Killing the Possessor - Chapter 127

He didn’t just keep staring, he actually turned his whole body toward me. The suffocating tension lasted only a moment before his long legs started moving my way.

“Hey—what are you doing? There’s nothing but my underwear over there!”

Crudi tried to make a fuss, but Ren pressed forward in total silence.

That was it. My instincts screamed at me not to delay any longer. The instant Ren reached for the wardrobe, I ripped open the teleport scroll I was holding.

But something was off.

It was the same high-grade scroll I’d used to sneak into Crudi’s place, but as soon as the sudden surge of magic surrounded me, it didn’t just envelop. It felt like it was squeezing me, trapping me.

Just as I started to panic at the strange sensation, there was a flash of light and I was yanked somewhere else.

“…Where am I?”

Wherever I landed, it definitely wasn’t the coordinate I’d set. In fact, I hit the ground hard, landing right on my butt instead of on my feet.

And now, the Hahoe mask I’d been wearing was nowhere to be seen. I looked around frantically, clutching my hood shut, trying to process this disaster of a situation.

Was this a trap? Or had the artifact malfunctioned?

“She’s around here somewhere! Search everywhere!”

A man’s loud shout rang out, followed by the heavy stomping of boots. I froze, blood running cold, then bolted in the opposite direction.

What the hell? Did they track me here because they sensed the magic surge again? Or…

“…A trap?”

Was I betrayed after all?

But this was no time to get lost in suspicion. I still had one emergency scroll left, but after what just happened, I wasn’t eager to use it. What if this artifact was sabotaged too?

For now, I kept that scroll as my last resort and just ran for the main road. It wasn’t exactly prime time for foot traffic, but I figured if I wasn’t all the way out in the outskirts, there had to be someone around. If I could just flag down a wagon or something, maybe I could slip the net.

I kept glancing around as I ran, trying to get my bearings. The neighborhood looked unfamiliar, but the architecture was standard Parensha style, so I couldn’t be too far from my original coordinates.

First priority: get to the city center. Even if there weren’t carriages, there’d be alleys—more places to hide, more ways to escape.

That was my plan as I kept running, until—

“Ugh!”

Someone yanked me into the shadows. Startled, I was about to scream, but a hand clamped firmly over my mouth, cutting it off. At that exact moment, a squad of uniformed men appeared right where I’d been heading.

“She can’t have gone far! Keep searching!”

Wow. If I’d kept going, I would’ve walked straight into them.

Scenes like this only happened in movies.

Once I caught sight of the man who’d grabbed me, I relaxed. He was wearing a Hahoe mask. Of course. It was Hawk. He’d waited for me, even with all this danger.

“How did you know I’d be here?”

“….”

He put a finger to the front of his mask—quiet. Right, now wasn’t the time for reunions. There were still Public Security goons crawling everywhere.

We crouched between buildings for what felt like ages. Finally, when things seemed quiet, we slipped out into the night.

“Hawk, about that possessor—”

I was just about to bring up my strange encounter with Crudi when—

“…Hawk?”

He was gone. Not a word, not a sound, just vanished into thin air. I looked around, confused, searching for any sign of him.

“What? Where’d you go?”

Meow. All I heard was a lone alley cat meowing in the empty street. It was almost dreamlike, the way everything had unraveled, and I just stood there, dazed, for a long time after.