Chapter 31
-----------------------------------------------------------------
Translator: 8uhl
Chapter: 31
Chapter Title: Memories of Murder (2)
-----------------------------------------------------------------
Dead held up both his hands.
I quickly sheathed my sword.
The door to the last car burst open, and the infected swarmed in.
They looked like a horde of zombies, shoving their limbs haphazardly through the narrow doorway.
Dead drew a gun from his hip.
It wasn't a modern pistol; it looked like a much older model.
When we first met, Dead had introduced himself as a soldier.
It wasn't strange for him to have a gun.
Dead fired at the chest of an approaching infected.
*Bang.*
The infected staggered back from the impact and fell forward.
‘Is it just me?’
The gun didn't seem very powerful.
There was something else that was strange.
Normally, a gun would eject a casing the moment it fired.
‘Did that just disappear?’
A casing was ejected, but it vanished in an instant.
I was sure I hadn't seen it wrong.
From the magic that had silenced the area to this old-fashioned gun, this world was certainly unique.
Dead spoke to me as I stood there dumbfounded.
“Hey, how long are you going to stand there gawking?”
Dead shot another infected in the doorway.
But that wasn't what was important right now.
Dead, who was ahead of me, nodded toward the door of the last passenger car.
Dead and I entered the car at almost the same time.
I raised my sword high to cut down a lunging infected.
The infected, which had been about to tear into me, froze.
“What is this?”
Sensing something was wrong, I lowered my sword.
Something was off about the infected.
It was as if time had stopped.
This was like a scene from a horror movie, and it sent a chill down my spine.
The infected twitched and creaked like broken dolls.
I gripped my sword tightly, wary of the frozen infected.
As I kept my guard up, I heard Dead's voice.
“So that’s what it was.”
Dead was crouching, looking at the corpse of an infected on the floor.
In this frozen moment, only Dead and I could move freely.
Hearing his voice, I asked.
“What was what?”
“Lia Angelina’s Taboo.”
Now that he mentioned it, I did remember hearing something about a Taboo.
“How did you know?”
Straightening up, Dead pointed to his own eyes.
In the dimly lit train car, Dead's eyes were glowing gold.
They looked less like human eyes and more like a cat's.
“It’s an ability.”
“Is that so?”
“Aren’t you going to ask what kind of ability?”
“I’m not interested.”
I swung my sword and decapitated the infected in front of me.
I didn't know the principle behind it, but I had a general idea of what his ability was.
Dead had discovered Lia's Taboo by examining the corpse of an infected.
That was enough.
“In the territory where she lived, people often went missing. And her Taboo is…”
Dead fired his gun at the rearmost seat.
A female infected, who had taken the bullet, collapsed to the floor.
“Probably cannibalism.”
I didn't know what "Taboo" really meant, but the word itself was clear.
Something one must not do.
Dead said her Taboo was cannibalism.
Did I mishear him?
“Cannibalism? You mean eating people?”
“What else could it be?”
Dead looked at me as if I'd asked the most obvious question in the world.
I mean, I suppose so, but still.
Just then, Lia appeared from the very back of the car.
Her lips were stained red, and her white dress was soaked with blood.
“Oh my, Mr. Ji-han.”
The sound of her shoes echoed in my ears like jingle bells.
Standing among the corpses, Lia was smiling.
“You’re awake.”
“I couldn’t sleep.”
Lia took a step forward.
I kept my sword raised, wary of her.
Maintaining a safe distance, Lia blinked.
“By the way, you said you were curious what the jerky I gave you was made of, didn’t you?”
“Don’t tell me you ate something that woman gave you.”
Hearing Lia, Dead turned his head, his gun still aimed.
It was a look of pure pity.
I only ate it because I got swept up in the moment.
Even I had to admit that was a mistake.
She didn't answer when I asked before, so why bring it up now…
No way.
“What do you think it was made of?”
As Lia spoke, my eyes fell on the infected around us.
Lia still wore a look of pure innocence.
An image of the jerky she’d given me flashed in my mind, along with the memory of its unidentifiable taste and texture.
The train lurched violently.
I braced myself against the wall.
My stomach churned.
“Ugh!”
A wave of nausea rose from deep within me.
I leaned against the wall and wretched, emptying the contents of my stomach.
All that came up was what I'd eaten for dinner and bitter bile.
‘Is she insane? Ugh…’
I don't know how to describe this revulsion.
Whatever Muel had said, whatever Taboo Dead was talking about, none of it mattered.
Isn't Lia human?
How could she do something like this?
“Hey! Get a grip!”
“The jer… Uuugh!”
It was hard to even speak.
I cursed a thousand times in my head.
Dead managed to pat my back.
Our eyes met.
“Seeing as you’re still alive, it probably wasn’t poisoned. Best to just forget about it. At least for now.”
Dead’s gaze shifted to the frozen infected.
He seemed to have a good idea of what I'd eaten.
I didn't understand how someone with an ominous name like Dead, who looked like a retired neighborhood uncle, could be so calm.
Though, I guess it was natural since he'd introduced himself as a soldier.
I pulled myself together and nodded.
“I should have killed her from the start.”
I muttered, clenching my teeth.
This was my fault.
If I had killed Lia, things wouldn't have escalated this far.
A moment's hesitation had brought about a greater disaster.
While I was deep in self-recrimination, Dead spoke.
“I wasn’t expecting much from the beginning, but.”
“…Pardon?”
“You’ve never killed anyone before, have you?”
