LIGHTNOVELWORLD Chapter 94
Chapter 94
Kang Seulgi, Team Member.
To be precise, his position was actually that of Assistant Team Leader, not merely a team member.
“He was good at his job, despite his issues with the ‘Crusher Sickness.’”
As Suho greeted his with a smile, he awkwardly returned the greeting.
“Ah, yes. Hello.”
“Are you in the middle of purification work?”
“Ah, yes.”
A brief answer.
He hadn’t noticed it before, but now he saw what an odd person he was.
Usually, when someone approached like this, they would make small talk, saying something like, “Would you like to take a look?”
No, at the very least, he should have shown some interest in the new purification method Suho had just created.
However, Kang Seulgi merely diverted his gaze, fully engrossed in his purification work as if s+he didn’t care.
At that moment, Jo Geonhyuk, who was passing by, spoke to Suho.
“Suho, could I talk to you for a moment?”
Seeing Suho standing beside Kang Seulgi, Jo Geonhyuk led him a bit further away from him.
He then spoke carefully.
“You did great work today. If you don’t have any more appointments, I think it would be fine for you to head out early.”
“Oh, thank you. But if you don’t mind, would it be okay if I took a little more time to explore the special storage?”
“Hmm… It shouldn’t be a problem. But just be careful with the Assistant Team Leader you were with earlier.”
“The Assistant Team Leader? Why?”
“Ah, well… He’s a bit eccentric and prefers to work alone.”
“Eccentric.”
It was a roundabout way of saying he lacked social skills.
Normally, people would take that as a hint and avoid approaching the Assistant Team Leader.
But Suho needed a connection with Kang Seulgi.
“I understand. But that’s a bit disappointing.”
“Disappointing?”
“I thought I saw something among the items he was handling that I recognized from the Sealed Gate.”
“The Sealed Gate?”
The Sealed Gate.
And Suho’s familiarity with it.
These two keywords piqued Jo Geonhyuk’s interest immensely.
“Yes, but it’s just on the tip of my memory…”
“Oh, if that’s the case, you should have told me sooner! I thought it was something else. Let’s go! If that’s the case, I’ll make sure to talk to the Assistant Team Leader about it.”
“Are you sure? I wouldn’t want to make him uncomfortable….”
“Oh, it’s fine! It’s fine! Isn’t this related to the purification work? Isn’t that important right now? This is all part of our duties.”
Right.
That made sense.
It wasn’t just anyone; this was the person who discovered the 22nd purification method.
Jo Geonhyuk confidently reassured him, and thanks to him, Suho was able to stay next to Kang Seulgi naturally.
“Then I’ll leave it to you, Assistant Team Leader.”
“…Yes.”
In response to Jo Geonhyuk’s request, Kang Seulgi answered briefly.
After that, he quietly resumed his work.
Suho silently observed his purification process.
“…”
“…”
Silence hung between them.
However, Kang Seulgi didn’t seem to mind Suho’s presence, and Suho didn’t pay much attention to his indifference either.
Kang Seulgi worked mechanically.
He quietly retrieved each cursed item from a pile he had stacked and performed the purification process on each as if he were a machine.
If purification failed, he tossed it into the destruction bin, and if it succeeded, he threw it into the purification bin.
This went on for some time.
At the moment he was about to throw one of the cursed items into the destruction bin, Suho spoke up.
“Assistant Team Leader.”
“…Yes?”
“You missed one step in the purification process.”
It was true.
Among the 21 purification steps, Kang Seulgi had skipped one.
And Suho had pointed it out just as he was about to toss it into the destruction bin.
After a moment of silence, Kang Seulgi quietly nodded.
“You’re right. Thank you.”
After receiving his thanks, Suho smiled faintly and continued watching his work from beside him.
“…”
From that moment on, Suho started to become bothersome.
However, Kang Seulgi still worked silently without a word, until a short while later.
“You missed another one.”
“Assistant Team Leader, that one too.”
“That one as well.”
Suho caught several more of Kang Seulgi’s mistakes.
Other people were too busy to pay attention to him.
Since Suho had made such a major discovery, everyone was preoccupied contacting various departments and rechecking their work.
The same went for Jo Geonhyuk.
After all, it was Jo Geonhyuk who had arranged for Suho to stay beside the Assistant Team Leader, so the two of them became like an isolated island outside everyone’s attention.
Some time passed once more.
“Assistant Team Leader.”
Suho called Kang Seulgi.
When he heard his name, Kang Seulgi stopped what he was doing and looked quietly at Suho.
His brows furrowed ever so slightly.
His expression seemed to ask what it was this time.
However, he did not speak first.
He simply narrowed his brows slightly and looked at Suho.
At his subtle reaction, Suho put on a friendly smile.
“Would you like to grab a cup of coffee?”
“Coffee?”
“Yes.”
“No, thank you. I don’t really like coffee.”
“Then just listen to me here.”
“Pardon?”
“Have you been embezzling items like this?”
The moment Suho finished speaking, Kang Seulgi’s eyes, which had shown little expression up to now, widened for the first time.
Simultaneously, his heart began to pound.
“What do you mean….”
“Do I look like a fool?”
Suho took a step forward.
He was still smiling.
With just a step or two, he closed the distance between them until they were close enough to speak in hushed tones.
Lowering his voice, Suho spoke.
“Isn’t it true? You’re deliberately putting intact items into the destruction bin to siphon them off.”
“What? What?”
“Are you going to keep pretending you don’t know? If you keep this up, I’ll reveal everything about that ‘thing in your stomach’ right here.”
“…!”
Kang Seulgi’s face visibly paled at Suho’s words.
