I checked the notification message again after being thrown into the quest area, but it was really her. Woo Yeon-Hee was in front of me, blinking her round eyes. Her face was still charming and lovely like a hydrangea flower. Although I was happy to see the face I had been missing for a long time, it brought a lump to my throat. Woo Yeon-Hee should have never entered this place.
Then, I was surprised by how much I was worried about her. This was supposed to be good news as she was my most helpful assistant and was as strong as me. I must have missed her more than I thought, and as a woman, not a colleague.
Shit. From when?
This was an embarrassing feeling.
“How can you…”
Tears quickly welled up in Woo Yeon-Hee’s eyes as soon as she heard my voice. Then, she jumped into me, wrapping her arms around my waist. It was only for a few seconds, but I could grasp how many hardships she had gone through.
I saw my other party members who had entered the quest area, including Seong-Il, Lee Soo-Ah, and Shin Kyung-Ah. We were on a vast grassland where the sun was blazing and flowers were gently swaying in the breeze. The other three looked to be in a pleasant mood. Although there was no concrete building, the scene was enough to deceive us that we had returned to reality.
The three who were looking around made eye contact with me, and they all had different thoughts. Seong-Il, who had clearly mistaken that we had returned to Earth, was scratching his nose with an emotional glance toward me and Woo Yeon-Hee. Lee Soo-Ah was cautious as she was trying to understand the situation, and Shin Kyung-Ah’s lips were slightly raised as if she thought that something interesting would happen.
Then, Woo Yeon-Hee opened her mouth, and her voice croaked, “...The quest finally appeared. Finally…”
She slowly raised her head which had been burrowed into my chest and looked up at me. Then, she turned her head and began to stare at the other three. Her side profile began to change sharply, and I was confident that I could see her eyes filling up with a murderous intention toward the two other women, Lee Soo-Ah and Shin Kyung-Ah. Her tearful eyes had transformed into the heartless eyes of the executioner.
The two women flinched at the same time.
“Are they your party members?” Woo Yeon-Hee asked with a barbed tone.
Anyway, it was time to get out of there. This was our first time entering the Baclan Corps’ mainland, but the fact that open areas were dangerous applied anywhere you went.
After walking along the edge of the meadow, we found a place where we could hide between the valleys. There, Seong-Il couldn’t hide his disappointment as he finally noticed he wasn’t on Earth. But soon, he initiated a conversation with Woo Yeon-Hee with a soft smile. It was a visibly different attitude from the two women who had been silent since Woo Yeon-Hee appeared.
“You must be Mary. I have heard a lot about you. I’m Kwon Seong-Il.”
Seong-Il stretched out his hand to her, but she responded without giving a handshake, “Odin must have liked you. You can call me Mary.”
Seong-Il rubbed his hand on his thigh shamefully, obviously embarrassed. Of the two women, Shin Kyung-Ah was the first to approach Woo Yeon-Hee. At that moment, Woo Yeon-Hee’s face turned cold, so Shin Kyung-Ah couldn’t even open her mouth. Her entire body actually stiffened as she abruptly stopped in an unnatural posture as if time had halted. This was caused by the black energy that had stretched out from Woo Yeon-Hee before quickly vanishing.
After that, Woo Yeon-Hee flew in front of Kyung-Ah like a ghost, and the wind blew a beat late.
Whoosh-
Not only Shin Kyung-Ah’s bobbed hair but Lee Soo-Ah’s long hair also flapped strongly. Woo Yeon-Hee said while looking straight into Shin Kyung-Ah’s eyes. “I’ll be watching you.”
Her voice sounded so creepy that Seong-Il gulped down involuntarily. I understood why Woo Yeon-Hee had changed, but it was still very uncomfortable. She had turned into me. It was true that I had been expecting her to change like this as I had trained her, but… My heart ached, facing the new Woo Yeon-Hee. I knew what this feeling was, and it was something I should have been wary of. Therefore, I thought I needed to be careful.
Woo Yeon-Hee passed Kyung-Ah, who was frozen, and headed to Soo-Ah. Since she had already warned Shin Kyung-Ah, she didn’t say a word to Lee Soo-Ah. She just looked up at Lee Soo-Ah as she was much shorter than the other woman, and Lee Soo-Ah simply looked away to avoid her gaze. I saw Woo Yeon-Hee’s lips moving silently.
‘Challenger-class rope?’
