Flames of Vengeance (Part 2) (4)
It took him less than ten seconds to realize he was standing in a place that made no sense.
"What the hell is this...!"
The complaint burst out of him before he could stop it. Where even was this? Hadn't he just been with his companions, scrambling to hold back a throng of mind-controlled people?
And then something had cracked him square across the skull. His legs had given out at the worst possible moment...!
But seriously — was his durability so pathetic that one hit like that was enough to knock him out cold? He had a level, damn it. A respectable one.
Was this a hallucination? Maybe it hadn't been a club at all. Maybe the vampires had hit him with some special illusion magic and he was just seeing weird shit. That tracked, didn't it? Those bastards had already proven they could puppet people around!
"Huh...?"
Right in the middle of trying to figure out why he'd fallen into this place — or been trapped in it — he saw someone walking toward him from up ahead. Footsteps, steady and unhurried.
The figure approached on two legs. Arms, legs, a head — it looked, for all the world, like a human being.
The problem was that this human looked exactly like a twenty-nine-year-old man named Jeong Hoon. No — holy shit, that was him. That thing was a perfect copy of his own face.
"Who... the hell are you...?"
He raised his voice and demanded an answer, but the other him said nothing. Just stared, expression flat and unreadable.
Oh, come on. What was this, a mirror? Some doppelgänger the vampires had cooked up out of illusion magic?
Except it didn't seem to be reflecting his current appearance perfectly. And he still had no idea what this bizarre space even was...
"Ah..."
The last thing he remembered was getting his skull rung like a bell by a club. Which meant this place was...
"Is this... my mindscape? One of those inner-world things?"
The version of himself glaring at him from a few paces away gave a heavy, deliberate nod.
Hold on. Hold on. Even if there was a decent chance this wasn't true — fine, assume it was true for a second.
Then the unidentified man standing in front of him, wearing his features almost down to the last detail, was...
"You're me, aren't you? No, wait — you're Orderly Good, you son of a — hup!?"
The second the words left his mouth, shock slammed his hand over it on pure instinct.
He'd just sworn. Freely. Without the slightest filter.
So this really was his mindscape. And that thing really was Orderly Good — the alignment that had blocked his path at every turn in the real world. The bastard was separated from him right now, which was why he'd slipped back into the way he used to talk before the apocalypse!
"..."
So why was this asshole just staring at him like an idiot after getting cussed out? Say something, you piece of shit!
"..."
Oh, this motherfucker...
"Hey, you lunatic, quit the silent act and talk. You spent every day running your mouth through mine and saying whatever the hell you wanted. You bastard! Why'd you drag me here all of a sudden? Why slam the brakes on my body out of nowhere? I'm asking you why you shoved me into this mess, you goddamn walking value system!"
"Yeah, those bat bastards are puppeting people and putting us in a corner! I get it — I don't love the idea of attacking or killing other humans either. But if we can't push those sons of bitches back — if we can't stop them even if it means killing them — then the people behind me, my women, the companions who followed me here, none of them make it out alive. They'll all get promoted to blood bags for those vampire pricks. You miserable bastard! Either open your mouth or let me get my head straight! Stop sitting there in creepy silence! Are you mute now? You, of all people — the one who used to hijack every word out of my mouth!"
He dumped every grievance he'd been carrying straight onto the Orderly Good standing in front of him.
A wave of relief washed through the tightness in his chest — and right behind it came a hollow, crushing emptiness, because nothing about their situation had actually been solved.
And then, at last—
"...Can you endure it?"
Orderly Good opened his mouth and spoke in that distinctive register of his. Flat, blunt, nothing like Jeong Hoon's own flippant tone — the kind of diction that belonged in a fantasy novel. Which made sense. The alignment had been born from a game built on a medieval fantasy setting. The problem was that it had decided to keep using that voice in real life, which was complete bullshit!
"What?"
