Chapter 63: Chapter 63- Chin-Hwa’s Decision (Part 1)
Chapter 63: Chapter 63- Chin-Hwa’s Decision (Part 1)
After that, Talon and Hyun-Jae walked inside the gymnasium where they found all the students, clearly terrified beyond imagination by what happened. They had been listening to the bombing for the past several minutes without even knowing if one would drop down on their heads and kill them or not.
That kind of anxiousness was akin to mental torture, especially when the entirety of the building was completely dark and the only sense they could use was their ears.
However, when they saw Talon and Hyun-Jae, the sheer happiness they felt was overwhelming. Their hope was back when they saw that they were fine.
"The jets had flown away. They won't continue this attack for now." Hyun-Jae declared seriously.
Those words naturally made everyone exhale a long sigh of relief and be thankful their prayers were answered. Some cried in relief while others simply started laughing. After all of that tension, when things finally ended, their feelings overflowed.
Talon and Hyun-Jae watched that scene with complicated gazes. Seeing that strong of a reaction from everyone was truly heartbreaking. These people were living normally merely a few days ago and yet suddenly, everything shifted and they had to learn how to fight, kill, and survive in this cruel world.
Ignoring the fact that it was a humungous challenge to learn all of that, people easily forget about the mental aspect of it. Under such circumstances, one could easily crumble like a sand castle hit by the strong and continuous waves of the sea.
However, there was nothing that could be changed about the situation unless they also changed. That was the sole rule that they had to follow in order to thrive.
After that, Talon left Hyun-Jae and the students and went to check the condition of the ceiling. Luckily, Hyun-Jae's words seemed to be correct as he didn't find any noticeable cracks or indentations which meant that it was pretty much good.
When he was done with that, he decided to leave again to check the condition of the campus thoroughly. The sun was already rising in the distance so it was a lot easier to see.
"Fuuuh, I didn't realize how cold it was today," Talon murmured to himself as stepped outside. The weather was seemingly growing colder and colder by the day ever since the integration happened.
He didn't know why that was happening but he was sure it had something to do with the 'Transition'. Staring into the horizon for a good few minutes, Talon left his thoughts to swim into the distance.
The place was quiet and the sun was peeking at him, throwing its rays upon this world. The scene was magnificent.
After a while, Talon finally shook his head and shifted his gaze to the place around him. As he expected, most of the buildings were completely destroyed and those that were still standing were irreversibly damaged.
Even the cafeteria building was ruined completely which could've been a catastrophe had the students not moved all the food to the gymnasium a day before.
'They killed a good number of monsters too, I guess.' He mused as he noticed the monsters' parts here and there. The entire area was wiped out of monsters on a bigger scale than what Talon and Hyun-Jae did.
It was a bad and a good thing at the same time. Bad, because now Talon and Hyun-Jae had no weak monsters they could train the students on, and good because, well, no more monsters to worry about.
However, this wasn't Talon's biggest concern at that moment. His biggest concern was something completely different. So, he looked around, pinpointed a good location, and headed toward it.
The location was one of the buildings that were still standing. It had most of its walls blasted into pieces with the foundations barely staying intact. But, it was still good enough for Talon.
*Swish*
With a few simple jumps, Talon climbed to the top of the building and stared into the distance. When he saw what he was looking for, his expression changed.
"Hm?" His eyes squinted as he crouched down with a confused look on his face. "This isn't what I expected to see…" He murmured to himself.
Far in the distance, his eyes were staring at the sole building he wanted to reach… The research center.
After what happened a while ago, he expected to see it completely destroyed or at least heavily damaged like the other buildings around it. However, forget about that, the building looked as good as it was the first time he saw it.
It had no damage or even traces of burning from yesterday's attacks as if the missiles didn't hit it.
'Did they deliberately not target it?' He asked himself only to shake his head. There was really no reason for them not to hit unless there was something important in there which Talon doubted since barely a few dozen meters away from the research center, a building was blasted into pieces that was a part of the compound of the research center.
If the government had something they wanted to protect there, they would've never risked throwing a missile that close to the research center.
