Chapter 77

"Sulawesi? Indonesia?"

I was more aware of the shape of my lips moving than usual because Chahaya was staring intently at them. Seo-eun pressed her lips together and swallowed hard.

"Besides the gate... did you also cross the black wall?"

Chahaya nodded with a smile as usual.

At the end of each area, there was a black wall. Even if they couldn't digest the apex species, how could he do such a reckless thing? Wasn't he afraid?

Suddenly, Seo-eun found Chahaya strange.

A guy who used to enjoy ice cream and chicken skewers and played ranking matches at the PC room now felt both reliable and like an unknown entity.

"Surely not the other areas too?"

"No, I only crossed the South."

It seemed he tried it because of the incident with Young-il's brother...

"Oh!"

Only then did Seo-eun recall Abdullah and hurriedly got up from her seat. Being away from Chahaya's gaze made breathing a bit easier.

Seo-eun quickly peeled off the note Abdullah left from the table and handed it to Chahaya, who was sitting in a bad posture. He read it with his eyes without taking the note.

"You write really badly."

"He's a foreigner."

This is excellent. Seo-eun defended Abdullah.

"I write English well."

"Yeah, you're the best."

"Put more emotion into it."

Though it wasn't the time, Seo-eun gave a thumbs up and said Chahaya was the best again.

"Brother Young-il's body is starting to rot... Shouldn't we go to the northwest?"

Since Chahaya didn't intend to take the note, Seo-eun put it back on the table. The tape, used multiple times, had lost its adhesive power.

Suddenly, Chahaya looked up at the clock on the wall. Strangely, Narakga and Korea had the same time zone and language. This led the eternal species to guess that this place existed somewhere on Earth. It was only later, thanks to the gate and the black wall, that they realized it was a different dimension.

"Let's sleep and then leave."

"Even if we go now,"

Chahaya extended his index finger and lightly pressed under his eye. His hand touched the tip of her nose, and her breath bounced back. It was a hot breath that made her upper lip tingle.

"What are you doing?"

"Panda."

Sure enough, her eyelids felt heavy. While others seemed fine after being healed by Jo Kyung-min, why was her ability so inefficient? Seo-eun looked at her room, where the living room window was open, and shuffled to the bathroom.

"I'll shower first."

Whether in Seoul or Narakga, she had to rely on Chahaya.

"Hurry up."

He was already urging her, probably planning to shower again.

"You already did in Seoul. I thought you were just taking your time."

"It feels sticky from the ho-bread."

On the rooftop, Chahaya carried Lee Sung-hwan on his back while descending. Kim Han-sol, who tried to place him on his shoulder carelessly, was lifted by Seo-eun with both arms around his back and knees. Chahaya clicked his tongue, saying anyone could carry a person. Seo-eun almost said, "You just came back to be an adult because you didn't want to ride," but held back.

Seo-eun turned her steps towards the backpack Chahaya brought, instead of the bathroom. Opening the zipper, the silver-wrapped U-gwangseok was still there, along with neatly placed new underwear and a few T-shirts.

Thinking that when they cross to Seoul next time, they should only expect a third of the U-gwangseok consumption and prepare necessary items in advance... No, Seo-eun suddenly lifted her head.

"Hey, can I use the gate without consuming U-gwangseok?"

Seo-eun pointed at herself with her index finger. Even if Namgung Jun's ability transfer is true, didn't Chahaya save the guy with a pierced neck?

Chahaya lifted Matihar again with a smile.

"From now on, we are one."

"Shut up, are we a couple?"

"Couple," Chahaya pouted, saying it sounded good.

<'We' are one.>

The Messenger's words came to mind. Come to think of it, the Messenger hadn't appeared since saving Kim Han-sol. Although it bothered him that the Messenger had said not to save her, if he had left her to die, the guilt would have followed him endlessly. After all, the Messenger had been acting on his own for a while.

"Chaseo-eun."

Just as she was about to close the bathroom door, Chahaya called her.

"What?"

"What do you think about same-sex marriage?"

Seo-eun, holding underwear and a T-shirt, frowned.

"What, are you running for a politician?"

"I'm not."

"But why ask suddenly?"

"Just suddenly."

Chahaya casually extended the conversation.

"Well, if they like each other, they can do it."

That doesn't mean I have any intention of marrying you.

Seo-eun had no particular thoughts on same-sex marriage. It was a casual remark, but Chahaya sat down seriously. Placing Matihar on the armrest of the one-person sofa, it looked like a safety bar.

Could it be that someone close to him is getting married? No, even if that were the case, Chahaya wouldn't have any particular thoughts. It seemed he was more focused on her opinion.

...Why?

His illness flared up again. Chahaya was the type to ask meaningless questions.

"It smells really sweet."

Chahaya pretended to smell a soft candy but kept his gaze on her. Seo-eun raised her arm and sniffed. However, she couldn't figure out the sweet smell Chahaya mentioned. It must have been about the soft candy, so it wasn't a big deal.

"I'm showering."

