36. Princess Run (11)
***
Ego Frying Pan could perceive and interpret what others were saying without having to touch them, but in order for those around him to understand what he was saying, he had to touch them. There was a reason why he kept whining for them to touch him. Frying Pan was quite the talkative person.
Meanwhile, even after the story of entrusting the princess with the interpretation of the magic tool came out, Dong-cheol was still holding it with both hands and trembling. He could have just walked over to her and handed it to her, but his body was frozen.
Minjun, who guessed the reason, extended his hand.
“Give it to me, I’ll give it to you…”
“Hey, over here!”
Before Minjun could finish speaking, Dongcheol took a step forward.
He held the rounded corner of the frying pan and extended the handle toward the princess. It was a gesture that could be understood even across cultures. The princess, who had been screaming as if she was tearing off a pig’s throat made of steel, closed her mouth and looked at Dong-cheol. The goblin’s desperate eyes were reflected in her eyes. A small creature that could be counted on two fingers among the species that had immigrated to Earth in large numbers, and a giant crocodile that was over two meters tall were facing each other.
There are messages that can be conveyed even when language is not spoken.
“Huh?”
She held out her hand. Dong-cheol shrugged his shoulders but didn’t drop what he was holding. A huge body covered in scales approached him and lightly grabbed the handle with just two fingers.
“······Phew!”
The sweaty goblin took a deep breath. The elf looked at him with admiration. Meanwhile, the princess froze as soon as she made contact with the frying pan. Then she narrowed her eyes again.
It seemed like the two were having a conversation.
Minjun said to the frying pan.
“Please answer my question. When the princess speaks, interpret it.”
Soon, the princess became excited again. She seemed to be absorbed in her past memories, recalling the incident where she was attacked.
“=Princess, please calm down.=”
Minjun frowned. He wasn’t very cooperative.
He approached and grabbed the part of the frying pan handle that the princess’s fingers had not touched. Their skins became very close. Then the princess stopped welding and clenched her teeth. She lowered her eyes slightly.
‘Hey, don’t be shy.’
He kept his grumbling to himself and asked the frying pan a question.
“What did the princess just say?”
I hope it will be nutritious content.
However, the answer I got back did not live up to expectations.
=Ah··· Ah? Yes. Ah··· Sorry. I’m a little confused right now.=
What the hell is this?
I hired an interpreter, so why are you suddenly so flustered?
=This older sister… is really hot. Haa. Is it because I’m on fire after a long time?=
“······Just the main point.”
=Ah, what did you just say? You were cursing someone in a very harsh way. I don’t know who it is, but if I catch it, I will peel off its skin, chew each strand of its flesh, boil it in salt water and eat it, pull out its genitals and block its mouth, pull out its fingers and puncture its nasal passages, and kill the rest of its body by cutting it with a rusty saw…=
I felt like listening to it more wouldn’t be of much use.
The sensitive woman who was describing the sentiments of her hometown next to Min-jun seemed to have taken a short break. Instead, a female warrior who chewed up her enemies appeared, taking over from her.
A rough Shutan tribesman who curses the instigators of the attack.
‘What a needlessly complex personality.’
The frying pan muttered in ecstasy.
=This older sister and I get along so well···. I wish she would say something like this to me too···.=
The sadistic tendencies of the chef whose personality was copied did not seem to only respond to physical pain. Some people feel sexual intoxication from being verbally insulted and threatened with harsh words. The world of abnormal sexual desire was wide and deep.
Minjun declared to Frypan, letting out one earful of details he didn’t want to know about.
“I’ll give you three minutes. Take responsibility and get answers to my questions. Otherwise…”
I was at a loss as to what to threaten. Throw the frying pan roughly? Hit it with a hammer? Weld it without mercy?
I was sure everyone would like it.
Minjun finally found the answer.
“······After this is over, I thought I’d abandon you for the rest of my life!”
Minjun took his hand away as he heard the frying pan, which had caught fire on its instep, desperately pouring out mental waves to the princess and pleading. Then he checked his cell phone, which he hadn’t been able to check because he was reinforcing the barrier.
Meanwhile, the elf looked nervously at the swarm of undead insects clashing repeatedly beyond the golden barrier, while the goblin stood guard beside them.
