## Chapter 190 – Crumbs (8)
After roughly drying my wet body and hair with a towel bought from the convenience store,
I sit on the hard, bare marble floor, blankly staring out the wide window.
It’s the same weariness I felt as a kid after a fun day at the swimming pool, on the way home.
I could fall asleep in an instant if I closed my eyes, but there’s still something I need to do.
Now that I know where Jung Ah-woon is, there’s no need to delay any longer.
Today, I’ll find him and, by any means necessary, find out the research group’s location and kill him.
To do that, I was planning to gather as many people as possible who could fight, but…
“…Why isn’t she answering her phone again?”
I tried calling Seo-hee, but she hasn’t been in touch since she went out yesterday, saying she had plans with Chae-yoon.
Chae-yoon, who I thought would be with Seo-hee, isn’t answering her phone either, of course. What are those two up to…?
With no other choice, I urgently tried calling Soo-ah, but even Soo-ah is unreachable.
“Are they all conspiring to mess with me…”
I could understand Chae-yoon or Seo-hee, but Soo-ah has never not answered my calls before…
Could the three of them be together? Or are they already passed out drunk?
“…..”
For now, given the situation, I pick up my phone again and call Noona Lee-ran.
I’m hoping that Noona might know where those three are.
‘…Hello?’
Noona answers the call quickly, after only one ring.
I even feel a sense of unexpected relief at hearing her voice on the other end of the line.
“Ah, Noona. Did Seo-hee and Chae-yoon come home by any chance?”
‘Chae-yoon and Seo-hee? No, not yet. I thought they were with you?’
“Then… Soo-ah probably isn’t there either.”
‘Soo-ah? Why Soo-ah all of a sudden? Is something wrong?’
“…Uh, well, you see, is Iria around?”
Noona, who is quick-witted and full of worries, seems to have misunderstood and thinks something has happened to me.
She asks if something is wrong, so I explain everything that has happened so far.
From leaving Seo-hee’s house to meeting Min-jung and being guided to Jung Ah-woon’s home,
to finding out his current location from there and needing people who can fight.
After hearing the whole explanation, Noona makes a short humming sound, as if lost in thought.
‘…Sorry, I don’t really know either. Seo-hee didn’t tell me where she was going when she left,
and I’ve been trying to contact her since you left yesterday, but she hasn’t answered my calls either.’
“…Then there’s nothing I can do. Sorry for bothering you so early in the morning. I’ll figure something out, so don’t worry too much…”
‘I’ll go.’
A voice cuts in as I’m about to make plans to go to the research lab with just Min-jung and me, since the three have gone incommunicado.
The voice from the other end of the phone wasn’t Noona Lee-ran’s. It was a thinner, younger voice…
“You, Nabi?”
‘You’re going to meet that man, right? I have some business with that man too.
Besides, Seo-hee Unni and the others aren’t answering their phones anyway, right?’
Nabi snatches the phone from Lee-ran Noona and, in a voice that’s not her usual listless and dazed tone,
but confident and full of strength, tells me to take her with me.
‘It would be better to take me than the others, right?’
She has a point. When it comes to combat ability among the group, Seo-hee or Soo-ah come to mind first,
but Nabi, while perhaps not as strong as them, is also a considerably threatening and powerful fighter.
I remember almost being caught off guard and dragged to the research lab when I first met Nabi.
If I take Nabi with me, she’ll be a good asset, so I’m all for it, but…
“But why is your voice so sharp…?”
Is it because of the memory of fighting me when we first met? Nabi has always tried to keep her distance from me.
I could sense that she was uncomfortable around me, so I didn’t try to get close to her either.
But now, Nabi, who has always been like that, is offering to help me and raising her voice. I’m curious why.
‘…It’s nothing really, I just want to know what that man did to me.’
‘What he did to her’… I had almost forgotten, but Nabi is also an experimental subject from the research lab.
She was a being who didn’t even properly understand human language and came to capture me on orders from above.
But originally, Nabi must have been an ordinary girl too. She would have had an ordinary name,
and even though I don’t know her exact age, she looks like a young middle schooler who would have had friends.
But she doesn’t have those memories. And she doesn’t know how she lost them either.
I don’t know if Nabi specifically wants to find the man who made her that way and take revenge,
or if she wants to regain her past and return to normal. And I don’t care either.
But if we’re looking for the same thing, there’s no reason not to take her with me.
“…Okay, sure. I’ll send you an address now, so come here.”
‘Yes.’
Even though she’s young, she has the strength to take care of herself.
There’s no need to worry unnecessarily. Still, I’ll have to protect her if something happens.
“Okay, one person secured… It would be nice to have one more person…”
“Sunbae-nim, I’m ready! But… what are you thinking so hard about?”
Min-jung, who has changed into clothes that are easy to move in and is carrying a bag containing a gun and edged weapons, comes out.
The moment I look back and forth between the phone that just ended the call and her, one person I can call comes to mind.
