The Scenery I Made
I shouldn't have done that.
I stood there, gazing at the scenery I had made. This was the overwhelming power that the protagonist of this world once possessed — a fist swung without a single brake had torn even the sky itself open. The [Baekya] guild tower had been reduced to dust, without so much as a trace left behind.
The shockwave had set off a colossal aftershock and tremors across the surrounding area, leaving vehicles overturned in every direction. Blood-soaked fragments of flesh caught the eye here and there. No one alive was visible — at least, not anywhere within my field of vision.
"......"
It was calmer than I'd imagined. Far calmer. I had worried. I had been anxious. And yet, for some reason, no thoughts came at all. I was so numb it was almost unsettling.
"Why is that?"
I threw the question at myself. I had gone to the protagonist's home, vomited my guts out in a wretched state, and turned back — and even the constant headache that had plagued me was gone now. Not a shred of emotion stirred, as if to ask why I hadn't done this from the very beginning. It was uncanny, almost.
"Well, whatever."
The things that had been weighing on me were gone. But there was something I needed to confirm. I set off, idly trampling the debris scattered around me. Even the wreckage offered no resistance — I simply crushed through it and moved on. And so, slowly sweeping my gaze across my surroundings, I headed toward the one place that felt cold.
"...So there you were."
Traces of frost lay pooled across the ground amid scattered shards of ice. He must have used his power in a desperate hurry. As expected of S-Class Rank 4. Even under the aftermath of the protagonist's full, unrestrained swing, the barrier had held its shape. He had clearly sensed the danger on instinct and defended with everything he had.
But.
"O-oppa... oppa...."
"Hck... khk...."
Yoon Sihyeon was dying. Blood poured from every opening in his body. Both his arms had been messily torn away, and he seemed incapable of even moving — all he could do was vomit up blood. Holding him in her arms was Yoon Sia, her soul long gone from her eyes.
Perhaps Sihyeon had shouldered the entire aftermath himself, because Sia looked remarkably unharmed.
"Y-you..."
The moment she sensed my presence, she turned a dead-eyed look on me. And within it, alongside the fear, a hatred aimed squarely at me began to take shape.
"Why... why would you...!"
"Ha."
I could feel it — the original story had well and truly twisted off course. That gaze should have been directed at Seo Yeram. And now that it had landed on me instead, the feeling was a strange one. Still, there were things I had to say.
"You shouldn't have."
"Ugh...!"
A woman as sharp as her would understand. The meaning behind my words.
"You...! You came to us...!!"
"So everything's my fault?"
[Baekya] competes with [Geobhwa]. Naturally, they would have wanted a meeting with me — a hunter who had abruptly declared his retirement. My basis for that was how I'd been welcomed the day I visited their guild tower: warmly, as though they'd been waiting all along. The guild master himself, personally receiving an outsider inside his own office. And not just any outsider — a hunter from a rival guild who had just announced his retirement, sitting down to negotiate with him. Anyone could have read the intent behind that. They had probably even sent people out combing the city for me.
"Before we stand here weighing who was right and who was wrong — if you were going to extend goodwill, you should have carried it through to the end. Then none of this would have happened."
Making an enemy of [Baekya] had never been part of my plan. But Yoon Sia had taken a dislike to me from the very start. Unlike in the original story.
"You must have suspected me. And to be absolutely certain before making your move, you pulled the Association in."
Every word I spoke flew at her like a knife between the ribs. Her reasoning wasn't wrong, to be fair. She'd only wanted to protect [Baekya], the precious guild she'd built with Sihyeon. But she had chosen the wrong method. She should have pressed the goodwill she'd been preparing quickly into my hands and sent me out the door. If she had then quietly passed my information along to the Association, at the very least the catastrophe before our eyes could have been avoided.
Of course, it wasn't as though she hadn't seen that possibility. The same went for Sihyeon. But with no complete information on the protagonist — on me — there was no way for them to grasp the situation I was actually in. That was all it took for misfortune to come knocking.
No one could have imagined it: that S-Class Rank 1 — that a hunter of South Korea, no less — would commit such carnage on the very soil they lived on. That failure of imagination was where everything fell apart. But Yoon Sia, it seemed, could not bring herself to admit it.
"All of this...! And you talk as though it's my fault...! You clearly have no idea — Hunter Cha Yujin just... just went on live broadcast and told everyone about you! The entire nation, the entire world! Everyone heard it! Everything that's happened is your fault! That's why you suddenly announced your retirement — because you were trying to run away!"
"...Is that so. Cha Yujin, was it?"
It was what I'd feared. But by now, it was hardly anything worth worrying over. I had crossed the line long ago. There was no turning any of it back.
The only reason I'd tried to slip out of this city and head for [Mugan] was that I had no wish to cause unnecessary casualties or complications. That had already failed. So what should I do now?
'I suppose there's nothing for it but to show them.'
So that no one would ever come hunting me again, or make themselves a bother. I had to brand it into the whole world's memory that pinning false accusations on me was a useless endeavor. After that, I could simply live somewhere quiet — [Mugan] or anywhere else.
'I am never going back to the Tower.'
As long as no new variables cropped up, the world could be spared the original story's fate — its swift descent into ruin through the Rift Gate catastrophe. For the world, for society, to run properly, people were necessary. Which meant I couldn't simply break and kill everything in my path. My emotions, by now, no longer wrestled with questions of morality; they weighed nothing but efficiency and practicality. My gaze, cold and settled, came to rest on Yoon Sia.
'Should I just kill her?'
