I Became the Cute One in the Troubleshooter Squad
Chapter 170: Of the Black Raven and the Snow-White Ghost (8)

To be honest, it was an overwhelmingly disorienting feeling.

Just moments ago, I was still with Raven inside that dark laboratory.

But when I came to, I was being held in the arms of a stranger.

I lifted my gaze—and saw the side profile of a woman running forward, panting for breath.

It was so abrupt and jarring, it felt like someone had sliced the middle of my memory with scissors.

And yet, despite the chaos, maybe because my mind was oddly clear and focused,

I was able to calm my emotions quickly and vaguely grasp what was happening.

‘Is this... someone else’s memory? Because of the Invader shard?’

There was only one reason I could reach that conclusion.

The moment the box opened, a wave of power had poured out. My consciousness blurred—then this.

Tracing it back, it could only be that shard of Invader stored inside the box.

Which meant I couldn’t just sit here blinking like an idiot.

If I suddenly collapsed, Raven would probably freak out.

I needed to come to my senses as quickly as possible—and escape this strange memory.

‘...Yeah, but I have no idea how. My body won’t move. I can’t even use telekinesis.’

Despite how crystal-clear my mind felt, my body didn’t budge an inch.

It was like being trapped in a transparent box with my limbs bound tight—agonizingly suffocating.

After struggling for a while, I eventually just gave up and let go.

I didn’t know how it happened... but if nothing worked, I had no choice but to wait.

Hopefully, time would resolve it on its own.

Half in resignation, I shifted my eyes slightly, still cradled in the woman’s arms.

‘...But where is this? It doesn’t look like the lab.’

The scenery whipping by clearly wasn’t the laboratory.

Instead of a dark, oppressive interior, I saw a cold forest, bathed in pale moonlight.

So that’s why I could see her face even without a flashlight.

I suddenly realized this truly wasn’t reality—and looked up at the woman sprinting wildly.

She was beautiful.

Maybe even comparable to the me in the mirror that Greg had once admired in awe.

Her bangs, damp with sweat and plastered to her forehead, would tug at anyone’s heartstrings.

“Haaah, huuuh... Baby, it’s okay... Mama’s never going to abandon you...”

After running for some time, she suddenly stroked my cheek as if I were the most precious thing in the world.

Her gaze, full of aching tenderness, was one reserved for someone bound by blood.

Ah, I see. So right now, I’m this beautiful woman’s child.

Only then did I realize my current body felt like that of a baby, with limbs that barely moved.

Maybe it wasn’t just the memory—maybe I really was in a child’s body right now.

Just as I nodded faintly at the thought, a sharp sound sliced through the air.

“Kkyaahk! Guh...!”

CRACK!

A horrible sound like flesh tearing rang out, and the woman screamed and pitched forward violently.

But she must’ve been trying to protect me—even as she fell, she kept me tightly in her arms.

Because of that, I wasn’t seriously hurt, despite being in her grasp when she hit the ground.

‘Yeah, something’s definitely wrong here.’

Ears alert, I listened to the danger unraveling around me.

A rush of footsteps crushed the grass and earth as they closed in rapidly.

“Well, well, what do we do if you run off with God’s child? Do you know how hard it was to get our hands on that treasure? Planning to kill us all?”

A low, chilling male voice rang through the air, each word stabbing into the ears.

I moved my eyes toward the sound, still held in the woman’s arms, trembling from pain.

And there stood someone strangely familiar—a character from the original story.

I couldn’t recall his exact name, but he was the head of the experiments that created psychic powers.

I remembered clearly how he met a gruesome end at the hands of a psychic who broke free of control.

Still, without the wrinkles and white hair, this must be a younger version of him.

Once again, I was reminded—this memory came from a distant past.

While I kept my focus sharpened on the tension in the air,

the woman, bleeding from her shoulder, rose with difficulty and shouted with desperate fury.

“Haah... haah... God’s child, what nonsense... This child is just a normal, human being...!”

“What rubbish... That thing’s not human. It merely looks like one—a completely different being. You saw it yourself, didn’t you? The potential that baby holds!”

“Shut up! What do you know about this child?!”

The project lead looked down at her with the gaze one might cast on a fool.

Not as one person to another, but with a loathing that denied her even basic humanity.

