Pardofelis Extra • Mortal's Wish

What grand ambitions could ordinary people possibly have? All they wanted was an ordinary daily life, a peaceful life, nothing more.

Only once in a while would they lift their heads to gaze at the boundless starry sky, dreaming of becoming one of those stars.

Dusk Street was practically a lawless zone. Chaos and disorder were synonymous with the place. No one wanted to govern it, and even though conflict was rife, its inhabitants consciously maintained that fragile balance in order to avoid outside interference.

Having grown up here since childhood, Pardofelis was like most people in Dusk Street: she lived cautiously each day, ready to bolt at the first sign of trouble.

Unlike the others, Pardofelis had another identity—the righteous thief of Dusk Street. The vigilance she had honed since childhood, her masterful escape skills, and the incredible luck she herself took pride in meant that every one of her thefts ended with her getting away unscathed.

She gave the supplies she stole to every sanatorium in Dusk Street. As for the remaining money, she only kept enough to meet her daily needs.

Since the places she supported were sanatoriums, and because the supplies or money she stole never amounted to much in the eyes of Dusk Street's local bosses, they chose to turn a blind eye to it.

The change came overnight. Everyone in one sanatorium vanished in a single night. The kind-hearted nun, the hot-tempered guard, and even the children afflicted with strange illnesses who still retained their innocence—they all disappeared overnight.

Not only that, the residents near the sanatorium had vanished as well, cleanly and completely. Even the local bosses had no clue what had happened, merely assuming that perhaps the nun had offended someone she should not have. From then on, the place became taboo in Dusk Street.

When Pardofelis arrived at the scene, there was only a young man standing there, blankly staring at the sanatorium's sign.

She had never seen him in Dusk Street before, so she guessed he was an outsider.

Generally speaking, an outsider standing alone before an abandoned sanatorium was suspicious no matter how one looked at it. Yet her instincts told her that this young man might know something.

Pardofelis lightly patted her face, then walked over with feigned enthusiasm. "Boss, it's your first time in Dusk Street, isn't it?" At the same time, she warily scanned her surroundings, ready to run the instant something felt wrong.

The young man turned around. Pardofelis caught a trace of surprise in his pitch-black eyes, though she had no idea what he was surprised about.

"What's your name?" he asked.

"Me? I'm just a small-time merchant. Names and all that aren't important!" She waved her hand. "Boss, you look unfamiliar, so I was wondering if there might be some business we could do."

"Is that so?" The young man smiled faintly. "I'm sorry, but I don't have any business for you. I'm merely standing here for a while."

Just then, a silver-haired girl emerged from the sanatorium and said to the young man, "We didn't find what we were looking for. Just as you thought, Aponia wasn't lying."

Sister Aponia?

Pardofelis watched the two of them with heightened caution. They really were people who knew something, but... now that she had heard all this, were they going to silence her?

She quietly began inching backward. Suddenly, a pair of hands reached out, twisted her arms behind her back, and slammed her to the ground. It happened so fast, the movements so swift, that she only realized she had been caught after she was pinned down and searing pain shot through her mind.

Acting on instinct, she shouted, "I don't know anything! I'm just a small-time trader, I really don't know anything!"

"Xila, stop." The young man spoke up. "Let her go."

The restraint on her vanished at once. Pardofelis sprang up from the ground and looked at the person who had attacked her. It was a gray-haired girl with long bangs covering her left eye. Her silver right eye stared at Pardofelis without a trace of emotion.

The girl reeked of blood, proving what she had just done.

"What are you going to do with her?" the silver-haired girl asked.

"Let her go." The young man took a document from the silver-haired girl's hand. "What we came to do has been settled. We can return now."

Pardofelis had just breathed a sigh of relief when the silver-haired girl's words sent her heart leaping into her throat again. "Aren't you afraid she'll leak information? Shouldn't we eliminate the root of the problem?"

The young man walked past her without a care. The girl named Xila silently followed after him. Without turning back, he said, "She's just a little cat. There's no need for that. The mission is over. Let's go, Lilith. Oh, and give Xila a bath when we get back. Such a lovely girl, yet she reeks far too strongly of blood."

"Yes, yes, my respected leader, as you wish." The silver-haired girl replied with some boredom, then followed the young man away.

Only later did Pardofelis learn that quite a few people had tried to investigate the sanatorium in the days following that incident. Yet she was the only one who left the area alive.

She had no doubt that if the young man had not spoken up, she would have died there too. She had approached him on a whim, guided by instinct, so she also believed that if she had not seen him, she would still have met a grim end.

At the same time, the young man's figure had been etched into her mind. If she ever got the chance, she felt she ought to thank him.

She did not see the young man again until several years later.

