Shadow of Death
"Kr—?!" Instead of pulling the trigger, the man leaped sideways to dodge the spear. If he hadn't dodged and had fired anyway, I would have been shot. But he would have been impaled at the same time, and neither of us would have escaped a fatal wound.
The man had prioritized his own survival over killing me. Thanks to that, I gained a precious opening.
-Thunk!
The spear I hurled embedded itself deep into the tree behind him. The man who had dodged it immediately swung his gun back toward me.
"You son of a bitch!"
But by then I had already closed the distance. Blood surged through my entire body. The hairs on the back of my neck stood on end as cold sweat broke out.
Someone was trying to kill me with genuine, murderous intent. An unreal reality was slamming into me by force. This was nothing like facing a beast. Human malice. It was far filthier and more viscous than any pure animal instinct.
-BANG——!
The gunshot slammed into my eardrums once more. But this bullet cut through empty air. I had twisted the man's hand upward toward the sky.
"Kr……!"
The familiar smell of gunpowder. The stink of sweat. And an underlying stench. My senses, sharpened several times over, were feeding me every scrap of information they could seize.
I knew instinctively how this man had gotten his hands on the pistol.
"Ugh, aaargh!"
-Clatter.
The moment I wrenched his wrist, the man screamed and dropped the gun. I yanked his arm behind his back while sweeping his legs out from under him, slamming him to the ground.
-Thump.
As he fell I drove my elbow into his arm and spine. With both our weights behind it, the impact had to be devastating.
"Kaaagh!"
The man let out a scream laced with his final breath. Even then, my head was a chaotic storm of stray thoughts.
──Should I kill him? How? With my fists? Or smash his skull with a rock? Could I even do it? Wouldn't killing him after disarming him count as self-defense?
Twenty-plus years of living as an ordinary person had left me with a set of 'common sense' that made me hesitate for a single, fatal second.
……No. This was no time to weigh such things. There was no law here. No police. Even if I kept him alive and captured him, I had nowhere to imprison him. The same applied to any crime I might commit—there would be no punishment.
And this man had already shot Seungpil. He had tried to shoot me too. I couldn't let him live.
Having reached that conclusion, I stretched out my hand to grab a rock when—
-Crunch.
The sound of footsteps from the side. It wasn't just the two of us here. The man's daughter was still present.
-Crunch.
She took one more step closer, then bent down and picked up the pistol lying on the ground.
A chill ran down my spine. Her wrists were still bound with rope. That didn't mean she couldn't fire the weapon.
"Y-yeah! Yeonju! Shoot him! Kill this bastard!"
The man's hoarse voice rang out, thick with hope. As though the momentary lapse that had cost him the advantage had suddenly been overturned.
The gun barrel turned toward us. Her face was utterly expressionless, like a doll. I couldn't begin to imagine what thoughts lay behind those eyes.
"Ah."
If I had yanked the cord tied to the man's wrist, I might have stopped her from pulling the trigger. But I didn't.
Because the muzzle wasn't pointed at me.
-BANG——!
Thud. The shock of impact traveled through the man's body and into mine. I felt the fierce resistance drain out of him in an instant. The daughter had shot her own father, not me.
A black hole had been punched clean through the man's forehead. It didn't explode like in the movies. His eyes simply bulged as if they would pop from their sockets.
The daughter who had killed her father swung the barrel again. Once more, it wasn't aimed at me. With that same hollow expression, she pressed the muzzle against her own temple.
"W-wait——"
Again. If I had pulled the cord, I might have saved her. But I didn't. Because I was busy calculating which outcome would benefit me more—saving her or letting her die.
-BANG——!
Her body jerked upward lightly before collapsing. She fell to the ground like a discarded mannequin, limbs splayed at unnatural angles.
"Ugh……!"
Just like the father she had murdered, both eyes wide open. Those dead eyes seemed to stare at me with accusation.
I wasn't in my right mind either. Everything had happened too fast. Too much had occurred in mere seconds. Two people had died right in front of me. I had nearly died myself. It was cold. It felt as if the blood racing through my veins had frozen solid.
The first thing I needed to do now was—
"……Seungpil!"
Right. Seungpil. I staggered to my feet and ran toward him, nearly falling over.
Seungpil lay exactly as he had fallen, face down in the dirt.
"Seungpil! Seungpil, wake up!"
I tried to lift him but froze. Bright red blood was spreading across his back. Just as I had feared, he had been shot from behind.
"Uh……."
