Resurrection Chapter 115 - Who Are You?

I roughly shoved him away with my elbow and slapped his face with my palm.

“Push!”

After pushing him away using magic, I immediately tried to teleport. But Ulfheðinn was faster than me. He grabbed my waist and twisted it, preventing me from moving. We rolled on the floor together with the dust that rose thickly as we smashed the hapless old furniture.

I fought a fierce struggle to shake him off, but it was an impossible task from the start. It seemed I would need to use wide-area magic to create even a momentary gap, but he wouldn’t allow me to cast. He covered my lips with his, preventing me from even uttering the activation word.

“Mmmph…!”

As I tried to dodge this way and that, he clung to me tenaciously. He subdued me roughly and fiercely. Pinned under his heavy body and unable to catch my breath, my head grew hazy. As my vision went black and the strength drained from my body, the kiss, which had briefly let my lips go to give me a chance to breathe, began to grow more cunning.

“Nngh, mm…”

He gently bit, released, and stroked my lips. Whenever I tried to resist again, he would be merciless, and when I became docile, he would be gentle, repeating this cycle. This cunning behavior left me unable to do anything. When I came to my senses, I was limp, my lips parted wide.

The situation didn’t feel real. Out there, Yaksha was playing mad games with people’s lives, and here I was, held in Ulfheðinn’s arms, receiving a persistent kiss.

As reality faded, only the sensations remained, sharp and vivid. When he rubbed his lips against mine in an erotic way, a shiver ran down my spine. Knowing I was fidgeting with my fingers on his forearm, Ulfheðinn chuckled low in his throat. He pulled his lips away from my wet ones and, pressing those equally wet lips all over my face, he whispered.

“I like you.”

A hollow laugh escaped me at the untimely confession. It was soon followed by a dejection that bordered on despair.

I could no longer dismiss what Min Gongchan had said as something that would not happen. It seemed that his words, that Heesoo hyung had destroyed the world because of me, were true. And it might become true. No, perhaps it had already become true.

Strength drained from my limbs in a deep sense of powerlessness. In an unprecedented feeling of defeat, I was seized by the desire to just let myself be ruined. I had no energy to resist, and the urge to just let Ulfheðinn do as he pleased arose, but I couldn’t. I had to get out of this situation somehow.

There was only one method I could use right now.

I focused my mind, intending to request possession from the Golden Emperor.

At that moment, something strange caught my eye.

Out of nowhere, a fishhook was dangling in the air. It slowly descended and then, just like that, hooked the nape of Heesoo hyung’s neck. Soon, his body flew through the air, slammed into a wall, and the wall came crumbling down.

Freed from him, I moved with Blink. As soon as I moved to the partially collapsed roof, I saw Kang Cheoljun standing there. Before Kang Cheoljun could even turn to look at me, I grabbed him. Thinking that even a moment’s hesitation would get my ankle caught, I moved immediately, before he could turn to look at me.

“Teleport!”

Chapter 21. Seo Heesoo Won’t Know Anyway

I used a large amount of magic and moved a considerable distance.

When my disintegrated body reassembled and I landed somewhere, what I saw was an abandoned national road. Weeds grew thick in the cracks of the asphalt, which was cracked from lack of maintenance. Seeing a rusted and neglected road sign, I realized that for someone who had moved so rashly, I had come back up the road quite accurately. Sejong City was 27km away.

One more teleport would get me to Sejong City, but my energy suddenly drained. I let go of Kang Cheoljun, whom I had been holding onto, and sprawled out on a patch of weeds.

Kang Cheoljun seemed to be feeling motion sickness from the sudden teleportation. I closed my eyes and spoke to him as he smacked his lips with a pale face, as if swallowing down nausea.

“Let’s just rest for a moment.”

Kang Cheoljun nodded, and I forced my eyes shut, ignoring the sunlight seeping through the gaps of my closed eyelids. My body was lying down, but my mind was scattered and my heart was in turmoil, so it didn’t feel like I was resting.

As I wondered since when Ulfheðinn had taken control of Heesoo hyung’s body and retraced my memories, it was strange that I hadn’t noticed until now.

‘Your lips have been catching my eye for a while now, Mr. Yitae. For some reason, I’m constantly aware of them, and it’s tormenting me.’

‘You don’t want to be in my debt, is that the only reason?’

‘If the situation is unavoidable, does it not matter who the other person is?’

‘Because I cannot stand anyone else touching you, Mr. Yitae.’

‘It is too early to be afraid. I haven’t said anything yet.’

