“My name… you knew it.”“Personnel information for the office that awarded the contract is recorded in the mission report.”Blacktan answered indifferently and nodded toward the bench. He was huge, though not quite as massive as Noatis.The man with yellow eyes was known as a hero trained for slaughter, an emotion-dry human weapon. People had seen footage of him grabbing a villain’s head and crushing it with brutal force on the news more than once. Now, however, he looked tame, like a leashed beast.“Even if you go back to the site, you will not be able to work anyway. If it is about the order, do not worry.”Uichan wondered what he was trying to say. He hesitated for a moment, then, faced with a man who did not look like he would leave, he could only nod.“If it is okay even for a little while… yes, let us do that. But if the captain calls, I must go at once.”Uichan tapped the radio at his waist and moved toward the bench first. The huge shadow followed behind him. Even if it was a bit late, he thought it would be good to talk to the man who might be the child’s father.They sat side by side on the bench and killed some time. Yeo Taehwon only watched Uichan, who kept fiddling with his horn-rimmed glasses.“That day.”Suddenly he began.“Did it go in well?”“If you mean that last assignment… yes, the operation finished sooner than expected.”For two months, the Three Great Heroes had been searching for Under Doom like madmen, and when they found no lead they changed their approach. La Épée had been the first to give up the bulldozer method. Next was Noatis. Last was Blacktan.The three put a bounty on Under Doom, and that amount exceeded the total bounty on In the Hell. The condition was to bring him back alive and unharmed. For every scar found, the bounty would be halved.So heroes chasing the money had been turning villain groups inside out recently to find Under Doom. Still, none of them matched the thoroughness of the Three Great Heroes. Whenever they had free time, they rummaged through every corner and trash can.Why were they so intent on finding Under Doom? Was it because, when they finally came to their senses, they could not bear that he— a villain, and a man—had done such a thing, and so they wanted to kill him? Uichan had no idea.He had even seen Yeo Taehwon glance into an alley right after finishing his mission.‘Why would you think I’d be in a trash can?’Did he look that dirty? Uichan thought of his Under Doom appearance and awkwardly scratched the bridge of his nose. He was fiddling with his glasses when suddenly a large hand approached over the back of his own. Looking over, he saw the man’s concentrated gaze fixed on his hand.It seemed that, perhaps because Uichan had said he was bloated, the man pressed between his thumb and forefinger as if performing an acupressure trick he had heard somewhere. The touch was clumsy.“You do not have to do that, Blacktan.”“Traditional medicine talks about acupoints; I heard pressing them like this is good. But… Uichan’s hand is too small to find the point.”“It is not that small. And, ugh… it hurts a bit.”The pressing stopped. There was a faint look of surprise at the tips of his fingers. Uichan wondered what expression a man of such stone would make at moments like this.But when he lifted his head, Uichan was met with a face inches away. His body had already shifted toward Yeo Taehwon. Though his brows were faintly knotted, his expression had hardened. He had said he would be gentle, but when Uichan complained of pain, he looked embarrassed.Uichan quickly pulled his hand back from the man’s and answered, “It is not that bad now. I am fine.”“…Do you often suffer from indigestion?”“No. Just once in a while, not always.”Blacktan lowered his gaze and looked at Uichan. He parted his lips, as if wanting to say something. It was strange. A mountain of a hero hesitated in front of someone like Uichan.“…Still, I worry. Uichan is small.”Was it a relief that he did not add, ‘because you are weak’? Uichan swallowed the remark and only fiddled with his hands. At times like this he felt a heavy, soaked-wool delusion: that this was kindness toward him. But what would happen if the man discovered he was Under Doom… would he come to kill him?Uichan breathed shallowly to shut the thought down, but it came back clearly. In his memory, this man had been different—disheveled, sweating, scowling. Yet his hips had thrust upward with a savage momentum. He had been panicked, fearfully hungry like a beast clamping down on a throat; he had felt suffocated.His vision blacked out at times, and when he opened his eyes again he was entangled with all three of them. Thinking it over, he felt a bit wronged.