WeTried Translations
Translator/Editor: Natty
Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried
◈ Black Badger ◈
Chapter 37: Rescue Mission (3)
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He didn't answer.
Instead, his cold eyes rolled as he surveyed the surroundings. I smiled awkwardly again.
Part of the tower had collapsed. The door was blocked by fallen chunks of stone, and the civilian and I had been caught in a rain of rubble. We had almost ended our lives flattened into dried fish.
Running beneath the awning had been our best move. The awning had withstood everything pouring down.
It seemed Kudo had cleared away some of the rubble covering the awning. Squinting against the flooding light, I pushed the man beside me.
This guy had nerves of steel. It wouldn't have been strange for him to lose his mind in a situation like this.
“Please go outside and stay put.”
Though my legs were still trembling, I called after the man as he stubbornly headed toward the senior.
“And don't go causing trouble for no reason.”
“What trouble could I possibly cause? And why are you only getting here now? You people can lift cars like books, so couldn't you clear this stuff away in no time?”
He staggered as he walked, yet didn't stop grumbling.
What an incredible person. Watching someone complain even after narrowly escaping death, I gave a hollow laugh.
Jonathan Kudo didn't even glance at him.
“What is it?”
After staring down at me for a while, Kudo broke the silence.
I blinked once and met his eyes.
“Pardon?”
“Your back. Let me see.”
Ah.
He meant the burn on my back.
The Commander-in-Chief had told them that my healing ability was poor, but my seniors had not truly grasped it until they saw it for themselves.
Jonathan Kudo didn't seem worried about me, though.
Rather than concern, he seemed purely curious. Like John Mueln had been curious about me. Just as I'd heard, he was a difficult person to read.
My fellow recruits were kind. Their senior partners worried about my incomplete healing. Ami went without saying, and even Ricardo, despite all his grumbling, clearly looked after me.
...Choi Yoon was a sociopath, so I decided not to think about him.
Anyway, the point was that this senior would be a little different from everyone else. He would save people because it was the mission, and he would save me because I was a junior. But whether my name was Hildebert Taleb or Hessi Lyle would not matter to him.
I'd better not become a burden.
My ankle, which had been struck by rubble, felt much better. Dragging my leg, which no longer throbbed as badly, I got up with a smile.
“My healing ability is a little poor. Thank you for getting me out, Senior.”
“Can you move?”
“Of course.”
Kudo turned away.
His attitude made it clear that he had confirmed I wouldn't get in the way. Without looking back, he went outside through the path of ruins he had made.
I too walked steadily toward the pouring light.
Rumble.
“Argh! What was that?”
“Ugh.”
The civilian's urgent cry struck my ears alongside a heavy tremor. I staggered and hurriedly caught my balance.
Wow. It looked like it would collapse any moment now.
“No! My building!”
The man cried out as he stared at the building, trembling ominously.
“My masterpiece!”
So that was why he had kept refusing to leave. He was the building owner.
Letting out a helpless smile, I looked around. The building, which had been shaking with heavy rumble, rumble sounds, continued to shake for a while before finally falling still.
The suffocating calm before the storm.
With a sigh, I looked around.
Judging by appearances alone, things didn't look as bad as I'd expected.
Part of the tower had collapsed. The entrances were buried beneath fallen rubble. But the center of the lobby, where the creature had been, was fine. The tower was built with a wide-open central area containing a fountain. That area alone was relatively intact.
“It hasn't even been open for long....”
The building owner clutched his face in despair.
“It was supposed to be A-Tech's rival....”
Splash.
Water lapped around my ankles. The floor was flooded.
Was it water from a broken pipe? Or had Shu broken an aquarium tank?
Come to think of it, where was Shu?
Feeling my insides turn cold, I turned to the senior.
“Senior, where is Senior Shu?”
“Probably outside.”
Kudo answered flatly as he examined the floor.
“We can't contact her because the communicator is broken.”
“What?”
The building owner, who had been despairing, raised his head.
Looking at the senior's clean-cut face, which blended Eastern and Western features, he said,
“The communicator is broken? Then how are we supposed to contact the outside?”
“Don't you have a phone?”
I took my phone from my pocket and waved it.
“Is it broken?”
The building owner stared at me for a long time.
Then he slowly moved an arm and searched his pocket for his phone. It seemed he had forgotten it existed for a moment.
That could happen.
Silence settled over the ruined lobby. It was brought on by the building owner, who had been panting before burying his face in his phone. Letting out a long breath, I took in the sensations flooding over me.
The sound of water somewhere nearby. Concrete dust rustling down from mountains of rubble. The acrid smell of stones.
Should we get out by ourselves? Or wait for help from outside?
The senior didn't seem inclined to tell me. I had no idea what he was looking at. He walked through the lobby, swishing his sword through the water on the floor.
Just as I was about to approach and speak to him, the building owner shouted.
