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“You’ve seen enough memories. You know what needs to be done.”
Now that the paralysis had worn off, Yoon Tae-ha could finally see her surroundings. She was about to stand up when she belatedly noticed that only one of her boots was on her foot.
The place she had drifted to was a lakeside filled with incredibly fresh and clear air. There were no mountain peaks nearby, so the sky and the lake met like shadows, and gentle ripples constantly formed on the ice-cold surface of the water. The fields surrounding the lake looked peaceful enough for small animals to lie down and nap without fear of predators.
Yoon Tae-ha, distantly taking in the surrounding scenery, suddenly checked her belongings. First, the belt pouch she always wore was gone. It must have been swept away by the water. Counting the items she used to keep in the pouch, she sighed softly.
“The stone...”
“There are stones here too,” Amducias interjected abruptly. The horse nudged a pebble by the water with its hoof. But she was talking about the stone Cheon Geon-yeong had retrieved for her from Acheron Lake.
If I had known this would happen, I would have put it in a safe. Regretting it belatedly was useless; the stone, imbued with memories, had already sunk to the bottom of the lake. There was no way to find it.
The voice recorder, and the elixir and pistol given by Cheoltan, were also gone. It was unclear whether they had been lost here or at Nox’s lair.
The only things left were the Changcheon’s broken wristwatch, which was no longer functioning, and the ring on her right index finger. That was all. She felt so empty, it hurt inside.
Yoon Tae-ha, completely destitute, even threw off her remaining boot. It was difficult to wear because its side had been torn open by Kali’s attack. Nox, who had been observing her movements, noticed the woman’s bare feet and turned his body away.
“Where is this? Is it even the Green Sea?”
Yoon Tae-ha took out a handkerchief, which had miraculously remained in her pants pocket, and began to tightly wrap it around the wound on her ankle.
“Just try to tell me I’ve dimension-traveled or something.”
“Lethe. The beginning and the end.”
“Lethe,” she murmured softly, tying the knot. Since she only had one handkerchief, she had no choice but to protect her more painful right ankle first. Just then, a wrist guard plopped down in front of her.
“Take it.”
Yoon Tae-ha looked up at Nox. He, too, was wearing a torn cloak. He looked a mess. Just by that, it seemed he hadn’t easily shaken off Kali. She gratefully took the item he offered and put it on her ankle. Her ankle bone was so sensitive that even the brush of soft grass was unbearable.
“The sword you plunged into my heart. You didn’t plunge it to kill me, did you? Because at the last moment, the sword seemed to turn into foam.”
“It was a means to remove Kali’s curse. It has the side effect of stopping the heart, but it’s good for blocking black magic. It was to remove any potential brainwashing.”
“Side effect of stopping the heart?”
As her voice slightly rose, Amducias intervened between them as if to mediate, as if telling them not to fight in such a peaceful field. Kuakua had climbed Yoon Tae-ha’s arm and was curled up on her shoulder.
“This being is a different life form from you.”
However, contrary to Amducias’s concern, Yoon Tae-ha had no intention of arguing with Nox at all. She was too exhausted for that. After roughly attending to her ankle injury, she leaned forward towards the lake to wash her hands.
Yoon Tae-ha dipped her hands in the cold water and obsessively washed them for a long time. When about half of the bloodstains had disappeared, Nox spoke. His blunt voice mixed with the lapping sounds.
“For Kali’s curse to have a powerful effect, the subject’s mental barrier needs to be thinned. What did you hear from the serpent just before I arrived at the tower?”
“She said I was a chimera. That I wasn’t human, but a fake grown by Gaia in a culture medium. And that Espers were friendly to me because I was unconsciously using radiation guiding.”
“Keep telling me everything you remember.”
“Words like ‘precious specimen.’ Foreigner’s blood, dimensional traveler’s blood, and hybrid.”
She remained composed even after uttering the insulting words herself.
“Do you believe the serpent’s words?”
“At first, I wondered, but not anymore.”
Yoon Tae-ha, having washed away the bloodstains, met Nox’s gaze.
“If I were a chimera, you wouldn’t be leading the conversation as humanely as you are now. There would be no need to show me the past unnecessarily. And could a chimera even see what you showed me in the first place?”
Nox’s expression subtly changed. It seemed she had chosen the correct answer.
“Chimeras have no souls. They also lack the vessel to read fragments of memory.”
“I knew it.”
Upon hearing her reply, Nox stepped away from the water and began walking somewhere. Amducias nudged Yoon Tae-ha’s back with his muzzle, as if urging her to follow. Kuakua was already perched on the horse’s head. After briefly looking at the very comfortable-looking hamster, the horse seemed to notice and offered,
“Would you like to ride?”
