Cruelty
“That’s a story I can’t quite wrap my head around.”
Nakamura assumed that Shin Jin-pae was mocking him. Yeodre had killed hundreds of people? Not in Elynar, but back in their original world? Nakamura wasn’t from the same Earth as Shin Jin-pae or the Chairman, but he knew one thing for certain: in any world, culture and common sense were almost always identical.
And yet, hundreds? What had the police been doing all that time? If something of that magnitude had occurred, could Drae have lived a normal life afterward? Absolutely not. A society governed by law wasn’t that lenient. And if Shin Jin-pae’s story were true, the power they wielded was extraordinary. What had they been doing until their successors were taken down by a mere high school student?
It was clear that his superior and the ‘Chairman’ felt a certain kind of fear toward Drae. But he still thought this talk had to be a joke. Above all else...
“Above all, if he were truly as cruel and powerful as you say—enough to kill hundreds—how are you and the Chairman still alive?”
If he were Yeodre, he wouldn’t have let Shin Jin-pae or the Chairman live, regardless of anyone else. At that, Shin Jin-pae shook with laughter, a wheezing sound escaping his throat.
“Are you being serious, Nakamura? Or do you know the answer and are just choosing to look away?”
“What do you...”
“Why on earth would I fear him? Isn’t it because I know I’d die if I ever met him?”
“......”
“If you’re asking why we’re still here, the answer is simple. We ran. And it wasn’t because we had the power to escape. If he had truly intended to kill us, we would have been dead long ago.”
He claimed that the only reason they were still breathing was entirely due to Yeodre’s whim.
“Then doesn’t that mean there’s a weak point in his heart we can exploit?”
“Exploit? A point?”
“Yes. In the end, his heart softened, and he couldn’t bring himself to kill you...”
“Ahahahaha!”
A roar of laughter. Nakamura was left speechless.
“Heart softened? That’s not it.”
Shin Jin-pae bowed his head as if in self-mockery.
“We were only able to escape by chance, while he was busy pondering how he could torment us even more.”
“Still, that... that doesn’t make sense. You two are...”
Who were Shin Jin-pae and the Chairman? They were the supernovas who had appeared like comets in this bizarre Elynar, established their headquarters, and solidified their standing in the blink of an eye. That such people feared a single man?
“What exactly doesn’t make sense? Does it make sense that I and the Chairman would fear him without even having faced the threat of death?”
“......”
“Back then, I might have been a low-life thug, a pathetic bastard who lived by reading the room and cowering, but I wasn’t such a spineless coward that I’d tuck my tail just because I got hit a few times.”
Nakamura agreed with that. Shin Jin-pae was not a man to yield unless his life was on the line.
“But hundreds! That’s absurd! How can that make sense by any standard?”
It wasn’t just a ‘case.’ It was a slaughter that would go down in history.
“Ah, well, maybe it wasn’t hundreds.”
Watching Shin Jin-pae stroke his chin, Nakamura chuckled with a sense of relief.
“See? I don’t know what happened to you, but you must have overestimated your opponent and miscounted...”
“Hundreds is just the number I know of. Who knows how many more he killed behind the scenes?”
“......”
“Nine times out of ten, he killed more. Back then... ah, there’s no need to talk more about the past. I’ve already given you the message I needed to send.”
How many had he killed, and how? Pure curiosity piqued, but Shin Jin-pae seemed to have lost interest in discussing the past any further.
Instead, Shin Jin-pae smiled bitterly and said,
“More importantly, Nakamura. Haven’t you heard anything more from the Gold Taeyang clan?”
“......”
“Why? They’re those kinds of guys; they should have been doing something—‘training’ or ‘disciplining’ or whatever they call it. It’s been over an hour since they last checked in, hasn’t it?”
“Contact... is...”
“Don’t stall. We’re all in this together, why be like this?”
“......”
“If those Gold Taeyang idiots had just tried to beat Yeodre up under the guise of ‘training,’ maybe it would still be fine. But if those morons started running their mouths about the people around him... well.”
Fear clouded Shin Jin-pae’s eyes.
“I pray that’s not the case.”
Nakamura couldn’t answer. Just as Shin Jin-pae said, there had been no contact at all. It was even past the time for their regular report.
‘What is going on? Incompetent fools. I told them to report properly.’
