I'm a Young God, so Please Raise Me - Chapter 15

—————
This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
—————

Chapter 15
The system window, which had been glitching since earlier, now displayed a proper message.
It felt like a broken television that had finally been struck and was now working correctly.
But this was no time to comfortably observe the system window functioning normally.
‘Why is Je Hyeon-o here?’
The Je Hyeon-o I knew should have been slaughtering zombies in at least the Yellow Zone, at most the Dead Zone.
He would never set foot in this peaceful Green Zone.
I watched Je Hyeon-o with heightened vigilance.
His attire was pitch black from head to toe.
A combat suit that fit his body perfectly, and a hooded jacket pulled down low.
His face was covered by goggles and a gas mask.
Beneath a starlit night sky, Je Hyeon-o stood gazing upward.
His entire form was so thoroughly covered that I couldn’t read his expression or even the glint in his eyes, yet from his profile, a strange thought occurred to me.
He seemed to be waiting for something.
For a very long time….
‘Is he waiting for a meteor shower?’
The thought that had crossed my mind unbidden was absurd.
To entertain such idle musings with Je Hyeon-o standing right before me—it seemed my nerves hadn’t fully settled.
Abruptly, a system window materialized, obscuring my vision.
If you were to register ‘Je Hyeon-o’, I believe you could significantly enhance yourself as a system.
Moreover, you might even acquire new abilities.
I attempted to dismiss it with practiced ease. The system window then regenerated with slightly larger text.
‘Je Hyeon-o’ is a ■■ character to you of ■■■ because he is ■■ ■■ ■■ ■■.
There were too many redacted blocks for me to understand what it was saying.
‘If it’s like this, there’s no point in sending it.’
And no matter how much of a fuss the system made, I had absolutely no intention of registering willingly.
If anything, it only bred resentment.
Will you register ‘Je Hyeon-o’?
Will you register ‘Je Hyeon-o’?
Will you register ‘Je Hyeon-o’?
As the system window repeatedly appeared and I cleared it from my vision, I suddenly felt a chill.
Our eyes met.
Though I wasn’t certain if “met” was the right word to use.
Since he was covered by goggles, I couldn’t even be sure he was looking at me.
To be precise, it would be more accurate to say ‘I felt as though our eyes had met’.
An LED illuminated above the smooth black goggles.
^ ^
A smiling expression was drawn where his eyes should have been.
Screeeech.
An ominous sound emanated from the radio tower crushed beneath his walker. A chill ran down my spine.
And I….
Ran.
Like a madman, with every ounce of strength I possessed.
I tumbled down the emergency stairwell. I nearly fell several times, but I didn’t slow my pace.
If I fell down the stairs, there was at least a chance of survival, but if Je Hyeon-o caught me, it meant instant death.
But it wasn’t long before I no longer needed to descend the emergency stairs.
A black line was drawn from the wall to the floor.
When I saw the line bisecting the floor number markers perfectly in half, I barely suppressed the curse rising in my throat.
The black line slowly widened.
The building was splitting in two.
The internal steel frame tore apart, emitting a terrible, piercing screech of rupture.
I plummeted amid a cascade of glass shards and countless fragments of debris.
DeZomDeal didn’t have spare lives like Haspack. Death—not zombification—meant true death.
But I absolutely didn’t want to die like this.
Dozens of thoughts flashed through my mind and faded just as quickly.
The moment I felt my eyes burning, something coiled around my waist. A thunderous shout tore through the air.
“Han Go-yo!!”
The beaded whip pulled me toward its owner. I barely escaped from among the debris.
My vision cleared, and the surrounding situation came into sharp focus.
The Broadcast Station Building, split vertically and collapsing on both sides.
Je Hyeon-o, with a sharp crescent moon at his back.
When I lowered my gaze, I saw Gwak Han-muk astride a spherical motorcycle.
His expression told me everything about how catastrophically wrong this situation had gone.
Though I would have known it even without seeing Gwak Han-muk’s face.
