The Taste Is Rather Poor

KRRRAAAAAAGH!!!

The tiger roared.

"Kh—!"

The Twelfth Apostle swung both hands at the tiger bearing down on him. Light gathered at the tips of all ten fingers and lanced outward like the beams of a mirror ball.

The rays punched holes clean through the tiger, and blood poured free, but he paid them no mind. He only raised his claws.

"Tch!"

The Twelfth Apostle crossed his arms. A beast's forepaw crashed into limbs as thin as spaghetti.

THUD!

The impact drove the Twelfth Apostle into the ground. He lay spread-eagled, killing intent leaking off him in a steady stream.

"A damned human, of all things!"

He dragged his arms free and shoved himself upright. Stone dust pattered down around him.

Tat! Tat! Tat!

The tiger did not charge straight in. He kicked off the paintings floating in the air and flickered from one to the next—a dazzling three-dimensional dance.

"Those damned paintings are real!"

Strange things, tough and springy. He had tried to be rid of them, but they would not vanish, and the mad paintings kept making more of themselves without end.

The Twelfth Apostle had liked this space. A bizarre place, steeped in an alien, storybook landscape—an ideal haven that fit his heart exactly. The paintings had been to his taste as well, and if he could slaughter the intruders here in spectacular fashion, there would have been no finer thing to boast of.

But the moment the enemy began to use the space better than he did, the pleasure curdled. The paintings were nothing more and nothing less than tiresome obstacles, and he hated that.

By any reasonable measure, shouldn't a fairy be the one putting them to use? He was the smaller one. The nimbler one!

"Why did the First Apostle make a space like this!"

Once things stopped going his way, the Twelfth Apostle at last let a faint resentment toward the First Apostle take root. For an apostle it was high treason, the one crime he must never commit—and it was also proof of just how thoroughly he was being cornered.

Whoosh!

The sound of wind being cut reached him. The Twelfth Apostle shot upward, and a leg swept through the empty air beneath his feet.

"You—!"

He called the wind. An invisible blade turned on the human.

Pshuk!

A fountain of blood burst from the man's body. A fatal wound. A cruel smile hooked the corner of the Twelfth Apostle's mouth.

"How's the taste—!"

WHAM!

A fist soaked in blood smashed into his face. The stink of it stabbed up his nose, and the Twelfth Apostle was flung like a ball, crashing into a painting. The rebound spat him back out. He struck another painting, and then another, and it did not stop.

"Uwaaaaaaagh!!!"

His insides—his insides were spinning!

My eyes are whirling!

In that interval, Hwang Seokgu and Captain Kid stole a little room to breathe.

"You holding up?"

"Cough—! No."

Captain Kid was barely upright on two legs. Blood ran without pause from skin the wind-blades had flayed open. Anyone who saw him would have thought he'd been upended in a bucket of red paint.

"Hold a little longer. You can't go down."

Hwang Seokgu was in no fine state himself. Torn wounds and punctures beyond counting covered him, and his eyes—injured, perhaps—would not even open properly.

"Cough. I can't fall. The strongest is at my back. How could I fall?"

"Good. Hold with that spirit."

Hwang Seokgu steadied him, then tore the clothes from his own body and bound Captain Kid's bleeding.

"Agh! Bind it like that and the blood won't circulate."

"Don't just say it. Show me. You're a doctor, aren't you?"

"You're saying that in front of the patient?"

"If you've got a complaint, open your eyes properly. Your focus is swimming."

Tap. Tap.

Hwang Seokgu patted his cheeks.

"Cough. If only Captain Earth were beside me... I'd win this easily, but of all things, a superpower..."

"Yes, yes. Save the what-ifs for later."

He cinched the cloth tight. Set against wounds like these, it was scarcely more than a gesture—but better than nothing, wasn't it?

"Get your head straight about living."

"I ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠will not die."

Captain Kid dragged in a breath, and the light came back into his eyes.

"Same goes for me."

Hwang Seokgu answered that resolve with a smile.

"Are you all right, Chairman?"

"Better than you. This body's a tiger, isn't it?"

His regeneration had surpassed anything human long ago. That was why he could still charge in head-on after soaking up the Twelfth Apostle's attacks without a break.

"Good. Let's see it through to the end."

"Have you got a plan?"

"We tear the wings off."

"I like it."

The two heroes were ruins. The blood they had spilled ran like a river, and their bodies would not have looked out of place if someone had declared them corpses. That they were standing at all was a miracle—the last flare of a dying light.

The villain, by comparison, had taken no harm worth the name. Dozens of attacks between the two of them, and he had come away with a scratch or two.

If it went on like this, the heroes' defeat was certain. The wise thing would have been for each man to look to his own escape and run. No one would have blamed either of them.

They didn't.

They could have fled, and they set that aside, because they were heroes.

The strongest hero's right hand had already diagnosed himself: blood loss and stamina burned past the point of return, as good as dead. The strongest man on the peninsula knew holes had been opened through his throat and lungs, and that he would drop before long. Each of their lives was nothing but a candle burning down.

