Chapter 43: Shadows of Sokcho

 

After finally arriving home, carefully giving the detailed address to the taxi driver, I felt an overwhelming wave of fatigue wash over me as soon as I stepped inside.

My days in Sokcho had been filled with rest and food, yet somehow, returning home brought a sudden exhaustion.

Indeed, the place that calms my heart is our home, which is neither too spacious nor too cramped, just the right size.

I tightly closed the door, and turned on the air conditioning in my room, which had turned into a small sauna from being closed up.

I could feel the cool air gradually spreading around me, and I lingered near the air conditioner, wishing for my room to cool down as quickly as possible.

In a few days, school would start again. This comfortable lifestyle was coming to an end. I pulled out a dusty bag from the corner of the room and put my unfinished summer homework into it.

“What homework does Siyeon have left?”

“Diaries!”

I had always done my summer homework at the last minute, usually two days before school started. Now, here I was, having completed my homework ahead of time and helping someone else with theirs. I muttered to myself in surprise, realizing I never thought I would find myself in this situation again.

Siyeon filled in the remaining pages of her diary homework. She drew pictures of shrimp tempura, fried crab, and even honeycomb ice cream in a crooked manner. The memories were still vivid enough that I didn’t feel regret over what I had spent on them.

“‘Went’ part, that’s where you put the ‘ssangsiot’ (double consonant).”

I corrected her still clumsy spelling from the side, and thus, Siyeon’s last summer homework was finally completed.

It was early morning, about three days before school started. As a typical elementary school student, I went to bed at an early hour. Just before falling asleep, I felt a gentle shaking that stirred me awake, and I quietly lifted my upper body, my gaze still hazy.

“Yawn.”

I let out an uncontrollable yawn, taking a deep breath and exhaling it helplessly. I grabbed my smartphone, which was next to my pillow, to check the time—it was three in the morning.

Without needing to talk, the teddy bear that had climbed onto my bed first went down the stairs, and I followed quietly to avoid making noise as I got out of bed.

The black mask that had waited for its owner’s touch during my days in Sokcho had only tiny eyes that opened and closed repeatedly as I walked through the dark, lightless hallway upstairs. I opened the rooftop door and whispered the transformation command.

“Sun.”

I forced my long, orange hair into the back of the mask and, feeling the sticky humidity of mid-summer, soared into the sky. I couldn’t help but let out my irritation, mixed with yawns, expressing my annoyance at being out at this hour.

“Why am I out at this hour, damn it!”

I arrived at a place about five subway stations away from home, guided by the naturally flowing movements of the  bear. Although there were no people wandering about in the dead of night, the empty streets were strangely devoid of monsters as well.

As I slowly descended to the ground and surveyed my surroundings, the eerie silence of the deserted street made me tilt my head in confusion.

Given that I was already tired, I wondered if the bear had miscalculated after returning from Sokcho. My frustration peaked, and I grabbed the bear’s neck with my cane, bringing it close to my face.

“What’s going on? There’s nothing here. Is this a lie?”

“It can’t be, this shouldn’t be happening… The signal is right here, you know?”

The moment the bear cub tilted its head, its eyes widened.

The arm that had been twitching in my tightly held hand signaled urgency.

“It’s behind you!”

“Eh?”

The sound of footsteps, splashing through nothingness, reached my ears from behind.

Reflexively, I dodged, and something pale swooshed down from above, slicing through the air.

Immediately after, the shape that split the wind vanished swiftly into the darkness.

“The monster can use cloaking, damn…”

Now it had completely concealed itself.

A pale silhouette, an assassin type.

It resembled a unit I had seen in some intergalactic war RTS game.

Since it was an alien, we might even be distant relatives?

‘Where is it lurking…’

I stared intently in the direction it disappeared.

It didn’t seem completely transparent, so I kept my gaze fixed on a specific area, standing like a scarecrow.

My eyes darted around, focusing on the darkness.

Wriggling, wriggling.

Like looking for a mosquito that fled into the night after drinking blood, I scanned the air. Suddenly, I spotted a dark knight.

Just like in the game, once I found its position, it was easy to chase it down and crush it.

I charged forward, planting my foot firmly as if to leave a slight dent in the road.

It seemed startled by my sudden movement and attempted to evade…

But it couldn’t react in time, and I grabbed it by its flesh and fingers.

The monster slammed down to the ground.

“Gah! Wh-What?!”

It let out a painful groan, flustered.

