The whole world spun round and round amid thunderous crashing. After an awful stretch of time that seemed as though it would never end, silence descended all at once.
Every part of Gyujin’s body tingled and ached. Coughing, he struggled to speak.
“Is everyone—cough—okay?”
Fortunately, all three of them had been wearing their seat belts. Thanks to that, although the car had flipped completely upside down, none of them appeared to have suffered especially serious external injuries. Song Youngju was the first to recover his senses, grinding his teeth.
“What fucking bastards…!”
They had actually rammed them with a vehicle from behind. More importantly, how had they even known they were here before attacking them?
There was no telling when another attack might come. Knowing that, Song Youngju unfastened his seat belt and said,
“Team Leader, stay right here!”
Chewing out vicious curses, he kicked the door open and climbed out. It was not long before chaos erupted outside.
Gyujin, his face pale, frowned.
“…Those are gunshots, right?”
“Fuuuuucking bastaaaaards!! How fucking dare you!!”
Yoon Palsik’s eyes, bloodshot red from the impact, bulged. He whipped his head around to inspect Gyujin.
“Gyujin, are you okay? Are you hurt anywhere?”
“I’m not sure… At least I don’t have any obvious injuries.”
His whole body throbbed, but nothing seemed broken and he was not bleeding.
Yoon Palsik undid his seat belt and helped Gyujin. Avoiding the shards of broken glass, Palsik climbed out of the vehicle first. Then he quickly scanned their surroundings while covering Gyujin.
“Fucking motherfuckers! Goddamn pieces of shit! Who the fuck do those fucking bastards think they are!”
Yoon Palsik, spewing profanity as naturally as breathing, was genuinely furious. Apparently being blindsided like this had wounded his pride.
“I knew things were going too smoothly…! How the hell did they even figure out we were here? Don’t tell me they followed Song Youngju?”
No matter how careful they had been, this was not an impossible location to track down if someone had deliberately followed them.
Even so, it was strange.
Kwon Dajung was currently storming their main base and tearing it apart, yet the enemy had chosen to target those stationed in the rear instead?
Gyujin could not even begin to guess what their objective was.
Using the overturned car as cover, Yoon Palsik and Gyujin crouched low.
Five enemies had been confirmed, all fully armed with assault rifles. Song Youngju, standing in front of them with nothing but his own body, looked unusually small.
“Gyujin, let’s head over there.”
Yoon Palsik jerked his chin toward a parked container truck. If they got around behind it, they could escape onto a forest road.
Gyujin checked the escape route and nodded.
They counted the timing together—two, three—and sprinted.
Gunfire poured after them the moment the attackers spotted them. Just as Song Youngju charged the enemy, a sharp pain stabbed through Gyujin’s side.
He gritted his teeth at the burning sensation.
The searing pain instantly brought tears to his eyes. Breathing hard, Gyujin slowly forced himself onward.
“Gyujin, let’s stop here for— Hey, you!”
Yoon Palsik had crouched close beside the wheel of the container truck. The moment he noticed that Gyujin had been shot, horror crossed his face.
Gyujin’s white uniform was rapidly staining red.
After taking a moment, Gyujin answered slowly.
“I’m fine. It only grazed me.”
“The hell you are! You’re fucking bleeding everywhere! Jesus fucking Christ…!”
Yoon Palsik hurriedly pulled up Gyujin’s clothes.
Fortunately, the bullet had neither passed through him nor lodged inside. Blood dripped steadily from a long gash torn along his side.
After examining the wound, Palsik checked Gyujin’s complexion.
“If you start losing consciousness, tell me. Fuck, they didn’t coat the bullets in poison or some shit, did they?”
Gyujin frowned at what sounded almost like a curse.
Yoon Palsik moved to press down hard on his side, then suddenly hesitated.
Gyujin could guess exactly what he was worried about, and despite the situation, a quiet laugh slipped out.
“It’ll be okay.”
It’s probably still no bigger than a bean. Pressing on my side a little isn’t going to make the baby fall out.
Gyujin had never been pregnant before, but that was probably how it worked.
“The bleeding should stop pretty soon, I think…”
“Hey, Yoon Gyujin! What the hell is wrong with you? Stay with me!”
Now that he thought about it, it really was strange.
I’ve already decided to terminate the pregnancy anyway. What am I even worried about?
Gyujin blinked slowly and tried to steady his breathing.
Maybe it was because he had lost too much blood, or maybe because of the crash earlier, but his vision kept spinning.
“Gyujin! Yoon Gyujin!”
Gyujin’s head dropped limply.
I don’t think I’m actually dying. Maybe I’m just somewhere around one step short of it.
The gunshot wound itself was not fatal, so perhaps one of the Espers among the attackers was affecting him in some other way.
The truth was, he had no idea.
His head just would not stop spinning.
As his consciousness grew hazy, Gyujin’s thoughts wandered without order.
None of this makes sense. Not this attack, not what’s happening now.
We received intelligence almost immediately after the Guide Center caught fire? Isn’t that suspicious in itself?
Maybe Dawn planned this from the beginning.
If their plan had been to draw Kwon Dajung away and strike the rear, then everything had gone exactly as they intended.
But why? What are they after?
