Chapter 89
Chapter 89
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Translator: Ryuma
Chapter: 89
Chapter Title: 17. Countdown (4)
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My head felt crammed full of something.
Rather than rationally assessing the situation, I just needed to kill that monster right now and save my parents.
A black, shadowy monster.
I didn't even gauge how strong it was.
I ran.
Before the monster could snatch my parents, Kang San leaped forward first, driving his sword deep into the creature's flesh.
Thud!
"Die!"
Kraaaah!
The monster let out a hideous screech.
It thrashed its massive body wildly, trying to shake Kang San off, but he clung on desperately, shoving the blade even deeper with all his might. Surprisingly, the monster collapsed more easily than expected. Black blood sprayed out like a fountain from the torn flesh, drenching Kang San as he lifted his head.
There weren't just one or two monsters.
Right behind him.
To protect the terrified child and his parents, he had to slaughter every single one of the charging beasts.
He gripped his sword tightly.
Krunch!
The monsters surged forward.
Kang San tore apart their limbs one by one as they came at him, and in the process, his own body was clawed and ripped in places here and there. This wasn't his usual fighting style. He was the type to judge rationally and respond efficiently, yet right now, it felt like he was tangled up with the monsters in a deadly wager over who would kill the other first. Even if it meant taking a wound himself. As long as he could claim one enemy's life, it didn't matter.
Flash.
Splat.
He decapitated one.
Bursting through the spray of blood, Kang San didn't allow a single monster to get past him.
His parents were behind him.
Behind him was a child who might be his younger self.
He wanted to protect them.
If his parents hadn't died that day, Kang San could have lived a normal life under their shelter, just like everyone else. Whining for snacks, getting in trouble at school and making his parents come pick him up. Instead of bouncing between relatives from childhood, constantly watching adults' moods to survive with premature maturity, he could have grown up like his peers, a bit immature and carefree.
Rage boiled up inside him.
He killed, and killed again.
"Huff, huff."
His breath came in ragged gasps.
He raised his head.
At some point, not a single monster remained, leaving only Kang San, soaked in blood, standing alone atop a hellscape.
He turned around.
He approached his parents.
He wanted to ask them.
If they were really his parents.
What the hell was going on.
The moment he stood before his parents, looking up at him.
"...Huh?"
The world shifted.
His parents running toward him from across the crosswalk.
The child frozen like a statue.
The situation didn't make sense.
More precisely, he couldn't remember how he'd ended up here.
'Why am I here?'
His eyes went blank.
He quickly grasped the situation.
Those people over there.
They were his parents from his memories.
His parents were in danger from the monsters right now.
Kang San started walking.
"Don't touch my parents, you fucking bastards."
It was an endless loop.
After slaughtering all the monsters.
Kang San would see his parents rushing over from afar to save his younger self once more.
If he hurriedly charged in to protect them and cut down the monsters, somehow he'd find himself watching his parents from a distance again.
The repeating scene.
Only Kang San remained unchanged.
His face was caked in blood, unrecognizable, and his sword was clotted with gore and chunks of flesh from who knew how many monsters he'd killed. Yet every time he spotted his parents without fail, he didn't harbor a shred of doubt about the situation—he kicked off the ground to save them. He couldn't bear to watch them get torn apart before his eyes, showing genuine urgency and desperation.
Ten.
Twenty.
Thirty.
Before he knew it, a hundred.
He couldn't count how many monsters he'd butchered.
He killed and killed.
As more and more kept appearing, Kang San reacted mechanically, slicing off their heads.
Splatter.
Blood droplets scattering.
His memories faded.
He even forgot the reason for the slaughter.
Then.
Krunch.
The monster bit him hard.
His movements had slowed from the endless repetition, and though he thought he'd dodged the attack, the sharp sensation piercing his skin dug in painfully. Kang San didn't even blink. He stabbed the monster's head as it tried to tear off his flesh. Meanwhile, the one that had raked claws down his back approached, and he strode forward to rip its body in two. His wounds multiplied. Dizziness set in. His mouth went dry, and his body no longer obeyed him. His evaporated memories kept resetting to the moment he'd first stumbled into this situation, but at some point, he couldn't even save his parents from the monsters' attacks.
His legs wouldn't move.
Too slow.
"...San-ah."
Snap.
The monster snatched his mother.
At the sight of it chewing a live human, a fragment of forgotten memory flashed in Kang San's mind.
It had been the same back then.
His mother smiled warmly.
Even with the monster behind her.
Even knowing she was about to die.
She caressed Kang San's face and spoke as if nothing was wrong.
"San-ah, it'll be okay. Everything will be okay."
He stopped in his tracks.
Kang San's eyes trembled.
That image of his mother just now.
It was different from the mother he'd been desperately trying to save over and over.
As doubt rapidly spread, his unfocused eyes suddenly regained their original sharpness.
"...What the hell am I doing?"
At that moment.
Rumble...
The world collapsed.
The monsters, his parents.
Everything tangled together to form a new world.
