Chapter: 04
I reflexively shut both eyes and frowned, and a moment later, a thunderous crash loud enough to split my eardrums rang out.
“Ugh…… My whole body already aches, and I almost went deaf in both my eyes and ears.”
I pressed my hands against my ringing ears after the thunderous lightning strike that was completely out of place beneath the blue sky.
Perhaps because I had looked directly at the intense light, my vision had been damaged, and I could barely see anything.
‘What? I really haven’t gone blind…… right?’
I rubbed my blurry eyes and waited for my vision to return.
Fortunately, it seemed my corneas hadn’t been damaged, because the whiteness clouding my vision gradually began to fade.
I let out a sigh of relief and, squinting my aching eyes, looked toward the field where the lightning had struck and where the black smoke had been concentrated just moments ago.
Black smoke was billowing from the ground there, dark enough to make the green grass beneath it look pale by comparison.
There had been smoke there earlier as well, but unlike the smoke that had consisted of eyeballs, this was genuine smoke caused by flames.
‘First the monster tears people apart, and now lightning strikes out of a clear blue sky?’
This was driving me crazy.
Hadn’t I definitely succeeded in getting a job and been on my way to my new workplace?
Had I somehow fallen asleep on the bus and reincarnated into another world?
I shouldn’t try to understand it.
But when one impossible thing after another kept happening, ridiculous thoughts naturally began circling through my head.
‘If lightning was going to strike anyway, couldn’t it have struck five minutes earlier?’
As I blankly stared at the place where the eyeballs had burned away, accompanied by the acrid smell of smoke, a stupid thought crossed my mind.
Five minutes.
No, if it had struck even two minutes earlier, wouldn’t there have been at least a few people who could have survived?
‘Haah. Things are so bizarre that I’m starting to have nothing but bizarre thoughts.’
If people could survive depending on a difference of a few minutes, then they would probably still be alive now.
I pushed those pointless thoughts out of my head for a moment, then crossed my arms and frowned, unsure what I should do next.
All the security personnel were dead.
The new employees who had come with me were either dead or missing.
I didn’t know whether Principal Researcher Ji-seok or the personnel manager was dead or had managed to escape either.
What was I supposed to do in a situation like this?
‘Contact headquarters? No, should I search for survivors first?’
I wasn’t particularly altruistic, but given the circumstances, I felt that searching for survivors should take priority.
You know, there are procedures for what ordinary people are supposed to do during disasters.
I wasn’t sure whether those rules actually applied to someone like me, but still.
Just as I made up my mind and was about to walk around and search the area—
‘Huh?’
A mass of disheveled, shaggy hair suddenly filled my field of vision.
A moment later, the hem of his clothing came down and touched the ground.
His eyes, sharp and yellow like those of a bird of prey, possessed an unusual light.
“You!”
At my voice, the man who had been looking toward the place where the lightning had struck flinched in surprise.
A look of disbelief appeared in the yellow eyes directed at me.
He asked me,
“You. Where did you come from?”
“Pardon? I’ve been here the whole time.”
His gaze clearly said he couldn’t accept my answer, but that wasn’t what mattered right now.
“You’re the fox man who was on the building, right?!”
“……Fox man?”
“Ah.”
The unexpected appearance of someone I had seen before caused me to instinctively grab him by the collar.
I realized belatedly that it was a rude thing to call him, but there was no way to take back words that had already left my mouth.
Hmm. How should I fix this?
‘Technically, I was just stating a fact, so do I even need to fix it?’
Of course, South Korea had that strange law concerning defamation through stating facts, so I probably shouldn’t just bluntly state facts like that.
But this wasn’t really defamation, so wouldn’t it be okay?
Anyway, his eyes were really yellow and clear, almost as beautiful as jewels embedded in them.
Color contact lenses must have gotten incredibly advanced these days. The color looked so realistic.
His hair, illuminated by the sunlight, was a warm brown like autumn leaves.
If he properly tidied his hair, he would probably be astonishingly handsome.
He was that handsome, and his cosplay was so high-quality, so why was his hair like that?
Was his character originally supposed to have messy hair?
It seemed like a waste to leave it all disheveled.
Perhaps because the immediate crisis had passed, I felt much more relaxed.
All sorts of pointless thoughts began popping into my head.
Yet thinking about these trivial things somehow made the fear caused by the chaotic situation subside somewhat.
Although I had said something rude, the words had already been spoken, and it wasn’t as though I had said anything seriously offensive.
I could simply apologize sincerely.
