I'm the Only One With a Different Genre - Chapter 9

Chapter 9 – Wretched Filter

Noah looked at Lian, all battered and disheveled, and thought to himself.

‘How could you do that?’

Noah recalled the unfamiliar woman’s voice that he had heard shortly after Lian had distributed cookies to the children and left the prison.

The acoustics of the prison meant that the sound carried easily, and all the children there had heard every word of the conversation between Lian and Lania.

“Managed to run away, did you?”
“That, that’s…”
“Hmm, you ran away from me just to end up here? Why? Did you hide something good here?”

Through that brief exchange, the children in the prison realized that the person Lian had said he would ‘try to block at all costs’ was this woman. Instinctively frightened, the children huddled together in a corner of the prison, burying their faces in their knees. Noah had embraced Nero, biting his lips in a sense of powerlessness.

“There’s nothing, nothing at all!”

It was a desperate voice that came right when they were terrified.

“You were running around scared before, do you have something that you want to protect that much?”

At those words, Noah stiffened up. Lian was neither a brave knight from the fairytales nor a hero. He was just an ordinary person with plenty of fear, just like himself. Unconsciously, his grip tightened to the point that his nails left marks in his palms.

Bang!

The conversation between the two was abruptly cut off by the sound of a door slamming shut. The children held their breath and listened intently for any sound that might come from upstairs. Not long after, a massive explosion caused the prison to shake as if an earthquake occurred.

“Sc, scared..!”
“It’s okay, it’s okay.”

While Noah was comforting the frightened Nero and looking outside the prison with a trembling gaze,

Bang!

The sound of the door being violently thrown open was heard, and Lian descended to the basement and started opening the prison cells.

“Kids! Come out, quickly! There’s a fire!”
“Fi, fire?”
“Ah…uhhh…”

It seemed that something had definitely happened above. Noah, holding Nero’s hand, hurried out of the prison. The sight of panicked children and Lian grabbing his head with a troubled expression came into view in the adjacent cell.

‘…Were they safe?’

Standing still, Noah noticed the tear-streaked face of Lian. Soon, the harsh smell of smoke began to fill the prison, snapping everyone back to reality. After shouting to rouse the panicked children, Noah spoke in a calm voice.

“You all heard that noise earlier.”

Lian’s voice defending them against that woman, a voice every inmate would have heard clearly. The children’s faces hardened in agreement with Noah’s words.

“And look over there.”

Noah pointed upward to the staircase, indicating the flickering flames and the black smoke.

“There’s really a fire. If we stay here, we might all die. So stop making a fuss and follow me. You don’t want to die here, do you?”

Only then did the children snap out of their shock and began to leave the prison one by one. Fortunately, the flames were not great, and no one was injured during the escape.
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‘That is…’

As soon as they escaped the building, they were greeted by the sight of bleak, blackened buildings and the well-ordered dirt floors, with eyes glittering from the alleys and looking at them like hyenas spotting prey.

“Sob…”

Terrified, Nero clung to Noah.

‘At least everyone is safe -…’

As Noah looked around with that thought, he felt something was out of place.

“Wait, where is that child?”

The red-haired girl. She was not in sight.

“I shared a cell with that girl with the red hair -…”
“…!”

Before Noah could finish speaking, Lian darted back into the flames.

“Wait..! Are you crazy?!”
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Noah reached out to grab Lian, but his hand only grasped at the air.

Whooosh! Boom!

The fire had grown frighteningly, making it impossible to consider entering. Noah looked at the burning house with a pale-faced horror.

‘She must be dead… She couldn’t have survived.’

Not in a blaze like that.

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But Noah’s thoughts were interrupted as Lian emerged from the flames.

“Lian!”
“Brother!”

Nero, who had been rigid in Noah’s arms, approached Lian with tears in his eyes. Lian looked terribly serious. His skin was peeled in several places, and blood was oozing out. Noah clenched his teeth.

Even if he survived, with wounds like these, he wouldn’t last long. A viscous feeling of despair crept down his throat.
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“It’s fortunate!”
“…!”

