The World Devastator
The revelation of Chairman’s true identity had left everything in disarray, and with the arrival of the next day, I found myself confronting a weekend that felt as surreal as a fever dream.
I had spent the entire day tossing and turning in bed, finally managing to pull myself together only for the clock to read two in the afternoon.
Staring blankly at the ceiling for hours without doing anything at all had been strangely peaceful, yet staying in bed any longer would have been a complete waste of time, so I dragged myself out.
I scratched at my stomach as I sat at the computer desk, but the events of yesterday still felt utterly unreal.
It was like a lucid dream, except this time the difference was that it was real.
I booted up the game I usually played, slipped on my headset, and let myself sink into the peaceful routine I hadn’t enjoyed in forever.
This ordinary life was perfect for someone like me.
It was far better than the storybook nonsense of getting entangled with magical girls, having my days disrupted, and being dragged into unbelievable tales.
I kept tapping the keyboard and clicking the mouse for roughly half an hour.
Then, piercing through the headset came a sharp high-frequency whine that filled the entire room.
I instinctively paused the game, grabbed my phone, and checked the emergency alert.
[2035-04-30 15:42 — A small-scale Demon King Army incursion has appeared in the OO District of Gyeonggi-do XX City]
“OO District…”
It was the stop my apartment was about five minutes’ walk from, where I had to take the bus and ride four stops before arriving.
And since it was called small-scale, Chairman and the other magical girls should have handled it quickly.
“Ugh…”
I stretched my back briefly, turned the game back on, and tried to resume my peaceful gaming session.
It had only been about five to ten minutes.
Then, slicing straight through the headset and stabbing into my eardrums, a powerful high-frequency sound exploded across the entire apartment.
The moment I heard it, my body screamed danger, my heart racing as the warning blared again.
This wasn’t a simple alert.
It wasn’t even the sound of a Demon King Army attack near me.
[Current location: apartment vicinity. Detection of a high-ranking Demon King Army Executive entity. All residents, please evacuate immediately.]
The mechanical voice filled the room.
At the same moment, explosions echoed from outside the apartment, accompanied by the screams of people trying to seal the breach.
“Damn it!”
I threw on a windbreaker, jammed my slippers on, and sprinted out the door.
The elevator I passed had already been flooded with water.
I kicked open the emergency exit and dashed down the stairs two at a time.
Although it was a newly built apartment with dedicated emergency stairs, mine wasn’t one of them.
The common evacuation shelter was still outside.
It was a miracle I lived on the third floor!
I descended floor by floor until I finally reached the emergency exit leading to the first-floor lobby.
If I just opened the door and ran straight to the shelter outside…
Holding onto that hope, I carefully turned the handle.
“!”
What hit me immediately was the thick smell of blood that the emergency door had blocked earlier.
The apartment security uncle, the aunt who lived in the same building, and other people whose faces I had passed multiple times every day.
All of them were drenched in blood, collapsed on the floor.
“Ugh…”
The metallic scent made my stomach lurch violently.
But there was no time to scream or tremble here.
Because what my eyes locked onto in the distance was—
A black tentacle slamming through someone’s body, their legs flailing before they were hurled violently into the wall.
A wet, squelching sound followed as the screams died down.
The apartment lobby had become a field of blood and corpses that hell itself couldn’t describe.
And stepping over those bodies, leaving red footprints on the white marble floor, was someone moving slowly forward.
A woman in a dark purple suit that covered her entire body, with long purple hair cascading all the way to her waist.
She was scanning the surroundings, searching for more victims.
Black tentacles wriggled around her, constantly shifting as if checking every angle.
The moment I saw her, instinct told me she was the Executive the alert had warned about.
Stronger than the insect or spider-like minions I had run from before.
Stronger than the grotesque creature from school that had tried to lure me in so I would die.
A being far more powerful, far more inhuman, and far more cruel.
My legs shook as I forced myself to move.
I backed away slowly, keeping my eyes on her without daring to look away, putting distance between myself and the Demon King Army.
