Chapter 143 …
Only belatedly did he realize it was because he had seen the miserable state he was in.
“You…! Are you okay?!”
Ana pushed through the wreckage and rushed over. Tears welled up in her large red eyes.
Watching her, Hyunjin squeezed out what little strength he had and lifted his hand. When he placed it against Ana’s cheek, a tear finally slipped down from her eye.
“…Sorry for making you worry.”
“Hey! Don’t talk! You look absolutely terrible right now!”
“I said I’d come to you first…”
A surge of metallic-tasting blood filled his mouth.
“I couldn’t… ngh… protect everyone…”
As a thin line of blood trickled from his lips, Ana’s face turned deathly pale.
“I always said I’d protect everyone… ha… acted all confident about it. But in the end, I’m like this…”
Hyunjin’s blood-stained lips trembled. Overwhelming guilt weighed heavily on his shoulders. Just as the light in his eyes began to fade—
Ana bit down on her lip and shouted.
“No. You did your best.”
“Kim Ana.”
“What, you’re about to start that whole routine? ‘I couldn’t save anyone, I’m useless,’ that kind of thing? Go ahead and try it! I’ll seriously get mad!”
“……”
“I know everything. I know it all. I know how hard you work and how much you sacrifice! Maybe others don’t, but I do!”
Emotion thickened Ana’s voice. Her trembling fists looked ready to punch him if he weren’t already in critical condition.
“…I know you’re not some perfect guy. I know you’re always drowning in guilt, always putting others before yourself and sacrificing yourself like it’s a disease. But so what? Just because you’re superhuman, how can you save people every single time? Thinking you can save everyone in the first place is arrogant, you idiot! Did someone hold a knife to your throat and force you to?!”
She really did seem to know everything—
how imperfect he was,
and how hard he had tried.
Even through his hazy consciousness, Hyunjin’s eyes widened before softening.
It felt like this was the first time anyone had ever said something like this to him.
“…Ana… are you mad?”
“Of course I’m mad! You keep whipping yourself and making your own life miserable!”
Still fuming, Ana grabbed him by the collar.
“Ow—” Despite the pain, Hyunjin let himself be pulled along quietly.
Ana’s face flushed as she alternated between sniffling and huffing in frustration. Seeing her react as if his emotional pain were her own, Hyunjin felt secretly surprised.
“Han Hyunjin.”
“Yeah. Go ahead.”
Ana’s lips moved for a long moment. Then she spoke with difficulty.
“For now… just don’t think about anything and lean on me. Got it? I’m a king—I can afford to feed one person.”
Hyunjin’s eyes widened slightly.
“If your heart hurts, just say it hurts! Even if you whine sometimes, I’ll accept all of it. Even adults need somewhere to complain when things are hard. But—”
“Yeah.”
“…You have to put up with my whining for the rest of your life. Okay?”
“For the rest of my life?”
“Yeah. Don’t like it?!”
Ana shot him a sideways glare, still huffing.
At that moment, voices calling out could be heard from afar. It seemed Ana had found him first; people were now rushing over.
Perhaps he had lost too much blood from his head and leg—his vision was gradually blurring.
Even so, Hyunjin found himself smiling.
For the rest of his life.
There was no way he would dislike that.
And in the first place…
“…Wasn’t that already a promise…?”
“……”
Hadn’t he already promised to stay by her side for life? There was no need to add another promise.
His vision was too blurred to see Ana’s expression. Darkness slowly crept in.
“Kim Ana… I was going to say something earlier.”
“What?”
“What I couldn’t say… because of Mr. R…”
With his eyes closed, Hyunjin murmured. Even if he couldn’t see her face, he felt like he had to say it now.
“I like you.”
“Ah…”
When he thought he might never see her again beneath the collapsed National Assembly building—when his heart felt like it was burning away—that was when he had wanted to say it most.
With those words, Hyunjin closed his eyes.
Yeah. That’s enough.
I’ve said everything I wanted to. No regrets.
The hand that had been hovering near Ana’s shoulder fell limply to the ground.
* * *
His lost consciousness flickered on and off. Hyunjin felt his body shaking as he was carried on a stretcher.
…A military hospital?
The hospital’s fluorescent lights repeatedly flared painfully across his vision and passed by.
Beside his urgently transported body, he could hear Ana clinging to him and crying loudly.
“Doctor, is my first boyfriend really going to die like this? He hasn’t been conscious for a while!!”
“He’ll be fine, guardian. Will you be coming to the operating room?”
“But, but…! His face is literally cement-colored! Is a person’s face supposed to be this pale?! What do we do—he’s lost so much blood!!”
“We suspect an open fracture in the left leg and rib fractures, but it’s not life-threatening. And an S-rank Hunter wouldn’t die from something like—”
“Waaahhh!! Han Hyunjin hit every death flag there is! Don’t you know that if someone says ‘I like you’ and then closes their eyes, they die 100 percent of the time, you idiot…!!”
“If you keep interfering like this, Hunter Han Hyunjin really will die.”
“Why are all doctors so annoyingly calm!!”
Through his blurred vision, the military doctor calmly pulled Ana away. Medics hurried Hyunjin into the operating room.
Like a tragic heroine, Ana collapsed in the hospital corridor and reached toward him.
“No! Come back! We were supposed to go to the amusement park! What about our bunny-like dungeon residents!!”
Anyone would think he was on his way to die…
Feeling awkward, Hyunjin quietly closed his eyes again and pretended not to notice.
He didn’t know how many days had passed after that.
There were several surgeries. He drifted in and out of consciousness, focusing on recovery.
Gradually, the awareness that had sunk deep after surgery began to rise toward the surface.
The first sense to return was hearing.
As if the hospital window had been left open, he heard birds chirping and distant voices of people outside.
Amid the peaceful background noise, the sound of the news playing in the hospital room pierced his ears.
—Chairman Baek Junhyuk’s dream of overturning Seoul has come to an end in just one day. A search and seizure is currently underway at the Korean Hunter Association building and its underground laboratory belonging to Chairman Baek Junhyuk. After leaving his seat during a recess at the National Assembly hearing on the 6th, Chairman Baek briefly went missing and then disappeared. Evidence continues to emerge that monsters were synthesized in the underground lab and released into Seoul.
Another report followed.
—In other surprising news! A video from a netizen who was isolated in Seoul on the 6th is going viral. A group of skeleton monsters saved a citizen who was about to be attacked by a C-rank armored boar. The helmet-wearing skeleton monsters eliminated remaining monsters in Seoul alongside soldiers and rescued stragglers. All of them have been identified as low-level monsters belonging to the Demon King Dungeon.
—Come to think of it, the Hanbit Bridge video was also trending recently, wasn’t it? The one where the Demon King defeated the water dragon that attacked the evacuation route.
—Yes, that’s correct. More and more cases are emerging of citizens being rescued by Demon King Dungeon monsters.
—According to a national survey, public hostility toward monsters is steadily declining. It’s expected that official diplomatic ties with the Demon King Dungeon will soon be established, correct?
—Yes. It has already been three days since President Shin Seolheon recognized the Demon King Dungeon as the “Demon King Nation.” President Shin stated that by officially recognizing the Demon King Dungeon as a sovereign state, other countries around the world are expected to follow suit.
It seemed at least a week had passed since he lost consciousness.