By then, the world had become deeply abnormal, and even Dusk Street had not escaped unscathed. The "goods" she could get her hands on became fewer and fewer, so in order to survive, she began leaving Dusk Street to expand her "supply channels."

At the site of some disaster, she found a volunteer surgery form. Since she could not understand what was written on it, she muddleheadedly ended up on Fire Moth's operating table and became a Fusion Warrior in a manner that was almost like a joke.

If you enjoy this book, please add it to your bookshelf so you won't have trouble finding it next time.

Only then did she realize what she had done. But Fire Moth's internal management was strict, and since it was clear she could not escape, she could only make the best of it and slack off somewhere else.

It was at that time that she saw the young man again.

After several years apart, he seemed to have become even colder. The aura around him was as icy and piercing as Kevin's.

He seemed to have just returned from some mission. The moment he saw her, he recognized her. "It's you—the little cat from Dusk Street."

It was only through this reunion that she learned who he was.

Feng, a Hero who stood alongside Kevin, the leader of Fallen Angel, Fire Moth's strongest Fusion Warrior squad.

"Actually, if it rolls off your tongue better, you can call me Yu Feng," he said.

And so, she began calling the young man Brother Yu Feng.

For some reason, whenever she was with Brother Yu Feng, he was nothing like the rumors claimed—not someone who could scare people to death with a single glance. On the contrary, he was very gentle.

He would discuss with her which places were best for slacking off, tell her when the cafeteria food tasted best, and even slack off together with her.

Though Sister Lilith would always catch them afterward and drag them back.

No matter where Brother Yu Feng hid, Sister Lilith could always find him with perfect accuracy...

She had once told Brother Yu Feng that she envied him for being a Hero admired by countless people. He merely fell silent for a while before saying, "If Heroes are like me, then I would never want you to become one."

At the time, she did not understand what Brother Yu Feng meant. She merely lay beside him and said, "I'm just a little envious, that's all. After all, Heroes have their way of living, and ordinary people have theirs. I'm just an ordinary person—I can't be some kind of hero."

During that time, because she could often visit Brother Yu Feng, she became fairly familiar with the Fallen Angels. She even discovered that Xila, who had nearly taken her life back then... was actually an airhead.

Although Sister Eis was terrifyingly crazed in battle, when she was calm, she was as gentle as Sister Nia.

Not until The Tragedy of Binding, when the Fallen Angels were wiped out, and then the Twelfth Herrscher incident, when humanity was nearly exterminated...

Only then did she understand what Brother Yu Feng had meant by a hero. He had lost the comrades who had been by his side day and night, lost his lover, and no longer even had the right to sleep peacefully.

She had once wondered—if she had met Brother Yu Feng earlier, could she have gotten together with him before Sister Lilith? But that was all she could do: wonder. After all, she was merely an ordinary person, while Brother Yu Feng was a hero.

Before the final battle against Finality, Dr. Mei followed the principle of voluntariness and hoped that every remaining Hero capable of fighting would head to the moon to take part in the final battle. They called it voluntary, but in truth, they were merely asking whether she was willing to go die.

Finality's power was overwhelmingly strong, and the only two people on humanity's side who had a chance of defeating Finality were Brother Yu Feng and Boss Kevin. Everyone else... was plainly being sent to their deaths, using their lives to buy time for them.

And as the weakest of the Heroes, in Dr. Mei's eyes, perhaps her only value was using her life to buy time for Brother Yu Feng and the others.

Brother Yu Feng had opposed her going to the moon. He told her, "Pardo, you... just like you said, you only need to do what an ordinary person should do. There's no need for you to become some kind of hero."

But I want to do something for you too.

She wanted to say that, but because of Sister Lilith, she could only say, "Even ordinary people have times when they want to become heroes."

During the battle against Finality, when a casual strike from Finality was about to hit her, Brother Yu Feng blocked it for her. She saw with her own eyes that the blow nearly turned half of Brother Yu Feng's body into charred flesh. If it had landed on her...

"Why..." she asked, almost moaning.

"I once thought I couldn't save anything. I couldn't protect Lilith and the others, couldn't stop Elysia... But in the end, at least... I protected you..."

It was a battle filled with despair. By the end, not only she, but even Jie Ge and the others could only watch as Brother Yu Feng fought Finality.

She watched the divine figure vanish with her own eyes.

Other than weeping over her own weakness, there was nothing she could do.

She did not even understand what value she had that made Brother Yu Feng save her, but...

If she could do it all over again, she would definitely pull Brother Yu Feng away from that path before he set foot on the road of no return. After all... Brother Yu Feng had been so strong, yet he still could not prevent humanity's destruction in the end. So... why did he still have to save the world?

She was only an ordinary person. This was all she could do.

Unfortunately... life could not be lived over again.