She smirked and came back to me. There was something an Awakened could use if they had upgraded their Sense to an S-class or above. The skill wasn’t defined by the System, but it was often used by the S-class Awakened. It was commonly called ‘Trill’ instead of ‘Frequency.’ Woo Yeon-Hee seemed to be using Trill at me, but her words kept cutting off and I couldn’t understand what she was saying.
“I still need to upgrade my Sense more,” I responded.
Then, Woo Yeon-Hee nodded slowly and said, “Kwon Seong-Il is fine, but not the other two. I can’t trust them.”
She meant that they could betray us at any time, and of course, I was aware of that. Complete trust wasn’t something we could get from boxes. Everyone wore fake masks and lived based on what gave them the most benefits. The person I needed immediately was someone who was willing to fully cooperate with me while sharing their life and death with the team members, even if it was only because they wanted to fulfill their own interests.
Everyone became oppressed by Woo Yeon-Hee’s vibe. Seong-Il would have tried to liven the atmosphere, but he was also gazing at her with a strained look. He must have noticed her capabilities given that she wasn’t armed at all.
At that time, Shin Kyung-Ah let out a loud gasp and collapsed on the floor as soon as she was released from the energy that was squeezing her. Then, she panted while looking at Woo Yeon-Hee’s back as if she couldn’t believe her power. There was a twitch under her eyes.
“Wait here,” I told the three.
I moved away from them with Woo Yeon-Hee to a distance where the three couldn’t eavesdrop by using their C-class Sense. There was a stream of water that had been distinctly divided into upstream and downstream. Woo Yeon-Hee brightened on our way there, but she looked even happier after she washed her face. She had definitely missed me, and I hoped that happy look on her face would last a long time.
Therefore, I was staring at her without a word, but her expression soon darkened again. She must have been conscious about her look since she forced a smile, but there was no glint in her eyes. Just as Lee Soo-Ah and Shin Kyung-Ah had become silent, Woo Yeon-Hee seemed to have been buried in the painful memories she had gone through. Her smile looked distressed, so my heart ached again.
Yeon-Hee… What the hell did you leave behind in me when you were away?
I suppressed my desire to comfort her, then got down to business.
“What is the quest?”
She remarked, “Well, I already got it before, but the quest has been reinforced. The System is weird. It’s not the one we knew. It’s getting fixed.”
I said, “Tell me more about the reinforced quest.”
“Do you remember when I told you why I approached you a long time ago?” she suddenly asked.
I raised an eyebrow. “Haven’t you given up on that quest?”
It was the quest that gave her the mental attributes. It required her to be supportive of the target that had been designated by the System, and her last target was me. Because the mission was vague, I had told her to give up such a quest instantly. However, Woo Yeon-Hee shook her head that she would at least try.
“You said that the System was fixed, right?” I asked.
She nodded. “Yes.”
I continued, “I’m modifying it. This place is a part of it.”
I had almost told her the truth about this place.
“That was you?” She widened her eyes.
“Yes. The System is making me go through a proxy war under the pretext of the System modification.”
The System’s intention to strengthen Woo Yeon-Hee’s quest and send her to me felt malicious. It probably wanted her to die here, on the mainland of the Baclan. However, it was possible to run away from this land under the assumption that I would abandon the other three.
“What about the commander-in-chief?” I asked.
Woo Yeon-Hee took out a returning stone instead of answering. She must have secured a hidden reward from Stage One. We could fail the quest right now and return to the saved return point. That was the power of this stone as it wasn’t subjected to time and space.
“Did you get a skeleton dragon?” I questioned.
She shook her head. “No.”
I didn’t know the details, but the result of me securing the dragon must have affected all the other stages. All the necklaces that could create the dragon must have disappeared. If my hunch was right, then I was the only one who possessed the dragon in this world.
At that time, Woo Yeon-Hee’s painful expression caught my eyes again. She must have suppressed her agony when she saw me, and it wrung my heart.
‘What kind of hardships has she gone through in Act One? Did the System tell people to kill her? What kind of hostility did she face from the villagers?’
Woo Yeon-Hee was an emotional girl. Then suddenly…
Oh my gosh!
I came to my senses when the thought flashed in my mind. Yeon-Hee… No, Woo Yeon-Hee must have noticed the change in my feelings toward her. I didn’t know what my face looked like at the moment, but what was clear was that I kept looking at her unconsciously. However, the pain in her face remained unchanged.
If she could feel my emotions, her expression would have changed even a bit.
I stated, “You must have blocked your Sense to people close to you.”
Her lips quivered. “I shouldn’t have done that…”
I couldn’t hold my questions back anymore. “Just what have you gone through?”