My Right Hand Is Too Strong - Chapter 35
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This chapter was translated by Lunox Team. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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My Right Hand Is Too Strong Episode 35
Episode 35. Speak of the Tiger
Wearing my padded jacket, I walked out of the house together with Elpinire, who was dressed in a black coat.
The weather was still chilly, and white breath puffed out from our mouths.
Elpinire seemed fascinated by the smoke coming from her mouth, continuously breathing out white puffs.
“This place is quite cold.”
“Isn’t Elsid cold?”
“Mother’s surroundings are always warm. Neither winter nor summer ever comes there.”
What kind of paradise is that?
I want to live there too.
“Keep it zipped up tight. You’ll catch a cold if you suddenly get chilly.”
“Got it, Master.”
I turned my gaze away from Elpinire, who was tightly fastening her coat, and put my hands into my padded jacket pockets.
“It should be around February now, but I didn’t expect it to snow this much.”
Actually, I don’t know the exact date.
I brought my phone along with my wallet when I left, but it wouldn’t turn on – the battery must be dead.
So I hastily brought a portable battery, but considering the time I spent in the Tower, it’s probably early February now.
As I walked through the snow, I noticed the footsteps following behind me had stopped, so I glanced back.
There was Elpinire, crouched down and touching snow for the first time in her life.
“It’s cold.”
Even though her hands had turned bright red, Elpinire was touching the snow with apparent joy.
Elpinire humming a tune.
Even if she was completely different from the elves I had imagined, she was still an elf, wasn’t she?
Objectively speaking, Elpinire was an extremely beautiful woman.
Perhaps because of that, Elpinire touching the snow was enough to draw the attention of people around us.
People walking nearby stopped one by one and began watching Elpinire as she played with the snow.
“Elpinire.”
“Hm? What?”
“If we keep doing this here, we won’t finish sightseeing today.”
“Oh right. That’s true.”
Pat, pat.
Elpinire dusted off her hands and came running toward me.
She put her cold hands into her pockets and shivered.
“The world Master lives in seems very peaceful.”
“…Peaceful.”
“Hm? Isn’t it?”
“Well.”
I shrugged at Elpinire’s words.
From Elpinire’s perspective, it might be peaceful.
But from my point of view, Earth isn’t exactly peaceful either.
“Well, there aren’t things like mutants appearing or monsters suddenly attacking. So I guess it is peaceful in that sense.”
Elpinire tilted her head at my words but didn’t add anything more.
When we reached the main road and Elpinire saw cars moving quickly on the street, her jaw dropped.
“Wh-what is that? How can it move so fast without any mana!”
“Cars.”
“Cars?”
“I told you. In our world, mana didn’t exist until 26 years ago.”
“You mean those things were made even before mana existed?”
“That’s right.”
“Wow…”
Elpinire looked at the moving cars as if she couldn’t believe it.
When the traffic light turned green, I nodded to Elpinire, who was constantly moving her eyes to follow the cars.
“The light changed, so let’s go.”
“Ah, okay.”
Step, step.
I walked aimlessly through the streets.
Walking through Seoul’s streets after so long felt quite refreshing to me too.
Even if I wanted to show Elpinire something interesting, this was all there was in this area.
As I was walking alongside Elpinire, I stopped when she suddenly came to a halt.
“What are you looking at?”
“…I can hear children’s laughter over there.”
I turned my gaze in the direction Elpinire was looking.
There, just as Elpinire said, children who looked like elementary school age were laughing and making snowmen on a playground.
“Children freely walking the streets. This place really is peaceful…”
“They’re orphanage children.”
“…”
Oops.
Elpinire shut her mouth tight.
I pointed to the back of the park where the children were playing.
There was a sign that read ‘Saembit Orphanage.’
“It’s written right there. Oh, but maybe you can’t read the letters?”
“I can read them. Even though it’s my first time seeing these characters, I can read them and communicate perfectly.”
Elpinire’s eyes darted around as if flustered.
I chuckled and put my hands in my pockets, watching the children who had started a snowball fight around their snowman.
“How nostalgic.”
“…Nostalgic?”
“I’m from an orphanage too. Orphans are more common than you’d think on Earth.”
I used to play like that when I was little too.
Thinking about those times makes me feel nostalgic.
Well, considering how the orphanage ended up, it’s not nostalgic at all.
“…What was it like?”
“What do you think? It went under.”
I shrugged and bought two cans of soda from a vending machine in the park, then sat on a bench.
I handed an opened can to Elpinire, who naturally sat beside me, and sipped my drink while watching the children who had gotten serious about their snowball fight.
“You said Earth is peaceful, right?”
“…That’s right.”
“It is peaceful. For now.”
Right.
Earth is peaceful now.
No, it’s pretending to be peaceful.
“Did I mention that Earth has things called Gates?”
“You explained it when we were at home.”
“There’s something I didn’t mention then – Gates are broadly divided into two types.”
I moistened my throat with the sharp carbonation and raised my index and middle fingers.
“Regular Gates and Sudden Gates. Two types.”
Of course, there’s one more type.
But that one is unique and quite special, so there’s no need to explain it.
Excluding that, they can be broadly classified into just Regular Gates and Sudden Gates.
“First, Regular Gates.”
Regular Gates are, as the name suggests, regular Gates.
Gates that have precursors of mana gathering or space distorting, appear slowly, and are maintained permanently.
In the case of regular gates, monsters don’t come out of the gate unless the monster population becomes overflowing.
In contrast, Sudden Gates appear abruptly without any warning signs.