It wasn’t just the accusation of item embezzlement; it was his mention of “that thing in his stomach.”
Kang Seulgi swallowed dryly.
His heart raced faster, and a cold sweat dampened his shirt.
When he couldn’t manage a response, Suho smiled brightly and spoke again.
“Assistant Team Leader.”
“Y-yes?”
“Let’s go have a coffee together.”
***
The back garden.
Suho led Kang Seulgi to the hideout he shared with Jung Chul-min.
“Coffee? Or would you prefer some barley tea?”
“Barley tea… would be fine.”
“Alright then. Do you have any coins?”
“Excuse me?”
“I don’t have any coins on me.”
“Oh… yes….”
Taking the coins from Kang Seulgi, Suho bought two cups of barley tea and handed one to him.
“Thanks. I’ll enjoy it.”
“Oh, yes….”
“Slurp.”
The two of them quietly drank their barley tea for a while.
After a few sips, Suho slowly spoke again.
“Assistant Team Leader.”
“Y-yes?”
“How long has it been?”
“W-what do you mean?”
“The thing in your stomach.”
“….”
At Suho’s words, Kang Seulgi’s eyes widened again.
His lips pressed inward.
How could he have known?
This was his only secret.
After a long silence, Kang Seulgi finally spoke.
“How… did you find out?”
“Is that important right now? What matters is the thing embedded in your stomach.”
“….”
“Let’s take a look at that thing in your stomach, shall we?”
Silence from Kang Seulgi.
After a moment of hesitation, he sighed deeply and untucked his shirt from his pants, starting to unbutton it.
As he lifted his inner garment, a thin, light armor wrapped around his abdomen was revealed.
It wasn’t an ordinary armor.
The armor wasn’t there because he was part of Special Team 2.
The armor’s purpose was solely to conceal the entity attached to his stomach.
Finally, as he unzipped the armor, the concealed object beneath it came into view.
– Whirr… whirr….
The sound began as he unzipped halfway.
It sounded like a machine turning on, and indeed, in a sense, it was.
Because, as he fully removed the armor, two crushers were meshed together, grinding away where his lower abdomen should be.
“So it was that docile back then.”
The crusher attached to his stomach.
Suho knew what it was.
Its name was “Mega Crusher,” one of the so-called ‘High-Technology Series’ from otherworldly civilizations, classified as a top-tier cursed item.
In particular, the one embedded in Kang Seulgi’s stomach was the ‘Mega Crusher,’ a cursed item due to its parasitic nature.
“In simple terms, Kang Seulgi is currently the host of the Mega Crusher.”
Nodding to himself, Suho spoke.
“The thing in your stomach—its name is Mega Crusher, right?”
“H-how do you know?”
“That’s confidential. But more importantly, you were embezzling items because you couldn’t keep up with the Mega Crusher’s demands, weren’t you?”
At Suho’s words, Kang Seulgi bit his lip again.
Then, slowly, he nodded.
“…Yes, that’s correct.”
“Oh dear… that must have been hard on you. Alright, you can put it back now.”
Kang Seulgi quietly redressed, putting the armor back on.
He sat beside Suho, holding his paper cup as if clinging to his mother’s hand.
It was clear proof of his anxiety.
Suho observed his in silence for a while.
Kang Seulgi hadn’t been socially awkward from the beginning.
The reason he had become this way was all due to the Mega Crusher.
While working night shifts alone at Special Team 2, he had been attacked by the Mega Crusher stored in the special warehouse, and since then, he had become its host.
Initially, he had considered seeking help.
Since he had been afflicted by a cursed item, he thought he should inform others to search for a cure.
But his grotesque appearance made him hesitate, and with no known case of anything similar worldwide, he was even more reluctant to reveal it.
After all, the Mega Crusher was a cursed item that couldn’t be purified or destroyed and was instead kept sealed.
He feared that revealing his affliction might result in similar treatment.
So in the end, he chose to keep it hidden.
And from that point on, he distanced himself from others.
Afraid that someone might discover the demon embedded in his stomach.
‘He couldn’t quit his job because only here could he acquire the items demanded by the Mega Crusher.’
For him, it had been an unavoidable choice.
But despite his efforts, the Mega Crusher had eventually come to light.
That was because, long after he had become Team Leader, an incident occurred where all items in the special storage were ground up one day.
“That was also because of the Mega Crusher.”
The Mega Crusher was a dangerous item.
Though it might have seemed calm and benign for now, it would demand more items over time, slowly eroding its host’s mind until it drove them mad.
That’s why, in the future, Kang Seulgi would be known by the alias “Mad Scholar of Destruction.”
Suho spoke.
“Assistant Team Leader.”
“…Yes.”
“You want to get rid of the Mega Crusher, don’t you?”
“What? W-wait, what did you say?”
“I’m asking if you’d like to be rid of the Mega Crusher.”
Kang Seulgi’s eyes widened as large as saucers.
Not only did he know about the Mega Crusher, but he also knew a way to get rid of this cursed demon?
Amazed, Kang Seulgi quickly nodded.
“Yes, I want to get rid of it! Do you know how? Please, I’m begging you! Please, I’m begging…!”
He seemed ready to kneel in desperation.
Seeing his earnest plea, Suho nodded to himself.
Thankfully, it seemed that Kang Seulgi hadn’t yet experienced the Mega Crusher’s hidden power.
“That’s probably why he’s able to ask for help like this.”
That was a relief.
Suho smiled and spoke.
“Don’t worry. I’ll take care of it for you.”
“Are you serious?”
“Yes, of course. I mean it.”
Suho’s smile.
To Kang Seulgi, it looked like the smile of an angel.