#93
Father was acting a bit strange, wasn’t he? Is he sick?
Ho-woo gripped the gun tightly with a blank expression. The heavy barrel loaded with live ammunition naturally pointed towards the panel printed with the monster’s image. Even though he knew he needed to concentrate, his mind kept wandering.
A father who takes care of things…
When he applied pressure to the finger on the trigger, a loud bang! struck his eardrums. Despite the loud noise that made his ears ring, Ho-woo couldn’t quite shake off his lingering thoughts.
The fired bullet pierced through the monster’s body. Though it didn’t hit the forehead for an instant kill, what mattered was that it hit. The Esper watching from afar had a satisfied look on his face. Small water droplets floating around him created a fantastical scene straight out of a fairy tale, but no one was looking at it in awe.
If Ho-woo had seen that sight, he might have said it was pretty, but he was still wearing a troubled expression even as he fired the fourth and fifth bullets.
‘Have some of this too.’
A father offering side dishes at the dinner table…
Even Do-hyun seemed quite surprised, staring blankly. His father’s behavior was that shocking.
Ho-woo caught his breath as he hit the panel with the last bullet.
Cha Geon-woo, who was watching Ho-woo from the side, gave a light round of applause. Though it required longer concentration as the number of bullets had increased from last week, Ho-woo hit the panel with 6 out of 10 bullets. He seemed quite surprised at the greatly improved performance in just a week.
“You’ve improved a lot.”
Ho-woo lowered the gun sheepishly at the praise from someone who had been judged not to need to participate in the class. Among the other Guides, there were many who did as well as or even better than Ho-woo. Still, it wasn’t bad to receive praise. Ho-woo smiled, trying to push away his complicated thoughts.
“This isn’t as close a distance as you might think. It’s only your second lesson, so it means you have quite a talent.”
Cha Geon-woo quickly reloaded the bullets, suggesting they shoot again. The instructor, who had been going around adjusting the Guides’ postures, nodded slightly as his gaze met Cha Geon-woo’s, who was standing next to Ho-woo, before passing by.
Cha Geon-woo, who already had sharp skills honed in real situations, was too skilled to be in a learning position. The instructor was pleased that someone who didn’t need to attend class came and taught someone else. It was even better that the other person was the partner of that ominous Esper standing in the back.
“Get into position, and try to concentrate a bit more. You seemed unfocused earlier.”
Cha Geon-woo, who had leaned in behind Ho-woo and whispered in his ear, frowned at the chill he felt from behind. It was summer, and sweat was dripping even when standing still in the humid weather, but a spine-chilling cold was spreading from behind. Ho-woo, who had been focusing forward, also felt that subtle chill and lowered his gun before turning around.
“Didn’t it suddenly get cooler?”
Ho-woo mumbled quietly about it being cool with a dazed face that had been suffering from the heat. Thinking that only Oh-yul could do something like this, Ho-woo reflexively turned to look at him.
His Esper was smiling very prettily. The black hair and white frost settled on his shoulders sparkled and shone under the sunlight. The blue-tinged eyes were gentle within the softly curved eye lines. When their gazes met in mid-air and Ho-woo waved his hand slightly, Oh-yul waved back gently.
Cha Geon-woo, standing next to him, gave an exasperated look at the scene. He furrowed his neat brow and stepped back from Ho-woo one step at a time, as if measuring the distance.
“…What are you doing?”
“Finding the range that madman allows.”
He kept stepping back slowly until he stopped about five steps away. There was enough space between them for an arm to fit comfortably and then some.
“Now, shoot.”
Unlike the bewildered Ho-woo, Cha Geon-woo acted as if the current situation was natural, so Ho-woo took his stance again. He tried to push away the complicated thoughts floating in his mind as much as possible and took a breath.
His wavering hand firmly aimed at the target and pulled the trigger without hesitation. The acrid smell of gunpowder stimulated his nostrils. Ho-woo maintained his composure despite the loud noise that nearly deafened him.
8 hits out of 10 bullets in the magazine.
Though none hit the monster’s forehead, the bullets that hit its body created a moment of hesitation, which was enough time for an Esper. Since they weren’t actually telling Guides to fight monsters in the first place, everyone was just repeating practice moderately.
