Chapter 117.2

Chapter 117.2

“Instructor!”

A voice broke through his thoughts, snapping him back to reality.

Beep, beep—

Somewhere in the back seat, a warning alarm blared incessantly.

How long had he been unconscious? As he exhaled the breath he didn’t realize he’d been holding, a searing pain coursed through his body, but the urgency pounding in his head overshadowed it.

“Ugh!”

Seoryeong. Seoryeong.

Through the shattered side mirror, he spotted the exposed trailer lying in abandonment. Just seeing it made his fingers tremble. Fighting off the panic, he shouted to rouse his team.

“Everyone, wake up—!”

One by one, faint movements stirred among the team members.

“Ugh! Ugh!”

Weak groans responded to his voice, but their condition was clearly dire. The violent impact and scattered shards of glass had left none of them unscathed.

Among them, Jin Hojae appeared to be in the worst shape. The explosion had left bright red burns across one shoulder and his cheek. Blood gushed from glass shards embedded in his body, with one particularly deep fragment lodged in his collarbone, threatening his life.

“Jin Hojae! Jin Hojae, stay with me! Hojae! Jin Hojae!”

A sinister voice whispered in his memory, snake-like, demanding he bring Jin Hojae’s face to him.

Gritting his teeth, Wooshin crawled out of the wreckage. Lee Wooshin dragged him from the truck and immediately began stemming the bleeding.

His heartbeat felt erratic, slow one moment and racing the next, as the mysterious alarm continued to sound relentlessly from within the wreckage.

“Ugh! Captain… ugh!”

“Are you okay? What’s that sound coming from?”

Voices of the team members faintly reached him from the back seat. Relieved, Lee Wooshin tightly tied a handkerchief around Jin Hojae’s neck to stem the bleeding. Then, stumbling, he rose and began walking toward the trailer. Despite the grim accident scene, only one person occupied his thoughts.

“Wait, shit, that…”

Just then, Ki Taemin, who was crawling out of the back seat, froze mid-sentence, his face turning ashen.

The rhythmic beep, beep of an alarm, like a metronome, had been sounding for some time. Now, a red light blinked on the necklace hanging around Yoo Dawit’s neck.

A tense silence descended, broken by Dawit’s urgent, strained voice.

“Captain! Don’t move!”

It was an unusually harsh tone for Dawit, but Wooshin couldn’t hear anything anymore.

Standing before the trailer, he faced an empty space. Was this a dream? Could this all be a dream? The children, Seoryeong—gone. Nothing remained but a mess of scattered cargo.

“…”

His hollow gaze scanned the inside of the trailer repeatedly.

“Ha… ha…”

His mind, cold and frozen, now boiled over. That bastard. The one who tested him by demanding Jin Hojae’s face had, behind his back, taken Seoryeong away. It was obvious. The thought of Kia’s carefree, almost mocking attitude twisted his insides.

Bang! Wooshin slammed his fist into the wall. His vision flared white, and a choking sensation gripped his throat.

He understood Kia’s obsession with “Sonya” wasn’t normal. But didn’t they realize that the more they tried to separate him, the more determined he became to fight his way back?

Wiping the blood stinging his eyelashes, he let out a hollow laugh. All the while, the beep, beep of the signal persisted.

“Captain! Don’t take another step!”

Dawit shouted again, his rough voice cutting through the tension.

“It’s a trap mine!”

The device hanging from his neck was a portable metal detector. Ki Taemin, who had been crawling out alongside him, froze and let out a low gasp.

“This whole area is a minefield!”

Dawit’s voice cracked with despair. The mines buried beneath the ground, the encroaching darkness, and the traps set by Kia seemed to block every path leading to Seoryeong. Kia’s ploy had trapped them in this zone completely.

From a distance, Wooshin’s burning gaze fixated on the towering steeple.

‘Kia. Kia. If the child I once held in my arms is truly you, damn it, you’ve grown up in the worst way possible.’

The sunset was fading into night. With darkness, movement would become nearly impossible, and distinguishing mines would be even more perilous.

His tightly sealed lips set into a cold, rigid line.

‘Seoryeong. Han Seoryeong.’

The ache in his throat felt like it would rip open.

“――.”

‘Was the path to you always meant to be like this? Was this the feeling of being lost, unsure of where to step next?’

“Don’t, Captain! Stop!”

Yet he still wanted to reach her. Maybe the road to Seoryeong had always been this arduous from the beginning. Even if he could never confess or seek redemption, he had to go to her.

Wooshin calmly stepped forward.