That crazy bastard.
I stared down at the reply for a long time.
How was I supposed to answer that? Sure, I could admit I’d been stubborn—but still.
Frowning, I decided to pretend I hadn’t seen it and just sent what I’d meant to say in the first place.
[Me: When would be convenient for you, my respected senior.]
This time, the reply came only after Carl had already visited.
[Ricardo: Three days from now.]
Three days of sheer dread, then.
I set the phone down by the window and turned to greet my next visitor as he entered the room.
***
Carl Dow.
Hesh’s mentor. Short black hair, deep blue eyes, roughened voice. A man of few words. Hesh respected him deeply, and his reputation was excellent. Ami said the more you got to know him, the more genuine he seemed. Yun had once commented that while Carl wasn’t exceptionally talented, he was reliable.
I hadn’t gone on any missions with him since the day at the Library of Beginnings, so I barely knew him. Maybe that was why telling him the truth felt oddly easy.
I gave a brief, trimmed-down explanation—my identity, and why I needed to reveal it.
Carl sat silently, arms crossed, until I finished. When I was done, he broke the quiet with a low voice.
“If all that’s true... why do you still go outside the Core?”
That’s what he asked?
I’d expected something about betrayal, or my connection to the tenth-class Creature.
I met the expressionless senior’s eyes.
“To kill my own kind with my own hands.”
Carl fell silent.
The corridor outside was utterly still. Even our subdued voices seemed to echo. Night air—cool, heavy, and clear. The hospital’s reflection shimmered faintly in the darkened window.
Carl Dow’s presence fit this quiet darkness perfectly.
He was like a midsummer night—soft-spoken but dense with weight.
“To take responsibility for what you did?” he asked.
“Yes.”
“So that’s why you insisted on taking the exam?”
His blue eyes flicked toward the burn scars across my skin.
I nodded, forcing a faint smile.
“Yes. I’m aware I was in the wrong.”
“I won’t ask why you betrayed them. It won’t change anything, and it’ll only rip you apart.”
Oh?
My mouth fell open in surprise.
Just like that? He was letting it go that easily?
I hadn’t thought he’d attack me, but I hadn’t expected him to accept it without resistance either. We weren’t even that close. We’d only worked together briefly.
So how could he react this way?
“But when you face your own kind again,” Carl said quietly, “I doubt you’ll be able to kill them without hesitation.”
I froze.
Those sharp blue eyes.
They looked straight through me, as if cutting into my golden ones.
“With that expression.”
Ah.
Right. Of course.
I’d have doubted me too.
Yun had once asked the same thing—his fury boiling as his hand closed around my throat. It was a fair question. Maybe not asking it would’ve been the strange part.
Still, I had an answer.
I met Carl’s gaze squarely.
“It hurts less than watching them die at human hands.”
Understanding flickered in his eyes—maybe even pity.
I ignored it.
“Does that answer your question?”
Carl nodded slowly.
Then he fell silent again, lost in thought.
When he finally rose, eyes lowered, he said simply, “Then I’ll see you outside the Core next time.”
“Please take care of me, sir.”
Carl nodded once more and left the room.
That was the end of it.
Unlike Ami, who texted me later—“I had so many questions I went to ask my brother, and he got really annoyed”—Carl didn’t contact me again.
According to Ami, Carl was a soldier to the bone. He never questioned orders from the higher-ups.
Maybe that’s why he hadn’t asked about the reason for my betrayal.
In any case, I was relieved. At least I hadn’t had to tell that searing story again—the one that burned through my chest every time I spoke it aloud.
Because each time I dreamed of Rei, I woke up clutching my face, swallowing back a groan.
***
When Ricardo came to visit, I was one day away from discharge.
A nurse had just changed the IV bag. Dinner was done and cleared away, so there was no reason to call for medical staff. It was the quiet hour of early evening.
That’s when Ricardo opened the door and stepped in.
He was in a sharp suit.
“Were you out somewhere, sir?”
Blinking at how clean-cut he looked, I asked automatically.
He didn’t answer. Instead, he shut the door firmly behind him, strode straight over, and stopped beside my bed.
Before I could say a word, he grabbed my hospital shirt and yanked it up.
“Privacy!”
I panicked, scooting toward the window.
“Please respect my privacy!”
“You take an exam without permission and now you want privacy~?”
Ricardo smiled with his eyes curved.
A smile dripping with menace.
Great. Off to a bad start already.
He looked pissed, and I hadn’t even begun yet. This wasn’t good.
Terrified, I pulled my shirt back down and stammered, “They call us lab rats.”
He’d been staring at the scars when he muttered, “Lab rat?”
I straightened my clothes, forcing a weak smile.
“That’s what they call the Badgers.”
Ricardo snorted.
Then he stretched out a long leg, hooked the nearby metal chair with his foot, and dragged it over. It was the one reserved for visitors. He sat lazily, crossed his legs, and leaned back like a man restraining the urge to light a cigarette.
This was bad.
How was I supposed to start?
I was so nervous I couldn’t move, couldn’t even tell he was watching me closely.