His words and actions of late were certainly not things Heesoo hyung would do. I was ashamed and pathetic for not knowing and being swayed by them. I felt like I was going crazy with shame for having seriously wondered what to do if he truly wanted me. The realization that I might have been secretly hoping and wishing for it, even while knowing full well that a relationship with Heesoo hyung was impossible, drove me even crazier.

I suffered from extreme self-loathing, but my questions were even greater.

‘You’re right. I never left your side.’

Did that mean he had been pretending to be Heesoo hyung ever since the moment of possession while fighting Yaksha? Was it even possible to be in a state of possession for that long? Don’t tell me he had completely lost his body to Ulfheðinn like Hwang Chi-hong?

According to Park Si-kyung, it was Heesoo hyung who had first driven away the White Goddess. Min Gongchan also said that if the person themselves didn’t want it, even a transcendent being couldn’t possess them. Because Heesoo hyung’s body was, after all, Heesoo hyung’s. Then why couldn’t he fight off Ulfheðinn’s possession?

Amidst my questions, I muttered to myself.

“…Is it because of me?”

As if he had been waiting for my request for possession, the Golden Emperor promptly sent a message in response to my muttering.

—The Golden Emperor scolds that it is, of course, your fault.

No, you didn’t have to say it as if you were waiting for it. Now that I was pointed out as being at fault, a feeling of discontent arose. But I couldn’t get angry at the innocent Golden Emperor. Because he was right.

I recalled the fact that he had requested to be my partner as soon as he became Ulfheðinn’s first and only apostle. I also remembered that even after becoming my partner, he had rushed to get stronger as quickly as possible, and that he had worried about my safety more than anything else.

Heesoo hyung was a philanthropic person. He could reject the White Goddess without regard for his own life, but he would not have been able to reject Ulfheðinn with my life on the line. It was clear that the situation had worsened to this point because it was not easy to give up the power of Ulfheðinn that he had worked so hard to obtain.

Heesoo hyung is afraid that if he loses his power, he won’t be able to protect me. With a guy like Yaksha running rampant like that, he’s even less able to refuse Ulfheðinn’s possession and is being swayed by it.

—The Golden Emperor says that if you were strong enough to protect yourself, that person Seo Heesoo would have no reason to be anxious. He points out that because you are weak, constraints are placed on Seo Heesoo’s choices, are they not?

I reflected on whether I was making excuses for myself with the reason that I had the revival skill. I reflected on whether I had been thinking that the person who would become the savior was not me but Heesoo hyung, and that my usefulness was Resurrection anyway.

As I sat silently in reflection, Kang Cheoljun, judging that he had waited long enough, threw a question at me.

“What are you going to do now?”

Kang Cheoljun was an expressionless and blunt person, but he was certainly well-socialized. He did not rashly speak about the situation he had witnessed earlier. Nor did he say that, at this rate, it was a foregone conclusion that Heesoo hyung would destroy the world, driven mad by me.

I was grateful for his calm demeanor and got up, brushing myself off. Reflection was good, but the current situation was urgent. First, it was important to get rid of Yaksha and retrieve Lævateinn. I replied, thinking that I could worry about Heesoo hyung’s problem after that.

“What do you mean, what am I going to do? I have to go catch Yaksha.”

Kang Cheoljun’s lips twitched as if he had a trace of doubt. He seemed anxious that no one would be able to defeat Yaksha and that I would fall into the guy’s hands.

But hiding like this was not a solution. In any case, if even three S-rank Awakened stepped up and couldn’t defeat Yaksha, it was only a matter of time before I would be handed over to the guy. I had to do something before then.

“If I go to Yaksha, Heesoo hyung… no, Ulfheðinn will follow. If I can’t drive him out right now, I should at least use him. Above all, I have to get my sword back.”

“You mean Lævateinn.”

“Yes. For now, if I can just get my hands on the sword, there will be a chance of winning. I haven’t made an Offering in front of Yaksha yet.”

If I make an Offering, I can awaken Lævateinn, albeit temporarily. If the divine artifact bestowed by the Golden Emperor exerts its power, my overall combat strength will also rise significantly, so I should be able to play a part in defeating Yaksha.

Seeing me speak like that, Kang Cheoljun seemed to have made up his mind. He too seemed to have judged that it was better to fight now than to hide me, and he held out his hand to me. I knew he was about to move so that I could save my magic.

I took his hand, and Kang Cheoljun quietly recited the activation word.

“Recall.”

When I came to my senses, I was unexpectedly at Yiyicheong. To be precise, I was in front of the headstone erected in the plaza of the Yiyicheong main building.

“Why here, of all places?”

Seeing me looking dumbfounded, Kang Cheoljun said as if he were being unfairly accused.