Chapter 21
Shameless and conscienceless human.
Though Mujin didn’t say it out loud, his cold gaze was saying exactly that. At this, Baek Sangyeon couldn’t easily continue his words and cleared his throat awkwardly.
“Ahem, cough… Anyway, I’ll send an investigation team to look into it in more detail, so you should get treatment first.”
At his frowning expression, Mujin finally turned his attention to his own arms. The arms that had been slashed by the monster-restraining chains were a complete mess. Since they were weapons made from processed rift byproducts, they were toxic and hindering the wounds’ regeneration.
The wounds where blood had dried and crusted still showed raw red flesh underneath. In fact, he wasn’t even feeling the pain.
“……”
If it were Eunseong, he would have noticed his wounds first.
Recalling how he had looked for Hanyeong first made his chest ache and tighten. Mujin unconsciously glanced back into the treatment room, then irritably turned his body away.
Even watching his son suddenly leave, Baek Sangyeon didn’t ask anything. A subordinate subtly asked if he should follow, but he raised his hand to stop him.
Because the only place Mujin would go right now was his own room.
* * *
Baek Mujin came back.
He entered as if he had never left, opened the iron bars and came inside. Then he sat down facing the bed with a chair between them.
Geumseum sat blankly on the bed facing him. Whether it was because this had been repeated three or four times, or because he had grown accustomed to pain, he could now endure it well enough not to lower his head.
“Where is Hanyeong?”
“Why are you keeping your eyes closed?”
They asked simultaneously and fell silent simultaneously.
“It hurts a little. I’m sorry, but could I meet Hanyeong? I’m fine now, so I’d like to leave here too.”
Geumseum quickly answered, not missing the opportunity. He also mentioned wanting to leave, wondering if he was being confined because of the Boss’s death.
“……You seem to be asking with certainty that I would have helped that kid called Hanyeong.”
There seemed to be some spite in his voice, so Geumseum slightly opened his eyes.
“……”
When had he come so close? Mujin was standing right in front of him. Geumseum had to lift his head to check his expression.
“……Are you angry and deliberately pretending not to know me, or.”
When Geumseum pulled his body back because the approaching face was burdensome, Mujin came even closer as if provoked.
He continued to examine Geumseum’s face piece by piece without continuing his words. His gaze went from forehead to eyebrows, eyes, nose, lips, then back to his eyes. Watching the jet-black pupils shake wildly made Geumseum’s chest area tingle repeatedly.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
Mujin quietly stared at Geumseum. He looked like he didn’t know what expression to make. At some unknown ominous premonition, Geumseum’s shoulders trembled slightly.
Come to think of it, why had he brought him here? There were iron bars, but it didn’t seem like he was under arrest……
“Tell me. Who am I?”
It was a question that fell when the silence and staring were becoming painful. Geumseum quickly answered.
“Baek, Baek Mujin…… Hunter?”
“Hunter Baek Mujin?”
“Hunter Baek Mujin-nim.”
Was it wrong? His brow furrowed deeply.
“What’s your name?”
“Geumseum.”
“……”
“I don’t have a surname. People from the Bottom originally live like that—”
“Why are you a Bottom person?”
Mujin straightened his back as if frustrated. He stroked his jaw and repeatedly let out deep breaths. He looked very frustrated. But Geumseum felt like he could breathe now that the distance had opened up. He didn’t realize he had been conserving his breath the whole time.
Why is my heart beating like this?
It seemed last night’s events had a bad effect on his body. Geumseum rubbed his eyes that kept tearing up. He wished there was something to cover them with.
“Look here.”
Should I borrow a pillowcase, Geumseum was startled when he turned his gaze away. Baek Mujin’s hand had covered his face without warning. He grabbed Geumseum’s chin with one hand and turned it toward himself, then covered his forehead with the other hand. Then he lightly touched above his eyelids with his thumb.
“Ugh……”
Perhaps because of the warm body temperature, the burning pain got worse and he unconsciously let out a groan. He also felt something rampaging inside his eyes. Geumseum’s eyes welled up with tears as he spoke to Baek Mujin.
“It hurts when you do that.”
Baek Mujin just stared into Geumseum’s eyes without saying anything for a while.
“Hunter Baek Mujin-nim?”
Since he showed no intention of letting go, Geumseum had to call him again.
Only then did Mujin blink and release the strength in his hands. Geumseum urgently covered his eyes with both hands and pressed down firmly. Tears moistened his palms.
Mujin pulled his body back and the warmth moved away. Geumseum looked in his direction while covering both eyes.
“I’ll call Lee Haesu. Wait.”
“Lee Haesu? It’s Hanyeong though.”
“……I mean a healing-type hunter.”
