The Woman Who Lost Everything
The moment I saw the woman who looked exactly like a mother, I felt a slight shock.
The last time I’d seen her was only two or three days ago at most. In that short span, she had become unbelievably haggard. Her eyes were sunken and hollow, her cheeks gaunt. Her hair looked dry and brittle, and whether it was my imagination or not, her back seemed bent. Was this what they meant by a deathly pallor hanging over someone’s face? She literally looked like she could drop dead at any second.
She and I stood facing each other at a careful distance. Was this the first time we were actually looking each other in the eye? Could she even see anything? There was no light in her eyes at all.
“……I’m sorry. I wanted to… return this.”
She pulled something out from within her arms. It was an object wrapped in dirty cloth. When she unwrapped it, a familiar healing potion appeared. It was probably the one she had taken from me. After her son died before she could even use it, she must have brought the leftover.
“……And your son?”
I already knew, but she didn’t know that I knew. So I had to ask, at least for appearances’ sake.
She moved her cracked lips with difficulty and barely managed to speak.
“……He’s… dead.”
Her voice was as dry and raspy as desert sand. Exhausted and completely parched.
“I’m sorry for your loss.”
There was nothing else I could say. What words could you possibly offer a mother who had lost her son?
“Kh……”
The woman swallowed hard, forcing back the tears that threatened to burst out. She sniffled once, then set the potion down on the ground.
“I’ll… just leave this here and go.”
It was the same way I had given it to her before.
Now then, what should I do?
Anyway, the potion only lasted seven days. Even if I took it back, the chances I’d ever use it were slim. In that case, wouldn’t it be better to just let her have it?
“No. You don’t have to return it. I already gave it to you.”
More than anything, it felt dirty. An item stained with a mother’s grief over losing her son? If I left it in the base, I’d probably think about it every time I saw it.
“Please use it yourself. You don’t look very healthy.”
“No, but……”
She tried to return it. I tried to refuse. As we kept passing it back and forth—
Ding♪
“Ha.”
What now?
Sudden Mission Activated!
Perfect opportunity to resurrect your dead partner!
It was a cheerful voice message that almost seemed to mock human death. The system had confirmed it. So her partner really was dead. I still didn’t know if it was her son, though.
But what did “perfect opportunity” mean? Did it mean a chance to earn coins since you needed them to revive a partner?
My question was answered immediately.
Kill survivor Kang Changjae and his partner’s group!
Reward: 1,000 coins per target player and their partner, plus all coins currently held by the targets.
Time Limit: 10 minutes.
The system had precisely designated me and my partner. It told her to kill us.
“Ha. Hahaha.”
A dry laugh was all that came out.
So this is how you want to play it.
I just took a solid hit. This was definitely unexpected.
“Heh. A thousand coins per person? What an honor. You’re pricing me pretty high.”
I was already pointing the tip of my spear at the woman.
She was someone I had once thought might become an ally. But of course things wouldn’t go that smoothly. I had momentarily forgotten the malice of this island.
“What are you doing? Is that spear next to you just for decoration?”
The woman stared at me with vacant eyes. They looked completely soulless. It was similar to the eyes Seunghee had after I’d fucked her senseless and she’d completely lost it. But the woman before me had none of Seunghee’s sensuality. If anything, looking at her felt eerie, like staring at a corpse.
“……”
The woman muttered something. What was it? Had she gone mad? Or was this some kind of trap to lower my guard?
She staggered, her body swaying slightly, then collapsed to the ground with a thud.
“……What the hell? What are you planning?”
Her incomprehensible behavior made me frown involuntarily. Still, I didn’t let my guard down. There was no telling what she might do. I stayed ready to pull the pistol from inside my coat at any moment.
But the woman did something completely unexpected.
“I don’t… want this anymore…… Ah… Aaaaah……”
Still on her knees, she bent forward and suddenly began to wail.
“Aaaaah……”
Yes. Wail was the only word for it. The sound wasn’t particularly loud, but there was no other way to describe it. It was a horrible noise, like metal scraping. The woman had completely lost her mind, abandoning everything as she cried out.
“Aaa——”
Her hoarse voice soon became so faint it was barely audible. It was a silent lament. No sound came out, yet it still scraped at my eardrums in the most unpleasant way.
I stood there stupidly, spear still aimed at her, unsure what to do. That was when I sensed a presence behind me.
“Please stay inside.”
The sound of the base door opening reached my ears. I quickly turned my head and saw Mother coming out.
“Mother.”
“It’s okay.”
“No, it’s not.”
I tried to stop her again and again, but Mother slowly walked toward us. Then she gently placed her hand on my arm—the one holding the spear. Her hand was warm.
