Why didn’t I notice it earlier?
That this place is dangerous.
Why was I so at ease?
The moment I saw Dylan’s face, I realized how much I had let my guard down.
Normally, even if Third and Luke had said something, I would have felt something odd at the entrance and would have been on high alert. Why didn’t I?
Originally, Yerna was the type to be cautious about such ‘facilities’ without reservation.
Because of past experiences, even if I didn’t want to be, I would automatically react that way.
It was nearly a psychological trauma.
But right now, I felt no sense of vigilance at all.
I have no idea why…
Tadat, I rolled to absorb the impact and redirect the force safely to land.
However, my arm hurts a bit. I might have scratched it.
“……”
When I turned my head, there was a body in a rather gruesome state.
Well, unfortunately, it seems this person couldn’t gather their wits soon enough to roll.
Yerna glanced up to see the broken window.
From a height of about 10 meters, I saw Dylan looking out, pointing and shouting noisily.
It seems he will come over soon.
Yerna immediately dashed across the central garden to escape from their sight.
A lone individual must not reveal their location easily when dealing with a group.
Hiding my position, forcing the enemy to search, and then diminishing their numbers is a simple logic, but rather difficult to execute in reality.
One mistake is akin to walking a tightrope.
To begin with, a lone individual has no choice but to be at a disadvantage, so it’s just about creating even a slight chance.
The moment I’m surrounded or trapped, any lingering possibility of victory vanishes completely.
If I were alone here, I would have immediately fled to the forest to gain control over the area, but I cannot do that now.
The reason, of course, is Luke, who came with me.
‘Luke, where did he go?’
Having to both escape and search makes things incredibly difficult, but more problematic is…
In that moment, the door burst open, and three people rushed out.
“This way!”
“Push them down the central corridor!”
“Damn, was there such a door?”
It means Yerna had no idea about the structure of the building.
But instead of panicking, I squeezed forward first.
With a bang, I landed a blow to the abdomen without hesitation.
Even though I hadn’t reinforced my body with magic, it was enough impact to injure a small monster.
The force was sufficient to crush the innards of an ordinary person.
“Ugh—!”
However, perhaps due to the magical protection on his body, the blow didn’t subdue him.
It was enough to make him lose his center of gravity, though.
Yerna immediately grabbed the man’s calf and twisted her body to pull.
No matter how much the body is reinforced with magic, weight cannot be increased, and he was helplessly lifted off the ground.
“Uh?”
With his foot extended, he was now hanging in the air.
With wide eyes in shock, a sharp elbow, fully infused with rotational force, came into his view.
“Ugh…”
In an instant, he fainted from fear.
‘What, what was that? What did I just do?’
The faces of the two watching the scene lost color.
What they witnessed was the moment when a person flew and then plunged into the ground.
So, after a brief moment of closing their eyes and reopening them, the image of their companion, lying on the floor with broken teeth, came into view.
Before the shards of the broken teeth from the man who had just been struck down even hit the ground, the distance between him and the two, still regaining their senses, was measured.
A distance where grabs or joint locks could not reach, but…
‘My feet should reach just fine.’
After that, the last scene the two remembered was the rotating coat tails and the heel driving into the neck.
——–
“Are you still mad?”
“……”
“I’m sorry, I’m just a bit too curious……. Haha, kids are all curious, right?”
“Kid, be quiet.”
“Ugh…”
Luke mumbled quietly, looking at the still anxious Py beside him.
‘It seems like he’s really angry.’
-Yeah…
The emotions within his voice contained a visible rage, easily recognized even without effort from Luke.
It isn’t unreasonable to be angry since he tried to touch private property without permission.
“Still, frowning like that doesn’t make you look like a good person. Come on, try smiling like before.”
Luke looked at him with a light smile.
The man, staring blankly, couldn’t help but think.
What on earth is this kid?
Beyond being fun, this was now becoming bothersome.
