"Espers don't get hurt by something like this."
"But, there's blood…"
Joo-hyun, noticing the monster about to move, used his power to sever the claw embedded in his abdomen. Though a piece remained, it was better to leave it than to forcefully extract it.
The child smelled and felt incredibly warm at the same time.
Joo-hyun realised the child would manifest as a Guide. It wasn't fully manifested yet, so guiding wasn't possible, but Joo-hyun smiled genuinely.
"Thank you. Because of you, I can catch this thing."
"What?"
"Please take the child away."
Despite his voice not being loud, Seo-chan, who was intensely focused, urgently rushed out, cradling the child and sprinting behind a rubbish bin. The child, initially struggling as if fearing abduction, calmed down, feeling Seo-chan's trembling.
The monster became transparent again. A predator never leaves an injured prey that's almost captured. But…
"Sorry, but I can see everything."
Joo-hyun's invisible blade severed the monster's arm.
[Screech!]
With a tearing sound, the monster, writhing in pain, briefly became visible before disappearing again. It didn't matter. The monster could only make its body invisible, not the blood Joo-hyun had sprayed over it.
Activating his power again towards the floating bloodstains, he shattered a part of the monster's massive head.
The end was near. Although the street was damaged, it seemed possible to resolve this sudden, disastrous situation without any casualties.
But as always, the world detested seeing Joo-hyun happy.
The monster, blinded by its shattered face, lunged at Joo-hyun. Enhanced by overflowing endorphins, Joo-hyun easily dodged and delivered the final blow.
With a sharp noise, the monster, with a large hole in its torso, instinctively fled in the opposite direction from Joo-hyun. The problem was, instead of a road, there was a building there.
Boom! The four-story building, with almost all its paint peeled off, stood on four pillars, and the monster completely destroyed one of them. Exhausted, the monster couldn't maintain its form and crumbled into small pieces.
With one pillar gone, the building began to tilt forward. Joo-hyun had only one option.
He sprinted directly in front of the building, using his power at maximum capacity. The tilting building halted mid-air as if held by an invisible hand.
"Evacuate quickly!"
Seo-chan, frozen behind the rubbish bin, dashed out at Joo-hyun's desperate shout.
"Everyone, come out! The building is collapsing! You need to get out!"
In response to his urgent cry, people began to emerge from the buildings that had started to light up after the clash with the monster. They hurriedly fled, taking only the bare essentials, initially shocked by the sight of Joo-hyun standing there with blood dripping from his nose, but quickly fleeing at Seo-chan's urging.
Meanwhile, Joo-hyun couldn't even move a finger. Any movement might cause him to lose control and the building to collapse.
The headache had already reached his eyeballs, and blood was pouring from his nose like a faucet. Though there wasn't much bleeding due to the still embedded claw, his body was not in good enough condition to hold out for long.
At least, if the building collapsed, it wouldn't bring down the neighbouring structures.
He knew without looking that his eyes had turned completely red. His entire body felt hot and cold simultaneously.
Suddenly, Joo-hyun wanted to see someone. Would the man who helped people as if he were being chased be proud of him now? Perhaps he would smile and say well done, then soothe Joo-hyun's headache with his kind guiding.
"Is everyone out? Is anyone still inside?"
"There's no one on our floor, the third floor!"
"The first floor is clear too."
"What about the second floor?"
The residents, glancing at each other, turned pale.
"There, at the window!"
Barely moving his eyes, Joo-hyun saw a child clinging to a second-floor window, crying. Terrified of the tilting building, the child couldn't come out.
"Byul!"
The child Joo-hyun had saved earlier cried out in a frightened voice from behind Seo-chan. People stopped the child from entering the building.
Joo-hyun knew he had already exceeded his limits, but seeing the scared child reminded him of his younger self, and he couldn't ignore it. Weakly pulling with his power, Byul surprisingly complied.
"Oppa…"
The child, now in her brother's arms, began to cry in relief, and everyone sighed in relief. At that moment, the building made a loud noise as it tilted significantly.
"Ugh!"
The runaway esper spat dark red blood. He was really at his limit. Noticing his strange condition, people began to distance themselves, and Joo-hyun thought that was a relief.
