By Zephyria 
Side Story Episode 4.
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Obstacles were everywhere. That was Mu-hae’s first impression the moment he stepped into central.
Hover Cars, exploded and burned until only their frames remained, lay scattered here and there, and the debris of collapsed buildings sat like barriers in the middle of the dilapidated roads.
The aftermath extended for several hundred meters, with concrete fragments and rebar embedded throughout the area. Occasional clumps of beast fur clung to the sticky, sharp surfaces; even without checking the radar again, it was clearly a zone where Beasts prowled.
“It’s okay. They won’t come this way.”
“Why? Are you going to threaten them?”
“……No. I can’t do that.”
Joo-oh reacted with a start and shook his head, as if he had just been told he wasn’t human.
That wasn’t what he meant, but seeing the corners of Joo-oh’s eyebrows droop made him look pitiful.
“Even if you can’t, you have to. You said you’d protect the bracelet no matter what.”
“Mm. Right. The bracelet.”
“You brought a club, didn’t you? Just hold it in your hand and swing it around. Make them all run away.”
“Yeah. I can do that.”
He was a funny guy. Having already shown everything there was to see—the good, the bad, and the ugly—he still fidgeted here, worried that Mu-hae might view him as a monster.
Only after the boy’s face brightened did they quicken their pace and finally reach their intended destination.
It was a shopping complex of considerable scale, large enough to take up an entire block. Everywhere they looked, there were traces of melted and burst monitors, suggesting it had been a lavish and advanced place with walls entirely covered in panels.
“It’s pitch black.”
Passing through a door that bore marks of being artificially torn open after the accident, they entered a space that was black as night even in the middle of the day.
Contrary to what he had braced for, there was no strange smell inside the building.
While a musty, peculiar feeling lingered in the chilly, cold air, if one had to put it a certain way, the place was completely empty of people, sound, and scent.
“Do you see stairs?”
“Yeah. Over there.”
“That’s a collapsed escalator.”
The fact that he had the flexibility to count something as stairs when two-thirds of it had flown away and the rest had melted and been destroyed was absurd.
Unless he planned to tie a rope and jump from a building with such high ceilings, they had to find real stairs, not some clumsy structure like that.
“Find the emergency stairs.”
As they walked endlessly, feeling along the wall in the direction of the main entrance, they found a door that looked like an emergency exit, as expected.
The problem was that it wouldn’t open. He kicked the handle hard enough to make a loud bang, but even after the lock broke and fell off, the door didn’t budge.
Peering through the hole where the handle had been, he saw that it wasn’t locked, but blocked by collapsed rubble. It wasn’t a passage safe enough to push Joo-oh through.
“This place is wide, so there are probably several.”
“Let’s go the other way.”
As they walked, something kept crunching beneath their feet. After glancing with the flashlight and seeing a charred skull, Mu-hae decided not to pay attention to what lay beneath them.
Fortunately, the newly discovered emergency exit was wide open without needing to push.
‘It looks like someone just picked the lock and went through.’
Those who prowled around looking for things to sell wouldn’t have just passed by a large shopping center located in central.
Perhaps they could descend more comfortably and safely by following the path those people had taken.
“Jin Mu-hae!”
Thump!
At that moment, Joo-oh, who had been following behind, flew in and tackled him like a crazed boulder launched from a crater.
Helpless, Mu-hae collapsed onto the floor with a choking gasp.
This crazy bastard. Before he could even shout, he felt a chill above his head. Immediately, there was a whistling sound as something swept past the spot where he had been standing.
“Haa, ugh.”
Only after the object, which had been swinging like a pendulum, stopped did he push himself up from the black, filthy floor.
What had flown toward his head was a rusted blade. Even to someone who had half his brain removed, the sight of an artificially created booby trap made his spine tingle.
He didn’t know which insane prick did it, but it was clear they wanted to send whoever entered here later to the afterlife.
“Jin Mu-hae! Are you okay?”
“Haa, yeah. Thanks to you.”
“Someone, on the ceiling, hung that there!”
“I’m not hurt, so calm down. Breathe properly.”
His face, faintly revealed by the flashlight, looked unsettled. In an instant, his eyes grew wide, and he clenched his teeth so hard his jaw tightened.
“Look. I’m fine. See?”
This had happened once before. Only after Mu-hae met his gaze and calmly soothed him did his breathing gradually settle.
The vacant expression slowly relaxed, and his eyes, which had been frozen in one spot, began to move.
“They’re bad people.”
He finally muttered.
“I’ll say.”
“I won’t let them get away with it.”
“If we ever meet them, that is.”
Whew. Having barely calmed down, Joo-oh hugged his waist tightly and rubbed his head against him. Jin Mu-hae tried to stroke his face but noticed his own dirty hands.
Oops. He almost touched him. As he quickly folded his dirty hands behind his back, the face buried in his chest flinched.
“Really. I won’t let them get away with it.”
