Savior Proto-Call Chapter 11

Chapter 11. No Longer Human (11)

Yoon Doha's eyes moved with difficulty, following Kwon Seju's finger as she pointed toward the room's only emergency escape window.

The glass had become translucent from years of accumulated dust and dried rainwater.

And when Yoon Doha saw what lay beyond it, a broken gasp escaped her lips.

Everything was purple.

Beyond the window, the sky looked as though someone had crushed mulberries and scattered their juice across the heavens, staining the entire world an eerie color.

The sight was far too dark and ominous to be mistaken for an ordinary sunset or weather phenomenon.

It was undeniable proof that Kwon Seju had been right.

The building itself had been consumed by a Phantasm.

Of course, the appearance of a Fragment naturally meant that a Phantasm had manifested.

But only now did Yoon Doha truly acknowledge that reality.

After witnessing such a horrific scene of mutilation, her mind hadn't exactly been functioning properly.

Even so, she hurriedly began organizing her thoughts through the haze clouding her head.

The building has been swallowed by a Phantasm.

There were generally two ways to escape a Phantasm.

One was to destroy the core located somewhere inside it.

The other was to fulfill the release conditions that formed spontaneously within the Phantasm itself.

Normally, whenever a Phantasm appeared, the Salvation Agency's Control Center immediately searched for records of similar cases to identify the conditions necessary for its destruction.

If that failed, they would attempt to determine the conditions through repeated trials.

Newly encountered types of Phantasms, however, were generally destroyed by breaking their source.

And that presented a problem.

Even setting aside the question of whether someone possessed an ability capable of destroying the source, locating it in the first place required a considerable amount of time.

Recently, the Salvation Agency had also begun distributing specially developed detection devices for precisely that purpose.

In other words—

A Phantasm had erupted in a building filled with inexperienced trainees who hadn't even learned to activate their abilities.

They had no equipment.

No detection devices.

And no way to destroy the source.

Which basically means we're all fucking screwed.

The dizzying realization that death had suddenly drawn much closer caused Yoon Doha's eyes to widen as though her body had caught fire.

"W-we should... Th-the instructors! We need to contact the instructors or someone else and ask for rescue...!"

"We can't. We'd need one of the specially manufactured smartwatches issued by the academy."

We can't call for help.

Those brutally straightforward words were enough to drain what little color remained from Yoon Doha's already pale face.

The thought of hiding inside this sealed building, surrounded by an unknown number of Fragments while waiting for rescue, made her vision go white.

Nausea surged through her as though someone were pressing hard beneath her chin.

Dizziness followed, accompanied by the sensation that her airway had been blocked.

"Then... what are we supposed to do?"

A strangled gasp escaped her before the question tumbled from her lips.

The corners of Yoon Doha's eyes reddened.

Even though she was facing a crisis she had no apparent means of overcoming, her gaze remained desperately hopeful.

She looked like someone clinging to the faintest possibility of salvation, however unreasonable it might be.

"We leave."

"...No!"

Her sharp exclamation collapsed almost immediately beneath the weight of her exhaustion.

Fear and helplessness drained the strength from her body, leaving her unable to finish what she'd intended to say.

As if being trapped in a situation with no visible solution weren't bad enough, she also had a companion who seemed impossible to communicate with.

What an absolutely wonderful combination.

Why was the naturally awakened woman standing before her so impossibly calm?

For a moment, Yoon Doha almost wondered whether they were experiencing entirely different situations.

Am I the only one who's afraid of dying?

"Th-then... does that mean the only people inside are the trainees who enrolled this time...?"

"Hmm, who knows? I'm not sure what type of Phantasm this is."

Kwon Seju considered the question.

"But judging by how quiet it is, I don't think any civilians were caught up in it..."

Then she tilted her head.

"By the way, why do you keep speaking informally to me?"

For a moment, the fear vanished from Yoon Doha's face.

It was replaced by pure disbelief.

Then her expression drooped in defeat.

Finally, unable to suppress her anger any longer, she lowered her head halfway and let out an agonized groan.

An intense urge to clamp a hand over Kwon Seju's mouth surged through her.

Why am I speaking informally?

That's what you're worried about when we could die at any moment?

What kind of ridiculous question is that?!

Petty banter had never been something Yoon Doha had many opportunities to enjoy in her life.

And she wanted absolutely nothing to do with it in a situation as dangerous as this.

Worried about developing high blood pressure at an age far too young for it, she ground her molars together.

Then she managed to force out a warning in a strained voice.

"...Could you please shut your mouth? Just thinking about how we're supposed to escape this mess is enough to make my brain feel like it's melting."

Kwon Seju slowly tilted her head at Doha's murderous tone.

Her expression was as languid as ever.

Had they not been standing in a battlefield where their lives were at stake, the sight might have been extraordinary enough for someone to pull out a camera.

Her striking beauty, combined with the dreamlike light surrounding her, created an almost otherworldly atmosphere.

Unfortunately, to Yoon Doha, that beautiful face was nothing more than another source of irritation.

Doha continued glaring fiercely.

