Chapter 29: A Treacherous Smile and a Fiery Rescue

From this point on, it was a race against time. Park Hyeon-seo was not far from the half-destroyed structure where we were hiding, allowing for a confrontation in the blink of an eye.

‘There he is.’

As I revealed myself before Park Hyeon-seo, he called out my name with a startled expression.

“…Geum-i?”

Upon spotting me, Park Hyeon-seo’s face instantly brightened. It seemed as though meeting someone familiar had loosened his tongue, for even without a response from me, he babbled on incessantly.

“Geum-i! Do you… by any chance know where this is?”

“……”

“Geum-i, how did you get in here? I just misstepped earlier, and then… suddenly I was here….”

Listening to Park Hyeon-seo’s words, it seemed he had been separated from his partner during the death game and had drifted all the way to this boundary line. That is, if there wasn’t a single lie in his account.

Perhaps noticing the complete absence of amusement from my expression, Park Hyeon-seo finally ceased his idle chatter.

‘Could it be true that he just stumbled in?’

Wasn’t this the same old story as when I first discovered the boundary line? Previously, I might have readily believed him, but having confirmed the anomalies on the scoreboard alongside these suspicious circumstances, I couldn’t simply take Park Hyeon-seo’s words at face value.

Click—

What should I ask first? After a moment’s deliberation, I raised my taser gun and aimed it at Park Hyeon-seo. It seemed better to verify things myself rather than listen to the excuses of someone who might be the culprit.

“Ugh, what’s wrong….”

As I slowly approached Park Hyeon-seo, his face began to grow increasingly pale.

“Well, what do you think I’m doing?”

“Is it… because of the game? Surely, that gunshot I heard earlier… was that you too, Geum-i?”

In response to my question, Park Hyeon-seo replied with an innocent face, as if he knew nothing.

‘There’s no time.’

At this rate, there would be no progress in uncovering Park Hyeon-seo’s true identity before Ophedian arrived. It seemed I needed to push him harder.

Bang—

Instead of answering his question, I chose to fire at close range. A single gunshot echoed, and in an instant, Park Hyeon-seo’s glasses, targeted by my aim, clattered to the floor.

“What… what is this….”

He seemed utterly stunned, unable to even think about picking up his fallen glasses. While he was flustered, I scanned the scoreboard. As expected, there was no change this time either.

‘This was it.’

I had gained something. This time, I had finally figured out why the scoreboard wasn’t changing. I aimed at Park Hyeon-seo once more and spoke.

“Even after being shot in the heart and head, you’re not eliminated.”

“G-Geum-i….”

“Park Hyeon-seo, your protective gear isn’t for practice, is it?”

The protective equipment Park Hyeon-seo was wearing appeared no different from mine on the surface. In fact, his weapon and gear were items I had personally prepared for him. However, seeing that he was unaffected by a close-range shot, it was clear he was wearing a different level of protective gear than the other students in the training ground.

I didn’t know when he had swapped it, but to simply dismiss it as impossible, the same incident had already occurred twice. I pointed the muzzle of my gun at Park Hyeon-seo’s taser gun.

“Then, I suppose the gun you’re holding now isn’t for practice either?”

It was more of a rhetorical question, so I hadn’t expected a clear answer from him. Yet, no sooner had I finished speaking than an unexpected reaction came from Park Hyeon-seo.

“Heh… Phew….”

Whether he was sobbing or laughing, Park Hyeon-seo’s shoulders, which had been slumped forward, intermittently twitched. I could only stare at him foolishly.

‘Is he… laughing now?’

He laughed like that for a long while before lightly wiping away the tears at the corners of his eyes. Just as suspicion arose from his peculiar behavior, Park Hyeon-seo slowly raised his head.

Was it my imagination, or did a faint red light shimmer in his eyes as we met gazes?

“Geum-i, you’re really interesting.”

Thinking I might have seen wrong, I scrutinized him, only for my gaze to lock directly with his gleaming black pupils. Park Hyeon-seo’s eyes curved into a smile.

I hadn’t noticed it before because he was wearing glasses, but now that I looked, his eyes behind the thick lenses were quite sharp.

“If my gun isn’t for practice, then what do you think it is?”

Park Hyeon-seo lightly brandished the taser gun in his hand. While I had sensed something was amiss, the person before me now felt so alien that I questioned if this was truly the Park Hyeon-seo I had known.

“It’s actually for the best. For some reason, it wasn’t… working on you, and I was getting troubled.”

Park Hyeon-seo mumbled words I couldn’t comprehend.

