Chapter 79

Chapter 79

The tool had just been punished for daring to covet the food on a human’s table, and was now banished to the balcony.

“Dad says you’re not human. You’re just like a dog or a thing.”

“……”

“But, you know. Animals or things can’t talk.”

The child’s black hair, bathed in the sunset glow, was tinged with red. The tool lifted its gaze, which had been sinking downward, and looked at the child. The child seemed startled for a moment, letting out an “uh,” then urgently shouted.

“Hey, don’t look at me. If I make eye contact with you, I’ll get in trouble.”

“……”

As the child said, the tool had been beaten two days ago for daring to meet a human’s eyes despite being a tool.

What had that person said back then? The tool blinked blankly, recalling the recent past. Right, that person had definitely said this.

‘Don’t you dare mistake yourself for a human. You’re nothing but trash, worthless and useless, worse than garbage.’

“Hey, hey! You can’t sleep. If you sleep here, you’ll catch a cold. Last time you almost died from that.”

Perhaps the tool’s stillness, as if lost in thought, looked like it was dozing off. The child grabbed the tool’s shoulders and shook them, urging it to get up.

Instead of explaining that it hadn’t been sleeping, the tool obediently lifted its head. Of course, it kept its gaze strictly lowered, just in case their eyes might meet.

“Good. You can’t die. Don’t die.”

Why? He couldn’t voice it, and only asked silently inside.

After all, it was a life that merely continued on without any meaning. Used only to be trampled, discarded, and broken, without any worth or use.

A life where, even if his breath suddenly stopped and he died one day, everyone would just laugh it off and say, “Well, one piece of trash gone.”

Could something like this even be called a life in the first place? Even roadside trash, at least someone would pick it up and put it in a bin.

But the “tool,” though it was trash, was forcibly dragged into a place where people lived, and was simply rotting away, worthless.

By a man who picked up unwanted trash, locked it in his own sight, and kept hitting, breaking, and trampling it, without any value or meaning, wandering the line between life and death for being useless, just like this.

Just like this…

“No.”

It was a firm voice. At the same time, it was a voice so solid it was hard to believe it came from a child.

The tool, momentarily forgetting its own situation, lifted its head and looked at the child. Hair dyed red by the sunset fluttered in the wind.

“That’s not right, Mr. Yoon Juyeong.”

He suddenly realized.

Had there been a child like this in that house in his memories?

“Who decided that our lives have to be valuable?”

Between the scattered strands of black hair, silver-gray eyes shone brilliantly in the sunset glow. He stared at the woman gripping his shoulder, his gaze dazed as if looking at the world’s finest painting.

“Is it wrong to be useless? Is it wrong to just go on without meaning?”

The hand that had been on his shoulder carefully touched his cheek. It was a touch so warm and sorrowful that it would be no surprise if he got burned.

The woman caressed his cheek with a careful touch, as if handling someone so beloved and cherished that just looking at them made her heart ache.

“Just.”

Drop, drop.

An infinitely hot liquid fell onto his cheek. The eyes quietly gazing at him were already wet with tears.

He reflexively grabbed the woman’s arm and tried to speak. To tell her not to cry. But the words he was about to utter lost their form and vanished into the air.

That was entirely because the sensation touching his forehead was too startling.

“Yoon Juyeong, there are people who are happy just because you’re alive, because you keep living, you know?”

It took a moment to realize what the soft touch that landed on his forehead and then lifted, like blessing a young child, had been. And after realizing what it was, another chilling question followed.

There was no such scene in his memories.

Not during her childhood, when she was treated worse than roadside trash and merely breathed, nor later, when she couldn’t bear it and tried to escape through death—the past Yoon Seohee had never said such things or done such actions.

And he was not a human with enough imagination to dream of situations he had never directly seen or heard.

Then there could only be one answer.

“Is it you, Master?”

Yoon Seohee’s face, which existed nowhere in his memories, twisted into a subtle expression. At first glance, it looked like sadness, but from another angle, it seemed like anger.

—Mr. Yoon Juyeong.

“Master, right now, outside—no, if I’m dreaming right now… then your safety is—”

*Thump.* Their foreheads touched. His master still hadn’t stopped crying, and now she was hiding her silver-gray eyes behind her eyelids. He stared at that white face, crying as if she were the most wronged person in the world, forgetting the words he had been about to say.

—I’m sorry.

“Master?”

Why was this happening? Yoon Seohee’s voice kept growing more distant. Like a fish gasping for air, he urgently grabbed hold of Yoon Seohee’s arm.

Before he knew it, the edges of his vision were staining black. He sensed the end of the dream approaching.

