Seung-Hyun and Grace ran for their lives from the two bullies. They finally caught their breath after running until their pursuers could no longer follow them.
“Ugh. To be that brazen in such a crowded place.”
Their behavior was utterly baffling. Everything from cutting in line to immediately threatening Grace once they got into a fight.
“Haah. Haah,”
While Grace seemed to be breathing better than Seung-Hyun, it was nonetheless clear that she was exhausted as well. “This is too much... so tiring. What the heck is going on?!”
He was stunned to see her so indignant after escalating the conflict. “Hey, are you dense? What were you gonna do, jump into a fight with them?!”
She gave a self-assured smile, happily declaring, “I have you, Seung-Hyun.”
“Do I look like an Awakened or something? Haaah. Never mind that. Are you hurt?”
“Nope. I’m tough as nails.”
It would seem being tough was a separate matter from having low stamina.
In any case, they had lost Si-Woo, Elysia, and Evangeline in the park.
Grace still didn't want to accept the change in itinerary. “I want to ride that one more time!”
“Haah. Not this time, Grace. But in the future, next time someone tries to pick a fight, just ignore them.”
“I have to teach them a lesson!” she insisted.
“You'll be the one getting schooled, you dumb dumb!!”
Her hair flopped down in defeat, giving a humorous air to her apparent suffering. Whether she understood the situation or not, Grace nonetheless regained her energy and was thrilled by the park, dashing off again to find another ride that caught her eye.
“Hey, wait...”
Pow!!
Just then, someone grabbed Seung-Hyun by the back of the neck and sent him crashing to the ground.
They'd run, but apparently it hadn’t been far enough.
“Hey, what if things get serious?” one gruff voice said.
“Who cares?” the other responded. “This bastard didn't even see us. And even if he did, what's he gonna do about it?”
“I dunno man, I’ve got a bad feeling about this one. Maybe we should just try again some other time.”
“Whatever, I'm still angry!! This fuckin’ piece of shit.”
Wham!
Seung-Hyun didn’t even have the wherewithal to distinguish his surroundings or what was happening, having been blindsided and sucker punched. He could only twitch on the ground, unable to even begin trying to stand up.
The attack was too weak to be coming from an Awakened, yet the punches and kicks were incredibly vicious.
“Cough. Cough.” He groaned in pain on the ground, but he and Grace had run to a secluded alley when fleeing pursuit. No one would ever imagine something so sinister was happening in a nearby alley. Unless a staff member happened to come by, they were sure to be trapped and left to their attackers’ mercy.
Blood poured from Seung-Hyun’s nose, and his lip cracked open. He was lifted up by the collar, grunting from the pain it brought. He managed to open his bloodied mouth with difficulty, groaning, “Just... who the hell are you? Why are you doing this to me?”
He couldn't understand why a couple simple thugs would choose to beat him so badly. Could it really be all because he had said something about them cutting in line? Even from the start, nothing about the situation had made any sense to him.
“What the hell are you talking about? Why does there have to be some big overarching reason and motivation when I want to spill some blood? You just pissed me off, that’s all,” the attacker sneered.
The blows had been so severe that Seung-Hyun couldn't even think straight. His ears felt like they were underwater, all sound muffled. Yet, even through the muffling, he could just barely hear the two assailants talk to each other.
“Should we start now?”
“He's a little weak for a host.”
“If we put his memories together, we can lure that kid by taking this guy... Oh? Well, I'll be. How perfect! She's coming to us all by herself.”
Their gazes turned to the side.
Grace, who'd scampered off to find another ride just moments earlier, was glaring at them with a look of demonic fury.
Seung-Hyun couldn't open his mouth properly, but he realized the situation was serious. He tried to signal her to flee, but all that came out was, “Hrg. Hrmph.”
He wasn’t wrong to immediately try to avoid the worst-case scenario, even if it seemed dramatic. After all, judging by what the two men said, they seemed far from human.
‘Monsters from the gate?’
He had heard of monsters occasionally slipping out of gates around the world across Earth, but the Saint of Tionis, Davey O'Rowane himself, had placed a barrier there at Alfland.
A monster shouldn't be able to enter regardless of circumstances. Even more, Seung-Hyun had never even heard of a monster appearing in human form.
Even when racking his brain and combing through his past to desperately recall possible motivations, he came to the conclusion that he hadn't made any significant enemies. He really couldn’t figure out why they had come after him.
‘Run!’
Grace wasn't strong in combat. Unlike Rinne, who was essentially the bodyguard captain of the Saint of Tionis, Grace was just a regular slime homunculus.
Judging by the way their expressions lit up when she came back, they were clearly after Grace, not him.
‘I swear I’m never coming to this amusement park again.’
Monsters, then terrorists, and then even more monsters? Of course, the monsters had most likely come in from outside, but going through such an ordeal three consecutive times felt excessive.
While Davey O’Rowane had definitely placed a barrier on the amusement park to keep monsters out, perhaps they’d slipped through because they were special living beings parasitizing humans.