“I’m sorry for suddenly saying that. I think I saw you earlier at the Hwain Group building.”
“You saw me?”
“Yes. Around…… nine o’clock? You were at Hwain Building, right? I remembered you because you were so handsome.”
As I greeted him in a friendly manner, his yellow eyes narrowed.
Oh.
With his eyes narrowed like that, he looked even more like a fox.
“Are you an employee of Hwain Group? I was supposed to start working today too, but something terrible suddenly happened.”
I pointed toward the place where the lightning had struck.
His gaze fell upon the burning clearing.
His eyes remained there for only a moment before he looked back at me.
“A tremendous monster appeared here just a little while ago. You’re incredibly lucky to have arrived only now.”
“Just now, too…… Aren’t you an ordinary human? How are you still alive?”
How am I still alive?
That’s exactly what I wanted to ask.
I shook my head in response to the fox man’s question.
“I don’t really know. Maybe it couldn’t see me, because the monster just passed me by.”
“…….”
“At first, I thought it was a smoke monster, but it turned out to be a monster with about a hundred million eyes the size of flies, you know?”
I exaggeratedly hunched my shoulders, and the fox man silently crossed his arms.
Even I thought perhaps I was being overly friendly.
But standing stiffly and silently next to an equally stiff man in a blood-soaked clearing would be mentally exhausting in several ways.
It was much better to play the role of a bright, oblivious character.
‘Besides…….’
This fox man was definitely the person who had disappeared after falling from the building earlier.
I couldn’t even say for certain that this man wasn’t a monster himself.
While giving him a friendly smile, I raised my smartphone and continued speaking.
“Anyway, what should we do now? Should we search for survivors first?”
He didn’t answer my question.
I had no choice but to continue.
“Before that, shouldn’t we report this to the police? We witnessed a murder scene, after all.”
I didn’t know whether the police would arrive in time, but if they did come, they would at least be someone I could rely on to some degree.
I was just about to press the call button after naturally laying the groundwork for contacting the police when—
“Hwiryeong. What are you doing? And who is the woman next to you?”
A high, thin voice characteristic of a young child rang sharply across the chaotic field filled with the smell of blood and burning.
It was a voice that absolutely shouldn’t have been heard in a place like this.
I reflexively turned my head.
A girl with long black hair braided down her back was walking toward us with small, steady steps from beyond the forest.
Judging from her black hair and appearance, she looked completely Korean.
But her eyes were a vivid green, as fresh as summer foliage.
The fox man beside me, and this little girl too……
Everyone’s eyes were incredibly vivid.
“What are you doing here, Gyeon?”
“What do you think? I came to capture the escaped specimen, didn’t I?”
“The escaped specimen was burned away by your lightning strike, wasn’t it? And besides, aren’t you forbidden from leaving the research institute?”
“Ah~ It’s an emergency. The contract says saving human lives comes first, doesn’t it?”
“Your supervisor doesn’t seem to think so.”
The fox man…… the man called Hwiryeong…… tilted his head toward the research institute as he asked the question.
The girl called Gyeon turned her gaze toward the research institute.
A moment later, I also turned my gaze in that direction.
Several researchers wearing white lab coats were running toward us at incredible speed.
Seeing them, Gyeon clicked her tongue.
“Damn it, now I’m going to get caught because of you.”
“Didn’t you say you came here to capture it?”
“Don’t nitpick my words, you damn fox!”
Hmm…… that’s strange.
Wasn’t what the fox man said perfectly reasonable?
Why was she getting angry?
If she was angry, didn’t that mean she was admitting that she had escaped?
Questions filled my head, but naturally, I didn’t say any of them out loud.
Hwiryeong apparently didn’t think her response deserved an answer either.
He simply reached out, grabbed Gyeon by the back of her neck, and threw her toward the approaching researchers.
And then he threw her……
Huh?
“W-Wait…… How can you throw a child?!”
“Does that look like a child to you?”
“She obviously looks like a child?!”
I instinctively scolded him for such an unreasonable act of throwing a child.
But when I thought about it calmly, ordinary children didn’t live in research institutes.
There wouldn’t be a rule saying that they weren’t allowed to go outside either.
More importantly, an ordinary child couldn’t summon lightning.
If that was the case, then did that mean this girl only looked like a child on the outside?
‘Am I too stupid to keep up with what’s happening?’
No matter how hard I tried to follow the situation, I simply couldn’t keep up.
‘Well…… it seems like the dangerous situation has passed, so I guess that’s enough for now.’
For the moment, I thought it was more important to gather information about the current situation.
