Chapter 6: The Things Left Unsaid.

It was something that happened several years ago.

After losing Arcel, Seo Jin once took the risk and continued to go in and out of the depths of the contaminated area. In order to rescue Yunia, the test subject of the top-secret research institute located there and the protagonist of the original ‘Aegis Project’.

That was originally Arcel’s role. She should have taken care of the child brought from the contaminated area herself and become a teacher who taught her good ideals and a strong heart.

But that destiny was twisted. It was all Seo Jin’s fault.

Therefore, Seo Jin stepped up to rescue Yunia himself in order to fix his mistake. Of course, it was never easy.

But in the end, he succeeded.

[“Let’s go together. I’ll protect you safely. I promise.”]

It took a considerable amount of time. He risked his life to cross the outside of the defense line, and was able to find and rescue the targeted child.

However, the person Seo Jin rescued at the time was not only the protagonist.

There were several missing people he found while exploring the contaminated area, including Allied forces who had been left behind, psychics who had failed their missions, injured people, or civilians who had been trapped in the intermediate zone without being able to evacuate. Seo Jin didn’t turn a blind eye to them either.

The reason was simple. The original Arcel would have certainly done so. If she was still alive, she would have helped and saved even more people. Even the fact that such good deeds could not be done… was all but Seo Jin’s responsibility. It was close to the minimum atonement.

One of the people he rescued like that was Linesha.

A trainee psychic girl. An accident had occurred while she was recklessly carrying out a highly dangerous mission, and she had failed to return. Seo Jin, who happened to be passing near the defense line, helped her, and that was the beginning of their relationship.

However, Linesha was not an ordinary girl. She was the direct descendant of the owner of ‘Apelberry Company’, a huge military company that was one of the top three in this world. When it was revealed that she was the chairman’s third daughter, Seo Jin was surprisingly not very surprised.

Because ‘Linesha Apelberry’ was originally a character who appeared in the original game. He had long recognized her at first glance since they first met.

Furthermore, she was a character who survived safely even at the time of the game’s main story. Knowing that fact, Seo Jin didn’t really think he had saved her, and he didn’t want to receive excessive compensation.

However, whether his selfless attitude stimulated something again, from then on, Linesha lingered around Seo Jin even if she had to insist on it.

After going through this and that incident, before he knew it, she was calling him Teacher together with Yunia, who was about the same age.

That was something that happened several years ago.

It was a time that was like a distant memory now.

But……

At the glaring gaze, Seo Jin swallowed the emotion mixed with embarrassment.

The appearance of the girl standing in front of him, no, the woman who had grown up so much that she could no longer be called a girl, was quite unfamiliar. Not only her appearance but also her atmosphere….

The old Linesha was a girl who smiled brightly and followed whatever he said well.

But the face that was looking at him now was just silently glaring at Seo Jin with a sharp expression as if all emotions had disappeared, as if he would be cut by her gaze.

He was suffocated just by that, and barely managed to open his mouth first.

“…..It’s been a while, Linesha.”

“Ha-“

The ridicule came back right away.

Linesha closed her eyes for a moment as if she was cooling down some emotion, and then opened them.

And she muttered in a far-off voice.

“Do you think I came all the way here just to hear those words…?”

She took another step closer to Seo Jin.

“Why did you do that, Teacher. Please answer me.”

“Why were you hiding like this, deceiving everyone all this time…..? No matter how much I think about it, I can’t understand it. Am I stupid? Why? Why….”

As she continued her voice, her expression gradually became pitifully distorted. As if she was unbearably angry. At the same time, as if she was suppressing the sadness that was mixed in.

“Was I that much of a nuisance to you, Teacher….? Please answer me….

“Please…….”

But Seo Jin couldn’t return any words.

The reason she wanted to hear so much…. was just a cowardly truth.

He didn’t even dare to reveal it now.

So he was silent.

As the uncomfortable silence lengthened, the eyes looking at Seo Jin began to cool down.

“If you keep…”

“If you keep keeping your mouth shut like that……. I might resent you.”

Linesha raised her white hand and pressed down on her heart.

“Everything that I’ve been hurt, sad, tormented, and had a hard time because of you, Teacher…. Even the betrayal I’m feeling now…. I might want to pay it all back.”

In an instant, the air changed. So heavy that it was hard to breathe.

“Ugh….!”

This is the level of the remnants of magic that flowed out just from her emotions.

The current Linesha was already a special-class combat ability user. That power, which could single-handedly subjugate one encroachment cluster, could crush a person with just a glance.

His feelings were a bit complicated when he directly experienced her growth, which had been conveyed to him by the news or newspapers from afar.

“Tell me the reason. Right now.”

But Seo Jin was silent until the end. Even if Linesha felt betrayed, he knew that it would be a better result for her to resent him and leave.

Linesha read resignation and compliance in that reaction. Her sea-colored eyes were violently swaying with emotion. Seo Jin’s complexion also turned white due to the increased pressure of magic.

After a long time in the silence, Linesha finally dropped her head and muttered.

“……I’m disappointed.”

“If I had known you were this kind of person….”

And then she went outside without looking back.

Seo Jin reflexively reached out his hand, but… then quietly lowered it.

It was better to tie the knot again like this, even if it was late.

For her and for himself.

Several hours later.

In the empty shop, Seo Jin carefully rolled up the sleeve of his right arm.

Then a dark blue scar was revealed above the elbow where he wore the mechanical prosthetic. A stain that crawled up like a spider web along the blood vessels and already covered his shoulder. The identity of that, which was a little closer to his heart than he had checked before, was the Hexa Virus.

Encroachment corpuscles that are directly transmitted from mutant species.

It was infected from the bite wound he had received when he was faking his death.

He wore a prosthetic on his cut-off right arm and restored his torn innards, but… there was no way to deal with this.

Because there was no cure in this world either.

The moment the infection reaches the heart, he will surely die.

Even with drugs to slow down the progression, it was only at best 3 months.
That was all the time Seo Jin had left now.

That’s why he deceived and hid from the children.

In the past, at the time when he was faking his death. Even when he woke up again and recovered from his injuries…. he didn’t have any plans to go into hiding like this.

But soon he realized that he was infected with the Hexa Virus.

The moment he was convinced that he was a terminally ill patient with no way to deal with it… Seo Jin decided.

Don’t let the people who already think he’s dead experience the same sadness twice.

Because the twisted future had already been corrected to some extent, because he was no longer needed. He thought he would rather disappear without anyone knowing.

But in the end, he couldn’t even do that one thing properly.

Seo Jin stared blankly at the door of the shop, which was still half open, for a long time.