When Kwon Oh-Jin returned to the hospital, Sakaki was standing in the garden out front in a patient gown.

“Hey, Oh-Jin! Where have you been off to?!”

Behind Sakaki, who was waving with a hearty laugh, Koshiro stood with an anxious expression.

“O-Oyabun! I told you, you can’t just leave your room like that!”

“Hahaha! A real man endures through sheer fighting spirit, Koshiro!”

Koshiro’s eyes widened as if he had just gained some grand revelation. “O-Oh... I-Is that so, Oyabun?”

“What do you mean, ‘Is that so,’ Brother?” Glaring, Yoko followed them out and yanked on Koshiro’s ear.

“Ow! That hurts!”

“You can handle a little pain, Brother!” With a deep sigh, Yoko shot Sakaki a sharp look. “You too, Mr. Sakaki. Please go back to your room. You’re nowhere near fully recovered yet.”

“Haha! A man should be able to brush off wounds like this with spirit alone—”

“Should I tell your wife?”

“Hhk.” Sakaki’s shoulders twitched. “P-Please don’t...”

Even the bull chosen by Aldebaran turns into a calf in front of his wife.

Mumbling and glancing nervously around, Sakaki hastily moved toward Kwon Oh-Jin as if to flee.

As he studied Kwon Oh-Jin’s face, Sakaki frowned. “Hm? Did something happen?”

“No...”

“Don’t lie!”

Kwon Oh-Jin looked pale with sunken cheeks. His legs were trembling like a runner after a marathon. Everything about him screamed that he wasn’t fine.

“Is the seahorse poison still in your body?”

No. Actually, the problem is that nothing is left in my body.

“Then, your internal injuries must not have fully healed yet!”

That part is true, but that’s not the reason.

“Well, say something!”

It’s... um, kind of awkward to explain the actual reason.

“Do you know why he’s like this?” Sakaki asked Song Ha-Eun.

“Uh, me?”

“You two just went out together, didn’t you?”

“W-Well, yeah, but you see...” Song Ha-Eun looked away, whistling awkwardly.

Her cheeks flushed bright red like they had been set on fire.

Kwon Oh-Jin sighed and stepped in. “I thought I was fine, so I went for a little walk to get some air. Suddenly, I just felt dizzy.”

“You can’t just wander around outside when you’re still not fully healed!”

Coming from you, that’s rich.

“I’ll call a doctor right away! Sit here and wait!” Sakaki said.

“Ah, no! Really, I’m fine!”

If he got rushed to the emergency room again just because he and Song Ha-Eun had... an intense time outside, that would go down as one of the most humiliating chapters of his life.

“You’re sure you don’t need to go to the ICU?”

“Yes! I just felt a little light-headed, but I’m perfectly fine now!” Forcing a boisterous laugh, Kwon Oh-Jin pounded his chest with his fist like Sakaki.

In truth, he wasn’t perfectly fine, especially not after physically overexerting himself when his injuries hadn’t healed.

But no way in hell...

He absolutely refused to end up in the intensive care unit over something like this.

“O-Oh-Jin says he’s fine! I’ll take him back to his room. Don’t worry, mister!” Song Ha-Eun awkwardly smiled as she helped him up, clearly thinking the same thing as him.

Sakaki folded his arms and deeply hummed. “Well, I suppose I can’t argue if even your wife says so.”

“Haha. Then, we’ll head in—Oh, wait.” Kwon Oh-Jin stopped as if forgetting something.

“Hm?”

“I’d like to ask you for one thing.” Kwon Oh-Jin pulled out a folded sheet of paper from his pocket and handed it to Sakaki.

It featured a sharp sketch, almost photographic in detail, of a white-haired man.

“Could you look into this person?”

Truthfully, Kwon Oh-Jin didn’t expect Sakaki to find the man, but even the smallest lead could help. Even if nothing turned up, it was still worth making the request. After all, no organization's information network could rival the Kuroushi in Japan.

“Who is this?” Sakaki asked.

“I don’t know anything besides what he looks like.”

“Hmm.” Sakaki frowned and swallowed heavily.

Even with the Kuroushi’s network, finding someone with nothing more than a sketch would be difficult.

“I’ll try, but honestly... It’ll be tough with only this.”

“I understand. I’m only asking on the chance that you might find something, so don’t trouble yourself too much.”

Sakaki heartily laughed as he studied the drawing of the white-haired man. “Hahaha! Still, I’ll have the boys look into it since it’s you asking. Anyway, did you draw this yourself, Oh-Jin?”

“Yes.”

“Oh, wow! You’ve got talent for art too! Someone might mistake this for a photograph, not a drawing.”

In truth, it wasn’t really a drawing. Kwon Oh-Jin had used an illusion to transfer the image of the white-haired man in Lee Shin-Hyuk’s memories onto the paper. It was closer to a printed photo than a hand-drawn sketch, but he didn’t need to explain all of that.

