106.
Countless scenes filled his head. The moment he first realized that not all touches had to be painful was when the world was redefined for him.
Everything except Jian faded in color. In a gray world, only Jian seemed to hold color.
He couldn’t take his eyes off those round pupils and the dimples that burst every time he smiled. It was the most beautiful thing he had seen in his life. If only he had been smaller than himself, he was so beautiful that he wouldn’t want to let go if he could hold him in his arms.
Someone who didn’t want anything from him, didn’t hurt him, and simply gave unconditional love.
When he ate warm food instead of the pills he used to swallow in place of meals, when he fell asleep in warm arms, for the first time, he thought he was glad to have been born.
Jian. Jian hyung.
How could he have forgotten? He was alive all this time thanks to his hyung.
He wanted to give him everything, yet also wanted to keep him in a place only he knew, preventing him from smiling at others.
As his body grew, his pure feelings were covered with carnal desire. The greed to possess everything shook his reason. Just imagining his hyung with someone else made his heart crumble.
So he took his hyung. His kind hyung accepted even the vile person he had become. The first day he possessed everything of his hyung, he was as happy as if he owned the world.
“Hyung, I…”
What the hell have I done?
The pale face looked unfamiliar. Red blood thoroughly stained his face and upper body. His tightly closed eyes seemed like they would never open again.
He couldn’t breathe. Unable to breathe properly, only a metallic sound came out. His vision blurred and cleared repeatedly with the falling tears.
—You need to kill the S-class monster. For the peace of this world.
Then another familiar voice filled his head. It was his own voice. Yet the content of what the voice was saying only irritated him.
Nevertheless, his consciousness was about to fade again. Sehun closed his eyes briefly and caught his breath. He felt Hyunsu panicking beside him.
Gritting his teeth, he snatched the medicine bottle from Hyunsu’s hand. This bottle helped him regain consciousness momentarily. He instinctively sensed there wasn’t much time left.
“Hey!”
Hyunsu shouted in surprise. It was because Sehun suddenly swallowed all the liquid in the medicine bottle at once. He looked at Yongho in panic, but Yongho also seemed surprised.
It seemed the smoke was supposed to be inhaled to be effective, but this idiot drank it, so they worried about what side effects might appear.
“Ugh.”
Sure enough, Sehun bent his waist and groaned painfully. Thick blood vessels bulged on his neck and temples.
The blood vessels wiggling like worms were disgusting. The glass bottle broke in his rough grip. Even though glass fragments became embedded between his skin, Sehun clenched his fist tightly.
“Ah, this is really driving me crazy.”
Hyunsu pulled his hair with both hands. Just when Sehun seemed to regain consciousness, he started behaving strangely again, making Hyunsu feel like he was going insane.
He urgently used a wound healing skill first. The cuts on his hands and various wounds bleeding all over Sehun’s body disappeared one by one.
Just in case, he used a purification skill too. Sehun knelt on both knees. Then he noticed something strange about him.
There was a different form from the blood vessels on Sehun’s neck. Something thin like a thread-worm was wiggling under the skin.
As he examined it carefully with a strange feeling, he heard the footsteps of a group approaching.
The A-class hunters who had been dealing with other monsters approached, sensing the abnormality. It was possible to approach because the Cerberus had been completely dealt with.
“Hyunsu!”
Hyunwoo ran to Hyunsu. His eyes shook like an earthquake as he examined Sehun, who was sitting down, and Jian, who had collapsed.
“Jian…”
Besides Sehun, Jian’s condition looked serious. Hunters with recovery skills immediately flocked to Jian, but it was useless.
“Guild Master.”
Wiping the blood flowing from his forehead, Seonjun called Hyunwoo. He put his face close to Hyunwoo’s ear and whispered.
“Give it quickly.”
“Yes.”
Seonjun took out dozens of life recovery potions from his inventory. It was extra they had brought in from America.
While Hyunwoo was feeding Jian the life recovery potion, Sehun was fiercely fighting at the boundary between consciousness and unconsciousness.
Jian’s face and figure would become clear, only to be covered by other images. The voice saying he must kill monsters by any means kept getting louder.
“Is Hunter Han Sehun okay?”
When Hyunsu was pacing anxiously by Sehun’s side, someone approached. Hyunsu, who was reflexively on guard, recognized the person’s face and relaxed his tense shoulders.
