Chapter 328
I am not a returner Episode 328:
Treasure Hunt (7)
“That… what do you mean? “The installment plan killed me?”
Ha-eun continued speaking in a stern voice.
“I heard that a bad person killed him earlier…”
“Yes. “I am the bad person.”
Baek Mu-gang looked down at the dumpling he had taken a bite of and smiled sadly.
“Because I’m stupid. “There’s nothing I can do alone.”
so.
“My grandmother suffered a lot because of me.”
Because it’s hard and painful.
Because the pain was unbearable.
“My grandmother has a bad disease. So… he died.”
Not anyone else.
“I killed him.”
Saying that, Baek Mu-gang laughed bitterly.
Why?
Ha-eun seemed to vaguely understand the distant emotions contained in that smile.
“…Instalments.”
Because she did too.
He became blind and had one of his legs cut off, making him unable to walk.
Because it has become a heavy burden that weighs down Ojin’s life.
I still remember it vividly.
Oh Jin, who stubbornly saved money for himself.
The smell of tattered clothes you picked up and the sound of peeling off the plastic of a 500 won calorie bar.
Having to watch that miserable life from the sidelines without being able to do anything was a despair like falling off an endless cliff.
‘if.’
What if Oh Jin had an accident and died while making money for himself?
What happened to myself?
Baek Mu-gang’s image was reflected in Ha-eun’s eyes.
The shoulders of the old man, who was called Cheon Kwon-seong and should have been revered, felt infinitely miserable.
“….”
Silence descended like a curtain.
Ha-eun pursed her lips as if she didn’t know what to say, but then bit her lips.
“That’s… it’s not your fault if you pay in installments.”
“It’s my fault.”
He shook his head, cutting off the words firmly.
“If it weren’t for me, my grandmother could have lived happily ever after.”
Ha-eun clenched her fists as the words continued calmly, as if she was laying out explanations written in an explanation book.
“That’s not true…!”
“It’s not like that.”
Oh Jin opened his mouth before Ha Eun.
“Whether it’s caring for someone or being cared for. “Just having a precious person by your side makes you happy.”
Happiness is not that far away.
Because stars shine even beyond dark clouds where not a single ray of light can be seen.
No matter how painful it is, no matter how painful it is.
It would be better than life without Ha-eun.
“lol. “I’m an idiot so I don’t know such difficult words.”
Baek Moo-gang smiled brightly and started eating the dumplings again.
Oh Jin looked at Baek Moo-gang with bitter eyes.
It’s not that I don’t understand.
It’s not trying to understand.
He felt guilty about his dead wife and could only atone for her.
Because it might have been the only way to ease the sadness.
“…Is the treasure you are looking for related to your wife?”
“Huh?”
Baek Moo-gang tilted his head with his mouth full of dumplings.
He chewed and swallowed the dumpling and smiled innocently.
“A treasure is a treasure.”
Why?
His bright, child-like smile seemed dangerous, as if it would break and scatter somewhere.
“Whew. “Let’s start by finding Deimos.”
Whatever the identity of the treasure.
In order to gain Baekmugang’s cooperation, he had no choice but to find something called treasure.
“huh! “I want to find a bad person!”
Baek Moo-gang got up from his seat with the momentum of jumping and nodded.
* * *
next day.
Full-scale exploration of the black rock mine has begun.
We searched through a mountain range covered with black granite, crossing the thick blanket of sulfur gas.
“Huh. “I can’t see anything around.”
“Iknow, right.”
Short break time.
Ha-eun sat down on the rock and sighed with a tired expression.
The surrounding heat wasn’t a problem, but the nauseating smell coming from the sulfur gas was difficult for her to bear.
“…I’m going back to the sanctuary for a moment, kid.”
“Thank you for your hard work.”
Riak sighed, looking even more exhausted than Ha-eun.
He, who had the most sensitive sense of smell among the group, complained of particular pain from the thick smell of sulfur.
‘It must be hard to bear.’
Even if it’s just a misdiagnosis, I feel pain like my head is breaking every time I use the stigmata of Canis the Hound.
The pain that Riak, who has a more sensitive sense of smell than the misdiagnosis using the stigmata of the constellation Canis, would feel is so great that it is difficult to imagine.
[This is the worst place for Riak.]
Vega, who was sitting on Ojin’s head, let out a short sigh as she watched Riak disappear into a silver halo.
“Is it okay if Vega doesn’t go back with me?”
[The main woman can still bear it.]
Vega held Ojin’s hair and slowly turned her head.
“Wow! It’s a centipede! centipede!”
Where her eyes were directed, she saw Baekmu-gang jumping up and down like a child, catching and lifting an insect that had escaped from a crevice in the rock.
[…But is the author really okay?]
Baekmu-gang was so full of energy that one wondered if something had happened to his head from drinking too much sulfur gas.
“It’ll be okay… probably.”
Ohjin stood up with a bitter smile.