‘hmm?’
In that short period of time, there were 73 missed calls from Cash.
‘It looks like it was reported in the media.’
He tends not to contact them carelessly when he’s on a mission, but the situation was different now. With tens of thousands of insects swarming and even the highest-level barriers that he normally wouldn’t use activated, he must have been worried. Some magics don’t disappear even when the magician is dead or seriously injured.
‘You sent a lot of texts. I should write a short report of my survival later.’
As I went back through the texts I had received, my eyes stopped on a few long messages. They were the ones she had sent before the swarm of bugs had started. I had not noticed them while I was moving along, concentrating on security, but now I saw them.
This is a text message that was split into several parts to check MMS on Minjun’s 2G phone, which still uses a phone number that starts with 011, as the process is a bit cumbersome.
Minjun’s expression hardened as he read from the first one that came.
– It’s Goryeo Precision Pension, and it’s because of the debt problem, right? But I don’t think government support will be easy. This company… has earned a lot of hate from the higher-ups.
The next text explained the reason.
– They were paying a lot of fines every year. They kept getting disciplinary action for the same problem, but they were like, ‘You bark, we’ll go our own way.’ That attitude is what got me into trouble.
Behavior that warrants annual corrective action and fines…
– Are you familiar with the ‘racial consideration employment quota system’?
Of the seven races that immigrated to Earth in the form of mass immigration, four races that the government deemed unnecessary for consideration for ‘various reasons’ are excluded from the scope of application of this law.
That leaves the three races: dwarves, orcs, and trolls.
If we were to name the biggest reasons, they are, in order, a race that is discriminated against because they are short, a race that is discriminated against because they reproduce too quickly, and a race that is discriminated against because they are too large.
Companies of a certain size or larger must hire a set ratio of these three races, and the quota varies depending on the industry.
– I looked at the information this company disclosed… 97.2% of its employees are humans and 2.8% are elves. There is no ‘other’. Do you know what I mean? The only people working at this company are humans and elves! I can’t believe there are still companies like this in this day and age.
The word racist is often used synonymously with the word human supremacist.
But if you think about the original meaning of the word, it also includes the meaning that non-human species judge superiority, compare each other, and rank them. For example, it goes like this. Those that are helpful and those that are not. Those that harm humans and those that are not.
This is why the following sentence is included among typical racist statements: ‘Elfs are not human, but they are kind and useful!’
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At that moment, Minjun’s eyes turned cold.
Woof! Woof!
The frying pan vibrated violently. Minjun approached and grabbed the handle.
=You gave me the answer! You said you didn’t touch anything strange while you were out of the hotel and visiting three companies today! At best, it was something like a chair or documents, but they were all thoroughly inspected in advance···!=
The artificial intelligence continued to urgently communicate through telepathy.
=But you say you’ve had contact with other ‘humans’! For example, you had contact with the master several times today···.=
Up until this point, it was something I didn’t need to hear. But.
=And then there was just one more person! There was a human who came into contact with the princess!=
“Who is it? No way.”
The frying pan said a person’s name.
The name of the person Minjun already had in mind.
=Other company presidents showed respect to the royal family, but they only knelt and didn’t even hold hands! But one person… is said to have shown respect by holding the princess’ hand and kissing the back of her hand!=
The scenery from that time quickly flashed through Minjun’s mind.
The moment ‘he’ entered the conference room was after examining the magical traces left inside. Of course, he didn’t show up late and spray reagents all over his body to conduct a chemical reaction test.
‘Wait a minute, if that’s true… why would someone like that hire a troll as their lawyer?’
A person you could never have imagined would have such tendencies, since you had seen the scene yourself.
‘But the fact that a man who pays fines to the government regularly and upholds his twisted beliefs to the point of being hated by others is holding and kissing the hand of Shutanin, whom other company presidents were reluctant to even touch, means that there must have been a reason for him to do so.’
It was clear that there was a clear motivation to do so, even if it meant suppressing emotional resistance.
For example, by making contact, a substance is absorbed into the princess’s skin!
“······shit!”
Minjun called immediately.
