Chapter 328

“Hello. I’m that guy everyone’s been talking about. Just call me Rowan.”

When the young man—his cheeks flushed pink—offered Rachel a handshake, she felt like her whole body was floating. It was a kind of beauty that triggered a physical reaction, like experiencing zero gravity in space while still on Earth.

His hair was a mess, his clothes were practically rags, and he looked like a homeless man who hadn’t been anywhere near water for months. And yet, despite all that, his appearance was peerlessly beautiful. One smile from him was enough to make Rachel feel like all her hardship had been rewarded.

A beautiful face that could create a once-in-a-lifetime story in someone else’s life just by existing. She thought that for the rest of her life, whenever people talked about beauty, she would remember today.

“Uh—hello?”

Only then did Rachel realize, belatedly, that he had been offering his hand. Startled, she grabbed it with exaggerated enthusiasm.

“N-Nice to meet you, Rowan. I’m Rachel Montgomery.”

The man laughed brightly, looking thoroughly pleased, as if something amused him greatly. It was obvious he found his alias unfamiliar and entertaining.

From what she’d heard earlier from Anna and Baekgyeong, Rachel had already guessed that the man introducing himself as Rowan was actually Yoon Siron—and that he was the Omega of rumor. But he didn’t seem to know that she was aware of his real name.

Was it because Yoon Siron being “the world’s only Omega” must never become public knowledge? Or because the name Yoon Siron was already so famous that he didn’t want to reveal his identity even to someone he’d just met?

Normally, she would have assumed the former. But as Rachel studied his face, her thoughts tilted toward the latter. This was a face that could never live an ordinary life.

“...Is he a model?”

She looked around, curious whether others were as stunned by his appearance as she was. Sure enough, some of the rescued Hostages couldn’t take their eyes off him.

Behind Rachel stood a bus. Inside it were fifteen Hostages who had escaped from the Deep Drainage Tunnel. Most of them were young women, with only a few men among them.

That Rachel had managed to rescue them at all felt like a miracle. She’d learned through Anna that there might be suspicious facilities in the drainage tunnel, and even when Anna left to search for the Hostages, Rachel hadn’t been one hundred percent convinced by her story.

But as time passed, her unease kept growing. Whether Anna’s story was true or not, she couldn’t shake the thought that there might be something she could do aboveground to help. After long deliberation, she concluded that if Anna and Baekgyeong were escaping with the Hostages, they would need a vehicle to carry them.

That was when she thought of her librarian friend’s bus. The friend had recently bought a used bus, planning to go on a month-long cross-country trip in half a year. She intended to convert it into a camper and travel with her dog.

The moment the idea struck, Rachel called her friend. She persuaded her—despite her insistence that it wasn’t for sale—by paying more than the purchase price, took the bus, and spent the entire night driving around the southern stretches of the Nathan River, where flood recovery had been slow.

The first person Rachel found was a woman named Callie Welch. She was the one who had first ignited Anna’s suspicions, the person who planted the idea that someone might be trapped in the drainage tunnel.

Rachel found her on the riverbank. Several women were gathered inside a temporary structure made of stacked construction materials for river works. All of them were wearing gray dresses that looked like hospital gowns. The moment Rachel saw them, she knew they were people who had escaped from the underground tunnel.

After many twists and turns, Rachel gathered them and got them onto the bus. Later, she finally managed to contact Anna, and they reunited in the Rato area, about 100 kilometers southeast of Baggers City. To guard against pursuit, Anna took national roads while Rachel used the highway. The place where they met was a desolate campsite roughly halfway between Baggers City and Secreta National Park. Rachel had only just arrived at the campsite.

“What’s got you so happy? Is exchanging names that fun?”

Anna, limping over with her leg wrapped in a bandage, scolded Siron.

“We made it out alive. We don’t have to look miserable the whole time.”

Anna pursed her lips at his defense.

“You’re really something else.”

Wiping sweat from her brow, Anna complained in a state that looked like she’d just stepped out of a war zone—and that was no exaggeration. Siron smiled faintly at her grumbling and shrugged without saying a word.