At some moment, the air distorts and unlike typical blue gates, a red-colored gate appears.
Sudden Gates swallow up surrounding buildings upon creation, and furthermore suck all living beings in the vicinity into the gate.
Moreover, people caught up in Sudden Gates are scattered randomly inside the gate.
The Sudden Gates created this way will inevitably collapse if all monsters inside the gate aren’t eliminated within 48 hours, and the monsters inside will burst out.
Therefore, Sudden Gates are classified as natural disasters that humans cannot prevent, like typhoons or floods.
Humanity lives in fear of when a Sudden Gate might erupt, postponing peace.
That’s today’s society.
“And I mentioned the great catastrophe that happened 25 years ago. That is, in the year 2000, right?”
“…Yeah.”
“At that time, thousands of gates appeared simultaneously all over Earth. And… all of those gates were Sudden Gates.”
“…”
“It would have been nice if we could at least resist, but at that time, there wasn’t a single person on Earth who knew how to handle mana.”
“Not a single person?”
“Right. Back then, no one knew about the existence of the system or mana itself.”
The disaster began suddenly.
No one knew how to overcome that disaster.
Even when the air suddenly split open and monsters poured out like waves.
Humans didn’t have the power to resist those monsters.
“So people died in an instant. Without even being able to struggle properly, they became food for monsters.”
The civilization that humanity had built over a long period was instantly destroyed by monsters.
Even when humanity tried to resist with firearms, the number of monsters wasn’t something that could be handled with weapons.
Destruction.
The destruction of the year 2000 that many prophets had spoken of actually came.
Just when everyone was despairing and about to accept destruction.
“The system was created, and those who could handle mana appeared.”
“Ooh.”
“They were called the chosen ones of heaven, and they hunted monsters.”
Those who hunt monsters to protect people.
Hunters.
That’s when the existence called Hunters was born.
“Thanks to the hunters that sprouted up like bamboo shoots after rain, starting with the first hunter, the world could quickly become peaceful, but the aftermath was enormous too.”
Aaah!
The boy who got hit in the face with a snowball screamed and fell down.
The boy who threw the snowball was startled and ran toward the fallen boy.
“Countless people died.”
“…So that’s why you said there are many orphans.”
“Correct.”
Whatever humanity is, even in moments of death, parents take care of their children.
Even complete strangers can’t pass by a crying newborn baby.
Perhaps because of that, after the world was normalized, the number of orphans increased tremendously.
I was a parentless child born in 2000, born in such a chaotic world.
“So I don’t know my parents. I don’t have anyone I could call family either.”
“Didn’t the people at the orphanage become family to you?”
“They would have if the orphanage had been maintained normally.”
But the world didn’t allow that.
I smiled bitterly and gulped down the flat cola.
“The number of orphanages is limited, but there are many orphans. What do you think would happen?”
“…Increase the number of orphanages?”
“That would have happened in a normal society. But unfortunately, society at that time wasn’t normal due to the sudden disaster.”
Not enough orphanages?
Just cram them in.
The government said that and began randomly shoving children into already full orphanages.
And despite that, the support funds remained the same as before.
No, they gave even less than before.
“Because of that, our Director ended up reaching out to bad places.”
“Bad places?”
“Loan sharks.”
Every summer, the children had to suffer from the heat.
Every winter, the children had to shiver from the cold.
The Director, who could only helplessly watch that sight, tried to take care of the children even if it meant borrowing money from loan sharks.
“Like a butterfly effect, that debt gradually grew, and as a result, the orphanage went under… Well, it’s that kind of boring story.”
Crunch.
I crushed the can and threw it at the trash bin.
I thought I had calculated accurately, but the can hit the outer part of the trash bin and bounced off.
Clicking my tongue softly, I got up from the bench, picked up the fallen can, and put it in the trash bin.
“So what happened after that?”
“What do you mean what happened. I was transferred to another orphanage until I became an adult.”
Of course, I was treated like baggage and wasn’t welcomed.
Because of that, I dreamed of a cozy home of my own from childhood.
So I made the Han Gang View Apartment my dream and steadily saved money by working part-time since middle school.
Thinking about it, I realized from then that money is everything in this world.
That’s how I became an adult and started doing manual labor.
“There I met Hyung and his wife for the first time, who felt like family.”
“Those humans you told me about? I’d like to see them once.”
“It would have been possible if Hyung and his wife weren’t both missing.”
“…”
Elpinire closed her mouth tightly again at my final addition.
Come to think of it, by now my phone that had run out of battery should be somewhat charged.
Quite some time has passed, so there must be messages.
I took out my phone from my pocket and pressed the power button firmly.
“Oh. It’s turning on.”
The screen lighting up with a small vibration.
It seems the battery has charged somewhat after all.
The moment my phone powered on.
“…Master.”
“Yeah.”
I had to put down my phone.
My body, which had become sensitive to mana from eating the World Tree’s fruit, reacted immediately.
I turned my head and looked above the heads of the playing children.
The sky began to split as soon as my gaze reached it.
Red light and violent mana began flowing from beyond.
The children, confused by the sudden situation, froze.
I know what that is.
That’s why I had to click my tongue and put my phone back in my pocket.
“Speak of the tiger and it comes.”
“That’s a Sudden Gate…”
“Right.”
“It has quite an ominous aura. It feels different from demonic energy.”
I really have no luck at all.
How is it that a Sudden Gate appears right after I return to Earth?
I let out a deep sigh and used ‘Black Dragon’.
It seems I’ll have to postpone checking my phone for a while.
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This chapter was translated by Lunox Team. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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