Chapter 46
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Translator: 8uhl
Chapter: 46
Chapter Title: Poison Among Poisons (2)
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Blood dripped steadily as I approached Sicarius, and she clapped wildly before opening her mouth. Like a child watching a monkey perform tricks inside a cage.
“Oh ho?! You had the guts to stand up to me, and in the end, you survived. Congratulations. Guess I’ll have to grant your wish now, huh?”
Sicarius’s repulsive behavior made my stomach churn, but this bitch was my one and only hope.
“Please let my wife and daughter go.”
“Who’re they?”
At Sicarius’s gesture, I turned around, and there they were—my wife passed out on the ground and my daughter sobbing.
“They’ve been there since earlier. After seeing what you did, do they even want to live? Maybe they’d rather die? So why don’t you make it easy for them? Kill your bitch, and I’ll let the kid go. With my vast mercy!”
“You... fucking bitch! That’s not what we agreed—!”
Thud!
She swung a leg as tall as herself at me, and I flew helplessly, crashing down in front of my wife and daughter.
“Sniff... Daddy...”
“Our Su-yeon’s a good girl, right? Close your eyes tight... Sniff... and stay put.”
“Why- Nooo. What’re you doing?”
“Now! When Daddy says close them, you close them!”
“Waaah!”
With my blood-soaked hand, I covered my crying daughter’s eyes and looked down at my unconscious wife.
‘Honey... I’m sorry. I’ll follow right after you. So just Su-yeon... at least let’s get Su-yeon out of here.’
Muttering that, I squeezed my eyes shut and swung the kitchen knife.
Clack.
Someone grabbed my hand.
I slowly opened my eyes and turned my head.
The man gripping my wrist was covered in scars.
“Damn it, plans and all that—”
Spitting curses like he wanted to chew them up, he wore an anachronistic suit of medieval armor. Which somehow suited this insane world.
“I don’t know why a guy who should be at the gateway is here, but they say all roads lead to Rome, so whatever...”
The man drew a sword so massive I wondered if he could even carry it and stood before Sicarius.
“...Even if I die here, I’ll make sure to kill you first.”
* * *
‘Bored. I wanna go out too.’
Whenever her big brother left for work, she was always alone.
‘No, to be precise, not exactly alone.’
Until recently, it had been the two of them alone, but now it was four of them alone.
Beep-beep-
“Ugh, Seo-woo’s always stuck doing this stuff. Tch, I could catch bugs too...”
Grumbling like that, Seo-woo turned off the alarm clock and got up. She had to feed the uncles and auntie and change their diapers.
With practiced hands, she rummaged through the desk drawer, pulled out some rice portioned into a plastic bottle, dumped it into a small pot, and poured in water.
“Uncle, you used to eat just with Seo-woo all the time, but now the family’s bigger, huh? Today’s breakfast is veggie porridge.”
She roughly chopped up the cabbage her brother had saved, tossed it in, and set the pot on the portable gas burner.
Crackle. Crackle crackle.
“Huh? No gas? Hiiing, this was the last butane canister...”
It happened sometimes, and when it did, she had to endure her hunger and wait for her brother to come back, no matter how starving she was.
Because Seo-woo couldn’t go out alone through that poison fog to scavenge.
Of course, it wasn’t like there were zero ways...
“It’s not just me who’s hungry—the uncles and auntie are too. Hmm... just once should be fine, right?”
She vaguely recalled her brother saying never to use her ability when alone.
But this was for the uncles and auntie... It was a good deed.
Seo-woo glanced around cautiously, then tiptoed to the door. She turned the knob slightly and pressed her ear against it.
No sign of anyone else.
‘Oppa wouldn’t want Seo-woo to go hungry either? Our oppa loves me tons. So just! Once!”
With that thought, Seo-woo walked stiffly to the gas burner, like something broken, muttering to herself as if someone might be listening.
“Lalala... gotta turn the gas burner knob to light the fire~”
Pretending to twist the knob, she snapped her silent fingers, and whoosh—a flame erupted in front of her.
“Eek! Too big! Flame, be gentle. Gentle!”
Startled, Seo-woo soothed the fire that threatened to engulf the pot, and only then did it settle, gently heating the pot.
“Phew. Good thing. Now, time to change the uncles’ and auntie’s diapers.”
Seo-woo dug through the bags, pulled out wet wipes and adult diapers, and started pulling down their pants one by one naturally.
It was usually one of Dan-woo’s jobs after he got back from work, but on days she did it instead, her brother would praise her, saying she did great.
Thinking of the praise, she changed the two uncles’ diapers with her familiar but slightly clumsy movements, and as she pulled down the auntie’s pants last.
Roll—
A purple bead tumbled out of the auntie’s pants pocket and rolled across the floor.
“Huh? This is...”
The treasure bead that Uncle Min-jun had given only to her brother.
* * *
Dan-woo opened his bag and stared at the hundreds of purple beads—the blood antidote orbs.
‘No way, using such a great item for something like this?’