***
After Minjun took the princess and evacuated, Bradley and the twelve other people with powers left at the scene were split into two groups. Minjun urgently sent a psychic message to Bradley, telling him that he would ensure the princess’s safety and that they should track down the mastermind who was hiding somewhere and observing the scene.
“Even though they attacked in an unexpected way, there’s a way to track them down, right? Especially if you use your abilities!”
A few of them led the disoriented Shutan entourage back to the hotel, while the rest, including Bradley, set out to track down the assassin. The moment they were promised four times the salary, their mission became more than just security.
Bradley thought, drawing strength from his body.
‘We will track them down and catch them no matter what!’
An additional bonus lies in how deeply we delve into the upper echelons of the Human Rights Solidarity.
Bradley’s eyes, sitting in the front seat of the vehicle driven by another bodyguard, were seeing something that others could not. A complex ability that only a multi-ability user can display, combining clairvoyance and psychometry. It was a non-contact perception.
“Turn right over there!”
What he sees is not a magical trace that affects the spirit world, but a physical path taken by tens of thousands of insects. He confirms by following the trace left in the air.
There was no way a swarm of undead bugs could have come flying in with a spell that erased even the last thoughts, and his supernatural powers easily reversed their path. The thoughts of the insects that returned from the dead were simple and rough, but that made them easier to understand.
‘The idea of turning the Manova bugs into undead and charging them was certainly fresh. They must have thought it was bound to succeed. They thought it was safe since there was no need for the Human Rights Solidarity members to show up in person.’
In fact, if Minjun had not been there, the princess would have died.
‘But… at the same time, it was an arrogant idea!’
They knew that Bradley, who had been officially attached to them for several days, had detection-type superpowers, but they had no idea how powerful those powers were.
“That’s the building!”
I tried not to, but I couldn’t help but get excited.
‘If this is a success, I could get about 5,000 talents including a bonus!’
The retirement fund he was left with was about 10,000 talents. Half of that was lost all at once.
Freedom was within reach.
He was weaker than fellow inmates like Minjun and Del, but as Telesia’s case shows, fighting ability did not necessarily determine everything. Bradley also displayed his natural ability and persistently did his part, carrying out his missions, and tenaciously gathered his talents.
Unlike his colleagues, he never lost a large amount of talent to unexpected events, one after another!
As a result, it’s really not that far away now.
‘I will never be like Telesia!’
Bradley also took the same promise that Minjun had made to heart.
Like the other prisoners, it is unknown what crime he committed before his memory was erased, but given the relatively small sum of money, 70,000 talents, it is unlikely to have been a heinous crime that would warrant his own death.
Bradley figured he was probably more of an economic criminal, since his skills were better suited to finding hidden treasures and deciphering codes than attacking and killing people.
So, regaining your memories won’t cause you to panic so much that you want to kill yourself.
‘I have a really good feeling about this!’
He followed the residual thoughts and led the people with supernatural powers to the underground parking lot of a building.
and.
“!”
The bodyguard sitting in the driver’s seat shouted harshly.
“Hey, what’s that kid doing!”
Squeak!
The car stopped roughly. The door opened and the officers got out.
Someone was standing there, as if they had been waiting.
“no?”
In the pitch-black darkness, a face obscured by shadows.
Bradley couldn’t understand. Surely the chase wouldn’t have taken more than a few minutes. It would have been natural, since they would have had to release bugs nearby.
But the mastermind didn’t run away, but is just quietly waiting here?
Danger signals rang loudly in his head.
‘Surely, releasing the bug wasn’t an arrogant mistake…!’
What if it was a ruse to lure them here?
“!”
In the darkness, the being that was watching them began to slowly walk towards them. At that moment, everyone was preparing to subdue their opponents with their own abilities.
“······you?!”
The opponent’s face was revealed under the dim light.
Bradley froze for a moment. Then his frozen mouth opened and a voice full of shock came out.
“Yes, why are you here···?”
The atmosphere suddenly changed.
His trembling pupils were fixed in front of him. Fear and horror alternated on his face. Then, as if he had made up his mind about something, he shouted to his comrades.
“Run, run! Everyone, retreat! Right now···!”
Before he could even finish the sentence.
Kwajik!
With a splitting sound, Bradley’s world split in two.