Kwon Seju's expression, however, remained unchanged.

She merely pressed her lips together and fell into thought, apparently considering what Doha had said.

After a brief silence, she rubbed the back of her neck and nodded.

"So you're telling me to shut up."

I didn't go quite that far.

Still, she seemed to have understood the general meaning.

Doha decided not to argue any further.

It was a wise decision for the sake of her mental health and the blood vessels in her brain.

Besides, she already had more than enough problems to deal with.

Having resolved that immediate issue, Yoon Doha anxiously picked at the skin around her fingertips.

Her gaze shifted repeatedly between the purple sky and the corridor outside.

How do we escape?

How are we supposed to call for rescue?

Can I even get out of here alive?

And if I die, what happens to my sister?

"So, did you find your identification tag or not?"

Ten seconds.

It had been exactly ten seconds since Kwon Seju had supposedly agreed to keep her mouth shut.

And yet the blonde woman hadn't even managed to endure that long before barging straight into Doha's thoughts again.

What the hell am I supposed to do with her?

Something about her relentless behavior reminded Doha of another person with white hair.

A sudden headache surged through her.

Whether it's this one or that one, if I ever get out of here safely, I'm never getting involved with either of them again.

With that firm resolution, Yoon Doha shot Kwon Seju a glance.

Her breathing had unconsciously grown rapid again from anxiety.

But when Seju interrupted her so abruptly, Doha couldn't even muster a bitter laugh anymore.

A long, exhausted breath escaped through her slightly parted lips, carrying equal measures of irritation and resignation.

"Didn't you say you'd keep your mouth shut?"

"That was about the informal speech."

Despite the shamelessness of those languid violet eyes, they bore no resemblance to the transparent, empty gaze of someone whose rationality had completely vanished.

And yet Yoon Doha couldn't help associating Kwon Seju's unreasonable behavior with Baek Lee Young.

In fact, she was beginning to think that Kwon Seju might be even more troublesome than the white-haired woman who had chewed on her knee several days earlier.

She looked like a refined young lady from the city, the sort of person who would hardly speak at all.

Yet somehow, she behaved as though she'd never learned how to keep her mouth closed for more than a few seconds.

It was enough to drain Doha of every last bit of fighting spirit.

Feeling as though someone had spent the last hour shaking her by the collar, Yoon Doha narrowed her exhausted eyes and muttered,

"I didn't find it. If I had, I would've already left."

"Hmm. I didn't find mine either. I heard someone running around screaming like a pig being slaughtered, so I followed them to see what was happening."

"...You followed them?"

Yoon Doha stared.

"Don't people normally run away in situations like that?"

"Do they?"

Kwon Seju casually twirled the end of her ponytail around her fingers.

She seemed to suffer from a complete lack of awareness when it came to danger.

Her indifferent response was the sort of thing someone might say during an ordinary conversation rather than in the middle of a life-threatening crisis.

She'd heard a scream—clear evidence that something terrible had happened.

And instead of running away as fast as she could, she'd followed the sound.

Yoon Doha couldn't decide whether she should admire that courage or despair at such carelessness.

She stared at Kwon Seju with a dazed expression, as though someone had struck her over the head.

Then the woman's previously wandering violet eyes settled directly on her.

Only then did Doha abruptly come back to herself.

An inexplicable chill ran through her.

She avoided Kwon Seju's gaze and plunged back into the storm of thoughts swirling through her mind.

Escape.

If we're going to escape, we have to get down to the first floor.

She desperately reconsidered everything that had happened, searching for some way out of the predicament.

They said even hell had moments when light could reach it.

And suddenly, a possibility occurred to her.

The instructors.

The instructors were supposed to wait at designated locations to check whether the trainees had completed their assignments.

That meant they were somewhere inside this building, too.

So wouldn't there be instructors moving around somewhere in here?

As a faint ray of hope illuminated the escape route that had seemed completely dark until moments earlier, something bright flickered in Yoon Doha's eyes.

Against her pitch-black pupils, the glimmer resembled finely crushed amethyst scattered across a black canvas.

"...Ah. Th-the instructors."

She looked toward Kwon Seju.

"Didn't they say the instructors would be on the first floor?"

"...Ah."

Kwon Seju paused.

"That's a reasonable thought. They might already have figured out what's happening and started taking action. That person is a Savior, so she should be wearing a smartwatch."

At those words, relief flooded through Yoon Doha.

It felt as though a new pillar had suddenly appeared beneath someone standing over an abyss with nowhere to place their feet.

Her shoulders, which had been raised so rigidly they were almost at right angles, finally dropped.

The tension throughout her terrified body loosened, and cold sweat began streaming down her skin.

Despair still seemed to seep from every direction.

Nevertheless, Yoon Doha desperately focused on the faint light she'd discovered.

There were two classes.

Which meant there were also two instructors.

At the very least, two Saviors should be somewhere inside this building.

That single fact didn't make her feel as secure as though she'd gained an army of ten million soldiers.

But it was enough to ease some of her anxiety.

Whether that relief would lead to a favorable outcome remained to be seen.