Dead pointed to his eyes.
“Your eyes are different.”
My eyes?
I had no idea what he was talking about all of a sudden.
Does killing someone change the color of your eyes or something?
Dead let out a short sigh and raised his gun.
Lia extended her hand.
The frozen infected lunged forward all at once.
I dodged an attack and spun my sword, slicing off an infected's arm.
Killing Lia felt unsettling, but I felt nothing as I killed the infected before me.
Why?
What was the difference between Lia and the man I just killed?
“Dammit.”
This last car had far more infected than the others.
The bunk beds and the confined space of the train car made it difficult to fight.
Just as I'd feared, my arm got caught on the railing of a bunk.
While I was struggling, another infected dropped from above. It was a child from the top bunk.
The child opened its mouth and clung to me.
It was crying tears of blood.
“M… Mommy… save…”
Amidst the blood streaming down its cheeks, I could see the faintest trace of moisture.
I reached for the dagger Dead had given me.
‘Too slow!’
Dead fired a bullet into the child’s head far faster than I could have plunged the dagger into its chest.
The child's body slumped to the floor.
“Thanks for the help…”
*Shunk.*
A hand burst through Dead's chest.
Covered in purplish fur, the beast's hand was hardly recognizable as human.
‘A monster?’
I could see Lia behind Dead.
It wasn't a monster. It was Lia's hand.
The sight of Lia, a girl in her early teens, with the arm of a massive beast was utterly bizarre.
I swung my sword at the arm piercing Dead’s chest.
Lia quickly pulled her arm back.
*Thump.*
Dead's body fell forward with a thud.
Lia licked the blood from her fingers.
“He would have lived if he hadn't helped you. What a shame.”
In her hand, Lia held what I assumed was one of Dead's organs.
It was so caked in blood I couldn't tell what it was.
I dropped to my knees and held Dead in my arms.
“*Cough!* Listen closely. You must kill Lia, no matter what. Don't let her become a Thought-Form…”
Dead forced the words out, a hole gaping in his stomach.
He closed his eyes before he could finish.
Seeing Dead's lifeless body, my head grew cold.
I carefully laid him down and stood up.
The smell of blood filled the narrow train car.
The time I’d spent with Dead had been incredibly short.
Yet, he was the person who had treated me with the most humanity since I entered the Tower.
I thought I would at least shed a tear.
But I felt so numb to his death that I wondered if I was always this heartless.
I drew my dagger instead of my sword.
The remaining infected charged all at once.
I continuously used the skills I learned from the god Soter.
As the infected fell, I quickly downed a mana potion.
‘He could have given me a bigger one.’
I drank three at once, but they restored very little of my mana.
I killed the last remaining infected.
Corpses littered the train car.
Though they were infected, they were once human, and they still looked the part.
I should have killed Lia.
I brought this upon myself.
I finally understood why that guy had been so reluctant to talk about failure.
Assassinating a single girl in her early teens versus killing a monster who had infected everyone on a train.
It was obvious which was the better option.
“Haha.”
Rather than feeling scared, I found myself laughing.
Lia's body twisted unnaturally.
Her left hand transformed, becoming just as grotesque as her right.
‘This is dangerous.’
The floor of the narrow car was covered with corpses and debris.
It was obvious who was at a disadvantage.
Lia’s hand flew toward my head.
I slid across the floor to dodge the attack.
I threw myself through a broken window.
I climbed out the window and onto the roof of the train.
The harsh wind stung the cut on my cheek.
I heard heavy thumping from inside the car.
It wasn't easy to keep my balance, but it was much better than being inside.
The roof of the train tore open as Lia climbed through.
A young girl with the arms of a beast—what a strange combination.
“You know, why are you trying to kill me? Why? I haven’t done anything to hurt you, have I?”
“It’s no use asking me to look the other way.”
“Not really. I wasn’t going to. I’m just genuinely curious. Why are you trying to kill me?”
I kept my sword ready, watching her.
“Because you were given an assassination mission? You had several chances to kill me, but you didn't. Yet now you’re trying to.”
“You infected everyone on this train.”
“Did you know any of those uncivilized people on the train?”
I fell silent at her question.
I had no connection to anyone on the train.
The only one I had any connection to was Dead, and he was killed by her hand.
“If I deserve to die for infecting those people, then shouldn't you die as well for killing them, Mr. Ji-han?”
“What are you trying to say?”
This was an unpleasant conversation.
Lia's claws grazed my arm.
Even a light scratch tore through my flesh, and blood dripped from the wound.
I wasn't joking; one solid hit and I'd be dead.
“I’m a pacifist, you know. You and I, we’re both murderers. Don’t you think we murderers could get along?”
What kind of twisted logic was that?
It was too absurd to even argue with.
Instead, I searched for a suitable excuse.
“That’s not going to happen.”
“Why not?”
“Because you killed my friend.”
I'm not sure when we became friends, but.
Let's just say he was a friend.
Dead would probably understand.
“Ah.”
Lia took a small step back, her expression turning pouty as if she'd been bested.
“That makes sense.”
“So die…”
“How about this? I’ll compensate you for the soldier I killed.”
“Compensation?”
“Yes. Remember how I said there’s delicious cheesecake in the capital? I’ll buy you some, just like I promised. Wouldn’t that be enough compensation?”
Oh, Dead.
It seems that’s all your life was worth.
I kicked off the roof and leaped over Lia's head.
“You know, what’s your Taboo?”
What is she even saying?
Just die.