Repay in Kind
Personally, I figured I'd suffered enough for one day.
What with getting bitten and slashed by a tiger that had no business being in the city, then heading to the apartment only to witness every kind of horror imaginable and take a knife for my troubles on top of it. Honestly, this was worse than the time I'd gotten mixed up with that orangutan bastard.
And now, as if I were some medieval manhunter, I was sitting here taking fire from a goddamn crossbow bolt. How the hell was I supposed to not lose my shit?
Even though the blood pouring from my neck had long since passed the lethal amount, I stood there perfectly fine staring them down, and the three criminal bastards muttered among themselves with looks of pure wonder.
"...Is that one of those? That weird goldfish kid we saw a few days ago."
"Seems like it. But that goldfish still hurt like hell when it bled, right? This bastard's taking it even further."
"Then isn't that even better? Hehehehe."
What the fuck are they yapping about? Goldfish?
Click—
One of them reloaded the crossbow with a creepy smile, aimed, and spoke.
"Like always, the first one to kill him owns him."
"Ah fuck, you cheap son of a—"
Thwip—
As the bolt flew, I swung the iron pipe and batted it clean away.
While one flinched in surprise with a twang, the other two lit up instead and kicked off the asphalt, charging straight in.
"That's more like it! This time at least it's not a pearl necklace on a pig!"
I ignored one of the weapons flying in from both sides and smashed the other with the pipe—only for a claw hammer to come flying straight at my solar plexus.
"I'll take that with thanks...?!"
Then suddenly a long, thin blade stabbed precisely into the back of his hand, and he scrambled back in a panic.
The blade immediately tracked toward the retreating guy's brow. Even flustered, he somehow crossed the hammer and his arm to try and block it.
But the blade's path twisted sharply, and a cold, clear voice rang out.
"Then that leaves the bottom open, doesn't it?"
Thud—!
Even though it was a living person and not a corpse—no, precisely because of the even more ferocious force—two holes punched through his solar plexus and gut almost simultaneously.
"...Guh."
"What the fuck is with that crazy bitch?!"
"The sword wasn't just for show?!"
With one of the hopeless idiots retiring in an instant, the two startled convicts hurriedly put distance between them and switched targets.
Bare-faced with no makeup, Chaeyeon glared at them murderously, pale as a corpse. They each aimed their crossbow and prepared to swing a baseball bat—
When I muttered with a crooked smile from beside her.
"Putting on quite the show."
The way they were beating their own drums was seriously annoying. They'd thrown the first punch at us while we were just walking down the street, and now they had the gall to look so serious. Disgusting as hell.
I stepped in front of Chaeyeon and walked over, raising the iron pipe.
Then I casually blocked the incoming bolt with my forearm, twisted my waist, and swung horizontally with all my might.
Whoooosh—!
At that reach and speed, the man flinched with no time to dodge and tried to raise the bat to block.
He should have dodged somehow at that ominous sound tearing through the air.
Crack—
No need for any flashy sound effect of something colliding.
The joints and bones in the arm holding the bat forcibly dislocated, and the balance of his upper and lower body collapsed like dominos.
Crash-thud-thud—!
He went flying with his dangling arm, tumbling several times across the asphalt.
When he finally stopped after slamming into the car they'd been hiding behind, he already looked like he'd been in a traffic accident.
"....."
The last one left was the man with the crossbow.
I pulled the bolt out of my forearm, and the alien red metal was coated even thicker with bloody frost, looking vicious.
I walked up to the guy hesitating with it, faced him, and said one thing.
"Stick out your neck. I'll stick it right back in the same spot."
"...Wh-what..."
Only then did he grasp the situation, his legs shaking like aspen leaves.
He finally lost his balance, plopped down on his ass, then scrambled backward like mad, muttering.
"Wh-what the hell are you guys."
"What do you think, you son of a bitch. Two good citizens who almost got ambushed."
I grabbed him by the collar as he fled on all fours without even trying to stand, stopping him cold.
And without waiting for him to open his mouth to babble more, I slammed the bolt right into the spot on his neck where it had hit me.
Crrrack—
Then the red frost that spread instantly across his skin covered his neck area, freezing his entire face along with the blood that had been about to gurgle out of his gaping mouth.
