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#035. The Unquenched Flame (5)
Euaaa …
The screams that started from the direction of the infirmary quickly approached with angry footsteps.
“What, what is it?”
“Oh, my God!”
The children retreated in a hurry, revealing the previously obscured view.
I saw Cedric running towards me with a very distorted face.
“Hey, I guess you woke up in the infirmary!”
“In your hands! In your hands!”
Laeeeeeeeeee───!!
A venomous cry was heard in an instant.
Everyone in the room shuddered.
In Cedric’s hand was a scalpel that appeared to have been found in the infirmary.
The children gradually fell back, leaving no one between Cedric and Ray.
“Re, Ray-nim. We’ll stop it─”
“It’s okay. Just step back.”
Ray bit the approaching Cedric gang, causing them to fall back.
Knock knock knock knock!
In the suffocating silence, Cedric’s hysterical footsteps drew closer.
Everyone looked between Ray and Cedric with anxious faces.
It was clear to anyone that Cedric would come running and swing his sword.
But Ray was just standing there defenseless.
“Wh, what’s going on again?”
“It’s not bare hands, it’s a knife. It’s too dangerous. We should all block it together…”
“No. Ray-nim told me to step back.”
Now Cedric was right in front of us.
Even though the children were fidgeting, Ray still didn’t move an inch.
“Dieeeeeeeeeeeeeee──!!”
Cedric, who had arrived just in front, swung his scalpel at Ray’s face.
Wedge──!
At this, the evil Cedric’s gang rushed out.
‘Damn. I think it’s too late to stop it.’
‘Why, why are you just standing there?’
From the gang’s perspective, Cedric was a difficult character to predict.
But Ray was no different.
“uh…?”
The group that was running out stopped.
The scalpel that had been slashing menacingly stopped in front of Ray’s face, unable to move forward any further.
“You… I will kill… I will kill you…”
It wasn’t that anyone stopped it.
Ray didn’t even use magic.
Cedric stopped the scalpel himself.
The hand holding the scalpel was shaking, and he was spitting out broken sentences in a trembling voice.
“Weren’t you going to draw my face with this? Do what you were going to do.”
Ray grabbed Cedric’s wrist and pulled him towards him.
Cedric, startled, shook off Ray’s hand and took a step back.
“You…! You…!”
Cedric glared at Ray for a long time, but was unable to say anything.
Then, in an instant, he grabbed the scalpel and tried to stab his own neck.
Shhh──!
But it didn’t work.
widely!
Because Ray, who was moving much faster, narrowed his steps and grabbed her wrist.
“Ugh…!”
As Ray tightened his grip, Cedric groaned and dropped the scalpel.
Bang!
Ray’s foot moved immediately and kicked the scalpel away.
Meanwhile, Cedric shook off Ray’s hand, grabbed his wrist, and took a step back with a fearful expression on his face.
Ray followed suit.
thud!
Eventually, Cedric stumbled and fell backwards, landing on his butt.
Ray looked down at Cedric.
The king of Sector 49, who reigned with overwhelming violence and terror on the streets, was no longer here.
All that remained was a small boy with all the poison he had held drained out of him and his original gentle expression returned to him.
“… … .”
Ray knew from the beginning.
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The fact that Cedric wouldn’t be able to swing the scalpel all the way.
“wake up.”
From the moment he came running from afar, there wasn’t a single bit of red mana in Cedric’s vessel.
“Because I have a lot to talk about.”
Ray’s hand reached out towards the slumped Cedric.
*
Philip’s office.
A table with three boys sitting around it.
“Sorry. My mistake. I should have cleaned up all the flying objects in the infirmary.”
Ray shook his head at Philip’s rebuke.
“It’s okay. No one got hurt. I wasn’t hurt. The hotel kids weren’t hurt. Cedric wasn’t hurt.”
Ray glanced at Cedric, who was sitting in the middle seat, and said.
Cedric had a blank expression on his face, as if his soul had left him.
“… … .”
“… … .”
“… … .”
A moment of silence.
In any case, the opportunity for conversation was set.