Seo-eun was good at stopping overthinking. She once consoled herself that there must be a reason for her father's coldness, thinking he was raising her strictly for her future. What a ridiculous excuse.

When she was intoxicated by the special treatment from Chahaya, she wondered if this guy also... But she never thought he would look at her with disgust or give a meaningless comfort instead of just ignoring her, acting as if nothing happened.

That would be miserable in its own way.

If she were to reawaken, she'd rather become a top-tier telepath. However, no top-tier telepaths had ever appeared in that ability group. Or maybe they were hiding like hypnotists, as such abilities wouldn't be welcomed anywhere.

Even if she became a telepath, she probably wouldn't read Chahaya's mind easily.

On Christmas Eve as a child, she secretly opened the gift box, only to be disappointed. She had expected a popular game console, but inside was a four-week English camp ticket and expensive stationery.

Even as a child, she suspected it wouldn't be a game console. Still, there was hope and expectation.

In the end, it was a futile hope and an impossible expectation. If she hadn't opened the box, she would have been excited until Christmas Day...

Perhaps she managed to control her expression because she knew in advance.

"Father, Mother, thank you so much! I really wanted to go to the English camp!"

Now, she regretted her actions as a child.

If you want a well-behaved child, give me the game console! She should have shouted at the top of her lungs, become a rebellious child, and torn the ticket to shreds.

Was it reasonable to send a second-grader to Jeju Island alone for four weeks? She later learned that her mother stayed nearby despite her father's opposition, but at the time, she cried every night.

If Chahaya had been there, holding her hand with his angelic face and sleeping with her, she wouldn't have shed a single tear on her pillow.

So, even if she became a telepath, she couldn't read his mind. It would have been better to keep the box closed and feel a faint excitement.

***

Chahaya only turned his head to look at the bathroom where Seo-eun went in.

Healer...

He muttered it, but with a question in his mind. According to Eom Jigeun, Seo-eun's purple eyes could only be seen in the mental system.

"Your guild leader, isn't he a knight now?"

"Seojeogi?"

"If he can detect the mutated tunnel in the northwest, isn't he a great talent?"

Now, Eom Jigeun had raised a flag against the Union, but he was originally part of it. If Eom Jigeun suspected Seo-eun, it meant the Union did too.

Suddenly using the South and coming to the office for a meeting, it seemed the Union was probing for something.

Seo-eun, a Seeker and a Healer.

Since he could also manipulate elements, it wasn't impossible.

But what is our field mouse hiding from me?

"Annoying."

Chahaya placed Matihar, which was blocking his view, under the sofa.

He got up from the sofa, put the remaining candy back in the fridge, and opened the backpack wider. He took out the silver-wrapped U-gwangseok. Removing the silver wrapping, a red aura circled the stone, resembling magma underground but not emitting heat.

The forest inside the tunnel was definitely not from the planet he lived on.

This place, now called Narakga, was the last place Chahaya stayed on this planet, 'Gazan.'

Originally, Chahaya wasn't from Gazan but had to flee there with his parents. The place he lived was turning into a desert, making it uninhabitable.

The planet he was born on was very similar to Earth but had a star called 'Tai' instead of the sun. The planet 'Aso' where Chahaya was born orbited this star.

Thinking of the events on the planet 'Aso' and the country 'Gazan' as if they were on 'Earth' and 'Korea' makes it easier to understand.

One day, mutants appeared all over Earth, and the land and sea began to turn into deserts. Survivors moved in large numbers to the relatively safe region, Korea.

They fought various mutants, but eventually, Korea also turned into a desert and perished. Thus, Earth became uninhabitable.

This was the process of the planet 'Aso' perishing.

The difference between the planet 'Aso' and 'Earth' was that Aso had places called 'gates.' Known to be created by the first stellar ability users, these gates were portals between dimensions.

The stellar ability users, who had to abandon the perished planet, decided to migrate to another star and found a G-type main-sequence star similar to their own, the sun. They also discovered a planet most similar to Aso, Earth.

The current Narakga was the state of Gazan before its perishing. It was unknown why it appeared in a non-desertified form, but one thing was certain: the gates were reactivated. The black wall, which the eternal species called, was also one of the gates. This was confirmed after the incident with Young-il.

"Hey, are you going to shower?"

A sweet scent wafted from the bathroom. Seo-eun, drying her hair with a towel, approached the table as if asking what he was doing.

"Does it look like onigiri?"

Seo-eun smiled at the half-unwrapped U-gwangseok.

"Are you going to eat it?"

As Chahaya moved to put his mouth to it, Seo-eun blocked the stone with her hand.

"Brat, get lost."

Seo-eun showed her even teeth and took the U-gwangseok.

Although he was born on Aso, Chahaya had lived on Earth for a much longer time. But could he really be called an Earthling?

The label of an extraterrestrial, like a foreigner with black hair, might never come off.

"Aren't you going to shower?"

Chahaya rested his forehead on Seo-eun's shoulder. She flinched at the sudden physical contact but didn't push him away, only tapping his back as if asking why.

"If an alien said they liked you, what would you do?"