Gidan held Geuru’s head and rolled a couple of times. A thick cloud of dust billowed up around them.
Geuru slipped out of his arms and poured syrup all over Gidan.
“Cough!”
His wounds began to heal at a rapid pace.
“Haa, hah! Hahh!”
Gidan grabbed Geuru by the shoulders and checked her over.
This really wasn’t a dream. The one in front of him was the child.
The pain and all his thoughts vanished in an instant. What filled his mind in a heartbeat was Geuru’s existence.
Breathing roughly, Gidan checked the presence aboard the ships and pulled Geuru back into his arms.
First, he had to get out of Malikian’s line of sight.
The instinct to protect her came before the question of why the child was here.
Gidan immediately activated “Lion’s Breath” and pulled all the nearby ships toward them.
Creak!
Rumble! Boom!
The ships all around shifted, throwing the view into chaos. The dust grew thicker, and the presences scattered everywhere would disrupt his opponent’s senses.
Holding Geuru, Gidan slipped beneath a ship and moved quickly into a secluded corner.
In the meantime, Geuru kept pouring syrup over him, restoring Gidan’s battered body.
After blocking off the nearby presences and sounds with an item that separated space, Gidan shouted.
“You!”
The teddy bear’s ears perked up. Gidan pulled off the bear head.
“Look at me! Are you hurt? Why did you come here? How did you get here? Are you really stupid?!”
At his sharp scolding, Geuru fiercely raised her eyebrows.
“I’m not stupid!”
“Then why did you come!”
Gidan shouted, and Geuru sucked in a breath.
Geuru wasn’t stupid. She wasn’t hurt, and she had come using “Dungeon Is an Open Door,” and just now, she had even protected Gidan with Senbonzakura.
Geuru clenched her soft little fists.
So the reason she came was……!
“With Oppa……!”
Tears welling in her eyes, Geuru sniffled.
“Because Geuru is on the same team as Dani Oppa!”
Gidan asked back, looking as if he had been struck in the head.
“……What?”
Geuru spoke again, clearly and carefully.
“Because I’m on the same team as Oppa. Geuru is going to help.”
“Don’t say something ridiculous! What do you think you can do!”
“I can do it!”
“What can you do!”
“Everything!”
Geuru shook out her bag. Children’s toys she had made stitch by stitch and bottles of syrup came tumbling out and rolled across the floor.
“No, what are you going to do with these…… Seriously.”
At a loss for words, Gidan let out a sigh.
No matter how much Geuru was S-rank, she was a production type.
Production types rarely helped in combat.
On top of that, there was no way a mere kindergartener could make an item meaningful enough for a fight against Malikian.
“I have this too.”
Geuru took a pair of duck tongs out of her inventory and held them up.
“…….”
He simply stared at them blankly.
When she got no reaction from him, Geuru lowered her head and spoke in a small voice.
“You can’t do it alone. Dani Oppa isn’t the Guild Master.”
Gidan, stung, answered quickly.
“I know that!”
“The Guild Master said doing it alone is reckless. Reckless means stupid.”
Gidan’s brow twisted.
It wasn’t stupid. I did it. I didn’t run away like an idiot the way I did that day. I stood against him proudly, even alone.
Gidan couldn’t bring himself to say the words that had risen to his throat.
The truth was, it was reckless. It was stupid. I knew I couldn’t do it. I thought that if I drove myself into danger, I might become someone a little better than I was back then.
After a silence, Gidan took out the truth he had known all along.
“……I know that too.”
Geuru looked at Gidan, who had suddenly gone limp like a doll with its batteries removed.
“……If you know, then why…….”
Geuru trailed off.
Gidan, who wanted to be alone.
Gidan, who wanted to become Jurim.
Gidan, who had closed his eyes as if he wanted Malikian to kill him just like that.
Geuru recalled Gidan from the past, smiling brightly with the other members of his baseball team.
“They said if we do it together, we can do it. Baseball is done together too. With your team…….”
Gidan squeezed his eyes shut.
The time when they had moved together as a team. Whenever he thought of those days, memories of being happy with his father would come with them, and because the pain of his heart tearing apart was so unbearable, he had simply buried them away.
But the memories and emotions he had buried deep in his heart overflowed at Geuru’s single sentence, as though a dam had burst.
