LIGHTNOVELONLINE Chapter 56: Angel of Holy Light
Chapter 56: Angel of Holy Light
Jin Beom-Min squatted in front of Tyrel, meeting her downcast gaze, and asked,
“What happened 28 years ago……?”
Jin Beom-Min continued, his voice almost a whisper.
“The Battle of Sorrow you mentioned…… What was that?”
Unexpectedly, the answer came from Kuen.
“……The Battle of Sorrow……? Was that…… 28 years ago?”
“You know about it?”
“……I…… overheard…… the monsters…… talking about it……”
Jin Beom-Min stood up and approached Kuen, asking. If he could find out what happened 28 years ago, he might be able to figure out how he ended up here.
“Tell me everything you know!”
“……I only…… overheard it in passing…… They said…… a huge number of monsters…… died…… at the Battle of Sorrow……”
28 years ago, the massive army of monsters he witnessed before being transported to Earth seemed to number at least tens of thousands.
If they clashed with the three heroes, including Jin Beom-Min, and the soldiers who had been suppressing their resentment, it would be natural for the monsters to suffer heavy casualties.
“……And……?
“……And…… that was the first time…… the Legion Commander…… showed himself……”
“Is that all?”
“……That’s all…… I haven’t heard…… anything more……”
Jin Beom-Min turned back to Tyrel and asked in a determined tone.
“Is…… Is my arrival here related to the Legion Commander?”
Only then did Tyrel crack a mocking smile and slowly open her mouth.
“Well…… What do you think……?”
“Are you still going to be stubborn?”
“I still want to live a little longer.”
Jin Beom-Min sighed and spoke again in a soothing tone.
“I won’t kill you, so tell me what you know. What difference will it make if I kill you now?”
“Hmph, I don’t believe a word you say.”
“Ha…… Really…… Why would I kill you? There’s no benefit in it, is there?”
“……Even if there’s no benefit, killing…… isn’t that one of the few things humans and monsters have in common?”
Jin Beom-Min clutched his head in frustration.
The answer to the question he had harbored for 28 years was right in front of him. He had to find out somehow.
“……Fine. If you’re going to be that stubborn, I assume you’re prepared for the consequences?”
Tyrel’s eyes trembled at Jin Beom-Min’s resolute question. But her tightly closed mouth remained shut.
Jin Beom-Min took a few steps back and raised his left hand.
Three daggers slowly emerged from the scabbard wrapped around his forearm and floated into the air.
“Whirling Claws, was it……? I’m guessing you’ve used them for this purpose many times before, haven’t you?”
At Jin Beom-Min’s words, Tyrel slowly nodded in resignation.
As he flicked his finger, the three daggers slowly flew across the air and stopped in front of Tyrel’s chair.
[Jin, what are you doing?]
Charlotte’s urgent voice came from the speaker.
Jin Beom-Min flicked a finger without even looking at the CCTV.
Whoosh! Crackle!
A dagger shot out, slicing the speaker in the corner of the room in half before returning.
“……Did you know that the human finger is where the most nerves are concentrated? I’m guessing it’s similar for dark elves……”
The three daggers slowly approached Tyrel’s left hand, which was tied to the chair.
It was the only hand she had left.
***
“Damn it! Open the door, quickly!”
Charlotte shouted, monitoring the inside of the cell through the CCTV.
The administrator, following her orders, frantically pressed the cell door release button.
“Huh? I-It won’t open!”
“It won’t open?”
“It seems…… the wiring has been cut…… from the inside!”
[Kyaaaaaaaaaaa!]
A piercing scream echoed from the speaker connected to the CCTV inside the cell.
Although Tyrel’s language was completely different from human language, her scream of pain was unmistakable.
“Then open it manually!”
“Uh, I-I can’t do that?”
“You can’t?”
“It was hastily modified from a bank vault…… Only the person who made it knows how to manually override it!”
“Damn it…… Then call him quickly!”
The administrator hurriedly picked up the phone and pressed the buttons.
[Uwaaaaaaaaaaa!]
Charlotte furrowed her delicate brows and irritably pressed the button to turn off the CCTV speaker.
***
“……Persistent…… You have a strong…… attachment to life……”
Kuen muttered in a cold tone.
“Ugh……”
Tyrel was half-conscious, her face pale with exhaustion, but she had not uttered a single word of information other than screams.
Jin Beom-Min continued to torture Tyrel with a stoic expression, moving his fingers, but his own face was grim.
Screech―
Boom!
Suddenly, the massive steel door opened with a heavy thud.
“Stop!”
Charlotte entered the cell, accompanied by guards armed with rifles.
“I said stop it!”
Jin Beom-Min raised his hands in resignation, and the three blood-stained daggers rose and stopped in mid-air.
The three daggers were covered in thick, viscous blood.
Charlotte, her face contorted with anger, checked on Tyrel’s condition.
Tyrel was drenched in sweat and nearly unconscious, but her life didn’t seem to be in immediate danger.
Her left index finger was in a terrible state, with the nail ripped off and the bone exposed, but otherwise, she had no other injuries.
“……With a dark elf’s regenerative abilities…… she’ll recover quickly.”
Jin Beom-Min offered a weak excuse, but Charlotte just wrinkled her nose and pointed towards the door.
“Get out, now!”
Jin Beom-Min nodded and turned around with Kuen.
The three daggers flew past the terrified guards’ eyes and silently returned to their scabbard.