The party in question didn’t even mention his pain, just smiled cheerfully at the thought of having saved the young anthropoid. Heat rushed to his face at that sight.

“What’s fortunate about this! Have you lost your mind?!”

Why was he shrugging off his injuries as if they were trivial? How could he smile through it all?

Noah couldn’t understand Lian. But he did know one thing for sure; Lian had a past so miserable that he could lightly say ‘It’s nothing’ about terrible wounds.
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“Ah, this is fine. It will heal quickly.”
“Hmm. That’s quite an interesting story you have.”

The dark wizard, who was listening to Lian’s excuses, stroked his chin and looked down upon Lian. Noah and Nero froze like mice caught by a cat.
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Thump thump thump thump!

His heart pounded madly and his breath was suffocated. Cold sweat flowed as if to soak his entire body, and Noah gasped for air as a ringing filled his ears like an auditory hallucination.

“Just one arm, one leg should suffice.”
“Then I’ll take one heart.”

The dark wizards, holding wands similar to the one Mia carried, ordered parts from the children’s bodies as if picking items from a menu at a restaurant. Amid the rampant screams, Noah and Nero choked back their tears, petrified. Making any noise would mean they’d be the first to be dragged away.

The trauma that had etched into their minds like scar tissue acted as shackles binding them tight. Even as Lian’s arm, wounded and skin peeled, was being pulled like an object, Noah could not utter a word, frozen like a petrified animal.

“Um, if it’s okay with you, may I also take those kids?”

Lian’s voice made everyone jolt.

Noah looked at Lian with trembling eyes. There he was, pleading for his life with a brutal dark wizard, face a mess from burns.

“These kids are like siblings to me. Without them, I’d be so sad, I might just die of depression.”

He spouted such an absurd lie, desperate to take care of them. Noah instinctively realized why Lian was saying these things.

‘If we don’t follow this person, we’ll be dragged back to be slaves or… killed on the spot.’

Most had fled because of Lania’s presence, but those in desperate need of money were salivating, eyeing this place eagerly. If Lian and Mia left, they’d become prey for the ‘hunt.’

“The experiments might get a bit more intense, that alright?”
“Yes, yes.”

Noah felt tears welling up in his eyes and bit his lip hard. He was powerless to do anything. Absolutely powerless. A sickening sense of helplessness and the relief of being alive swallowed him, alongside a loathing for himself for feeling such emotions.

***

Staring blankly with such thoughts, he nodded, and Mia gave a pleased grin and stepped back. I rubbed my chest, staring blankly at Mia.

“Li, Lian… you…”

That’s when a trembling voice woke me from my daze. When I turned my head, I saw Noah with a face filled with fear, clutching Nero. Not just Noah, but the other children looked terrified, cowering or showing tears.

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‘You must have been really scared, huh?’

Having gone through body modifications and having been torn to pieces in the world of comedy, I wasn’t fazed, but it couldn’t have been the same for the children. It must have felt like the fear of the red MaX from their childhood nightmares.

I immediately went to the children and said,

“Don’t worry, they don’t seem like very bad people. Ah, if you’re worried about the experiments, you don’t have to be. I’ll make sure you guys aren’t subjected to them.”
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Reflecting on what had happened over the past few days, it seemed as if a comedy filter was certainly at play. So the experiments didn’t worry me all that much.
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‘How bad could the experiments be anyway?’

In the world of comedy, half of the socially inept scientists were mad scientists. Like a mother-in-law fussing over festivities, they’d appear on various holiday occasions – Valentine’s Day, White Day, Christmas, Halloween – attempting to cause world destruction.

‘I’ve been captured and experimented on a few times myself.’

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Being tied up and feeling like my insides were being welded was utterly awful. Where exactly inside my stomach there was room to tighten bolts, I had no idea, but it always sounded like construction during the trials.

‘Well, it might not be much of a burden for me… but it wouldn’t be the same for the children.’

I couldn’t remember well, but I did know that in a normal world, wounds don’t heal easily.

“…”
“…”

The children gave no response to my words, neither affirming nor denying, they just stood there, frozen. Apparently, my words were too abrupt for them.