The days when they had run, fallen, cried, and achieved things together.
The times when they had shared sorrow and joy.
The hours when he had not been alone.
“So do it together with Geuru……. Geuru is on the same team as Oppa.”
Geuru placed the duck tongs in Gidan’s hand.
“Today, tomorrow, the day after tomorrow, every single day.”
As if she had guessed what he had been thinking at the moment he fell, Geuru promised him a future.
“…….”
Suddenly, those words pierced deep into his chest.
When the armor that had covered him in rage and self-loathing fell away, and he became softer and weaker than ever.
The child held the hand he had been about to give up with.
And she spoke of a tomorrow together.
“Geuru wants to play together with Oppa every single day.”
Geuru asked in a dejected voice.
“Does Oppa not want to?”
After passing the moment when the end had been right before his eyes, the voice asking him to be together reached all the way into his heart.
Gidan wiped at his eyes with the back of his hand.
“……No.”
A cracked voice leaked out. Gidan seized the emotion surging up his throat and pressed it down hard.
With his empty hand, he took Geuru’s hand. Once his boiling mind cooled, a single goal rose to the surface.
“Let’s play together. Today, tomorrow, the day after tomorrow. Every single day.”
A bashful smile spread across Geuru’s face like paint blooming through water.
It was no longer a suicidal act disguised as revenge. Now, this was a moment when he truly had to protect her, even if it meant risking death.
So that he could create moments to spend with this child today, tomorrow, the day after tomorrow, and every single day.
*
‘What do I do?’
Surely, the moment Jurim received the team leader’s call, he would come to capture Malikian.
The problem was that there was no knowing when that would be.
There were two methods he could think of right now.
Keep running while waiting for Jurim to arrive.
Or kill Malikian.
In truth, neither was an ideal choice. How long could he keep running around this narrow piece of land with a child in tow?
It would have been nice if he could kill Malikian himself, but—
‘At this rate, there’s no way…….’
Gidan bit his lip and clenched his fist, and the information for the duck tongs appeared before his eyes.
[Prickly Duck Tongs Imbued with ■■■■ (Usable)]
Within the Frost Bloodline’s domain, the defense of a target struck by an attack decreases by 50%, and the owner’s attack power increases by 100%.
Can create snow ducks with mana.
*Blood Subjugation: Ignores the Frost Bloodline’s defense.
*Absolute Command: The caster’s attack has a somewhat low chance of ignoring the target’s effect resistance.
*This item is bound to its creator.
‘……?’
What on earth was this……?
He checked it again and again in case he had read it wrong, but what it meant was clear.
“Ignores the Frost Bloodline’s defense?”
Gidan looked at Geuru with astonished eyes.
“This ignores defense?”
“Uh-huh…….”
Geuru nodded briefly and opened her mouth in a vacant “heh.” Her face showed that she had no idea why he was looking at her like that.
‘Something like this exists?’
It was an absurd item.
The higher a monster’s grade, the more exponentially its defense increased.
Because of that, even items that ignored 30% of an opponent’s defense under certain conditions were classified as S-rank, and top rankers searched for them with money in hand.
But an item that ignored the defense of an S-rank entity and allowed an attack to land in full? It was on the level of something that could only exist in a dream.
A kindergartener or not, was an S-rank still an S-rank?
But…….
“Hmm…….”
Gidan let out a groan.
Yes, it was an incredible item. If not for several practical limitations.
The duck tongs were an item bound to Geuru.
That meant Geuru had to have enough stats to break through an S-rank monster’s resistance and inflict the debuff, and she had to get close enough to hit him by throwing a snow duck.
The one hopeful additional function, “Absolute Command: ignores effect resistance,” had a somewhat low chance.
Putting it all together, if Geuru approached Malikian and threw a snow duck at him, it might inflict an incredible debuff. But that was only possible with a somewhat low chance.
In proportion to the enormous advantage of “ignoring defense,” the conditions were also unimaginably unrealistic.
“This is basically…… a dangerous lottery ticket.”
“Dangerous lottery?”
Just then, the peg he had driven into the center shook. The space-separating item began to turn into dust little by little.
There were barely ten minutes left.
Malikian was searching through the remains of the ship graveyard, looking for Gidan.
There was no time.
He had to make a decision.