ETVC C44

Chapter 44

By all the dictates of common sense, handcuffs were meant to be worn alone. Yet Kang Gwonhoo, as ever beyond reason, merely shook his head.

“Why, of course not. You wished me bound at your side, did you not?”

The words were near to what I had uttered before, yet the change of tone left a bitter taste. While I still faltered, he fastened one cuff about his own wrist and extended the other hand to me.

“W–why?”

“You must wear it too. Fair is fair.”

Would it not be fairer simply not to wear it at all?

His great hand seized my wrist unbidden. For all his beauty, his skin was rough, his grip calloused—the hand of one who had clawed his way upward from the depths. The dissonance between face and touch unsettled me, and from the place where his hand pressed, heat rose like fire.

“So pale,” he murmured.

His fingers trailed from wrist to hand, and in the silence of the small room, even the faintest brush of skin was audible. Each touch sparked a current of strange electricity, too keenly felt.

“The bones are rounded, the fingers long,” he observed.

Baek Woojin’s hands, despite their masculine visage, were fair and fine. I wondered, with a pang, if Gwonhoo felt the same incongruity I did.

Click.

The snap of the cuff breaking open jolted me free of my reverie. I snatched back my arm before the metal could close around it.

“Let us be rational. How would we fight bound together? Shall we wander hand in hand like children?”

“Hm… the thought is not displeasing.”

I grimaced, failing to mask my scorn, but Gwonhoo only forced the cuff around my wrist with swiftness too great to evade.

“Wait—”

“First, look.”

As he moved away, the chain stretched with him, lengthening until it grew translucent. My body did not drag behind as I had feared.

“If we are drawn more than a meter apart, it shall reappear. That is the limit.”

So it was not a shackle, but rather a tether—more to prevent straying than to restrain. Had he told me beforehand, I might have spared myself such agitation. Sheepishly, I scratched my head.

“This is… not ill contrived.”

At my candid remark, he paused mid-motion, surprise flickering in his eyes.

“Truly?”

So capricious—proposing, then finding fault when I accepted.

“You must remain close, that I may protect you,” I said, meaning rather that he should cease sabotaging me. Yet his smile bent strangely, as though he had stumbled upon some curious specimen.

“Your every reaction defies prediction,” he said.

And is that not what I should say of you?

“Let us check the second floor, and then the roof. From above, we may gauge how the others move.”

The cuffs eased my fear of his sudden vanishing, and I strode ahead.

“No one here either.”

“So it seems,” he replied with a small yawn.

With senses as sharp as his, he had likely known from the first that the house was empty.

“You knew, did you not?” I demanded. My time spent scurrying through empty rooms had been wasted, and irritation made me bolder than I would once have dared.

“Yes.”

“And why not tell me?”

“You did not ask.”

A maddeningly fair answer.

“Then at least tell me if you see someone from the roof.”

“We shall see.”

The door creaked open, and the rooftop breeze met us with gentle welcome. The vantage, though but a third floor, proved broad thanks to the building’s height.

[Hiding time ends in five, four, three, two, one!]

Shiri’s voice began its countdown.

“Do you see aught nearby?” I pressed myself flat to the floor, scanning the undergrowth, yet could discern little. He, with keener senses, answered without pause.

“Two at three o’clock, ten meters. Five at twelve o’clock, five meters. And one, nearest of all, poised to strike.”

Boom—crash!

No sooner had he spoken than the figure burst forth.

“Ha ha ha! Come out, all of you!”

His bellow rang like a cannon, as if some amplifying relic magnified it.

Strength-type, surely.

It was prejudice, perhaps, but in The Two Choices, brutes with voices so loud and tempers so simple were most often of that kind.

“Noisy,” murmured Gwonhoo.

Whether to tear his jaw apart or silence him with a muzzle, he seemed to weigh.

“Yet thanks to him, some snipers are revealed,” I noted, and drew my sword from the inventory.

“Stand behind me,” I said sharply to Gwonhoo, who still stood tall and unconcerned.

As King, he should be hidden. Were he so uncooperative, he might already have fallen.

“You mean to protect me? Truly?”

“Yes. You said it yourself—now obey.”

Surprisingly, he did as bid, standing quietly at my back. The cold cuffs warmed with the heat of our skin.

“Let us observe for now.”

Through the grass, I saw a man near two meters tall forcing his way forward. At last a sniper, desperate, loosed three shots. The brute caught the bullets with his hand.

“Is this all?” he jeered.

They had been skill-imbued rounds, yet against raw strength they shattered like glass.

“So, there you are.”

He seized the fleeing sniper with one enormous hand—his body enlarged by skill, grotesque in its proportions. The man dangled helpless as prey in a monster’s grip.

“Such boldness—he must be the Knight,” I murmured. Others, too, surely waited, silent and patient, to strike at the King.

“Argh!”

The brute screamed, flinging the captive away. His flesh bristled with fine needles, too swift to be seen when thrown. Whoever attacked him had dared to reveal themselves for the kill.

[Already, the first King is down! The guildmaster of Carnivore Faction has been eliminated!]

So the broadcast declared.

Ah… the folly of brutes ever exceeds expectation.

I spared a thought for his Knight, undone by another’s recklessness, and offered silent condolence.

“With King and Knight both gone, four remain nearby, yes?”

I scanned the ground. At three o’clock, a cluster had come close enough for me to glimpse them—and saw one raise his hand to hurl something.

Grenade? Bomb? Bullet?

No time to think.

“Come to me!” I cried.