abcnovels
Chapter 143: Star-forsaken Land (5)
Chapter 143: Star-forsaken Land (5)
Chapter 143: Star-forsaken Land (5)
Slurp—
—The sticky sensation of a tongue crawling up and down the cheek.
Mika slowly reached out her hand and groped Ohjin’s butt.
Ohjin opened his mouth with an uninterested expression.
“Someone will get hurt.”
“Fufu, I already told you that I won’t do any harm if you do what I say.”
“No, not me, but you.”
“What?”
When Mika furrowed her brow, unable to understand—
Plop—
—someone placed their hand on Mika’s shoulder from behind.
“What’s wrong, Shiranui? Are you jealous?”
Miki, who thought that it was obviously Shiranui who’d grabbed her shoulder, turned her head around while making seductive nasal sounds.
However, Shiranui wasn’t there when she looked back. Instead, Ha-eun, who had her expression crumpled like a Yaksha, had placed her hand on Mika’s shoulder.
“…Huh?”
She looked around for Shiranui with a surprised expression.
Shiranui was collapsed on the ground with his arms clutched between his legs far away while white foam overflowed out of his mouth.
“Wh-What?”
It seemed that an ominous feeling crossed Mika’s mind as she started to take steps back.
Ha-eun, who grabbed her fleeting collar in the blink of an eye, roughly pulled her in.
“Oi, you bitch.”
Her eyes shone frighteningly.
Ha-eun reached out for the piercing in the middle of Mika’s tongue and violently grasped it.
“How dare you put your disgusting saliva on someone that’s already taken.”
Swoosh!!—
The skull-shaped piercing ripped her through her tongue and rolled onto the ground.
“Ueeeeeeeeh!!”
Blood gushed out of her ripped tongue.
Mika screamed out and shut her heavily bleeding mouth.
“Y-Youh godhamn bitch!!!”
As if responding to her fiercely surging killing intent, the stigma of Hippocampus poured out black light. Powerful mana fluctuated from the seven flicks, giving off black light.
Fwoosh!—
The dagger made of water twisted and turned into a spherical shape.
Rotating violently, the sphere that floated above her palm splashed water in all directions.
—Sticky humidity.
Humid fog that was like the dawn of a day that previously had downpour spread out widely.
The fog didn’t simply cause people to feel an unpleasant sticky sensation.
“Kugh!”
“M-My body won’t move!”
A panicked shout came out of the mouths of the members of Kuroushi that were fighting intensely with the Black Star Organization.
The sticky fog spread out in the radius of dozens of meters.
Bodies that made contact with the fog started to flounder as if they had fallen into deep water.
“Yuh dare… touh me?”
Mika talked with awkward speech and roughly grasped the sphere that was spinning on top of her hand.
The sphere that exploded like a water balloon turned into the shape of dozens of knives.
“Dieh!!!” she shouted as she thrusted her hand out to Ha-eun.
The dozens of knives made of water shot at Ha-eun, who had her body restricted by the fog.
“You’re making a fool of yourself.”
Ha-eun smirked and took out a pack of cigarettes from her pocket.
She grabbed one of the cigarettes and lightly placed it in her mouth.
Sip—
Once she took a deep breath in, the end of the cigarette burned up, even though she didn’t use a lighter to ignite it.
“Fuu.”
Exhaling the smoke she’d inhaled, she flicked off the cigarette.
“Blaze up.”
Fwooooosh!!—
With her low chant, the embers at the tip of the cigarette expanded at a rapid pace and engulfed the surroundings.
The thickly settled fog and even the dozens of knives that’d shot at Ha-eun like bullets all evaporated once they were engulfed by the flames.
“Huh?”
Mika, who was staring at Ha-eun with fierce eyes, had her mouth drop open.
“Wh-What’s going on?”
The water made from the stigma of Hippocampus was different from normal water, starting from the properties itself.
Its hardness exceeded steel…
It didn’t boil when it touched fire, and it didn’t freeze, even if you wanted it to…
But it had ended up evaporating without a trace by the mere sparks of a cigarette.
“What do you think is going on, you bitch?”
Ha-eun smirked heavily and raised her fist.
Putting her two fists close to her face like a pro boxer, she advanced forward with light steps.
“It’s time for you to get a fucking beating.”
After approaching Mika in an instant, Ha-eun thrusted her fists forward.
Bam! Pow! Pam!—
One blow on the chest, and two quick blows to the stomach.
“Kugh!”
She sent an uppercut towards Mika’s forehead once she bent forward while clutching her belly.
Bam!!—
With the blunt sound of breaking bones, Mika’s body that’d become a bloody mess shot up into the air as if she had jumped.
“Hirachaaaa!!”
Yelling out, Ha-eun twisted her body using her left leg as the pivot and cleanly landed a roundhouse kick on Mika’s stomach as she was dropping down.