One step, another step, retreating further.
I stepped over corpses without thinking, moving my feet carefully so they made no sound.
If I went back just a little more, I could escape without tripping.
Or at least that was what I assumed the others would have thought too.
If they had reached the same conclusion, then I…
The thought hit me right as—
A sharp crack sounded.
“Ah…”
I had stepped on a shard of glass I hadn’t seen in my panicked retreat.
The silence of hell shattered into a bright, brittle noise.
The Executive stopped mid-stride, head turning toward me.
Through her opaque purple visor, her eyes—completely invisible—locked onto me with perfect precision.
The tentacles around her all shifted in unison.
“Shit!”
The instant I saw that, I stopped backing up, spun around, and sprinted at full speed.
My stamina was low from the earlier run down the stairs, but I told myself that if I ran at full power I might still make it.
I ran.
I kept running.
Faster than when I fled the minions, faster than through the apartment alleys.
The smell of blood vibrated around me, pebbles bit into my feet, corpses lay at the edge of my vision, but I didn’t stop.
I ran until the final corner.
And then I ran straight into—
The high concrete wall blocking my path.
It was over.
I had survived by running from the minions with all my might, drawing the monster’s attention at school and running again.
But this time…
A shoe scraped behind me.
I definitely wasn’t going to make it.
The sound from behind me was not just calm—it was eerily serene.
The voices from earlier grew even closer, and I turned to look at the path I had just sprinted down.
And there, beyond the corner I had jumped into—
“Survivor. Detected.”
The Executive revealed herself, black tentacles spreading out as she unleashed a malevolent aura to chase me down.
She wore an opaque purple visor covering her eyes, and the central part of her suit was semi-transparent, faintly outlining the skin beneath.
Her footsteps approached without pause.
As she closed the distance, I kept retreating.
But the concrete wall was right in front of me now, nowhere left to run.
One of the tentacles twitched with a grotesque screech.
It sounded like nails scraping across a chalkboard, making my face twist in disgust.
“P-please… spare me…”
I collapsed to the ground where I stood.
The Executive didn’t answer. She simply walked closer and looked down at me on the floor.
Then one tentacle wriggled again, slowly moving toward me.
The image of the person I had watched tentacles pierce flashed before my eyes.
My eyes squeezed shut.
I clenched my teeth to endure the coming pain.
If getting involved with magical girls meant ending like this…
I really hadn’t wanted to get entangled with them.
My heart, just like everyone else’s, was about to be pierced by the black tentacle, blood spraying across the floor.
I knew it was coming.
But…
My eyes opened again.
The pounding, thumping sound of my heartbeat thundered in my ears.
And there she was—
The Executive had brought her face right up to mine, staring at me as if observing.
Kneeling on one knee, she looked so eerie and terrifying.
“H-hey…”
Why?
Why hadn’t she killed me like the others?
Why was she staring at me so closely?
My mind spun in chaos.
“…Strange.”
“Huh? What is it?”
I asked instinctively.
“Shut up.”
“Ye… yes…”
I decided I would never ask another question.
How many minutes—or perhaps even seconds—had passed in that trapped silence?
I just waited for the hellish observation to end.
And even after it ended, I still desperately hoped the Executive wouldn’t pierce my heart with her tentacle.
The Executive tilted her head.
The eyes hidden behind the opaque visor seemed to carry irritation that went beyond my imagination.
“…I told you to shut up.”
I bit my lip so hard it hurt, but tears still slipped out.
How was I supposed to stop the sound of crying with a murderer standing right in front of me?
How many people in this world could silence their voice even while facing a killer?
Did she even realize she was demanding the impossible?
“…Shut up. One more sound and I’ll kill you for real.”
Goosebumps erupted across my entire body the moment I heard those words.
This Executive wasn’t keeping me alive for any good reason.
She was simply observing me like an ant on the street.
I bit down harder than before.
No more moans, no more cries.
I would endure anything.