Grace called out, “Are you... alive?”
“...Ru—” His voice was hoarse as he kept shouting for her to run.
Not to be dissuaded, Grace marched right in unabated, glaring at them with her sparkling gold eyes. “You... you bastards!!”
Despite Seung-Hyun's attempts to stop her, she charged in as if she'd lost her mind, jumping straight onto one of the men.
At the same time, her hair latched onto the man like it was alive.
“Ugh! You crazy bitch, what the fuck is this?!”
“Damn it, shake it off!!”
A slime was a creature that enveloped and swallowed its prey.
Of course, Grace wasn't entirely a pure-blooded naturally-spawned slime. Still, she was created using a Slime Lord as the foundation, and was thus able to change her physical form freely. Grace was probably trying to attack using the method ingrained in her instincts.
Alas, it was a pointless struggle.
“Kyaak!”
She simply didn’t have the strength to harm others. She was eventually sent tumbling across the ground and groaned in pain.
To think Grace, who usually found everything a hassle, would completely lose it and attack the moment she saw Seung-hyun's battered face...
He couldn't help letting out a hollow laugh.
As Grace lay on the ground, coughing in pain, the men approached her with annoyed expressions.
Pow!!
She shrieked, “Aaagh!!”
“You're making this difficult, you bitch!!”
Pow! Pow!!
They mercilessly kicked Grace.
He and Grace had only met a few days ago, sure. Yet nonetheless, he snapped the moment he saw Grace being hit.
Before he knew it, his body was moving. Thoroughly enraged and eager to defend his family, Seung-Hyun charged at them with superhuman strength that came from nowhere, screaming, “Stop it right now, you fucking bastards!!!”
He recklessly jumped in to pull them apart, but there was no happy and miraculous turning of tables.
Pow!!
“Gaaa!”
“Tsk. You're really being a pain, asshole.” The man turned to his partner. “Should we just bury this guy here?”
“Nobody gives a shit about a guy like him. Stop being an idiot and just take her.”
They pulled something grotesque from their pockets and slowly approached Grace.
“Don't take it personally. This is just a job...”
Boom!!
A chilling, explosive sound echoed.
Finally processing the sound, one of the men looked at his arm, which dangled limply by his side. It was as if the bones in his entire arm had been completely shattered. At the same time, the surrounding space began to turn black as if it had been isolated.
A different voice rang out, taunting, “Nothing personal, kid. I’m just doing my job, too.”
Startled, the men looked toward the source of the voice and saw three people.
There stood Si-Woo and Elysia, calm as could be. Accompanying them was Evangeline, whose pupils were vertically slit, exuding a terrifying aura.
“I'm going to end this quickly and quietly, so save your speeches for hell. After all, if another accident happens here, Dad’s gonna be in a lot of trouble.”
“You... you fucking bitch, what the fuck is going on?!” The startled man frantically tried to escape, but Evangeline darted out in the blink of an eye, snatching his face and slamming it into the ground. “You... you crazy monster bitch!!!”
The other man crudely swung his fist, full of openings.
Grasp!!
However, before the fist could connect, a pure white and muscular mass emerged from the shadows to grab his hand.
“Tsk, tsk.”
The massive rabbit was so huge that even the big man had to look up at it, craning his neck to take in its full manly figure. It looked down on the man with its bulging muscles.
The rabbit clicked its tongue while wagging its index finger to show disappointment, then simply pulled the man by his arm.
Boom!!
Using only a single destructive punch, the man was effectively silenced.
“Seung-Hyun!” Si-Woo immediately rushed over and helped him up.
“Ugh... Si-Woo?”
“Hey, don't talk! Your injuries are terrible, and we don’t want to make them worse. What happened to you?!”
“I don’t know...” Seung-Hyun gave a bitter smile and painfully stretched out his hand. He pointed toward Grace, who was still groaning on the ground. “I... I’m fine. Grace... Grace...”
Elysia and Evangeline were already approaching her.
“Mr. Killer Rabbit, please bring those two guys away somewhere they can't be seen. I need to treat these two first.”
Seeing the damage they’d done to his friend, Si-Woo worriedly exclaimed, “Oh my god... How badly did they beat him? This isn't something a simple healing spell can fix.”
Evangeline ground her teeth. Then, she slowly pulled out her phone and solemnly tapped the screen, making a call. Taking a deep breath to compose her performance, she tried her best to sound tearful as she cried out, “Dad... Sob...”
Davey, who was abroad in Tionis attending to his archduke duties, arrived at the scene within ten seconds.
The moment he arrived, he threw his head back and roared, “Which bastards?! Who the fuck dares to attack my little girl?!”
Evangeline stretched out her hand calmly, as if she hadn't been crying at all. She urged him, “Dad, hurry! Heal them!”
Given her frantic call and desperate plea for help, he was startled to see Evangeline unharmed. “Ummm. Huh?”
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