Chapter 6. Level Up
Chapter 6. Level Up
"...So-hee-ya?"
There was no answer.
"So-hee-ya... Yoon So-hee...! Wake up... I said wake up...!! Don't play games, please...!!!"
No matter how much I shook her to wake her, no matter how much I screamed until my throat went hoarse, So-hee no longer gave me any answer.
In an instant, all the noise in the world evaporated like magic.
The roaring sound of the burning flames, the shouts of the rioters cutting through the night air, the roars of the monsters heard from afar—everything vanished like dust.
All that remained was a small handful of warmth, growing cold in my hands.
"Why... why on earth..."
Just then, the conversation of men giggling in the distance pierced through my eardrums.
Even with my poor Japanese skills, there were words that struck me with bizarre clarity.
"Hontou ni! @#$( Level up $@!&"
'Really... Level up... Level up...?'
The moment I realized the reason for their actions, a shock that turned my brain inside out washed over me.
If you kill a person, your system level goes up.
Those perpetrators with human faces but beastly hearts, they had stabbed So-hee in the chest just to raise those damn game-like numbers... just for such a trivial reason.
'These bastards, so that's why... that's why they... So-hee... just for a reason like that...'
Snap—
Somewhere in my head, a string that had been pulled taut for my entire life under the names of reason and socialization snapped.
And into that empty space, something terribly cold and bright blue poured in like a waterfall.
I couldn't distinguish if this was sadness, wild rage, or if my brain had completely broken and I had gone insane.
Because I didn't have a shred of reason left to make such a normal judgment.
I just didn't want to hold back anymore.
Meeting So-hee, living ordinarily, moderately, without standing out.
It felt like everything I had suppressed inside me was bursting out all at once, starting from this moment.
My fingertips were tingling, and my whole body shuddered as if my very marrow was burning.
I slowly lifted my head.
For the first time, the color drained from the faces of the bastards who had been approaching me while mocking me, and bewilderment flashed across them.
It was because they witnessed the intense, bright blue afterglow starting to erupt from my limbs, as if it would swallow the darkness.
At the sight of the blue electric current wrapping around my body and bursting out, even I felt fear rising from deep within.
Someone stepped back in shock, and someone else urgently raised their weapon and screamed.
Was it a scream to kill, or a dying gasp to run away?
It didn't matter either way.
Because it was already too late.
Because for you, for me, and for this world, it was all too late to turn back.
Crackle-crack-crack—!!
Explosive Electric Shock tore through my skin and burst out.
The pathetic sparks that had been nothing more than static electricity just a few minutes ago had now become a massive Thunder Dragon, wrapping around my entire body as if to incinerate the earth itself.
I couldn't control it.
No, I didn't want to control it.
Ecstasy. What filled the place where fear had completely faded was a terribly ecstatic and cruel 'ecstasy'.
Revenge. The blind ecstasy of being able to tear apart with my own hands the enemies of So-hee, who had grown cold in my arms.
And the cruel regret of why I hadn't awakened this power a little sooner.
All those contradictory emotions.
I just poured them out.
Rumble— Bang—!!!
A terrifying, bright blue lightning that seemed to blind and deafen filled the vacant lot and burst out in all directions.
I don't remember much about what happened after that.
It feels like I heard ear-piercing screams mixed with the sound of flesh bursting from all sides.
It also feels like the disgusting stench of burning protein stung my nose.
But none of those sensations reached my mind.
There was only a blind impulse to vomit all of this terrifyingly bluish energy, which was boiling inside my body like an explosion, onto the heads of those bastards who were worse than beasts.
What was engraved in my memory were only the remnants of the emotions that had caused a nuclear explosion inside me.
Anger, frustration, resentment, regret, and endless self-reproach.
In this vortex of maddening insanity, I finally realized.
That the 'ordinary life' I had craved so much was not what I wanted, but was only valuable because So-hee was by my side.
Once the only treasure I wanted to protect, the one I had to protect, was gone, the monster inside me that I had suppressed and endured with the pretense of socialization fully awakened.
