Chapter 228.
“What a nasty liquid.”
Mancas thought he had heard wrong when he heard the voice from behind.
But as if to prove him wrong, the beautiful voice that sounded almost unreal echoed again from his back.
“So, what were you trying to do with that?”
“Hmph!”
Mancas turned his body without hesitation and swung his dagger coated with deadly poison.
He smiled wickedly as he felt the familiar sensation of piercing human flesh on his palm.
“I can confirm it by your actions now.”
“…Huh?”
But the woman who looked like the embodiment of beauty itself looked at him indifferently, even though the dagger was stuck in her neck.
“How dare you.”
Mancas felt his heart sink as he noticed the crimson eyes that were slit vertically, like those of a reptile, glaring at him.
“How dare you try to harm him…?”
“Ugh…!”
Minerva quickly reached out and covered Mancas’s mouth with her palm.
He reflexively shot a spell at her and tried to break free from her grip, but everything was just a futile struggle.
“Shh… He’s sleeping soundly after a long time. I don’t want to wake him up, so keep your mouth shut.”
Despite his jaw being crushed with a thud, Mancas couldn’t make a sound.
No matter how hard he screamed, only silence came out, as if she had done something to him.
“…!”
In that brief moment, Mancas pulled out another dagger and stabbed it down towards Yoo Ji-hyuk.
It was not a deliberate act, but more like a desperate flail.
But his last attempt was easily blocked by the huge tail that came out of Minerva’s body.
“…! …!!!”
Mancas tried to get away, but he couldn’t.
Before he knew it, most of his lower body was buried in the shadows.
Minerva swayed her tail silently.
She didn’t care about Mancas, who was flailing to escape.
She only stared intently at Yoo Ji-hyuk, who was breathing evenly.
“By your actions just now.”
Minerva gently smoothed his tousled hair and smiled contentedly.
“Your fate has been decided.”
If he had stayed still, she would have played with him a bit and melted him into a handful of blood.
As Mancas was gradually sinking into the shadows, Minerva opened her mouth quietly.
“Svengali, I already know everything, so don’t bother me.”
[…What’s going on?]
As if he had no choice, Svengali showed himself from Yoo Ji-hyuk’s right hand and spoke with a trembling voice.
“Look into his mind. I have a guess, but I need to know his background in detail.”
Minerva raised her finger and added a spell.
“While you’re at it, make his senses more sensitive, but don’t let him die easily.”
[As you wish, just like that.]
Svengali grumbled, but he soon began to take over Mancas’s mind.
He tried to resist, but Svengali was able to grasp his mind in the blink of an eye and find out the information that Minerva wanted.
[He’s a member of the Association, a foster. His real name is Barov Wigo. He received a favor from Yun Seul-hye, another foster, and crystallized her magic. He mixed her blood and fluids to make a special narcotic liquid, and came to inject it into Yoo Ji-hyuk’s body. Looking back on his memories, I see that the people who were addicted like that all turned into Yun Seul-hye’s puppets, and died within a year from withdrawal symptoms, or from their bodies rotting away. Also…]
“That’s enough. You always babble on about things I don’t want to know.”
Minerva waved her hand as if she didn’t care.
“In short, he was targeting him, right?”
[Yes.]
“That’s enough.”
Minerva said that and looked down at Mancas, who was now only showing part of his upper body and head.
“My name is Minerva.”
She smiled faintly, and her appearance was surreal.
“I’m the one you boasted about exterminating, the very Seven Evil Species.”
“…!!!”
Mancas instinctively knew that she was not lying.
When he tried to swallow the poison he had kept in his mouth for self-destruction, he heard a horrible voice scraping metal from the side.
[I messed with your head so you can’t do anything stupid like that.]
Then enjoy yourself.
With that, Svengali hid himself again, and Minerva tilted her head as if she didn’t understand and stared at Mancas.
“Why are you making that face?”
Her crimson eyes that were torn vertically looked at him.
“Didn’t you proudly announce that you killed me? It’s no big deal to kill me again, so go ahead and try.”
“…! …!!!”
As he was almost buried in the shadows, he blinked his eyes madly and screamed silently, while Minerva whispered to him.
“You’ll regret not stabbing your own neck with that dagger earlier.”
A little later.
When she confirmed that he was completely buried in the shadows, Minerva glanced at Yoo Ji-hyuk.
She felt relieved to see that his body was recovering, and she also slowly disappeared into the shadows.
The room was as quiet as if nothing had happened.
***
A dull alert sound rang and a window popped up in front of his eyes.
[The seed of the World Tree has broken its shell and opened its eyes!]
The seed of the World Tree that he had planted in Yun Seul-hye had finally awakened.
If he gave it some more time to grow, he would be able to share what she saw and heard.
It would take at least half a day to form properly, so he barely made it in time.
Ding.
“Huh?”
[An unknown energy is detected in your body.]
[The excess energy is absorbed by the branch of the World Tree!]
[The branch of the World Tree is activated!]
[The branch of the World Tree increases your body’s recovery speed and magic regeneration speed temporarily!]
“…What?”
He tilted his head slightly at the incomprehensible alert.
Excess energy?
I had no memory of ever encountering anything that could be called excess energy.
I lay back on the bed, unable to think of anything that could explain it.
Well, it must be a good thing.
As I rubbed my eyes, feeling tired, I felt someone touch my shoulder.