And when his vision cleared again.
Kang San's eyes beheld the training ground from his final memory.
"Urk, blegh."
He slammed his head into the ground.
The world spun.
After vomiting up everything inside him for a while, Kang San finally took stock of his surroundings and swallowed a groan.
"...What the..."
A vast space.
Filled entirely with werewolf corpses.
The lingering heat from bodies that had been alive just moments ago sent chills down his spine.
'No way.'
Now he understood.
The penalty of the Blood Demon Art.
What it was.
Kang San vaguely recalled battling monsters, but it seemed more than just an illusion. The real Kang San had fought the exact same battles. When he'd beheaded a monster in the vision, the real him had lopped off a werewolf's head. When he'd spotted a charging monster, it had been a werewolf in reality.
Illusion and reality.
The boundary had crumbled.
Perceiving werewolves as monsters, Kang San hadn't stopped slaughtering them to save his parents.
And so the corpses piled up.
His hands were drenched in blood.
Facing this unreal sight with his own eyes, Kang San grasped its meaning.
'...If this hadn't been the training ground. I might have become a mindless murderer stripped of reason. If there had been people instead of werewolves around, I would have seen them as monsters and butchered them indiscriminately.'
"Blegh."
He vomited again.
It was too much to bear.
He'd suspected the Blood Demon Art's penalty involved uncontrollable emotions, but witnessing this brutal outcome made him realize just how dangerous it was. It had to be controlled. The moment this demonic power manifested among civilians, he'd understand how the Blood Demon of his past life had amassed such karma.
Then, suddenly.
A doubt arose in Kang San's mind.
'If I were in that moment with him. Could I have held back my killing intent?'
Right before his eyes.
If his parents died.
Could he really stand by and let the ones who tore them apart go free while watching their limbs ripped off? It was no issue if they were monsters—paradoxically, that's what made it okay. But if the enemy wasn't a monster, but a person? Or malice from someone? He couldn't be sure he'd respond rationally then.
From this fragmented experience, Kang San empathized with why one might succumb to murderous rage.
It made sense.
He could see how it might happen.
It was justifiable against non-humans, but even against humans, he couldn't guarantee emotional control.
"...Damn it."
He was afraid.
Of the truth that his past and present lives belonged to the same person.
Feeling that reality anew, Kang San squeezed his eyes shut, as if turning away from it.
A brief respite arrived.
Perhaps because he'd killed so many monsters, Kang San focused on recovery in the now-silent space.
"Aura of Recovery."
Whoosh—
Holy power swept through his body.
Absurdly, while he'd been unconscious, skills like the Blood Demon Sword Art had cooled down, but recovery skills showed no signs of use. He'd truly been a mindless berserker without reason. Stripping off his clothes to treat himself revealed gashes, claw marks, and chunks of flesh torn away all over his body.
'This is an incredibly dangerous penalty. Not just the risk of innocent people dying because of me, but pushing myself to the limit in this state would eventually kill me. From now on, I should exclude actively relying on the Blood Demon Art. If I cross that fine line while tightrope-walking, the consequences will be irreversible.'
Of course, he couldn't exclude it entirely.
Killing someone alone built up the Blood Demon Art's stats, so he planned to set a proper threshold this time.
Splash, splash.
He poured recovery potions over his wounds.
He chugged a few, but the pain barely subsided.
"...Was that image of my mother real?"
Layer upon layer of overlapping memories.
Among them, two slightly different versions of his mother stood out.
The one rushing over desperately before being torn apart, and the one reassuring him until the end before dying.
He wasn't sure.
It was an event from his childhood, and trauma might have damaged the memory, so the details didn't come clearly. What was certain was this: no matter what, his mother and father had risked their lives to save him. Thinking of their devotion, Kang San knew he couldn't live this life in vain.
It was for three people.
This life wasn't just his own.
Fortunately, no monsters appeared while he recovered.
Kang San, who had fallen into a tense short sleep, first checked how much time had passed.
"...Huh?"
For a moment.
Kang San's eyes widened in shock.
To account for any time discrepancies between inside and outside, he'd activated a timer displaying the date beforehand. As far as he remembered, he'd fallen into that state on Day 3. No matter how much time he'd spent recovering and sleeping, he couldn't accept the "Day4" label.
What that number meant.
A full day had passed while he was unaware.
Which meant, with high probability, he'd been locked in bloody combat with werewolves for over a day in an unconscious state.
'Just how many werewolves did I kill while trapped in that state?'
This training ground.
Normally, corpses would be cleared away, or they'd vanish once the trial ended. But the countless bodies he'd seen at the end still radiated heat. Given that 24 hours should have cooled them completely, he could infer that beyond the visible ones, many more had already evaporated after death.
Questions piled up.
Before falling into that state.
Kang San had entered Burning Time.
If Burning Time had persisted, would the werewolves he'd killed during that period have converted to stats?
His heart pounded.
It was just a hypothesis.
He had to check.
Kang San cautiously opened his status window.