From Roilnia’s words, Ben understood exactly what she wanted to do.
Her statement was essentially a declaration that she intended to thoroughly violate and toy with him.
Regardless of whether the cylinder she claimed belonged to Hoaphilen was a trap or not, she simply wanted to watch Ben struggle pathetically like a rat in a cage.
He had no intention of participating in a game where the winner was already decided.
However, in front of this woman, his likes and dislikes had been meaningless from the start.
“If you don’t play with me properly, he dies first, okay?”
Roilnia, who awkwardly clenched and unclenched her left hand once or twice as if testing its movement, casually threatened him, despicably weighing the life of the man collapsed pitifully on the floor.
At that sight, Ben felt a surge of anger that surpassed his current desperate situation and the sheer absurdity of it all.
How could anyone be so shameless? Even for a brazen person, there ought to be a limit.
Since things had already turned out this way, he had to say what was on his mind.
If he couldn’t fire off a few words at that loathsome face, he was certain he’d jump right back out of his coffin even after he died.
The deep-seated resentment he had been suppressing in his heart kicked the door open and burst out.
“Wow, you really are beyond help. Do you actually like living like that?”
“Oh my?”
Roilnia, surprised by his sudden outburst of anger, covered her mouth.
“I guess when you’re blinded by your own ego, you can’t see anything through a perspective the size of a rat’s eye. It’s because of that trashy mindset that you’ve ended up in this state.”
Ben didn’t know much about the profound truths of how the world worked.
Unless he were a god, he couldn’t know the exact meaning of why Espers and Guides existed in this world where all living things set foot and live.
“Wouldn’t it be nice if Espers and Guides just thought of it as helping each other out? It’s really pathetic how you’re always so busy dividing ranks by force like some kind of animal.”
He only dared to guess based on his experience.
Perhaps, because humans are imperfect beings on their own, they exist to fill each other’s gaps and provide care.
Just as Haimar began to find stability and face new changes through Ben, and just as Ben found comfort in Haimar and escaped his loneliness and solitude.
Of course, he couldn’t say this was a definitive answer like a fixed math formula.
Every Esper and Guide has their own answer, and they are all searching for it.
Ben, too, was merely in the middle of that process, not at the end.
However, Roilnia was an inferior student who hadn’t even reached the minimum starting line for building a relationship with others.
She looked down on efforts to respect or understand others.
Even now, she was busy mocking Ben, showing no shame for her actions.
The viper-like woman let Ben’s words flow past her ears as she flicked her tongue.
“Are you done preaching?”
Smack—!
Simultaneously, Ben’s face was whipped to the side.
It was because Roilnia had approached in the blink of an eye and slapped Ben across the cheek.
It wasn’t a light ‘sting’ but a heavy ‘thud’ that echoed from the sudden blow.
For a moment, it hurt so much he forgot the other pains in his body.
His mouth was cut and bleeding, his cheek felt numb, and the bright red swelling looked like it would soon turn into a dark bruise.
“There are many things I hate, but I hate Guides the most. Especially runts like you who don’t know their place and act out—you’re the absolute worst.”
Despite this, Ben didn’t let out a single groan.
He gripped the cylinder tightly and glared sharply at Roilnia.
“I feel the same way. You’re the absolute worst to me, too.”
It was the same humiliation and contempt he had felt from her many times before; nothing new.
It was ridiculous to be hurt by the empty words of such a person.
Hurt?
No, it was the same as her spitting trash out of her mouth.
Roilnia sighed as she looked at the undaunted Ben.
“I really don’t understand. I have no idea what you all believe in that makes you babble at me like this.”
The woman talked to herself with a truly pitiful expression.
She enjoyed watching inferior humans struggle uglily, but she hated looking at a mouth that spoke insolently in front of her.
She also lacked the patience to treat them like children playing pranks.
Especially when it came to the things a Guide prattled on about.
“I’ve changed my mind. I should just kill you quickly and hang you up. I’ll hang you right next to him.”
Yes, it was better to just kill him early.
She didn’t even need to use her newly formed left arm to take the fly-like life of a mere Guide.
That was why she had shown great mercy and put up with him even when he babbled unpleasant things several times.
Furthermore, she had only kept him alive to insult him later, since Haimar’s strange behavior toward this man was so amusing.
The woman’s short patience had finally hit rock bottom.
Haimar Alec was truly stupid, too.
Wasn’t it because he was needlessly bound to the existence of a Guide that he fell into a trap like he did earlier?
It was only right to get rid of a weakness that invited defeat.