As he reluctantly left the cell, Tyrel uttered a single word.
“……Angel of Holy Light……”
“What?”
Jin Beom-Min was startled by Tyrel’s words and turned back.
She continued weakly, her eyes half-closed.
“……Nell, was it……?”
“Nell……! What happened to her?”
“The Legion Commander…… took care of her.”
“……That’s impossible!”
“Soon…… you will be the same……”
With Tyrel’s faint smile, the massive steel door slammed shut with a thud.
***
“What the hell did you do!”
Charlotte’s furious voice echoed through the roughly finished concrete walls.
The WECRO Extraterrestrial Containment Facility, where the makeshift cell converted from a bank vault was located, was still under construction.
Unfinished wires protruded from the walls, and materials, including interior fittings, were scattered around haphazardly.
However, Charlotte didn’t care about the surroundings and continued to vent her anger.
“Suddenly summoning a monster! Torturing it! And you even broke the cell door?”
Jin Beom-Min, listening with a nonchalant attitude while scratching his eyebrow, mumbled in response.
“……It’s not human anyway…… So it’s not a violation of international law even if I torture it, right……?”
It was something Lee Sang-Jun had said before. But Charlotte wouldn’t back down with such an excuse.
“Is that important right now?”
“Isn’t that why I did it?”
“No, if you were going to cut it with a knife and make a mess, you should have told me beforehand!”
“Huh?”
“Do you know how many scientists are drooling outside right now? There’s a truckload of PhD holders who would sell their souls just to dissect that alien!”
“Uh……”
“If you’re going to use a knife, you should have connected measuring instruments, set up proper lighting! And installed high-definition recording equipment before doing it!”
Now Jin Beom-Min was truly flustered and started scratching his head.
“So…… it’s okay to torture it……?”
“You said it’s not human anyway, right?”
“……I did say that, but……”
“Feedback on pain is also important biological data, so it needs to be done in a properly equipped environment!”
“Uh…… Well…… I understand……”
Jin Beom-Min thought that Charlotte’s pretty face looked somewhat scary.
“The experiment schedule is all messed up because of those injuries!”
“Experiment……?”
“We caught an alien from a completely different world, so of course we need to obtain experimental data.”
“Like…… live experiments?”
“From understanding its physical structure to biochemical reaction tests, sensory perception tests, biofeedback tests…… The list alone would fill a book.”
“……That would be painful, wouldn’t it?”
“Well, some of them would be. Anyway, we’ll make sure it doesn’t die.”
Jin Beom-Min smiled faintly and nodded.
Perhaps Tyrel would suffer even more at the hands of Charlotte and a group of scientists, rather than him.
“Alright. I’ll let you know beforehand next time. I’m sorry.”
“Hmph…… I’m only letting you off the hook this time! Because it’s you, Jin!”
“Yes, yes.”
As Jin Beom-Min turned around, Kuen, who had been watching from a distance, approached and asked.
“……That woman……”
“Yes? Charlotte?”
“……Is her name Charlotte……? She’s quite beautiful……”
Jin Beom-Min was speechless for a moment.
But he soon remembered that Kuen, the ‘Blue Wall,’ was quite the ladies’ man back when he was alive.
“No, are you thinking about that in this situation?”
“……What’s wrong with me……?”
“……You’re dead?”
“……Making friends…… shouldn’t be a big problem……”
“Do you really want to be friends with her?”
“……Everything starts with…… friendship……”
Surprised by Kuen’s unexpected boldness, Jin Beom-Min glanced at Kuen’s groin area and asked.
“But…… uh…… biologically…… that’s impossible, isn’t it?”
“……What are you looking at……?”
“……Sorry.”
“……Well…… There’s more to the world…… than just physical relationships……”
“Well…… that’s true, but…… Wait, you can’t even communicate with each other, can you?”
Although Charlotte was proficient in various languages, it seemed unlikely that she had learned Dark Elf language already.
And Kuen couldn’t learn Korean either……
“Hello. Fuck.”
Suddenly, Kuen uttered two Korean sentences in a clumsy pronunciation. One of them wasn’t even a proper sentence.
“Whoa……”
“Is it strange……?”
“No, the first one is fine, but…… who taught you the ‘Fuck’ part……? Reaper, right? Reaper taught you that, didn’t he?”
“……He said it’s…… the most important word…… in Korean……”
“Well…… he’s not wrong……”
After returning from North Korea, Jin Beom-Min allowed Kuen to roam freely within the headquarters.
He felt sorry for Kuen, who had been isolated from society for so long, sealed within the ring.
Since the headquarters was completely isolated from the outside world, and most of the people working there were aware of Kuen’s existence, Lee Sang-Jun had readily agreed.
However, he had no idea that Kuen had met the Ghost Squad members and learned Korean in the meantime.
“……Basic grammar…… isn’t too difficult…… Pronunciation is a bit…… tricky, though……”
“Well, that’s true. For someone from Jindar……”
Various languages were spoken in Jindar. Besides the Jindar Common Tongue that Jin Beom-Min and Kuen were currently using, each race had its own language, and there were also various dialects that differed slightly from region to region.
Therefore, the people of Jindar, who lived alongside various races, could speak two or three languages fluently, and they were relatively quick at learning new languages.
“……Alright. I’ll introduce you…… when the opportunity arises.”
“……I’ll be looking forward to it……”