The Aesthetics of the Finishing Blow
Beneath the warehouse, an absolutely overwhelming battle was raging. With every collision between blue aura and red aura, the old warehouse’s pillars snapped and its walls were ripped away like sheets of paper. It was a desperate, life-or-death struggle between two men who possessed knight-level power.
Peering down through a gap in the roof, Yoon Tae-oh and Rolls were both crushed by the sheer destructive force pouring out of the fight, barely able to draw breath. The clash of Aura Users had long since abandoned the bounds of common sense.
Fuck. Is this even fair?
A Souls-like game was already brutal enough; slap a romance-fantasy skin on it and these bastards became literal monsters. Every time a sword sliced through the air, a shockwave exploded outward and shards of debris stabbed into every surface. Rolls broke into a cold sweat and muttered,
“Crazy… Are those things even human?”
Even so, Tae-oh’s eyes remained locked on a single point: the precarious red heart floating above Raymon’s head.
Just a little longer. His stamina’s bottoming out.
Tae-oh studied the two monsters, calmly measuring the exact moment to deliver the decisive blow. Both Raymon and Carlo had already reached their limits. Consumed by rage and betrayal, they had lost all reason and were now trading blows aimed solely at each other’s vital points. The longer the fight dragged on, the more visibly their movements—pushing aura to the absolute limit—began to slow.
Clang!
Carlo’s red-aura-coated blade sank deep into Raymon’s collarbone. At the same instant, Raymon’s blue sword punched straight through Carlo’s shoulder.
“Kuaaagh!”
Both men spat blood and staggered backward, having dealt each other critical wounds. Raymon’s legs buckled; the blue haze that had wrapped his blade scattered uselessly into the air. His aura was completely spent. Carlo, too, clamped a hand over his gushing shoulder and dropped to one knee. Both were in a dying state, with no strength left to swing their swords again.
Now.
Before Rolls could stop him, Tae-oh hurled himself through the broken hole in the roof. A swift, hawk-like plunge from the darkness—every ounce of falling speed and body weight funneled into the tip of his blade in a perfect ambush.
“!!!”
By the time Raymon sensed the killing intent from above and looked up, it was already too late. With his aura exhausted, he had no way to dodge the lightning-fast strike.
Crunch!
Raymon twisted desperately, but Tae-oh’s sword drove straight through his chest and pinned him to the floor.
“Guh…!!”
Important individual hunted.
Status window updated.
Remaining opportunities: ❤︎❤︎❤︎❤︎❤︎
Nice!
After several deaths and meticulous manipulation, he had finally claimed this precious life. Tae-oh roared with silent triumph, but on the outside he wore the face of a desperate, loyal soldier as he yanked his sword free.
“Y-you—!”
Carlo, still on the ground with blood pouring from his shoulder, cried out in shock.
The strange new recruit from the 3rd Platoon. The bastard who should have been asleep in the barracks—how the hell had he appeared here and driven a blade through Raymon’s chest?
Tae-oh dropped to one knee before Carlo and shouted with practiced urgency.
“Commander! Are you all right?! During night watch I heard explosions coming from the warehouse, so I came running and saw Adjutant Raymon fighting you— I just—! Thank the gods I wasn’t too late!”
Watching from the roof, Rolls clutched his forehead in disbelief at Tae-oh’s shameless performance.
This crazy bastard…
There couldn’t possibly be a more brazen act in the world. Only moments ago the man had been lurking on the roof like a predator waiting for his chance; now he had slipped into the role of loyal subordinate without so much as a flicker of hesitation.
“Night… watch…?”
Carlo looked back and forth between Tae-oh and the fallen Raymon, utterly confused.
“Guh… haa…”
Raymon, chest still impaled, thrashed weakly on the floor, foaming at the mouth.
Huh? He’s still alive? I definitely got the heart.
Tae-oh pondered for half a second before reaching the obvious conclusion.
It’s a cutscene event.
Just like how defeating a boss in a game triggered a scripted scene. When Raymon spoke, Carlo staggered to his feet and approached his dying adjutant—the friend he had known his entire life, the man who had just tried to kill him.
“Raymon… What the hell happened to you…”
The dying man’s eyes turned toward Carlo. They burned with a toxic mixture of rage, resentment, and crushing emptiness.
“In the end… you chose your filthy ambition over friendship and love. I can’t forgive you, Carlo. I’ll curse you even after death.”
Carlo’s face twisted hideously.
“That’s… ridiculous…”
At his silence, Raymon coughed up more blood and let out a grotesque laugh.
“Haa… You idiot. Roselyn… cooperated with Valik for your sake.”
“What…?”
The single sentence stole the breath from Carlo’s lungs. Inside the warehouse, only the ragged breathing of a dying man remained, as if time itself had stopped.
“W-what are you saying? Roselyn became Valik’s hostage… for me?”
“When Valik planned to eliminate you for refusing to obey, Roselyn offered herself as his hostage to keep you alive. Because she loved you. And I… after learning the truth, became Valik’s dog so I could stay by your side and protect her.”
“Bullshit! You two were lovers from the start—!”
“Kk… kkkk… You still believed that? I turned her down ages ago.”
“Then why didn’t you say anything?!”
“How the hell was I supposed to understand a woman’s heart… heh…”
Tae-oh’s ears perked up at the unexpected revelation.
“The rumor that we were lovers… I started it after we came here. What do you think Valik would have done if he knew Roselyn was your woman?”