“I don’t know why. He suddenly can’t regain consciousness…”
It was one of the Blue Dragon Guild members. His face was so ordinary that his name didn’t immediately come to mind.
“…You’re Hunter Yoon Hyunmin, right?”
Hyunsu asked in an uncertain voice. Hyunmin nodded with a faint smile.
“Yes, that’s right. I have a potion with a mental awakening effect. Shall we try using it?”
At that moment, Hyunmin suddenly took out a glass bottle from his inventory. Black liquid swirled in the bottle.
“Ah… can you give it to me for a moment?”
Although the person approached to help, strangely, Hyunsu felt a chill on his nape.
Hyunmin’s facial expression and attitude were all just friendly, but his instinct was warning him. The color of the liquid swirling in the medicine bottle also felt suspicious somehow.
Hyunsu extended his hand forward. He naturally expected Hyunmin to hand over the glass bottle.
“There’s no time.”
At that moment, Hyunmin grinned and suddenly opened the glass bottle, trying to feed it to Sehun. Hyunsu, surprised, stretched out his arm, but Sehun moved faster.
Sehun, who had raised his head that was deeply bowed, grabbed Hyunmin’s neck with his blood-veined hand.
“Gugh…”
Hyunmin struggled and let out a painful groan. But even with his face turning bright red, he stubbornly guarded the suspicious glass bottle.
Sehun’s unfocused eyes wandered over Hyunmin’s face. There was a creaking sound of bones twisting.
“Han Sehun!”
Thinking that there would really be trouble, Hyunsu tried to stop Sehun, but he was hit by a swinging arm and fell face-first to the ground.
“Hyunsu, are you okay? What’s wrong with Sehun?”
Jihwan, who was nearby, approached with a surprised face and supported Hyunsu. Nursing his scraped elbow, Hyunsu shook his head.
His eyes reddened because of Sehun, who kept acting strangely.
As Hyunmin was attacked, the murmuring Blue Dragon Guild members also approached one by one. Some had solemn expressions, as if about to use their abilities.
Jihwan also prepared for battle. Though he didn’t know what was happening, he couldn’t let Sehun be attacked. He judged that Sehun wouldn’t attack Hyunmin without any reason.
Daeun and Seonjun also stood behind Jihwan. Hyunwoo, who was taking care of Jian, exchanged glances with Siyun.
Since friction had occurred between guild members, the guild masters couldn’t stay still either.
When it seemed like something was about to happen amid the tension, Sehun suddenly fed Hyunmin the awakening potion that he had been desperately guarding.
“What are you doing…!”
As his colleague Seonghyun tried to rush in, Jihwan blocked his way.
“Kuhuhuk…”
Hyunmin, who had swallowed the awakening potion, rolled on the ground, clutching at his throat. Everyone stopped moving as he clawed at his skin until blood droplets formed due to his violent movements.
“What is that…”
It was because Hyunmin’s face, with lumps bulging like ping-pong balls, looked strange.
“What did you feed Hyunmin just now?”
As the agitated Seonghyun demanded, Hyunsu stood up.
“Hunter Yoon Hyunmin was trying to feed that potion to Sehun first!”
Hyunsu pointed to the potion bottle on the ground with his fingertip and shouted. The color was strange from the start. He had never heard of a black potion.
“Haah…”
Sehun exhaled a long breath amid the chaotic situation. Sense gradually returned to his dazed eyes.
It was then that he felt the sensation of something wiggling on his neck. Sehun took out a dagger from his inventory and without hesitation stabbed his own neck.
“Sehun!”
Jihwan was horrified by Sehun’s sudden self-harm. The eyes of Hyunsu and Seonghyun, who had been confronting each other, also widened.
After inserting his fingers into the open wound and digging around, Sehun soon pulled out something that looked like a thread-worm.
“What on earth is happening…”
Jihwan muttered, unable to hide his bewilderment. Sehun looked alternately at the blood-soaked thread-worm and Hyunmin, then used telekinesis to levitate the thread-worm.
The thread-worm, not even 10cm long, struggled desperately. As the blood droplets covering its body disappeared, a transparent body showing blood vessels inside was revealed.
Author: Hyacinthus B
Hyacinthus
