Chapter 189
Chapter 189
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Translator: Ryuma
Chapter: 189
Chapter Title: The Dawn of the Whole World, Our Promise (4)
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6.
“How did this happen, Choi Sin-yul.”
A cold yet boyish voice rang out.
At the foot of Surak Mountain. Choi Sin-yul, who had been leaning against the Japanese torii gate, turned around.
“You have the look of someone who can’t stand the boredom.”
The noble youth of bitter cold, Saito Nan.
That boy in pure white was gazing down with a sneer.
“Bored? Me?”
Choi Sin-yul glanced at the boy and shot back in an icy tone.
“Nonsense. I just have no interest in stomping on the weak.”
Unlike you...
Before he could voice it, Saito Nan stepped up beside Choi Sin-yul.
“Hmph, how foolish.”
He peered down below with a gaze that treated them like lowly vermin, utterly contemptuous.
“That’s why you’re still just a mere demigod, shackled by such petty human convictions.”
The entrance to the sacred mountain, the First Torii Gate.
A long staircase stretched out beneath it... and at the bottom of the stairs lay a vast plaza.
“The law of the jungle and survival of the fittest. Commandments born from Ikkiras itself, persisting in this human world.”
The plaza, its people’s eyes streaked red with exhaustion.
“Faithfully adhering to that commandment is commendable, but your awareness remains woefully immature.”
At the center of the plaza. There, some 150 hunters were surrounded by fellow hunters turned beastly, raising a clamor.
“Fuck... where the hell is this?”
“What do you plan to do with us, you shits!”
“Song Chan-un... yeah, that’s right! Ever since I put on that mask that dog bastard Song Chan-un gave me, my memory’s blank.”
All of them former Nowon-gu hunters.
Those who had regained their sanity before fully turning into beasts, as the power of Pope Song Chan-un’s unique weapon [Ice Illusion Mirror] was nullified.
“I’ll acknowledge your diligent service to me and offer some advice.”
Among them were quite a few hunters missing an arm or a leg.
All Choi Sin-yul’s handiwork.
The ones who resisted had gone quiet after he lopped off their limbs.
“Weaklings, you see, shouldn’t be dismissed like insects. Use them. As tools.”
The moment Saito Nan flashed a wicked grin, an unexpected incident erupted.
Some acceleration-type unique skill, perhaps.
Out of nowhere, a hunter appeared right in front of Saito Nan’s face and seized his throat.
“D-don’t move, you rotten old fucks!”
He jammed the gun barrel against Saito Nan’s head in threat, then bellowed in a quavering voice.
“I-if you move, I’ll kill you. G-got it?”
“…….”
“Got it, I said! I’ll fucking kill you, you bastard!”
“………….”
“Y-you think I won’t? Huh? Huh, you fucker!”
Naturally, Choi Sin-yul didn’t budge in the slightest.
He merely stared with frigid eyes.
The man then jerked his chin toward the far side of the plaza and pressed on.
“L-let my people go. Don’t care about the others—just release my party!”
That was the extent of the man’s courage.
At last, Saito Nan parted his lips with a sigh.
“Shut your mouth.”
In that instant.
Something repulsive seemed to squirm inside the man’s skull...
“Guh... guaaaaaaaah!”
...And in a flash, the crown of his head burst open. Blood and flesh sprayed in all directions as something erupted forth.
“W-wiwiwiwiwiwiwiwi...?”
It resembled a slug at first glance.
A slug with a body pallid to the point of revulsion.
“...Wiiiiiiiiiiing?”
But no slug on Earth grew to the size of a human head, let alone parasitized one to puppeteer its body.
“Remove your filthy hands from my body. You base creature.”
Saito Nan fixed it with a glare.
The slug convulsed in fright, and the man’s body promptly flattened prone upon the ground.
“Let’s see...”
Saito Nan crushed the slug underfoot and squinted down at the plaza.
“Huh, hahahahaha... fear and hatred spreading without end. But it’s still not enough.”
He turned abruptly to Choi Sin-yul and issued a command as if it were the most natural thing.
“Choi Sin-yul.”
Song Chan-un and Saito Nan pursued similar ends, but their motives were polar opposites.
“Lop off the limbs of about thirty.”
