Chapter 10: The Weight of the Living.

-3 years ago-

The National Cemetery on the outskirts of the city.

Among the countless tombstones stretched out on the green lawn, one was particularly clean as if it were new.

A woman stood blankly in front of it, where fresh bouquets of flowers were placed.

No more tears flowed from her dry eyes.

Because it had already been a month.

She had been pouring it out and pouring it out all that time,
Now, only an emptiness that seemed to be just empty was chilling her heart.

She still couldn’t believe it.
The fact that her precious person was no longer by her side.

It was just so painfully severe that she couldn’t turn away from it.
The spot that was missing from her life.
The reality that she couldn’t meet him anymore.
If she had known it would be this painful, she should have died with him back then. If she had known that the reality that she had survived only by stepping on her teacher’s sacrifice was this painful….

Yunia stood blankly like that for a long time.

How long had she been doing that?

She felt someone approaching. The sound of shoes slowly getting closer. But Yunia didn’t turn her head. Because she knew who it was.

The only person who had been coming here every day for a month since the funeral, besides Yunia herself, was only one person.

The approaching footsteps stopped before long. She heard a low voice.

“It’s all because of you.”

Sharp accusations pierced her.

Yunia belatedly turned her head.

She saw a bloodless complexion covered with disheveled blonde hair. In the distorted expression, the cold eyes were full of resentment towards the other person.

“If I had been there back then, Teacher wouldn’t have turned out like this.”

Linesha glared at Yunia with such cold eyes.

But Yunia didn’t hurt.
Because it was all true.

Teacher had sacrificed himself for her.
Yunia was living on, stepping on that life.

But she shouldn’t have.
The person who should have died back then was her.
Because she thought so herself, Yunia understood Linesha’s resentment.

She understood the sadness that she couldn’t even bear without hating something, just the same.

However, only the fact that they were definitely friends at one time,
The fact that they had memories of trusting and relying on each other,
Made the current situation feel complicated.

“If it wasn’t for trash like you….”

Yunia chose to endure it with silence until the end.

At that reaction, Linesha distorted her expression even more.

Why did Teacher turn out like this? She herself knew the reason best. Even though that was the case, the fact that she was brazenly trying to mourn was just so resentful that she couldn’t bear it.

So she wanted to hurt her. She wanted to tear off that always faintly emotional expression, that shameless face even a little more.

So Linesha spat it out.

A single word that was only meant to dig into the other person’s heart and hurt her.

“Teacher never liked trash like you.”

Yunia’s eyes shook greatly for the first time.

Silence continued for a long time.
Then the expression she showed again,
Held an indescribably eerie atmosphere.

Linesha was even a little embarrassed by the sudden change as if the person herself had changed.

But Linesha snorted.

She didn’t care about the gaze that glared at her as if she would kill her.

Rather, she thrust the blade of emotion even further.

“Did I say anything wrong? Teacher was so responsible that it was strange. You were probably mistaken that he was just taking care of a pitiful kid with some sympathy.”

“Did you really think that there would be someone who would like trash like you?”

“……Take those words back.”

There was no further conversation after the voice that she had chewed out.
It was just that the air was struggling to vibrate with the magic that each other had pulled up.

The murderous intent filled Yunia’s eyes.
Linesha didn’t back down either.

At the time, both of them were still 1st-grade combat ability users.
They didn’t reach the level of special-grade ability to annihilate an encroachment cluster single-handedly, but even so, they were holders of the ability to sweep away a decent group of mutant species.
The totality of those powers was now being warmed up only to kill each other.

If an ordinary person had been in this place, they would have fainted just now. The pressure of the thick magic had been pressing down on the surrounding space that much.

An invisible force intertwined and the air rippled. The magic that would materialize and tear each other apart with just a flick of a finger was right before them.

“You’re doing a very good job.”

At the voice that suddenly cut in, both of them turned their heads at the same time.

A silver-haired woman with her arms crossed in the distance. She reprimanded the two with a sour look, whether she had been watching the situation from the beginning or not.

“That guy should have seen this sight himself.”

Yunia and Linesha both hesitated a little at those words.

As she said, this was in front of her teacher’s tomb. If they were to really fight each other, about half of this national cemetery, including the surrounding area, would have been devastated.

That was not what either of them wanted.

Because of that, they slowly withdrew their magic.

The emotions that had heated up during that time also cooled down together.

When the situation had calmed down a bit, the silver-haired woman let out a low sigh.

She was a beautiful woman with a mature impression. Her eyes were dark and cast in the shadows and a strange atmosphere was being created, and it was a face that was somewhat familiar to both Linesha and Yunia.

