Bang! Bang! Bang!
Several shots managed to hit the tires of the car he was driving and made it temporarily difficult for him to maintain the car's balance. Luckily, the air in the car tires did not run out in an instant. His car could still run normally—not too normally actually.
"It seems that we can't run away with this car anymore!"
Ernest made a decision in an instant.
If he forced himself to escape with the car, he would definitely be caught.
But he was relieved that he had arrived at his destination.
He immediately turned the steering wheel and entered an abandoned building construction area.
After passing through various piles of sand, scattered bricks, and various other building materials, he entered the abandoned construction building.
However, because his car tires were blown out, the pursuers managed to reduce the distance to a very short distance.
"It looks like they have little ammunition left if you look at the intensity of their shots which has been drastically reduced."
The cloaked woman spoke quietly as if talking to herself, but Ernest heard her words.
"Please don't activate the death flag again."
"Cough! What do you mean?"
Because Ernest was focused on driving, he didn't realize that the cloaked woman's condition was deteriorating.
He only replied playfully. "Even if they have little ammunition left—I don't know about you, but if it were me, I would have died on the spot if I got shot."
Ernest decided to keep pushing his car to the max when he drove his car through the spiral road to the rooftop parking.
Craaassshhh!!!
Probably because the air in the car tires had run out, the sound of the rim rubbing against the floor sounded so unpleasant to the ears that Ernest really wanted to cover his ears. Unfortunately, he couldn't cover his ears because he had to focus on holding the steering wheel.
Even so, he was relieved when he saw that the rats who kept following him were also climbing the one-way spiral road to the rooftop parking.
"Listen to me, if you want to survive, on the count of three, you have to jump out of the car!"
Ernest gave instructions to the cloaked woman beside him.
He wondered why the cloaked woman didn't give any response. Then he realized that there was no longer a threatening dagger near his neck.
Her hand, which was previously focused on threatening Ernest with the dagger, was now clutching her chest as if she was experiencing pain in her chest.
Ernest was surprised when he saw her condition, it looked much worse than before.
"Tch!"
Ernest clucked his tongue.
He was forced to carry her body when he wanted to get out of the car.
Exactly one meter as the car reached the rooftop parking, Ernest immediately placed one hand on her back while the other hand on the cloaked woman's thigh to carry her, similar to a princess sling. Then he kicked the car door open, and then he jumped out of the car.
Thud!
Before hitting the floor, Ernest hugged the cloaked woman. He also arranged for his back to hit the floor first so that the woman in his arms would be safe.
Roll! Roll!
He rolled several times before stopping.
On the other hand, just as he got out of the car, the car he was originally driving slid all the way back down.
Ernest had previously arranged for the car to drive backward. He had placed the bag containing the various tools he had found in the triplet's car. He put it in place of his foot to press the gas pedal.
The reason why he had rushed out by jumping out of the car was so that the rats that were chasing him would not have time to catch up.
Although his car certainly scraped the edge of the spiral road, it had little effect on the speed at which his car descended. The farther down his car went, the faster it went. Like a haunted car attack, the car slid down without passengers until the rats that were following him crashed into his car.
Crash!
At first, it was just the sound of a continuous crash that he heard, but...
Ka-boom! Boom! Boom!
Explosions echoed loudly. What was originally just one explosion, a moment later, a series of explosions like dominoes were heard.
Unfortunately, Ernest couldn't see their panicked faces when his car suddenly hit their car.
Ernest could only hear the sound of their screams and shrieks.
Did they all survive by jumping out of the car? Or were they squashed against each other and died from the explosion? Ernest didn't have time to be curious. He was more focused on the cloaked woman in his arms.
"Hey, are you okay?"
Ernest slightly shook the body of the cloaked woman who was still in his arms.
Surprisingly, she didn't react at all. When the hood covering her head was removed due to her position in Ernest's arms, the answer to why she remained silent appeared.
Ernest was amazed by the black, long, straight, thick, and shiny hair that suddenly appeared and fell freely like a waterfall on the head of the woman in his arms. His foolish mind imagined that soon, there would be a rainbow appearing around her hair.
Ernest's focus quickly shifted to her eyes which were already tightly closed. When Ernest placed his finger near her nose, he realized that her breathing was getting more and more intermittent.
In her unconscious state, a thought suddenly crossed his mind.
'Isn't this the perfect opportunity to escape?' However, even if Ernest left the cloaked woman, his probability of survival was at 50:50. This meant that he wasn't sure if he could actually escape.
Ernest wasn't sure what had happened between the cloaked woman and the people with guns. However, if they had seen his face, then his chances of survival would have dropped dramatically.
Logically speaking, would they probably be satisfied if they had caught him? No! They would most likely eliminate all the eyewitnesses to the incident, right?
Even if they hadn't seen his face, they would probably still hunt him down because they would think he was the woman's accomplice.
Even so, the best option now was to run away and leave this cloaked woman behind. At the very least, this cloaked woman could buy a little time for Ernest to escape.
'Yeah, there's no point in involving yourself with other people's business.'
Ernest laid the cloaked woman down on the cold floor, then stood up and walked away while placing his joined palms against the back of his head as if to lean on.
Ernest was not a hero. Maybe because he had lived in the Netherworld for so long, he didn't feel guilty at all even though he had to do things that violated the norms of goodness in society.
But then he realized that he was currently a victim.
"Wow, since when did I become such a good person? From the beginning, it was you who threatened me, okay. So don't blame me for leaving you here."
After all, it wasn't as if Ernest didn't realize that there was a high probability that the guilty party was this woman. So, wouldn't he be helping the right side if he left her? But what if it was the other way around? What if this woman was the victim?
"Whatever."
Regardless of which side was right and wrong, Ernest didn't care.
However, before Ernest actually left, one ridiculous thing took over his mind.
He stopped his footsteps, turned around, and walked back towards the woman in the robe. Then, he bent his knees and said, "Let me see your face for a moment."
The silly thing was curiosity about the face behind her mouth veil.
Slowly but surely, his hand began to remove the mouth veil that wrapped her face.
Right when the woman's face was clearly displayed in front of Ernest, he was motionless as if he was frozen by magic. Ernest's eyelids widened and the hand that lifted the mouth veil stopped in mid-air.