Chapter 100
Chapter 100
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Translator: MadScientist
Chapter: -12
Chapter Title: Shattered Optimism
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Wishing for everything to always go smoothly is something only kids ignorant of reality can do.
That's why I'm saying this—I've just realized how childishly optimistic I've been lately, viewing the entire world through such naive lenses.
Looking back, ever since the world turned into this hellscape, hasn't there been one thing after another that didn't go perfectly?
I met the Headquarters Chief and managed to survive this long, crossed paths with Mun Woo-seok and peered into my own inner depths, and now I've even met this protagonist named Hyeok Tae-jun.
Even as everyone around me was losing their lives one by one, it felt like I'd been having a pretty decent time, all things considered.
In a situation like this, twisting every perception into something pessimistic was tough for someone with a relatively sound mind like me—practically impossible.
So, let me elaborate just a bit more on that—
"Aah, Jin-seong! Th-the Headquarters Chief!"
Hyeok Tae-jun's scream, thick with terror, rang out.
...Yeah, looks like it's time to face this situation squarely.
"B-blood... blood!"
The Headquarters Chief was dead.
The moment we escaped the restaurant, a flimsy little knife had been plunged into his chest.
Just like that—so simply, without achieving any grand purpose—he was gone.
The old man who'd been grinning ear to ear after acquiring the Paburum had been slain by a creature utterly out of place in this world: another human.
What a pathetic tragedy.
Every event should have its cause and effect, as it ought to.
But death doesn't come through some contrived twist of fate.
There had been cause and effect here, too.
It was just that the gap between them was so narrow, it tricked you into thinking it all happened in an instant.
And the one responsible was standing right in front of me.
"Hey, Jin-seong. Meeting like this again... it's kinda fun, huh?"
"...I never imagined you'd still be alive."
"Do-hyun died back then, and from the rumors, Se-jin bit the dust before all this chaos even kicked off. But me? I've got a pretty tenacious life!"
"..."
"Well, it was short, but since I go way back with Se-jin, I'll let you in on this: Horrifica has outposts far from here. One went under recently due to food shortages, but I managed to survive it."
"I figured as much."
Did I feel anger?
Only I could answer that.
But in the face of this sudden turn, my heart just couldn't reach that point.
It was utterly hollow.
A traitor grinning right in front of me, eyeing me with malicious glee, but no emotion cut through the numbness.
"Yoon Seo-yeon. I never dreamed not killing you that day would lead to all this."
On the day Do-hyun's head was torn off, Yoon Seo-yeon had slinked away unscathed, surviving to this moment through her cockroach-like tenacity—and carrying that loathsome plague with her.
"Ha... what a shame. If they hadn't caught on to my betrayal, I could've climbed all the way to Headquarters Chief in a few years. Though in a world like this, it wouldn't have mattered anyway."
"Why show up now? And why... kill the Headquarters Chief?"
"Well... even someone as tenacious as me has limits."
Yoon Seo-yeon lifted the hem of her tattered clothes slightly.
And there, festering like a curse, was a writhing mass.
It squirmed as if birthing new life, evoking the image of a woman heavy with child—but there was no miracle of life here.
Just a grotesque curse.
"I'll probably croak soon. I was fleeing a monster and stupidly brushed the sky just a bit?"
Yoon Seo-yeon laughed for a good while at whatever amused her, then suddenly twisted her face in agony.
"I'm not supposed to die like this... I'm meant to rise higher! That damned eye in the sky! It's looking down on me!"
Did I need to listen to any more of this meaningless babble?
Yoon Seo-yeon had been mad from the start, and now her madness was devouring her whole.
"...So I killed him. I could never stand that thing looking down on me from above. It's so empty, though—killing the Chief doesn't make me the Chief."
Just a power-hungry wretch, her greed even more repulsive than the Fine Dying Restaurant's owner.
"Oh! Running into you guys was pure coincidence. I happened to spot you and the Chief linking up with that Hyeok Tae-jun guy? Anyway, I was bored, so I followed. That's it."
That coincidence changed everything.
Just as we'd pinned our hopes on a plan with less than a 10% success rate, her chance encounter with us had triggered this disaster.
"I owe you one! If you hadn't gone into that weird tale and worn the Chief out, killing that monster in human skin would've been impossible."
About ten paces behind me, Hyeok Tae-jun's sobs echoed.
How could he grieve so deeply after knowing the man such a short time?
I walked slowly toward Yoon Seo-yeon as she rambled on.
