#219
What appeared in everyone’s sight in an instant was Dan Joo-hyuk.
“Ah……!”
Yoon Pa-ran’s eyes widened greatly upon confirming that face. Before he could even grasp the situation, Dan Joo-hyuk moved quickly.
First, the transformed employee’s arm was blocked with a dull sound. Pathetically light compared to the malice the bastard had been spewing out steadily.
At the same time, Dan Joo-hyuk lifted Min-woong with one hand and moved him behind himself.
“Kehuk……!”
“Woo……!”
Min-woong, whose body was suddenly lifted, looked at Yoon Pa-ran with a frightened face. He probably reflexively looked toward his hyung.
The employee struggled to continue his attack. However, Dan Joo-hyuk, who had subdued even that in one blow, quickly swept his gaze around the orphanage.
Children who still couldn’t grasp the situation and were just frightened by the strange sounds, the bastard who had lost his reason and was increasingly emitting black mirage-like energy.
And even Yoon Pa-ran’s face looking at him with a pale expression.
“Come outside.”
Dan Joo-hyuk, who had finished his judgment in an instant, leaped up high.
In his grasp, he still had the raging employee subdued.
“Kiruk, kuk!”
Like that, Dan Joo-hyuk instantly dragged away the cause of this situation and disappeared over the wall.
“Ah.”
Yoon Pa-ran, who had barely come to his senses in a situation as if a storm had passed through, hurriedly ran to Min-woong. The child appeared without a single scratch, but was looking around in all directions with a bewildered face.
Then, seeing Yoon Pa-ran who had approached close by, he moved his lips with teary eyes.
“Pa-ran!”
“Take all the kids inside! Min-woong, are you okay?”
“Waaah……”
Min-woong, who finally burst into pitiful tears, nestled into Yoon Pa-ran’s arms. While constantly patting his back, Yoon Pa-ran examined his younger sibling’s face.
He felt like he was going crazy from the chilling experience just moments ago.
“It’s okay. Hyung is here. Big hyung came too. You saw, right?”
“Hic, woo……”
So without realizing it, Yoon Pa-ran mentioned Dan Joo-hyuk while comforting Min-woong.
Only then did Min-woong calm down a little and nod his head slightly.
“I’ll take care of Min-woong.”
In the meantime, the director who had led all the other children inside approached Yoon Pa-ran again. Yoon Seul’s hands were also trembling as she carefully lifted Min-woong.
Noticing this, Yoon Pa-ran unconsciously spoke firmly to her.
“Don’t worry. You saw earlier, right? I’ve spread the safe zone now so things like that can’t come in anymore.”
“Right. You’re right, Pa-ran.”
While constantly soothing Min-woong, Yoon Seul muttered several times that he was right.
The children who were nearby would have had their vision largely blocked by Dan Joo-hyuk’s large body. However, Yoon Seul, who was a bit further away, seemed to have clearly seen what form that employee had transformed into.
She also patted Yoon Pa-ran’s shoulder with trembling hands. Her gaze kept going back and forth between her most trusted son and the sacred statue.
“Be careful.”
“I will.”
Having sent all his family inside like that, Yoon Pa-ran turned around sharply.
He approached the security company director who had been staying alert while coming to his senses.
“You go outside.”
Even he thought his tone was cold. However, Yoon Pa-ran couldn’t trust anyone unless the innocence of all the security company employees was proven immediately.
The director, who had grasped the situation instantly, bowed his head deeply. The excited face that had come to see the famous safe zone was nowhere to be found.
“I’ll gather all the employees at the entrance.”
Then, as if not wanting to provoke Yoon Pa-ran, he slowly turned around and disappeared toward the entrance. Watching that retreating figure, Yoon Pa-ran anxiously bit his lips.
What the hell was that?
“Hunter Yoon Pa-ran.”
Yoon Pa-ran’s escort hunters who had been waiting outside came rushing over in a crowd. Some had their attention caught by the clusters of light still faintly circling around the sacred statue.
However, whether they had heard about what had happened earlier, they all had tense expressions.
“Guard the orphanage’s perimeter for a moment. Don’t let anyone in.”
“Yes.”
Having entrusted the defense to them, Yoon Pa-ran immediately entered the orphanage.
First, he thoroughly examined the room where the younger siblings were gathered. He carefully checked whether the terrible energy of the [■■■ Fragment] felt from the transformed employee remained.
He confirmed all the rooms and people inside the orphanage like that, but there was nothing additional to be felt. However, while coming back outside, Yoon Pa-ran discovered something strange.
One flowerpot that had been placed by the window was shattered to pieces as if it had been hit by some skill.
Seeing that, he vaguely recalled that there had been a sound of something exploding from inside the building earlier.