Could it be that, as Shin Jin-pae suggested, something had happened to them? He wanted to contact them immediately to confirm, but with Shin Jin-pae—who had threatened to dispose of him—right in front of him, it was impossible.
‘What... what on earth is happening right now?’
The monstrous, distorted voice had completely reverted to Yeodre’s own.
‘Refreshing.’
‘The smell of blood. Normally, I should hate it. I even hated the smell of blood when I was cooking, but now, it’s good.’
‘It’s not like I’m starving for blood, nor am I some serial killer who needs to kill periodically to feel satisfied. Yet, one fact remains clear.’
‘I am not normal.’
‘That is the fact I know best.’
‘It’s true that I try to live normally, but that probably doesn’t matter.’
‘I always live with impulses. Impulses that would make social life difficult, like the urge to get uncontrollably angry at times.’
‘Even so, I don’t think I’m a psychopath.’
‘Psychopaths prioritize their own self-preservation above all else and cannot empathize with others, right?’
‘I empathize with others, and I feel anger and sadness properly. If a psychopath is someone who only pursues profit for their own preservation, then I’m not that kind of person.’
‘But, well. If the definition of a psychopath is someone who unleashes their desires without thinking about the consequences, then I suppose I am one.’
‘That was a long-winded way of saying it, but the conclusion is simple.’
‘I’ve held back a lot, and I’ve crossed the threshold I set for myself.’
‘There’s no need to hold back anymore.’
‘After all, it feels so refreshing and good.’
‘It feels like I’ve been liberated.’
Thud! Crack! Crunch! Splat! Snap!
From the blood-soaked face, it was no longer the sound of impact, but the sound of meat being minced. Suyeon had stopped trembling intermittently and now wasn’t moving at all.
“Su, Suyeon...?”
Shin Jin-pae muttered in disbelief. Only then did Drae drop Suyeon onto the floor.
“Haa...”
Drae sighed as if feeling refreshed, cracking his neck. The students in the class were trembling.
They had been preparing to film as Suyeon ordered, but the situation was beyond their imagination, and the excessive violence made their bodies refuse to move. Drae, who had passed by them, picked up a water bottle from a desk and poured it over Suyeon’s collapsed face.
“Ugh, ah...!”
“Suyeon...!”
Shin Jin-pae, who had been about to rush to Suyeon, hesitated when he saw Drae standing in front of him.
“What. Are you going to try to ‘sue’ me, Shin Jin-pae?”
“You, you...!”
“...Was that a dad joke? Sorry. My dad doesn’t have a sense of humor. I guess I take after him.”
He shrugged, looking at Shin Jin-pae, who was glaring at him with eyes full of hostility.
“Don’t worry. People don’t die from this much. Look. Even if it hurts, they’re still conscious, right?”
“......”
“The source for how much is needed to not die is a comic book.”
“You, you son of a... bitch...!!”
Shin Jin-pae couldn’t take it anymore. He was determined to kill the son of a bitch in front of him who treated the life of his most precious person like a toy.
......Wait.
Right now. My thoughts are strange...
“Reband!”
“!”
At Kaits’s call, Reband came to his senses.
“Keep your head straight. If you’re not careful, you’ll get swept away by these memories!!”
Kaits’s voice was unusually urgent. Just as he said, Reband had almost been swept away by the emotions of this memory. This often happened with extremely intense memories.
But for a powerhouse like Reband to experience this phenomenon... it was impossible unless he was viewing the memories of a god. Feeling goosebumps, Reband steeled his heart. From now on, the memories would likely proceed as if he were experiencing and feeling them himself. He had to try hard not to lose his sense of self.
‘No. Wait a minute.’
What would happen if he became assimilated with Yeodre right now? What was that guy thinking? He couldn’t tell. Reband felt a sense of unease and... fear. Yeodre, whom he had always thought of as a pushover, was starting to look like a different species.
That Yeodre said, as calm as could be,
“Jin-pae. Shin Jin-pae. Don’t glare at me so much.”
Drip. Drip.
Drae, having poured out all the water from the bottle, grinned.
“It makes me want to pluck your eyes out.”
Shin Jin-pae scanned his surroundings.
His gang members were mostly collapsed after being beaten, and Kang Gu-han looked to be in critical condition. Yes. Shin Jin-pae hadn’t noticed the entrails protruding from Kang Gu-han’s stomach, and he didn’t know that he was in a situation where every second counted.
