I switched on my smartwatch and dialed a number I’d saved for emergencies.

A moment later, a man picked up.

“Hello.”

“Good evening, sir. This is Nam Yein from Class 1-B.”

“Nam Yein? What’s going on at this hour?”

“We’ve found a red-haired girl in front of the Academy.”

“…What?”

“She has silver fur on her arms and legs.”

Three seconds of silence followed.

“What’s her condition?”

His voice had dropped.

“We talked her down from attacking us. She seems to have exhausted herself and passed out.”

“All right. Yein, take her somewhere out of sight. I’ll come get her at once.”

“Understood. I’ll message you the location.”

“Good. I’m counting on you.”

He hung up.

“Who was that?” Meiling asked.

“Your homeroom teacher.”

“Kim Sangsik? Why call him?”

“Because he knows Jodie. He said he’s on his way.”

“Shouldn’t we call an ambulance?” Seo Yui asked as she stood—impressive, considering Jodie had just tried to crush her.

“She’ll recover with time. More important is moving her where no one will see.”

“T-then… what about the hill behind the school?” Lumina glanced around nervously. Thankfully, at this late hour there was no one in sight near the Academy.

“Good idea.”

“I’ll carry her.”

Seo Yui hoisted the burlap-cloaked Jodie onto her shoulder. Keeping a wary eye out, we skirted the wall and headed for the back hill.

We waited about ten minutes in the dark, beyond the reach of the streetlamps, before a pair of headlights approached in the distance and stopped nearby.

“I’ll go down alone and make sure it’s him,” I said, turning back. “If it is, I’ll text you.”

“O-okay,” Lumina replied. Seo Yui nodded. Meiling, looking put out, was pinching her nose and covering her mouth with one hand.

I descended to the parked car. The driver’s door opened and a slim, bespectacled young man stepped out—Kim Sangsik. He wore a tracksuit instead of his usual suit. He must have rushed out.

“Where’s Jodie?” he asked, striding toward me.

“A little up the back-hill path with my squadmates. If I message them, they’ll bring her down.”

“All right. Please.”

I texted Lumina. Moments later, Seo Yui came down with Jodie slung over her back, the other two right behind.

“Everyone, get in,” Kim Sangsik said, gesturing to his car.

Meiling immediately took the front passenger seat. Seo Yui and I sat with Jodie between us; Lumina got the back.

He drove us to a neighborhood of single-family homes. As we approached a garage, the metal door folded up automatically. Seo Yui watched it with open curiosity.

His house was a two-story place with no yard.

“Come in,” he said, opening the front door.

“Um… your family…?” Lumina asked, hesitating.

“Don’t worry. I live alone.”

Both Lumina and Seo Yui looked startled. It was a lot of house for one person. Meiling, at a safe distance, looked unimpressed—as if this were hardly remarkable.

We stepped from the entryway straight into the living room. Kim Sangsik had Seo Yui lay Jodie on the sofa, then fetched a blanket from somewhere and draped it over her.

Feels like a set from a sitcom for a big family, I thought—display cabinet, sofa, TV, coffee table, carpet, the works.

“Sit for a minute. I’ll bring something to drink,” he said, heading into the kitchen.

“She’s still out,” Seo Yui murmured.

“She must be exhausted,” Lumina said, watching Jodie’s closed eyes.

“Yein. Start explaining,” Meiling snapped from a single armchair, arms folded. “Who is she, and what exactly do you know?”

“After the teacher joins us,” I said, glancing toward the kitchen. We couldn’t see him, but we could hear glassware clinking.

Soon he returned and set down glasses of vivid orange juice. Carrot juice, judging by the smell.

Amazing what survives the end of the world

Well, we still have sundaeguk too, I mused, taking a sip. The familiar aroma and sweetness filled my nose and mouth.

“I suspected as much when I saw Seo Yui had joined your squad,” he said. “So you were the one who left that note.”

I nodded. “Thank you for last time. Thanks to you, the Valhall raid went off without a hitch.”

Lumina, Meiling, and Seo Yui all stared at me in confusion.

“Yein, what are you talking about?”

“S-so the teacher was the collaborator who came to Valhall?”

“Was he now?”

“No. To be precise, I only relayed Yein’s message to Jodie,” Kim Sangsik corrected gently. “It was Jodie who went to Valhall that day.”

“I see…” Seo Yui turned to look at the unconscious girl.

“But what is she?” Meiling demanded. “Why are her arms and legs like that? She looks like a monster.”

“I’m not a monster!”

“Kyaa!”

The sudden shout beside her made Lumina jump and cling to me. Meiling, startled too, recoiled.

“I—I’m human!” Jodie glared at Meiling as she yelled.

“Jodie,” Kim Sangsik said quietly. She flinched.

“Cover yourself first.”

Her face flushed; she hastily pulled the blanket tighter around her.

“Then what happened to your arms and legs?” Meiling pressed, still arms crossed, giving Jodie a sideways look—trying a bit too hard to hide that she’d been startled. I nearly laughed.

“Why should I tell you?” Jodie’s tone had settled into something normal—clearly, her earlier outburst had been a loss of control.

“Jodie,” the teacher said, “they protected you when you collapsed and helped bring you here. There’s something you ought to say first, isn’t there?”

“…”

She lowered her head for a moment, then muttered, “Thanks for helping me.”

Lumina and Seo Yui both smiled. Jodie promptly lifted her head again, glanced at Meiling, and added, “Except you.”

“Why, you—!”

“Meiling. Calm down. We won’t get anywhere otherwise. Didn’t you say you wanted to know what’s going on?”