—I…

The balcony drenched in red sunset, the sound of insects chirping, and his master’s voice all faded away. The end of the dream was already right before his eyes.

In the center of his vision, which was beginning to shatter and scatter, he realized that the silver-gray eyes, now dry of tears, were shining brightly.

—I really can’t do this, Mr. Yoon Juyeong.

It was the end of the dream.

* * *

The moment of waking from a dream might resemble the instant glass shatters.

“Ugh…”

The world of the dream shattered, and the world of reality rushed in. And at the same time, the injuries of reality—not those of the dream—made their presence sharply known.

Groaning from the sharp, searing pain that wracked his entire body, he barely managed to lift his impossibly heavy eyelids.

“This is…”

Dark, damp stone walls and floor… The faint light from a Mana Orb illuminated the dim, humid interior of the cave.

Frowning, he recalled the memories just before he had collapsed. He had definitely been fighting the monster to protect his master. And then… three more monsters had appeared, and though he fought desperately, he had ultimately been unable to withstand them.

And then.

“Mr. Yoon Juyeong.”

And then, his master had appeared.

He didn’t know what method she had used, but she had broken through the barrier he had created, run that great distance, and stood before the monsters, shielding him. It was utterly unbelievable, yet it was an undeniable reality.

Recalling his master’s image from his memory, he gritted his teeth. At the same time, a cautious hand touched his cheek, as if telling him to relax.

“Mr. Yoon Juyeong. Look here.”

Her body temperature was so warm it was almost hot, as if she had carried the warmth from the dream directly into reality. Breathing raggedly like a drowning man, he finally managed to turn his head and look in the direction of the voice.

“…Master?”

“Yes, it’s me, Mr. Yoon Juyeong.”

Yoon Seohee gave a faint smile. But Yoon Juyeong couldn’t smile back. It was because Yoon Seohee’s appearance, now that he saw it directly, was utterly indescribable.

Her hair was not just disheveled but matted with some unknown liquid and blood; her skin was red and bruised as if scraped and bumped; and finally, her brow was bleeding continuously, as if she had struck something hard.

He hurriedly sat up to check on Yoon Seohee’s condition. Yoon Seohee watched him silently for a moment before quietly adding a single remark.

“I treated what I could with what I had. There are no major injuries, so don’t worry.”

Which meant that before the treatment, there *had* been major injuries. Unable to find the right words, he fumbled in the air several times as he examined his master.

Yoon Seohee didn’t stop Yoon Juyeong’s hands as they carefully touched, lifted, and sorrowfully stroked the area around her wounds. Instead, she grabbed his arm with her other hand and spoke.

“Mr. Yoon Juyeong.”

Her voice was calm enough to soothe Yoon Juyeong, who had been overly agitated at the sight of her injuries. He lifted his gaze from her wounds, looking as if he might cry at any moment, and met her eyes.

“I’m sorry.”

“…Master.”

“Let me say this first—I’m not apologizing for coming out of the cave.”

I don’t have the slightest intention of apologizing for that. Yoon Seohee cut off the events of a moment ago with an utterly resolute tone. For an instant, Yoon Juyeong felt as if *he* were the one being cut off, and he fell silent with a chilling sensation.

“What I’m trying to apologize for is related to what you said before we entered the Dungeon.”

“…Master, I don’t want to stop you from saying what you want to say, but right now, tending to your wounds and getting outside is—”

“I don’t want to stay still.”

He was silent for a moment. At first, he was silent trying to grasp what Yoon Seohee’s words meant, and afterward, he was silent because there was simply nothing he could say in response to what she was saying.

Yoon Seohee continued her words with a calm expression, as if to say she had expected Yoon Juyeong’s reaction.

“I don’t want to stay stuck in this kind of relationship with you, Mr. Yoon Juyeong.”

“Master.”

“You said that if there was proof that you and I were connected, that would be enough for you.”

A wind blew in from somewhere. Following a breeze too faint to have been created through mana, Yoon Seohee’s black hair swayed slightly.

Yoon Seohee carelessly tucked the strands tickling her cheek behind her ear, and as if she wouldn’t leave him any room to escape, she met his gaze and spoke firmly.

“But that’s not enough for me, Mr. Yoon Juyeong.”

Footsteps followed the wind blowing in from a distant place. They weren’t the footsteps of a seven-legged monster. The sound this time was the kind that would come from a human running urgently toward a destination.

“I won’t ask you to change your attitude toward me now. But in return, I won’t let myself be held back by your pleas either.”

“Boss?! Are you safe?!”

“Boss, Maaaaaster! Are you inside?! Please be safe!!”