The Babysitter Wants to Stop Dying

Chapter 8: Terror (3)

The once lush forest was now ablaze from explosions on all sides. Nevertheless, thanks to Helga remembering the location, the shelter was found safely.

"Hurry, get inside!"

Casen put down the two children he was holding. The children, whose sedative effects had worn off, were a sea of tears, but thankfully, it was after they had reached the shelter.

It was the moment Amanda also put down the child she was holding. A light hand pushed her back.

"...Huh?"

Amanda's body tilted and she entered the shelter completely.

"If you're in there, there's nothing to worry about. Reinforcements will be here soon. Stay here until then."

With Helga's gentle voice, Casen busily manipulated something from outside the shelter.

Then, amidst the roaring sounds that echoed all around, the sound of a thick iron door moving intertwined. The shelter door began to close.

"N-no! Ms. Helga, Mr. Casen...!"

"We have to see if there are any people who haven't escaped yet. We have to bring Lottie and Arsen back too."

Amanda struggled, trying to get out. Behind her, the children were crying their eyes out, and the iron door was moving little by little.

Helga, anxiously watching the iron door that wouldn't close quickly, pushed Amanda to keep her from coming out.

"Ms. Helga! No! Let me, let me fight too!"

Amanda, unable to overcome her strength, shook her head with a tear-streaked face.

"We're not sacrificing ourselves. This is a request. The kids like you the most, Amanda. Please take care of the children until reinforcements arrive."

"No! Please, please no...!"

"Amanda, hurry inside, ugh!"

Helga, who was blocking Amanda, was thrown inside as if flung. Tangled with Amanda and sitting on the floor, she blankly raised her head.

"...Casen?"

"We don't need an injured person."

"W-what is this, r-right now what are you...!"

"You stay there too. I'll protect the outside."

The flustered Helga rushed forward, but it was already too late. The door was almost closed. It was no longer possible to go outside.

"Come to think of it, Arsen is right. Even a shelter isn't unconditionally safe. If someone attacks from the outside, it can be broken someday."

"No! Casen! No...!"

"Ms. Helga!"

As Helga desperately tried to insert her hand to open the closing door, Amanda pushed her away with all her might. That thick iron door would crush even Helga.

Helga, who had missed even the narrow gap due to the momentary interference, scratched at the door, oblivious to her breaking nails.

"Casen...!"

"Just sit down and watch this prospective husband's heroic performance. You'll be surprised when you see how much I've grown in strength. Oh, right, and...."

"Casen!"

"I love you, Helga."

And so, the shelter door closed completely.

***

He's not here.

Cobe Alecman was not in my nap-time hideout.

My energy drained away, and then the thought that it was only natural rushed in. No matter how much of a scoundrel he was, there was no way he would be here with all this chaos.

"Uu!"

"...Yeah. Lottie."

I wiped her tear-streaked eyes. As expected, soot smudged.

My gaze fell on the brown bear-patterned clothes Lottie was wearing. The pajamas, torn here and there, dirty with dust and even my blood.

‘I fought to the end with Casen to get this.’

Lottie didn't seem to have much feeling for it, but it was a pair of pajamas I cherished. How fiercely I had fought in a staring contest with Casen to win this at the 'Talent Show Extravaganza' about a month after I joined.

The Center was supplied with all materials in abundance, but clothing was a different case for children who grew differently every day. There were various sizes, but the designs were bound to be limited.

Thanks to that, the items for the assigned baby were mostly at the sitter's discretion. To be honest, I didn't care much about my clothes or the baby's clothes, but I was unusually greedy for these bear pajamas.

‘Everyone in the room cheered for me, the winner, not Casen, the loser.’

The C-rank physical type, with his sturdy body, also had sturdy eyes, so I thought I was going blind. I thought I could just die and recover if things got bad, that's how dry my eyeballs were.

It feels like just yesterday I was shedding tears all night from the staring contest we had during the day. I wonder if all three of them made it into the shelter safely.

"Uu!"

"Right, everyone will be fine. Let's hurry and go meet them."

As if knowing my worried heart for the others, Lottie nodded her head.

I absentmindedly put my hand in my pocket and found an earplug, with only one side left. It was what I used to wear when my head throbbed in the ever-noisy Center.

‘It's a bit late now, but...’

I split it in half and fitted it into Lottie's ears. She fiddled with it uncomfortably, but when I shook my head, telling her not to take it out, she stayed still. I should have searched for it earlier.

"Shall we set off again?"

I got up. My limbs felt as heavy as a thousand pounds, but I couldn't give up.

I had to find Cobe. At least he wasn't a man who would die easily, so if he wasn't here, he must be somewhere.

‘If I just stick close to him, it's possible to hold out until reinforcements or whatever comes.’

***

Damn it. Damn it. Damn it!

I didn't know it would be like this as soon as I came down the cliff again.

A bomb that fell straight from the sky exploded right behind me. It seemed the damn superhuman could handle bombs with ease.

It spewed shrapnel in all directions like a claymore, hitting me right in the back of the head, and then lodging in my body. A ringing in my ears wouldn't go away.