What was even weirder and what made Talon seriously question what was going on was the cluster of monsters that surrounded that place 24/7. Their numbers didn't dwindle as he expected to see, instead, they seemed to increase even more!
Rubbing the back of his head, Talon tried to understand what he was seeing, to no avail. The research center was such an odd and incomprehensible place for some reason. Ever since they received that weird message back in the warehouse and up till this point, everything related to that building was screaming 'bizarre'.
"This is getting weirder and weirder."
To solve this mystery, Talon decided to do something about it. So, he hopped down from the building he was standing on and headed back to the gymnasium. His mind was still occupied with what he saw.
Something felt extremely off for him but he couldn't put his hand on it. He felt like he was missing some kind of detail.
"Thinking too much might make you look older."
Suddenly, he heard a very beautiful and familiar angelic voice speaking near him. Looking to the side, Acrypha had appeared out of nowhere and was looking at him with a smile.
"Oh, Acrypha, you're back." He said with a raised eyebrow. "Where have you been?"
Because of all the wild events that happened, he forgot that Acrypha wasn't present the entire time. Not that this was the first time she left on her own to do whatever she wanted.
"It's nothing important. But when I heard the noises coming from here, I rushed back. What happened?" She asked.
Sighing, Talon told her the whole matter from start to finish. By the time he was over, Acrypha's expression changed completely.
"Missiles? This world has that kind of technology?"
"Yeah, it's probably not as advanced as some of the other worlds out there but we do have it," Talon replied. "It's effective enough as you can see."
Acrypha: "..."
"We were able to destroy two missiles but I doubt they will stop at that."
"Why would they attack this place?"
"I don't know myself. That's what Hyun-Jae and I are trying to figure out. Either way, I'm going to stay alert to anything that could happen today or in the next few days."
If another attack happened, Talon would have to deal with it. But, he was worried that the next time they wouldn't merely use a missile to destroy this place.
"What a weird world this is," Acrypha murmured.
"Tell me about it." Talon sighed. "It's one headache after the other."
"I guess no dimension is free of fools."
***
Meanwhile, far away from where Talon was, back in the warehouse. Chin-Wa, Shin-Il, and Soomin were in a completely different dilemma.
It has been precisely 4 days since Talon and Hyun-Jae left the warehouse and yet they still didn't return after all that time. Naturally, they were all extremely worried about it since Talon had said that it would take them at most a few hours to a day for them to come back.
Yet, after a few days, there was no trace of them.
"I'm going to the campus." Chin-Hwa declared with a deadly cold look. His face looked even more terrifying than usual due to lack of sleep, and the stress he was under at the time.
His mind was so completely occupied with Hyun-Jae and her well-being that he couldn't focus on anything else. All kinds of bad thoughts kept bugging his head and it made him almost go insane.
So, he finally decided to put a stop to all of it and go after Hyun-Jae.
"What?!" Shin-Il asked with a pale expression. "You can't do that, Chin-Hwa. President and Talon said that we need to remain here to protect the place. If you leave, we will be in deep trouble."
The past few days have been hectic with monsters for the trio. They had to kill many of them who tried to barge into the warehouse. Luckily, the three of them were strong enough to fend them off and grow even more powerful because of it.
However, if Chin-Hwa left now, Shin-Il and Soomin would have to face all those monsters alone.
"Shin-Il is correct. The two of them are extremely strong, they can take care of themselves. I'm certain they're fine." Soomin nodded her head.
However, Chin-Hwa shook his head as he rubbed his temples. "I can't remain quiet as days pass without any trace of the president coming back. It should've been a quick mission. Why is she not back yet?"
Just uttering those words made the cold prince clench his teeth in frustration. He would rather die than see Hyun-Jae hurt or even worse… dead.
He couldn't handle the worry he felt for her let alone the feelings that would get to him if he lost her.
"..."
The duo looked at him with difficult expressions. They understood why he was this adamant about going, hell, they also wanted to go. But, they also trusted the two of them more than anything else.
"Please, don't do this, Chin-Hwa. We can't take care of this place without you." Shin-Il said.
(A//N: Thanks to everyone who supports the book with power stones and golden tickets, you guys are the best:) )