Can someone be this clueless? Or is he a psychopath?
The man could no longer hold it together.
“Chattering, just shut up, kid!”
“Ugh. You don’t have to shout all of a sudden.”
But the kid merely flinched his ears for a moment, then smiled and replied quickly.
It was driving him crazy.
“Why do you keep smiling?”
“Because a smiling face is nice to others, isn’t it?”
Smiling and making expressions is a form of courtesy.
Thus, as a child of an influential noble in the past, Luke learned how to create a natural smile and can use it freely.
Therefore, Luke’s answer is this.
‘Because I can.’
Being positively perceived by others generally helps in relationships.
“Stop smiling, it’s annoying!”
“Hm. If that’s what you say.”
Luke immediately tightened his expression.
It was as sudden as flipping a palm.
The man was taken aback by the sudden change of expression.
‘What the hell is this kid?’
“Oh, but I really want to say this to you.”
With a suddenly expressionless face, the kid faced him, and for some reason, the man felt an odd sense of pressure, causing him to momentarily panic.
Panic? Am I panicking over such a little kid?
Not wanting to admit it, he responded a bit loudly.
“What, what is it, kid?”
“You should choose your words carefully. Also lower your voice. If the person listening gets upset, then the conversation can’t go on, can it? Even if the other person is such a kid.”
“……What?”
The man’s expression was both genuine worry as if he truly cared, and an indescribable anxiety, as if he were facing a massive entity, at the same time, rendering him speechless.
Then a moment later, that feeling was completely erased.
“Isn’t that right? Then please keep that in mind and continue to guide me. I will really be quiet now.”
What on earth just happened?
“……Okay.”
In this job, I had never felt such a mood before.
It’s clear that I’m the one in charge of this situation.
So why do I feel like I’m being led along?
It’s ominous.
——–
After a while, we arrived at a dim room that felt like a prison or a warehouse.
I could feel no human presence.
Moreover, there were various iron cages and restraints that seemed to have been used to trap animals.
“Hmm… It seems a bit dirty for a kid to be here.”
“It’s been unused for a while.”
“Hmm, is that so?”
-Strange—!!!
Py yelled from beside me, but Luke tried to think positively.
People naturally only see the bad parts when they want to.
If I try to understand this somehow, it’s not incomprehensible.
Surely the poor management he mentioned is a result of not being used much.
It seems that the playroom is currently being used as a warehouse since the children haven’t been coming.
Since the owner here said they dislike children, it must have been a natural sequence for the playroom to stop being used…
‘Yes, perhaps… that is so.’
Luke was using his deductive skills to defend his adversaries.
He had experiences of blunders from hasty judgments in the past.
He had thought a simple bandit group was just that, only to find out later that they were merely a group of refugees instead.
And, look.
What kind of bandit these days would wear such neat uniforms?
They must clearly be proper staff.
“Here, just go inside and wait a moment. I’ll be back soon.”
“Hmm… Okay for now.”
Luke nodded and, after entering the room and sitting on a suitable chair, the man who guided him locked the door and left.
Locking the door, well, it’s not meaningful for me, but it’s common for a child to get lost and find themselves in trouble…
While he was again showing understanding, Py suddenly shouted as if he could no longer hold it in.
-Luke is an idiot! Idiot, idiot, idiot!! Fool!!!
“……”
With repeated ‘ding-dong’ sounds. Luke briefly covered his ears with his hands.
It was difficult to adapt to that resonating noise whenever it sounded.
“Enough, enough. What on earth is the problem?”
-That, blood–!!
Py flew toward a restraint device in the corner and shouted.
“That’s… probably for an animal.”
Luke’s gaze momentarily wavered.
Indeed, blood was a little dried up, but it wasn’t unusual for an animal restraint device to have blood on it.
Animals often scratch or move violently to escape restraints, causing injury.
So this too could be understood.
It was a common tool and scenery seen in regular laboratories.
-Blood!! Strange! Completely strange!!
