At the End of the Hidden Greenery - Chapter 302

Kist, who had been ready to give up and have Shaen take down his last words, tried to brush off Quilon’s question just as casually. But as he lifted his head to answer and met Quilon’s eyes, he suddenly went still.

“You…”

For an instant, his brown eyes seemed to flash red.

“Well, damn. Didn’t expect to see a relic like you here…”

Surprisingly, however, the sight of Quilon made him much more cooperative.

“Fine. Here’s what happened. You see that behind me?”

Kist jerked a thumb over his shoulder, toward the place where he was trapped.

How had Jiwoo failed to notice it until now?

Beyond Kist stretched a seemingly endless darkness, as though a sheer cliff had suddenly opened in empty space. It was even blacker than the underground streams they had passed earlier.

“The void starts from there. Honestly, I don’t know exactly what happened. That thing appeared, something went wrong with our tree, and then our brothers started disappearing while they were investigating it. I followed them in and ended up like this.”

“……”

Quilon fell silent for a moment, considering what he had heard.

“What? You think you can figure out how to fix it from that?”

“No.”

“Well, obviously. What the hell are you supposed to do with so little…”

“No.”

Quilon repeated himself firmly.

“You need to explain everything you know properly.”

“I don’t know! How am I supposed to know? I was originally supposed to stay behind and wait for my brothers to come back. Now I don’t even know which of them might be dead!”

“How many?”

“Eight.”

“……”

When Quilon fell silent again, Kist apparently misunderstood what he wanted and started listing names.

“Me, Shaen…”

“You don’t need to tell me all their names…”

“Tch.”

Kist clicked his tongue.

“Fix it, what… I only came here because I was going to tell everyone to stop approaching this place in the first place. How was I supposed to know I’d end up like this?”

“You’re making an awful fuss when nobody’s even died yet.”

Kelvar grumbled.

Jiwoo, feeling bad for Kist, tugged lightly at Kelvar’s sleeve. Even if they could somehow deal with the void, it didn’t seem as though there was anything they could do for Kist himself. And the number eight bothered her as well.

“Wait… doesn’t that mean more than twenty people ended up like this?”

“Underground groups usually don’t even have ten members.”

Then he threatened Jiwoo’s group by saying his brothers wouldn’t stand for it when there aren’t even that many of them…?

“……”

Quilon was still deep in thought.

“Ha. I don’t know why we’re wasting our time like this.”

“Hey. Then just die.”

“If Jiwoo doesn’t treat you, aren’t you going to stay planted in the ground like that until you die anyway?”

Silevion smiled as he even drew a thumb across his throat.

“Is slowly suffocating to death some lifelong dream of yours?”

The two sharp-tongued men were coming from different directions, but ultimately saying the exact same thing.

At last, Quilon spoke.

“Jiwoo. Please come over here…”

Jiwoo hesitantly approached him, and Quilon guided her to stand in front of Kist’s upper body.

“This condition… can be compared to something like this. Imagine putting your arm through the window of a carriage that appears to be standing still, only to discover that the carriage is actually moving. From where you are, the carriage remains stationary, so the rest of your body stays where it is. But the arm you put through the window moves along with the carriage.”

In Kist’s case, it was as though only the part of him below the waist had been left inside that moving carriage.

The analogy was disturbing, but Jiwoo thought she understood.

It also made her intuitively understand why someone caught between overlapping dimensions could be torn to pieces.

“…And?”

That made his situation sound even more hopeless…

“So… you simply need to take his hand and pull him back out through the window.”

“What?”

Wouldn’t that do exactly what Kist had warned them about? Wouldn’t only his upper body come free, with his insides spilling out…?

“Excuse me.”

When Jiwoo continued to hesitate, Quilon gently guided her hand and placed it in Kist’s.

Kist had been glaring at Jiwoo the entire time with an expression that plainly said he thought this was complete nonsense, but now their hands were clasped.

‘Am I supposed to pull him? Really? When we don’t even know what’ll happen?’

Jiwoo trusted Quilon, but she was still worried. All she could do was hold Kist’s hand without making any attempt to pull.

Besides, even if she did put her strength into it, there was no way Jiwoo could drag a man who was half buried in the ground out by herself.

“……”

Even Kist remained silent, still holding her hand.

Quilon sighed.

“Come out.”

Rustle… There came the sound of dirt shifting, followed by the gritty scrape of soil rubbing against something.

“Ah!”

Kist pushed against the earth from below and hauled himself out under his own strength. His limbs were completely intact.

Even Kist himself seemed stunned, clearly having never expected that outcome.

“…Well, I’ll be damned. That’s one hell of a thing.”

“Oh my…”

Once he had climbed fully out of the ground, Jiwoo realized that Kist was an exceptionally tall man, about the same height as Helka.

Jiwoo had forgotten to release his hand, so Quilon personally slipped her hand free from Kist’s grasp.

Kist began brushing the dirt from his body.

“You…!”

Jiwoo thought that, at the very least, she might hear a thank-you this time. Instead, when Kist met her eyes, he scowled fiercely.

“If you could do it that easily, why did you drag it out for so damn long?”

Jiwoo was more dumbfounded than angry.

I didn’t know either…

***

After hearing that Shaen and Kist’s other brothers were likely trapped in similar circumstances, the group continued toward their next destination with considerably lighter hearts.

Neither Shaen nor Kist openly thanked Jiwoo, but the frequency of their angry outbursts noticeably decreased.

And as they made their way onward, Jiwoo couldn’t help asking Quilon.

“How did you know?”