"It's okay, Lottie. Look at me."

I slowly stroked the small, black head. I was glad I had put in the earplugs. The tearful face, of course, couldn't grasp the situation.

It might have been due to the earplugs, but this small child only felt a fear to the extent of, we're both in danger.

"That's right."

I took out the small plugs that had been snugly fitted in Lottie's ears. Even amidst the earth-shattering roar, the child didn't cry. As expected, an extraordinary kid.

‘How admirable.’

I held my breath, trying hard not to reveal my pain, and met Lottie's eyes.

"This is just hide-and-seek. You know the rules of hide-and-seek, right?"

I gasped for breath, holding the small body that fit snugly in my arms. I wanted to speak as affectionately and nonchalantly as possible, but I had no time.

The blood flowing from my broken head had long since drenched the area around my neck, and the pieces of metal lodged in my back and abdomen were slowly eating away at my life.

I was going to die soon.

The words I could choose from in my head grew more and more scarce. No, they were all jumbled up. With the oxygen supply to my lungs dwindling and my blood running dry, my brain couldn't issue proper commands.

The bomb a moment ago wasn't aimed precisely at us, but it did mean an intruder had come close.

No.

Not yet.

I shook my head to clear my mind. Wiping away a few drops of blood that had splattered on the child's forehead, I barely managed to raise the corners of my mouth.

"Lottie, you have to sing a song. In your heart, keep calling for the Tiger Prince. When I start singing along, that's when you come out. You must not come out before then. Got it? You understand, Lottie?"

No matter how well she understood my words, I didn't know how much she truly grasped. But I spat out the words as if vomiting them. The blood clot I had been trying so hard to hold back had finally risen to my throat, about to burst out at any moment.

‘I can't let Lottie see.’

I couldn't let this tiny child be covered in crimson blood. She had already been through too much.

"Hide!"

I set the child down, almost throwing her, and covered her with the apron I was wearing.

"Keoheok! Ugh...!"

With a single cough, blood surged from my throat. I roughly wiped away what was flowing down my chin. I had to find a weapon. I had to find even a broken branch, so that I could hold out until someone came.

I fumbled, desperately sweeping the ground.

‘I have to get my hands on something.’

It was then that I abruptly turned around in the acrid pit of dust where I couldn't see an inch ahead.

"Keok...!"

In that brief moment, a blade falling from the sky pierced my back without a hint of hesitation.

These sons of bitches...!

The remaining blood I had barely swallowed splattered all around. Even so, I looked back at Lottie. I could see drops of blood falling onto the apron.

"Kkeueu, kkeuk...."

Unfiltered pain shot through my entire body. As if my insides had been completely butchered, my mouth spewed blood like an open faucet. The unfamiliar sensation of my body being split in two shot up to the tips of my hair.

‘Lottie, don't, come out....’

Watching the apron squirming before my eyes, I reached out my hand. But that was all. My body, with a gaping hole in its chest, held on for a few steps before finally collapsing.

Tears I couldn't tell were a reflex from the pain or from worry for Lottie who would be left all alone, mixed with blood and flowed down my cheeks.

‘Please, may she be saved quickly....’

Praying earnestly to a god I didn't even believe in, I finally closed my eyes.

***

The time I lived in Astava wasn't that long, but I've thought about this much more than that.

That I wanted to be someone like ‘Romero Rodeo’, who no one in the world could physically defeat, or the number 1 ranker ‘Magnusen Verf’, who annihilates enemies by controlling gases.

The quest was the quest, but it was probably because living is easier when you're strong rather than powerless.

Then I wouldn't be chased by debt and could be happier.

Yeah. Wouldn't I be happier then...?

"Hey, come on! Get up!"

My eyes flew open at the shout that rang in my head.

A familiar sight, an unbearably acrid smell and a fishy smell poked at my nasal passages.

"Keuk!"

My body instinctively thrashed in the intense pain that shot through me.

"Either run away with the kid or help, do something! Rowena is dead too!"

Suppressing the agony as if my brain had been shaken, I turned my head to the source of the voice.

"Cobe?"

"You're up!?"

Bright blue sparks flew from here and there. I barely got up and slapped my cheek, and my vision cleared.

A few steps away, I found Lottie under the apron. I was dizzy seeing her with her eyes closed, but she was sleeping, seemingly exhausted.

‘Get a grip. Get a grip.’

Putting the kid aside for now, I took a few deep breaths and looked towards Cobe, and beyond him, I saw the cruelly dead Rowena.

Her whole body was covered in blood, so much so that I wouldn't have recognized her if it weren't for her characteristic red hair.

A person who liked to be alone. I had only met her a few times, but seeing her corpse, my chest felt tight.

"Damn it! Rowena was trying to kill the guy throwing all sorts of weapons from the sky and ended up getting caught in a suicide blast with him!"

Cobe waved his arms frantically forward. Every time he moved, a giant harpoon-shaped mass of electricity shot forward.

My gaze naturally followed its target. At the end of it, a familiar man was laughing from behind a translucent barrier.