The three men who'd clung to hope in a plan with odds worse than 10% were now down to two, and the deaths of those around me—deaths I'd never get used to—tore everything apart.
Yoon Seo-yeon didn't run.
She just stared at me.
Would killing Yoon Seo-yeon count as vengeance for the Chief?
Could offing a woman who was about to die anyway ever be enough?
But I had no choice—I had to kill her.
Even if it was feeble, it'd be the best revenge I could manage.
"My junior's gonna kill me, huh? Whatever, I don't care. Haha, maybe I'll get to see Se-jin again after all this time?"
At least make it as painful as possible.
I pulled the axe from my bag.
The blade that once gleamed brilliantly was now completely dull, but right now, that was perfect.
"Uh... that's kinda scary."
I just hoped Yoon Seo-yeon died trembling in maximum fear.
"Y'know... thinking about it, this'll be the first time I've swung a weapon at another person since coming to this world."
I raised my arm high.
Yoon Seo-yeon's gaze, following my shoulder, would surely catch the heft of the axe blade.
And in one explosive moment, my honed muscles brought it crashing down.
The axe aimed for Yoon Seo-yeon's right arm—the one that had gripped the cleaver stabbing the Chief.
"Aaagh!"
Yoon Seo-yeon couldn't hold back her scream, rolling on the ground in agony.
Blood sprayed, and the ragged cut from the blunt edge twitched grotesquely.
Right... legs next.
"Aah, aaagh! My leeeegs!"
How could she?
Unable to endure this level of pain, yet she'd revealed herself just to kill the Chief.
Come to think of it, she'd never have reached chief researcher without cutting corners.
Just a stupid woman.
"Hahaha... Jin-seong, you're really... urgh... pissed, huh."
Earlier, I'd asked myself if I was angry.
I couldn't answer then, but now it was clear.
I was furious.
The regret I'd felt at Do-hyun and the squad leader's deaths had twisted into rage this time.
She should've been dead from blood loss alone, but Yoon Seo-yeon clung to life.
Her half-monstrous body was staving off death.
I didn't want to see her breathe another moment.
I gripped the reward from my deathmatch with the Chief—his final struggle, really: the Paburum, the knife that severs tales.
This monster stemmed from the sky's tale, so I thrust the blade in indifferently.
Which tale had I cut away?
"Gaaah!"
Another scream erupted, but death didn't come.
Apparently, not an important one.
I stabbed another spot.
With a wail I'd never heard before, her eye melted away like wax.
Still not dead.
Again, I stabbed.
Her mouth vanished, silencing the screams.
Her left arm, ribs, tailbone, and countless other parts faded one by one, and then—
Yoon Seo-yeon's entire body began melting away slowly.
Finally, I'd found the right piece.
"Yoon Seo-yeon. If there's a next life, I'll curse you to never die—for eternity. Unlike now, where death is always near enough to flee toward."
I don't know if she heard me.
But by the time I finished speaking, her body had vanished without a trace.
I trudged toward where the Chief and Hyeok Tae-jun lay.
"Haha..."
I'd made one mistake.
"Ji-Jin-seong."
The Headquarters Chief wasn't dead yet.
His astonishing vitality was holding back the death summoned by the knife in his chest.
I'd thought he was at the absolute limit of human endurance, but he'd surpassed it.
"Headquarters Chief."
"Heh heh... what a hollow end. Still, I wanted to see that eye explode at least once..."
Hyeok Tae-jun had already spoken with him and now watched quietly.
"My incompetence again. If only I'd found Yoon Seo-yeon's hideout... I wouldn't have ended up like this."
The Chief breathed laboriously.
"Haha, when your time's up, you see all sorts. Why the tears, lad?"
Only then did I notice the tears streaming from my eyes.
"It's been... about three months traveling with you. In this apocalypse, three months is longer than you can imagine. It all started with saving one young man from death."
"Headquarters Chief..."
"I've worn that title too long."
In that moment, a spark lit in the Chief's eyes, filled only with death before.
"Ah... yes, now I can finally lay down all my burdens. Jin-seong, my name is Seo... Seo Kyung-sik. Someday... even if it's in the afterlife... call me that if we meet again."
With those words, the Headquarters Chief died.
Yet to the very end, he never voiced his wish to destroy the sky.
It was the true death of 'Headquarters Chief' Seo Kyung-sik, a man who shouldered every responsibility.
"Tae-jun."
"...Yeah."
"Let's go. Time to wipe out that eye."