“Then, I’ll leave it in your hands.”

“Oh, right. This morning, the boys submitted a report on the damage and the remnants of the Celestial. There’s nothing major, but take a look.” Sakaki pulled a few documents from inside his coat and handed them over.

“Thank you.” Kwon Oh-Jin accepted the papers and headed back to his hospital room.

Following behind, Song Ha-Eun deeply sighed in relief and placed a hand on her chest. “Phew. I nearly had a heart attack when he said he would call a doctor.”

“See, I told you we shouldn’t do it.”

“Hmph, you’re the one who got all worked up halfway through.”

“That’s...”

Ugh.

Kwon Oh-Jin fell silent, unable to come up with an excuse.

Back in the hospital room, he immediately flopped down onto the bed. “Ahh. Yep, nothing’s better than staying in bed all day.”

It felt as comforting as lying down after a hot shower. The exhaustion pressing down on him seemed to melt away.

“You sound like some middle-aged man coming home from overtime.”

“Be quiet.”

This is all your fault, Ha-Eun.

“Want me to peel an apple for you?” she asked.

“I don’t feel like eating an apple with just the core left.”

“I-I can peel them properly now, you know?!” Song Ha-Eun fumed. She grabbed a knife and began peeling the apple. “H-Huh? Why is this...?”

As expected, she was hacking away chunks of fruit along with the peel. Watching the poor apple’s fate, Kwon Oh-Jin’s thoughts wandered back to the white-haired man.

Who could he be?

He looked like a snowfield that had come to life. Kwon Oh-Jin frowned as he recalled those emerald eyes gleaming with a chilling light. Pondering over it wouldn’t reveal the man’s identity.

Clicking his tongue lightly, Kwon Oh-Jin spread out the papers Sakaki had given him.

“Tsk.”

They contained detailed records of the damage from the recent battle. As he scanned through them, a manhandled apple, whittled down to almost nothing, crept up to his mouth.

“Here, say, ‘Ahh.’”

“This apple looks awfully skinny...”

Has it been working out?

“Shut up and eat.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“Is that what Sakaki gave you earlier?”

“Mm-hmm.”

“Lemme see too.” Song Ha-Eun took the papers and flipped through them. After checking the report, she sighed in relief. “Still, considering the mess that fight caused, it’s a blessing no lives were lost.”

“Yeah, because they evacuated everyone in advance.”

The battle’s shockwaves had completely destroyed the coastline, which was the villagers’ very livelihood. Thanks to the evacuation, no casualties occurred.

The only ones you could count as casualties are...

The Kuroushi member who had filmed Enceladus’s appearance, and the truck driver who had gone missing. Not that the numbers were important, but the damage wasn’t bad for the direct descent of a Black Star Celestial.

At that moment, a cold shiver shot down Kwon Oh-Jin’s spine.

“Huh?”

He snatched the report from Song Ha-Eun’s hands and looked it over again.

“What? What’s wrong?” she asked.

“It’s not here...”

“What’s not?”

“The truck.”

He hadn’t paid attention in the chaos of Enceladus’s ambush.

“That missing truck... Where did it go?”

For some reason, a sticky, ominous feeling spread through his whole body.

***

In a forest cloaked in darkness, a white-haired man sat perched on a boulder, gazing into the dark thicket.

“What do you think... of disasters?” His words echoed softly in the empty woods. “It’s unpredictable, unavoidable, and inescapable... Doesn’t it feel like fate itself?”

His emerald eyes turned toward some place in the forest. There, torn to shreds as if ripped apart by monstrous claws, was a truck.

“The fact that you met me... that we ended up meeting at all... Maybe it was all fate.” The man softly chuckled, his lips still carrying a gentle smile. “Don’t you think so, Cassia?”

Rustle.

The bushes stirred with an eerie sound like a snake slithering across the forest floor.

A woman emerged from within the thick shadows. At a glance, her slender frame could be mistaken for that of a young girl. Unlike her frail figure, her beauty radiated a sultry, chilling allure that no girl could possess.

Dragging the hem of her black dress along the ground, Cassia approached the man and bowed respectfully. “I greet Mobius, the Celestial of Ophiuchus.”

“Haha. There’s no need for such formality.” The white-haired man, called Mobius, calmly smiled and shook his head. “Even if I gave you my Stigma, Cassia, you’re not my child.”

His sharp and blunt words cut like a blade.

Cassia clenched her fists, her expression carrying a trace of unease. She swallowed dryly and trembled. “I have a request...”

“Oh? What a coincidence. Or perhaps this too is fate.” Mobius softly laughed and turned his head. His emerald eyes glimmered with a chilling light as they fixed on Cassia. “Because I also have something I’d like to ask of you.”