“It’s okay.”
The tension drained from my arm in an instant. Only then did I realize I had been gripping the spear so tightly that my hand hurt.
“Mom.”
“It’s fine. Leave it to Mom.”
Mother walked right past me and approached the woman. As if it were the most natural thing in the world. Even I couldn’t stop her. Right now, Mother was wrapped in an aura that felt untouchable.
……Wait a second. What am I doing, just standing here?
The opponent was a 190-centimeter giant, wasn’t she? And the mission to kill us was still active. Even if the woman’s strength was weaker than a man’s, if she went after Mother, she could probably kill her with her bare hands. No matter what Mother said, I had to stop this.
“It’s okay.”
As if to make my worries seem ridiculous, Mother approached the woman with surprising ease. My stomach churned like I was watching a child stick their hand into a lion’s cage.
“Send me… to Noah. Please kill me too… and send me to Noah.”
The woman’s words were hard to understand. Half of it was sobbing, the other half wailing, with actual speech only slipping through in bits and pieces. It sounded like she was mixing in English here and there too.
“We can bring him back.”
Mother crouched down in front of the prostrate woman and placed a hand on her shoulder. I stood right behind Mother, fidgeting anxiously, ready to react if the deranged woman suddenly attacked.
“Noah… Noah…!”
The woman grabbed both of Mother’s arms. Like she was clinging to a god. I was startled, but Mother remained perfectly calm.
“Let’s work together to bring Noah back to life.”
Mother’s tone was incredibly gentle, creating a cruelly stark contrast with the screaming woman. A mother who still had her son, and a mother who had lost hers. Was this the difference?
“Aah…… Aaaaah……”
Tears began streaming from the woman’s eyes. It was as if she had found a single ray of hope in the abyss of despair. And that hope was my mother.
“We’ll help you. So that you can save Noah.”
Those words were the finishing blow.
“Aang! Aaaang……!”
The large woman burst into tears like a child, clinging to Mother as if she never wanted to let go. It was heartbreakingly sorrowful. Mother simply held her in silence, comforting her without a word.
……It was an ending my brain could not comprehend.
*
“Let’s get you cleaned up first. You smell pretty bad.”
A little later, once the woman had calmed down somewhat, Mother said.
……Honestly, even I, standing a bit away, had noticed it. But to say it so bluntly.
“Sniffle…… I’m… sorry.”
The woman lowered her head in embarrassment.
“It’s fine. I know you haven’t been in any state to wash.”
Mother was thirty centimeters shorter, yet she seemed far more mature. For some reason, Mother felt especially impressive today. I’d probably feel intimidated standing in front of her too.
“There’s a bathroom inside the base, so you can wash there. Changjae.”
“Yes?”
“Prepare some new clothes, underwear, and toiletries for her. We’ll have to throw away everything she’s wearing.”
“Uh…… Yes.”
Mother spoke as if it were the most obvious thing in the world to throw away a stranger’s clothes. They had just met today—was it really okay to decide everything like that? The woman in question didn’t say a single word.
“Never mind. Give me your phone. Mom will buy them.”
Then she took my phone as well. Mother walked ahead toward the base while looking at the phone, and the woman naturally followed behind her. I stood there blankly watching their backs for a moment before picking up the trident the woman had left behind.
“It’s heavy.”
It had considerable weight. Most men probably couldn’t swing it easily. So she had been fighting with this thing. She really wasn’t an ordinary woman.
After gathering both the spear and the trident, I returned to the base as well.
Mother was treating the woman as if she had already become one of us, but honestly, I couldn’t follow the flow of events at all. Mother was too kind, too soft. That was why I at least had to stay sharp.
……Or was I the weird one here? Both of them were acting like this was completely normal, so maybe the one who found it strange was the strange one.
When I followed the two of them into the base, Seunghee came running over in a panic. It was only natural to be surprised when a stranger suddenly entered the base.
“Oppa, oppa, what’s going on?”
“I don’t know either.”
“Ehh?”
Even if you look at me with those eyes, I still don’t know. What am I supposed to do when I really don’t know?
“This is the bathroom. The toilet is right next to it. Do you want to use the toilet first?”
“Ah, no…… I mean, yes.”
This woman was also completely swept up by Mother. She had barged into someone else’s house without even greeting them and now stood there awkwardly.
“The toilet works the same as any other, so I don’t need to explain how to use it, right?”
“Ah, yes……”
Mother first pushed the woman into the bathroom. While she was inside, Seunghee and I approached Mother.
“Mom?”
We asked for an explanation. Mother simply gave us an ambiguous smile.