“Ugh!”
It was a feeling akin to being sucked into a black hole.
Gravity tangled, and the legs that had been firmly planted on the floor instantly lost their footing, plunging into a deep chasm in the blink of an eye.
The scales, which had maintained a breathtaking, near-symmetrical balance, abruptly tilted far to one side.
The thin membrane that had barely withstood the mutual pressure finally cracked and shattered.
The sensation of falling into an unknown, unprecedented world was fleeting yet eternal, both long and short.
Thud!
The seemingly endless fall stopped, and Ben tumbled roughly onto the floor.
Penka, who was with him, was also swept away, falling while still held in Ben’s arms.
When he collected himself, the space that had just minutes ago resembled a war zone was completely gone.
The noise that had tormented his eardrums was suddenly cut off, replaced by silence.
What he saw was an entirely different place: a wide-open hall with a high ceiling, and the only major entrance, presumed to be the main doorway, sealed with multiple layers of locks.
In the center of the spacious, marble-floored hall, spiral staircases ascended to the second floor on both sides.
To draw a comparison, it looked like the lobby of a typical museum or a large mansion.
However, despite the structure, the atmosphere was nothing like a building in general use.
The overall lighting was low, the color was limited to a drab cement gray, and the space was utterly desolate, devoid even of common decorations like paintings or sculptures.
In particular, there were no windows, making it impossible to gauge the external environment.
There was not a single clue to pinpoint the location of this unfamiliar place.
“Open it now. I left her behind.”
Roilnia, who had dropped Ben and Penka here and was standing with her back to the large iron door, tossed a bag toward Ben.
The bag rolled smoothly across the floor and, just as it reached Ben’s feet, slid open as if prepared.
The interior of the opened bag was composed of a screen for information display on the front and a touchscreen for input on the bottom.
To unlock the inner seal, one had to place both palms on it to input various biometric data, including fingerprints, veins, pulse, and iris scans.
“Why should I trust you?”
He would sooner entrust a fish to a cat than trust that woman.
Although the last scene he witnessed was Roilnia tossing Pinca away as if releasing her, he couldn’t trust that she hadn’t done any other harm afterward.
However, Ben was relieved by the words of Penka, who tugged at his collar and whispered into his ear.
“It’s okay, Ben. Penka can tell. Pinca is fine.”
Whether it was the power of the imprinted Irregular twins or not, Penka’s face, as she asserted Pinca’s safety without any solid evidence, was noticeably healthier.
It was a relief that one of the twins had regained stability.
But now, it was surely Pinca who was pale with fright.
Ben and Penka had essentially been kidnapped by Roilnia, and they lacked any means to call for help.
Moreover, they didn’t know where they were, so the situation was far from good in many respects.
The only hopeful possibility was Pinca calling for help…
“Aren’t you going to do it?”
Roilnia, unable to wait any longer, snapped at Ben.
Sensing her willingness to act impulsively if he delayed further, Ben reluctantly knelt on one knee to get into position.
Trust is the basis of any transaction.
Mentioning trust to Roilnia was truly unpleasant, but she had indeed let Pinca go.
According to the premise of the deal, Ben should also keep his promise.
Yet, a part of him wondered if he really needed to keep his end of the promise, given that this woman had probably stabbed countless people in the back and committed dozens of evil acts—all because she kept this one single promise.
‘…Should I just defy her?’
Ben was torn by fierce internal conflict.
His heart, having turned into a reed, swayed violently.
The conflict lasted only a moment.
While he honestly wanted to flat-out refuse, a rigorous streak of reason held Ben back.
If he acted rashly and carelessly, this was a woman who would not hesitate to use Pinca’s life as leverage for blackmail. Roilnia was more than capable of such an act.
With no special plan coming to mind, Ben grudgingly placed his palm on the touchscreen.
As the authentication process began, Roilnia, standing a few steps away, took out a cigarette, placed it in her mouth, and lit it to kill time until the procedure was finished.
As the woman inhaled deeply, the tip of the cigarette filter glowed red, and when she exhaled, a cloud of white smoke was dispersed.
The thick cigarette smoke mixed with the air, creating its characteristic smell.
‘Don’t work, don’t work, don’t work.’
Feeling a faint current flowing through both his palms, Ben whispered a futile wish inwardly.
What worried him was what would happen after the bag opened.