“Thanks for coming all this way.”

“Looks like Anna had it rougher.”

Anna nodded with an exhausted expression, as if she couldn’t deny it.

“What about the others? You said there were three more.”

“Isaac is operating on Lewis. Baekgyeong is... I don’t know what he’s doing. Hell, with Rut coming up, who knows if he’s about to cause trouble.”

“Rut? My god, so it’s true—you really go into Rut?”

“You’re curious, but you’d end up seeing something ugly, so don’t pay it any attention.”

With a shudder of disgust, Anna changed the subject and pointed at the bus.

“Those are the kidnapped people?”

“Yeah.”

“That woman there must be Callie Welch. I can tell at a glance.”

Siron followed her gaze. At the far window near the back of the bus sat Callie Welch, her head leaned against the glass. She looked far thinner and weaker than in the photos, asleep with a worn-out expression. After studying her quietly, Siron finally looked away and spoke.

“Then I’ll go rest in the car before I show the ladies something they shouldn’t see.”

He pointed toward the river, away from the campsite where the bus was parked. Beyond the hill was the Ford Van, positioned so it couldn’t be seen from here.

“Something they shouldn’t see?”

“My condition is a bit... You know, Anna. If I’m not careful, I might end up forcing everyone to watch a deranged adults-only show.”

“...Ah.”

With a wink at Anna—who grimaced awkwardly—Siron hunched his shoulders and scurried out of their sight.

“To be able to smile through everything. I’m jealous of that personality.”

Anna muttered with a sulky look, staring after him.

“Well, I don’t know. It looks like he’s pushing himself.”

Rachel couldn’t quite agree and objected.

“Pushing himself?”

Siron was showing an excessively optimistic attitude for the situation he was in. It was obvious he was used to wearing a social mask. It was a familiar story—but Anna McCarthy, who’d always lived however she pleased, hadn’t noticed. Lacking the confidence to explain Siron’s complicated psychology to someone as straightforward as Anna, Rachel just gave a vague smile.

“Mm... maybe not. I might be mistaken.”

“Seriously.”

With a hollow laugh, Anna didn’t press further. She herself looked like she had no spare energy to worry about anything else.

“How does Lewis look?”

“He’s barely hanging on.”

“That bad?”

Rachel’s eyes widened in shock, quickly filling with tears. She looked like she might burst into sobs on Anna’s behalf at any moment. Watching her quietly, Anna spoke in a low, heavy voice.

“All we can do is hope Bazelli isn’t a quack.”

The campsite’s communal shower room had gone unused for two hours by everyone except Isaac. With the campsite nearly abandoned due to the owner’s absence and few visitors around, it had been possible.

Rusty shower hoses drooped from the walls, and grime coated the tiles on the floor. It was a filthy space no one would want to step into—but there was nowhere better to perform surgery. Isaac moved several benches from a storage shed onto the cold tile floor, spread blue waterproof plastic over them, and fashioned a makeshift operating table. There, he had been operating on Lewis for nearly an hour.

The surgery itself went smoothly. After carefully ligating the bleeding site where blood pulsed in rhythm with the heartbeat, Isaac examined the area around the wound one last time before closing the abdomen. Finding nothing unusual, he completed the final sutures.

When the surgery was done, Isaac injected Lewis with antibiotics and peeled off his bloodstained gloves. The spinal cord had suffered minor damage, but the gunshot trauma itself was not severe. No organs had been badly damaged, and the bleeding hadn’t been excessive. In other words, Lewis had never been in a condition where he should have lost consciousness.

And yet Lewis had remained unconscious for half a day. Isaac had faced countless Alphas, but he’d never encountered a situation like this. He judged that Lewis’s abnormal condition was related to his unique traits as an Alpha suffering from Type-X Syndrome.

However, cases of Alphas with this syndrome were exceedingly rare, and there was no data on what conditions could cause a sudden deterioration. Isaac could only guess that the experience in the drainage tunnel had pushed Lewis to his limit.

At that moment, Isaac sensed a familiar presence behind him.

It was Baekgyeong.