Sinbanpo-ro, Seocho-gu, Jiangnan.
In the center of the gate’s predicted appearance location, where most civilians had already evacuated, Yoo Jian, who was standing there, scanned the large building in front of her from top to bottom.
“It’s definitely here, right?”
“It seems so.”
Jeong Moo-eum also quietly observed the building.
By the time they arrived, the gate had already opened. They thought they were late, but the situation was a bit different from what they expected. Not a single monster was in sight. However, the S-rank gate notification remained unchanged.
“…This is another first.”
Yoo Jian tied her short bob cut tightly into one. This time, she spoke not to Jeong Moo-eum but to the other man on her left.
“Mr. Cha Jaeha, you’ll move together with us, right?”
“Yes. We should.”
Cha Jaeha also couldn’t take his eyes off the unfamiliar scene.
There wasn’t a single monster. Since nothing was visible, that could be said. However, unfortunately, if asked whether it was a scene no different from everyday life, that wasn’t the case. If one were to say it’s normal for a giant plant’s stem to be wrapped around the entire department store building, they would be quite the plant enthusiast.
Disgustingly large leaves bloomed here and there on the stems. The size of the leaves was at least several times the area of an adult male, even at a rough estimate. The thickness of the stems wrapped around the building varied, but even the thinnest one appeared to have the thickness of a department store pillar.
“Noona, did you confirm how many people are inside?”
Jeong Moo-eum spoke as if lightly ignoring Cha Jaeha’s presence.
“What? They couldn’t all evacuate?”
“A total of 12 people are inside. It seems they couldn’t pinpoint the exact locations.”
Cha Jaeha replied while checking the contact from the association that had just arrived.
Upon hearing the answer, Yoo Jian looked up at the building again.
“Then we’ll have to go in and check. No, can’t Cha Jaeha burn it all? It seems like it would work if he just burns all the plants.”
“…It’s impossible.”
The heavy bass voice seemed to carry complex emotions.
“However, I will handle the monsters that may be inside. Those plants are probably their doing as well. Jian, it would be best if you could rescue the civilians we need to save with your ability, and Jeong Moo-eum, if you could handle any dangerous objects that may arise in the process.”
Cha Jaeha calmly assessed the situation, and his words were correct.
Fire would be more advantageous in dealing with this type of monster. Moreover, Yoo Jian and Jeong Moo-eum had already accumulated sufficient capacity to rescue people through their frequent pairing experiences. Rather than hastily trying to match with Cha Jaeha, a natural coordination would be more helpful in saving people.
“Got it.”
This time, Moo-eum readily agreed. It wasn’t a wrong statement, so there was no need to prolong the time any further.
“Alright then. Ah! Pulling out these plants gives me pangs of conscience. Ugh.”
“…If noona had a conscience, you wouldn’t have been smashing buildings like that.”
“If Moo-eum had manners, would he say such things to me here? Huh?”
“I’m using polite speech. Ah! Ah! It hurts.”
“Let’s save the chatter for later.”
The three people, who didn’t seem to have any teamwork at all, forcibly pushed through the revolving door and entered.
***
Tsk. Cha Jaeha bit down hard on his molars.
He didn’t expect the situation to unfold like this.
It didn’t take long to find the citizens they needed to rescue. They had gathered in one place to survive in their own way. It was the moment when they discovered people huddled together in front of the movie theater snack corner and were about to head down.
Swish-!
The stationary stems began to move as if they were alive. As the hideously giant stems detached from the wall with a cracking sound, cracks appeared on the building’s exterior wall. Cha Jaeha, who had grabbed and torn the approaching stem, kicked the root of the stem to find it. The moment he detached that root, he immediately burned it to ashes.
Jeong Moo-eum, reaching out his hand toward the wall on the verge of collapse, shouted.
—I’ll stop it!
Moo-eum immediately drastically reduced the gravity around the cracked area. Because of that, it was difficult to concentrate on other places. Even a genius had limits to their abilities. He had to adjust not only the surroundings of the cracked area but the weight spread throughout the entire building, so it was a level that was difficult to handle even normally.
No, forget handling it, he had never experienced this much weight in the first place.
—Ugh.
Blood flowed from his tightly bitten lips. No loud music was playing from the headphones tightly covering his ears, but as time passed, his mind began to grow hazy.
“Kyaah-!”
“Uwaah-!”
“Save me! Save us, aah!”
Screams erupted. Yoo Jian’s fist accurately struck the center of the stem charging toward the people.
Crack-crack-crack-
The stem split in half with the fist in the middle. But there wasn’t just one stem. All the stems entangled together surrounded them like snakes responding to a flute.
‘Damn it.’
Normally, he would have easily burned them. However, Cha Jaeha couldn’t readily touch the stems. The ends of the stems were connected, and if he used fire, it would quickly spread throughout the building. Could he control it so that all these people wouldn’t get burned in that chaotic situation?
“Mr. Cha Jaeha, do something! You’re famous! Ah, there’s no end to these things! Can’t you just burn them all at once with fire?”
Cha Jaeha frowned at Yoo Jian’s outburst.
‘It’s impossible to control it right now.’
Then what should he do?