Philip, whose lips were quivering as he wondered what to say, spoke cautiously to Cedric.
“I heard about the situation. That he tried to take his life. He didn’t really try to die, did he?”
A moment of silence.
Cedric pulled away.
“No. I meant it.”
“Why…?”
“Because I lost the duel. Now everyone will think I’m weak. They’ll despise me and laugh at me.”
Philip looked quite shocked at the sentences he spat out without a moment’s hesitation.
He came to his senses and spoke hurriedly.
“No. That’s not true. You can’t win every time. You might lose. And strictly speaking, it’s not that you’re weak, it’s that Ray is too strong─.”
“What do you know!”
bang!
Cedric stood up, slamming his fist on the table, breathing heavily.
Mana of all colors viciously seeped into the bowl and out repeatedly.
Evidence of emotional instability.
But the problem didn’t end there.
‘… The speed at which mana is draining is abnormally fast.’
Mana addiction was the first thing that came to mind.
Could this be a side effect of continued exposure to red mana?
Ray remembered the conversation he had with Veronica about the red gem.
“What jewel is this? Hmm… This looks like a charging stone. It’s a magical tool that automatically purifies and stores mana in the air.”
Veronica added.
Depending on the performance of the charging stone, high-quality mana can be stored, but there is a fundamental limit.
After all, since it is not purified as perfectly as the mana of the ring, it is impossible to completely avoid the risk of mana addiction.
Ray felt a strong curiosity.
Looking at Cedric’s current appearance, it was said that even the mana of the ring that had shown such high efficiency was the result of imperfect refinement with obvious side effects.
… Then, just how pure is the mana of the ring?
I figured the next time I visited a bookstore, my first priority would be to ask about how to make a ring.
dump.
Cedric slumped down in his seat, and a listless voice came out from beneath his drooping head.
“I’m done… I’m done now. Why did you save me? Why did you save me? Why didn’t you just leave me to burn to death?”
As expected, it was a sudden emotional change.
Philip tentatively reached out his hand towards Cedric, but it only lingered in the air, unable to make any comforting gesture.
“In the end, Philip said, unable to do anything and putting his hand back.
“You are my friend.”
Cedric raised his head.
This time he poured out his words in a very angry voice.
“Friend? Are you kidding me? I tried to kill you. Not only that, but I beat up all the hotel kids I saw and threw them out on the street. You know that, don’t you? And you call me a friend?”
Cedric’s voice became agitated.
It looked like he would rush at Philip and swing his fist at any moment.
But no red mana was visible in the bowl.
‘Are you pretending to be angry?’
Ray watched the situation without coming forward.
Philip hesitated for a moment, but did not back down.
“I think there must have been some reason. You’re not the type of person to do something like that for no reason.”
“Philip. Don’t talk nonsense.”
There was a heated argument.
In Cedric’s bowl, various emotions except anger surged and receded with increasing intensity.
“Even if the same situation comes up, my choice won’t change. We’ve been friends for almost our entire lives.”
“Stop talking nonsense!”
Cedric looked terribly distressed.
Every time Philip spoke, he would grab his head and scream.
The emotions of the bowl also ran away as far away from Philip as possible.
“I think there must be a reason why you hate us. Tell me that first.”
“gibberish….”
The storm of emotions seemed fierce at first, but it was clearly weakening at a definite pace.
“Cedric. Please. We’re friends.”
“… … .”
Finally the storm passed.
There are only a few colors of mana left in the bowl, making it possible to clearly identify the current emotional state.
Guilt and self-loathing.
And regret and sorry.
At some point the conversation stopped.
Cedric stared blankly into space, his mouth unopened as if he had forgotten how to speak.
Philip and Ray also waited silently without saying anything.
How much time has passed like that?
The manas of each color slowly tangled together and eventually merged into a single emotion.
“Sorry.”
Finally, Cedric opened his mouth.
The emotion that emerged was sadness.
A hot teardrop was flowing down the boy’s cheek.
*
Cedric cried for a long time.
Like a faucet with a broken lock, she cried in Philip’s arms, shedding endless tears.