And this bastard wasn't even answering the question. He was just spouting random nonsense. Don't tell me he dragged me all the way here just to say one line. I swear I'll beat him to death, this son of a—
"I asked if you can endure it. Myself."
...This guy was actually serious!?
"You absolute bastard! Endure what? If you don't put a proper subject on the sentence, how the hell am I supposed to know? Can I endure it? No, I can't. I can't endure your shitty way of talking, that's what. You fu—"
Since this was a mindscape anyway, he decided physical consequences didn't matter. He charged and swung a fist.
Whoosh!
"Ah, dammit!"
Of course it did nothing. Don't tell me physical attacks don't work in a mindscape, you absolute—
"The question was whether you can endure the things that are coming... even without me."
"What, you deranged Orderly-parrot son of a—"
"Why do you think I exist?"
Still with the sky-high philosophical crap? You're just the alignment little-kid-me picked without thinking while playing Dragon Gate RPG! Nothing more, nothing less!
"Is that truly so?"
...Huh?
Had he just... said that last thought out loud?
"No. But it is hardly strange. This is your mindscape, after all."
"Shit, is this place some kind of all-purpose cheat key? This damn mindscape?"
"We can discuss that later. Is it truly so? Am I nothing more and nothing less than an alignment one can select in a game? Standing here in this mindscape, can you truly declare that with certainty? Can you call it the only truth?"
"Wh-what..."
What the hell was this guy? What was he even saying?
He wanted to deny it on the spot, wanted to spit curses right in its face — but the words wouldn't come. His mouth simply would not open.
Ah. R-right. It was because this Orderly Good bastard was clamping down on his mouth again. Putting arbitrary restrictions on his actions again—
"That is not the case at all. Look at our present situation in this mindscape, where we stand separated. I am exerting no influence on you whatsoever. The reason you cannot deny it — no, the reason you will not deny it — is that the truth is the opposite. I, the alignment called Orderly Good, exist because I am a psychological defense mechanism you created in order to survive a world that had changed. That is the truth."
"That is the truth you never dared to examine properly — the truth you actively tried to look away from."
For a moment, his legs felt like they might give out. The impulse to just sink down where he stood nearly won.
He couldn't — he simply could not — mount a counterargument against a single word this Orderly Good bastard was saying. His whole body was stripping the fight out of him, screaming that every word of it was true.
"You still do not wish to believe it...? Then go back through it carefully. The first time you killed a zombie. When you encountered the orcs. When you hunted a pack of monsters alone. When you fought the Skeleton King to the death. When you faced the minotaur one-on-one in the dark. In every one of those situations, you stepped forward without fear. Without a shred of hesitation. Do you believe that is something other humans could do?"
"I-I... I got a d-different system from everyone else... so..."
"Is that truly all? When a person gains power beyond their ordinary capacity, does courage simply well up in all of them? Even granting the gap in strength, the others were, in the end, in the same position as you. And what did they do? Did they act as you did? Boldly? Without hesitation?"
"Th-that's..."
He had been about to say there must have been some — and then realized in an instant that it was no different from stacking empty hypotheticals. He had no way to break the logic.
Exactly as this infuriating bastard was telling him: he had needed it. He had formed this irritating alignment called Orderly Good — the one that interfered even with his daily life and the way he spoke — in order to protect his own fragile mind.
But how? Honestly... he wasn't a psychologist or anything close, so he didn't know the details.
He could guess, though. The human mind was always more unconscious than conscious. If this space really was his mindscape, then his unconscious had quietly decided that a barrier for his mental world was necessary, and had formed another kind of "split personality" under the name of an alignment.
Or, more honestly... he didn't have any sharper answer than that right now. Dammit...
Which meant he was basically getting pissed off at his own karma! Mindscape or not... this was mortifying as hell!
"Setting the embarrassment aside..."
"No, it's extremely important, you lunatic."
Everything he'd been putting on for show until now was basically his own doing. And it meant he'd have to keep living with that same performance going forward.
"That is not so."
"Huh?"
