Translator: miraclerifle
“Is this yours?”
Chloe was currently in the northernmost tip of Canada. It was where the train that Yoo Jaeha had created had stopped.
She had escaped while avoiding Ju-Heon and Seol-A’s gazes and was trying to grab a cab to go to the airport.
But at that moment...
“Hmm.”
She was blankly staring at the rope she had met around the station.
She probably found it interesting that a rope was carrying a rock and waiting for the light to turn green to cross at the crosswalk.
Of course, the rope was also tilting its head in confusion as it observed Chloe.
Why?
It was because she smelled a nice familiar scent on Chloe. It was oddly the same as Ju-Heon’s scent.
In addition, her long wavy black hair, white skin, sharp nose, beautiful lips...
And her light blue eyes that sparkled like jewels were extremely beautiful.
Other people might think that her gaze was a bit cold, but it didn’t seem that way to the rope.
Maybe that was the reason.
“This is yours, right?”
The rope happily accepted the stone Chloe handed it.
This was the artifact to turn it into a human.
[#$&#!]
Thank you, thank you!
But at that moment...
Tap!
“Alright, we got a big one!”
Someone suddenly grabbed onto the rope.
[!]
The rope started to squirm in shock like a snake, but the man was laughing.
“It looks like a trashy artifact but it is a big fish indeed. Chloe, you did good.”
The rope started to huff and choked the man.
[#$&!]
I'm not a trashy artifact! No!
The rope was an S-Grade artifact after all.
The rope's eyes soon flashed and it tried to activate its BDSM rope harness knot.
However...
[!]
The rope suddenly lost all strength as the man squeezed its body.
“My goodness, this thing is quite energetic.”
[.........?!]
What’s going on? What’s going on?
The rope was quickly able to figure out what had happened.
The gloves. It was certain that the Divine-Grade artifact gloves that the man was wearing had caused this.
The man grabbed the rope as if it was a snake and spun it around as he snickered.
“Anyway, Chloe. Let’s use this one to capture the Monarchs as well.”
They then called a cab and as the man was about to force the rope into the cab...
Flash!
“Huh? "W, what the?!”
There was a flash and something shocking had happened.
"W, what the hell...all of a sudden... aaaaaah!”
The man suddenly screamed.
It couldn’t be helped as a kid bit the man's forearm and ran away.
“Hold on...!”
The kid’s hair that was long enough to drag on the ground was the color of white snow and although it was covered by the kid’s hair, this kid seemed to be naked.
The man who was shocked at this tried to grab the child out of reflex.
“Hey! Stop right there! If it can change into a human, that’s definitely at least an S-Grade...!”
The man quickly started to move.
However...
“Ugh!”
The man fell down. It was because someone had tripped him.
“Shit, what the hell are you doing Chloe?!”
Chloe, who was sitting on a chair, nonchalantly responded.
"Sorry. My legs are a bit long. Forgive me.”
“......?!”
The man glared at Chloe in disbelief.
“You let that kid go on purpose, didn't you!”
“No?”
“No my ass! Why would you let an artifact that walked in on its own......plop!”
The man's face slammed into the snow once again. Chloe had tripped him once more.
“Hey! Chloe!”
Chloe just clicked her tongue as she got into the cab.
“You should really look where you’re going.”
“Ho.”
‘That bitch.’
The angry man got into the cab as well and started to speak.
“Ah, whatever! Did you hear about it? TKBM is looking for you!”
“What do they want?”
“Chairman Kwon. Remember how he was stuck in a tomb because of Seo Ju-Heon? They need someone to heal him.”
“Really? That’s an interesting job offer.”
The man was shocked at her unexpected response.
“Huh? Are you interested in Chairman Kwon? Weren’t you interested in Seo Ju-Heon?”
Chloe slightly sneered at him.
She was definitely interested.
Was it because he was the most famous artifact user right now?
No, that wasn’t it.
‘Déjà vu.’
