To you: After the End

The trembling got way more rhythmic, like someone was playing a piano, and with each keystroke, the room shook in a certain way.

Johan exchanged a quick glance with Leor before rushing toward his room, where the trembling was strongest.

Now, someone logical would say: Take cover! Run away! Call the authorities! But no—this was an opportunity. An opportunity to catch him. The real terrorist. Only the bravest and smartest men could see an opportunity like this.

'I guess I was too suspicious of this guy—he's pretty much like me. And also, he didn't send me to the Church… ' 

Johan looked back at Leor with solemnness, feeling a strange sense of camaraderie.

'Huh? Partner? He's… running away?'

"Don't stop! Rush inside immediately." Leor's sharp tone shattered Johan's fantasies. Tears welled up in Johan's eyes—he wanted to be an overpowered protagonist with a smart sidekick… not die… not like this, at least. 

Ah, what?

As Johan was regretting everything, the knife Leor had been aiming at him before came right next to him, sticking into the wooden floor before him. Johan instantly picked it up.

'Looks like he's not entirely abandoning me. Maybe he has a plan or something?'

Leor took a momentary pause to catch his breath. Johan could be the bait for a while—at least until he could ambush the terrorist.

Without wasting time, Leor threw the butchering knife from his pocket toward Johan, grabbing a sharp-edged wooden stick he'd noticed earlier in James's room. Then he turned to look at a small window by the bedside, large enough for a person to jump in–out.

Whoosh—thud!

He jumped out of the window into the alleyway without hesitation. It had a humid but chilly stench, common to alleyways.

He clutched the nearby pipe tightly, patting the rusty metal texture as if to test its quality.

The plan was simple: a pincer movement, something Leor had learned in class. They'd split up, attacking his room from different angles. If everything went well, Leor would catch the intruder off guard and stab him through the heart from behind.

Climbing the pipeline was easy enough.

The clamps were large enough to give him a foothold and a steady grip. Each step creaked faintly, but he kept his movements quick and quiet, his heart pounding with adrenaline.

He quickly climbed in front of the same-sized window of his room.

Leor peeked into his room's window. Huh? 

He quickly climbed inside, making no sound at all.

Then he saw something bizarre. Johan was staring somewhere, his hands sweating, his body twitching with fear.

Surprisingly, there was no one in the room. But the wall, where the text had been written, was glowing in a bright golden shade—as bright as the sun on a warm afternoon.

"End is Destiny, especially for those who see it coming"

It was the same text, the only difference being the extreme glow instead of that crimson writing. The text Leor hadn't paid much attention to. But why didn't he?

As they stared at the text, their eyes started bleeding, as if they had been stabbed multiple times with a spear—then twisted repeatedly.

"Don't look at it!" Leor shouted at the top of his lungs.

The amount of blood they were losing was unnatural. Realizing he might go blind, Leor instantly closed his eyes and turned his head away. His eyes were twitching, itching so intensely they felt unbearably dry—like when you don't sleep for two days and then go to work.

The pain was immense, but weirdly, Leor still felt an overwhelming desire… a desire to look again. He covered his eyes with his hands, but his body was trying to move on its own, like something unnatural was forcing it to look again.

The trembling continued, but now it was much more chaotic, like someone was holding it and shaking the room violently, like it was trying to wake someone up violently. It went on like that for more than five minutes.

Then, in a single second, everything went completely silent—completely normal—like nothing had ever happened at all. Leor kept his eyes closed, assuming Johan was doing the same. What if the magical text was still there?

It was no longer tempting them, but maybe it was a trap.

"Hey, the text disappeared…" Johan's trembling voice broke Leor's thoughts.

Leor slowly opened his eyes. He still couldn't see clearly. Everything was covered in a deep shade of crimson red from the warm blood pooling out, trickling down his cheeks.

He cleaned his eyes with a handkerchief and then threw it to Johan. Johan did the same.

"Do you know what it was? So I was right about skills…" Johan asked, his body trembling, eyes brightening with excitement, enduring the pain.

'How can he be excited at a time like this?' Leor thought, flabbergasted.

Ignoring Johan's weird behavior, he shook his head. "No, I have no idea. It looked divine, out of this world, beautiful… Did you also feel the strong desire to look at it again?"

"No, I don't think anything like that happened to me. I was just staring at it… and my mind went blank. Even with the pain, I had not a single thought about closing my eyes. Only when you shouted did my senses snap back…" Johan's reply only made it more confusing.

'Why was this different for us? Why was I feeling such a strong desire to look at it? What the hell was it?'

'It felt as if someone was trying to call for me, warn me of something…'

Leor looked at the wooden wall again.

His eyes widened slightly.

Wall was completely normal, not even a single scratch.

"I see. Let's search the house again. This is not normal. If this were a normal earthquake, the Holy Knights and police would've surrounded this place."

Pausing, Leor continued in an even more serious tone, "Only we felt it! Only this house was shaking, and only from inside. No one could ignore a shaking house. This is a crowded street."

"Alright… but what if the intruder is some sort of superhuman? Even if he's choosing to play hide and seek, which is already weird, say we find him—could we really do anything to him?" Johan said thoughtfully. 

What happened was clear to him. He had watched too much anime for this to not be clear. But he couldn't really state it outright.

"And don't you find it weird that we immediately knew the source of the trembling was your room?" Johan spoke in a serious, warning tone. This was the least he could do without raising suspicion. Silently hoping this guy would be smart enough to piece it together.

"…" Leor stared at Johan, his pupils contracting.

Saying that Leor was shocked would be an understatement. He hadn't even noticed that he unconsciously chose to not even probe. If he had assumed it was an earthquake, how could the intruder have caused it?

Even when he was outside, in the alleyway, he had seen that the house wasn't trembling like it should have been, but he had entirely ignored it.

'This is… How can I even explain this to someone?'

Leor looked at the stranger named Johan.

'He noticed the inconsistency, but I didn't for some reason…'

Leor actually prided himself a little on his sharpness. This left him completely bewildered.

'I should really keep him around.' he thought, making up his mind,

Leor reached out his hand toward Johan, his eyes meeting his, silently analyzing each other's actions.

Leor extended his hand towards James, fingers slightly curled before opening into a firm yet inviting gesture, his palm facing sideways, silently inviting Johan's hand.

"My name is Leor Milford." Leor smiled and finally introduced himself.

Johan glanced at the outstretched hand, hesitating for a brief moment before lifting his own.

He shook Leor's hand, his grip firm. Smiling back, he replied, "Nice to meet you, Leor. My name is Johan Orlven. You can call me Johan."