Why did a single sentence of flat denial from the Orderly Good in front of him — who genuinely never lied — make the unease in his chest burn even hotter?
"Because my role ends here."
The kind of line that deserved to be called a bombshell confession, and this damn Orderly Good bastard tossed it out like it was nothing.
"I invited myself into this mindscape — by force, if necessary — in order to tell you that. From now on, I will step back without interfering. The alignment called Orderly Good will be consigned to extinction. From this point forward, you alone must decide everything, without anyone's help. You must regulate your own manner of speech and conduct yourself properly toward others. Can you leave this mindscape, step out into the world called reality... and handle all of it yourself?"
"Hey, what kind of — you're treating me like some idiot who can't make a single decision without help—"
"Do you remember how many times you called for me when you were in trouble? Curiously enough, every time your heart wavered, you called my name. Even as you despised me."
That hit a nerve.
This bastard Orderly Good... yeah, he really was an alignment spun off from Jeong Hoon himself. You could tell from how bluntly he needled him.
"So... once I get my head on straight, you're saying you won't be popping out anymore?"
"I did not expect to have to say it three times."
"Well excuse the hell out of me. Shit!"
Stop with the brutal honesty! Cut it out!
"Your manner of speech will change first, and the patterns of your daily behavior will all shift as well. The people around you will inevitably sense a deep dissonance from you. You will have to accept that. There is no going back from here. Therefore—"
"I know, idiot."
"What?"
Why the startled look? Did he really not expect to get cut off mid-sentence?
"I said I know. I know exactly how much of a disadvantage revealing my real self from now on is going to be. How could I not? But listen... right now, how other people see me doesn't matter. My companions — the people who walked into a death trap with me — my women are in danger right now. That matters. Not my tone of voice, not my attitude. Their lives are worth far more right now than fretting over a future without an alignment called Orderly Good."
"I'm not saying I'm not afraid. I'm not saying I'm not worried. If this alignment called Orderly Good — the one I could just leave things to and trust would handle them — disappears, of course I'm going to feel hollow. Of course I'll feel anxious about whether it's okay to decide and move like this. But even so... even if a future where my own reputation gets shredded is coming, I can't hesitate when it comes to saving other people's lives. Because..."
"I'm Jeong Hoon. The man who received a system different from everyone else's, who built bonds with countless people and climbed all the way to this place... a man named Jeong Hoon. Right now, I'm just about the only man who can still give people hope."
"...My judgment was in error."
Excuse me? A guy pours his heart out in a full confession and that's how you respond?
But contrary to what Jeong Hoon expected, the "error in judgment" Orderly Good was talking about seemed to mean something entirely different.
"I expected that once you grasped the truth, you would cling to my pant leg and refuse to let go. That you would throw a fit about how your image would be ruined and you would never be able to build a harem again. But you did not. You did not cast off your sense of responsibility. You did not so much as speak of running away. Before me... you declared that you would accept the duty placed upon you. I acknowledge that my judgment of you was mistaken."
"Well, that's... thanks, I guess... thanks, but...!"
Hey! I'm insanely busy right now, damn it!
While I'm standing here having a philosophical debate with myself, my women could be getting NTR'd. I'm desperate as hell right now.
So hurry up and put me back in my right mind, you bastard! Get me out of this pitch-black mindscape or whatever the hell this is!
"I was going to send you back regardless. You are being excessively impatient. Do you truly believe the time we spend conversing here flows at the same rate as the outside?"
"Whether time runs differently or not, it still runs! You know what it's like out there! Even five minutes unconscious and we're in a life-or-death crisis! I'm going out of my mind worrying that my women are hurt or dead or captured!"
"...You are thoroughly smitten with your women."
"None of your business!"
Who was it that didn't stop me when I was sleeping with Sora and then Seyeon, huh!?
"You absolute bastard... even so, what kind of twisted impulse makes you call me out in the middle of a fight? You might as well have been telling us all to die, you lunatic!"