Even though it wasn’t aimed at me, that look made my skin crawl and my whole body flinch.

And then, in the middle of it all—another concerning phrase.

“God’s child”? What the hell was that supposed to mean? Someone explain it already.

As if in answer to that silent plea,

the woman scanned desperately for a way to escape the soldiers who had surrounded her.

And the man stepped toward her, face contorted with disgust.

“Tch. A monkey pretending to be a mother to God’s child... revolting. Like a chimp claiming a human baby as its own.”

“Shut your damn mouth...!”

“You clearly don’t grasp its value, so I’ll say it again. That thing in your arms—it’s a new type of human, completely different from modern mankind. If you don’t like ‘God’s child,’ we can call it Neo-Humanity.”

Hmm? I kind of liked the sound of “Neo-Humanity” better.

Chuckling as if pleased with his own term, the man tapped his forehead.

The soldiers surrounding the woman exchanged uneasy glances at his sudden change in mood.

But then, as if nothing had happened, his expression returned to its cold, blank slate—heightening the tension.

He gave off that twisted vibe like one of those dangerous lunatics you should never provoke.

“And now, you’re trying to ruin the very being humanity needs to obtain perfect psychic power—with your pathetic little ‘parent’ act! You rotten bitch! Do you even know how much stress you’ve caused me?! I should’ve killed you ages ago!”

“Guh... agh...!”

And then he stomped toward the woman—completely immobilized—and kicked her with all his strength.

Even though he was talking about how precious the child was, he showed no hesitation in lashing out.

The entire act reeked of madness, completely beyond reason or restraint.

The woman, already losing too much blood, ended up crumpled and unconscious on the floor.

And the man—this so-called project lead—picked me up from her arms.

But he didn’t handle me like a baby.

More like a sack of junk—careless and impersonal, like lifting a heavy object.

The way I dangled from one of his arms made me feel involuntarily alarmed.

“Put God’s child back where it belongs. If there’s even a scratch on it, you’re dead. Got it?”

“Wh-what should we do with the researcher...?”

“...Get rid of her. You know how we operate.”

Pat, pat.

He casually patted the shoulder of [N O V E L I G H T] the faceless soldier in front of him.

And instinctively, I understood exactly what he meant.

Those involved in psychic experiments erased everything to avoid being exposed.

They meant to dispose of the woman without leaving a trace. How terrifying.

Even the soldier, receiving the order, looked visibly tense.

But with no room to protest, he nodded and divided the troops.

Soon after, I was gently carried away by one of the soldiers.

And with that final parting gaze, the world around me began to blur and fade.

Was that all there was to the memory held within the Invader shard?

I was left confused, unsure what to make of it—until a single conclusion dawned on me.

‘Wait... that “God’s child” they were talking about—could that be me?’

Now that I thought about it, everything fit too perfectly.

“A perfect psychic”—that could only mean someone like me, immune to mental contamination.

And if “God’s child” never appeared in the original story, just like I hadn’t...

Then it all lined up too well to be coincidence.

If I really was fundamentally different from humanity,

that would explain the strange things I’d experienced—the Tesseract, the voices of Echo...

To think I had a past like that.

Honestly, I’d never imagined anything like it.

‘...There’s still so much I don’t understand, though.’

There were still plenty of things that bothered me.

Like how I first woke up in that secret lab under Nighthaven...

And how the era in that memory was so far removed from the present.

There were too many unsolved threads left hanging.

But with this many clues pointing in one direction, I had no choice but to accept it—at least for now.

Not that knowing the truth would change much anyway.

I let out a wry, hollow laugh inside,

and the moment I broke free of the memory, my body swayed and staggered.

“Yuri, are you okay?!”

“...”

When I blinked, Raven’s worried face was right in front of mine.

So I had blacked out briefly while caught in the shard’s strange vision.

My mask had even come off—had I collapsed suddenly?

...Sorry for worrying you, Raven. But I’m not hurt or anything.

Wanting to put his fears at ease, I gave a small smile and naturally opened my mouth.

“Raven.”

“...Y-you... you spoke...!”

“...?”

Wait... did I just talk?

The unfamiliar sound of my own voice stunned me, and I blinked in shock.

Apparently... the shard hadn’t just given me memories.