Chapter 120 - Resolve (1)

It swallowed her.

The water dragon engulfed Hecate before she could attack. Squeezing out the last of my strength to give that order had paid off.

Brow deeply furrowed, I maintained my control over the enormous creature.

Go back into the sewer.

But after the water dragon raised its head skyward, before it could plunge back into the sewer, a sharp burst of light and sound stabbed at my senses.

BOOOM!

Damn it.

Sylvia.

The bomb she had thrown struck the water dragon. It writhed with a piercing shriek.

Fortunately, the blast hadn't punched a hole through it.

Scales fell away and blood flowed, but its hide held firm. It wasn't called Leviathan for nothing.

The water dragon didn't stop.

Rather than turn its head to attack Sylvia, it twisted around to flee into the sewer. I gritted my teeth and held on to my control.

Hurry up and get in there! Disappear!

RATATATATAT!

Leviathan's eye exploded.

Fluid gushed out, its scream battering my ears. I whipped my head toward the source of the gunfire.

"Yun."

And there was my training officer, standing atop the giant's corpse. He was pulling the trigger, his aim fixed squarely on Leviathan.

Fragments of mineral creatures and heaps of dead wolf creatures surrounded the giant's body.

Come to think of it, this was the first time I had seen my training officer fight creatures.

His uncanny skill at driving bullets into the water dragon's mouth the instant it opened left me awestruck.

SKREEEE!

"Not enough firepower."

Sylvia had come up beside me without my noticing. She whispered as though to herself.

"It's going to get away."

Her assessment was accurate.

Leviathan obeyed my command faithfully. Despite one of its human-head-sized eyes being brutally blown apart and its tongue riddled with holes, it managed to thrust its head into the hole in the asphalt.

Scales filled my vision once more as it disappeared into the sewage with a rush of water.

SPLASH!

Spraying water everywhere, it returned to where it had come from.

Once I confirmed that the creature had escaped into the sewer with my kin in its belly, I raised my head.

Sylvia raised hers as well.

"Did you tear off a piece of your flesh to lure it out?"

She flipped her visor up with a click and looked up at me with vivid blue eyes.

"Maybe they're so desperate to eat you because you taste good."

"Haha. Who knows?"

"Hildebert."

As I answered her quietly, Yun called my name.

He really did move without a sound.

I turned toward my training officer, who was suddenly at my side.

"Yes?"

A hand seized my throat.

Yun dragged me away roughly. My breath caught, but I couldn't resist. Half strangling me, he headed toward a building that was still standing, completely ignoring Leonard's encouraging shout of "Don't go overboard!" and Sylvia's grumble of "Leaving me with all the boring ones."

THUD!

Yun kicked the door open.

CRASH!

Pain followed. A small groan escaped me.

Grimacing, I looked at the training officer who had slammed me into the wall. His bloodlust-laden gaze pierced my skin.

"I said I'd give you the chance to kill it. I never told you to save something we could have killed."

His sinister voice filled the desolate, abandoned house.

Even with his helmet on, I could feel his icy gaze.

"Is this betrayal?"

"No, sir."

"Insubordination?"

"No, sir. I'm sorry."

"It didn't chew up that Titan. It swallowed it whole and ran, didn't it?"

"Yes. I'm sor—"

My air was cut off.

Yun tightened his fingers, and I couldn't finish. Gasping for the oxygen I lacked, I stared at the man strangling me.

I had not the slightest intention of betraying them.

But I knew perfectly well how this could look like betrayal.

Only when I began to think, 'I'm really going to suffocate at this rate,' did Yun loosen his grip.

"Cough, cough!"

"At least try to make an excuse."

His low voice was murderous.

Wheezing painfully, I raised my head.

"I swear I'll kill her myself."

"When? Next time? After it's done even more damage?"

"I'm sorry."

"Don't let yourself be swayed by worthless sentiment."

Jerry Jones called urgently for Yun over the communicator, but we both ignored him.

Yun tightened his fingertips again.

"If you ever do this again, I'll kill you."

"Yes, sir."

"You don't want to see it die at human hands, do you?"

"No, sir. I was foolish and selfish."

"Your circumstances are none of my concern."

Yun was right.

"Don't make Yehyeon regret choosing you."

My air was cut off again.

I stood still without resisting.

My breathing grew ever more labored. My vision dimmed.

This man had an uncanny sense for the exact moment before someone drew their last breath.

"Cough, ack!"

"Well, it's obvious you'll keep being stubborn even after a warning like this."

He released me just before I passed out.

"If you were some nobody, I wouldn't have cared whether you let it go or not."

I had no strength to answer his muttering.

Reflexively clutching my throat, I gulped down oxygen. I greedily sucked in the cool air like someone who hadn't eaten in three days.

My vision was a blur.

Within that narrowed field of view, I caught sight of him walking toward the door.

