Chapter 133
Chapter 133
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Translator: Ebonarch
Chapter Title: Panorama of Regret
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-Clank, clank.
The faint trembling sound of metal pieces interlocking. Han looked down at his own body.
Even with numerous weapons piercing through his flesh and protruding outward, his torso remained standing, swords still crossed in confrontation.
He was newly astonished at himself for holding the blades steady despite wounds so fatal.
No, were they truly fatal? Perhaps all of this was nothing but an illusion.
His mind was hazy. The excruciating pain that had gripped him just moments ago was now eerily silent, as if it had never existed.
The sensation of cold metal invading his body, tearing and shattering everything within, had faded like some distant memory.
As if time itself had frozen, all things flowed in slow motion.
The scattering blood, the faint light drifting down through the darkness, the rising dust.
That time, passing ever slower, achingly slow, finally ground to a halt.
-Rustle, rustle.
Over it all, a panorama unfurled.
Worn-out scenes from a worthless life.
The life lantern flickered past.
"……..."
Han instinctively sensed that death was closing in.
The familiar sight that always appeared whenever he stared death in the face.
The sight he had always turned away from before, deeming it unworthy of a glance.
Yet for some reason.
Now that certain death loomed right before him, he finally felt the urge to look.
Or perhaps his heart had changed over time.
This time, Han stared blankly at the scene.
The lantern manifested sometimes as photographs on film, other times as words in a book.
The first image was of his younger self gazing into a mirror.
Han's ability allowed him to read others' emotions.
A convenient power—he needed only to look at someone to immediately discern their feelings.
The ability relayed that person's emotional state to him with perfect accuracy, free of any error or distortion.
Thus, as a child, Han often peered into the mirror at his own reflection.
Wondering why he could so effortlessly read the emotions of others, yet not his own.
Han's ability was the one thing that uniquely failed on himself.
He could unravel others' emotions as easily as solving elementary school problems, but his own? That was impossible. Frustration began to build in Han over this fact.
What exactly was the emotion he was feeling? Precisely what was it?
Was this truly his untainted emotion?
Was he not being influenced in reverse by the emotions he read from others?
He even started to question whether he possessed emotions at all.
Why couldn't he read his own emotions?
Why did this ability, absolute for everyone else, fail only on him?
After layers of agonizing over it, Han's conclusion was simply to stop caring. He wasn't the diligent type to dwell long on such profound questions.
And so, Han ceased wasting thought on his own emotions and grew numb to them.
Ironically, he became hypersensitive to others' emotions while growing ever more desensitized to his own.
-Rustle, rustle.
The page turned, and next came images of others looking at him.
The way people regarded Han usually fell into one of two categories.
They averted their eyes as if staring at a monster, or met his gaze but with underlying discomfort.
Yet Han didn't particularly mind.
His family never treated him like a monster, and though his colleagues kept their distance psychologically, they were kind and didn't hate him.
That was enough for Han.
Indifferent by nature, he was satisfied with just that much.
Colleagues who maintained emotional distance but treated him kindly; a little sister who would fling herself into his arms the moment he returned home; and the family dog that would trot out of her room alongside her to greet him.
Really, that was more than sufficient.
-Rustle, rustle.
And then, they all died.
By the hand of the Hero Association executive who had long used Han's department to cover his filthy tracks.
The man, facing retirement from the Association, had always been uneasy about Han's presence.
Worried that Han might have uncovered his secrets through his ability.
And that he might have shared those secrets with his colleagues.
In the end, that paranoid old fool resolved to wipe out Han's entire department—including Han himself—and erase all records.
And so they all died.
By the mere whim of one deluded geezer's unfounded suspicions.
Naturally, Han knew nothing of it. His ability read emotions, not uncovered hidden truths.
Han fled.
Fortunate enough to slip out of the central districts, he severed the necks of his pursuers one by one, gradually making his way toward the outskirts.
Through those endless days of flight, Han remained numb to his own emotions.
He merely guessed that whatever he was feeling then could not have been anything good.
"……..."
Han gazed at the unfolding life lantern and reflected.
Reliving those old memories now, he could finally recognize it.
The emotion he had felt back then was hatred.
-Rustle, rustle.
The page turned.
Next to appear was Anis.
"Hey, you fucking creep. Stop staring at me all the time. It's gross thinking you're reading my emotions."
It was the first thing she had said to him, shortly after she joined the demon side.
"I'll give you two of these. They're valuable, so use them well."
"Cool swords. Thank you. But I've only got one arm, you know."
"I know."
Once, after pestering Anis until she gave him two swords, that was her mocking response to his one-armed state.
Over the past three years living alongside her, Han had come to vaguely understand the emotion called "irritation."
But it never evolved into full-blown anger.
He knew that even as she cursed him for reading her emotions—calling it repulsive—she didn't truly mind all that much deep down.
He knew that even as she acted like she was belittling his missing arm, she didn't really mean it.
"What's with the long hair on a guy... Makes me wanna just buzz it all off."
"I know you're talking to me, but why are you suddenly feeling all wistful?"
"Shut up."
If his little sister had lived and grown up, she would have been about this age. Her mouth was rough, but to Han, Anis evoked memories of his deceased sister.
That was why he pitied her suffering and her aimless wandering.
He wanted to help her.
He believed killing Yoon Na-rin and Han U-sol—obstacles to her resolve—would benefit her.
It would hurt, but he thought it was the right path.
He thought it was the path for her sake.
That was what he had believed.
But
it wasn't.
-Rustle, rustle.
The pages turned faster and faster.
-Rustle, rustle.
As he relived the memories.
-Rustle, rustle.
Han confronted the hidden dark side buried deep within himself.
He hadn't seen Anis as a little sister out of any true care for her. It was simply the ugly jealousy he had concealed in his heart that drove his actions.
Now, he had no place to return to, no lingering ties from his past, no hope left to reclaim.
For a man who had already lost everything and shattered irreparably, only destruction remained.
But Anis was different. She was breaking down, but not yet fully destroyed like him.
Unlike him, who had nothing left, she still had remnants.
That was why Han envied her. Jealously, pathetically so—for the traces of her past that lingered, for the potential still there.
All his actions had nothing to do with helping Anis. He had simply been jealous of her remaining hope and sought to drag her down.
He wanted to destroy her. Reduce her to irreparable scrap like himself. Strip her of any home to return to, any past connections, any hope of turning back—make her wallow in the mud just like him.
Han realized it now. The true reason he had strived to kill them all this time.
Yoon Na-rin and Han U-sol weren't obstacles for her.
They were obstacles that grated on him.
That was why he pulled the trigger without a care, even as Anis suffered.
He deliberately fired on Yoon Na-rin with maximum noise to draw all eyes to her, to foster the perception of her as the enemy.
Worried she might flee to Han U-sol, he hounded and rattled her relentlessly.
"...Ha."
Han let out a hollow chuckle.
This was
the true essence of who he was.
Now he finally understood why he had always averted his eyes from the life lantern whenever death approached.
If he knew he was this ugly, this selfish a person, of course he wouldn't want to face it.
Recalling it would only bring disgust.
-Rustle, rustle.
The pages continued flipping rapidly.
"Anis. I'm just like them—a clear villain by the world's standards, the kind who could die at any moment without it being strange."
"You're the only exception."
No, that wasn't right.
I was a villain to you too.
I cloaked myself in the hypocrisy of claiming to care for you, while inwardly wishing for your downfall—yearning for you to plummet to the same depths as me.
"Pfft, haha, ha..."
Laughter escaped him unbidden.