Song Chan-un’s drive was one of mercy.
To ordinary eyes, his actions bordered on madness, yet he genuinely believed the path to beasts led to salvation.
“They’re all resources I need, so don’t kill them.”
To Saito Nan, beasts were nothing more than tools for exploitation. Choi Sin-yul let out a sigh.
“To make me handle this childish busywork twice...”
He splayed his right palm.
In that single instant, the air froze deathly pale... transforming into thirty blades.
“If this proves pointless foolery... I’ll return the favor on your limbs.”
Chachachachachang─────!
Ego Swordsmanship. The blades hurtled toward the plaza amid a clear ring of steel.
“Oh ho... exceptional skill, just as Mother described.”
The next moment.
A whirlwind of terrified screams.
Countless arms and legs tumbling across the snow in pools of blood.
“Not bad at all. I see why Sherashul’Toryak chose you.”
He savored the screams and agonies.
Saito Nan wore a smile of genuine satisfaction.
“Worry not, demigod. You’ll witness with your own eyes that this is far from pointless... ha, ahahahahaha...!”
As Saito Nan threw his head back in loud laughter and raised his right hand, the chaos ignited.
“Song Chan-un—that blasphemous cur never sat right with me... but he left behind something quite useful.”
Hunters clutching their heads.
From within, things writhed... then abruptly swelled enormous...
“The nutrients for the new world under my rule, Saito Nan’s.”
...And with shrieks, they rent apart their hosts’ skulls and brains, rocketing upward—the Ikkiras parasitoids.
“Wiwiwiwi eeeeeee?”
“Wiwi... wiririwiririwing.”
“U... uiiieee eeee.”
As those beasts groveled in worship across the snowfield, Saito Nan lowered his raised hand and abruptly ceased laughing.
“Behold, Choi Sin-yul. Humanity is trash.”
7.
New Seodaemun-gu Eastern Independence Park.
The site where humanity’s counteroffensive began—and where Lead Hunter Kim Baek-jun’s tale first unfolded.
What place could suit his farewell rites better?
“He stood higher than any of us gathered here.”
Soon enough, logs were stacked into an altar at the park’s heart.
“As we all know.”
Before it stood the <Association>’s executives in turn.
That is, Shin Tae-yeop, Seo Hwa-yun, and Lee Seong-mi.
“Rather than lording over us, he became lower than all and served everyone.”
Pastor Park led the funeral with a trembling voice.
“He was the exemplar for every hunter... nay, every soul. He led by example and urged us on through tears.”
Pastor Park glanced briefly at Gong Min-young and Lee Ha-ram... at the shadow of Nowon-gu haunting those two women’s lives.
“That we remain here as humans... it is all his grace.”
A few hunters bowed their heads limply. Pastor Park pressed on.
“Now... let him rest in peace.”
Shin Tae-yeop accepted the torch.
Tae-yeop-ah, I won’t abandon you, or anyone here... The stabbing grief surged anew.
Uncle, I’m sorry...
We couldn’t even recover your remains...
“Now your hunt is over.”
No sooner had Pastor Park spoken than...
The throngs at the funeral... hunters and citizens beyond counting... echoed his words in chorus.
“Now your hunt is over.”
“Now your hunt is over.”
“Now your hunt is over.”
Lee Seong-mi murmured in a daze.
Still reeling from the shock, perhaps... Shin Tae-yeop felt heat prickle his eyes and set the torch atop the altar.
“Awaken from this nightmare... and set forth toward that distant dawn.”
Whoosh... flames kindled upon the altar.
Crackle, crackle, crackle... In the fierce hush, only the blaze roared and danced.
He really, truly resembles him.
Shin Tae-yeop rummaged through memories, a forlorn smile on his lips.
Park Hyun-su and Kim Baek-jun... how could those two be so alike?
Then came the sob, tears spilling forth.
That marked the start.
Sobs long held back engulfed the park in moments.
This was no mere funeral.
Even should they raze Nowon-gu and reclaim Do Ye-jin and Choi Uk both, Kim Baek-jun would never return.
Not ever. Not for eternity.
This was... no parting salute to the man who had been Seodaemun-gu’s dawn.
It was acquiescence to cruel reality. Capitulation. Tears.