To Roilnia, this was the critical difference between Haimar and herself.
Who was right could only be told by the results.
The woman took a handgun out of a small space she opened and aimed it at Ben’s forehead.
Click.
The sound of the safety being released echoed clearly.
‘Damn it, a gun.’
Ben swallowed a groan at the viper’s gaze fixed on him.
The distance between Roilnia and Ben was so close that it wouldn’t be an exaggeration to say they could touch if they reached out.
At this range, there was no way to dodge a bullet fired by an Esper determined to kill.
No matter how much he tried to be optimistic in front of the muzzle, the first thing that came to Ben’s mind was the image of a hole being blown through his brow.
Nevertheless, Ben gathered the rest of his positive circuits and struggled to find the best way out.
‘Please, please, please, legs, move.’
Even if he couldn’t avoid being hit, he had to avoid a fatal wound.
His legs, which were frozen from injury, had to cooperate for him to run or do anything else.
Ben forced his legs, which were defying their master’s orders, to move into a stance to dodge and bolt. Seeing his desperate state, Roilnia tossed him a mercy as light as a feather.
“If you beg for your life right now and say, ‘Please save me,’ I’ll let one shot miss. How about it?”
It would be a lie to say that desperate pleas weren’t rising to his throat when his life was on the line.
But there’s a time and a place for that.
“’Please save me’? You’ve got to be kidding. Do you think I’d say that?”
He couldn’t go around dragging Haimar Alec’s name through the mud.
No matter how bad the situation was, there were things you do and things you don’t.
Among them, eating the rotten apple offered by a witch was never going to happen.
He had to act with some dignity for the sake of his Esper, didn’t he?
Even if it was reckless bravado, it was a point where he couldn’t back down.
An opportunity gained by begging for his life as Roilnia wanted was worse than none at all.
But if asked if he would just let himself be killed by that woman, he would refuse that just as much.
Ben had many things to do in the future.
He had a mountain of things he wanted to do with his very first ‘boyfriend.’
He absolutely could not die until he found at least a hundred preferences Haimar Alec didn’t even know he had.
Who would just die quietly?
“What a shame.”
Eyes filled with a straight-forward will met eyes filled only with murderous intent.
His survival instinct predicted that the woman was about to pull the trigger.
‘She’s shooting!’
Bang—!
Ben threw his body to the side, covering his head with his arms.
…Huh?
For a moment, he was confused.
The bullet he thought would at least graze some part of his body didn’t touch him anywhere.
He hadn’t even rolled roughly on the ground.
Feeling as though he were floating in the air, Ben squinted his eyes open.
What he saw was his own body, which had moved several meters—further than expected.
He had simply thrown himself desperately to survive, but his legs had kicked off the ground very lightly and propelled him forward explosively.
Ben stared blankly at the floor he had just leaped from, stunned by his own movement.
With that one jump, he had dodged the woman’s bullet with absurd ease.
Not only that, he had leaped and gained distance like a long jumper.
It was leg strength that didn’t feel like his own body.
Bang, bang—!!
Before he could even register the strangeness, bullets flew at him again in succession.
As Ben hurriedly changed direction to avoid the attack, his body moved as nimbly as if it were equipped with boosters, dodging all the bullets.
It was a sight hard to believe even though he was the one doing it.
‘What is this? What did I just do?’
Ben was bewildered. It was only natural.
He hadn’t grown wings or used a special mechanical device, yet he was moving with incredible reaction speed as if he had become the world’s best long jumper.
This was absolutely not a movement he was normally capable of.
Yet, as a result, the bullets Roilnia had fired with such confidence had all missed.
Only the dark marks left on the floor proved the fact that he had dodged them.
The woman, who had been clicking her empty magazine, threw the handgun to the floor and looked toward Ben.
“What kind of trick is this?”
‘That’s what I want to ask!’
Even if he asked with a bewildered face, Ben truly didn’t know about this phenomenon, so he had no answer to give.
Roilnia didn’t wait for an answer; she pulled out a new handgun and aimed at Ben again.
Seeing that her laughing expression still looked relaxed, she seemed to think what just happened was Ben’s final struggle.
“Well, fine. Let’s see how long you can keep this up.”
No matter what he did or how he flew about, he was just a mere Guide after all.
In fact, Roilnia welcomed this kind of struggle.
Watching someone flail and collapse right before death was the ultimate height of true pleasure.
Dismissing Ben’s anomaly as a minor amusement, Roilnia pulled the trigger again without delay.