Krrrrrrrr-!
The building collapsed completely. The earth trembled with a deafening roar as a thick cloud of dust and concrete powder surged up, obscuring my vision.
In that chaos, the beaded whip was retracted to its owner, and I managed to land in front of Gwak Han-muk.
“Damn! I thought you were dead, Go-yo.”
He welcomed me with passionate profanity.
I felt equally grateful for his presence, so I didn’t bother correcting the familiar address.
The atmosphere was almost one of emotional embrace, but suddenly Gwak Han-muk’s expression hardened.
“Go-yo, your eyes….”
“What?”
“…Never mind. Let’s get out of here first.”
I quickly climbed onto the back of Gwak Han-muk’s motorcycle.
But Gwak Han-muk didn’t immediately take off. He narrowed his eyes and stared intently at the dust gradually settling around us.
The motorcycle emitted a distinctive idle exhaust sound resembling horse hoofbeats.
Thud, thud, thud.
Between the dust and the engine sound, slow footsteps could be heard.
“Lieutenant Colonel Je Hyeon-o.”
Gwak Han-muk called out to him in a voice brimming with caution, as though addressing a wild beast.
No response came. Instead, a series of metallic clanging sounds echoed through the air.
Then Je Hyeon-o emerged from the dust cloud.
In the moonlight, a completely exposed black arm became visible.
It was an arm mutated by BT-Z virus infection, composed of a metal that did not exist on Earth.
Where fingers should have been, beast-like metal claws took their place.
Je Hyeon-o, with both arms hanging loosely at his sides, stopped in his tracks and stared at me silently.
Gwak Han-muk spoke while positioned to bolt away at any moment.
“Colonel Je, what the hell is wrong with you? You’ve already demolished the building—don’t you think it’s time you came to your senses?”
As Gwak Han-muk hurled his respectfully-phrased curses, light ignited in Je Hyeon-o’s goggles.
I can’t cry
Je Hyeon-o, displaying a crying emoticon, raised his hand. His fingertip pointed at something without wavering.
It was me.
Gwak Han-muk let out a hollow laugh.
“For a hazing ritual, Han Go-yo is….”
A deafening engine roar erupted as a motorcycle shot forward.
“It’s still early autumn!”
What did early autumn have to do with a hazing ritual?
The connection remained unclear, but in any case, Han Go-yo and I rapidly distanced ourselves from the building’s wreckage.
Yet neither of us felt relief.
“Han Go-yo, did you happen to provoke Colonel Je?”
“That couldn’t be….”
I disclosed everything I had done when I encountered Je Hyeon-o.
In truth, there was little to report.
‘I bolted the moment we met.’
Knowing his danger well, I fled faster than anyone else. Yet Je Hyeon-o had still designated me as his target.
“Could the infection have spread to his brain?”
“He’s in his right mind.”
“What?”
“His goggles lit up, didn’t they? He’s not insane—he just wants to cause chaos right now.”
Gwak Han-muk cursed, calling him a madman regardless.
‘So when the goggles light up, it means he has his reason intact.’
I filed away this newfound information carefully in my mind.
“He attacks Compatibles from time to time, but this level of rampage is unprecedented.”
Gwak Han-muk muttered that something had seemed off ever since Je Hyeon-o had been holed up alone in DeZomDeal for ten days.
“Damn it.”
Suddenly, Gwak Han-muk spat out a curse.
Every zombie in the Green Zone was pursuing the motorcycle with its thunderous engine roar.
As the building collapsed, a tremendous crash engulfed the entire Green Zone.
The zombies of DeZomDeal—their sight and smell atrophied, responsive only to sound—had all converged.
Night fell and the zombies’ physical abilities improved, but they weren’t Dead Zombies—outrunning them on a motorcycle was manageable enough.
The problem was the bridge.
Crossing the river via the Great Bridge would take us into the Yellow Zone, but the bridge itself was classified as neutral territory, meaning Yellow Zone zombies could roam there freely.
