“Did you hear the news?”

Jongin blinked at me, looking a bit disoriented. He’d come over when I called him, but his school uniform was in a disarray and for some reason, there was a cut across his cheekbone. After his fight with Choi Seunghwan, no one in the school dared fight him again. So why was he hurt?

“The news?” His face was slightly pale.

I nodded. “They found a freshman girl dead in one of the allies. I don’t…don’t really want to think about it. But it looked like she had been mauled by some kind of animal and all, though what kind of animal would run wild in Seoul? It’s a city. And I can’t believe that something like that would happen so close to me, and in my school, for God’s sake. It’s scary.”

“I heard it.” His face was impassive, but the corner of his mouth twitched. Was there something he wasn’t telling me? “Ryu Minyoung. I… it’s terrible.”

“You knew her?”

“... heard her name somewhere before.”

Chapter 17

They’d jumped at me.

That was the first thought I had when I heard the whoosh of air; the person, or creature’s feet had left the ground and they most likely had jumped at me.

I’m going to die.

Second thought.

Run.

Third thought.

I bolted forward, but apparently wasn’t fast enough. A hand caught onto the back of my sweater, pulling me backwards, and I almost tripped. “Gotcha,” the person grunted, and I tried to whack them across the face with a hand, though I missed by a lot. Part of me waited for the pain; whatever monster this was must’ve at least scratched me already. With huge claws and whatnot, and maybe it was one of Yunseo’s siblings coming for revenge--

The scent of alcohol invaded my senses, and momentarily, I was confused. Why was a monster drinking?

The next moment, instinct took over. All the training with Kai must’ve paid off in one way or another, because I whipped around, yanking my shirt out of the person’s grasp. I had no weapon to fight with… but my textbook. If I could bash the monster’s face with the textbook and bolt, maybe I wouldn’t die.

Taking a couple steps away, I ped my backpack and hurriedly pulled out the book. Biology, it said in the front. The creature -- he looked like a man, but I wasn’t going to be fooled again after Yunseo -- took another step towards me. It was slightly wobbly. What kind of monster was hiding beneath the disguise? I didn’t want to know.

If only I actually listened to Luhan.

Maybe I acted purely out of fear to the point that I was unable to think rationally, because if I actually took a moment to look, the outcome might’ve been different. However, fear was the only thing keeping me moving when I whirled around and kicked the guy, as hard as I could, in the side.

Baekhyun had been the one practicing kicks with me, and he was actually extremely good at it. Chanyeol said he trained in hapkido when he was younger, but the way Baekhyun kicked was actually dangerous. With the extra force added with his power, he’d actually be able to kill. And though I was nowhere close to his skill, I did manage to throw force into that kick.

To my surprise, the guy went stumbling to the side with a howl of pain. He was on his feet in a moment, and I clutched my textbook. What was he? Another golem? Elemental? Some other kind of creature?

“You ,” he snarled before running at me. He swears just as much as Yunseo, I thought woozily, siblings.

I had a textbook. He probably had powers. Which was all the reason for me to use all the strength I had.

If an opponent is bigger and stronger than you, Kai had said, use your speed. Go for his weak points. If you fight strength with strength, there’s always going to be the weaker one. And without your aura, it’s probably always going to be you. Look for parts of the enemy that you could do to slow them down or to weaken them, and then you can finish them off.

So, brandishing my textbook in front of me like Kai had taught me how to with a shortsword, I let the training from the past couple days take over. If I had no choice left, I could attempt to blow him up with my aura before running.

I didn’t expect the trick to actually do any damage on the guy, but the moment he was near enough, I brought my knee upwards and then proceeded to sweep at his ankles in an attempt to knock him over. At the same time, I brought my textbook as hard as I could down on his face. If the sweep at his feet hadn’t been enough, the force was enough to make him collapse.

There was a sickening crack, and all the blood in my body ran cold. The guy let out a cry of pain, and a moment later, he was lying on the ground, unconscious.

Apart from that, nothing else happened.

Slightly out of breath, though mostly because of fear, I turned to look at the said attacker again carefully.

He was long unconscious by then, which was the first hint that I’d been too quick to act. The man’s nose made me slightly nauseous; it was obviously broken by when I’d hit him with the textbook (with apparently too much force – I hadn’t been thinking when I had done so), and there was blood running from his nose down to his mouth. I couldn’t see any visible wounds, but that hit with the textbook must’ve done something to knock him out. Or worse… I had no idea how much force I’d applied to the hit. What if I killed the guy? Injured him severely? From all the times I’d trained, I hadn’t killed anything.

As Luhan had recently taught me how to do, I sent out my aura cautiously. Gold swirled around my feet and crept towards the man’s legs.

If it had been someone or something of the supernatural world, Luhan taught me – my aura would react with his. If it were a mere human or animal, nothing would happen.

Nothing happened as the gold reached his fingertips, then his arms. By the time both of us were surrounded with the shimmering color, still, he had no reaction. Didn’t wake up and jump at me suddenly, didn’t wake up and glow with an aura of his own.

The air abruptly settled as I willed my aura to go away. Who knew what this guy had wanted to do – it probably was of a malicious intent, but I’d completely treated him as a monster and went full force on him. And though I probably wasn’t capable of actually killing a monster, I apparently had no problem taking down an unarmed guy.

It was hard to see in the dark, as the area of the street barely had any streetlights, but there was something dark around his head. It wasn’t very obvious nor was there a lot, but the dark glint and rustic smell of blood filled the air.

Getting his nose broken wasn’t the only thing I’d done, I realized. He’d probably hit his head when he collapsed on the pavement. And whatever he was – thief, , murderer (that was a little extreme, but if I had killed him, I’d be a murderer too) – he was still human.

“Oh my God.” The fear and horror started draining into me, feelings that I had been too shocked to feel a little while ago. “He can’t be dead.”

I could feel my hands trembling, and with jellied legs, I sat down hard onto the ground next to him. If Athanatoi had to kill monsters all the time, how was I supposed to deal with it? Just the sight of blood began to make me feel dizzy. How was I supposed to stab something?

I wasn’t quite sure how long I sat on the ground next to the person, unsure of what to do. Call the police or an ambulance? My mind was too muddled to think so. My phone was in my backpack – would it be better to call Kai? He’d be mad if he knew I hadn’t gone straight home. Jinyoung wouldn’t work. He probably assumed I’d gone home on my own. He’d lock me in my room if he found out I’d been out eating ramen at eleven at night beating random people up to the point where they either needed emergency care or were dead. He’d also probably book me the earliest therapist.

The more I thought about it, the more panicked I became. Maybe dialing for the hospital was an obvious thing to do, but at the moment, nothing seemed obvious except sit on the ground and try not to cry. The man showed no signs of waking up, and if he really were dead—

“Jeon Mira?”

I almost fell over. I was too horrified for the speaker’s voice to click into my head properly, but I thought that it was either Kai or Jinyoung. I wasn’t sure which one of them was scarier to face.

Park Jimin’s orange head came into view.

He had knelt down in front of me, a little too close for comfort, and waved two fingers in front of my face.

As horrible as