He finally spoke.
“So?”
“...Sir?”
“What’s this about, then~?”
Ah.
I pressed my lips together and looked up at him.
Jet-black hair, long narrow eyes. His pressed suit radiated sharpness.
I took in those details, mouth opening and closing soundlessly.
“What are you doing?”
Ricardo raised an eyebrow.
So scary.
I shivered and bowed my head. “I’m sorry.”
“Suddenly don’t have anything to say? Should I leave so you can rest?”
“No, sir. It’s just...”
If I hesitated any longer, it’d be worse!
Panic squeezed my heart. The pressure was unbearable. Words burst out before I could stop them.
“I’m not human.”
A lifted eyebrow.
Then silence. Heavy, suffocating silence.
Through the closed window I could hear the distant hum of cars outside—every sound felt magnified. The air was utterly different from when I’d confessed to Ami or Carl.
It felt like the silence itself was strangling me.
I couldn’t even meet his eyes.
When Ricardo finally spoke, his voice was slow.
“Then what are you?”
He didn’t sound furious—at least, not yet.
Still, the calmness scared me more. I forced myself to turn toward him.
That clean, unreadable face filled my vision.
Expressionless.
Which somehow made it worse.
I gathered what little courage I had left.
“A Creature.”
Another long silence.
Was it going to be like this every time?
Every word I said followed by this suffocating pause?
Where had my life gone wrong...
As I stared down, drowning in self-loathing, Ricardo spoke.
“Humanoid?”
I looked up sharply.
His green eyes burned like embers, impossible to read.
But I nodded.
“Yes. That humanoid-type Creature I once asked you about.”
“Who told you that?”
The question came instantly.
Knowing hesitation would only make it worse, I answered quickly.
“No one told me. I remembered. Some of my memories came back.”
“And in those memories, you were one of them?”
“Yes. To be precise...”
I looked straight at him.
After my talk with Yehyeon, I’d gone over those memories hundreds of times. I couldn’t recall my beginning or end on Earth—but I remembered the end of the world I was born in.
“I came from another world.”
The world tree that burned like a sun, the land collapsing beneath it.
“I was born and raised somewhere else, then crossed the Portal to Earth.”
Silence again.
But this time I wasn’t afraid. The fear had been replaced by loss.
My world had fallen long ago. My memories of Earth had eaten away at those older ones—but the ache of loss remained, gnawing endlessly.
It had been a world I loved, even through the pain.
Ricardo’s voice dragged me back from that fading vision.
“So by your words... that Level-10 Creature came from the same world as you?”
“Yes.”
So it comes to Rei, after all.
Even now, the pain never dulled; my voice cracked faintly.
“He was my friend.”
Ricardo’s green eyes blinked once, then narrowed.
“Your friend?”
Could I finish this conversation without getting {N•o•v•e•l•i•g•h•t} hit?
That was my first thought.
It wouldn’t even be strange if he punched me right now.
I nodded anyway.
“Yes.”
“You’re saying you were friends with that thing from the video? That unidentified monster?”
“Yes... I’m sorry I couldn’t tell you earlier. It was classified...”
“If that’s true, then what the hell are you doing under Yehyeon?”
The sharp edge in his voice finally cut through.
For the first time, emotion filled his face—his brows knit tight, his glare piercing.
Distrust. Contempt. Anger.
Yeah. That’s the normal reaction.
I didn’t look away from his blade-like stare.
His next question twisted my gut, but I managed to keep my face still.
“Serving under the man who killed your friend?”
Maybe it was true—maybe only when I died at my own kind’s hands would this torment end. Only after I’d taken responsibility and paid for my sins, even if it wasn’t true redemption.
Until then, I had to learn how to live with the pain.
I smiled bitterly.
“I betrayed my kind.”
Ricardo said nothing.
“The sword in that footage—it was mine. I gave it to the humans as a weapon against Rei.”
As expected, he didn’t speak for a long while.
I watched him, waiting. He seemed to be weighing what I’d said, his fingers resting thoughtfully against his jaw.
Like Ami and Carl, he’d draw his own conclusion before answering.
Even if he hit me, I wouldn’t be surprised. Honestly, it was a miracle he hadn’t yet.
As I stared at the IV drip, his low murmur broke the quiet.
“So that’s why you puked your guts out in the Colosseum~? Same reason you vomited outside the Core?”
“Ah, yes. I’m sorry for lying about it... I didn’t have authorization then...”
“Why did you betray them?”
He lifted his head.
Those green eyes gleamed like knives.
I fought not to flinch.
“I don’t remember.”
Ricardo blinked.
“That part—no matter how hard I try—I can’t recall it.”
He didn’t move.
The silence fell again, heavier than before. It filled the room with fresh dread, sinking claws into my half-resigned body.
He’ll speak again soon, I thought.
But when he finally did, his words cut deeper than I expected.
“Still holding out on me, huh~? Saying you don’t remember the reason...”
A faint, cold laugh.
And then the words that ripped through me—
“Well, isn’t that convenient~...”
