Cha Sahyeon’s shadow, which had been standing like a wall, rounded out. The shadow turned into a dome shape and protected the S-ranks from the poisonous mist.
Inside the shadow that wrapped around them, Eun Woojeong spoke blandly.
“See? I told you we should just kill her.”
“Shut up.”
Cha Seohu snapped irritably.
Startled by the unexpected situation, Cha Seohu forced himself down into a cold calm and thought.
‘...We can’t kill her.’
He hadn’t expected the woman to counterattack ✧ NоvеIight ✧ (Original source) like this, but even so, his decision didn’t change.
Spiderweb’s head had to live. She had to live so they could find out since when she’d been cooperating with those cult bastards, and who had ordered her not to kill Eun Woojeong. Even the reason they’d ordered her to keep Eun Woojeong alive.
‘That syringe. What’s inside....’
The syringe’s surface had been covered in black, so he couldn’t check what kind of liquid it contained.
But the woman’s altered state, the intense energy he could feel, and the green tint spreading through her white hair—everything pointed to one thing.
Cha Seohu’s mouth twisted.
‘You fucking cult dogs.’
Even the woman using the syringe was probably part of their plan.
When Cha Seohu fell silent, Eun Woojeong shrugged.
“Then what do we do? You’re still trying to keep her alive when she looks like that? Setting determination aside, even if you just look at the odds, it’s hard, isn’t it? Cha Seohu, even your amazing little brother can’t handle her right now.”
At those words, Cha Sahyeon’s brow creased slightly, and he spoke in a hard voice.
“I can handle her.”
Cha Sahyeon shot back sharply, then glanced at Cha Seohu and added.
“But it’s not easy to restrain her. I’m not alone in here.”
If he were alone, restraining Spiderweb’s head would have been manageable.
But right now, there were people he had to protect. Cha Seohu, of course—and the other S-ranks too. Because that was what Cha Seohu wanted.
Killing her was much easier.
No matter how strong her energy had become—similar to his—it was still just the effect of an unnatural drug made by cult research.
She couldn’t beat him, who was born with pure energy.
Like when he stopped Eun Woojeong earlier, if he spread shadow through the entire room and snapped the head’s breathing line in an instant—or swallowed her whole—then it would be over.
But restraining wasn’t that simple.
You had to press down and pin a resisting opponent, and in that process, a fight inevitably broke out. In a cramped room, blocking dozens of hair strands whipping around wildly while protecting five people was hard.
And there was even poison strong enough to melt S-rank skin, so Cha Sahyeon couldn’t give a clean guarantee.
“......Hyung.”
Cha Sahyeon called Cha Seohu in a slightly crestfallen voice.
No matter how hard it was, hyung’s opinion came first. Whatever decision his hyung made, he would follow it with everything he had.
“Hunter Cha Seohu.”
Beside him, Kwon Taehyuk also waited for Cha Seohu’s decision, gripping his blade.
Cha Seohu, who had stayed silently quiet even as the conversation went back and forth, slowly closed his eyes—then opened them. Under the blond hair, his black eyes shone with firm resolve.
“...Keep her alive. No matter what.”
“Hah. Seriously, hyung?”
Kwon Seoyul, who’d been standing there with his arms crossed, let out a hollow laugh.
“How the hell are we supposed to keep a crazy woman alive when she’s whipping poison-coated hair around?”
“We have to keep her alive and find out.”
It was too easy to kill her for comfort. The head knew too much.
Having made his decision, Cha Seohu looked around at the S-ranks and spoke.
“I’ll give you buffs. And my holy power is an area skill, so while you fight, I’ll keep using heals and purification. Even if the poison is strong, my holy-power skills are S-rank too, so it’ll give you strength to endure.”
Ignoring Kwon Seoyul sighing and shaking his head, Cha Seohu continued.
“Top priority is restraint. If we don’t want the damage to get worse, we have to restrain the head as quickly as possible. After that... I’ll try purifying the drug’s effect, or knocking her out, or whatever we can do.”
“Understood.”
The first to answer was Kwon Taehyuk. He nodded readily, like he’d guessed from the start that Cha Seohu would make this decision.
Cha Sahyeon also answered with a simple “Yeah,” with no particular complaint.
