## Chapter 12 – Coincidence
“Well, I don’t really know about that kind of thing either.”
“…So there are things you guys don’t know.”
“Of course, it’s different for everyone.”
I’m sitting with Chaeyoon in the university cafeteria, eating and talking. The topic of conversation is these creatures’ abilities.
Chaeyoon can shoot out small tentacles from her mouth, and Seohui can create all sorts of poisons inside her body.
I thought they were all the same kind of creature, but just like people have different personalities, it seems these creatures have vastly different abilities they’re born with, individually.
“…By the way, Seohui Unni not contacting us for a week, was it because she was digging around in people’s heads that whole time?”
“Seems like it. By the way, did you two decide Seohui is the older one after all?”
“Yes, even if I parasitized first, Unni is older in terms of the host’s age.”
“Anyway, I wonder if I have something like that too. I just seem to have gotten stronger, but it would be nice to know if I had something like that.”
If I had a power similar to what they have, wouldn’t it be useful for things that might happen in the future? I ask with that in mind, but Chaeyoon doesn’t seem to know much about it either.
“I wish I could tell you, but that’s an area I don’t know about either. Can Oppa look at someone’s special talent and know it right away?”
“…No, I can’t.”
“We don’t know how we found out either. It just ‘happened somehow.’”
“Talent-blessed.”
“I’m a little sensitive to the word ‘blessed’? Please be careful.”
While playfully chatting with Chaeyoon, a silence falls between our conversation, and I start to hear the voices around us.
‘…Boy…friend…’
‘…Cheating…’
‘…Pitiful.’
Even if I just listen roughly, it’s about Chaeyoon and me.
I carefully shift my gaze from my bowl to Chaeyoon, but she’s eating as if she doesn’t care at all.
“………”
When I look around, it instantly becomes quiet. I definitely felt a lot of eyes on us, but those many eyes disappear right away.
“…Humans are such fickle creatures.”
“Can’t really argue with that.”
Seeing me looking around, she must have known everything, as she puts down her spoon and says to me.
Since people are originally like that, in the ancient times when Chaeyoon’s kind lived, brute force must have been everything, but the times have changed.
In this era, the most important things are knowledge and numbers.
At least, that’s what I think. Even if you have no physical abilities at all, you can solve things with brains and numbers in this era.
That’s why people value relationships. They desperately cling to something called ‘affection’ and can’t let go easily.
Because with that, the numbers are taken care of.
In the old days, conflicts were created and resolved through war. But now, in this era that’s only peaceful on the surface, all sorts of arguments and instigations, everything is done with the ‘mouth.’
Among those, the most basic is gossip. If you can’t even do that very basic act, you become ostracized from the group and eventually abandoned. You become the nice guy who’s pretending.
They elevate themselves by putting others down. It’s the ugly nature of people that has continued since ancient times.
“But Oppa is different.”
“I’m not so sure about that.”
I put down my spoon, pick up my empty bowl, and get up from my seat.
“Ah, let’s go together.”
After listening to the afternoon lecture, I decided to go to my place with Chaeyoon.
“Ah.”
“Whoa!”
I bumped into someone while leaving the cafeteria. I didn’t see them coming out of the corner. The person just collapsed like a scarecrow.
“I’m sorry, are you okay?”
“Ah, yes, I’m sorry. I should have been watching where I was going.”
The man grabs the hand I offer and gets up.
“I’m really sorry, I’m in the middle of an errand.”
“No, it’s okay, you can go.”
I’m quite taken aback by the man’s repeated apologies while bowing his head.
The man keeps looking back, not knowing what to do, and nods his head as he runs toward the lunchbox corner inside the cafeteria.
“…There are still people like that these days.”
“Yeah.”
The man, who seems a bit clumsy, disappears into the crowd.
“Shall we go now then?”
Chaeyoon links her arm with my right arm.
“It’s hot, get off.”
“It’s only April though?”
While bickering, Chaeyoon and I were about to walk to the lecture hall when something caught on my foot.
“This is…”
————————
“Everyone, let’s eat before we start.”
“Ah, thank you for the meal, Senior.”
I climb onto the truck parked in the university parking lot and enter the passage in the back seat, revealing the space of the connected trailer.
A space that looks like a small laboratory has been taken out and brought here. I put a table in it, and people start gathering around it.
I put the lunchboxes I bought on the table.
“Senior, the radar installation within a 1km radius of this university will be completed soon.”
“Hey, let’s not talk about work while we’re eating.”
“Ah, yes.”