Therefore, Shin Jin-pae devised the best method without considering Kang Gu-han’s life: subduing this guy right here. That was the best conclusion Shin Jin-pae could come up with.
“You guys! Are you just going to stand there! Then the weak point... Keuh-eok?!”
Something was shoved into his mouth. It was the water bottle Drae had picked up earlier. Following his broken teeth, the loose ones were pulled out and forced into his mouth. The water bottle inflicted terrible pain, and the overflowing blood gushed down his throat. Ignoring that, Drae shoved the bottle deeper and grinned.
“This bottle. What’s the material? Plastic?”
“Keuh-eok, uh-eok...”
“I have a question, Shin Jin-pae. Can a person eat this and digest it?”
“.....!”
“Come on. Say ah~”
Push. Push.
“Ugh! Ughhh! Ughhhhhh!”
While he was desperately trying to push away the mercilessly entering bottle, two of Shin Jin-pae’s gang members, who had been lying low, approached from behind.
‘Yes! Smash him!’
He had to kill this guy. He had judged him completely wrong. He thought he was a good person with a naive sense of justice, but he was a total lunatic.
The moment Shin Jin-pae’s gang members, trembling, raised their hands holding wooden clubs...
“Just swing it already. You’re going to let a fly land on it.”
By the time he thought he’d muttered that calmly, one guy was already flying away with his jaw dislocated, and Drae was approaching the other.
He picked up a mechanical pencil from a desk still standing nearby.
“What, you bastard. If you come closer...!”
Stab.
“......Ah?”
The lackey made a stupid sound as the pencil was driven into the center of his forehead. He didn’t even see the pencil buried halfway in before he collapsed with a thud.
“Kya, kyaaaaa!”
“Uwaaaaaaa!”
Murder. It was murder. A person had died.
“Ah, he’s not dead yet.”
Drae tilted his head, looking at his hands.
“People are surprisingly hard to kill.”
Just as he said, the guy with the pencil in his forehead was trembling and foaming at the mouth, but he was still alive.
“Wait a second, I’ll see you later. I have someone else to beat up first.”
Drae approached Shin Jin-pae. Glancing at him as he flinched and backed away, Drae... passed him by, grabbed the collapsed Kang Gu-han by the neck, and hoisted him up.
Only then did the students gasp as they saw the small red fragment protruding from his stomach.
What was this? They had only been told to film if he used violence, but what was this situation? As expected, he had used violence. But wasn’t this beyond imagination?
“You. I heard you said that to Sihyeon. That you’d crush her glasses and her face.”
“Ah, augh. W-wait. I... hospital...!”
What the tearful, pleading Kang Gu-han saw was a wicked devil with his fist raised.
“I didn’t make any declarations to you. But for now, I’ll do the same to you.”
“W-wait...!”
Crack!
In a single blow, his face was crushed, and his teeth flew out like popcorn. The blood splattered everywhere was just a bonus.
Crack! Thud! Splat! Crunch! Snap!
The intensity was different from the punches he’d dealt to Suyeon. Something round popped out of the face that had instantly become a bloody mess. It was an eyeball.
“Kyaaaa!”
“Uwaaaa!”
The students huddled to the end of the classroom like small animals cornered in a dead end. They couldn’t understand. They were frozen by the violence that surpassed imagination, by the bloody spectacle that seemed to have destroyed their daily lives.
“Oh? Hey! Wahahaha! Look at this! If you hit too hard, the eyeball pops out!”
Drae, smiling brightly while dangling Kang Gu-han in front of Shin Jin-pae, was...
Drae was.
Fear. Or despair.
He was an existence that could only be described as such.
Shin Jin-pae couldn’t understand. Normal people have limits.
‘Ah. I can go this far. I shouldn’t really go past this point.’
Normal people, no matter how angry they get, only keep to their limits or slightly exceed them. The reason is that, in the end, people value themselves the most. Even if they lose something precious, even if they are angry, if they think the damage they will suffer themselves will be greater in the end, people are creatures who have no choice but to stop their anger.
Even if they lose family, friends, lovers, or anyone, most people tuck their tails. No matter how much they scream about someone being precious, they can’t think of taking revenge on the person who took them away.
It’s because they think of their own lives before the difficulty of revenge. They can’t let go of their attachment to a hopeful and brilliant future that might still exist. While they admire a life different from others, they fear the derailment of taking a different path, and while they might say they’ll kill someone when angry, unless it’s done impulsively or something goes wrong, they usually just go on living.