"Th-then... I guess we should stay here and wait until they resolve everything. It's safe here, so..."

"Hm? You're not going out?"

Kwon Seju looked puzzled.

"We don't know what might happen in here. And we still have to find our identification tags."

Those goddamn identification tags.

Yoon Doha's glare pierced Kwon Seju's cheek with enough resentment to make it practically sting.

Surely the woman must have noticed.

But Kwon Seju behaved as though she had no idea, remaining entirely absorbed in untangling her own hair.

The sight of her fingers carefully grooming the tangled strands reminded Doha of an animal tidying its fur.

For some reason, that only irritated her further.

How can she possibly want to go out there?

She'd just encountered a Fragment that had chewed through a person's head as easily as someone crushing acorn jelly.

How could she still have any desire to leave the room?

Does she have some kind of condition that prevents her from feeling emotions she's supposed to feel?

There was definitely something strange about Kwon Seju.

She was far too calm for someone confronting imminent danger.

No.

It went beyond calmness.

She was as peaceful as someone who had gone for a leisurely walk near home and decided to sit on a park bench.

The sight was almost chilling.

Something about her seemed strangely removed from ordinary humanity.

Unable to conceal her disbelief, Yoon Doha staggered to her feet.

She supported herself against the wall and slowly relaxed the muscles that had stiffened from her repeated bouts of shock.

Then she began confronting Kwon Seju point by point.

"Do you seriously think identification tags matter when our lives are on the line?"

She gestured toward the walls.

"And isn't it obvious which is safer? Staying inside this room, surrounded by thick metal walls, or going out into a corridor where Fragments are openly wandering around?"

Her expression grew increasingly exasperated.

"You've got the mindset of a horror movie protagonist. Keep thinking like that, and you'll die."

She emphasized the warning.

"You'll be the first one to die."

"If you look at it that way, though, if a Fragment appears inside this room, we'll get crushed."

Kwon Seju answered calmly.

"Either way, we'd die."

Yoon Doha fell silent.

It was as though someone had shoved a damp cloth straight down her throat.

Unfortunately, Kwon Seju wasn't entirely wrong.

That made her argument difficult to dismiss outright.

Still, surely there was a difference between remaining quietly inside a room reinforced with protective walls and walking down three floors of corridors where Fragments were roaming freely.

One location provided at least some means of defense.

The other did not.

Comparing them seemed almost meaningless.

Without even bothering to calculate the odds, Doha could already imagine which choice offered a better chance of survival.

To her, Kwon Seju's proposal seemed like deliberately walking straight into a disaster.

Then, suddenly, another thought occurred to her.

Yoon Doha's eyes widened.

Kwon Seju is naturally awakened.

Then maybe she can already use her ability.

Among naturally awakened individuals, there were some who could use their powers instinctively without undergoing formal activation training.

Of course, such cases were still rare.

But compared to artificially awakened individuals, the rate of spontaneous ability use was remarkably high.

If Kwon Seju possessed a high awakening grade and a sufficiently powerful ability, her relaxed, almost carefree attitude would finally make sense.

If she's more monstrous than the monsters themselves, then of course she wouldn't have any reason to be afraid.

A faint hope appeared on Yoon Doha's face as she looked up and asked,

"C-can you use your ability?"

Kwon Seju looked down at her with an indifferent gaze.

"No?"

The answer came immediately.

Yoon Doha squeezed her eyes shut.

For a moment, she nearly staggered and collapsed onto the floor.

She barely managed to remain standing by leaning her back against the wall.

When she opened her eyes again, Kwon Seju was looking at her as though she'd asked something completely ridiculous.

Her expression practically said:

What nonsense are you talking about? I haven't even undergone ability activation training yet.

She looked at Doha as though Doha were the crazy one.

Who the hell is supposed to be the ridiculous one in this situation?!

"...Where does all that confidence even come from...?"

She didn't have enough strength left to properly scold the woman.

Her words came out as little more than a mutter to herself as she forced her trembling legs to straighten.

The faint glimmer that had briefly appeared in her pitch-black eyes slowly faded.

In its place returned the dull, hollow gaze she usually wore.

She doesn't even know how to use her ability, and yet she wants to march straight outside.

What kind of environment does someone have to grow up in to develop that way of thinking?

For once, Yoon Doha wasn't even trying to be sarcastic.

She was genuinely curious.

Kwon Seju fell silent, apparently having nothing more to say.

Yoon Doha, meanwhile, struggled to organize the chaotic thoughts still racing through her mind.

For a brief moment, quiet settled over the room.

But in a place where death lurked so close, a silence resembling ordinary white noise felt terribly out of place.

A place like this ought to have been filled with the sounds of blood-soaked flesh being trampled and living creatures suffering in agony.

And reality seemed determined to prove that thought correct.

Barely thirty seconds passed.

Perhaps even less.

"KYAAAAH! PLEASE SAVE ME! S-SAVE—"

Another scream suddenly tore through the gentle, waterlike hush.

It pierced the air and struck their ears as though trying to rip their eardrums apart.