My Strange Savior - Chapter 5

Chapter 5

“What now?” 

Gia answered with her arms crossed, jumping to her feet and abruptly starting to clear her surroundings. With Kalion’s familiarity with the terrain here, they should be able to find Dr. Morrison’s hiding place quickly. There was no point in killing time here any longer.

She needed to move quickly to stop him from doing anything. Since they had come here, maybe Morrison had a way to return. She had to catch him and go back. Back to where she was.

“So, are we allies now?”

He never agreed to that. Who was this impulsive woman? Exhausted and still feeling the lingering pain, Kalion touched his forehead and sighed deeply.

“I have never agreed to ally with you.”

“Huh? You said you believed me.”

“Is that the same thing?”

“What’s the difference?”

Just when he thought it was all over. What was this guy up to? Gia, who wanted to catch Morrison as quickly as possible, approached Kalion, tapping her foot.

“What’s the problem?”

“Believing in you and believing your words are two different things.”

“What’s with you? Why is this kid so picky?”

Kalion, who had never directly heard that word before, momentarily raised an eyebrow.

“Uh… This isn’t something I can decide on my own.”

“Then just ask.”

“I can’t decisively trust you.”

“So what are you suggesting, then?”

She needed to quickly go out and catch Morrison because she didn’t know what he might be scheming behind the scenes. Morrison throws himself into the hole, and it’s only for a split second that Gia hesitates. For some reason, even though she had followed immediately after, Morrison had already disappeared.

A whole week had passed since they had arrived here. Gia hadn’t been sitting idle, either. She had searched within a radius of five hundred meters from the point where she had fallen, but she couldn’t find a single strand of his hair. Even though it was easy to say it was five hundred meters, it was not an easy task, even for Gia, who had become an enhanced human, to search rough and rugged mountain ranges every day.

Even if her skin quickly healed and the boots wrapped around her torn and battered feet were now a mess drenched in blood. What does he expect from her?

With her face slightly turned up, Gia looked down at Kalion.

“Stop beating around the bush and say what you want.”

“First, I plan to corner you and take you to the palace.”

“What if I refuse?”

“I will take you forcibly if necessary. If what you’re saying is true, Morrison is a dangerous individual, but you could also be a threat to our world, no less than him.”

With a calm tone, Kalion’s red eyes held determination as he looked at Gia.

“Forcibly?”

As if anyone can take her forcibly.

Gia swept her hair back, feeling disgusted.

“You think you can take me forcibly?”

With a raised eyebrow and a mocking look, Gia stared at Kalion as if challenging him.

“I’m… telling you the truth now, not because I have time to spare.”

Gia bent over, bringing her face close to Kalion’s with eyes that seemed infinitely deep and knowing.

“It’s a warning. Don’t crumble like my world did, where I couldn’t do anything.”

The seemingly casual tone became heavier, and the previously vacant gaze now held anger.

“People screaming everywhere. Explosions were heard along with sirens. The cries of a child. The blood-curdling screams of a mother holding that child.”

Her words were spat out as if chewing on them, leaving a bitter taste.

“And then the mother, dying as her throat was torn out by the resurrected child. All worlds will be a mess. I guarantee it. I’d rather die as a human.”

Gia narrowed her eyes because she wanted to die as a human. There were only six half-doses of the antidote left in stock. At best, it would last about six months.

Gia needed to quickly capture Morrison and find a way back. Otherwise, she would turn into a zombie.

She didn’t want to die alone in such a miserable state.

Even in her days as a naive high school student, being saved first because she was part of a pharmaceutical company family meant that wherever Gia went, there were zombies that tore people apart.

The refugee camps were no different, with people throwing resentful glances at her due to her father’s stigma.

The cold stares that rained down on her, the days when she scavenged discarded trash for food, were as vivid as yesterday.

Just because she was the daughter of the man who discovered the virus, she was robbed of the reason to live.

Every day, she thought about wanting to die because living felt too much like hell, but she never dared to carry it out.

She lived by avoiding people with malicious intent, scavenging and hiding in deeper underground places, fearing that she might be discovered and hunted down.

The people who presented the coercive option of the Enhancement Human Project. They talked as if they were offering support, but it was no different from pushing her off a cliff. People who pressured her with guilt to support them.

How did she survive there? She had to survive to the end, eliminate Morrison, and correct the mistakes her father had made. She wanted to grab Kalion by the collar and silence him right away with a dry tone.

“I don’t know why you’re so angry.”

“Ha….”