The only thing the two incidents have in common is that they targeted Guides instead of Espers. Why would they take this kind of risk just for that?
“Yoon… stay… Gyujin… can’t! Hey!”
Hands shook his shoulders, and his body sagged helplessly.
Gyujin squeezed his eyes shut, desperately trying to hold on to consciousness. It felt as though an invisible hand kept forcing his head downward.
“…Yoon Gyujin?”
Someone called his name.
That voice came through unusually clearly.
Gyujin struggled to lift his head toward it.
It was not Yoon Palsik.
It was not Song Youngju either.
Where have I heard that voice before?
“Ah.”
A faint sigh escaped Gyujin.
A familiar figure was approaching from the distance.
How could I ever forget?
They had been together for five years.
He was someone more special to Gyujin than anyone else.
“…Dajung.”
The last thing Gyujin saw was Kwon Dajung’s blank, stunned eyes before darkness swallowed him completely.
***
Yoon Gyujin’s head went limp.
Blood streamed from his red-soaked abdomen.
At that moment, Kwon Dajung’s heart plunged straight to the bottom of hell.
His heart pounded so violently it felt as though his eardrums would rupture.
Yoon Gyujin is hurt.
Yoon Gyujin is in pain.
Yoon Gyujin collapsed.
Yoon Gyujin is dying.
Yoon Gyujin—Kwon Dajung’s entire world—is falling apart.
Crack.
The concrete ground rose like the scales of a serpent.
As though caught in a hurricane, everything in sight shattered, collapsed, and whipped through the air.
Kwon Dajung’s ability destroyed everything.
“No…”
He staggered toward Gyujin.
Song Youngju ducked away from the collapsing debris and shouted,
“Kwon Dajung, get a fucking grip!”
BOOM—!
A forty-foot shipping container rose into the air.
With a hideous tearing shriek, it ripped apart, fragments raining down like a storm.
Horrified, Song Youngju looked toward Yoon Palsik.
“Director!”
Yoon Palsik, who was holding the unconscious Gyujin, curled his body tightly around him while grinding out vicious curses.
One badly placed fragment would kill them instantly.
Stopping Kwon Dajung, who had reached something close to losing control, was impossible for the moment.
Choi Sunwoo and Moon Guk arrived belatedly, grasped the situation, and rushed forward.
Moon Guk appeared in front of Yoon Palsik in an instant, grabbed him, and used his ability once more.
His body blinked out—
then reappeared behind Kwon Dajung.
“What happened?”
Choi Sunwoo carefully took the unconscious Gyujin into his arms.
Yoon Palsik wiped his bloodstained hands against his clothes.
“Those bastards rammed us with a car, then immediately opened fire. Let’s get Gyujin back right now.”
“What about Kwon Dajung?”
“Fuck if I know.”
Two of the attackers had been decapitated by fragments of the container.
Of the remaining three, one had fled the moment he saw Kwon Dajung.
Kwon Dajung was literally butchering the other two.
Finally unable to take it anymore, Yoon Palsik roared,
“You fucking lunatic! We need to save Yoon Gyujin first!”
Everything whipping through the air stopped instantly.
As though someone had struck him across the face, Kwon Dajung abruptly came back to himself and ran toward them, his face deathly pale.
“Is Yoon Gyujin okay?”
He desperately reached for Gyujin.
Yoon Palsik stepped in front of him, risking his life.
“Yoon Gyujin isn’t dead! He’s not dead, so calm the fuck down, you crazy bastard!”
“But he’s bleeding. He’s hurt. Why are his eyes closed? Tell me. Is Yoon Gyujin okay? He doesn’t look okay…”
Every time Dajung mumbled through words half mangled with panic, everything around him trembled in response.
So this is what a living bomb looks like.
Standing in front of an SS-rank Esper who had completely lost his shit, Yoon Palsik forcibly swallowed down tears.
He knew he should not be thinking this, but the people who had been shooting at them a few minutes ago somehow seemed more humane.
“You support Gyujin. We need to get him to the hospital first.”
Kwon Dajung immediately went to Gyujin and pulled him into his arms.
His entire body trembled like a leaf.
Meanwhile, Yoon Palsik contacted the emergency hotline and called an ambulance.
It arrived before long.
Even while Yoon Gyujin received emergency treatment, Kwon Dajung acted as though he would die if they separated him from Gyujin for even a second.
Yoon Palsik felt like he was going out of his fucking mind.
They needed to tell the paramedics that Yoon Gyujin was pregnant.
But Kwon Dajung, completely out of his mind, was planted right beside him, which meant Palsik could not even bring the subject up.
Just as tears began filling his eyes because he was terrified something really would go wrong at this rate, Gyujin’s eyelids fluttered.
“Gyujin, are you awake?”
Kwon Dajung clutched Gyujin’s hand, his voice on the verge of tears.
The paramedic calmly held Dajung back and spoke to Gyujin.
“Can you hear me? You’ve been given painkillers, so you may feel a little dazed. If you can hear me, blink once.”
With a faint groan, Gyujin very slowly opened his eyes.
His unfocused gaze stared blankly at the ceiling.
In a cracked voice, Gyujin asked,
“…baby…”
He coughed and blinked his hazy eyes.
“Is the baby okay?”