Coughing with the taste of blood in my mouth, I watched Yun return to the battlefield. He headed out of the building as calmly as though he hadn't just been strangling me in a rage.

"Come on out."

Even his next words carried no trace of anger.

"We've got to clean up after those useless idiots."

My senior disappeared from view.

Silence descended, leaving me alone. In that chilly quiet, I gasped for breath and tried to pull myself together. I knew I should move immediately, but I simply couldn't. I had lost a fair amount of blood from the wounds Hecate had inflicted and exhausted my strength controlling the creature. And then Yun had put me through that.

I felt as though I would pass out the moment I relaxed.

Leaning against the wall, I caught my breath, then scraped together what little strength I could.

I moved on feet as heavy as a corpse's.

"Ah."

And there were my useless seniors.

They were all but hiding behind the three psychopaths.

"Seniors."

"Hilde," Isaac said.

I had no strength to answer, so I merely blinked. After several blinks, my blurred vision cleared.

The battlefield looked decidedly different now.

The fighting was still going on, but whether because Hecate was gone or thanks to my seniors' efforts, the firepower had diminished considerably.

At this rate, we could probably clear the area before reinforcements arrived. Especially with those three energetically slaughtering everything that remained.

There didn't seem to be anything left to clean up.

With that thought, I walked toward the useless ones standing behind their competent seniors.

They had tossed their empty guns onto the ground and were panting, but raised their heads as I approached. I pointedly ignored how they opened their mouths to lecture me, only to close them again at the sight of my wounds.

"You've lost a lot of blood too, Hilde. Just like me..."

Lucia, who looked the least injured of the lot, murmured weakly.

"I'm dizzy from losing so much blood..."

"Your wound still hasn't closed."

Isaac murmured as he examined my abdomen.

"So that's what they mean by slow healing. Come here. It'll only be a stopgap, but I'll stop the bleeding."

Why did Yun dislike Isaac?

He seemed the most decent one of the lot. Granted, he had been quick to flee from the giant, and he was hiding behind those lunatics even now. But neither action was entirely incomprehensible.

Still, I had no energy to puzzle over that now.

I staggered over to Isaac, and he fastened my wound shut with something resembling a stapler.

My left hand was free again.

"Thank you."

"Don't mention it. You really do look awful, though."

Isaac frowned as he examined my wounds from different angles.

"We'll have to send you back first. I'll help you walk when it's time, so you can relax."

Ah...

He seemed to be doing this because he wanted to go back first himself.

When he insisted on coming over to support me even after I said I didn't need it, my suspicion became certainty. His repeated assurances that he would get me back first only confirmed it.

But whatever his motives, he was helping me now, so I decided not to take offense.

I might as well rest until everything was finished.

I leaned my weight on my senior and voiced my thanks.

Then I didn't move a muscle until Yun, Sylvia, and Leonard stopped shooting.

* * *

The reinforcements arrived not long after the three sociopaths had brought the situation under control.

"We're late."

Naturally, Richard Green was at their head.

"Good work."

A stream of familiar faces followed.

Choi Ami. Riccardo Sordi. Jonathan Kudo. William Walker and Aki. Jason Tvein was there too. I recognized every face as they climbed off their motorcycles en masse.

Apparently, only the very best had come.

I was told that most of the Badgers in Area B-5 had returned.

It seemed only the highly skilled, and only the uninjured among them, had come to reinforce Area 7. Sector B was dangerous even with a squad of Badgers present, so most had returned to headquarters through a portal as soon as their mission was complete.

Perched on the rubble, I listened to the explanation and looked at the familiar faces.

Despite Yun's explanation, they only relaxed after scanning the surroundings once more.

"What's happened to him this time...?"

That was the first thing Riccardo said after taking off his helmet.

I smiled bitterly at my senior's incredulous stare.

"I've still got a long way to go."

"Have you had a transfusion?"

Ami no longer startled or screamed.

Instead, she hurried over, produced a syringe of blood, and injected it into my arm.

"With a wound that big, I don't know if you can make it back through a portal..."

Did that matter?

I knew nothing about portals (or had remembered nothing about them), so I didn't fully understand what Ami meant. But I didn't have the strength to ask.

Instead of answering, I merely met her eyes and gave her a faint smile.

I kept my mouth shut after that, too.

I remained silent even as Jonathan Kudo ambled over to Riccardo, who looked as though he was barely restraining the urge to lecture me.

I stared blankly at the brightening sun.

Until Richard Green gave Yun a brief account of the situation.

Of what had happened in Area B-5, where they had been.

"We came under an attack that split the ground open."

I sprang to my feet, unable to spare any attention for Ami's startled reaction.

"It was something like a white shock wave. We haven't identified what launched the attack yet."

Kyle.

Richard's brief description was enough for me to know who was behind the attack.

That attack had come from Kyle.