Wait, this is slightly different from what Lcheni dug up.
The information Lcheni had gathered claimed Raymon and Roselyn had promised their futures to each other, but even that had been a lie. The truth spilling from Raymon’s lips was shattering Carlo’s sanity.
A man who never understood a woman’s heart. A woman who willingly sacrificed herself to save the man she loved. The tragic melodrama Lcheni had relayed was nothing more than a catastrophe born from Carlo’s own misunderstanding and inferiority complex.
“We fell into hell to save you, yet you killed me with your own hands because you were blinded by suspicion… and in the end you abandoned even Roselyn. If I die, she’ll be assassinated… She may already be dead. Khhh… Live on in pain and misery, Carlo… I’ll go on ahead and wait for you with Roselyn…”
The light slowly faded from Raymon’s eyes.
“What—?!”
There was no time to waste. Carlo immediately ran toward Roselyn. Tae-oh and Rolls followed close behind.
“Ah… aah…”
Carlo collapsed over Roselyn’s corpse as though his bones had dissolved. The despair of having trampled on his lifelong friend’s sincerity and the woman he loved’s sacrifice with his own hands. The guilt that his own delusions had dragged the people most precious to him into ruin. It tore Carlo’s heart to shreds.
A beast-like wail tore from his throat.
“Uwaaaaaaaaaaaah!!!”
Tae-oh and Rolls watched the scene with uncomfortable expressions.
Man… the original story really was frustrating.
In the romance-fantasy novel it had been nothing more than a brief mention, but he never imagined such a backstory was hidden behind it. Only now did the reason for Carlo’s obsessive ambition finally make sense.
After a long time, Carlo rose from the floor, tears spent.
“Valiiiiik!! I will never… never forgive you… NEVER!!”
Carlo’s eyes had flipped with madness. He looked ready to charge straight at Valik that very instant. Tae-oh quickly stepped into his path.
“Where do you think you’re going?!”
Carlo’s voice rumbled like distant thunder.
“Move… If you stand in my way, I’ll cut you down too!”
But Tae-oh refused to budge.
This is the awakening event. What he needs right now is…
A quest item. Tae-oh finally pulled the ledger from his coat.
“Do you really think you can defeat Knight Commander Valik with brute force right now? Going like this is suicide!”
“Out of my way!! Then what the hell am I supposed to do?! I’ve lost the woman I loved and my friend! There’s no reason left for me to keep living!”
Carlo screamed like a madman. Tae-oh spoke with genuine weight.
“This isn’t your fault, Commander.”
Carlo’s gaze snapped toward him.
“What…?”
“Even if that idiot Raymon spouted all that nonsense while dying, we all know this wasn’t your fault! This is all because of Knight Commander Valik! Are you really going to let their deaths be in vain?!”
“……”
Reason began to return to Carlo’s eyes at Tae-oh’s words.
“If you leave Valik alone, there will be a second and third victim! As a commander of the kingdom, will you simply stand by and watch?!”
Carlo glared at Tae-oh as if he wanted to devour him.
“The way you’re talking… it sounds like you have a plan. You’d better. I have no patience left…!”
Only then did Tae-oh offer him the ledger.
“What is this…”
It was the complete record of the 7th District magic beast bio-experiments and Knight Commander Valik’s secret dealings. The truth that should have been buried forever with the annihilation of Tae-oh’s platoon—the very item Raymon had tried to use to frame him moments ago.
“The ledger was real.”
“What?!”
Tae-oh brushed the dust off the ledger and took one step closer to the stunned Carlo. Then, like a devil, he whispered softly into the man’s ear.
“It means Raymon truly betrayed you. That’s why he died spitting curses at you, his former friend.”
Of course it was a lie, but in Tae-oh’s mind there was no more effective method.
“Since you’ve already become a man blinded by ambition, why not climb even higher?”
Carlo’s body stiffened.
“W-what are you saying?”
“With this ledger, we can expose every last one of Valik’s crimes. Are you really satisfied with a mere border commander’s post? Don’t you want to rise up and make sure a tragedy like this never happens again?”
To Carlo, Tae-oh’s voice sounded like sweet temptation.
“Valik never intended to let you live anyway. You can tell just by the fact that he planted an assassin to kill Administrator Roselyn. But if you use this ledger to accuse Valik and become a hero of the kingdom, the story changes. He won’t be able to touch you so easily.”
Carlo’s vacant eyes turned toward Tae-oh. A cruel, venomous smile played on Tae-oh’s lips.
“I will open that path for you. At this point, Commander, you have nowhere left to retreat. Isn’t that right?”
A man who had learned the entire truth and fallen into the abyss. To someone crushed by guilt and unable to even breathe, Tae-oh was throwing a lifeline woven entirely of lies. The vicious sophistry claimed that the only way to avenge Roselyn and Raymon while covering his own sins was to strike down Valik, rise up, and become a hero.
Rolls, who had been listening to the entire exchange, covered his trembling mouth with a shaking hand.
He wasn’t a hidden master of martial prowess, nor was he some brilliant strategist. He was something far worse—an existence that trampled on others’ weaknesses and emotions without hesitation, using any means necessary to manufacture the outcome he desired.
Is this guy actually a demon…?
Inside the moonlit barracks, standing over the pool of Roselyn’s blood, Tae-oh extended his hand toward Carlo.
Well, a scenario of this level is a piece of cake.