Chloe had recently met a woman who uses a spider artifact.
She had been having nightmares since that day.
They were so bad that she would vomit.
‘What the hell is that dream?’
She was inside a terrible tomb she had never seen before and looking at some people dying in there. Seo Ju-Heon had appeared in that dream.
‘His age was different but that was definitely Seo Ju-Heon.’
Of course, there was no way that she would know that that was the Crow's tomb, the tomb where she, and the rest of the tomb raiding team, had met their demise.
But the pain had felt real. She was angrily shouting something at Seo Ju-Heon in that dream.
‘I'm going to kill you... I'm going to kill you.’
She was saying that as if she was going to throw up blood in anger.
Chloe didn't know the full contents of that dream. That was why she had just come up with a hypothesis based on what she had seen.
‘Seo Ju-Heon might be an enemy.’
She was already someone who had a grudge against artifact users.
Although she didn’t know who was responsible for it, someone had taken the children she was taking care of at a Pediatric Clinic and turned them into mediums for experiments.
Their excuse was that they were creating healing artifacts. But all it did was create zombies.
‘I'm certain one of the current Monarchs was responsible for it.’
She went to look for an artifact user who could decipher dreams and Seo Ju-Heon had surprisingly been the name that came up during the fortune telling.
The fortune telling was one thing, but there was also her dream.
That was why Chloe had decided to meet with Ju-Heon.
She wanted to meet with this man who might be a bitter enemy.
‘I'll have to get rid of him if he really is the enemy, but...’
“I'll head to Chairman Kwon for now. He should know a lot about Seo Ju-Heon since they have a terrible relationship with each other.”
The cab started to move faster through the snowy road.
At the same time...
There was a child who was hiding while wearing a tarp from a construction zone.
This wasn't an extremely young child in kindergarten or elementary school. The child’s hair was long enough to cover the child's whole body.
The child had hair that resembled the sparkling snow and clear eyes that resembled the sunset.
The child, no, the rope, looked around nervously.
It had ended up activating the artifact to turn it into a human, but......
[The Witch's Mermaid to Human potion from the Little Mermaid (A-Grade:Treasure-Grade - Consumable Artifact)]
- Remaining Uses: Immediate Effect
That was right. The rope had turned into a human. It turned into a human using the same potion the mermaid princess used! Set had recognized it and stolen it from the worm's bag.
Of course, the clam-shaped potion artifact was protesting to the rope.
[#$#&!]
Why did you use me without permission?
Why did you use me?!
The clam was angry that the pearl inside had disappeared.
[#$*&!]
Do you want to get in trouble? Do you want to get in trouble?
The rope was whining and extremely apologetic as the little mermaid artifact bit the rope’s head and body in multiple places.
‘I'm sorry, I'm sorry.’
Of course, it could not speak. This was the Little Mermaid artifact after all.
But the Little Mermaid artifact screeched and continued to shout.
[#&$#$!]
Whatever, but do you know what the hell you just did?!
It did know. It also knew why the Little Mermaid artifact was being this angry.
[#$&#!]
Four days, just four days! You’re done for if the humans don't recognize you in that time! You’ll turn into bubbles, bubbles!
The clam was so angry that it looked as if it would cough up blood. It was understandable as an artifact could use it to turn into a human, but that artifact would lose its abilities. It’s artifact aura would also disappear, making it impossible for anybody to think it was an artifact.
[#$&#$!]
Do you know that?! You’re in a serious situation right now! Do you really think those bastards would recognize you?! You’re really going to turn into bubbles! Do you want to die?!
But the rope didn't care about the risk. All it wanted to do was to meet with Ju-Heon in its human appearance.
It was at that moment.
‘!’
The child smiled brightly after seeing a familiar face.
It was because it saw Ju-Heon, Yoo Jaeha, and Seol-A coming out of the hotel.
‘Master!’
“Chloe is in an NGO? She’s part of an Anti Terrorists’ group?”
