Chick 341
by Cristae341
[Activating the skill ‘Internal Interference.’]
- The caster interferes with all settings within their perception.
Joorim tried to examine the status window to rummage through the man’s mind before her.
But nothing appeared before her eyes.
Her mana was blocked, unable to even approach him.
…The skill doesn’t work?
“Joorim.”
On Ijo spoke softly to his flustered younger sibling.
“You noticed?”
“……!”
For a fleeting moment, On Ijo’s eyes shimmered coral.
At that instant, as if their strings were cut, everyone nearby began to collapse like marionettes.
Joorim hesitated, glancing around.
He could use skills?
Had it all been a lie?
If so, then just what…
“What are you trying to do?”
“…….”
On Ijo leaned his back against the limousine door.
After a moment’s silence, he gazed into the distance and spoke placidly.
“I’m going to build the Tower.”
“…What?”
Her confusion lasted only a second before Joorim’s face twisted in anger.
“On Ijo, have you completely lost your mind? Or is this some sort of protest?”
Rage welled up, boiling over.
So he’d hidden his abilities just to pull off something so preposterous?
Why on earth?
She couldn’t understand it.
Why would he rebuild the Tower he himself had destroyed?
On Ijo, who had been silent, finally spoke in a voice full of sorrow.
“Chloe is dead, Joorim.”
“I know. And I am truly sorry… But that’s a different matter—”
“Not a single part of her was left unscathed.”
“…”
On Ijo had returned from the 100th floor, empty-handed, several months after the Tower had been conquered.
He awoke at the mouth of a back alley, his first impulse to check his status window.
His level, reset to zero.
His skill window, blank.
By any measure, he was now as ordinary as anyone else.
Only one thing remained.
Name: On Ijo
Title: Fallen Hero
When he saw that title for the first time, he let out a hollow laugh.
As if the vanished Tower had left him with a final curse in its last dying gasp.
‘Fallen, is it? Useless might be more appropriate.’
But he thought little of it.
A world without the Tower. Humanity, finally safe.
All of it filled him with a sense of peace and fulfillment.
Was there any need to cling to power now? The world had already been saved!
With a smile brimming on his lips, the first place On Ijo went was the laboratory.
To keep his promise with Chloe, that he would seek her out before anyone else.
Finding Chloe’s corpse there had been pure luck. Or perhaps, that too had been the Tower’s design.
As he stood, stunned before Chloe’s ravaged body—
“On Ijo?!”
“You’re alive?”
A few remaining researchers, startled to see him, tried to flee at once.
But he stood dazed, unable to do anything. His skills wouldn’t activate.
He still didn’t know how to live as an ordinary person.
While he stared dumbly at his own hands, the fleeing researchers came to a halt.
“Could it be… his power is gone…?”
Somewhere, he thought he heard snickering laughter.
“Things got dull quickly.”
“So the experiment is really over, then.”
“In that state, he might as well be dead.”
‘Might as well be dead.’
That phrase, spoken by someone, stuck in his chest for a long time.
Bill, the last researcher remaining in charge, explained it calmly.
After On Ijo’s official death was announced, the experiments were halted.
But those in the company lab had kept a close watch on Chloe Han, set free the young test subjects, tracked down the now-fugitive woman, and resumed their experiments.
“She was the woman who was with you until the very end. We figured she might have been affected in some way, so we kept testing. It’s a shame, the way things turned out.”
While On Ijo, powerless, was restrained, Bill boasted freely about all that had taken place.
As if mocking the now-helpless On Ijo.
The experiments inflicted, even on innocent children, solely to replicate On Ijo’s power.
After hearing every detail, there was nothing he could do.
Once the world’s greatest awakened, On Ijo had lost everything on the 100th floor.
He somehow escaped from the researchers who tried to take even his empty shell for further experiments.
Bursting out in pitiful desperation, he was short of breath, his lungs uncertain and faltering.
For the first time in his life, he experienced true helplessness.
He needed help.
He had to see to Chloe’s remains and reveal the lab’s secrets to the world.
For that, he sought out his family.
Unaware that his family was facing the worst possible disaster as well.
“Huff, huff… ha…”
That day, a light rain was falling, drop by drop.
He dashed through the streets, but no one recognized him in his filthy state.
Home. If I can just reach home, ask for help…
On Ijo, moving steadily toward his house, looked up through the damp rain.
A news broadcast about the Doan Group was playing on an outdoor screen.
[Chairman On Suhyeong of the Doan Group, under investigation for suspected unfair business deals, has appeared at the parliamentary audit.]
Suspected unfair business deals?
On Ijo stood rooted, staring, spellbound, at the broadcast.
On the screen, On Suhyeong was being portrayed as the ruthless father who sold out his sons to the government to rebuild a failing company.
Next, his exhausted father’s face appeared, gaunt and drawn, sitting before the national assembly and enduring their pointed questions.
‘Father…’
It wasn’t only his father under fire.
People’s vitriol wasn’t reserved for On Suhyeong alone.
“Doan, isn’t that On Joorim’s family? Like father, like son…”
“He came back alive, acting so shameless.”
“Even after all that, I bet they’ll live well.”
Joorim, who had risked her life to ascend the Tower, received nothing but condemnation.
‘Joorim…’
Drip.
A raindrop landed on his lashes and trailed down his cheek.
Looking up at the dreary, overcast sky, layers of dark clouds closing in, he was seized by a strange feeling.
What was it I was trying to protect?
Only after falling, only after losing everything, did he realize there are things you can only see from the bottom.
Suddenly, the title flashed before his eyes.
Title: Fallen Hero
He laughed again, but this time the feeling was different.
Fallen—what could fit him better now than such a designation?
Drip. Drip-drop.
The rain began to fall harder.
Standing among those seeking shelter, he savored his ruin for a long time.
When the rage reddened his vision, filling his heart to bursting—
A static buzz marred the word ‘Fallen’ in his title, and the letters began to change.
Title: Corrupted Hero
In an instant, his eyes felt seared with pain.
He endured hours of suffering in the downpour, and when he looked up again, his eyes had turned coral.
[Skills]
Eye of Gnosis
—The eyes of one who has witnessed truth.
[“The ‘Corrupted Hero’ says humanity must be tested.”]
On Ijo accepted the whisper of his title.
Whether humanity was worthy of salvation or not—it was their turn to prove it.
That was the moment On Ijo became Gnosis.
Joorim, having heard everything, parted her lips.
Knowing what he’d endured, she felt a sharp ache in her chest.
Her own hardships had left their mark on On Ijo as well.
However…
“It’s all… in the past. Eventually, those unfair, suffocating things just become stories, things you look back on. Maybe it’s something people encounter sooner or later. For you, it might not feel ordinary—”
“Joorim.”
Her name came gently, and On Ijo interrupted her.
“All of it was wrong. Unjust.”
“…….”
Joorim couldn’t bring herself to speak.
“Which is why it would be troublesome if you got in the way here.”
On Ijo pulled a round cookie from his pocket and popped it into his mouth.
In front of the hospital tent.
“You know, camping is all about location!”
On Groo, having lined up all his familiars, folded his arms as he spoke.
“The scenery has to be nice, there shouldn’t be too many people, and you have to fish—so there’s got to be a lake, right?”
“Kkyu!”
“Pi!”
Unlike Lucifur and Mephisto, who responded to Groo’s enthusiasm with all their heart,
Bailach, lying on his side atop Yurian’s head, answered lacklusterly.
“Myu…”
“Yawn…”
Yurian let out a jaw-splitting yawn.
Groo narrowed his eyes at their lazy attitude.