As if he didn’t know, his dry face made her feel even more powerless. Why does he look so handsome like this? As she stared at his unfamiliar appearance, Kalion’s manly lips moved.

“I’m just following the procedure. Didn’t you say you were a knight from there too? Are there no rules and regulations there? Reporting to the superior is the natural procedure.”

A stubborn one, blocked from all sides. No matter what she said, it was pointless to have further conversations with someone who would stick to the rules.

Well, even when the story of zombies first appeared, people pushed their phones forward and thought it was an event.

Is it Halloween or something? Everyone just clapped and said, “Wow, it’s so real,” even when a blood-covered zombie fell from the roof.

People didn’t know even as the zombie that fell from the roof broke its limbs and lunged. It wasn’t until that zombie bit someone else that people screamed in panic and began to flee, and by then, it was already too late.

‘A monster, a monster appeared!’

Shouting it out while holding onto a normal person was such a ridiculous thing, but they wasted time doing so. It might have been better to go out quickly and catch Morrison. 

Gia leaned back and closed her eyes, suppressing her anger inside.

“Sounds forced.”

It seemed he had forgotten who had saved him from almost dying. Gia turned away as if it wasn’t funny and finished packing her things.

“Then let’s go our separate ways. I’ll go my way, and you go your way. Even though I saved you with great effort, don’t die and take the medicine.”

Approaching again, she forced a small pill into his hand, and Gia quickly packed her things. For now, it was almost certain that Morrison wasn’t here. How was it that she couldn’t find a single hair of Morrison’s if he’d fallen, and she’d spent the last few years searching for him?

‘Hiding and seeking is tiring. Damn.’

To be thrown into a strange world and have to search again. It felt like a beggar’s work. Someone might think she was chasing after it with great enthusiasm. 

Biting her lip, Gia looked up at the dim cave ceiling and then tightly closed her eyes.

‘If caught, he’s done for, seriously.’

Gia, after clearing her distractions, quickly packed her belongings and then turned her wristwatch. The terrain was only 10% loaded, with gaps here and there, but a vague map was sketched out where Gia was.

The dawn had arrived, so she needed to start moving slowly.

“That’s not possible.”

Kalion said, just getting up from his seat as he looked at the pill in his hand, and the cave seemed to fill with him. Perhaps it was because of his large build. 

When Gia was alone, she hadn’t realized the cave was so small.

“So what do you suggest? We don’t know what that bastard might be up to even at this moment. And if we find him, can you stop him?”

Gia, who had casually placed her heavy backpack, looked at Kalion blocking her. Now that even the knife that Kalion had marked with his eyes had disappeared into the backpack, there was nothing left that could be used as a weapon.

So he had to face the goblin’s head like a watermelon with his bare hands. Could he stop that woman? Kalion stared at Gia, who seemed to have a body that looked endlessly soft on the surface.

Her wrists were so thin that he worried they might break easily, but even when he had tried to push her hand away earlier, it hadn’t budged easily.

Kalion, awakening to that sensation, fixed his gaze. It wouldn’t be easy. But he couldn’t just let Gia go.

“Weak-minded.”

“Weak…minded.”

The casual remark seemed to have made Kalion’s large body sway slightly.

Kalion, known as the Empire’s Number One Sword and hailed as a genius of the unfading sword, had grown up as a prodigy under the tutelage of Bowers. Even those who only knew a fraction of his achievements still regarded him with reverence.

He was the object of admiration for aspiring knights and was highly respected by the knights themselves. However, to hear that he had become weak-minded was a new and unsettling notion for Kalion. His head began to feel dizzy.

“I’m not weak.”

Kalion gritted his teeth and said as he approached Gia.

“Then why did you almost die?”

Kalion, not usually one to speak much or explain himself eloquently, hesitated to open his mouth to defend himself. Why did he even need to explain?

“I said I’m not weak.”

The act of risking his life to save his comrades by embodying the noble spirit of a knight had been branded as weakness by this woman. He had already destroyed two goblin lairs and was exhausted from constantly facing waves of monsters. Kalion’s pride wouldn’t allow him to explain it all in detail.

“Alright, alright, I’m scared. Yes, I understand. Kalion is not weak. Yes, yes.”

When Gia responded dryly, checking if there was anything left behind, Kalion’s jaw clenched tightly, and his muscles tensed.

“I said you can’t go.”

“But I’m going. What are you going to do?”

Seeing Gia’s teasing face, Kalion, known for his unwavering composure in any situation, couldn’t contain his boiling anger.