“…Ah, that’s right. She was there.”
I immediately pick up my phone and call the person who came to mind.
The other person answers the phone even faster than Lee-ran Noona, before the ringtone even sounds.
‘Ah~ It’s been a while, Manager-nim! Did you miss me? Or do you have something you want me to do…?♡’
“I do have something. It seems like the opportunity to finally use you has come.”
A woman who raises her cheerful voice so loudly it hurts my ears and calls me ‘Manager-nim.’
Lee Yuri, who has the power of the fruit, but was defeated by me and modified into a weapon that obeys me.
……
……
……
“This is really a desolate place. It’s so quiet it’s unsettling.”
“Yes, but for some reason, it feels very familiar to me. I definitely don’t remember coming here before, though.”
A concrete building standing halfway up a remote mountain that I have been to before.
We have arrived at the research group’s building, disguised as the ‘New Plant Research Institute.’
As soon as we get out of the car that Min-jung drove, the two people shift their gaze to the large building.
Yuri and Nabi express different feelings as they walk through the empty parking lot.
“Sunbae-nim, what’s wrong?”
“No… I don’t know why, but it feels worse than when I came last time.”
I can see our car that Min-jung drove and three or four other cars that seem to have been parked there for quite some time.
If I carefully approach those cars, I can see a thin layer of dust on them.
And even the strange tension that I felt when I came here once before isn’t felt,
and we are surrounded by an eerie silence where not even an ant is to be seen, let alone someone guarding us.
My danger sense hasn’t gone off yet, but I don’t know, something feels off…
“…Well, it can’t hurt to be careful. Let’s go for now, don’t stray from my side.”
While being as cautious as possible, I follow Nabi and Yuri, who have already left the parking lot.
I step into the wide lobby of the research lab, which is completely dark, unlike when I came at night.
The floor is broken in places, and the counter is lit up, but no one is to be seen.
The desolate atmosphere, which isn’t that different from the outside, makes me turn my head for no reason.
“It looks quite large. It’s going to take a while to find where that man is.”
“No. I don’t think it will take that long.”
“Huh? What do you mean, Manager-nim?”
It seems that even Nabi and Yuri, who have sharp senses, haven’t noticed yet,
but I can feel a gaze that has been watching us ever since we entered the lobby.
They must have already known that we were coming, that we would come.
There are three people’s gazes, and one watching us through a camera.
But I don’t feel much hostility. As proof, my danger sense isn’t going off.
“…Do you have something to say? Don’t hide and come out.”
“Ooh, you can pick up on that so quickly? You must have good senses too.”
A woman suddenly appears from thin air, literally out of nowhere, right in front of us.
A woman wearing a white coat and glasses, with yellow eyes, smiles at me.
At this point, I think I know who she is without even asking.
“…Are you Theresa?”
“Oh my? You know my name. Who told you, little boy? Bill? Laplace?”
One of the four people who started a war using flower petals, a woman who was said to be an old friend of Lee-ran Noona.
I don’t know what her purpose is, but she’s one of the guys who locked Iria in that mountain…
“…Well, that doesn’t matter anyway. I can finally meet you.”
“You say that like you’ve been waiting for me.”
“Yes, little boy. I’ve been waiting for you. A creator newly born in this era,
unlike that kind and clueless Iria who doesn’t know how scary the world is.”
“…I don’t know what you’re talking about, but stop it and get out of my way…”
Theresa shyly puts her hands behind her back, smiles brightly, and gently approaches me.
And Nabi, as if fed up with that sight, blocks Theresa’s path.
“…Oh my, what kind of manners does a dog have towards its owner?”
“….Ugh?!”
It was instantaneous. Theresa erased the light from her face and looked down at Nabi with a cold expression.
At that moment, Nabi’s body floated into the air and was immediately slammed into the floor.
Telekinesis? No, it wasn’t that. Nabi’s appearance clearly showed that she had been hit by ‘something.’
“…Hostile reaction detected, entering combat mode. You, stay away from Manager-nim.”
As if she had never smiled, Yuri completely erases her smile and emits an immense purple aura.
She uses telekinesis to lift the fallen Nabi up and raises the fragments of the broken floor.
“To think that you were defeated somehow, and that your will was devoured by a mere human.
Kinn will be extremely disappointed if he finds out, Piadels.”
“…I don’t know what you’re talking about, but next time it won’t end with a warning.”
Just when it seemed that a tense war of nerves was going on between Yuri and Theresa,
Theresa immediately smiles brightly, stands on tiptoe, and looks at me.
“There’s no need for us to fight, right? You think so too, don’t you?”
“…What are you talking about? What have you been…”
“You know too.”
In an instant, Theresa teleports in front of me, passing Yuri, who was blocking her path.
The yellow eyes visible right in front of my face sparkle in the bright light…
“You seem no different from me, so I feel a sense of kinship.
I think we could be pretty good friends, I like you so, so much.”
