Chapter 100

Chapter 100

Like Family (11)

Han Jae-jung opened his eyes.

“This is... What....”

It was pitch black. He thought night had fallen, but judging by the faint traces of sunlight beyond the sky, it was just clouds covering the sun.

A cloud of dust had risen and filled the sky. This already dark land took on an even more gloomy color. The once ominous yet beautiful purple hue had faded. A desolate and silent wind blew.

This was a ruin. Infinitely close to the original meaning of the word ruin.

An unusable land. A place where buildings once existed.

There were no traces of the original buildings, and the ground was covered in fine ash-like particles, obscuring its original form.

The sight was too tragic to have been created by a single explosion. Han Jae-jung wondered how he had survived. Without transforming, he couldn’t have withstood an explosion of this magnitude.

Han Jae-jung finally realized he was alone. With the thick smoke and the surroundings completely destroyed, he couldn’t pinpoint his current location.

Spitting out the dirt in his mouth, Han Jae-jung stood up. His body was battered, but not immobilized.

The problem was his eyes. His left eye, which had been viewing the past until just before, was completely dark. Not obscured by smoke, but a more fundamental issue.

‘...Am I blind?’

Han Jae-jung was unnaturally calm. He didn’t know if this was a temporary condition or a permanent disability he would have to endure for life.

Aside from that, his body was surprisingly uninjured as he dragged himself through the ruins. An ominous silence weighed on him, as if even sound had been swept away by the explosion.

“...Virgo?”

The always noisy Virgo was nowhere to be seen. Had she been caught in the explosion and died? Had she vanished without a trace like the many other buildings here?

No, she could have died before the explosion. Just before this area became ruins worse than a devastated city, Virgo’s heart had been pierced by light.

It would be more surprising if she had survived.

Phew, Han Jae-jung spat out the dust and ash in his mouth once more.

She was definitely dead. Even as he was convinced of this, Han Jae-jung did not stop walking in search of Virgo.

Thud. Suddenly, something caught his foot. He looked down to identify it. It was a piece of scrap metal. A shapeless piece of scrap metal that had detached from some machine.

If he didn’t know the original, he would have thought it was simply junk. But Han Jae-jung had a sense of where this scrap metal had fallen from.

‘Was it the one Virgo had?’

That machine that allowed for more delicate manipulation of starlight.

If it had been shattered this tragically, it would be unusable from now on. Han Jae-jung smiled bitterly. The item he thought would be the key to controlling her rampage was destroyed.

This was fine since it was just a machine, but what about people? Yoon Seol-hwa, Joo Ah-yoon, and White Davi were still inside the Dark Matter. They could have been caught up in this explosion.

And they might have encountered the perpetrator who caused it.

Both possibilities have similar implications.

Death.

With a power capable of this level of destruction, even if they were magical girls, it would be difficult for them to survive. Add to that an explosion like a missile had dropped. Who could survive that?

Han Jae-jung questioned once more how he had managed to survive.

Heaving a deep sigh, he picked up the pitiful piece of scrap metal. Junk that wouldn’t fetch a good price at a junkyard. He roughly stuffed it into his pocket.

It was futile. He was tired too.

The past still flickered in his darkened left eye.

Red Spica, Virgo. A magical girl, yet a villain. Someone he had to protect, yet kill. Pitiable, yet unforgivable.

A person who lived a futile life, and vanished futilely.

In the end, someone he didn’t know.

Due to the villain’s attack, the opportunity for conversation he had prepared was also overturned.

Despite being so deeply entangled, I only knew her through speculation until the end. Han Jae-jung let out a deep, agonizing groan.

“...Ah.”

Then suddenly, Han Jae-jung saw a glimmer of hope. The current quest assigned to him was ‘To keep Virgo alive.’

If she was dead now, the quest would have deemed it a failure and imposed sanctions on him.

But the quest had neither indicated success nor failure.

The quest could still be completed.

“...She’s alive.”

Well, she had previously clashed with the villain that caused this calamity twice before. And she had returned alive both times.

If she survived twice, why couldn’t she survive a third time?

Considering she had reappeared later with a complete body despite losing her left arm to him earlier, she must possess remarkable healing abilities.

