Chapter 50
Part 49
The data Yugeon had copied from Jejin Station had already been transferred to another computer.
The files contained records of nearly a hundred failed dimensional transfer experiments, along with detailed accounts of the humans and members of other races who had died in the process.
At that moment...
"Ugh..."
A faint groan came from the bed.
"I think she's waking up."
Hwarin withdrew her hands and took a step back.
Mincheol and Woojin also moved away from the bed.
A moment later, the Elf's eyelids slowly opened.
"..."
At first, her green eyes stared blankly into space, as though she couldn't focus properly.
Then her gaze shifted toward Hwarin.
It moved past Mincheol and Woojin before finally settling on Yugeon.
"Humans..."
Her voice was hoarse.
At the same moment...
Grab!
The Elf seized a sharp object lying nearby and pointed it in front of her.
It was rather remarkable that the first thing she did upon regaining consciousness was identify something she could use as a weapon.
"Wait!"
"Don't come any closer!"
When Hwarin tried to approach her, the Elf sat up and shouted.
Her mana surged momentarily, but she couldn't gather her strength properly.
She had spent several days lying unconscious under the influence of drugs.
Even though she had crossed dimensions with her body intact, she was in no condition to fight.
"Please calm down. We aren't going to hurt you."
Hwarin showed both her hands and spoke gently.
But the Elf didn't calm down at all.
If anything, her eyes grew even sharper.
"Don't lie to me. Do you think I don't know what you humans did to my people?"
"We're not the people who did that."
"You're still humans!"
"Just because we're human doesn't mean we're all on the same side."
The Elf fell silent at Hwarin's words.
However, her wariness didn't disappear.
Yugeon observed her for a moment before pulling over a chair and sitting down a short distance from the bed.
"I destroyed the facility where you were being held."
"...What?"
"And I killed everyone who was keeping you prisoner."
Yugeon took out his phone and showed her a photograph.
It depicted the ruined laboratory inside the abandoned warehouse near Jejin Station.
The bodies of Logan Berg and several Genocide members lay on the floor with their heads severed.
"Do you recognize this man?"
The Elf's eyes widened.
The hostile look she had directed at Yugeon wavered the moment she saw the photograph.
"Looks like you do."
"He's one of the people who captured me."
Her hands began to tremble.
It wasn't because she was frightened.
The way she gritted her teeth made it obvious that she was furious.
"Is he dead?"
"I killed him."
"..."
The Elf stared at the photograph for a long time before slowly raising her head.
"Why?"
"Why what?"
"Why did you save me? You're the same race as those humans."
"Like my companion said, does being the same race mean everyone has to be on the same side?"
"..."
"Humans already live in a world where they kill one another."
Yugeon shrugged.
He wasn't a particularly virtuous person.
And more importantly, Genocide had always been his enemy.
"What's your name?"
"...Eilen."
"Han Yugeon."
"So you're Han Yugeon?"
"You know me?"
This time, it was Yugeon's turn to blink in surprise.
Eilen looked at him with a cold expression.
"I heard humans talking about you several times inside the Tower. They said a human named Han Yugeon killed tens of thousands of monsters."
"Looks like the rumors have reached the other races too."
"You humans never stop talking about it."
She had quite a sharp tongue.
Still, she no longer looked as though she wanted to tear his throat out.
"Then that makes things easier."
"What things?"
"Start by telling me how you were captured."
Eilen's expression stiffened.
She remained silent for a while before slowly lowering her gaze.
"I was hunting inside the Tower."
"Which floor?"
"Floor 38."
Floor 38, in Sector 4.
Most Elves had yet to advance beyond Floor 45.
Just like humans.
"I wasn't alone. There were five of us. We'd finished hunting and were on our way back when a group of humans appeared."
"Was it Genocide?"
"I don't know what they were called. But the human in that photograph was among them."
Eilen glared at Logan's face on the phone.
"At first, they asked us for directions. Humans rarely visited that area, so we thought they'd gotten lost. But the moment we approached them, they attacked."
Clench.
Eilen tightened her fist.
"Two of my companions died on the spot. The rest of us fought back, but... they were all killed."
"So you were the only one they captured."
"Yes."
Her voice was composed, but it trembled slightly toward the end.
Hwarin looked at Eilen with a sympathetic expression.
Mincheol had also fallen completely silent, without a trace of his usual playfulness.
"When I regained consciousness, I was tied up in some strange place inside the Tower. They refused to answer my questions and kept injecting me with strange drugs. Then, one day..."
Eilen looked down at her arms and legs.
"I thought my body was being torn apart."
"..."
"When I opened my eyes, I was somewhere I'd never seen before. They injected me with more drugs, and I don't remember anything after that."
Her account matched the data from Jejin Station perfectly.
The 271st experiment had produced their first completely successful result.
They must have been thrilled.
After hundreds of failed experiments, they had finally succeeded.
That was why they hadn't killed Eilen.
Instead, they had kept her in a glass chamber so they could conduct additional experiments on her.
"Did you see any other members of your race?"
"Not in the place where I was being held."
Yugeon nodded.
Considering the Dwarf corpse he had found in the facility, Eilen couldn't possibly have been the only member of another race that Genocide had captured.
