## Chapter 71 – Size (9)
“…Ugh…”
A slightly reddish light, which felt like morning, stung my eyes, causing me to groan softly. I ran a hand through my disheveled hair and sat up.
Just moments ago, I was sitting on the beach, but now I was lying in bed. I managed to pry open my heavy eyelids and saw Chaeyun and Seohui sitting at the table below the bed, their eyes meeting mine.
“Hey, Chanwoo’s awake.”
“…Ugh…”
Seohui, sitting at the small table, was eating gukbap from a white container. Chaeyun, barely lifting her head, had her cheek pressed against the table.
“…What are you guys doing?”
“We were wondering the same thing. What happened to us? We woke up here, you were asleep, and we suddenly had hangovers so bad we couldn’t move. We thought she was going to die if we didn’t get some hangover soup, so we ordered some. There’s some for you too, want it?”
“You don’t remember anything?”
“That’s what’s weird. We’d have to chug industrial-strength alcohol to even get tipsy, but we blacked out. We were hoping you might know something.”
The blue light, the man who gave me power. One of the humans who created the flowers gave it to me. Their memories of being controlled by it were gone.
“…I, uh, have something to tell you guys.”
I had to tell them. In a way, they were like their parents.
“…What is it? You’re being so serious.”
Seohui put down her spoon, looking at my face.
“…Ugh…”
“…Lee Chaeyun, you just stay here and sleep. You don’t look like you’re going to get better anytime soon.”
Seohui laid Chaeyun back down, put on her jacket, took a cigarette from the pack inside, put it in her mouth, and approached me.
“…Is it a long story?”
“…One of the men who created us?”
Seohui and I left the motel room and squatted in an alleyway on a street with passersby. She exhaled the smoke she had been holding in her mouth. I had told her everything. However, I deliberately didn’t mention that the King of the Root had driven them to the brink of extinction.
As that man in the space between dreams and reality had said, I didn’t know what the King of the Root was thinking. I didn’t want to complicate their thoughts unnecessarily.
“…That man also created the fruit. There are nine beings similar to that man, and one of them is the King of the Root… is that right?”
Seohui threw the cigarette, now as short as it could be, on the ground and stomped it out.
She took out another cigarette and put it in her mouth.
“…Want one?”
“I don’t smoke.”
She offered me one, but I refused. “Oh, right…” she said, putting the pack back in her pocket. In the gaps of her bangs, I could see confusion, embarrassment, and a hint of anxiety in her eyes.
“…What’s wrong?”
“…According to you, the man you met is like our god.”
“…I guess so.”
“But then, why didn’t he leave us with those memories? Why did he only leave us with those fairy tales? Why did he only show himself to you now? I’m just… wondering about those things.”
Seohui’s hand, lighting the lighter, trembled slightly.
“I don’t really know either.”
“…”
“So, I’m going to ask the other guys too.”
“Huh?”
Seohui looked up, surprised.
“That man said I could meet the others. So, I’m thinking of meeting them to find out what they’re thinking. To ask what stories they didn’t tell.”
“…”
“I’ll also pass on anything you want to say.”
Seohui, who had been listening to my story, smiled faintly and threw the cigarette she was smoking on the ground. It wasn’t just for their sake, but I really had something to ask them.
‘Then what am I? And what are they?’
What were the ancients, why did the parasites react so noticeably to the genes of the ancients, and in the first place, was I even related to the ancients?
I wanted to ask them that. I also wanted to ask why they tried to eliminate the flowers.
“So, what do you want to say?”
“It’s not like you can tell them right now. I’ll tell you when you meet them later, then you can pass it on.”
Seohui wore a much more relaxed expression.
“…But how are you going to find them? You don’t even know where they are.”
“…That’s true too.”
The nine fruits that had to be obtained to meet the remaining nine, unfortunately, I didn’t know their location…
“Well, you were cool for a moment there.”
“Sorry about that.”
Seohui and I left the alley. Should we go back and get Chaeyun now? I had to tell her this story too.
“…By the way, why are you okay?”
“I produce poison in my body, I have a lot of antibodies for detoxification.”
“Oh, right…!!”
‘Next to you.’
‘Be careful.’
“Whoa?!”
I barely managed to stop walking. A motorcycle passed right in front of my nose. What was that? Pedestrians were also surprised and falling over.
That motorcycle…
‘Laplace.’
‘Wisdom.’
‘There.’
…Wait a minute, that person.
“…Hey, Im Chanwoo.”
As I was watching the motorcycle drive further away, Seohui pulled me back hard from behind.
“Hide!”