“I told you, it's inside!”
He certainly had a loud voice.
“Inside the tower! Get people here, now. Get me out of here! Didn't you see the building shaking?”
A fish fell onto him as he talked frantically with a wet flop.
The building owner jumped, I snickered, and Kudo didn't look over.
The poor man threw the already dead sea bass onto the floor.
Splash!
“Damn it!”
“Senior, should we just wait here?”
“They'll soon tell us the safest escape route.”
Though Kudo answered calmly, he didn't take his eyes from the flooded floor.
“A famous person is trapped. And this is a building in the center of Zone 1's shopping district, so it's dangerous too.”
“A famous person?”
Was he talking about himself?
When I blinked in confusion, an equally confused silence followed. The building owner, who had been yelling into his phone, snapped his mouth shut.
He stared at me with an incredulous expression.
“What? Why does that sound like it has a question mark after it? You don't know me?”
“Yes.”
I answered readily.
How would I know you? He talked like some crazy caller whose number was blocked.
But seeing the building owner's mouth fall open, and even Kudo raise his head to look at me, it seemed I had done something wrong again.
This person was famous?
“You really don't know me?”
“I'm sorry. I'm a little out of touch with what's going on in the world.”
“No, but still. You don't know me?”
“I don't. The owner of this tower?”
“Hey! I'm the chairman of Cureus Corporation!”
Was it a big company?
When I glanced at Kudo, our eyes met. He was still stirring the flooded floor with his sword as he stared intently at me, as if checking whether I truly didn't know.
He looked like a cat quietly observing an insect that had landed on the wallpaper.
It must be a well-known company.
But did that really matter in this situation?
As if answering my thoughts, my phone rang.
The moment I answered, an unfamiliar voice echoed through the tower.
[You should go to the stairs beside the south gate and escape through the underground parking lot.]
I raised my head to look at the senior.
Without a change in expression, he slowly approached me.
Then he took the phone from my hand. The dried blood all over his body seemed to be his own. Even though he had been caught in the explosion and recovered, he was the most intact among us.
“What is the situation with the tower?”
[It doesn't seem likely to collapse immediately, but you should come out as quickly as possible regardless. Keep in mind that the ceiling may collapse.]
“What support is available from outside?”
[That won't be easy. Carelessly interfering could accelerate the building's collapse.]
“I can't see the creature's body.”
Jonathan Kudo calmly dropped a bombshell.
The building owner's face turned white. I blinked slowly.
So that was why he had been holding his sword and stirring the flooded floor all this time. He had been searching for the creature's body.
But it had a body. It looked like a ball of fire, so I thought it would simply go out when it got wet.
The person on the other end of the phone fell silent briefly.
[You mean the creature's status is uncertain? Then you must get out even faster. Are there any civilians besides the chairman of Cureus Corporation?]
“I don't see any.”
“Wait.”
I hurriedly cut in.
The building owner, who had been looking around with his lips tightly pressed together, and the senior, who had been answering calmly, both turned their eyes toward me.
I met Kudo's gaze, which held not even a speck of interest.
“Earlier, a woman said she couldn't find her children and tried to come in.”
[Children?]
“What?”
The senior was startled.
Seeing his widened eyes, I nodded.
“Shu stopped her, so she couldn't enter herself.”
“Even if they were inside, they'd be dead!”
The building owner shouted hysterically.
“We don't even know if the creature is dead or alive, or when the building will collapse. Why look for children who might be here or might already be dead?”
“Do you have any idea where they might be?”
“I can hear faint sounds from upstairs.”
“What?”
The building owner gave me a look that said, This idiot is saying crazy things again.
But no matter how much contempt he put into his gaze, or how much he looked at me as if I were the stupidest person alive, I was unaffected. Yoon's gaze, which said, Your intelligence is not even equal to a chimpanzee's, had trained me well.
I told the senior, who was glaring at the building owner, what I suspected.
“I think I've been hearing rustling from upstairs for a while. Earlier, Senior Shu moved everyone who was inside the tower to the second floor, so I'd like to check around there.”
“Fine.”
Kudo answered at once.
“You'll be able to check and return safely.”
The half-collapsed second floor.
After receiving Kudo's permission, I carefully climbed the buried escalator and found a pair of young siblings there.
* * *
“What?”
The building owner was flustered.
“Why are there children here?”
“I found something suitable as a temporary measure and used it as a splint.”
The seven-year-old boy's foot was a mess. He seemed to have been hit by falling debris. Holding the four-year-old girl on my left and the seven-year-old boy on my right, I reported.
“The four-year-old girl is unharmed.”
Kudo strode over and carefully examined the boy's splint.
Only after the cheeky boy said, “Why are you looking at it for so long?” did he raise his head.
“We need to leave quickly.”
After lifting his head, he stared intently at me.
“It's remarkable. Have you already learned first aid for civilians?”
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