# Chapter 58
How much time had passed?
“Ah…”
When he regained consciousness, Ko Eungyo turned deathly pale at the sight of Lee Seungwoo who had wrapped himself around him protectively. In that brief moment, Lee Seungwoo had used his last bit of strength to rush to Ko Eungyo and shield him. He could tell as soon as he opened his eyes. If he had been properly crushed under the stones even slightly, some part of his body would have been shattered.
Lee Seungwoo seemed to have forgotten to protect himself while protecting Ko Eungyo. Otherwise, he wouldn’t have lost consciousness like this.
He was sleeping as if dead.
Ko Eungyo, pale-faced, reached out his hand. Then he repeatedly patted Lee Seungwoo’s unconscious face and frantically shook him awake.
“Wake up. Wake up, Esper Lee Seungwoo.”
But there was no response from him.
Growing anxious, Ko Eungyo placed his finger under Lee Seungwoo’s nose.
“Ha…”
He could feel very faint breathing. Lee Seungwoo wasn’t dead. Yes, he was alive…
His heart was pounding furiously. He tried hard to think calmly. Neither of them had died. They had caught the boss monster, so they had successfully cleared the gate. He had confirmed that Lee Seungwoo wasn’t dead, and also confirmed that Lee Seungwoo had used his remaining strength to protect him, so they just needed to wake him up and get out. That would do it. Then there would be no problem.
“Seungwoo… Seungwoo. Please open your eyes.”
But no matter how much he shook his body or slapped his cheeks, Lee Seungwoo wouldn’t open his eyes. Could it be that he had received such a great shock that he was hovering between life and death?
Ko Eungyo, who had been calling Lee Seungwoo to wake him up, suddenly jerked his head up to check if the temporary escape portal was still there.
He thought the escape portal might have disappeared since he didn’t know how long they had been unconscious, but fortunately, the temporary escape portal was still there. However, he couldn’t tell how much of their escape time remained.
The temporary escape portal would only remain for thirty minutes at most.
They had avoided the worst-case scenario, but the current situation was still quite serious. Ko Eungyo thought he needed to somehow get out of the gate with the unconscious Lee Seungwoo. To do that, he first needed to take care of his own body.
He struggled to extract his body from the pile of rocks. His shoulder, which had been rammed by the stalactite, felt like it was going to dislocate, but he gritted his teeth and endured the pain.
When Ko Eungyo finally freed himself from the rock pile and stood up, he felt tremendous pain in his right ankle and immediately collapsed back down.
His leg… seemed to have been properly sprained. It didn’t seem to be broken, at least. It wasn’t flopping around, after all.
“Damn it…”
Still, it seemed like he could walk by dragging his right leg. After checking his swollen right leg, Ko Eungyo bit his lip anxiously.
If he exerted more strength here, his leg might break or he might permanently lose the use of his leg… But whichever it was, it would be less precious than his life.
He hurriedly cleared away the rocks on top of Lee Seungwoo, regardless of whether his hands got scraped or bloody. When he had cleared about half the rocks, he became impatient and grabbed Lee Seungwoo’s arm to pull him out. But Lee Seungwoo didn’t budge at all, as if he was tightly wedged in a narrow gap.
He struggled for quite some time, grunting as he gripped Lee Seungwoo’s arm and pulled. But still, Lee Seungwoo’s body remained immovable.
After some deliberation, Ko Eungyo exerted himself to push away the rocks covering the rest of Lee Seungwoo’s body. But the rocks wouldn’t budge.
“What is this…”
Damn it.
A massive stalactite was crushing both of Lee Seungwoo’s legs. He stared at the huge stalactite with a blank expression. There was no way he could extract Lee Seungwoo with his strength alone.
“Mr. Seungwoo, please open your eyes. Mr. Seungwoo.”
But despite his desperate calls, there was no answer from Lee Seungwoo.
Just then, Ko Eungyo noticed the light pouring from the escape portal slowly dimming. He turned around with a feeling of despair.
It was true. Too much time had passed while they were unconscious. It was clear that if they didn’t leave now, the escape portal would disappear. And the monsters they had killed, except for the boss mob, would respawn and roam around inside.