“…What.”
I fell to the ground because of her pulling me with all her might. I was buried among the crowd of onlookers that had gathered.
“What, why… mmmph!”
“Just shut up!!”
Over Seohui’s shoulder, who had covered my mouth, I saw silhouettes that looked familiar passing by. About three men in black clothes and iron masks were riding bikes like the person who had just passed, ignoring the pedestrians and speeding down the sidewalk.
“Those guys…”
“They didn’t seem to see us, right?”
Seohui breathed a sigh of relief. No, they weren’t targeting us in the first place. The sense of crisis wasn’t triggered for those men. Then what those men were aiming for was definitely…
The bag that person was carrying earlier. There was definitely something in that bag…
“Okay, let’s go get Chaeyun quickly…”
“…Give it.”
“What?”
“Wait a minute, I’ll be right back.”
———————————-
“I’m screwed, I’m screwed!!”
I twisted the handlebars of the bike with all my focus. The surrounding scenery blurred and sped past my vision, and the screams of the people around me quickly brushed past my ears.
But looking in the rearview mirror of the bike, I could see black-clad men chasing me. There were three of them chasing on bikes, but that wasn’t all.
There was a team chasing in cars and even a helicopter. What is it about this fruit that makes them go this far?!
I definitely disarmed all the traps. How did this happen?
While I was escaping on the bike, the pursuit team caught up.
“…Damn it! Then…!!”
I twisted the handlebars again. I rode from the sidewalk onto the crosswalk and then onto the road, dodging between the cars. Still, the men on bikes were chasing me.
“It’s definitely because of that!!”
The helicopter was looking down at me from the sky. It was relaying my location to the other pursuit teams and chasing me on the flat ground.
What should I do? What should I do? Should I just give this back and apologize now? No, there’s no way those crazy bastards would just let me go after they caught me, you idiot. What should I do…!
I shifted my eyes to the rearview mirror to check on the men who were still chasing me, and then I saw something. There was something behind the men chasing me.
…A man hanging onto a truck?
That’s when it happened.
“Eek?!”
I crashed into something in front of me, and my body was thrown off by the momentum. My body spun in the air, and I could see what had blocked me with my own eyes.
Wearing black clothes and an iron mask, but much smaller in build than the men who had been chasing me, a woman had stopped my bike, which was traveling at almost 100 km/h, with one hand. It was none other than a woman.
Her face was covered, but I knew who it was right away. That woman from the lab, from the old man’s office.
The woman who was said to be the first successful bioweapon. I made eye contact with that woman while floating in the air.
——————————
“Hahaha!! That’s it! That’s what I’m talking about!!”
I looked at the director, who was cheering while watching the video playing in the dark room.
“…Excuse me, Director. Is it really okay to send Unit 4 to a civilian area? We haven’t confirmed whether it’s properly controlled yet. If it becomes uncontrollable like Unit 3 last time…”
“Don’t worry too much about that. Isn’t that why I sent your team along with it? …Anyway, what do you think?”
“Yes? …I’m sorry. I don’t know.”
“Hehe, this guy, isn’t it a little bland?”
Bland? The director, looking at the video, coughed and asked me.
“I mean, it’s not stimulating enough to brag about to the other branch directors.”
“Ah…”
If it’s bland, it’s bland. What was the director expecting from a regular person? In the video, Unit 4, who had stopped the intruder too easily, was approaching her to capture her, holding the crumpled bike in her hand.
“…Hmm, it’s too boring this way.”
“…Did you deliberately send the intruder, Director?”
“Of course, it’s the perfect situation to test it out. But I didn’t know they would steal the power source, let alone the information, hahaha… Isn’t it perfect? If we show Unit 4 performing the mission and film a video of turning that girl into Unit 5 and using her in that way…”
The director was letting out an unpleasant laugh.
“…”
‘Requesting response, situation rep…!! -‘
“…What’s going on? Team A? Respond.”
…The connection was lost.
“Director, it seems like there’s a problem…”
“…What’s that…?”
The director, who had been watching the video, uttered a sentence of question.
I listened to him and looked at the video.
A third party began to appear in the video. His face was not visible because he was wearing a motorcycle helmet, but the action he showed immediately.
He lifted the bike with one hand and threw it at Unit 4.
Unit 4 lightly brushed off the bike.
‘Male, male individual… a male individual has appeared!!’
“Wahahaha!! That’s it!!”
The director was delighted while sitting in his chair.
‘…What should we do?’
“…You guys can’t do it anyway. Support Unit 4 and capture the male individual.”
“Understood.”
