Chapter 196
-----------------------------------------------------------------
Translator: MadScientist
Chapter: 196
Chapter Title: [Awakening] Kim Katt
-----------------------------------------------------------------
Crying echoed from somewhere.
It grew louder the closer I got to "us." From that mournful sobbing came an endless depth of profound sorrow.
Anxiety crept in.
Maybe I shouldn't go near.
Maybe something terrible would happen.
I tried to stop my feet. But hearing that voice choking in the swamp of sorrow, I couldn't possibly halt my approach. In the end, I reached the front of the cage.
—Hic...! Sob! Sniff! Hic!
Someone was trapped inside "us."
The rusted, cracked iron bars were jagged and broken. The haphazardly stacked bricks were split and crumbling. Inside it. Wrapped in thorny vines sprouting blades, a huddled figure was sobbing.
"..."
I just stared at him, curled up and crying.
Standard tracksuit and sweatpants. Neatly trimmed hair. Pale hands without calluses. Clean skin, hair shining with luster.
He cried endlessly.
His sobs invaded my world. A massive sorrow that shouldn't exist began filling it like the sea. What emanated from it was despair. Fear. Regret. Injustice. Grief. And hatred. Sorrow. Lamentation.
Emotions I'd suppressed.
Emotions I'd desperately ignored.
They flowed into me.
—Aaah.
This other world wasn't a place for someone from modern Earth to live comfortably. Dropped into unfamiliar lands without any foundation, I had to abandon everything just to survive. Instead of wailing to stay alive, I had to move.
It was incredibly hard.
For someone with my common-sense upbringing, yeah. It was impossible.
A world of nothing but discomfort and pain.
At least, that's what this other world was to me.
So I imprisoned myself.
Hid myself away.
The emotions seeping in were the things I'd discarded.
"Is that it?"
...I tried to ignore it.
No, I did ignore it. Ah, so this is it. The weak man I ignored and locked away deep in my heart.
The being huddled and sobbing in the cage before me was something I knew instinctively, something I couldn't not know.
That man's name was Kim Geun-tae.
—Hic...! Sniff! Kkhuk...! Hic!
He was me.
The "me" from Earth, Kim Geun-tae. Surrounded by dilapidated bars propped up by broken bricks, wrapped head to toe in thorny vines, he just huddled there crying.
Deep sorrow emanated.
...Pity, maybe.
"...Why are you huddled like that?"
Watching him just keep crying was painful, so I spoke to him. —He lifted his face after a long cry and looked up at me. A clean face without a single scar. A familiar... and nostalgic face. And a face from a past I could never reclaim.
He was Kim Geun-tae, not Kim Katt.
"Because I'm scared."
He answered.
"...Why are you crying?"
I asked again.
Tears still overflowed from his eyes.
"Because I'm afraid."
And he replied.
After answering, he completely ignored me and started sobbing again.
—Is that how it is?
I knew why he was crying like that, why he was huddled like that. He was the "weak" part of me that I'd desperately ignored, turned away from, abandoned, and tried to excise.
It felt just like seeing myself when I first arrived in this world.
No, that was exactly it.
That was me from back then.
Weak, cowardly, just an ordinary person.
Kim Geun-tae.
"..."
I looked down at him.
Yeah.
That's why he was protected by those iron bars. This was hidden deeper in my heart than anything else.
To survive, I needed to hide my weakness. Adorn myself with bravado. I didn't need to cry, needed to kill my emotions.
I needed a lot.
Things I didn't have.
To gain what I lacked, I discarded much.
"...Scared, afraid, so you're huddled and crying?"
I knelt on one knee.
Matched his height.
How great my hair was back then. After discharge, unable to live like a grunt anymore, I'd styled it my way, researched and perfected hair care to the extreme. Memories flooded back.
I reached out and placed my hand on his head.
It was too soft.
"You fucking elastin bitch. Lift your head."
—He looked at me, mid-sob.
"You've ruined that handsome face of yours."
My face, ruined by tears.
Without scars, it looked so fragile.
"...I."
Kim Geun-tae opened his mouth.
"Yeah. You."
"I'm scared and afraid."
"You were scared and afraid."
I know.
I know all too well.
Because I dumped it on you. Endured it through you.
"So. I have no choice but to cry. Because I'm weak and a coward. Because I can't do anything. Because I just wished for all this to end."
He said, tears streaming.
Aaah,
This is it.
This is the essence I've always wanted to express. What I wanted someone to understand. The endless despair of an otherworld exile, filled with deep sorrow and injustice.
No one to acknowledge it.
No one to share the loneliness with.
Just bear the despair alone.
"Why. Why do I have to go through this? I didn't do anything wrong. But. But why me in this hell. Why me. Why of all people me. An unwanted hell. Why me. Why of all people. I didn't do anything wrong."