……He thought he had become okay. Was this sensation, like something piercing the back of his neck, bloodlust?
He seemed even more pissed off than before. He looked ready to rip the arms and legs off the bastard who planned the random stabbing and turn them into a mannequin right then and there.
It was fine. Still, Joo-oh wouldn’t rashly transform into another form and run wild.
While Jin Mu-hae had been trying to understand his identity, Joo-oh had also made his own efforts to remain together in that cramped house.
“I’ll pet you on the way back.”
“…….”
“Is there anything you want to eat?”
“Sang-sang-chan’s ‘Let’s Cook’ Series No. 12: Raspberry Cream Cheese Tart.”
“What?”
“Sang-sang-chan’s ‘Let’s Cook’ Series No. 12: Raspberry Cream Cheese Tart. If you buy it, it comes with all the ingredients and tools, so you can make it yourself. I want to eat it made by Jin Mu-hae.”
As if he had been waiting for this, the long product name poured out like a bursting dam the moment food was mentioned.
It was a bit tedious, but since he had just cheated death, could he not do something like that? As soon as Mu-hae nodded, the handsome face brightened as if the anger had never existed.
“Do you see anything else?”
“No. Nothing now. But I’ll go first.”
As if he had been holding the flashlight purely for Mu-hae’s sake until now, he skillfully peered through the lightless path ahead.
While following him down, something hit his foot, and a fact he didn’t particularly want to know was immediately revealed.
“That’s just a bone. One from clothes.”
Meat. Mashed meat. And bones. Though he had improved surprisingly much, Joo-oh’s vocabulary for identifying corpses was still close to raw.
The emergency stairs extended down to the second basement level. This place was also stained with black soot, but unlike the upper floors, everything wasn’t melted and burned.
Some devices looked intact enough that they might work as soon as power was supplied.
Still, it wouldn’t have been safe during the fire. For the people of Solar City, it likely wasn’t the flames or explosions that took them down the most, but the smoke.
“There’s an arcade machine.”
“Arcade?”
“Look. It’s a game where you rub the screen and the ball inside rolls around to find the right spot.”
The long glass case above it was shattered to pieces. Seeing dolls that hadn’t even been unwrapped lying around, it seemed like the valuable items had been looted long ago, leaving only the remnants.
Sweeping the flashlight around, he saw that the entire second basement level consisted of these entertainment facilities. If a secret research facility existed below this, the way down would be somewhere here.
‘Certainly, this doesn’t feel like the kind of place where such a thing would be located.’
Looking around at the dust-covered machines, Joo-oh took the lead. Mu-hae watched to see what he was doing and realized he was moving along the power cords connected to each machine.
Even if he does that, the main wiring is embedded in the wall and invisible… The moment he thought that, Joo-oh ripped the wall open with a crunch!
“I think it’s that way.”
“……Good job.”
He found the path the wiring took in a simple and clear manner. Thanks to that, not long after descending to the basement, the two were able to find the distribution room for the floor.
Having grown up watching over Director Gil’s shoulder, Jin Mu-hae couldn’t repair broken devices, but he knew more than most people.
Things like the difference between a device that has power but won’t operate and one that has no power at all, or guessing if it was a motor problem just by listening to the sound the machine made.
Furthermore, he knew that while most devices ran on electricity, those with ’emergency’ or ‘temporary’ in their name could also be operated by Blue Energy batteries.
For example, the equipment left abandoned and covered in dust before him was a blue battery inverter unit. In the event of a power outage, connecting a strong battery and plugging it into the distribution board could restore energy to the management floor for a short time.
Snap—!
Flicker, shiver… Flash!
The lights came on in the pitch-black space in an instant. As soon as he flipped the circuit breaker, the surroundings brightened, and Mu-hae covered his eyes as if he had been hit by a flashbang.
“Wow…….”
While Mu-hae blinked repeatedly to adjust, Joo-oh let out a dazed sound and began pressing switches that filled an entire wall.
Then, with a face full of excitement, he grabbed Mu-hae’s wrist and stomped his feet as if he were about to bolt out at any second.
He looked so excited that it was hard to delay him any further. Jin Mu-hae rolled his aching eyes and gestured with his chin toward the outside.
♪- ♬♩-.
The main hall they stepped into was filled with colorful, moving lights.
Cheerful music flowed through the once-silent shopping center, and the stopped machines were desperate to lure non-existent customers, emitting various sound effects.
There were sections that were broken and didn’t move at all, but the sight was so splendid that it didn’t matter.
The problem was that what was revealed under the neon lights wasn’t a normal entertainment facility, but the basement of a shopping center in the heart of Solar City that had been abandoned for at least twenty years.
“Ugh…….”
“…….”
“It’s gruesome. Right?”
Among the broken and shattered items, discolored human bones rolled around.
The traces of people who had collapsed in despair were sparkling under the light, accompanied by an outdated song.