“Ji-hyuk, you look like you’re feeling unwell.”
“Uh, no… it’s nothing.”
I gave a bitter smile at Choi Hyun-woo’s playful question, which also contained some concern.
“I just had a bad dream. But it was so vivid that I still feel weird.”
“A bad dream? What was it about?”
“A dream of someone I don’t even know running away.”
“Not you?”
I nodded at his question.
“It was a stranger. I wasn’t the one running away… The surroundings were dark and I couldn’t see anything, and no matter how much I ran, there was nothing but empty space… And that person kept begging for their life, saying they were sorry, while running away from something.”
“Hmm…”
He groaned, as if he sensed something ominous, and I shook my head vigorously.
“It was so realistic that I still feel bad.”
“I think I know why that is…”
“Really? Why do you think that is?”
Choi Hyun-woo glanced around.
Jin Ye-seul and Han Soo-Young hadn’t arrived yet, he confirmed, and leaned closer to me and whispered.
“Do you know that Sooyoung and Ye-seul know about what happened yesterday?”
“What?”
“That, you know. When Yoon Seolhye approached you and Yuna when you were alone.”
“…How did they find out?”
Yuna wouldn’t have told them.
She wasn’t the type to do that, and she even asked me not to tell anyone else.
‘Did Ye-seul spy on us with her shadow?’
I dismissed the thought that popped into my head.
She couldn’t have been hiding in my shadow.
We found out the last time we went into each other’s shadows, that you can’t miss it if someone is in your shadow, because you feel a peculiar sense of discomfort.
Then what the hell happened?
As I was lost in thought, Choi Hyun-woo tilted his head.
“Because she came to us first before she went to you.”
“What?”
“She asked us where you were. And she casually said that those two were interested in you.”
“…”
Did she want to die?
My thoughts must have shown on my face, because Choi Hyun-woo smiled as if he knew.
He looked like he was resigned to everything.
“It was lucky that we were talking to the professor then. It may sound cruel, but it might have been a good thing for her that the incident happened yesterday.”
As he said, Yoon Seolhye didn’t come to class today.
I heard she left in a hurry with some people from the association who came early in the morning.
Well, it was understandable, given what happened.
Thanks to that, everyone in the academy seemed to be busy talking about the development and Yoon Seolhye everywhere they had time.
Even the professors were often seen discussing it.
“Well, I guess it makes sense.”
Choi Hyun-woo muttered behind me, pushing the wheelchair with delicate movements.
“The association has been promoting and advertising themselves lately, and the corruption and dirty side of their main figures, starting with the development, which was their representative, was exposed. Among them, there were some big things that made me rethink the place called the association…”
He sighed lightly.
“I don’t know what’s what these days.”
There were countless emotions in that short sentence that I couldn’t fathom.
“One after another, things that I couldn’t even imagine before are happening… The things that I used to admire look different now… I don’t know what to say, it feels like I’m just drifting along with the huge wave.”
“…”
I couldn’t say anything.
His words made me close my mouth without knowing it.
Choi Hyun-woo, it was rare for him to show me his feelings and thoughts honestly like this.
His inner self, which had been hidden and revealed, was not something that could be dismissed lightly.
As I became serious with him, he suddenly chuckled and tapped my shoulder.
“By the way, who would believe it? That you fought and survived against those seven evils three times.”
“Hey, Hyun-woo. Don’t say that outside…!”
I looked around in surprise, and he answered as if to reassure me.
“It’s okay. There’s no one around.”
He said that and muttered in a strangely relieved voice.
“And what should I say… Um. I wasn’t going to say this, but. I’m not very good at talking about this kind of thing, so I can’t say it properly. Anyway, what I wanted to say was this.”
“…”
“I’m not that oblivious… I know you’re hiding something from us, and I know you’re watching us a lot. To be honest, I’ve known since before and we’ve talked about it, right? That… Minerva, was it? I felt it more urgently after fighting with those seven evils.”
The wheelchair moved smoothly without any noise.
After a while, he gave a sheepish laugh.
“This doesn’t suit me… Anyway, what I wanted to say was this.”
The wheelchair stopped and I felt him lean on it.
And I could also tell that he was choosing his words very carefully.
“I’m sure the others feel the same way, but I have a lot of fun being with you. So don’t feel sorry or watch us like that.”
He laughed out loud, as if he was really embarrassed.
“Oh, that’s gross. If Sooyoung or Ye-seul heard that, they would have kicked you for sure.”
I lifted my arm and showed it to him.
“…You’re right. You were so disgusting just now. I wanted to jump out of the wheelchair and run away. Can you see the goosebumps on me?”
“Kid, you’re talking like that when I’m trying to cheer you up.”
He laughed even louder, as if he was hiding his embarrassment.
And as if it was contagious, I soon found myself laughing with him.
And then I realized that I was really relying on him and the people around me.
“Ah, there you are.”
A man appeared with a languid voice and a relieved expression.
It was none other than Lev Dunkinson.
“President?”
“Hey, don’t be so formal. Just call me senior.”
Lev Dunkinson.
He was the student council president of Orhe Academy, and he scratched his head and looked at me and Choi Hyun-woo alternately.
“Uh, so… can you spare some time? I can buy you some coffee.”
He sniffed his nose.
“As you know, Ji-hyuk, I have something important to talk to you about.”
It’s about the association.
He shrugged his shoulders, looking sincerely annoyed.