He said it in my stead.
Kim Geun-tae poured out his emotions like vomit, crying.
My guts felt like they'd spill out.
His sorrow began infecting me.
"I'm... weak. And a coward. I can't survive in a world like this. Just end it now. I want everything to end. But even that's scary."
"...So you're crying."
I wanted to die.
If life was this painful, better to die.
But when I clung to life harder than anyone, death became terrifying instead. To live, I did anything, no holds barred. I obsessed over survival. Obsessed over life. And so. I lived while breaking apart.
Sorrow.
Pain I'd forgotten.
Facing him, I started hurting too. I just wanted to stay here and cry endlessly with him. Here, surely, I could cry freely.
But.
I don't cry.
"I won't tell you to stop crying. Or to overcome it."
You mustn't drown in sorrow.
"I'm not saying that."
I stood.
Drew my sword.
"Look."
Kim Geun-tae, still crying, looked at me again.
That was.
Enough.
—Pa pa pat!
I was angry.
Angry at my weak self.
I immediately unleashed the Branch Director Swordsmanship. —Whoosh whoosh! Swordplay honed to the limit, blades forged solely to kill! Bone-grinding effort, primal macho muscles! To survive, I grew strong, sharp, cruel!
"Power of Buddha!"
I'd seized strength!
I'll show him my strengthened self!
"Power of the Korean People!"
Surging passion pushed out my sorrow.
"Power of King David, who felled Goliath, the legendary general of the Philistines!"
—Paat! The sword dance accelerated. This wasn't reality. No stamina limits, no mana caps here. Ultimate speed. From the sword dance daring to cleave time and space, massive mana erupted, and my inner world shook violently.
"Because you were weak!"
In that state, I spoke to the huddled Kim Geun-tae.
"Because you were frail! Timid! Gentle! Kind! That's why you despaired in this distant other world!"
I!
"Scraped by on survival, trained the sword, tempered my body!"
I shouted at him.
I saw his trembling eyes.
"And so I grew strong!"
Behold.
Behold, Kim Geun-tae.
This is the current "me"!
The impassioned sword dance transcended the world. Exploding mana. Scattering mana. My body floated up. In a world of reversed gravity, I became the Heavenly Demon, looking down on Kim Geun-tae.
Now.
I can do it.
"Supremacy of the Heavenly Demon."
—Kwa guk kwang! The earth quaked. The horizon crumbled and surged, gravity inverted, fragments of power levitated. It became a massive earthquake, devouring the world.
"Heavenly Demon Heaven-Shattering Palm."
—Kung! Cracks split the sky. Heaven and earth remade themselves, shedding tears, until the sky shattered like glass. Black shards fell to earth, fragmenting further. The devoured world was destroyed thereby.
"Heavenly Demon Death Beam."
—Jeeng! Space pierced through. The hottest death ray pierced time and space infinitely, becoming light and death. Thereby the world found light and learned the concept of death.
In the warped, destroyed, shaking inner world, only Kim Geun-tae in the cage remained unharmed. With anxious eyes, he looked up at me.
"Behold me, Heavenly Demon Kim Katt."
To him.
—To myself.
I'll show my strong self.
"At my gesture, the earth quakes, the sky shatters."
My inner world was utterly fucked right now. The massive walls imprisoning me were gone. Erased without trace by Heavenly Demon Kim Katt's power.
"This is the 'strength' I gained from your 'weakness.'"
Strength I could gain precisely because I was weak.
"...Really, is it?"
Kim Geun-tae looked at me, Kim Katt.
His teary eyes.
"I've gotten strong...?"
Seemed to crave something.
"You dare discuss strength before the Heavenly Demon?"
Ridiculous.
Ridiculous, utterly ridiculous.
The Heavenly Demon is a being beyond heaven.
Discussing strength before him is as meaningless as stating the sky is high. Greatest of all time. Unparalleled. Strongest. Those are the descriptors and truths existing for me, Heavenly Demon Kim Katt.
"Behold this shattered world. This power you gained because you were weak. Frailer and more cowardly than anyone. Look at the corpses I've piled up. The horizon filled with enemies' corpses. Who made that? I did. I, Kim Katt, with my own power alone."
Piled corpses.
"I am the Heavenly Demon."
The path I've walked.
"Kim Katt."
That's the truth.
"Therefore."
I say.
"Your weakness."
Looking straight at him.
"Was not wrong."
Don't blame yourself for being wrong.
"Re... really?"
"Yes."
To Kim Geun-tae, asking anxiously, as if my form seemed a mirage, pleading.
"Really... I'm not wrong?"
"You are not wrong."
You are not wrong.
Not mistaken.
Being weak and huddled is perfectly normal.
"Hic...! But! But I'm a coward!"
"You are not a coward."
