Chapter 4

“……Huff, Huff, Huff!”

However, the sign of the ramen restaurant that I believed in had already been turned off. Of course, there were no part-timers to be seen.

Meanwhile, something fast approaching from behind my back began to be heard louder and louder.

Squeak!

I looked back at the strange noise.

“Ugh, damn it…….”

It was dark around and not seen properly, but slowly but clearly it was coming towards me, pushing around the neatly arranged table in the food section.

Because I yelled earlier, he seemed to know exactly where I was.

From then on, I held my breath, stood on my toes, and slowly moved towards the emergency exit stairs to make as little noise as possible.

“Whoa, whoa, whoa. Phew…….”

Fortunately, the door to the emergency exit stairs opened smoothly and silently. After that, I ran down the stairs and ran through the half opened door.

Tung!

And then, there was another roaring sound.

As soon as I looked up, I realized that a monster had chased me to the emergency stairs.

Even earlier, I didn’t know because the surroundings was dark, but the appearance of the monster exposed under the yellow light of the emergency stairs was truly hideous.

He looked like a rotten mouse, but what I thought was a black tentacle was actually his long tail.

He poked his tail back up and looked exactly where I went down like an intelligent creature.

Then, he found me very quickly.

The moment my eyes met with two red eyes, he jumped up and I couldn’t stop screaming from then on.

“……Ugh! Ugh”

I simply ran like crazy.

At this rate, I knew I could fall down the stairs and sprain my ankle, but I couldn’t stop running five or six steps while holding onto the handle.

But even if I ran that far, the monster chased me down as if laughing. I wonder where that speed comes from when he had a huge body.

“Argh!”

Then, in the end, I got tired first.

The close flight, as I expected, ended with me slipping and spraining my foot, unable to stop properly at the last landing, and a stupid act of hitting the wall.

I felt the pain of my twisted nkle. I felt like I couldn’t get back up and run away.

Thump!

Then, the monster(rat) stared down at me from the other half of the floor. I trembled but couldn’t take my eyes off his red eyes.

On YouTube, It said that you shouldn’t do anything to provoke the monster when meeting one, but when I actually had something like that in front of my eyes, my head was empty and I couldn’t think of anything.

‘I’m going to die like this?’

While I was in despair, the monster raised its tail.

Just as he had strangled the man in the suit with his tail, he seemed to be trying to do something similar to me.

My whole body was shaking as I retreated to the wall.

But then.

Click.

The sound of flints touching each other was heard as if they were lighting a lighter.

“……Hmm?”

Then, a man half a step down, standing with a lighted cigarette, made eye contact with me.

“…… Help me!”

The moment I found the man, I shouted reflexively.

Of course, the monster pouced at me straight away as if he didn’t care who I found.

[Argh!]

The monster rushed in with a strange roar that I’ve never heard in my life. To the point where it’s terrible just to hear it.

I closed my eyes tightly thinking that the strange man I didn’t even know would be the last person I saw in my life.

Bang!

It wasn’t long before a strange noise was heard.

At first, I thought a monster had attacked me. But there was no pain, and it was a little strange to say that it had stabbed me in the body.

It was like a flour bag bursting in the air. I still couldn’t feel the pain I had prepared myself for.

Still, I didn’t have the courage to open my eyes again, so I stayed for a while and opened my eyes, unable to endure the strange situation.

“Oh, Hyuk……!”

“How can there be a rat in this place?”

Surprisingly, the monster was simply ‘crumpled’ right in front of me.

It looked as if a very large hydraulic press had pushed the monster down. It looked deformed, but it wasn’t in a state that was likely to be nauseating when seen.

However, on the other hand, I felt relieved because I could see that the monster was completely dead.

“Hyuk, oh my god…….”

While I was rubbing my stiffened chest from nervousness and gasping for breath, the man who was halfway down a step slowly began to approach me.

The man, who had not yet finished smoking in one hand, slowly climbed the stairs and squatted in front of me. He looked at the monster that was about to attack me and continued talking to himself.

“It’s strange…….”

“Oh, my. Ah…… Did you kill this?”

The man only glanced at me at my question. He neither answered nor denied it.

In fact, it was something that I could know instinctively without having to ask. The fact that this man in front of me handled that monster at once.

A strange atmosphere that only exists in this empty space……. There was an overwhelming sense of pressure that even an ordinary person would see.

I gave the unfamiliar man an envious look and asked a different question this time.

“Eh, you’re an Esper, right? Thank you! I really thought I was going to die…….”

“Oh, a citizen?”

“Yes, yes, yes, yes…….”

Being polite to the benefactor of my life, I nodded my head and reached out to the man who helped me.

The people called “Espers”, whom I have come across countless times in all kinds of media, save citizens from monsters with powerful superpowers like heroes.

Yeah. Like this guy who saved me now.

But…… The man just stared at my hand as if he were asking me what I wanted to happen.

……Thanks to him, I was very embarrassed.

“Hmm?”

“Oh, that…….Can you help me?”

“Help? Me?”

The man looked at me with a very grim expression, as if he were talking about something.

From the man’s expression I realized that I made a mistake, but I just realized that I made a slip of the tongue. Well…… I am grateful he saved my life. But I didn’t even realized that I was shamelessly asking for more favors as if it were too natural.

It was only then that I realized that I should not urge a man to do me any favors, and I awkwardly retrieved the hand I had held out and shrugged my shoulders.

“Oh, no……. I’ll stand up against the wall.”

“okay.”

I slowly rose to the wall with my trembling hands under the cold gaze of the man.

As I was running down the stairs earlier, my left foot was throbbing like someone had stabbed me. It was painful enough to bring tears to my eyes for a moment, but I managed to hold back my tears. Somehow it feels like something I should do. It was because of the atmosphere the man gave off.

The man just watches me limping alone as if it’s a fun sight to watch, and then asks the question.

“Where did you see this rat?”

“Oh……! The men’s bathroom on the fourth floor!”

And, we were on the emergency stairs on the second floor now.

The man, glancing at the 2F mark attached below the emergency light, spat out a short swear word to himself with an irritating sigh and began to climb up.

I stared at his back for a moment and stumbled after the man in a hurry. I didn’t want to be with the dead rat monster on the dark emergency stairs for a while.

“Well, hey……. Let’s go together…….”

“What?”

“No, that’s…… I was wondering if I could come with you…….”

Of course, this Esper strode ahead, as if he had never expected me to follow him.

Like an extension of what happened earlier, I felt guilty that I was bothering him when I should have gone back on my own.

However, I never wanted to go back alone not only because I saw a monster rat but also because of the trauma of being chased. I wasn’t confident of doing that. I knew that I could join my sister if I went down a few floors, but I couldn’t stand on my own .

So I got over my awkwardness and suggested to Esper to go with him.

The man turned his head against me and looked at me for a long time, but somehow I felt like he would wait for me, so I hurriedly moved my feet.

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