"Because this was practically the only opportunity. A moment to speak with oneself without reservation."
"Bullshit... whatever. Just send me back. I have to go save my companions. Now!"
"Of course. Ah, and—"
Wait. Something about his consciousness was... getting hazy? It felt a lot like the sensation of blacking out...
"Huh, what did you say?"
"Regarding those high-ranking vampires' vitality absorption — the truth is—"
The truth is... what...?
Whatever else he might have missed, the last words Orderly Good left him with rang with startling clarity.
While Jeong Hoon was unconscious.
The situation of the people trapped in a death zone had already blown past "worst" and was racing straight toward despair.
"Hah... hahh..."
"Se-Seyeon unnie..."
"Kh... they're pouring in like a damn flood."
"Haa, haa...!"
Kim Seyeon, Han Sora, Park Seeun, Yun Mina, and several dozen others were, against all odds, still safe inside the radius of Sacred Ground. Bit by bit they were falling back, somehow managing to drive off the mind-controlled throngs of humans, orcs, and goblins.
All of it rested on Kim Seyeon, who kept recasting Sacred Ground at exactly the right moments. Her contribution was enormous.
The price was that Kim Seyeon was one breath away from total collapse. And if she finally blacked out and went down, everything ended. Sacred Ground would lose its effect, and the party would be seized and violated by the mind-controlled humans, orcs, and goblins — plus the vampires, now completely off the leash. Just like the more than thirty people who had already been taken.
What made it even more grotesque was that those thirty-plus people were not dead. Once the humans, orcs, and goblins had joined forces and started hammering them, the defensive line had collapsed in an instant. Everyone except those who'd stayed in the rear and a tiny handful who'd managed to peel off from the front had been completely overpowered. Not killed — as if the enemy had other uses for them.
And since the enemy was vampires, those uses were painfully obvious.
In the end, the last line of resistance was the four women who had recovered the fallen Jeong Hoon, plus Jung Yun and the members of Seo Hyejin's guild. And yet, even after being driven into a situation that went past disadvantageous and straight into hopeless, they showed almost no sign of giving up.
They were still waiting — clinging to the faint remaining ember of hope. Waiting for him.
"Uh, th-there... s-someone's... someone's walking this way?"
Exhausted, bow leveled toward the front, Han Sora forced the words out in a strained whisper.
Park Seeun, who still had a little stamina left, narrowed her eyes. One person was approaching. A man. His face was fairly handsome.
But the naked lust gleaming in his eyes made him look filthy long before he looked attractive.
"Yun Mina! You in there? Get out here right now!"
The man strolled into the Sacred Ground as if it were nothing and called for Yun Mina without so much as a greeting. Naturally, every gaze in the party snapped to her.
Yun Mina opened her mouth.
"Hah. And here I was wondering who it could be..."
She stood. For a second Han Sora and Park Seeun moved to stop her, but Yun Mina waved them off at once — a gesture that said she was fine. Eyes fixed forward again, she murmured the man's name under her breath.
"Han Daegeon...!"
Turning the name of that hateful traitor over on her tongue, Yun Mina walked out to meet him. To face the garbage who had sold out his companions and filled his own belly.
"It's been a while, Yun Mina. You've gotten even prettier si—"
"What, did you come to negotiate, Daegeon? You've climbed that high already? You must have sold people out something fierce, huh?"
Whether Han Daegeon was trying to exchange greetings or not, Yun Mina kept her tone ice-cold and poured venom onto her former comrade.
Naturally, the man's face twisted. But he recovered quickly, smiling with smug confidence as he raised his voice.
"Still full of fight, I see. Even after falling this far. Well, your read is accurate. Yeah — I came to toss you a bargaining chip."
"Ha, what kind of—"
"Surrender, Yun Mina. Hand that Jeong Hoon guy over to the vampire lords and come under me. Do that, and you — and those three, no, four women you're close with — I'll personally take under my protection."
"What?"