“Thank you for the offer, but I can walk. I shouldn’t get into the habit of riding on others’ backs.”
“I can understand why the unfortunate creatures in the forest fear you. There is spirit.”
Amducias praised her. But she couldn’t even manage a polite smile.
“There are people waiting for you.”
“Do you have news of anyone else?”
Yoon Tae-ha couldn’t hide her excitement at the possibility of hearing news of others. It felt like months since she had seen her teammates. Especially with Cheon Geon-yeong, it felt like an incredibly long time since they had met.
“There are words you need to hear before you go out into the world. You too, Crow.”
Nox, who had been walking across the field, turned around. As their gazes focused on him, Amducias nodded his head up and down and then delivered a startling fact.
“While you were at the bottom of the lake. Summer passed in this land.”
Yoon Tae-ha, who had been trying to regain her composure, gaped foolishly. She was speechless for a moment. The simple sentence wouldn’t process quickly and spun in her head. It had definitely been spring when she arrived at Acheron.
“So much time has passed?”
“By human standards, quite a bit seems to have passed. Go to the city and ascertain the situation.”
Yoon Tae-ha knew better than anyone what Ark called missing S-class agents. Even the fact that the end for most missing agents was not good.
A gentle breeze blew from the edge of the field. But her heart began to pound unpleasantly fast.
________________________________________
That night, the two arrived in Cocytus. Nox easily performed several teleports. Thanks to him, she was able to enter the city with only a slight bout of motion sickness. They didn’t go directly to the Phlegethon camp because they didn’t know what variables might have arisen.
The atmosphere in Cocytus was unusual. It wasn’t exactly known as a peaceful city to begin with. When guilds quarreled, loud shouts easily erupted, and the alleyways were filled with people giggling as they injected unauthorized drugs—it was an underground city. But the city center’s atmosphere was exceptionally rough and tense.
Pedestrians on the sidewalk seemed to walk as if worried that the person walking towards them was an assassin hired to kill them. The illegal drug dealers, who had been as brazen as the flashy neon signs, had disappeared without a trace.
Occasionally, shrill screams could be heard from the alleys, but no one turned their head in that direction. The air of hope and dreams that had blossomed in the lax free city seemed to have vanished.
“The atmosphere is strange,” Yoon Tae-ha sensitively read the changed air.
“Everyone seems worried about getting caught. This was a neighborhood where many people did business defiantly, even when Ark tried to regulate them seriously.”
They first went to the Black Lion’s building. What Yoon Tae-ha expected was a lit building and the sight of Cheoltan’s face rushing out to greet her as soon as she rang the doorbell. His relieved expression and Margo’s nagging. And perhaps even Lev’s faint cries. She missed everything.
But standing in front of the Black Lion’s building, Yoon Tae-ha could only wear a crestfallen expression.
“It’s empty...”
The building was deserted. Not a single window was lit. The entrance was firmly sealed with a padlock. At a glance, it was clear the occupants had left.
Nox stood in front of the locked door, leaving the crestfallen Yoon Tae-ha behind. He quietly chanted a small spell, unlocking all the locks without making a loud sound. Opening the door, he called out to Yoon Tae-ha.
“If you stand outside in that state for too long, you’ll get caught in enemy surveillance.”
Yoon Tae-ha, with a face as pale as a ghost, hurriedly followed him inside the building.
In the corridor, a carrier with a broken corner and a moving dolly with a missing wheel lay pathetically. It was clearly a hasty packing job. Yoon Tae-ha momentarily forgot Nox’s presence and rushed to the room where she often had meetings with Cheoltan, opening the door.
Inside, only desks and chairs remained. The next conference room was the same. Only the desk with expensive hologram equipment was in disarray; the rest of the furniture was untouched.
“Cheoltan!”
Yoon Tae-ha went to the central lounge and loudly called Cheoltan’s name, hoping for his gruff voice in return. However, no one answered her call.
“Margo! Mr. Yoo Jin!”
Thinking they might be hiding in an emergency shelter, she shouted into the ventilation shaft, but only inhaled a lot of accumulated dust. Yoon Tae-ha coughed. Just then, Nox signaled from the opposite end of the corridor for her to come.
“The armory is open.”
She quickly ran towards it. As Nox said, the armory door was slightly ajar. Holding onto a thread of hope, Yoon Tae-ha stepped through the steel door only to face empty display cases.
“The items are gone. They must have taken everything important.” Nox said plainly.
“There’s nothing here.”
Finally, Yoon Tae-ha examined the area around the waist-high display case directly in front of her. It was where Cheoltan had personally given her a pistol.
Kneeling down and searching for any differences, she finally found a small indentation. It was a deliberately made mark.
“No. There’s something here.”
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