Cha Seohu’s buffs and purification skills—if the other S-ranks fought while receiving those two, it would definitely reduce what Cha Sahyeon had to worry about. That alone lightened his burden.
Yoon Jeha, who had been watching, didn’t refuse either. He’d been on Eun Woojeong and Kwon Seoyul’s side, saying the head should be killed, but he understood well why Cha Seohu was forcing himself to keep her alive.
“Fine. If it’s come to this, let’s drag her out and squeeze every last scrap of info out of her.”
Starting with Yoon Jeha’s confident words, Cha Sahyeon changed his shadow.
The black shadow that had created a safe zone transformed into dozens of black birds. Keeee—letting out sharp cries like warnings, the birds charged the head all at once.
In the opening created by blocking the woman’s sight and throwing her into confusion, Cha Seohu grabbed Kwon Taehyuk’s hand to give him a buff.
That was when—
“Khk...!”
A scream that pierced the ears rang out.
A painful, choking groan. Everyone’s gaze snapped to the head.
“H-huh...?”
Where the black birds retreated, the woman was staggering there alone.
Her pale face was soaked in cold sweat, and her wide eyes trembled as if she was flustered.
Thud, thud.
The hair that had been raised near the ceiling and swaying threateningly began to fall to the floor.
It wasn’t the woman’s will. In an instant, the dry, brittle hair snapped in the middle over and over and fell down. The thick poisonous mist that had filled the space also vanished without a trace.
“Her energy....”
Kwon Taehyuk murmured softly. Cha Seohu felt the same thing.
The head’s energy, which had been so strong and dense it was almost comparable to Cha Sahyeon’s L-rank, shrank again. No—kept shrinking. From S-rank to A-rank, then down to around B-rank.
There was no way she wouldn’t notice that naked change herself.
The head, panicking, turned deathly pale and ran her hands over her own body.
“N-no... no. This is... something’s... wrong....”
Panting like she was in a panic as she muttered, the head suddenly bent forward sharply at the waist.
“Kuheok!”
Reflexively, she covered her mouth with a hand. And then blood erupted from her mouth.
A huge amount of blood burst past her fingers and soaked the floor. It kept pouring out, like she was spilling every last drop of blood in her body.
Trembling with her waist bent, the head soon collapsed with a thud into the pool of blood she’d thrown up.
As the screaming stopped, a cold silence fell.
Everyone, including Cha Seohu, stood frozen and stared blankly at the head.
“What... the hell....”
Yoon Jeha murmured in a trembling voice.
This time, even Cha Seohu could only move his lips—he couldn’t force out a single word.
“Ha....”
He’d tried to keep the head alive.
That’s why he’d made a somewhat reckless decision, risking danger, and decided to restrain her with his teammates’ lives on the line.
And then—
What was this?
With a horrific sense of powerlessness crawling up from his ankles, Cha Seohu finally forced his body to move.
He had to save her, somehow. That alone remained like an obsession in this empty, insane situation.
Swallowing the rage rising up to his throat, Cha Seohu strode forward and stopped in front of the head lying collapsed.
And quietly looked down at her.
The woman lying in the bright red pool of blood didn’t move a single inch. No spasms, no breathing—nothing.
Only a single line of tears slid down from her hollow eyes.
Standing before a corpse that was already dead, Cha Seohu felt a deep exhaustion.
‘...So this was part of the plan too.’
Handing the head a syringe filled with suspicious liquid.
They must have predicted she’d use it on herself if she were cornered.
That cult knew it. If Spiderweb’s head—who’d been cooperating with them for so long—was captured alive instead of dying, there would be too much information she could spill.
With a hollow feeling, Cha Seohu let out a deep sigh.
Then someone approached him. Eun Woojeong.
Eun Woojeong stood beside Cha Seohu and looked down at the head. His biological mother, who hadn’t died by her son’s hand and instead had destroyed herself in the end.
No particular emotion rose on Eun Woojeong’s face. If anything, he looked even plainer than Cha Seohu did.
Staring coldly into his mother’s empty eyes, he slowly bent down. His gloved hand went to her neck.
A necklace hidden under her clothes. Grabbing the blood-soaked necklace, Eun Woojeong lightly snapped the chain and took the small pendant hanging from it.
That was it. Eun Woojeong no longer paid attention to the head’s corpse and turned away.

Comments

Loading...