29 - Yellow Smoke At it Again

My voice is high, and it shows clearly that I'm angry.

The injured female cadet is surprised and she looks at me with a slight frown. "Just what do you mean? I'm drinking juice to replenish—"

"MY juice! And MY cookie!" I point at her hands angrily.

She looks at me in confusion. "Just why are you getting angry for? I just take one each. You have one each left…"

"I bought these with my last money, you know?! I'm literally broke right now and you don't even ask my permission when I barge in here!" I approach her and take my bag from beside her.

The female cadet is very surprised now. She's looking at me with wide eyes and that annoyed expression on her face has gone. The workers also stare at me without saying anything.

I close my bag and then point at her face. "Next time keep your hands to yourself if you don't want to lose it!"

Then I walk away.

"K-Kid! Your gun!" The female worker called.

I turn at her instantly. Still with angry face, I grab the gun and immediately leave the room.

'Shameless NPC!' I curse as I return to the office area.

I suddenly realized I forgot the bat in the room. But I don't want to go back in there.

I take two of my tear gas and put my bag on the ground near the wall on my right. This time, I make sure it's closed.

Then I aim my gun at Rean and shoot.

The bullet hits a Sujin in front of Rean and it falls down dead. The loud shot surprises the smaller Sujins and they disperse from Rean for a while as their attention turns to me. Probably seizing me up whether the shot really comes from me or not. But with them distracted, Rean is easily free of their attention. That's enough for the protagonist.

Rean pulls his sword near his face and neon blue glint appears in his eyes. "Azure Slash."

Then he slashes each and every Sujins that are surrounding him. Blue light emerges every time he slashes a Sujin, presenting a spectacle to behold.

It's so mesmerizing to watch that I even forgot that my own position is in danger. In the peripheral of my eyes, I see the swarm of smaller Sujins coming at me from the left and right aisle.

"Sh*t!"

I know I won't be able to handle them all. They're just too many!

But I'm not afraid at all because I have these gas balls.

'Come at me Level Up!'

I take off the pins and throw them on the floor. I suck in a huge breath and close my eyes right as the bombs explode.

The sound is loud, but not ear-deafening as the nasty screeches of these birds when they enter the smoke. One by one hits crashes into me as they lost their balance due to the tear gas. It's painful to be crashed by many birds, so I immediately jump to my right to dodge them.

Unfortunately, my eyes are still closed, so I crash on the wall starting with my head first. I grunt in pain but I cling to the wall for comfort as I rub blindly for my bag, while also trying to dodge the falling birds.

Once I reach it, I hug it tight and stick close to the corner of the wall. It seems like I'm safe in this spot, because I can no longer feel the birds falling dangerously close to me. So I just sit there on the ground waiting for their cries to die.

I count to twenty seconds in my heart before I crawl away to the side and away from the hallway. I crawl until I feel something in front of me. I feels like a bucket, and I rub it for a bit before I open my eyes slightly to peek. It's a potted plant, and there's no yellow gas on sight.

I open my eyes fully and look behind me. They yellow smoke is thick there and there are no more birds flying into the hallway. And none are seen coming out. Oh wait, one is coming out.

It's a smaller Sujin. And it's hopping on the floor with its eyes closed. It flaps its wings pitifully, as if wanting to fly, but since its eyes are too painful to open, it stays on the ground and just screeches emptily.

I immediately run at it and kick it hard. It was kicked away easily and falls to the ground while making more noise.

Before any of them could come out though, I immediately rendezvous with Rean who is done dealing with his own enemies.

"Is that smoke yours?" Rean asked in confusion.

"Yeah. Why?"

"The Sujins are—"

"Focus, Rean! Look! They're not attacking anymore!"

We look around and realize that the bigger Sujins, the ones from the first wave, are perching on the cubicles and looking at the yellow smoke.

"They're scared." Rean said.

"Good. Now let's save our seniors. I don't see either of them." I look past Rean but there's no one.

We make our way to the other side of the office area and find our seniors leaning on the left wall, just beside a water cooler, drinking some water.

"Seniors!"

"Ah, lovely juniors… You seem okay, good." Jake smiles. His clothes are quite tattered, no, very tattered. And his head is also bleeding.

"Eugh. What happened to you?" I ask.

"Hey! I'm your senior! Don't give that look!" Jake yells at me.

"What? I was asking out of concern!" I reply, equally knuckleheaded.

"You're looking at me like you're disgusted…" Jake makes ugly face as if trying to imitate my expression when I asked that question. But I don't even know how my face looks like, so he just looks straightly ugly like that.

"This is just a bit of blood! Dried blood! I'm fine! We're fine! Right, Patrick?" Jake nudges Patrick beside him.

The senior swordsman isn't looking too good either. His hair is very messy, he has a bit dried blood flowing from the side of his lips, and his clothes are only a bit tattered.

Patrick doesn't answer and just rolls his eyes. He's catching his breath.

"You're tired." Rean point out.

"Yes." Patrick finally responds.

"Where's the female worker?!" Jake asked suddenly.

"Ah, right. Someone is gravely injured. Your blue potion is needed." I told him flatly.

Jake gets up immediately. "Take me to them!"

Patrick groans as he loses his leaning support. "Can't I just rest for a while…?" He whines.

"I'll stay with you." Rean said. Then he turns to me. "Terrence, can you take Jake with you?"

"I'm the one who knows where they are anyway." I said. Then I turn around and walk back to the cubicles. "Come on."

The three are looking at me with slight confusion. They notice my change of mood, but they don't question me about it.

As Rean takes care of Patrick, I take Jake back to the other hallway. However, though, we see something very interesting right where my yellow smoke is.