“…”

With nothing to counter that, Meiling huffed and pointedly looked away.

“Anyway,” she said, “how do you know about me and Jodie, Yein?”

Kim Sangsik’s eyes fixed on me.

Then Jodie too turned, her face taut with tension.

Of course. I’d expected this question.

“There are… several ways I could have known,” I said evenly. “But it wasn’t something I deliberately sought out. Call it information that just happened to reach me.”

“……”

Neither of them dropped their wary gaze.

Meanwhile, Meiling, Lumina, and Seo Yui all looked completely lost, as if wondering what on earth I was talking about.

Naturally—they couldn’t possibly understand. And I couldn’t exactly say, I knew because I played this game to death.

But to Kim Sangsik and Jodie, my words would sound very different.

“You don’t need to worry,” I told the teacher. “The Valhall incident should’ve proven this much—I have no intention of interfering with you or Jodie. On the contrary, if there’s any way I can help, I’ll cooperate.”

“…Why?” His eyes locked on mine.

“Because if they’re left alone, more people will suffer.”

Behind me came the sound of grinding teeth—Jodie’s jaw clenched so tightly it creaked.

“…So the others don’t know?” Kim Sangsik asked quietly.

“That’s right. For now, only me.”

“Do you intend to tell them? Even with Meiling here?”

“Me? Why me?” Meiling scowled.

“Were you going to tell us to just forget everything we saw tonight, sir? After bringing us all the way here?” I countered.

“Because the less you’re involved, the safer you’ll be.”

At that, Lumina’s face wavered with unease.

“Oh, for crying out loud! Enough—just spit it out already! Who is she, and what’s your real deal?!” Meiling shot to her feet, glaring.

Kim Sangsik sighed and looked to Jodie.

“Jodie. Is it all right to tell them?”

“…If they truly mean to cooperate, I don’t care. If they lied, we can always kill them later.”

She bared her massive right arm from beneath the blanket as if to prove it.

“That won’t do.”

“Why not?!”

“They’re my students. I shouldn’t be dragging them into this at all.”

“…Fine.”

She yielded without protest.

“Just to confirm—Meiling was part of the Valhall raid as well?” the teacher asked me.

“Yes.”

“…I see.” He paused, then spoke again. “Seo Yui.”

“Yes, sir?”

“The hunters in Valhall—didn’t they force the kids to take drugs?”

“Yes. If a child hesitated to fight, they’d feed them something that drove them savage.”

“And many of them awakened their abilities in the middle of those battles, didn’t they?”

Seo Yui’s eyes widened. “Now that you mention it—yes.”

“What? You can awaken powers with a drug?” Meiling blurted, stunned. Lumina’s jaw dropped as well.

“Yes,” Kim Sangsik said. “Though the ‘berserk rage’ you saw was just a side effect.”

I nodded. “That much, I knew too.”

“The true purpose of those drugs was to enhance awakeners’ abilities. Valhall was simply a testing ground, using abducted children as experimental subjects.”

“Lei Xin was behind that?” Seo Yui murmured, shaken.

“No. Lei Xin was just a subcontractor. The real hand behind the drugs and Valhall’s role in testing them… was Forward.”

That name hit Lumina and Seo Yui like a thunderclap.

“Hmph.” Meiling only crossed her arms, unimpressed. “Sounds like exactly the kind of thing Forward would do. So that’s why you kept staring at me?”

“…I didn’t want to suspect my student,” Kim Sangsik admitted, “but I had no choice.”

“Then get this straight now. I may have been born the daughter of Forward Magic Engineer president, but I cut ties with him. I have nothing to do with Forward anymore.”

“…I see—”

“You’re the daughter of Forward’s president!?”

Too late, I realized what she’d just revealed.

Jodie bared her teeth, eyes blazing as she lunged.

“Wait!” Kim Sangsik shouted, but she was already airborne.

“Meiling!” Lumina screamed.

“Ah!” Even Seo Yui wasn’t fast enough this time.

The sofa crashed backward as Jodie slammed into Meiling.

“You were with Forward—I’ll never forgive you!”

“Did you even hear me?! I said I cut ties! I’ve got nothing to do with them!”

“And I’m supposed to believe that?!”

“Ugh, seriously! Get off me! And you stink like hell—it’s disgusting!”

Ah.

The room froze solid.

Lumina and Seo Yui’s faces twisted awkwardly. They must’ve realized it too—just as I had, though none of us ever said it aloud.

The truth was… yes, Jodie reeked. And now Meiling had blurted it out.

“U-ugh…”

Jodie froze, her massive right arm lifted mid-swing. Her entire face, ears and all, went scarlet.

“Jodie,” Kim Sangsik said in a low voice. “If you don’t get off her right now, I can’t continue working with you.”

“……”

At last Jodie pushed herself back, still flushed to the roots of her hair.

“Here.” Seo Yui quickly held out the blanket. Jodie snatched it and wrapped herself tight.

“…Sorry,” Kim Sangsik said, offering Meiling a hand up.

“Hmph.”

Meiling ignored it, standing on her own.

“I know it’s difficult,” the teacher said heavily, “but please try to understand Jodie’s reaction. She’s a victim—her body was stolen from her by Forward’s experiments.”

Meiling’s eyes widened, snapping to Jodie.

“……”

Head bowed, fingers gripping the blanket’s edge, Jodie said nothing.

(End of Chapter)

If you find any errors ( broken links, non-standard content, etc.. ), Please let us know < report chapter > so we can fix it as soon as possible.