The Immortal Had a Guardian Spirit Chapter 5

‘I must save him, no matter what.’

No one must die before my eyes because of the gates.

The pause at the unexpected sight was only brief. The moment he grasped the situation, Raven threw himself forward without a second thought.

The twisted vow that had become a shackle pressed down on his legs—already sprinting with all their might—with an explosive pressure. As if that wasn’t enough, it whipped him to run even faster.

An attitude excessively desperate, for a complete stranger whose face he had never once met.

‘…That damned guilt of his.’

In the space of the dead, far removed from the surface, the guardian spirit who had risen from its place gazed at Raven with worried eyes.

‘Though opening the gate was never entirely of his own will.’

It worried he might get badly hurt again like this.

Having just been forced to watch helplessly as his head was torn off by a monster, its chest, already strung tight with tension, sank at the sight of him charging ahead with no regard for his body. Had the heart been alive, it would probably have stopped long ago.

It wanted to stop his dangerous and reckless actions, but knowing full well he would never listen even if it did…

‘…The world ruined the child.’

The unresolvable worry turned into rage, and the rage with nowhere to go found its cause in the past, sharpening its blade.

The soul, whose time had stopped in the distant past, was easily seized by old memories, burning with resentment.

‘Pitiful thing.’

The abandoned child had watched clearly as the entire world tore him to pieces with the blades of tongues and pens, cursing him.

That was the first world he ever faced after being born—how could his mind possibly be intact?

A guardian spirit cannot interfere with the mind of its ward. No matter what the guardian spirit says by his side, in the end, it is his own will that accepts it. It had told him countless times that back then, there was no other way, that the situation left him no choice…

Sadly, even Raven was not on Raven’s side.

Circling back around, the guardian spirit’s train of thought reached Raven again. Shaking off the memories of the past and setting aside the bitter emotions, it readied itself to move at any moment.

Green eyes, somber and sunken, tracked Raven’s movements without the slightest waver.

Meanwhile, Raven clenched his teeth.

‘The distance is too far.’

Even though he was running with all his strength, he wasn’t sure he could reach the boy before he died.

With luck, he might reach him with barely a paper-thin margin—but what good would that do? The goal was not to reach him, but to save him.

‘A little, just a little faster.’

He knew himself that this was an excessive reaction. But he couldn’t help it.

Time had passed, and people had grown accustomed to the gates erupting at every turn, developing ways to cope. But that did not undo the horrific events of the past, just as it was impossible to prevent the damage that still occurred now.

Even putting aside the twisted vow, the madman who had brought about the ‘Gate Incident’ was inevitably weak before the victims of the gates.

Even more so now, when he had ignored a few monsters slipping out of the gate, thinking there were no people around and he’d deal with them later.

Besides—

‘He’s screaming with his whole body like that, desperate to live somehow.’

How could he turn away from that?

The sight of him tumbling as he ran madly, rolling and crawling, desperately yearning for life, seized his gaze with force. It seemed to resemble dazzling sunlight, and at the same time, the endless darkness that swallows everything.

Either way, he couldn’t take his eyes off it. And so Raven could not give up either. As a human being and an adult, wasn’t it only natural to save a child who wanted so fiercely to live?

‘Blocking the monsters or diverting the boy is impossible.’

There’s no time even to get into position for that.

So.

‘….’

As if reading the unspoken resolve in his eyes, a worried message came down from the guardian spirit.

No, this wasn’t worry…

[Guardian Spirit ??? shouts at you not to block it with your body!]

“…I’ll apologize in advance. I’m sorry.”

I’ll try my best, but I don’t think there’s time for any other way.

Though the message seemed closer to a scream or a shriek than gentle concern—so much so that desperation could be felt—Raven paid it no mind.

“It’s been so long you seem to have forgotten, but I told you, didn’t I?”

It’s just one kid. Moreover, this is a body where wounds don’t heal naturally, so one might well hope he’d give up and step back…

But he remembered clearly mentioning it once, long ago.

“Those who died because of the ‘Gate Incident,’ and all the beings on the surface who will have to live with these gates—they are my responsibility.”

[…Guardian Spirit ??? points to what you said before you disappeared. ‘Whether the world falls to ruin or not, let it go to…’]

“That was something I said in a fit of anger when I wasn’t in my right mind!”

Anyway.

“What are you so worried about?”

It’s not like Death is nearby.

“I’m not exactly in a situation where I can’t move.”

Raven laughed lightly. His feet had already kicked hard off the ground, his body airborne, flying forward and wedging itself in front of the monster as if shielding the child.

“If it’s dangerous, you’ll protect me, won’t you?”

The moment you thought I seemed in danger, you’d have already risen from your seat and been on standby.

Isn’t that right, hyung?

With one hand, he drew his dagger; at the same time, he shoved the child away with the other. The recoil sent his airborne body helplessly backward, into the monster’s mouth.

Raven twisted his upper body just as he was. The forced movement brought a pain as if his waist and legs were about to snap, but with his body already shoved into the monster’s jaws from chest to knees, there was no leisure to care about such things.

He couldn’t end up as the monster’s dog bone, so he had to move. Clenching his teeth, Raven used the momentum of his twisted torso to slash upward across the monster’s palate.

Faintly, a crunching sound came from his waist.

“Kraaaaaa!!”

Shrieking from the sharp pain, the creature staggered back.

But,

Boom!

A larger monster trampled and crushed it, opening its maw toward the rare prey.

…This is my best. In a defenseless state, Raven stared straight into the damp darkness descending upon his vision and spoke lowly, as if murmuring. A voice tinged with bitterness flowed out, carrying a faint trace of laughter, like a whisper.