Yet you overcame. Ultimately, you survived victorious. That can't be called cowardice. Without courage, without the courage to live, you couldn't survive.
You who survived.
Are brave enough.
"Kkh... Sob! But! But! It's impossible for me! Maybe for you, but not me! I want to go home! See Mom! See Dad! No more, I can't take it! I hate it now!"
"..."
Because he was weak, frail, timid, affectionate, gentle, kind. He broke, huddled, wailed. That was past me, Kim Geun-tae, the powerless Earthling Kim Geun-tae.
Obsession for survival. Life-or-death battles.
Abandoned much,
Lost much.
I descended to the ground and approached him.
"Don't cry."
The him crying, unable to escape despair.
I embraced him.
"Kim Geun-tae."
Hot tears soaked my shoulder. I know. I know everything. Aren't I you? I know because I'm you. I exist for you. Heavenly Demon Kim Katt exists solely for Kim Geun-tae.
"Hic... Hic! Hiccuuugh!"
In the end, one's only true empath is oneself. You can't understand others, but only yourself can you truly understand.
He cried bitterly.
That was my essence, the truth I'd desperately hidden. Macho, Buddha—all self-deceptions, defense mechanisms.
The true me wasn't Heavenly Demon, Sword Saint, Fist King, King David, descendant of Hwanung, King of Wheels or anything— just weak Earth-born discharged college student Kim Geun-tae.
To fight strong foes, I armored myself.
"You are a strong human."
I am a weak human.
"You endured well."
Just an ordinary guy who knew nothing.
Just your average Joe everywhere.
For such a me to live in this other world, yeah.
It was damn hard.
So I became Kim Katt.
Discarded Kim Geun-tae.
By becoming Kim Katt, I excised the weak parts, offloaded the vicious ones. The "not-me" me struggled to survive here, killed much for the "not-me" me. Like a shell. Wrapped in pretense and deceit.
Thus, Kim Katt was born.
Kim Katt is cruel. Merciless, extremely violent. Strong against the weak, infinitely weak against the strong. Just a third-rate thug punk.
Can't tolerate losses, does anything for profit. To survive this other world, Kim Geun-tae became such a Kim Katt.
"You are not at fault."
Such a he bears no sin.
"The wrong one is this world."
If assigning blame, the world is wrong.
"You are ordinary. You had no choice. You just didn't want to die."
I soothe him, speaking.
"So."
The words I ultimately wanted to hear.
"Crying doesn't pay off."
Kim Geun-tae was still crying.
The thorns around his body pierced mine.
"Don't cry."
I stroke his head.
Ha.
Haha.
Funny, huh.
"Don't we fucking have pride?"
I speak casually.
"We're fucking badass motherfuckers. I'm the Heavenly Demon, Heavenly Demon. Mana's insane. Fucking hell, just recently sliced up orcs too. You know, right? How ridiculously strong I am."
At my words, Kim Geun-tae smiled for the first time. I talked with him at length. Talking to myself was refreshingly novel. Sharing memories and traits with the same essence was the ultimate empath, someone I could relate to.
—The crying him.
Smiled.
"...Thanks."
"Thanks my ass. What thanks between us? Just say 'fuck you' or whatever, you dumbass."
He smiled faintly, expressing gratitude. Said he absolutely couldn't do that, shyly. Yeah. That's the guy I was. Just ridiculously handsome (delusional), ridiculously delicate guy.
He approached.
"Aaah."
Geun-tae in my arms dissolved into radiant light particles and vanished.
One step.
I stepped where he'd been.
"Damn right."
Geun-tae's light particles gathered in my hand. They coalesced into a radiant, condensed orb of light.
"Leave it to me now."
Kim Geun-tae's heart conveyed to me. My truth. My essence. Always scared, afraid. The weak man who huddled and created a double.
"You."
That.
"Are not weak."
I gripped it tight.
—Chwaaah.
Light leaked between my fingers. That majestic light illuminated my dark inner world. The quaking earth fell asleep. The shattered sky repaired. Pierced space restored itself, the wrecked inner world returned to normal.
The sun rose, creating day and night.
"This blue place is."
My inner world.
—Drip.
Tears fell.
At the same time, I opened my eyes.
My familiar, utterly comfortable lodging.
"I."
I'm no longer just Kim Geun-tae.
The two are too different now.
But.
"Am Kim Katt."
Kim Katt is ultimately Kim Geun-tae, and Kim Geun-tae is ultimately Kim Katt. Different yet the same, same yet different.
"Kim Katt, and also Kim Katt."
Power overflowed in my body.
I felt mana rising from my chest.
This day, I truly faced my inner self.
"Meaning Kim Katt has awakened."
Thus, I made mana fully my power.
"You fucking bastards."
An unstoppable impulse.
Starts now.