‘…Maybe I was the only one ➤ NоvеⅠight ➤ (Read more on our source) they clung to.’They could not all have attacked each other; the three must have rushed at Uichan alone. Otherwise he would have no way to describe the aching, beaten pain that left his whole body sore. Above all—Below.When he had checked himself in the bathroom that day, the area below had been sticky, oozing white fluid and fluttering. He did not know who had dressed him, but he was grateful no one had seen him like that when he was rescued. Afterwards, Uichan had lain sick in bed for three days.“I am not that… small.”Uichan scratched the bridge of his nose in an embarrassed face, a reflex when he could not find words.“Sure. It is relative… to you, Uichan probably seems small.”“Blacktan is just big.”“Still, to my eye you are small.”Even from a distance the size difference between Uichan and Yeo Taehwon was obvious. But Uichan was fundamentally sturdy and solid. People might say he was skinny, that his frame was narrow, that his belly would cling to his back, but he believed he had a physique and strength that would not lose in a fight.Uichan felt a gaze fixed intently on him and lifted his head. The man’s eyes roved over his body as if checking for injuries. Having confirmed he was fine, Yeo Taehwon suddenly extended his hand in front of Uichan.There was a sharp sound.“He wanted to see you a lot.”“Excuse me?”“He liked you when he saw you before, so that is natural.”A black heat shimmer rose from the tip of Yeo Taehwon’s fingers. It stretched like a shadow, slapping down onto the ground and instantly swelling. A long tail sprouted from the black mass and coiled around Uichan’s ankle. Chills crawled up Uichan’s spine and he frowned slightly.Piercing the cold night air, a jet-black beast resembling Yeo Taehwon appeared before them. A black panther with yellow eyes dotted with dark spots. The beast, smelling of ancient forest, lowered its mountain-sized body. Its eyes rounded with a feline delight at seeing Uichan.The approaching creature rubbed its head against Uichan’s knee.Purr—.“You say this thing wanted to see me?”We are meeting for the first time today, aren’t we? Yeo Taehwon said without expression. The big animal’s leaning pushed Uichan backward. When his back hit the bench and his legs folded up, Yeo Taehwon reached out and grabbed the panther’s head.“Nell.”A growling voice escaped from Yeo Taehwon’s throat. Startled by the harsh tone, the panther recoiled. Simply calling its name seemed to be enough; the clever beast acted as if it understood it had done something wrong, and it shied away obediently.When the man’s hand withdrew, the panther hesitated, then pressed its cheek to Uichan’s knee again. It then seemed to sense something and peered curiously at Uichan’s belly. The panther’s yellow eyes were full of question and curiosity.“Uh… okay, gently.”Uichan vaguely recalled reading in a book on pregnancy and childbirth that beasts keenly detect hormones humans cannot. Perhaps that was why the animal seemed to sense something in his belly; otherwise it would not keep rubbing its head there.With slow, round blinks the panther nodded as if greeting him, then drowsily closed its eyes and rubbed its head against his belly. As Uichan slid back again, Yeo Taehwon stepped in between and shoved the beast aside with his hand.“It must be because my scent is on you.”A large hand approached to take the place of the restless, pacing beast. Uichan flinched; Yeo Taehwon flinched too. The great animal seemed to be unnecessarily cautious.“What… scent?”Did he know something? Uichan asked, forcing calm, and Yeo Taehwon withdrew his hand. He seemed to be persistently inspecting Uichan’s hands, but the reason remained unclear.“During the last incident.”“……”“Some of the equipment supplied from Litan was mixed in. Among them, you took a small cannon.”He remembered. To break the concrete wall blocking the entrance, Litan had supplied weaponry to the contract company. The weapon Uichan had boldly grabbed had been problematic. Uichan’s luck always pushed things toward catastrophe, even in such moments.“So that was…”“Yes. That was mine. It was a cannon set with a lot of power, so it must have had strong firepower.”

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