Ho-woo also repeatedly practiced shooting, reloading 10 bullets at a time until the class ended.
“Your accuracy is definitely improving.”
Cha Geon-woo looked pleased as he examined the record sheet with Ho-woo’s last shooting results. As he was watching his rapidly improving student under his guidance, he noticed Oh-yul approaching and quickly reverted to a sour face.
“Good work.”
Oh-yul cooled Ho-woo’s sweaty forehead with his cool hand and briefly glanced at the record sheet Cha Geon-woo was holding.
“Your skills have improved a lot.”
Ho-woo smiled shyly at Oh-yul’s praise. He had worked hard not to fall behind the other Guides, but praise makes even a whale dance, as they say, and it didn’t feel bad.
“When your skills improve more and you’re recognized as a Guide, let’s go sightseeing outside the city together.”
“…Is that allowed?”
Ho-woo’s eyes widened in surprise. Yet, a slight expectation showed in the faint blush on his face. Capturing that expression in his eyes, Oh-yul nodded lightly.
“Of course it is.”
Access to cities outside was strictly limited for non-Espers. Since it wasn’t a place one could just leave because they wanted to, everyone was curious about the world outside the city.
To satisfy that curiosity, the management corporation occasionally filmed the world outside the city and produced documentary-style videos to show in schools. Of course, the content wasn’t very beautiful.
The monsters swarming just outside the city and the attackers that could jump out at any time from the dense trees served to instill a sense of caution about the world outside the city.
Yet human nature tends to yearn for places they can’t go. The city they lived in was large. However, for those longing for freedom, that city was very small. There was bound to be a difference in feeling between not going out and not being able to go out.
“To go outside the city, you need to be much fitter than now and know how to protect yourself, so let’s work hard from now on.”
Ho-woo responded with a determined expression that he would do so to Oh-yul’s suggestion. Seeing Ho-woo’s enthusiastic response, Cha Geon-woo subtly poured cold water on it. Expectations should be moderate for greater enjoyment, and the outside was too dangerous to approach with just expectations.
“There’s nothing special outside the city. Just more and diverse monsters.”
Rabbit-like ones, dog-like ones, very diverse, he said, pouring cold water enthusiastically. Then he suddenly thought. Anyway, the one attached to Lee Ho-woo is that Oh-yul. Surely he could protect his own Guide.
So instead of pouring more cold water, he decided to give plausible advice.
“Is there anything you’re looking forward to outside the city? Or something you like?”
“Hmm…”
Ho-woo couldn’t easily answer that question. The sea, which he had wanted to visit the most, he had already been to recently. Although its appearance was a bit different from what he had expected.
“I don’t know.”
Despite the somewhat deflating response, Cha Geon-woo didn’t say anything special. Instead, after thinking for a moment, he brought up one of his own experiences.
“You know there are places where people lived before the monsters appeared, other than the city we live in, right?”
To his question, Ho-woo lightly replied, “I know.” The history of the city was a subject taught in schools. Though it wasn’t a long history, they left their fierce struggle as history to inform their children, and their children’s children, so as not to forget.
The current city was built by survivors who gathered after the monsters appeared. These things, whose origin and reason for appearance were still unknown, suddenly entered into a survival competition with humans.
At first, they were like mucus grotesquely clumped together in the shape of black flesh lumps, but they gradually grew larger by devouring living beings.
Unlike those that swallowed small mice, birds, and wild animals and hideously mimicked their appearance, those that swallowed humans gained a slight intelligence. People couldn’t defend the existing cities against the increasingly cunning enemies and the endless onslaught of monsters.
They were pushed back again and again. The survivors gathered as much as possible into one city, and that’s how the current city came to be. Though called a city, it was an autonomous state and became a prison that could never be escaped.
“Go there once.”
“To the abandoned city?”
When he saw the documentaries shown at school, the abandoned cities seemed similar to the city they live in now. Ho-woo, who had thought it was just a space that became ruins because people didn’t live there, tilted his head at Cha Geon-woo’s suggestion.
“You’ll know when you go. I don’t know if you’ll feel exactly the same as I did, but most people feel similarly.”
Cha Geon-woo grinned meaningfully at Ho-woo, who still looked puzzled.
