The Espers Who Regretted Losing Me Chapter 111

Crack.

An ominous sound rang beside my ear, and the strength in my hand loosened.

The baby basilisk didn’t miss the chance. It slithered away across the floor, but my body had gone stiff, so I couldn’t chase it.

‘I’m wearing the goggles properly…’

Had they lost their effect because they had shifted? Or had that baby basilisk squeezed out every last bit of strength like a cornered rat?

No.

Either way, that wasn’t what mattered right now.

Crack. Crack. Craaack.

The continuous cracking sounds sent a chill down the back of my neck.

Gritting my teeth, I forced strength into my fingertips.

It felt similar to the sleep paralysis I used to get as a child.

The moment my arm finally managed to move, I threw the collapsible baton at the fleeing baby basilisk.

At the same time, my other hand shot up beside my head and yanked hard.

Snap.

What fell to the floor with the sound of something breaking was a fistful of petrified hair.

At the same time, the basilisk, struck squarely by the baton, writhed while letting out sharp hissing sounds.

Not long afterward, the baby basilisk stopped moving.

Then it turned to stone and crumbled into dust.

“…Ah.”

Only then did I finally let out the breath I had been holding, and the numbness began spreading through my stiff arms and legs.

Even my knees were shaking so badly that I couldn’t stay standing.

I dropped onto the floor and stretched out my legs.

Tiny stone fragments from my hair clung to my palm, and a cold sweat broke out all over again.

My hair must have been the weakest part of my body.

That was probably why the petrification had started there.

‘If I hadn’t torn it off, it would’ve spread to my face… and I would’ve died.’

You could cut off an arm or a leg.

You couldn’t exactly do that with your face.

Just imagining it for a moment made goosebumps crawl across my neck and back.

I had been far too lacking in caution.

No matter how much my physical abilities had improved, I didn’t have special powers like the Espers to protect my own body.

‘I’ve only been fighting ordinary monsters until now… I was taking things far too lightly.’

I needed to prepare much more thoroughly before going outside.

An ecosystem had developed inside headquarters over the course of three years, so we knew what was where.

But the outside world was different.

I had no idea how the monsters emerging from gates all over the place were living.

There were also ordinary people to worry about, making it an even greater threat.

This basilisk was proof enough.

‘If I’d run into it without hearing anything from the old man, I never would’ve dealt with it properly, even in its weakened state.’

I hated studying.

But if I wanted to travel around on my own, I clearly needed to learn every possible weakness of every kind of monster.

I stayed seated until I got some strength back, then slowly stood up.

Walking over to the window, I pulled the curtain aside, and sunlight poured into the dark room.

Only then, after carefully checking the corners and the ceiling, did I notice egg sacs that I hadn’t been able to see before.

The eggs had all turned to stone.

Just in case, I broke a few open, but there was nothing inside.

Phew.

Letting out a sigh of relief, I took out some water and drank.

‘I’ll just smash every single one I see.’

Even if I found living ones, I had no intention of taking them with me.

After searching the entire archive, I stepped back into the hallway.

Just as I had done on the first through third floors, I checked every remaining room.

After that, I passed the fifth floor where the operations room was and thoroughly searched the sixth and seventh floors as well.

Some rooms had so many egg sacs clinging to the walls that they were disgusting.

They were among the places the director had guessed the basilisk might be hiding.

Fortunately, they had all turned to stone, so they weren’t nearly as creepy.

Still, just imagining what would’ve happened if they had all hatched made me laugh in disbelief.

Once I had finished checking everything, I headed to the operations room as planned.

“…”

As I quietly stared at the tightly shut door, an emotion I couldn’t quite put into words welled up inside me.

There was an electronic lock on the door, but it had long since stopped working.

‘Ah… so that’s why.’

I took out the key the director had told me to bring before I left.

It was an emergency key that could unlock the electronic lock manually.

It seemed Cha Eun-hwi, Yeon Do-gyeong, and Lee Shin-ra had used it while they were still staying at headquarters.

I opened the cover, inserted the key into the hole underneath, and turned it.

A click echoed as the lock disengaged.

If this hadn’t worked, I would’ve had to force the door open.

Not that I couldn’t have broken it down, but I’d rather not damage it if I didn’t have to.

I opened the operations room door and stepped inside.

Immediately, I was overcome with a strange sense of unease.

‘The other rooms were covered in dust and looked abandoned…’

But despite being left untouched for years, this room somehow felt as though people had been coming and going until just yesterday.

I absentmindedly placed a hand against the wall before remembering there was no electricity.

Then I walked over to the window.

Pulling the cord to raise the blinds, bright sunlight flooded the operations room.

The first thing I saw was the desk where Cha Eun-hwi always used to sit.

The laptop was still there, though it no longer worked.

But handwritten work reports and documents Cha Eun-hwi had left behind were exactly where they had been.

I sat down and looked through them one by one.

Most of them were records of when and where gates had been cleared.

But one thing was obvious.

They had been searching for me.

While the internet still worked, it looked like they had even tried hacking their way into overseas news.

It also seemed they had gone outside without telling the director.

That was all.

It was only that.

But even those records alone made it painfully clear how desperately they had searched for me.

With a heavy heart, I continued reading.

Then I noticed something strange written on the last sheet.

“Numbers?”

A six-digit number starting with three.

A seven-digit number starting with one.

I muttered the meaningless strings of numbers that had no obvious connection before folding the paper and slipping it into my pocket.

After that, I opened each drawer one by one.

What I found in the last drawer made my feelings even more complicated.

‘…The patch.’

The emblem of the unit we had newly created and named the Platinum Squad.

The patch with the unusually large circle—the one I had returned because I said I didn’t need it—was still sitting inside the drawer.

I quietly stared at it before putting it away as well.

After that, I searched every corner of the operations room.

But I found nothing else.

The more I walked around, however, the stranger I felt.

‘Come on. They know I’m ridiculously hard to kill. They could’ve just stayed here and lived comfortably. Why did they have to keep looking for me?’

I had treated them well.

But both back then and now…

This was too much.

Was I really the only purpose in their lives?

To be honest, I wasn’t even sure they were still alive.

“…”

Holding my aching forehead, I let out what had to be my tenth sigh.

Maybe it was because I was standing in the operations room.

Their faces kept flashing through my mind.

The ones I remembered most vividly were Lee Shin-ra and Yeon Do-gyeong’s expressions when the dragon swallowed me…

…and when I fell into the split earth.

So…

Even though my feelings were a complete mess, there was something I had no choice but to admit.

I could live here comfortably without wanting for anything.

Yet the reason I was using “worrying about the future” as an excuse to search for those idiots who were probably dead…

…was because I was worried about them.

‘Even though I couldn’t care less what happened to anyone else.’

“Haaaa…”

With one final sigh full of complicated emotions, I cleared my mind.

After coming all this way, the only thing I had found was a page of strange numbers.

Whether they turned out to be a clue or not didn’t matter.

I just needed to know for certain whether those idiots were alive or dead.

‘If they’re alive, I’ll bring them back as planned.’

‘If they’re dead…’

…then at least I’ll make them a grave.

The first time I was trapped inside a gate, they had thought I was dead and done nothing.

But the second time, they had waited all that time while searching for me.

So I decided I would do the same.

For exactly three years, I would search for them.

Once I reached that conclusion and set my goal, it felt like the tangled mess in my head finally became a little clearer.