"I let the one in the forearm slide as a freebie. Grateful?"
Of course I didn't hear any thanks, but it didn't matter.
When I let go of the collar, his head hit the asphalt and cracked.
I left the broken bat and took the claw hammer along with the key drop of this haul—the crossbow and bolts.
While I was stuffing them into the bag, I turned at the sound of something being beaten and saw Chaeyeon stomping on the corpse, taking out her anger.
"...Im Chaeyeon. That's enough, come here."
"Aargh, this is really... damn it! Fine."
Frowning hard and huffing, she gave one last kick and said to me.
"You killed them way too cleanly! I should have made them suffer more. Habit from fighting zombies kicked in and I killed them before I even knew it, you know?"
"....."
If anyone else heard that, they'd be horrified and avoid her, but she said it casually.
But honestly I agreed with her, so I didn't particularly call her out.
Like she said, I only lived because it was me. I even wondered if I should have tortured them more.
Having watched me die and come back several times right next to her, Chaeyeon still couldn't calm down and was seething.
"Still, calm down a bit. If we'd missed them it'd be different, but we did finish them all off."
"How am I supposed to calm down? If Oppa were a normal person, you'd have died more than three times just today? And to people who only know how to throw the first punch and don't know a single technique!"
"....."
I didn't know any techniques either, but when she put it that way I had nothing to say.
But it's not like there was any method for it. I shrugged my shoulders lightly and said,
"What can you do. In this fucked-up world, crazy bastards are everywhere. It's not like you can pre-block attacks before they happen."
"That's exactly it. Pre-blocking!"
"...??"
She jerked her head up to look at me, strangely full of force.
"Make it so people know how amazing Oppa is without even having to pick a fight! Let them know in advance that if they mess with you, they're the ones who'll get fucked!"
"...What, should I carry a picket sign around?"
I muttered halfheartedly, and Chaeyeon shook her head seriously.
"Not that. There's one really effective method, you know. Building a force."
"You've watched too many movies."
What, filming New World? Force my ass.
I shook my head and opened my mouth.
"I'll handle that kind of thing myself, so you just focus on surviving. A kid who could die from one slip talking about forces."
"Tch. I know that too. I was just speaking from Oppa's perspective..."
"Let's just hurry back. I'm tired."
Mentally, not physically, of course. After getting mixed up with so many crazy bastards, I needed some healing myself.
By shopping in the afterlife, that is.
Before entering the main building, I cleaned up a few corpses loitering around, and only then could I finally rest easy.
Through the water supply connected to the clean reservoir in the mountains, I showered freely, washed my hair, changed into clean clothes, and flopped onto the sofa with a towel on my head when Yejin came scurrying over.
"Here, Oppa. The banana milk you got two days ago."
"Oh, yeah. Thanks..."
I took the paper cup filled neatly and was about to down it in one shot when I paused at the hot feeling, and after swallowing a mouthful I almost spat it out.
Not that it tasted bad—more that I was startled by the completely unexpected temperature.
After barely gulping down the steaming hot liquid, I asked,
"...What kind of combination is hot banana milk."
"Huh, you don't like it? Since you've been wandering outside in the middle of winter, I thought you'd like it, so I asked Soeun for a favor."
What I wanted was banana milk that had been stored for two days in the freezer-like cold outside, cold as could be.
I stared at the milk with hollow eyes, then at Yejin's sparkling eyes, and eventually drank it without showing anything.
Just in case, I looked toward Chaeyeon, and unlike me she finished the remaining milk with a perfectly natural expression, then said something to Soeun.
"Mm. The temperature's just right. You could be a barista."
"...Even if I get that kind of praise from you, it only sounds like sarcasm, you know?"
Soeun glared at Chaeyeon once, carefully cooling her heated hands while glancing at me.
At that look that seemed to ask how it tasted, I eventually nodded and opened my mouth.
"I-it's good. Mixing it with coffee might taste even better."
"Really?"
Watching the color return to Soeun's face, I fumbled open the packet of mix coffee that Yejin really handed me.
Since it came to this, banana latte it is.
...Slurp, I want some too. The foods of this world all look so delicious.
From the laptop next to the sofa, the crow's voice came, swallowing saliva at the steam and aroma rising from the paper cup.