Don’t underestimate my eyes that have seen its pixelated faintness.

It’s not weird that I can see that bulky wriggling form.

“Do I look like an idiot to you? Is that what you call cloaking?”

“…?”

I climbed onto the strange shape that seemed to exist in thin air and poked around what I presumed to be its face.

On what would normally be a creature’s mouth, there was nothing but smoothness, devoid of any features.

“Wow, is this thing really a relative of ProXus? No mouth at all.”

I started to rethink my plan to stick a heated staff inside its mouth.

“II…?”

The monster, unable to comprehend my excessive jargon.

Its body felt strangely cold, almost like ice, but it wasn’t bad to be sitting on top of it.

One difference between RTS games and reality was that I could mess with invisible units even without a detector.

The heart decoration of the staff, like a red dot of a nuclear strike, approached the pale form, leaving a red mark behind.

“Diddick, Nuclear Launch Detected.”

The red dot signaling the beginning of doom.

The monster probably didn’t understand the meaning of those words, but it would learn from now on.

Slowly, the heated decoration at the tip of the staff descended from above, just like in the game, gradually heading toward its body.

The moment the heated decoration touched the monster’s body,

“Peurgh.”

“What? Wh-What… Gah, AAAAAAAH-!!”

With a blast sound mimicked by Sun, the sorrowful scream of a monster begins to resonate.

Flesh cooking and turning black as it burns, and the sensation of melting under intense heat.

He was not a monster accustomed to pain and torture.

He was a coward who always lurked in the shadows, waiting to ambush someone.

He was the type who felt disdain for his fellow monsters returning to the recovery room, relying on recovery devices.

Since he had never fought anyone face-to-face, his stamina and strength were incomparable to other monsters, and he had no means to escape overwhelming torture and pain.

But was it because his stamina and strength, along with his perseverance, were too weak…?

No… thanks to that, he was able to quickly escape from the shock of Sun’s torture.

“Low health points are the same, huh.”

Seeing the monster that was too soon beginning to disperse into magic powder, Sun muttered with disappointment.

And he grabbed his own neck, imprinted with the memories of the pain that had entered, waking up from sleep.

“Cough!”

“Oh, you’re back. How was the fight with Saturn?”

As always, welcoming the monster waking up from the recovery device was Medic Tentacle.

In a recovery room where the defeat of monsters had become commonplace, the transparent monster immediately returned the question to Medic Tentacle.

“Is that masked magical girl named Saturn?”

“…Huh? A mask? No way, that can’t be. Wasn’t the magical girl you faced a long-haired blonde?”

The symbol of fear for monsters.

A black and white mask.

That was Sun’s unique symbol, and since other regional magical girls had never seen such a mask, it had come to be regarded as Sun’s symbol.

The monsters speculated that the symbol of the mask was something like an honor given to the strongest magical girl.

But suddenly, that masked magical girl returned to her original place?

“No, she had orange eyes.”

“O-Orange? No, no, that can’t be. She was supposed to return after 2 sets of time…”

“I’m sure. It was orange.”

Medic Tentacle was confused.

It was clear that the teleportation room had said to switch the black area after 2 sets of time………

No, the memory had been slightly pushed back further.

The word as it was spoken by the fish monster, Golpirret.

“2 weeks, a unique unit? Is that what it means, that time has passed a little after 13 day-night cycles on Earth!”

Medic Tentacle’s fleeting realization.

He hurriedly rushed out of the recovery room to inform the monsters in the teleportation room of this fact.

“Gate Keeper! Stop the teleportation to the old black area immediately!”

“Medic Tentacle? What’s going on? Why are you rushing in like that?”

The Gate Keeper, the teleportation room officer who was sparking electricity from both hands, was startled to see Medic Tentacle, who had barged in while he was continuing the monster teleportation to fulfill the energy allocation assigned to the ship.

“We need to correct the information; the replacement of the black area is not after 2 sets of time but after 2 weeks, which is 13 day-night cycles on Earth!”

“What?!

“Did no one else get sent after that?”

“U-Um… Since there was still energy left, one more just got sent.”

Medic Tentacle stared blankly at the teleportation device, which only showed traces of someone having been teleported.

With his arms hanging limply, his hollow mumbling echoed,

“Oh no.”

 


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Turtle
Turtle
2 months ago

thanks for the chapter

stryke105
stryke105
2 months ago

oh no…

Dawnless
Dawnless
2 months ago

Thanks for the chapter