Calm down. Breathe. What do you do when someone's been shot? Apply pressure to stop the bleeding? Dig the bullet out? CPR? The bloodstain suggested the shot had hit near the heart or lungs. What if the bullet was lodged in an organ?
"Seungpil! Can you hear me? Hey! Han Seungpil! Answer me!"
I lifted him carefully by the armpits, urgent but gentle. I felt across his chest. It was dry. That meant the bullet hadn't exited—it was still inside him.
What do you do when a bullet is lodged in the body? There were no hospitals here. I'd have to remove it myself. How did they do it in movies? Did they use tweezers and yank it out?
……Could I even manage that?
No. I had to. If I didn't, Seungpil would die. It felt like my own blood was draining away.
"──O-oppa!"
Seungpil's sister burst out of the shelter and came running. She must have seen her brother collapse.
On edge beyond reason, I snapped at her.
"Hey, Han Seunghee! I told you to stay inside!"
Seunghee flinched and stopped mid-stride. It wasn't as if that solved anything. It was nothing but pointless anger.
Get a grip. Stay calm. This wasn't the time to lash out at others.
Repeating that to myself, I shoved my fingers into the hole in Seungpil's combat uniform and tore the tough fabric apart.
Riiip.
I don't know where the strength came from, but the reinforced uniform ripped like paper. The wound was immediately visible. Black blood was still pulsing out of it in thick spurts.
"Ugh……."
To me, it looked like his very life was pouring out of that hole.
I pressed my hand over the bullet wound, trying to stem the flow even a little. It was hot. So this was the temperature of life.
Seungpil was dying. This death could not be stopped. The premonition sank into my skin like frost.
"……Kang……."
"Seungpil!"
Through the despair, a faint whisper reached my ears. It was unmistakably Seungpil's voice. Just one syllable. But it was proof he was still alive.
Yes. Seungpil was still alive. I had to keep my head straight. Only then could I save him.
"Hey, Seungpil, just hold on a little longer. I'll save you. Okay? Can you hear me?"
Keeping one hand pressed to the wound on his back, I pulled out my phone with the other and navigated the menus with trembling fingers.
Shop. Consumables. High-Grade Recovery Potion. I had the path memorized.
I followed the familiar steps and purchased the potion. My hands were shaking so badly I could barely control them.
"You fucking idiot, Seungpil. This thing is insanely expensive. You know that, right? But I bought it to save you. Got it?"
I bit down on the cork stopper and yanked it out with my teeth. Then I cradled Seungpil's upper body and brought the bottle to his lips.
"Once you recover, you better know I'm going to work your ass off. Understand? You'll be uprooting every tree on this island. You hear me, you bastard?"
There was no time to worry about what would happen to the bullet still inside him once the wound closed. If I didn't get this down his throat right now, he would die. The feeling was overwhelming.
And the worse the premonition, the more likely it was to come true.
I had to make him drink it first, buy him even a little more time. After that, I could only pray the mysterious game system would also erase the bullet lodged inside him.
"Hey. Han Seungpil. Open your mouth properly. Don't spill any."
I tilted the bottle against his pale lips. But the red liquid simply pooled for a moment before trickling uselessly onto the ground.
"Swallow it. Swallow, damn it!"
Seungpil couldn't drink it. No…… Seungpil was already dead.
"Seungpil. Seungpil!"
He wouldn't open his eyes. He wasn't breathing. His heart had stopped. Every sign screamed that Seungpil was gone.
"O……oppa?"
At some point Seunghee had come closer. She stood with her hand over her mouth, staring down at us.
I turned Seungpil's body over again and poured the entire recovery potion directly into the gunshot wound. The blood washed away, but the hole refused to close.
Player Han Seungpil has died. Terminal ownership has been transferred to the partner.
The familiar system message rang out from Seungpil's pocket. Then the phone suddenly materialized in Seunghee's hand.
Han Seungpil, deceased. The system had driven the final nail into the coffin of his death.
"O-oppa? No, right? You're just messing with us again, aren't you?"
As if in direct answer to her question, Seungpil's body began to break apart and vanish. Just like the beasts I had killed. Like a game character disappearing after death.
Seungpil faded away like that.
"O-oppa? Oppa!"
Panicked, Seunghee rushed over and dropped to her knees beside him. She reached out, but her hand passed straight through his body as if he were a ghost. Seungpil's physical form no longer existed in this place.
"Ah…… Oppa, aah……!"
It was too unreal. An unreal death. But it was reality. Seungpil was dead.