He struck the stems one by one with his fire-infused fists. The parts touched by the fire quickly burned up, split apart, and fell to the floor. If he dealt with them one by one, it would eventually end, but…
It was too slow this way. What if all the stems spread throughout the building converged here? What if the collapsed building, supported by plants, collapsed all at once?
The hero awakeners might survive, but all the non-awakeners would die.
“Damn it.”
No answer came to mind.
Just… Is this all he could do? Is this the extent his efforts could reach? If there was a god, it shouldn’t be like this.
Even with this ability, he was completely useless. Irritation at himself surged up.
If only he could evacuate all the people here right now…
“Aah!”
“I can’t hold on anymore!”
Amidst the barrage of screams, Yoo Jian grabbed and tore apart the stems reaching out from both sides with her hands. Cha Jaeha burned the fallen stems with fire to prevent them from approaching the citizens, and Jeong Moo-eum was still supporting the wall. But as if he was running out of strength, he had already dropped to one knee.
Blood was already flowing from one of Jeong Moo-eum’s nostrils.
‘It’s the limit. At this rate, the entire building might collapse if we’re not careful. Then at least noona should somehow escape.’
Coughs mixed with blood kept escaping through the cracks of his bitten lips. It tasted fishy.
Just as Jeong Moo-eum’s outstretched arms were about to fall, trembling, a familiar voice was heard through the cracks in the wall.
“「Hey, you stay stuck to the wall.」”
A voice that shouldn’t be heard.
No, a voice that shouldn’t have been heard in the first place.
“「Remove all moisture from the stems in this space.」”
“「Oh my, the wall is collapsing. The cracked parts return to their original state.」”
…What?
And then.
From the cracks in the building wall, a man with a leisurely face poked his head out.
“「Everyone stay rotten like that.」”
With the few words he uttered, the swarm of stems attacking them fell with a thud and turned into black ashes, crumbling to the floor.
Disappearing.
All of them.
Like dust.
Cha Jaeha was witnessing the miracle unfolding before his eyes. The end of his gaze eventually turned toward the one who performed the miracle.
He wasn’t a god, nor did he look like one. He wasn’t in a sacred attire either. He was wearing a disheveled white dress shirt, and his pants were ordinary black slacks. His shoes, which seemed to have walked quite a bit, were also covered in a layer of white dust.
Everyone stared at ‘Yoo Hwa-shin’ with blank faces.
‘Why is an F-rank here…?’
‘What the hell did this guy do?’
‘…Yoo Hwa-shin?’
The citizens who saw him for the first time were relieved that a new hero had come to save them.
‘We… We’re saved.’
‘Thank you, God. Thank you.’
Yoo Hwa-shin also seemed quite surprised and blurted out a short sentence.
“Oh my. I got caught.”
***
The information obtained by shaking the collar of the Department of Appreciation employee was that heroes Yoo Jian, Jeong Moo-eum, and Cha Jaeha had all headed to the S-rank gate. Since all 3 S-ranks had headed to one place, naturally, the remaining heroes would have dispersed and headed to the other A-rank and C-rank gates.
So Yoo Hwa-shin followed them.
There was another reason.
‘In the first place, if a situation that didn’t exist in the past appears… It’s partly your fault and mine.’
Something must have cracked when the dimension was torn and he moved here. Dimensions themselves are sensitive in the first place and shouldn’t be tampered with carelessly. That’s why there are so few dimensional dragons.
Try crossing dimensions more than 200 times a year. Can the dimension endure it?
The kids had already gone inside, as one of the revolving doors was torn off. Hwa-shin also followed the traces of where they had entered and went inside.
Plant-type monster. S-rank.
This type of monster appeared a while after the SH unit was formed. By then, even Cha Jaeha knew how to properly control fire, so an incident of this level was quickly resolved. Because he just had to burn everything. He literally burned the stems on the building’s exterior walls all at once. And he even selected only the stems.
“Haa, I need to see that sight in person. I can’t see it if I rush out like this.”
On the ascending escalator, Hwa-shin thought with his arms crossed grumpily. No matter how much he thought about it, there was no way the current Cha Jaeha could show such a scene.
“Should I go up more?”
He thought he had already climbed quite high. There was still no trace of people. Ah, to rephrase, no trace of living people. There were probably dead people in the collapsed areas here and there.
Still, the administrative system seemed to be working well. At least corpses weren’t the scattered things. Yoo Hwa-shin headed further up with an indifferent face. From the middle, even the escalators were no longer functioning.
As he got closer to the top floor, the sound of things breaking could be heard, and someone’s urgent voice was heard intermittently.
Hmm, it’s definitely here. Is it next to it?
On this floor, the stems were attacking, so it seemed our kids were here.
“Heh heh heh.”
Burst, tear, and rot them. It wasn’t easy to gauge how far he could go against monsters, so it wasn’t bad to try it out now.
He controlled the stems and struck down the wall. He passed through the cleanly pierced wall and headed to the side. He brushed off the accumulating dust in between.
What should I say when I meet the kids? Revealing my ability right away is a bit… Right, if they find out, I’ll just say I somehow got in and gloss over it…
“Oh my.”
It was a moment that was already too late.