Drawn by the sound of collapse, the Yellow Zone zombies were now swarming across the bridge we needed to cross.
Zombies ahead, zombies and Je Hyeon-o behind.
Both were equally terrible choices, but if forced to pick, I’d choose the former without hesitation.
Yet the sight before my eyes was so overwhelming that cold sweat drenched my spine.
Tonight, the moonlight was unusually bright, illuminating the bridge. Hundreds of rotting corpses scraped against the asphalt, gasping and writhing.
The zombies blanketing the bridge twisted their grotesque forms and charged toward the only sound.
Toward Gwak Han-muk and me.
A sharp clinking sound—dozens of beaded strands shot forth from Gwak Han-muk, lashing out in all directions.
The zombies were crushed outright by the whip-like assault of the beads.
Even those that seemed more resilient were flung away by the force, tumbling through the air before splashing into the river below.
The zombies seemed manageable.
…The zombies, that is.
My vision darkened in an instant, and I looked up at the sky. It wasn’t clouds obscuring the moon.
Six wings made of black metal feathers were blocking out the moonlight.
Je Hyeon-o soared leisurely with his wings fully spread, as if merely observing the chaos unfolding on the bridge below.
Our eyes met once more.
I couldn’t see clearly, but I was certain. The intensity of his gaze made my skin prickle.
Je Hyeon-o drew one arm back, then swung it with tremendous force.
Multiple crescent-shaped projectiles of pure darkness shot forth, tearing across the asphalt. Black lines were scrawled across the bridge like graffiti.
“Major Je Hyeon-o, you son of a—!”
Gwak Han-muk twisted the throttle to its limit. The speedometer climbed into the red zone.
I gripped Gwak Han-muk with all my strength. Below, a grinding, cracking sound rose up with violent vibrations.
Cracks spreading from the black lines rapidly expanded, and the asphalt fractured in all directions.
The fractured sections began collapsing inward, layer by layer.
“Screeeee—!”
The zombies shrieked in incomprehensible agony as they fell. Moments later, massive chunks of the bridge plummeted into the river.
Boom!
A towering column of water erupted, and torrential spray cascaded in all directions.
Soaked to the bone, Gwak Han-muk and I raced across the bridge.
The spreading cracks pursued us relentlessly.
The motorcycle tore forward, narrowly outpacing the approaching collapse.
But Je Hyeon-o had no intention of calmly watching our escape. He folded his metal wings in unison and dove sharply downward.
Thud!
Je Hyeon-o landed at the bridge’s end.
Rising slowly to his feet, he let his arms hang at his sides and waited for us.
^ ^
The motorcycle, already at maximum acceleration, couldn’t slow down.
There’s no choice but to charge ahead.
But the moment we do, Je Hyeon-o will tear us in half.
The veins bulging across the back of Gwak Han-muk’s hand writhed with tension.
The prayer beads scattered in all directions converge at their master’s call.
Preparing for battle with Je Hyeon-o.
Only seconds remain until collision.
One of them—either Gwak Han-muk or Je Hyeon-o—will suffer catastrophic injury.
Not only would the true ending of DeZomDeal be lost, but the Special Task Force’s missions over the next month would become impossible to complete.
Perhaps both of them would be destroyed.
‘Register Je Hyeon-o’?
Pain throbs from my eyes, which have been aching since moments ago.
The system window obscures my vision.
You are displeased with this situation.
Because those who should become your ■■ are pointing blades at each other, and it sits poorly with you.
But fortunately, you know a good solution.
‘Register Je Hyeon-o’?
Time flows slowly in this fleeting instant. My burning eyes now feel as though they’re being consumed by fire.
‘Register Je Hyeon-o’?
‘Register Je Hyeon-o’?
For once, it seemed acceptable to heed its words.
No, wait.
It’s not about heeding it.
This is ■■ ■ to ■■■.
‘Register Je Hyeon-o’?
‘Je Hyeon-o registered.’

—————
This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
—————