“Let’s move again slowly.”
“Okay. already?”
“Just because you rest here doesn’t mean the sulfur gas will disappear.”
Ha-eun sighed and got up.
Isabella stood up following Ha-eun and lightly clicked her tongue while adjusting the vest she was wearing.
“I didn’t know that sulfur gas would be more of a problem than the heat.”
“I know.”
If I had known this would happen, it would have been better to bring an oxygen respirator rather than a vest with fire resistance magic.
Of course, there was no way there would be oxygen respirators in the Dragonian Kingdom.
“But is this Deimerson? “Didn’t you say it was that bastard’s territory?”
Ha-eun shook her head and looked around.
All you see around you is billowing sulfur gas and black granite.
There were no signs of civilization anywhere, such as roads or buildings that were maintained enough to be called a ‘territory’.
‘Is this why the old man couldn’t find Deimos’ location and kept wandering around here?’
It might be better if there were demons patrolling the area like last time.
This time, not even the demons were visible.
“If he had been interested in valuable treasures, he would not have abandoned his territory to the wasteland like this…”
A guy so greedy that his eyes would turn to treasures would have abandoned his territory like this?
‘It doesn’t make sense.’
Basically, aren’t treasures often used as a show off to show off to others?
While Ojin was frowning and continuing his thoughts.
“Maybe there is territory under this mountain.”
Isabella, who was calmly looking around, opened her mouth.
“Under the mountain?”
“Exactly inside the mountain.”
“You mean it was carved out of the inside of the mountain?”
Isabella nodded and continued speaking.
“They say treasures have the purpose of showing off, but you don’t put them out there in public, right?”
“ah.”
After hearing it, it made sense.
“Of course, things like gold bars are usually stored in safes.”
“Of course, as Mr. Oh Jin said, the desire to show off is not completely absent. “Treasure is a contradictory entity in the first place.”
Just like she said.
‘Treasure’ basically contained duality.
The desire to show off to others and the desire not to be taken away by others.
In order to satisfy one’s desire to show off, one must display one’s treasures externally, but the risk of it being stolen increases.
Walking the tightrope between the desire to show off and the desire to protect.
The mere existence of a treasure was bound to be contradictory.
‘No, you have to have something expensive to know.’
In Ojin’s case, he had never had anything that could be called a treasure, so he couldn’t even think about it.
“Then all I have to do is dig?!”
Baek Moo-gang’s eyes sparkled and he raised his rusty iron sword.
He sunk the iron sword into the hard granite and dug deeply into the granite as if he were digging soft soil.
“I’m good at digging!”
“Oh no. But you can’t dig the ground.”
Isabella stopped Baek Mu-gang with a puzzled expression.
Baek Mu-gang sucked his finger and tilted his head.
“why? “I heard it’s down here?”
“It’s not certain that it’s under the mountain, and if you go straight through, you can’t tell what’s down there.”
In the worst case, it could have fallen right in the middle of Deimos and his knights.
‘We need to find the entrance to the mine.’
What if an underground city was created by carving out the inside of a mountain?
The entrance must be outside.
“Then where should we go?”
“If there really is a territory under the mountain, you can enter and exit through the mine entrance.”
“okay?”
The problem is that it is difficult to even find the entrance to the mine.
‘Should I use Jiknyeo Castle’s hunting dog?’
A technique that indiscriminately accepts surrounding information into one’s mind.
It was possible to scan the interior, which cannot be seen with the naked eye, just like a CT scan.
‘The problem is that information is received indiscriminately.’
Even if I use it in an empty field, I feel a pain that feels like my head will break.
To be honest, I wasn’t confident that I would be able to handle it if I used the hound of the Orihime Castle in this place, which was filled with so much sulfur gas that even Riak couldn’t hold on and fell over.
‘It’s a good thing that it ends with me vomiting.’
For some reason, I had an ominous feeling that the aftereffects would be much worse than that.
“ha.”
When you continue to worry with no answer.
“I know where the mine entrance is.”
An explosive statement came out of Baek Mu-gang’s mouth.
“…yes?”
You know?
“huh! I’ve been in there before! “I came back because there was nothing!”
“Why on earth are you saying that now?”
No, then doesn’t that mean I’ve been doing nothing until now?
“Huh?”
Baek Mu-gang tilted his head as if he didn’t understand what was happening.
“You didn’t ask, right?”
“…Oh yeah.”
I didn’t ask.
‘I really want to hit you in the back of the head.’
I was so angry, but when I saw Baek Moo-gang looking at me with bright eyes as if he didn’t know what he did wrong, my anger cooled down.
“Let’s go to the mine entrance.”
“huh! I remember the entrance! “Did you do well?”
Baek Moo-gang smiles brightly, as if asking for a compliment.
“…ha.”
Was it really a good idea to get his cooperation?
Remembering the concerns he had revisited over and over again, Oh Jin followed Baek Moo-gang toward the entrance of the mine.