I lost the rock-paper-scissors lunch bet, so I hurriedly bought lunchboxes from the nearby university cafeteria. I ran so much that a drop of sweat is running down my forehead.
“Phew, it’s hot.”
“Ah, should I turn on the air conditioner?”
“No, everyone else will be cold.”
“Didn’t you go too fast? You could have taken it a little slower…”
Another subordinate says, seemingly worried about me.
“Haha, no, I have to be here as the person in charge in case something happens.”
“Then you could have asked someone else to run the errand…”
“No! A bet is a bet.”
I’m about to take out a lunchbox to eat when someone asks me a question.
“Um, Senior, may I ask why we’re only monitoring and not directly capturing them?”
Chun Minjeong, she’s a newbie who hasn’t been in this lab for long, so I like how she’s asking me with a very disciplined attitude.
Even if she’s doing this to look good to me, she’s trying hard to live in the moment right now.
Admirable.
“Questions are always welcome. The individuals attached to the petals are not dangerous at all, and their survival time is extremely short, so there’s no need to capture them. If that were the case, our team leader would only have to write a report and that would be the end of it. But if it succeeds in parasitizing a human, the danger increases exponentially.”
“What does that have to do with the radar…?”
“First of all, it grows by feeding on the human brain. In the process, the host dies. The individual is the one moving that body. If that happens, their intelligence, strength, endurance, and all physical functions are enhanced. If we carelessly follow them with surveillance, they’ll notice right away. That’s why we’re using special radar. The brainwaves emitted by ordinary people and the brainwaves emitted by the individual are completely different, so we’re trying to use this to classify ordinary people and the individuals.”
“Then if the radar doesn’t react…”
“Fortunately, our team leader would only have to write a report, but to be sure, we’ll keep the radar on for a week.”
“Haha… It doesn’t seem like a good thing that the team leader has to write a report…”
“Minjeong-ssi, you’re so innocent. Which is more important, living with both arms and legs intact, or getting a promotion?”
“…Pardon?”
“Just kidding, just kidding.”
I smile and pat Minjeong-ssi on the shoulder. She’s a little nervous, so her body is stiff, but she follows me and laughs, saying, ‘Don’t do that, Senior,’ and sighs.
I guess I shouldn’t make jokes like this. It’s half serious though.
“Radar operation preparation complete.”
“Good, then start operating in 10 seconds and come eat.”
But it seems hot with so many people in this small lab. It seems even hotter because I ran. I have a handkerchief… Oh?
“Oh, my handkerchief.”
“Ah, the one you always carry around? Maybe you dropped it here…”
“No, it’s okay. I have an extra one.”
I must have dropped it in the cafeteria earlier. Anyway, it had too much blood on it, so I’ll have to buy a new one.
“5, 4, 3, 2 until radar operation…”
————————
“Ah!♡ That was good today too!”
“Don’t talk like an old man who just came out of a bathhouse.”
I’m walking with Chaeyoon. She looks satisfied and somehow refreshed. On the other hand, my clothes and hair are all messed up.
I was originally going to do it when I got home, but Chaeyoon couldn’t wait, and neither could I.
The last stall in the men’s restroom, where there are few people. It’s become our hideout, and we went at it hard there.
“Let’s do it again at my place!”
“Why is that your place?”
“Oppa’s place is my place.”
“You’re funny, then the rent…”
As always, Chaeyoon, who was walking with me while joking around, suddenly stops.
“What, what’s wrong?”
“…This is…”
She has a serious expression on her face. I was about to approach Chaeyoon to check on her condition.
A pure white light barrier passes through my hand that I extended toward her.
“What is this?”
I raise my head to check the source of this light. A dome of light covering the sky was unfolding.
“This is bullshit….”
The abnormal reality was quickly caught up by my thoughts, and it was already too late when I figured out what it was.
“Oppa!!”
Chaeyoon quickly grabbed my hand that was outside the barrier and pulled me out, and she fell on the road, unable to overcome my weight.
The identity of the light is much clearer from the outside. A large glass is covering our university. But no one is reacting.
“Can’t everyone see this?”
The dome of light is only visible to Chaeyoon and me. The pursuers have come. I knew they would come, but I didn’t think it would be on this scale.
“Run away.”
Before I could say anything, Chaeyoon grabbed my hand and started running away.
————————
“Reaction confirmed in the west, one.”
“…What’s going to happen to our team leader’s wrist…”
I make another small joke to myself. Now is not the time for this.
“Pursue them.”
