Death Would Have Been Better
Death split his field of vision in two.
Stand there dazed and he was a dead man.
Baek Shin-hoo flung himself across the dirt, rolling hard. It was the wretched thrashing of a weakling clawing for one more breath—and that pathetic scramble was all it took for the chat to snap back to its usual self.
A blast tore the air apart, loud enough to rupture an eardrum. Where Baek Shin-hoo had been standing, a crater yawned as if a meteor had punched the earth.
He had not been standing there, though. In the sliver of a second before the explosion hit, he kicked off the ground with every last scrap of strength left in his body and launched himself skyward. Whatever fighting spirit still clung to him twisted his waist mid-leap, and a dagger flashed from his hand.
A covering shot, strictly speaking—something to buy a retreat. It was never going to land. Goat-jjang flicked her greatsword a few inches to the side and knocked the blade away with a ringing clash, then hurled the greatsword itself the way a woodsman throws an axe.
Holy shit… what kind of strength…
That enormous slab of steel carved the wind as it spun, and the end of its arc was exactly where Baek Shin-hoo was going to land. Midair, there was no twisting free, no dodge to make. That brute of a sword was going to split him in half—no, blow him apart entirely.
Venom flooded him to the roots of his hair. He locked eyes on Goat-jjang, nothing left in him but spite.
I'm dead anyway… fuck it. At least taking her head would let me rest easy.
He ripped every last dagger from his coat—four of them—and flung them with everything he had. Four streaks of light tore through the air like the wind itself. Without that giant sword in her hands, she wouldn't be able to stop these. He had no other way left to fight her.
"Fine! Fuck it, we die together!!"
It was hollow.
The crimson threads lying on the ground lifted their heads like snakes and snatched the daggers out of the sky, binding them up as neatly as knotted cord. Even his final strike, stopped as if it were nothing.
Fuck…. this is just cheating....
Baek Shin-hoo hit the earth and the explosion swallowed him whole. The shockwave rattled the ground as far as the onlookers' feet, thick as a bomb going off, and acrid dust rolled in so dense that no one could see an inch ahead. The people watching did not even breathe. They only stared.
A long time passed before the dust settled and Baek Shin-hoo came back into view.
"Haaah… hah…"
He was already a wreck, clutching one arm that hung in tatters, shredded as if something had torn it off him. That he was still upright on two legs had to count as a miracle.
The hunters watching from behind had nothing to say.
"Holy shit…. An S-rank getting wrecked like that? Is that even possible?"
"That bastard Baek Shin-hoo might be an asshole, but he's the best there is in a one-on-one, right?"
"That thing's practically final-boss-tier, isn't it?"
The murmuring had just begun to die down when a message appeared from Hyeolha Nojo, who had been watching in silence.
What was he saying?
Hold back?
"You're telling me to stop? Right now?"
Hold back?!
That guy tried to kill me and I'm supposed to hold back?! If I hadn't had the power, I'd be dead for sure! If people are going to live alongside each other, the least they can do is not cross that line—even if they can't actually help anyone!
And he's telling me to stop?
"I don't want to! He tried to kill me first!"
"Ugh…"
He flipped on me so fast all the fight just drained out. No—it just feels nasty! I mean…. actually killing someone, though….
Wait. Isn't Hyeolha Nojo a demonic cultivator? Why is he yanking my heart around like this, going back and forth?!
"Yes…"
"A what? A heart-demon?"
"Even so…"
"…"
What was he even talking about? It was like a Zen riddle. I couldn't make sense of any of it. Couldn't he just explain it in a way I could actually understand?
That was when Cheongi Gakju, who had been lurking the whole time, suddenly surfaced.
"The Charm-o Sword? As in… slaying the wicked?"
So that meant it used to belong to someone good?
Then why was the chat losing its mind?
In an instant, the noisy chat froze. For a long while, not a single message appeared.
Then Okhan Binghu spoke.
Watching everyone else argue sucked the energy right out of me.
"Please stop fighting. I'm not going to kill him."
Listening to all that had drained me dry. It wasn't even my own strength that won, was it? What was I supposed to do? Even my masters were worried.
I gathered my thoughts and looked over at Baek Shin-hoo. His legs were shaking so hard he looked ready to collapse, but he was still glaring. And yet… how to put it. It felt like he'd finally opened his eyes properly? That arrogant face from our first meeting was gone.
That should've knocked some sense into him.
I withdrew the Reversal Blood Sword's energy and gathered up my artifacts. Murmurs rose around me—fear, joy, admiration, doubt, all tangled together into something too awkward to speak into. With no clean way to wrap any of this up, I hopped on the Reversal Blood Sword and fled.
That day, the Hunter Gallery caught fire.
The server was so overloaded the board itself lagged. Every refresh dumped dozens of new posts. The common thread, of course, was Baek Shin-hoo's downfall.
(Baek Shin-hoo Full Fight Video.mp4)
First time I've ever seen an S-rank get demolished this badly.
Baek Shin-hoo chugged a potion and got hauled to the hospital.
That B-rank bastard who ambushed her from behind last time better thank his lucky stars. If he'd so much as touched a hair on Goat-jjang he'd have had his skull caved in that same day.
Watching her beat him with those blood-red eyes I soaked right through my pants.
The entire gallery was wallpapered with that day's fight. Videos uploaded by hunters who'd been on the scene—different viewpoints, different angles. People chewed through every clip, tore them apart, savored them, and bumped the best ones to recommended.
Meanwhile, one post's comment section in particular was going nuclear.
There were posts questioning Goat-jjang's existence too, but the prevailing current was resentment toward Baek Shin-hoo. All the bad karma he'd piled up over the years came bursting out at once, and the gallery dissolved into a chaotic blend of facts and fabrication.
The mood toward the NPC, though, stayed friendly. Maybe fondness outweighed the fear of that overwhelming power. The fact that she'd even let that mouthy bastard live? That she'd been handing out Tteokbap all this time? That she never struck first if you didn't touch her? That small-animal vibe that made her look unthreatening? A mix of all of it sent Goat-jjang's reputation soaring straight up.
But the gallery also grew a new unspoken rule.
(NPC photo.jpg)
If you see an NPC that looks like this, DO NOT touch them.
Read the Tteokbap notice below and follow the rules.
Ignore any posts uploaded by individuals outside of official notices.