It would become a nuisance if she came raging after me for revenge later on. I could picture it from the original story — how she had doggedly hurled herself at Seo Yeram, fighting at the protagonist's side.
'If she ever awakens as a hunter, she'll become a genuine headache.'
She was nothing but a powerless civilian for now. But Yoon Sia, the protagonist's companion in the original story, had possessed a properly game-breaking ability. Uproot the sprout before it ever blooms. Judged by pure efficiency, that was the obvious call.
"Nn....!"
As though she could read the thought straight out of my eyes, Yoon Sia bit down on her lip, gaze shaking with fear. But she quickly grasped that there was nowhere to run, and turned on me with a furious roar.
"Fine! Do it then! Kill me! I said kill me! You murderer! I'll become a vengeful spirit and curse you for the rest of your miserable life!"
"Suit yourself."
Childish words, though there was real venom in them. Naturally, they stirred nothing in me now. How should I kill her? Simply take her by the throat and snap it, perhaps. Even so, leaving at least the body behind seemed like a proper courtesy owed to a character — call it the sentiment of someone who had once been a devoted reader of the original.
"...Actually, no."
Come to think of it, a little excitement in the day-to-day wouldn't hurt. A woman devoting her entire life to obsessing over me, all in the name of revenge — somehow, that sounded almost enjoyable. My resolve to kill Yoon Sia cooled rapidly. And on reflection, collecting a companion from ten years in the future — starting right now — didn't seem like a bad arrangement at all. I leaned in until my face was inches from hers. She didn't flinch; she stared straight back into my eyes.
"Could you spend your whole life with your eyes fixed on me alone — devoted to nothing but your revenge? Do that, and I won't kill you here and now. What do you say?"
"W-what kind of lunatic nonsense is that...!"
"Someone as sharp as you should have caught my meaning. Or shall I give you a reason to?"
My gaze slid toward Yoon Sihyeon, who had yet to regain his senses. At that, Yoon Sia seized my collar and wrenched at it hard.
"Don't you touch my oppa—!!"
"Fine. I won't. From now on, you act alongside me. Having at least one person around to handle the tedious things on my behalf would be convenient in all sorts of ways, wouldn't it?"
"You... you son of a bitch...!"
"You're the one who provoked that son of a bitch, Sia. You might as well be an accomplice to this massacre. So you'll shoulder it together with me, won't you?"
"Don't you dare use my name so carelessly..! Ugh... nngh...!"
I didn't let her talk to the end. I simply hoisted her up. Yoon Sia looked as if she'd given up on resisting, but her eyes still bore into me like she would kill me on the spot if she could.
"Now, then. What to do with you."
Yoon Sihyeon was worth keeping alive. At the very least, he needed to serve as a useful hostage for Sia — and as a reason for her to go on living. His condition was grave enough that dying on the spot would have surprised no one, so treatment was urgent. And as it happened, a woman who specialized in healing hunters had just stepped outside and started running her mouth. Which meant that, at this very moment, she would be at Gwanghwamun Square.
'Somewhere near the Tower should be fine.'
As long as I didn't actually step inside, there would be no problem.
"Well. Lucky you."
Apparently, today was not the day Yoon Sihyeon was fated to die.
"Wh-what... what in the world just... happened...?"
Cha Yujin sat slumped on the ground, her mind a complete blank. She was not alone in that. What, exactly, had just occurred? The answer was needed immediately, and Gwanghwamun Square had been thrown into chaos.
What Cha Yujin had said was shocking enough on its own, but now sharp voices clashed back and forth all across the plaza as everyone scrambled to confirm what had just taken place.
"What's the situation at the scene!"
"What caused that sudden natural phenomenon?!"
"A building seems to have collapsed... over there — wasn't that where the [Baekya] guild tower used to stand...?"
"The clouds in the sky are torn apart! What on earth is happening around here?!"
"We have to reach the scene right now! Split into teams! Move!"
"W-what about this location, Team Leader?!"
"The scene is in total chaos! This is a broadcast emergency!"
"You think I don't know that?! Stop talking and move!"
The citizens were in just as much of a panic. All order had broken down entirely, and screams and curses erupted from every direction.
"H-how..."
Confronted with a sudden natural disaster of this scale, even Cha Yujin was at a loss. But if she failed to step up here, public opinion might well turn against her. She dusted herself off and rose to her feet.
"E-everyone...!"
And at the very moment she opened her mouth to calm the scene — BAM! Something came hurtling in from the sky.
"Waaah?!"
"R-run!"
Another enormous tremor rolled through the square. The shock of the fall boomed out across the area, sending a fresh cloud of dust billowing up all around.
"Ugh...!"
Forcefully stifling the cough clawing up her throat, Cha Yujin — who had been knocked to the ground yet again — strained to lift her head and look up. The shadow standing there tossed something down in front of her.
"W-what is that...?"
A person. A person drenched in blood, on the verge of death.
The instant she laid eyes on it — something that could have been a corpse at any second — voices reached her ears.
"Cough, cough!... Hurling my oppa around like garbage! You rotten bastard — you're worse than a beast!"
"Quiet. My self-control is in poor shape at the moment. You should count yourself lucky it's only this much."
A man's voice and a woman's voice, a pair. But the man's voice sounded far, far too familiar.
"Cha Yujin. Heal that man. Quickly."
"Y-you...?"
Mumyeong. S-Class Rank 1. The very man she had singled out, just moments ago, and framed as the cause of the failed raid was standing right before Cha Yujin's eyes.