Uncle Min-jun had taken the blood antidote orb he’d reluctantly returned and pressed some bracelet against it, producing exactly 300 copies.
‘...Why on earth?’
It made no sense.
He’d heard it was a bracelet that could duplicate an item 300 times, just once.
If it was that valuable, he should’ve used it to copy something helpful for himself.
No, at least that’s what Dan-woo would’ve done... In this world, only people who acted that way survived, and everyone who had survived did exactly that.
On top of that.
「[Intermediate Red Potion]
Type: Consumable
Info: A potion effective against external injuries」
Just in case something dangerous happened, the uncle had generously given him a precious potion he couldn’t even afford with his rank.
‘Is he just too nice, or an idiot?’
Dan-woo thought that as long as he didn’t harm others out of selfish greed, that was human enough. But this uncle had gone a few steps further.
Until recently, Dan-woo had been ready to betray and run at the first sign of trouble, so Min-jun had been a fresh shock.
The adults he’d seen in this ruined world were murderers who targeted weak kids like him and his sister for time, perverts who tried to rape his little sister, or people who knew and turned a blind eye.
Having seen and been through too much during the world’s collapse, Dan-woo couldn’t give trust lightly.
‘But... that uncle might be a little different...’
Of course, he’d watch a bit longer, but after a few days together, something about the uncle tugged at his heart.
‘Argh, whatever. Anyway, it’s been ages since the signal time with that uncle, and still no word. Did something happen?’
Dan-woo was hiding in the shadows at the base of the stairs in Jamsil Girls’ High—no, the human ranch—waiting for Min-jun’s signal.
The plan’s core was: while the uncle made a racket on one side to draw all their attention, Dan-woo would sneak into the now-empty ranch and free the people.
‘Diversion on the east, attack on the west, huh? Uncle’s pretty clever.’
Lost in idle thoughts, Song Dan-woo checked the time on his wrist.
The appointed time had long passed, yet the human ranch remained eerily silent.
‘By now, even if there was chaos, it should’ve started.’
Puzzled, Dan-woo activated his skill [Cat’s Sense] and focused on the sounds from the school’s main building.
He heard human footsteps, but not a single clattering unique to the spiders.
For some reason, the spiders seemed to have all left their posts.
Right now, only a few underlings were left in front of the prison, clearly just managing the people.
‘Should I just handle it myself?’
The uncle seemed to have done something, but with no idea what, frustration piled up.
Dan-woo slipped out from the shadows, used [Cat’s Footsteps] to prowl the school, and confirmed once more that his senses hadn’t lied.
‘Just one murderer guarding the prison.’
The others were scattered around Jamsil Girls’ High on watch, fewer than ten in total.
‘Short on manpower? That’s doable even for me alone...’
Deciding to clear the outskirts first, Dan-woo started choking out the murderers guarding the perimeter one by one.
With his skills, he could even fool Uncle Min-jun; sneaking up on these losers was a breeze.
“Guhk...”
“Shh—”
Finally, after stuffing all ten into a tightly sealed warehouse.
The school’s main building was left completely abandoned.
There were far fewer underlings than expected, and the missing spiders still hadn’t returned.
No sounds, but it was clear Uncle Min-jun had properly pulled their aggro.
‘Alright, time for me to do my part.’
From then on, Dan-woo walked the hallways boldly, making noise, smashed the padlocks on the classrooms, and flung the doors open.
“Ugh...”
The moment Dan-woo peered inside a classroom.
Hell greeted him.
One corner was filled with excrement, the stench overwhelming, and urine was collected in bowls and plastic bottles—probably to ration water.
People, skin and bones like beggars, swallowed flies that landed on them.
All of them stared at him with eyes full of terror.
‘This is... what the hell...’
He’d expected it to be bad.
But it was beyond imagination—utterly wretched.
“The spiders are being handled by someone else. Take these and move, everyone. With these, you can pass through the poison fog no problem—”
“...”
“Hey, we’re really short on time! Hurry up and move already?!”
It was weird.
He went around the classroom, shoving a blood antidote orb into everyone’s hand.
Yet no one moved.
At first, thinking they couldn’t even stand, he tried helping them up.
But the people in the classroom just glanced at the bead, sat back down, and stared blankly at bugs.
“What’s the point of leaving this place?”
“Huh?”
A middle-aged woman with sunken cheeks replied weakly.
From how baggy her clothes were, he could guess how much weight she’d lost.
“...What’s the point of leaving? We’ll either get recaptured or killed by spiders right away. Might as well stay here, survive on the mana stones they give us, scraping by.”
“This... is living? Locked up like livestock in a shithole... This is really living?”
“...”
Song Dan-woo’s eyes grew cold.
“Fine. I’ve done what I could. Uncle, aunties—if you wanna stay and die, do whatever. I’ll save the others.”
With that, Song Dan-woo turned away without hesitation.
There were plenty more classrooms he needed to save—over twenty left.
.
.
.
Dan-woo couldn’t save a single one.