But what about this man in front of him? It wasn’t just a matter of exceeding limits. There’s a limit to breaking common sense, isn’t there? It was obvious what would happen to his life if he rendered three people incapacitated. Judgment by law. No, before that, he would die miserably for the crime of challenging a massive force. Drae’s actions couldn’t be judged by common sense.
Shin Jin-pae knew. He knew that Yeodre was a man who understood the situation perfectly, even if he had a calm, stupid face. He had done this even though he knew what would happen. His brain was broken. He hadn’t restrained himself, even knowing what future would come.
Was this truly the same person as that pathetic man who would calmly let whatever people said about him slide? Shin Jin-pae, trembling at this type of human—no, monster—he was experiencing for the first time, barely squeezed out his voice.
“Stop, it.”
“Stop, it~”
Seeing Yeodre mimic his words while comically contorting his own face with his fist, Shin Jin-pae, his anger flaring, shouted,
“You think the world is all yours right now? Just you wait! The operation will start soon! Then you’ll be begging for your life while pissing and shitting yourself! Kang Gu-han. That guy’s father is a gangster beyond the national level! The number of people he’s personally sliced up is in the dozens! If you count those he killed indirectly, the number is countless...”
Drae stopped.
He had hoped he would stop, but when he actually did, Shin Jin-pae felt his heart grow cold. He was terrified of that still-calm face.
“...Ah. That gangster. Was that what that was?”
Drae, muttering something incomprehensible, nodded. Drae, having dropped Kang Gu-han with a thud, approached with a mechanical pencil in one hand. Backing away was merely a futile resistance. Shin Jin-pae was soon grabbed by the cheek, his face distorted like a goldfish, and he broke into a cold sweat.
“...Wait, Yeodre. There might still be a chance, really, there might. I’ll help you too. You, your life shouldn’t end like this...”
“It’s fascinating. Even without teeth, your pronunciation isn’t slurring.”
“......”
Words don’t work.
The amount of cold sweat increased.
“Have you ever been to a dentist?”
“Wh...at...”
“When they poke your gums, didn’t it hurt like hell?”
Wait.
It couldn’t be.
Before Shin Jin-pae could even purse his lips, the pencil pierced his lip and was driven deep into the spot where his tooth had been pulled out.
“Auuuuuuugh~~~?!?!?!?!”
Shin Jin-pae fell to his knees in agony that felt like it would drive him insane. Drae, looking down at him with a gentle smile, said quietly,
“Why are you talking about forgiveness now? Isn’t it over only when one side is finished?”
“Ughhhhhh...”
Drae, who had slammed Shin Jin-pae’s face—who was barely pulling out the pencil while enduring the pain and shedding tears—into the ground, giggled.
“Don’t worry. I won’t go alone. I’ll make sure you have plenty of fun until it’s all over.”
“Augh, ughhh...”
“Killing each other, doesn’t it feel like a comic book? It’s exciting, and it’s fun.”
The voice was too bright. That’s why it was so far removed from humanity. Shin Jin-pae’s body trembled like an aspen tree.
“I’m having fun right now. How about you?”
“......”
“Looks like it’s hard to answer. Then, shall we play a game?”
Up he went. Drae stood up and scanned his surroundings. The students in the class, unable to dare meet Drae’s gaze, turned their heads away. Whether they had been threatened or not didn’t matter at this moment.
They didn’t want to be noticed by that monster.
And how futile that wish was.
“Guys. I just thought of a super fun game, and you need to help me...”
Bang!!
The door opened as if it had exploded. The homeroom teacher walked in, his eyes bloodshot. Beside him stood a thug with a triumphant expression, and Yeodre scratched his head.
“Oh, right. I forgot to break the doorknob.”
“You, you, you crazy son of a bitch!!!!”
Crazy son of a bitch. There was no other way to express it. How was he supposed to understand this tragedy? He could understand them fighting and sprawling. He could understand young kids unable to control their youthful blood and spilling it. But fighting until someone actually died? It was his first time seeing entrails. Holding back the urge to vomit, the homeroom teacher growled.
“Call the police and an ambulance right now. What are you guys doing! Ugh! Gu-han! Jin-pae! Are you okay?!”
“Ugh, ughhh...”
Kang Gu-han couldn’t even answer, and Shin Jin-pae let out a groan, barely indicating that both were still alive.