After being sent flying over ten meters away, Mika’s eyes rolled to the back of her head as she fell unconscious.
“Why is such an insignificant being acting up and shit?”
Twe—
She spat out saliva and turned around to Ohjin.
“You too, why did you do nothing but sit still? Huh?”
“I was just confirming what kind of abilities the stigma of Hippocampus has.”
“Hmpf. You’re too good with your words.”
Ha-eun approached Ohjin with a frown and used her sleeve to clean off the saliva on Ohjin’s cheek as if it was a stain.
“I was worried that we were in big trouble, but it seems my worries were unnecessary!”
Sakaki laughed broadly and lifted up his thumb to Ha-eun.
“I just thought you were the Lightning Wolf’s lover until now, but you were an incredibly skilled individual!”
“Heh, my star rank is still higher than Ohjin’s, you know?”
“Is that so?”
Sakaki’s eyes widened into circles.
“The Lightning Wolf… was definitely a 6-Star, right?”
“I’m a 7-Star.”
“Wow. Then are you an 8-Star Awakener?”
He looked at Ha-eun while exclamining.
Although Sakaki was a 8-Star Awakener himself, he didn’t expect her to be a 8-Star Awakener as well because they were so scarce in Japan.
“No, I’m a rank that’s one step above that,” Ha-eun said as she boastfully straightened her back.
“A 9-Star…? Th-Then aren’t you a high-rank Awakener?”
“That’s correct.”
“Woah. To think that I’d see a high-rank Awakener who isn’t the elder!”
Sakaki exclaimed and exploded out in laughter.
“It looks like being able to receive the Lightning Wolf’s help wasn’t what I should’ve been so happy about!”
“Khm. You’re overreacting.”
Ha-eun cleared her throat and avoided the gazes of envy that flooded her way from all directions.
She was bound to receive attention wherever she went as a high-rank Awakener, but maybe it was because they were in Japan, which didn’t have a single high-rank Awakener, because the eyes that looked at her seemed to be shining excessively brightly.
Using a game as an analogy, it was like a diamond-tier player suddenly showing up in a place that was only full of bronze, silver, and gold-tier players.
“N-No way.”
“Ms. Mika…”
Once Mika was defeated easily in vain, the remaining members of the Black Star Organization let go of their weapons as they lost their will to fight.
The members of Kuroushi didn’t miss that opportunity and quickly restrained the Black Star Organization members.
“Then, since we’ve finished restraining them, let’s head inside the asylum,” Ohjin said as he looked around, the situation was roughly dealt with.
They needed to confirm just what kind of things they were doing after kidnapping Awakeners.
“Alright. Boys! Keep watch over them and make sure they can’t escape! We’ll interrogate each one of them later.”
“Yes! Oyabun!”
“Ah, and bring the ‘Yume Hanashi’.”
“Yes, sir!”
‘Yume Hanashi?’
Ohjin tilted his head at the word that slipped through without a translation.
‘It’s the same with Kuroushi, are proper nouns separate and not translated?’
“What is the Yume Hanashi?” he asked while looking at the members who were running to a certain place
“Ah… well. Hmm.”
For some reason, Sakaki slurred the end of his sentence and hesitated when answering.
Sakai, who was hesitating for a moment, sighed deeply as he opened his mouth.
“It’s a star relic that makes the target’s mind hazy, causing them to be in a hypnotized state. The effect’s time is extremely short, and the target develops a tolerance after a single use, so it’s not enough to get a testimony… but it at least allows us to confirm if the information we obtained is true or false.”
Sakaki clicked his tongue as if it really wasn’t to his liking.
“I don’t like this item because it’s unlike a man, but there’s nothing better than this to pick out false information during interrogation.”
‘A star relic with that kind of fantastic effect exists?’
* * *
* * *
“Then let’s start the interrogation later and head inside for now.”
“Yes.”
With the other members of Kuroushi on standby outside, only Ohjin, Ha-eun, Sakaki, and Koshiro went inside.
“There’s nothing much?”
Ha-eun looked around the inside of the asylum.
There were only traces of the Black Star Organization that’d hid inside there, and nothing that would allow them to find out why they were kidnapping Awakeners.
“Wait.”
Ohjin closed his eyes and used ‘Star of the Weaver Girl’s Hunting Dog’.
Faint lightning spread out from his body and covered the entire asylum.
“There’s a basement.”
“A basement?”
“Yes.”
Ohjin walked to the stairs that led to the basement.
Once they went down the stairs, they could see the door to the basement was closed shut.
“This door is the only thing that looks new. Everything else was rusty.”
“They probably got a new one and installed it here.”
Ohjin examined the security device that was on the door.