Not working? As I tried to grasp the meaning of his words, Park Hyeon-seo moved swiftly. With a skill I had never witnessed before, he loaded his gun and, without hesitation, aimed it at me.

Bang—!

Bang bang—!

In that critical instant, several shots erupted from his taser gun. The incoming bullets seemed to move in slow motion. It felt as though my body would be pierced through once more in the blink of an eye.

At that moment, unable to even blink, let alone flee, a piercing blue light flared before my eyes.

“Hey, this is the emergency situation you mentioned, right?”

Immediately, a large, firm hand seized my body. A body temperature higher than normal and a cool voice. Without needing to confirm, I knew the one supporting me was Yoon Geon-woo, and so I willingly followed his lead.

“That verification. Is it done?”

We had moved a step away from where we had been confronting Park Hyeon-seo. As if to act as a shield, Yoon Geon-woo stood in front of me and nodded his head towards Park Hyeon-seo.

“Not yet….”

My business with Park Hyeon-seo was not yet concluded, so I immediately shook my head. There were still too many unanswered questions. Although I couldn’t define my relationship with Park Hyeon-seo as exceptionally close, we had, after all, attended classes together for more than just a year or two.

His recent demeanor was utterly unlike the Park Hyeon-seo I knew, leaving me with no choice but to harbor suspicions.

And that red light from earlier… If I hadn’t seen wrong, it was similar to the light emitted when an Esper used their ability.

‘I think… I might know something.’

I organized my thoughts, recalling the suspicious circumstances from previous timelines: Park Hyeon-seo appearing at the boundary line, the sudden appearance of a demonic beast in the training ground, the teachers who never arrived to offer support even amidst the chaos, and finally, the gunshots heard at the last moment.

The moment I pieced together these disparate observations, something flashed through my mind.

“Yoon Geon-woo, I know now. This…”

“So you’ve been secretly hiding and watching all this time?”

Just as I was about to speak urgently, Park Hyeon-seo, who was still confronting me, cut me off. He spoke to Yoon Geon-woo with an air of composure, as if he had anticipated his intervention.

“Yes, I figured as much. You have to protect your one and only Guide well, don’t you? What if you lose them?”

Park Hyeon-seo, provoking Yoon Geon-woo, did not cease his rapid firing. No sooner had Park Hyeon-seo finished speaking than a powerful blue ability flared intensely around Yoon Geon-woo. His energy felt fierce, as if a switch had been flipped.

“Yoon Geon-woo, calm down. I’m okay!”

His aura was shaking unstably, so I hastily tried to calm Yoon Geon-woo. Yoon Geon-woo blocked every single bullet aimed at me, gritting out an expletive.

“‘Okay,’ my ass. What that bastard just fired, it’s real ammunition.”

Since Yoon Geon-woo was using his ability, it seemed he had personally confirmed the true power of Park Hyeon-seo’s taser gun. The realization that Park Hyeon-seo was the one who had sung the school anthem and shot me left a bitter taste in my mouth.

“I… I knew.”

“You knew, and you were still with that bastard? You’ve got some nerve.”

Yoon Geon-woo narrowed his brow and snarled. It wasn’t his usual irritation; he was genuinely furious and shouting, which inadvertently made me feel intimidated.

“I’m sorry… but I had my reasons….”

“You said you didn’t want to die. Was it so you could act like this that you asked for my help?”

Was putting my life on the line so shocking to him? However, having already experienced death multiple times in similar situations, I was prepared to take such risks to uncover the truth.

Of course, underlying my actions was the easy assumption that if things went wrong, I could simply regress again. From Yoon Geon-woo’s perspective, knowing nothing of this, it was certainly cause for anger, and I was just about to placate him once more when—

Rumble—

A tremor, as if the ground itself was shaking, erupted. Without a word, Yoon Geon-woo and I exchanged glances. It seemed Ophedian had appeared at an inopportune moment.

There was no time to delay with arguments, so I spoke to Yoon Geon-woo, who was still giving me a disapproving look.

“Can you capture Park Hyeon-seo alive?”

No answer came from him. But no sooner had I finished speaking than Yoon Geon-woo unleashed blue flames twice as powerful as before. As I loaded a smoke bomb to fire at Ophedian, I let slip one crucial piece of information to Yoon Geon-woo.

“…It’s the teacher’s doing.”

“What?”

Yoon Geon-woo furrowed his brow, as if asking what I meant. Yet, no matter how many times I replayed it, everything pointed to one conclusion.

“All of this… it must be Esper Jung Eui-chan’s doing.”

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