The benefit given to the first exploration team to conquer the gate was not an advantage at this moment, but a noose tightening around their necks.
Ko Eungyo knew that if he abandoned Lee Seungwoo now and left, he could survive.
After three days, a portal that could be accessed regularly would be generated, and he could come back with a rescue team to save Lee Seungwoo.
But would Lee Seungwoo… still be alive by then?
Lee Seungwoo, buried under a pile of stalactites, so quietly unconscious?
Ko Eungyo looked back and forth between the temporary escape portal and Lee Seungwoo several times. And he was in intense conflict. Even if he remained here, it was uncertain whether they would survive.
Let’s think.
Lee Seungwoo didn’t like him. It was closer to disliking Ko Eungyo. If it weren’t for the Guiding, he wouldn’t have been so kind to Ko Eungyo. Didn’t he show hostility toward Ko Eungyo from their first meeting? He still remembered how rudely Lee Seungwoo had treated him like a Guiding machine to his face.
He couldn’t forget the man who had watched with indifference as malice was deliberately poured onto Ko Eungyo until just a few months ago. Lee Seungwoo even went so far as to personally threaten him on the last day of the semester, gripping his ankle and asking if he needed to break it again to make him behave. Ko Eungyo never intended to form any close relationship with Lee Seungwoo in the first place. He had only thought that he should take advantage of him as a superior Esper until they eventually parted ways.
But…
Ko Eungyo simultaneously remembered the lips that had desperately clung to him. He remembered Lee Seungwoo who had stopped Cha Yeongheon, watched Ko Eungyo’s reactions, tried to protect him obsessively, and eventually followed him all the way to the Jeju Island gate. Lee Seungwoo who had asked if the professor hadn’t felt it, if he was the only one who felt their fate. Ko Eungyo had felt sympathy for such a Lee Seungwoo.
The resolute face that had said he would save Ko Eungyo. The last words he had spoken as he looked back before leaving.
“You were the one who saved me first, Professor.”
What could that have meant?
“…Ha.”
Like a lie, his urgent heart calmed down. Ko Eungyo stared intently at Lee Seungwoo with the heart of a deity looking at a lover who would never open their eyes again.
At this moment, he thought he might regret his choice. But life was always a series of regrets. A life without regrets was just deciding not to regret, not truly making choices without regret.
Ko Eungyo slowly sat down beside Lee Seungwoo. The cold stone floor cooled his ankle, which was hot with pain. He repeatedly rubbed his tired eyes and cheeks with his palms. And he completely turned his back on the temporary portal.
As if asking if he really wasn’t going to leave, the temporary portal flashed blue light three times.
And then completely disappeared.
*
This is insane. Ko Eungyo thought as he looked around from beside Lee Seungwoo.
First, he had done all the preparations he could. To hide Lee Seungwoo from monsters, he had dragged his painful leg and gathered stalactites within reach. Then he started stacking the rocks he had just cleared away. More precisely, he built a small bunker around the two of them.
Being a Guide, he could never fight monsters. If he started fighting, he would definitely be the one to die. If he attempted anything resembling a fight with his body in this condition, he wouldn’t last long before dying.
Moreover, the number of respawning monsters was quite large. Theoretically, these monsters would keep appearing in the same places for three days no matter how many were killed. In other words, they would have to hide in this gate for three days.
Fortunately, the cave had half-collapsed during the battle with the boss monster, and thanks to that, they had a place to hide, which was a stroke of luck. (Of course, if the cave hadn’t collapsed, they would have escaped safely.)
If Ko Eungyo had experienced the intensive monster-killing schedule in the gate before, he might have done better. But Ko Eungyo had no such experience. He hid from monsters based on what he had heard. However, he was very anxious because he didn’t know if this peek-a-boo tactic would work on the monsters.
This was really all he could do. Simply hiding here quietly with Lee Seungwoo.
He wished he had experienced the benefits that the first exploration teams enjoyed. Then they could have hidden much more safely.
But he had too many illnesses to stay in the gate for days, killing monsters and gaining experience. If he didn’t go to the hospital within the dates set by the doctor, his physical condition would dramatically worsen.
Author: Hyacinthus B
Hyacinthus