They wanted to howl with the pain, and they did not let a hint of it show. A smile at the mouth. Hope in the eyes. Footsteps planted firm. Chests held square. To carry confidence in the ribs and walk forward—that was a hero. It was the mission the two of them had accepted, and a responsibility they would never take back.

This battlefield sat lower than the others. The lowest seat among the apostles, and the lowest seats of the subjugation force. Call it a fight between the weakest, and you would not be wrong.

But in ferocity it would not fall short of any of them. No—it would surpass them. Because here were heroes who kept walking past their limits even while death caught at their heels.

"How dare you! Making a bouncy ball out of me!"

KWOOOOOOH!!!

It sounded like a dragon's roar. With a body no bigger than a palm, he was drawing a dragon into the air.

"I know a good restaurant. Food that'll knock you flat."

"What kind of restaurant?"

"A sundae house. Blood sausage. The innards are unreal. One shot of soju with the spicy dipping sauce—khhh."

"I'm sorry, but please adjust that for an American palate."

"Grilled beef intestines, then? Chicken feet aren't bad either..."

"...Let's just do pork belly."

"Ahem. You come to Korea, you eat traditional Korean food."

"Since when is that traditional food? Don't go rewriting it however you please!"

"Enough people eat it, that's tradition. Tsk, tsk."

The storm was closing in, and the heroes were perfectly at ease.

Had they accepted death? Or had terror driven them out of their minds? It didn't matter which.

"Die!"

They did what they had come to do.

KWA-KWA-KWA-KWA!!!

"We live through this, and I'll have to crack open the ginseng liquor I've been steeping."

"Come visit the United States. I'll have a wine waiting that'll ruin you for anything else."

With that last exchange, they broke into a run.

The Twelfth Apostle sneered at them—worse than moths throwing themselves at a flame.

"Kyahaha!!! Come on and die, you lunatics!"

They couldn't be allowed to die like this. Humans had to suffer more. If the trash that had burned his entire hometown to ash were permitted ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠a comfortable death, he would never sleep again.

"Not a chance!"

The dragon's storm ground the two of them down. The Twelfth Apostle tuned it with exquisite care, so that they would not quite die.

Slash! Slash!

So long as they stayed alive, nothing else mattered.

"Ghhhhk!"

Captain Kid convulsed as his right arm was torn to ribbons.

"Kraaaaaaah!!!"

The arm came off entirely. He screamed as ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠if to split the sky.

"Hurts, doesn't it! Keep hurting!"

And what would the other one's scream sound like?

The wind was too fierce. The Twelfth Apostle's body shook in it, and it raked his eyes until he could hardly see ahead. So he didn't know. There was only one of them inside the storm.

He knew better, and still he fell for it again.

"How many times are you going to fall for the same trick?"

"Huh?"

A tiger's roar rose at his back.

"Since when—!"

Two hands closed around the Twelfth Apostle.

"Caught you at last. You little brat."

"A half-dead little bastard!"

SHRRRRRIP!!!

A gale tore across the Twelfth Apostle's skin. Hwang Seokgu's hands split as if ripped in half.

"Wh-what?! It won't come off?!"

"Lucky it's wind. Some other power, and I don't know if I'd have held..."

Hwang Seokgu laughed, perfectly calm.

"Then—!"

"Whoops."

Everything around the Twelfth Apostle went black at once, and his thoughts stopped cold.

Thup.

Something sticky touched his cheek.

"What is this."

Lick.

A chill crawled through him. Something had just brushed past his head. Wet. Slimy.

"...A tongue?"

"Grrrr!"

Hot breath snorted out of the dark, as if to tell him he had the right answer.

"W-wait a second, what are you trying to—"

Pressure closed in from both sides of his head. And not only that—he felt his body being wrenched, twisted into place. The Twelfth Apostle had no trouble guessing what came next.

"Shit! What the hell are you doiiiiing!!!"

A cat with no power at all—how dare you!!!

He thrashed. He poured out every scrap of strength he had, trying to tear free, and wherever he was jammed, he shredded it to rags.

I can't?!

The pressure only grew.

No—it's fine! Their attacks didn't work! This will be useless too, in the end!

He was sure of it. His body was ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠sturdy. Something like this would never wound him.

But there was one point he had mistaken.

A tiger's chief weapon is not its claws, and not its forepaws. It is bite force—and of every kind of bite, the force driven through the molars is a tiger's most lethal weapon. The Twelfth Apostle was being pressed onto those very molars.

They were the molars of a great tiger. They were the molars of the peninsula. Not a thing a mere villain could withstand.

"Go on, try it! I don't have a single problem!"

He shouted it, full of bravado. He should have thrashed harder. Then he might have lived.

"You—"

CRUNCH.

Snap!

The jaws shut.

Chew. Chew.

A body slumped to the ground.

"Captain Kid... you alive...?"

"............"

"Hah..."

"I'm sorry..."

And so the fight ended.

It was a fight that left no one alive.

Step.