Geumseum strongly felt from his conversation with Mujin that he was choosing all wrong answers. With the continued sighs and disappointed voice, he was certain something was definitely wrong.
Baek Mujin—he was definitely someone who knew him by a different name before he became Geumseum.
Thinking back to his state when his memory was first cut off, that is, when he was collapsed at the waste collection site three years ago.
According to Hanyeong, he had fallen from the sky. He fell like a meteor, so he thought he wasn’t human. Though Hanyeong described him as if he were quite a lovely being, Geumseum knew what that meant.
It meant he was likely either a fugitive like the Boss, or someone who had committed a crime and was being punished. One of the two was highly probable.
Otherwise, he couldn’t have fallen from the residential district to the Bottom with injuries so severe his life was in danger.
He didn’t know how he had survived falling from that height, but after going through this incident, he began to vaguely guess. He was a hunter with the ability to transform into a fireball. Before, he had vaguely thought he had survived through tremendous luck.
‘Well, where in the world would such luck exist?’
While Geumseum was lost in thought, Mujin quickly left the room. He thought he had left disappointed by his wrong answers, but he soon returned bringing someone with him. It was Lee Haesu, the healing-type hunter.
The man who came inside past the iron bars slowly looked Geumseum over from head to toe.
“Whoa…… This is more surprising than what I heard.”
When Lee Haesu muttered, Mujin snapped with a coldly sunken expression.
“Don’t say useless things and just look at his eyes.”
“It’s not a dangerous situation, right? Ah, shouldn’t I get permission from the Guild Leader for this?”
The man with a weak-looking impression slowly approached Geumseum and sat close to him.
“First, could you lie down over there?”
“Yes.”
Geumseum obediently lay down on the bed and closed his eyes as he was told.
“Hmm……”
Lee Haesu was timid befitting his status as a precious S-grade healing ability user. He knew better than anyone how precious his body was, so he rarely stepped forward in dangerous situations. Yet he was also very curious.
That ‘Yoo Eunseong’ hadn’t died and disappeared but had returned alive and well.
His desire to see if the rumors were true was overwhelming. But what was in the treatment room wasn’t Yoo Eunseong, but some dirty, half-dead kid.
Since Guild Leader Baek Sangyeon had definitely said ‘he’s confined pending investigation,’ he wondered if a monster had appeared as the news was buzzing about.
A monster that had consumed Baek Mujin’s desire and transformed into Yoo Eunseong.
“……He seems to be human though.”
With his hand placed over Geumseum’s closed eyes, Lee Haesu muttered.
“Pardon?”
When Geumseum asked back, wondering if he had misheard, the hand on his eyes flinched and trembled.
“No, it’s done. Please open your eyes now.”
“It doesn’t seem to be done.”
Mujin said with dissatisfaction, pointing at Geumseum who still had his eyes tightly closed. As he said, Geumseum’s eyes still hurt, so though he wasn’t asked, he nodded.
“Lie down properly again. Comfortably. That’s right.”
Lee Haesu, his pride hurt, stretched out both hands and stroked Geumseum’s face this way and that.
The core of a healing-type hunter’s ability was to detect damaged areas and use their own energy to regenerate them. But no matter how much he stroked around the eyes that supposedly hurt, he couldn’t figure it out, which was absurd.
As he kept massaging, Mujin approached and grabbed Lee Haesu’s shoulder.
“Does doing that solve what you can’t do?”
“That’s not it, there really is no damaged area.”
“Then, then.”
At those words, Geumseum slightly opened his eyes. He quickly reached out and grabbed Lee Haesu’s wrist as he was about to be chased away.
“Hunter Lee Haesu-nim. What about Hanyeong? Did you also treat Hanyeong by any chance? How is he? Is Hanyeong safe?”
Since Mujin had no intention of telling him, he had to find out himself.
“Uh—”
Meanwhile, Lee Haesu looking back at Geumseum couldn’t hide his surprised expression. He clearly remembered Yoo Eunseong’s appearance, but the bright blue pupils weren’t in his memory. The bright blue jewel-like pupils were several times more surprising than the hair that had turned silver. Mujin lightly tapped Lee Haesu’s back as if to wake him from his hesitation.
“Ah, that kid…… was treated and is recovering now. But it might take a little long.”
“Really? You mean Hanyeong is alive?”
The moment Lee Haesu nodded, relief spread throughout his body. Wherever this place was, whatever the situation, right now the single fact that Hanyeong was alive was what mattered.
“Thank you.”
Geumseum smiled, puffing out his cheeks roundly. At Eunseong’s smiling face that he was seeing after such a long time, Mujin stopped dead as if broken. At the smile that bloomed across his entire face like sunlight pouring down, his heart that had been stopped for three years finally seemed to creak and move.
Author: Hyacinthus B
Hyacinthus