“Hah… I understand. I get it.”
Luke reluctantly stood up and dusted himself off.
“Then, let’s use that blood to read the soul. If it’s not human, let’s stop here.”
-Okay!
Py seemed to agree with that proposal, nodding vigorously.
——-
“Wait a minute… A girl? What the heck…”
-Name, unknown! She’s dead.
“What do you mean?”
A dead girl?
This is certainly strange.
The soul is the form once detached from the body, meaning it usually remains fixed in the state of when it died.
So if the soul I can read from this blood takes the form of a ‘girl,’ it means that this child is ‘still’ a child, or that she is dead.
However, the name, which a spirit like Py can’t read, likely indicates… that she no longer belongs to the material plane. Thus, it means she has died.
It was disconcerting.
Does that mean this facility is not a typical one?
However, if it was something belonging to a slave, it wouldn’t necessarily be a problem to contest it, but didn’t they say that slavery had long since been abolished in this era?
Or perhaps it could have been the mark of a restraint meant for the child’s treatment?
Had I seen the corpse itself, I could have inferred the cause of death, but this was insufficient.
And above all, what troubles me the most is that no harm has come to me yet.
Moreover, I haven’t received any contact from Yerna.
Honestly, in modern times, there aren’t many people who possess the strength level like hers. Just a few minutes ago, didn’t she easily subdue those burly guards who were trying to stop her?
In an age where a simple and excellent real-time communication tool like a cell phone exists, the absence of any contact sounds like there is no problem at all, doesn’t it?
Have they committed any violent acts or threats against me? No, that’s not the case.
Have I witnessed any acts of violence or illegality with my own eyes? No, that’s not it either.
If that’s the case, has any concrete evidence (such as bound slaves or corpses) been discovered, apart from circumstantial evidence that changes with perspectives? No, that hasn’t happened either.
Then, have they harbored thoughts of taking any items from me? No, that’s not it either.
They haven’t done any harm or committed any wrongful act at all.
Hence, this could be a case of misunderstanding.
For some reason, the circumstances just happened to align so that there’s a misunderstanding caused by obvious circumstantial evidence, while my current abilities make it too ambiguous to take action against them.
Thus, Luke couldn’t unequivocally label them as ‘villains.’
There was always a possibility of a ‘mistake.’
Certainly, if he exerted his powers, it wouldn’t be very difficult to completely eradicate this facility.
From the moment he entered the facility, all of his powers had already been analyzed. The only thing that bothered him was sensing a disquieting flow of mana, but even that was actually suspicious.
‘But what if that’s just for simple experiments?’
No matter how much I understand 4th-class magic, my knowledge about the magic of this era is limited to what has been made public.
What if this flow of mana is merely the result of experiments conducted secretly in a research facility?
Unlike the past, he didn’t have the ability to make mistakes ‘nonexistent.’
So he had no choice but to be as cautious as possible.
Even if it was undoubtedly a criminal unworthy of association, he was aware that taking a life was still a clear sin.
However, sensing something definitely odd, he needed to get in touch with Yerna.
“I suppose I should contact Yerna first.”
He picked up his phone and dialed the number.
The ringing sound went off, and Luke waited.
However, Yerna didn’t pick up.
‘She’s not answering. Could it be that she’s in a situation where she can’t take my call?’
For her, not answering a call from him was strange.
Seeing Luke’s subtle expression, Py exuberantly proclaimed,
-It’s definitely strange!
Yes, this time Py was absolutely right.
It was honestly difficult to keep trying to look at things positively.
“Okay. When he comes back later, let’s ask him properly.”
If it truly was a misunderstanding, it might be a little, no, it could be a very regrettable situation for him.
But Py, who could no longer bear it for a moment, screamed.
-Idiot!!!!!!!! Idiot, idiot, idiot!!!
“Ugh…”
Luke clutched his ears as he sat down.
It was incredibly noisy…