Virgo is alive. Han Jae-jung was convinced.

His pace gradually quickened. He didn’t know where he should go. He just ran blindly.

Like when he had escaped the Dark Matter before, he ran endlessly.

He ran a path where not even an inch ahead was visible. This path resembled a path of escape. The experience was not much different in that he ran endlessly, harboring only vague hope.

It was like hell.

An endless hell of suffering.

No matter how far he went forward, the smoke did not dissipate. Under his feet were ashes and finely crushed concrete powder, and the scenery did not change.

“...I’ll go back, and defeat you.”

Still, Yoon Seol-hwa’s eyes were not yet dead. Muttering towards the fallen Han Jae-jung, she gripped her ribbon again. Her hand was trembling violently.

The villain let out a huge roar, shaking the ground. Yoon Seol-hwa swallowed her dry saliva and began her transformation. She knew the transformation after undoing it would be a considerable burden on her body, but still acted.

Her body was enveloped in a blue starlight and Yoon Seol-hwa became a magical girl. Once again, she charged at Leo.

At her side, Virgo flew in and rushed at the villain. Despite being critically injured to the point where a human would surely have died, she moved.

“Get loooooost!!!!”

As the two of them charged and struck Leo’s mane at the same time, the villain let out another roar.

That was enough. This roar had starlight mixed in, and despite being a sound, it clearly delivered an impact. And heat.

In an instant, the two fell to the ground. Blue Sirius lost consciousness, and Virgo, spurting blood all over her body, rose again.

Her heart was gone, one eye was crushed, her leg was broken, and her arm was burned. Horrific injuries.

Starlight scattered from those wounds. She looked like she could die at any moment. No, she was already as good as dead.

She was burning her last life force to resist him.

The remaining half of Han Jae-jung’s field of vision was darkness.

Why did Han Jae-jung choose magical girls as his wards? Why did he only have sympathy for them?

At first, he didn’t have such a grand mindset. He never thought about such a grand mission.

It wasn’t because they were magical girls that he wanted to protect them. It wasn’t because they were something special that he wanted to protect them.

It wasn’t because they were magical girls that he wanted to protect them, but simply that the people he wanted to protect happened to be magical girls.

He only had the desire to protect people who were like family to him.

This was the most primitive mindset.

Han Jae-jung looked at the smoke surrounding him.

Endless darkness, and therefore giving the hope of being able to endlessly move forward, and in the midst of walking, vaguely giving the happiness of something being resolved.

Its name was desire.

Just as he realized the identity of the darkness, a white cluster of stars shone from the other side.

Most of it was obscured by this darkness and invisible, but he knew it was definitely shining there. The piece of metal pinned to his pocket resonated and emitted light.

He knew the reason he had to move, and realized what was blocking him.

This darkness is both my enemy and my own, so I had to sweep it away with my own hands.

[All star activation processes completed.]

Since this entire darkness is a part of me, I can control it.

I don’t need the power of any machine. I don’t need anyone’s help.

[Observed all stars.]

As he moved his hand, the darkness flickered and turned into lightning.

The blinding lightning gathered in his hand. It transformed into some kind of mechanical device. A dial-shaped tool similar to what he had seen before.

The key to control himself had been in his hand from the beginning.

It was the reason.

Grasping it.

Han Jae-jung stood up.

His real body firmly placed both feet on the ground, and a belt was attached to his waist.

He mounted the mechanical device he had held in the fantasy onto that belt.

The crude dial gradually took on a clearer shape. A pattern like a bear with an open mouth surrounded the lens.

The Big Dipper was no longer drawn on the lens.

[ASTRONOMICAL OBSERVATION.]

His body was enveloped in a brilliant white light.

The lightning that had consumed his body was gone.

Soon after, his original armor that had been hidden by the lightning appeared.

“...Jae-jung?”

Virgo muttered as she looked at him.

[I obey my fate.]

He follows his fate. Not a fate given by someone else, but his own mission that he found for himself.

[URSA MAJOR.]

As primal as a beast.

And at the same time, possessing a reason as cold as surprising.

His eyes that had turned black regained their original light.

He emitted a beautiful yet pure lightning.

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