"Shin Joo-hyun!"
Though even standing still and breathing was hard, Joo-hyun somehow turned his head. There stood Cha In-ho, drenched in sweat and gasping for breath, with a face that seemed half-filled with fear and anger. He reached out urgently.
Maybe the world didn't hate Joo-hyun that much after all. The runaway esper closed his bright red eyes and smiled. The building collapsed.
* * *
His whole body felt stifling. That was the first sensation he felt before opening his eyes. His head, body, even his fingers felt hot and stifled.
As he struggled to open his unusually heavy eyelids, an unfamiliar ceiling came into view. Unlike the grey ceiling of Block C, the white, clean ceiling was foreign to Joo-hyun.
The room was empty. Lying alone in the spacious hospital room, he tried to sit up but failed.
He was almost like a modern mummy. His body was wrapped in so many bandages that finding an unbandaged spot seemed difficult. It was understandable since he had been buried under a four-story building, but surviving again felt almost unreal.
As he stared at the blue sky beyond the spotless window, he heard the hospital room door open.
"…"
Having washed his face, Cha In-ho glanced at the awakened Joo-hyun and rummaged through a bag on the sofa.
"Um, hey."
There was no response. Joo-hyun, failing to rise again with his casted arm, spoke once more.
"Cha In-ho?"
Thud. Cha In-ho, who had placed the bag down a bit too forcefully, turned around. His swollen red eyes glared at Joo-hyun. Joo-hyun, accustomed to hostile gazes, wondered why his heart plummeted so drastically.
"Why are you so foolish?"
Cha In-ho's voice was neither soft nor kind. The tone, sharpened to wound, pierced Joo-hyun.
"Why do you keep repeating the same thing?"
"…"
"You save lives only to endanger your own repeatedly. How much longer will this go on?"
Even though espers were more resilient than ordinary people, severe injuries could still lead to death. Though not fully healed, Cha In-ho must have worked hard to bring Joo-hyun back from under the collapsed building.
As he said, Joo-hyun had been saved by Cha In-ho several times now.
It was natural for Cha In-ho to be frustrated and tired of being called out unexpectedly due to Joo-hyun's frequent injuries. From his perspective, it might feel like trying to fill a bottomless pit. The runaway esper's missions were typically tough, but this wasn't even part of his mission.
"You told me not to do reckless things. Why do you keep running into danger then?"
Joo-hyun, unsure what to say, bit his lip and whispered softly.
"…I'll be more careful from now on."
"From now on?"
The scorn in that brief question was cold and sharp as an icicle, piercing Joo-hyun.
"How can I maintain a match with an esper who doesn't value his own life?"
Cha In-ho turned and left the hospital room without hesitation, clearly not wanting to see Joo-hyun.
Left alone, Joo-hyun, not understanding Cha In-ho's feelings, simply looked up at the bright sky. Perhaps it would have been better if he had died back there. That thought crossed his mind too.
* * *
"If it weren't for the retired esper living nearby, you would've truly died."
Seo-chan said, peeling an apple and offering it to Joo-hyun with a fork. However, Joo-hyun, lying motionless, didn't even consider taking it, so Seo-chan awkwardly ate it himself.
Joo-hyun had woken up in the infirmary of Block A. Though he was a runaway esper and normally couldn't access Block A, he had been there for several days. According to Seo-chan, it was thanks to Cha In-ho.
"If In-ho hadn't insisted, you might've died while being transferred. Your condition was that bad."
"…Was it?"
"Yes. Now that you're okay, we can laugh about it, but back then, seeing the people who tried to stop us was infuriating. By the way, In-ho is really scary when he's angry."
Whatever Cha In-ho had said, if it weren't for him, Joo-hyun would've died on the way to Block C.
Runaway espers receiving treatment in Block A was very unusual. While they had to be monitored for potential rampages, that was nothing.
Come to think of it, Tae-seok had mentioned Cha In-ho having some influential connections. Perhaps that played a role in this situation as well.
"…"
It didn't matter. Now, Cha In-ho was just another stranger to Joo-hyun.