Her name was Selena, a former acquaintance of ‘Teacher’. So even if it was the two of them, it was uncomfortable to treat her carelessly. That was also the reason why they had obediently stepped back.

“Go back. Both of you, go and cool your heads.”

Linesha stared at her blankly.
It was hard to read what she was thinking with the tired eyes and the unfathomable expression.

She had been that kind of person since before.

Even when she was first introduced as Teacher’s friend, and even when they had to hold his funeral, it was the same.

Even at that time, Selena had just guarded her place calmly with tired eyes and without any expression. Her unfathomable atmosphere was the same as well.

To Linesha, that appearance seemed really strange.

Because the absence of a precious person was really painful enough to die for her.
She was rather envious of such calmness.

That was how much Selena was always showing indifference.

But-

That was a story that had happened 3 years ago.

Linesha roughly brushed back her disheveled blonde hair. The sound of her footsteps walking down the hallway was getting faster as well. As if she was angry. Or as if she was somehow impatient.

Now that she thought about it again, there were still many strange things.

She hadn’t been sad about Seo Jin’s death, but she didn’t even need to be.

Because she had known from the beginning.

The fact that he was alive.

She had been hiding it while knowing everything.

Linesha, who had been walking down the pure white hallway, stopped before long.

A tightly closed iron door.
When she kicked it open without hesitation, the clean scenery of the laboratory was revealed.

Test equipment installed here and there. A table littered with analysis data. The silver-haired woman who was sitting in the middle of it glanced back at Linesha.

And as always, she muttered with a tired expression.

“It seems you’ve forgotten what manners are while I haven’t seen you. Linesha.”

“Nonsense.”

Linesha distorted her expression to the fullest.

“Do you think you have the right to say that to me?”

“You knew that that person was alive…. You were hiding it while knowing it from the beginning, right.”

Selena looked at the air for a moment, then nodded readily.

“Yes.”

The fact that she wasn’t flustered even though her lies had been caught.
At that answer, Linesha momentarily lost her reason.

She slammed the table, scattering the research data that had been spread out all over it.
In the meantime, she stretched out her hand and grabbed Selena’s pure white lab coat and pulled her in.

Linesha, who had her eyes an inch in front of each other, asked in a trembling voice.

“You were acting like that even though you knew everything?”

“Was it fun to play with people? Was the state of us who were tricked by that kind of deception that funny? Do you know who’s funding your research right now?!”

Selena wasn’t flustered even though she had been grabbed by the collar.

“So?”

“What?”

She was just matching her shadowy gaze as always with an indifferent attitude.

“Are you going to vent your anger because I deceived you?”

“You….!”

Before her anger soared, Linesha was at a loss for words.

The reason she came to find Selena was that she wanted to know if there were any circumstances to deceiving her. Also, before that, she wanted to hear at least an apology.

Because they had a relationship all this time. She thought that at least this much was natural.

But Selena, whom she actually faced, didn’t have an apologetic attitude in the first place.

It didn’t seem like she was going to tell her anything.

It was just like yesterday when she had gone to find ‘Teacher’.

A unilateral disconnection.

It was an action that Linesha couldn’t understand at all.

‘Why… why……!’

Why wouldn’t yesterday’s Teacher and the Selena in front of her now even say anything to her? Why on earth….

A chilling emotion began to glisten in Linesha’s blue eyes. The voice that had sunk down coldly leaked out through the lips that she had chewed so hard that a bloody light was oozing out.

“….You’re asking if I’ll vent my anger? Do you think I can’t do it?”

Selena,
Dr. Selena Abyssus.
A genius engineer who holds patents for half of the Allied Forces’ standard defense industry.

She was certainly a great person, but she was just a non-ability user ordinary person.

Right now, Linesha was someone who could tear her limbs apart if she just made up her mind.

Nevertheless, the attitude that kept provoking her, the action of scratching her insides with such composure, she really couldn’t understand it.

And for some reason, she also couldn’t understand her hesitation that she couldn’t slap that shameless face….

Linesha was no longer able to make sense of it.

Selena, who had noticed such confusion, said in a low voice.

“You’re hesitating.”

“Don’t tell me, even though the situation has turned out like this… you’re scared that if you do something, that man will hate you? Really?”

Linesha shuddered once as if she had been hit right on the mark.
It was a reaction that came out without her even realizing it.

Leaving her, who couldn’t bring herself to deny it, Selena muttered in a low voice.

“This guy and that guy, they’re really all fools.”