Once Roilnia obtained what she wanted from Ben, his usefulness would end.
All he could think about was somehow buying time, perhaps through an unforeseen system error.
Despite his inner turmoil, the procedure proceeded smoothly and rapidly.
As the progress bar on the screen steadily filled and approached completion, Ben grew anxious.
Grab—
Suddenly, Penka, who was next to him, placed her small hand on top of Ben’s hand.
Ben’s widened eyes, startled by the incomprehensible action, met Penka’s gaze, which had been watching Roilnia.
“…?”
[…Hea… it. …Can… you hear?]
‘Penka?’
A vague message echoed in his mind.
This was one of the abilities the twins had playfully used on Ben before.
Startled, Ben’s fingers twitched on the touchscreen, but fearing Roilnia might notice, he deliberately composed his expression and pretended to focus on the screen again.
Penka’s hand on his own then gripped him more tightly.
[Penka… will buy… time…]
The voice, mixed with patches of static, was transmitted to Ben’s mind again.
The sound, not ringing directly in his ear, was much fainter than before, barely audible with full concentration.
Perhaps the faintness was because the two of them were not together.
In any case, the gist was that Penka intended to buy time. But how?
Beep-beep-beep–.
While Ben was distracted for a moment, an alert message appeared on the screen.
Along with the sharp warning sound, the progress bar, which had been filling up steadily, paused because the locking system recognized another person alongside Ben.
Noticing the anomaly, Roilnia, who had been continuously puffing out smoke, slowly approached Ben and Penka.
Just before the woman stood directly in front of Ben, Penka quickly removed her hand. Immediately, the system heartlessly returned to normal operation, recognizing Ben’s biometric data.
The sound of the lock disengaging echoed from inside the bag.
The inner cover, located under the touchscreen, automatically opened, revealing the regeneration ampoule.
The large ampoule, about the size of an adult man’s forearm, was encased in thick glass, with a pale liquid sloshing inside.
“Hmm—.”
Roilnia, who snatched the ampoule the moment it appeared from the bag, held a cigarette elegantly between her fingers and levitated the ampoule in the air.
With a satisfied smile on her lips, she rotated and inspected it as if evaluating a piece of art, then slowly cast a side glance at Ben, who was still kneeling.
“Thank you kindly.”
Roilnia gave a thank-you laced with insincerity and placed the cigarette, which was burned down almost to the filter, back into her mouth.
Then, as if performing a magic trick, she briefly waved her hand in the air, a knife materialized, and she immediately drove it down onto Ben’s thigh.
“Ugh!”
“No!”
It was a move as swift as lightning.
It was only because Penka pulled Ben away by a hair’s breadth that he narrowly avoided being stabbed right in the center of his thigh.
The blade he hadn’t fully dodged sliced past the outer side of Ben’s thigh, leaving an incised wound.
“That’s the price for your impertinence. Be grateful I didn’t take an arm, too.”
Sharp pain struck, and blood gushed out.
Ben reflexively grabbed and pressed his thigh, but the bleeding didn’t stop easily.
Penka quickly took off the shirt she was wearing underneath and bound it tightly around Ben’s leg with all her strength.
“…You have truly wicked tastes.”
Roilnia gazed boredly at Ben and Penka, who were frantically trying to stop the bleeding.
Then, going a step further, she put away the knife, took a deep drag on the cigarette filter, and exhaled—blowing the smoke directly at Ben.
Penka forcefully pushed Roilnia, who had shamelessly blown acrid smoke right in his face.
“Don’t hurt Ben!”
“Cough—.”
He should have realized she wouldn’t comply so easily with his terms.
Just dropping them in a different space must not have satisfied the woman’s wicked disposition.
To make matters worse, she specifically attacked his leg, making it difficult to run away if the need arose.
Ben coughed a couple of times as a deepening sense of frustration washed over him.
Roilnia’s face, which remained perfectly still amidst the thick cigarette smoke, looked hazy.
His perfectly clear vision blurred, and suddenly the woman’s face doubled, then merged back into one.
At the abrupt change, he wondered if he had lost too much blood, but that wasn’t the case.
Thanks to Penka tightly binding the wound with his shirt, the bleeding had lessened compared to the start, and the long, grazing wound, while needing stitches later, was not a deep cut.
This amount of blood loss might cause a temporary lightheadedness but shouldn’t lead to the level of disorientation he was currently experiencing.