“Why is this……”
Then Yoon Pa-ran’s face soon hardened stiffly. It was because he recalled that the person who had brought this flowerpot was that employee who had strangely transformed earlier.
“……”
“Hunter Yoon Pa-ran. Control is finished. Are you alright?”
Security chief Lee Hyun-moon came looking for Yoon Pa-ran again. Although he looked questioningly at the flowerpot Yoon Pa-ran was examining closely, he first asked about Yoon Pa-ran’s wellbeing.
Yoon Pa-ran’s feelings watching the approaching hunters were very complicated. Someone from the security company he had been trusting to some degree had just caused such an incident.
“I’m fine.”
Still, Yoon Pa-ran soon decided to trust them. Since Dan Joo-hyuk had said he personally confirmed them, it should be okay to entrust the younger siblings to them. Even now, they were moving around inside the safe zone without problems.
Lee Hyun-moon, who tactfully kept his mouth shut, began positioning hunters here and there throughout the building. Yoon Pa-ran’s gaze, which had been watching them move busily, now turned toward the sacred statue standing alone in the yard.
Right. This place was safe. It had been earlier too. Min-woong had almost been in danger, but anyway, that bastard hadn’t revealed his identity on his own.
Yoon Pa-ran, who was connected to the safe zone sacred statue, read the flow of that power precisely. When the safe zone was created, that bastard had been forced to reveal the power he had been hiding.
As if he had been attacked by this safe zone skill.
“Please take care of the orphanage for a moment.”
“Take care.”
Yoon Pa-ran, who had barely calmed his mind, finally headed outside the orphanage.
He crossed the same wall that Dan Joo-hyuk had gone over. Following the traces visible beyond that, Yoon Pa-ran caught up with Dan Joo-hyuk without difficulty.
He hadn’t gone very far in the first place. In the dim alley between the orphanage and some villas a little distance away, Dan Joo-hyuk was quietly waiting for Yoon Pa-ran.
“How are the children?”
“……They’re fine.”
At the innermost part of the alley, a black form was sprawled out. Yoon Pa-ran, who had been looking at Dan Joo-hyuk, awkwardly shifted his gaze to what had been the employee.
What the hell was that? Was it even human?
How did Dan Joo-hyuk know to come here?
“I need to interrogate him. I definitely felt a monster’s energy, but it’s disappeared now.”
As if nothing had happened between them, Dan Joo-hyuk calmly assessed the situation.
This was an extremely serious situation. The fact that such a thing had happened right in the middle of the orphanage where his family was made Yoon Pa-ran very anxious.
However, at the same time, Yoon Pa-ran was bothered by that voice that was even nonchalant.
Eventually, Yoon Pa-ran slowly turned his head. He looked straight into Dan Joo-hyuk’s eyes, which he had wanted to avoid out of awkwardness.
Dan Joo-hyuk’s pupils were somehow darker than the shadowed interior of the dim alley.
“First, thank you for saving the younger siblings.”
When he had spoken first so nonchalantly earlier, but now that Yoon Pa-ran opened his mouth, Dan Joo-hyuk shut his mouth tight.
“But what’s going on here?”
He could clearly see his loose expression gradually hardening.
“……I was worried so I was nearby. I couldn’t contact you either.”
Hearing the excuse that came out, Yoon Pa-ran moved his lips as if he had something to say. However, he only let out empty breaths several times.
What finally came out after coldly parting his lips were sharply barbed words.
Just like when he first met Dan Joo-hyuk.
“Now that there’s no contract, why are you……”
Perhaps realizing that mood, Dan Joo-hyuk’s eyebrows twisted fiercely.
For some reason, he reacted excessively sensitively to the words Yoon Pa-ran threw.
“Do I seem like I’m doing this just because of a contract right now?”
As he said this, he took a big step toward Yoon Pa-ran. Despite the quite pressuring situation, Yoon Pa-ran didn’t back down.
Precisely, he couldn’t back down. As soon as he heard those words, the emotions he had been trying to suppress from earlier came gushing out from inside.
“How would I know that!”
“……”
Yoon Pa-ran unconsciously shouted at Dan Joo-hyuk. The sorrow that had been accumulating bit by bit inside him since the day he realized the damned deception seemed to have finally exceeded its critical point.
How much I trusted you, how could you do that?
Not expressing the emotion that was now clearly hitting his head was truly his last pride. Even while trembling his lips, Yoon Pa-ran ultimately didn’t say those words to Dan Joo-hyuk.
However, sometimes there seemed to be things that were conveyed even without being said directly.
As soon as he shouted, Dan Joo-hyuk, who had been standing blankly with a somehow drained face, slowly approached Yoon Pa-ran.
He whispered quietly.
Toward Yoon Pa-ran.
“I’m sorry.”
Author: Hyacinthus B
Hyacinthus