So don’t hesitate—

“Help me.”

[…Guardian Spirit ??? answers the call.]

And then.

Slice.

The monster was split apart.

∞ ∞ ∞

The escaped slave despaired.

What sins had he committed in a past life for the heavens to treat him so cruelly?

Pursuers, and then monsters. What kind of absurd luck was this? Dan clenched his teeth and rolled, dodging the monster’s front paw slamming down toward him.

‘I barely managed to escape from the slave trader.’

Nothing ever went easily.

Just as a surge of anger and sorrow welled up from the misfortune that clung to him relentlessly despite his already sufficient suffering, Dan glared with bloodshot eyes and crawled forward.

He had despaired, but he did not give up.

He had to live.

Not because he wanted to live—he had to live, for the sake of the last family left to him on this earth.

“Go on ahead. I don’t know about me, but this is your second escape. If you get caught this time, you’ll really die.”

— ….

“The first escape, you got caught trying to get me out too… It can’t happen a second time. Being a burden is enough just once.”

— …I will find someone to help.

“Don’t do that. It’s time you started standing on your own. You’re all grown up now.”

— Please wait for me.

Because noona would be waiting.

The image of noona, bleeding and dying after being badly hurt by the pursuers, surfaced in his mind. Over it, the resigned eyes that seemed to have given up on her own life and the voice that had pushed him away overlapped. Dan steeled his eyes with even more force and struggled desperately to live.

Knowing she would refuse, he had deliberately run out without waiting for an answer. He could not let that disobedient retreating figure be the last sight he showed her.

…He could not leave noona to grow cold in an endless, hopeless wait.

‘How can I survive?’

He couldn’t cry out for help. He had lost his voice after the first failed escape, when they made an example of him.

With the most useful and virtually only means of calling for help impossible, all that remained was to survive on his own.

The thought of ‘Can I do it?’ soon shifted to ‘I must.’ And so Dan struggled frantically to survive to the very end.

As if the heavens had relented a step before such earnestness, a miracle occurred.

It seemed a shadow had fallen briefly. He thought it belonged to the monster about to finish him off, but then a presence was felt, and someone pushed him.

Thanks to that, the body he had barely managed to rise tumbled across the ground again, but he couldn’t be angry. A stranger he had never seen before was leaping into the monster’s mouth in his place.

‘What… why on earth?’

Contrary to the action that seemed to court death, the man who twisted his body as if refusing to be eaten meekly slashed across the monster’s palate. The creature stepped back, and hope seemed to appear—but it was quickly snuffed out.

A larger monster trampled the retreating monster as it appeared.

Before the gaping, sharp teeth closing in, the body falling, exposed and defenseless, looked like a black petal.

Just as Dan’s eyes flew wide at the gruesome scene about to unfold, a small voice was heard.

“Help me.”

An inexplicable mutter, an inexplicable call.

Dan blinked stupidly.

…He was the one who had wedged himself between me and the monster’s gaping jaws—so why is he asking for help? No, before that, I don’t even know whom he’s talking to.

Before his mind could even turn to find an answer to the questions, something extraordinary occurred.

[Guardian Spirit ??? answers the call.]

Though it was a dire situation, so he’d only glimpsed it in passing, the other’s green eyes—which had seared themselves into his vision with strange vividness—lost their light as if a candle had been snuffed.

At the same time, from the crown of the monster that seemed about to tear into the human before its eyes down to the tip of its tail, a red line appeared.

Slash!

Belatedly, the creature split in two, and blood poured out.

But he was not drenched in blood.

“[…Even in death, I shall protect you.]”

Because someone had moved the two of them elsewhere.

Dan couldn’t hide his startled expression.

‘…He appeared suddenly. How on earth?’

Black hair swayed in the wind.

A young man of tall stature and a sturdy build, his back turned, swung his sword and split another monster before slowly turning his head. Green eyes, impossible to read, turned this way.

The moment their eyes met, those green eyes passed over him impassively and came to rest upon the reckless man who had stepped forward to protect one person—who until just moments ago had possessed the exact same eyes—and took on an infinitely tender light.

The difference in warmth was so extreme that anyone could notice it.

“[Yes… how could I stand by and watch you be in danger.]”

The low and affectionate voice roused the mind, dulled by the unexpected situation.

Pulling himself back to his senses and looking at the other properly, something he hadn’t noticed before now entered his sight. Something so distinct he wondered how he had only realized it just now…

‘…Suture marks?’

Suture marks encircled the entire neck.

As if… the head and body, once severed, had been stitched back together…

‘Come to think of it… their eyes are the same.’

The man who had suddenly appeared and the suspicious man presumed to have called him had the exact same eyes. Not simply similar—but as if they belonged to the same person.

Moreover, the moment the color drained from the eyes of the man presumed to have called him, turning to murky gray, the other man had appeared…

His thoughts, spinning without pause, had just reached the point where the man who had suddenly appeared was not human—or at least, not a ‘living person’—

“Shh.”

Having read the meaning of the child’s gaze from his rigid body and fixed direction, Raven blocked Dan’s view.

He had a rough idea of what the child had seen to make his body go stiff. He must have seen the suture marks engraved on the guardian spirit’s neck. Giving a signal not to mention it, for more certain safety, he pulled the boy into his arms, placing him between himself and the young man.

Because the guardian spirit had manifested in a physical body, the eyes he had been borrowing all this time had been returned, leaving the entire world in pitch black. But it was no problem.

After all, the guardian spirit would protect him now.