All sorts of thoughts swirled in the homeroom teacher’s head. The conclusion he reached was one.
‘If it stays like this, I’ll be killed by Kang Gu-han’s dad!’
He would surely be murdered for the crime of incompetence for letting things get this far. That was it. He had been somewhat close to the truth about Kang Gu-han’s gang, and yet he had turned a blind eye. Not only that, but until now, he had done various things...
“You’ve been turning a blind eye quite well, haven’t you? Teacher.”
“What? You fucking bastard?”
The homeroom teacher, eyes bulging at Drae’s words, ground his teeth. He decided how to deal with the brat in front of him. And to deal with him, he cast aside the title of teacher and became his true self. A man who had been a former mixed martial artist and had swept all kinds of awards in competitions. Sang Hyeon-jin decided to beat the enemy in front of him to death.
“I’ve thought you needed your habits fixed for a long time, but I should have acted sooner instead of just thinking about it. You actually did something like this? You crazy lunatic.”
“Teacher. Here.”
The thug who handed him the iron shovel he’d been holding while giggling was a bonus. Drae, scratching his head, groaned.
“Hmm.”
“Come here. Try acting up in front of me.”
Drae said in a calm voice to the homeroom teacher, Sang Hyeon-jin, who was striding toward him.
“Teacher.”
“It’s too late to regret it, you fucking bastard.”
“If one of your body parts were to be cut off, which one would you prefer?”
“Ah?! What did you say, you crazy bastard?!”
A moment later.
A dull thudding sound, as if something was being struck with metal, echoed...
“...Uh?”
Reband came to his senses. He had almost been in big trouble. He had almost lost consciousness again. But where was this? How much time had passed? Looking at the time etched into the sky, only 15 minutes had passed since the previous situation.
“Still at school.”
“Y-yeah, that’s right.”
He looked around at Kaits’s words. Not inside the school, but outside. They were standing under a flower bed. The scenery had changed without them even noticing.
“Why did the location move? Captain?”
“...I don’t think we can manipulate this memory world anymore.”
“Pardon?”
Before the question could even finish.
Clatter.
Along with the sound of glass breaking, something fell from above.
Thud.
The female student who had been watering the flower bed saw it fall onto the stone tiles outside the flower bed...
“Kyaaaaaaaak?!”
She screamed. She couldn’t help it. Because what had fallen was Sang Hyeon-jin, his arms and legs twisted grotesquely, shedding tears profusely.
Snap. Snap.
Above.
The sound of stepping on glass could be heard from the third floor.
“See you soon.”
Saying that, something else jumped down. It landed exactly on top of Sang Hyeon-jin.
Crunch.
“Keuh-uh?! Auuuuuuuuuuuu!!”
The sound of bones breaking and painful screams echoed. Regardless, the man who had stood up with an “Ugh-cha.” Drae loosened his body while holding the shovel. The vivid blood on the shovel he held made their blood run cold.
“Now. Then, Teacher.”
“Augh, augh...”
Where had his confident demeanor from earlier gone? Sang Hyeon-jin, with a miserable face, drooled from the pain and felt relieved that this moment had ended.
And.
Feeling the shovel touch his neck, he trembled. Forgetting the pain in his fear, he moved his mouth.
“I, I’m begging you like this. Fo, forgiveness...!”
“One~ Two~”
“Ah, augh! Fo, forgiveness! Please forgive me! I was arrogant! Forgiveness! Please forgive meeeeeee.”
His words were cut off. Because the sharpened tip of the shovel had dug into the back of his neck.
“Three.”
Crack. Pshhhhhhh.
Like a lie, a fountain of blood dirtied the school’s exterior wall. The female student who had been hit squarely by the blood wiped it from her cheek, dazed. And then she collapsed.
“Oops.”
Drae, having pulled out the shovel and watching Sang Hyeon-jin flapping like a fish, raised the shovel high.
“It’s my first time playing golf. Yap.”
Clang!
With a somewhat ridiculous sound, Sang Hyeon-jin’s head flew off, hit the female student, and rolled away. Sang Hyeon-jin’s severed face was distorted with pain and fear.
“Nice shot!”
“Kya...”
Crack!
The female student, struck by the back of the shovel, collapsed without even being able to scream.
“As expected, same second-year.”
Drae, muttering something whose meaning was unknown, threw the shovel away carelessly. He said, still smiling as if he were having fun,
“Shall we go get some weapons.”