“I’m sorry, Philip. I, I’m sorry.”
“It’s okay. Don’t cry. I told you not to cry.”
Philip’s eyes also turned red, and eventually he couldn’t hold it back and burst into tears.
The main emotion currently reflected in the two boys’ bowls was a pale pink sadness.
“… … .”
It was a feeling that Ray also knew.
There was no way I could not know.
Because sadness, along with anger, was the emotion that left the biggest mark on my heart.
When faced with the death of Niles and the Guldari children.
The boy faced the greatest loss and sorrow of his life.
‘I can understand.’
Why are Philip and Cedric crying?
Because I also remember shedding tears because I couldn’t control my sadness.
Due to the shock at that time, traces of various emotions other than sadness and anger remained in the boy’s mind.
If it were any other time, I would have touched the traces that matched the emotions that appeared before my eyes and recalled the memories and feelings of that time.
But this time the boy didn’t do that.
‘Sadness doesn’t help.’
Because sadness is an emotion that makes people sit down and fall into depression and disappointment.
The moment I thought back on the emotion called sadness, I felt like my will was weakening.
It was something that should never happen to him, who had to achieve his goal of revenge.
The boy thought so.
You have no right to feel sad until you achieve your goal.
Because of this, Ray understood Philip and Cedric’s sadness with his head, but did not sympathize with his heart.
How much time has passed like that?
Philip and Cedric broke away from each other’s arms.
Philip’s eyes were swollen, and Cedric’s face looked somewhat dazed but relieved.
Cedric slowly told his story in a tired voice.
“I hated myself. I was so weak. Why was I so small? Why was I so weak? Why was I born this way? There wasn’t a single day that went by that I didn’t think about it.”
I couldn’t stand myself being such a complete underdog on the streets.
Although life has improved a lot since the hotel was built, the discontent that was lurking in my chest has not diminished at all.
“Because I’m affiliated with a hotel, I can work freely on the streets with other gangs? I thought I’d end up bowing down and paying money to the strong guys.”
Even so, they were not completely free from exposure to violence.
Because the hotel was in a completely subordinate position in relation to the other gangs.
Because this was the early days of the contract and the system had not yet been fully established, disputes arose at a much higher frequency than they do now.
In the end, the dissatisfaction Cedric harbored was of a nature that could only be resolved by becoming stronger.
“I worked out every day. I gained muscle mass. My strength increased. I pictured countless scenes of me fighting other gangs.”
I thought I was finally ready.
“Isn’t it very convenient? We can work in our area. Let’s chat for a bit before we go?”
When I was returning to the hotel after work.
Captured by the Zephyr gang.
Normally, I would have run away immediately, but this time, I couldn’t hold back my pounding heart.
It was an opportunity to test the results of all the hard work and training.
“Good story.”
I followed the group confidently into the alley.
And then he was beaten so badly that he had all the money he had earned that day taken away.
“You earned a lot! Thank you! I’ll ask you again next time!”
I also built muscle and strength.
I also did a lot of image training.
It had no meaning or use in the face of differences in weight class and numbers.
Cedric fell to the floor with a bloody face and cried, then returned to the hotel when everyone was asleep.
「… … .」
The hotel was quiet.
Moonlight streamed in through the broken window.
The sound of rustling breaths could be heard between the endlessly stretched beds.
Cedric clenched his fists.
I gritted my teeth until they broke.
How can you fall asleep with such a relaxed face?
Isn’t it unfair to live a life where you are robbed of money and beaten up?
I couldn’t suppress my disgust.
The children gathered at the hotel were the weak and powerless on the streets, and they all shared similar characteristics.
At most, he has an average physique for his age.
Weak strength. Thin body. Cowardly personality.
Cedric knew that he too could not escape such a classification.
Mirrors reflecting my weak self were spread out everywhere.
I wanted to break that mirror.
“ah.”
Cedric, who was looking at the children with a poisonous gaze, suddenly realized something.
“I am….”
Cedric’s lips opened at the end of a kiss.
Ray listened.
I thought that understanding other people’s emotions could be a clue to expanding my emotional range.