapidly rehabilitating by dredging up memories from his early childhood.
“I don’t know. The gap is too narrow. And the hole isn’t straight.”
“I see. It’s a little different from mini-games, right?”
“Do I look like I’m playing around?”
“No. But it looks fun.”
Joo-oh was not at all hurt by Mu-hae’s sarcastic remark.
It had been like that since he had picked him up in the wilderness. No matter how Mu-hae treated him, Joo-oh would blankly follow him or cling to him without caring about rejection.
Naturally, Jin Mu-hae lost his energy and softened his sharp voice. If Joo-oh was an Experiment from somewhere, as his unrealistic speculation suggested, then everything he was experiencing now must be new.
Hadn’t he been the same? After losing his memory outside his Comfort zone, the young Mu-hae found everything he encountered to be new and difficult.
His father, who seemed unfamiliar like a stranger, the colorful and eye-catching illegal extensions, no matter what the circumstances, and the dirty alleys covered in graffiti…
“I’ll have to widen the hole.”
Jin Mu-hae deliberately spoke his plan aloud and gestured toward the door.
Joo-oh’s lips turned upward at the unspoken permission to include him.
There was no warning this time to be quiet, stay still, and not cause trouble, which he had been repeating like a habit.
“There was a crowbar near the entrance.”
Joo-oh replied brightly and quickly ran out of the room. His face, which had bloomed with such vibrancy, was so beautiful that Mu-hae felt as if the afterimage was burned into his eyes.
“Here.”
The man with the crowbar returned quickly. The crowbar was as old as the shelter and rusty on the outside, but it seemed to be usable.
Mu-hae hooked the hook-like end onto the cracked flooring and slowly applied force to press down. At first, the metal plate didn’t budge, but then it bent outward very slightly.
“Damn hard.”
Mu-hae spat out and this time hooked the crowbar on the opposite side of the gap and put his weight on it. Veins bulged on the back of his hand, but the flooring still didn’t deform as much as he wanted.
Then, suddenly, warmth approached from behind, and his right arm became much lighter.
Joo-oh was holding the end of the long iron bar from behind and pressing down.
Screech-.
The floor beneath his feet vibrated slightly, and the gap in the crack began to widen as if by magic!
“That’s enough. Stop now.”
Mu-hae felt the crowbar being released at his words, but the presence that had attached itself to his back did not leave.
Joo-oh was resting his head on his shoulder. Just like riding on the back of a bike.
Wondering what was going on, he turned around and saw Joo-oh smiling so brightly that his eyes were almost closed.
“You smell good.”
“Don’t say useless things and move.”
The jacket he was wearing had not been laundered for over a month. It didn’t smell bad, but it didn’t have a good scent either.
He was probably just in a good mood and trying to compliment everything. Mu-hae pushed the shiny black head away and picked up the wire he had put down again.
“Hold the flashlight.”
As light poured through the now much wider gap, the object inside was clearly visible.
Rolling around in the dust was a round gold ring.
The client’s wish was hooked onto the end of the wire and lifted up. The plain ring, with no jewels set in it, still sparkled and reflected light as if it were an accessory.
“My ring…!”
The man, who had just returned after washing his wound, let out a cry like an exclamation. He staggered over and took the ring from Mu-hae’s hand.
The client rubbed the sooty part a few times and looked moved.
The simple ring fit perfectly on his ring finger, making the ten years or so he had lived without it seem insignificant.
“As soon as I dropped it, it rolled in here. But I had to leave right away then… Well, I was just going to count it as lost. It wasn’t expensive, and I didn’t want to be left behind…”
The man muttered an untold story as he put the ring on his hand.
“Then, when my wife passed away five years ago, I couldn’t help but notice the one ring left alone in the memorial box. From that day on, I kept thinking. That I had to find this someday.”
“I see.”
“I don’t have any children or any property to leave behind, but since I haven’t missed a single tax payment in over 30 years, I can be enshrined in a public charnel house for 10 years after my death. I want to put a pair of wedding rings in the memorial box then. That’s why I came.”
“That’s good.”
The man smiled at Joo-oh’s agreement. He didn’t seem offended that the young man was speaking informally.
He seemed to know it too. That Joo-oh was the only one who listened to him the most on this low-paying journey.
“Thank you.”
“You’re welcome. We still have a way to go back, so don’t let your guard down.”
“As soon as we reach Goryeo City, I’ll buy you a drink. I can’t afford an expensive place given my situation, but if it’s a place I always go to, I can drink until I pass out.”
“Meat too.”
“Be quiet. I buy you meat every day.”
Joo-oh’s eyebrows seemed to twitch a little, but he agreed to Mu-hae’s words and closed his mouth.
Jin Mu-hae wiped his dirty hands with a wet wipe and pulled out a half-span-long rod from his waist.
Beep-.
When he pressed and held the power button, the rod unfolded into a square, creating a screen.
0221-B3358 Escort Request Report
Iron Horse Valley Shelter
Escort Mission [1/2]
Aberrant Twilight Tiger of 〈Grade 4〉 appeared in Area 2 of the Bokcheon Downstream Area
No injuries or deaths
No property damage
Mu-hae, who had finished recording the outline, let out a low sigh and gestured outside the room.
“Let’s go rest. We have to move again when the sun rises.”
It was supposed to be a simple escort request where they might encounter a few Beasts if they were unlucky, but he didn’t know how they had run into an Aberrant.
He rubbed the back of his neck with a tired face, thinking that there would have been a major accident if they had been unprepared, inexperienced mercenaries.