When I came to my senses, there was no one left alive in the vacant lot.
The cement under my feet was scorched black by the high-voltage current and was emitting smoke.
Cruel blue sparks were still crackling and flickering ominously at my fingertips.
The stench and fishy smell of burnt corpses vibrating everywhere.
I didn't bother to register what that meant in my mind.
The vacant lot was quiet as a lie. Screams, signs of life, traces of humans—all had evaporated.
Even the shadows that had been flickering at the corner of the alley had disappeared at some point.
As if everything in this area had witnessed the supernatural slaughter that had just taken place here and was holding its breath.
It felt like I had been abandoned in the world all alone.
...No. Now I was truly alone.
[ Your level has increased. ]
[ Your level has increased. ]
[ Your level has increased. ]
[ Your level has...
Over my empty vision, the system's level-up notification windows repeatedly appeared and disappeared indifferently.
As if mocking and ridiculing my miserable situation.
So-hee was dead.
My world had just completely ended a moment ago.
Yet, just because a few numbers went up, this damn system was kindly setting off celebratory fireworks.
As if saying 'Well done,' or 'You have become great by slaughtering humans.'
It felt like it was whispering that.
"Aaaaaaargh!!!!"
I spat out my blood-curdling resentment and turned off all the notification windows.
I didn't want to see a single letter of those ugly notification windows ever again.
I lifted my head and looked up at the sky.
The somehow hazy, three-colored aurora was still flickering beautifully and brilliantly, pretending not to know about the tragedy on the ground.
Even on a night when people were dying and turning into lumps of meat under my feet, even on this doomsday when the world was going crazy, that sky was cruelly beautiful.
That indifference felt chillingly harsh.
"Hic... ugh..."
I sat down again in front of So-hee's cold corpse.
I hugged her small body, which was helplessly growing cold, until my chest felt like it would burst.
I couldn't even remember how many years it had been since I had shed tears.
It was a strange thing.
My emotions, which had been so hard to show when she was alive, were surging up like a dam bursting only after she had disappeared forever.
My desperate emotions, which So-hee had wanted to see so much, were tragically completed only in front of her corpse.
That night, something very cold and hard took root in the center of my chest.
A knot too sharp and arrogant to be called sadness. It was a long time later that I realized what it was.
I just wanted to live an ordinary life.
Without standing out, without being conspicuous, earning as much as others, living as much as others, just holding onto this one small, simple happiness would have been enough.
The world wouldn't even tolerate that trivial ordinariness and eventually tore it from my hands.
Pushing this absurd disaster upon me, without any justifiable reason.
If I could at least blame something clear, it wouldn't have been this unfair.
...No. The target to pour my hatred into was clear.
Those pieces of trash that had turned into charcoal under my feet just now, and this crazy world. All of it.
I carefully pushed the Sisa Doll, which I was holding in my hand and was now soaked in blood and sticky, deep into my pocket.
And I carefully picked up So-hee in my arms.
She was light as a feather.
I couldn't even protect one person, someone so small and light.
I slowly stood up.
I looked down at the debris rolling at my feet with numbness.
I didn't feel any emotion anymore.
There was no guilt for having slaughtered them, nor any relief for having taken revenge.
Just... nothing.
However, looking at the traces of that slaughter, I made one single vow.
That I would never again be a pushover, have things taken from me, and shed tears.
If someone tries to take what's mine, I will take their breath away first.
I will destroy them first before I get hurt.
That was the only rule I would live by in this world from now on.
'Never, never again... will I lose...'
With So-hee in my arms, I walked toward a place where deeper darkness lurked.
I didn't know where I should head, or what my ultimate destination was.
Because a home for me to return to in this broken world no longer existed.
Even so, my feet moved.
Because I couldn't leave this small body, this precious warmth, abandoned on such a filthy street.
Even if I couldn't take her to the land of Korea as I had promised....
It was the moment when the breath of the weak human named 'Ji-han Seo' was completely cut off, and something entirely different opened its eyes on top of that corpse.
Something that would later be called the 'Slaughterer' with fear in this cruel island nation.