He couldn’t find out what he needed to provide, as it was a security device made with star relics that were unlike modern security devices that scanned fingerprints or the retina.
“Oyabun. Should I bring over the restrained people?”
“There’s no need for that.”
Sakaki smirked and stepped forward.
“Hmpf! Step back!”
The muscles on his right arm inflated, and a powerful shockwave compressed over his fist.
“Uracha!!”
Booom!!!—
Not only the basement door, but even the wall that held it in place was torn off by a single punch.
Just like that, the inside of the basement became exposed.
“What’s… this?”
The interior that was full of mechanical devices and lined up with large, circular tubes filled with clear water made one imagine a mad scientist’s experiment room.
“D-Don’t you think these bastards are making chimeras out of monsters or something?” Ha-eun shouted while frowning as if just imagining it was disgusting.
Ohjin looked at the lined-up tubes and narrowed his eyes.
“The tubes are all too empty for that to be the case.”
And if they were making chimeras to add to their forces, it was strange that no chimeras had made an appearance during the fight.
“Now that I think of it, you’re right… Then just what are those bastards doing with—”
“Wait, Ha-eun.”
Ohjin cut off her sentence and looked to a corner of the basement.
Click—
The door that had ‘control room’ written on it was opened carefully and one young man walked out.
—A young man with a skinny build as if he had starved for several days.
There should’ve been an arm on the left side of the white gown he was wearing, but instead, there was nothing but crumpled-up flesh.
“You… are?”
Once he discovered Ohjin’s company, his eyes widened, and he started to look around.
“Wh-Where did those two people go? N-No, wait.”
His eyes that were wandering around headed to Sakaki.
“S-Sakaki Ryo!! Are you Sakaki Ryo?!”
He ran over with an extremely excited look.
Sakaki lightly extended his hand out to the young man who was running at him.
Pow!—
An intangible shockwave pushed back the young man’s body.
The young man hit by the shockwave was helplessly shot back and ran into the wall.
“Kugk!”
“Who are you?”
“Huff, huff. You are Sakaki Ryo… right?”
“That’s correct.”
“Sob… uh, ughhhh!”
The young man who’d collapsed onto the ground started to sadly bawl his eyes out.
“Relief… What a relief. Finally… hiccup!”
“…”
“What situation is this?”
“Hmm. I wonder.”
Ha-eun and Sakaki looked at the crying young man without being able to understand what was going on.
“M-My name is Sakai Yuji…”
The crying young man revealed his name and got back on his feet.
He explained that he’d been confined in that place after getting captured by the Black Star Organization and forced to do horrifying work.
“Horrifying work? What’s that?”
“It’s…”
Yuji shut his eyes tight with a pale expression.
“It’s turning… Awakeners into ‘nutrients’.”
“Nutrients?”
Sakaki and Ha-eun’s expressions stiffened because of the word that rang out ominously.
Yuji continued explaining.
“The work involved shoving kidnapped Awakeners into water made from the stigma of Hippocampus’s power… a-and melting them.”
“…What?”
The shocking information caused both Sakaki and Ha-eun to open their mouths wide with astounded expressions.
Melting entire humans and turning them into nutrients?
Just imagining it caused gag reflexes and was absolutely disgusting.
“You!!”
Bang!—
Yelling out ferociously, Sakaki suddenly grabbed Yuji’s collar and raised him off the ground.
“Are you saying you dared to commit such deeds after kidnapping our family?!”
Rumble!!—
The entire basement shook as if it was going to collapse once Sakaki’s rage exploded.
“Calm down, Mr. Sakaki.”
Ohjin approached Sakaki and held him back.
“Do you think that I’ll be able to calm down right now!!”
“Then are you planning to bring this entire place down?”
“…Ugh.”
Sakaki chewed his lips and put Yuji down.
“Cough! Cough!”
Yuji bowed down on the ground and roughly slammed down his forehead.
“I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry…”
He wept as he repeated his heartrending apologies.
Ohjin approached Yujin as the man was crying and asked in a low voice:
“You were captured by them and forced to follow their orders?”
“Yes. Th-That’s correct.”
“How can we trust that you’re not lying?”
“That’s…”
Yuji slurred the end of his sentence with a bitter expression.
With his head dropped down, he continued.
“I fully understand, even if you don’t trust what I say. And… even if I was forced to follow their orders, that doesn’t make my sins disappear, either.”
He gnawed his lips with sad eyes.
“It’s fine for you to kill me on this spot. No, please, kill me.”
Sad tears ran down Yuji’s cheek.
“But… before you kill me… I have just one… a single last request.”
Kneeling down on the ground, he roughly slammed his forehead onto the ground.
“Kurosaki Sosuke… that monster… that devil wearing the mask of a human… please… please kill him!”
The tears that ran down his cheek soaked the floor.