[Yes, that was what my brother told me.]
Ju-Heon was on his way to meet Irene who called to tell him that she had arrived in Canada.
It was because she came bearing good news.
‘But why Anti Terrorists......’
That at least made it understandable why she suddenly slipped away like that. They preferred not to be seen.
‘It is about time they appeared I guess.’
The creation of an artifact-centric society where artifacts were considered the norm... The Monarchs and monopolizers were a sort of rulers in this era.
Everybody tried not to mess with the hegemony of the era, but there were bound to be factions of people resisting it. There were people trying to return the world to how it used to be before the artifacts had appeared.
They were the Anti Terrorists. These groups were groups that even the Monarchs hated to their guts.
‘They are people who are trying to destroy all artifact users and tombs.’
They were hunters who either hated artifacts or used artifacts to destroy other artifacts to achieve their goal.
‘I guess that was what she was doing during this time.’
He had no idea how an artifact user murderer ended up being lured in by Chairman Kwon and entered a den full of artifact users in TKBM.
‘No wonder I couldn't find any traces of her.’
Yoo Jaeha said something at that moment.
“I don’t know who that Chloe girl is, but isn't she part of a dangerous organization? She would probably be aiming for you as well because you are a Monarch, Captain-nim. Why do you want to meet with such a person... Anyway, is she pretty?”
"She’s pretty.”
“Then of course you should meet her. You must absolutely meet her.”
Seol-A sighed. Chloe had been one of their team members in the past, Julian had said the following.
‘The Captain probably can't sleep well, can he?’
‘Uhh... probably.’
‘He doesn't seem to have tomb syndrome as he did in the past, but that bastard is someone who uses multiple Divine-Grade artifacts when other people struggle to use even one. There’s no way his body is okay because of the risks. It’s probably best to take him to a doctor for an exam.’
She would bring Chloe in front of Ju-Heon even if she needed to beat her up to bring her here. As Seol-A's eyes viciously flashed...
Something round suddenly ran over and jumped into Ju-Heon’s arms.
“Ugh!”
Ju-Heon groaned and fell down in the snow after suddenly feeling something big fall into his chest.
“C, Captain-nim!”
"Are you okay?! W, what the hell?!”
They anxiously tried to pick up the thing that had attacked Ju-Heon. The rope was just smiling brightly in joy after meeting with Ju-Heon.
‘I found him, I found him!’
The rope tightly clenched Ju-Heon's head.
It was hugging his face so tightly, as if it was trying to suffocate him to death.
Ju-Heon was about to suffocate but Yoo Jaeha, who couldn't watch this any longer, stepped in.
“Hey hey hey hey, you dirty girl, who the hell are you? Where did you come from? Huh? Are you trying to kill our Captain-nim?!”
Yoo Jaeha tried to pull off the rope that was covered in rags.
"Captain-nim, are you okay?!”
“Hey hey, Seol-A, call the police. I think this beggar girl was trying to steal Captain-nim's money.”
Yoo Jaeha tried to forcibly pull away the girl who was stuck to his Captain-nim as if she was a piece of gum.
“Who is this girl? She looks so pretty. Is she from around here?”
None of them even considered that this girl was an artifact. The rope had no choice but to be forced away from Ju-Heon.
The rope struggled and tried to get to Ju-Heon again.
‘I'm going to be hugged, I'm going to be hugged.’
It’s fine to hug him since I'm human now. It’s fine.
The rope sniffled as she was dragged away to the police station.
It didn't matter that she couldn't talk or that the humans didn’t recognize her. It didn't matter if that would make her disappear in four days because of the artifact’s risk.
Even if Ju-Heon didn't know it was her, as long as she could be by his side...
"Alright, I said follow me!”
Ju-Heon got up at that moment.
“Hey hey, Jaeha. Let her down for a bit.”
“Excuse me?”
Ju-Heon was looking at the rope’s face.