The wails carried as far as Gyeonghui Palace in Gyonam-dong, Jongno-gu.
“Fuck... crying their hearts out like that.”
<Association> headquarters, Hyunchungwon.
Jeong Ha-kyeong stood before the gravestone, gazing powerlessly at the sky over Independence Park as she muttered.
“What kinda big shot was he to bawl like that. Right?”
Her fingers traced the gravestone as she spoke—the freshly carved three letters of the name.
Kim Baek-jun.
The death-mark that severed Jeong Ha-kyeong’s bonds more surely than aught else.
“You’re just some delusional little shit...”
Jeong Ha-kyeong forced a grin, toying with Kim Baek-jun’s watch clasped at her wrist.
“You bastard, we had a promise. You’d come retrieve this watch...”
Her heart rent asunder.
Jeong Ha-kyeong gnawed her lip in silence for ages... then abruptly smashed a fist into the stone.
Pain like shattered bone.
It hurt. Hurt terribly.
Yet the soul’s agony—eternal, unhealing—dwarfed the flesh’s sting.
Ah, no...
I swore I wouldn’t cry.
Sobs welled unbidden all the same, and she broke at last into stifled weeping.
This was no mere grief for a first love lost.
Kim Baek-jun was the key to that far-off fairytale realm, the world before 2045’s old era.
A window back to those days.
And in this perished world...
The lone thread linking memories of bonds newly forged and freshly sundered: Kim Gye-sang, Hong Byeong-gyu, Yoon Geon-woo, Cha Seung-hyeon.
—Ha-kyeong-ssi, Ye-jin is like our little sister.
—Little sister...?
—At first Gye-sang-ssi... then Byeong-gyu-ssi, Geon-woo, and Seung-hyeon guarded her with their lives.
Back then, did Kim Baek-jun know?
That he would be the final one?
—So please cherish Ye-jin, Ha-kyeong-ssi. Treat her like blood kin, as you did Seung-hyeon.
He hadn’t known.
That’s why he’d smiled.
Or... had he? He’d pleaded through tears to Jeong Ha-kyeong.
—She’s truly a pitiable child.
Jeong Ha-kyeong drew a cigarette from her coat pocket and struck a match to light it.
—And quit smoking, too.
She inhaled lungfuls of smoke less acrid than life itself, threw her head back, and exhaled a long plume.
“Ah, fine, got it! Got it! Just one drag—one single drag!”
And with that...
She pulverized the cigarette—still nine-tenths whole—in her clenched fist.
“Since you asked, I’ll rescue that little sister of unknown adoption date.”
......
“But that’s where it ends.”
Jeong Ha-kyeong’s fingers retraced the gravestone. In order of passing.
Kim Gye-sang.
Hong Byeong-gyu.
Yoon Geon-woo.
Cha Seung-hyeon.
Kim Baek-jun.
Then... her cigarette-ash-smeared palm she ground against the stone like an inked seal.
“Then I’ll follow straight after... so don’t go on ahead—wait for me... promise me that.”
8.
“Karlen, the <Association> is heading straight here?”
Laisa Vera echoed Karlen’s report with mocking laughter.
“Now the era of predation truly dawns... or is it ending already? Ohohohoho....”
Star Pleasure Garden, New Seodaemun-gu Cathedral.
Mist wafting from the three censers in the nave...
“Quite the confidence, Laisa Vera.”
...Projected translucently therein: the forms of the Star Messenger siblings.
“You’re the confident one... whatever fuels it?”
“Less confidence than... anticipation of a most intriguing predation.”
Karlen’s bold assertion.
The First Librarian Tanteska cracked open her hooded eyes.
“Intriguing... It’ll end in futility, no? Seodaemun-gu’s Lead Hunter and the apostles of the absolute gods—slain to a man.”
“Precisely.”
“Then how do you declare it intriguing?”
Yes, she doesn’t know yet...
Karlen smiled coldly.
Seodaemun-gu now harbors a dimension traveler... and a demigod’s vessel... Victory eludes them, but oh, what spectacle for the stars.
“First Librarian, of course, no need to compare long and short to know.”
“...?”
“But even in the comparison, there’s amusement to be had, no? Ahahahahaha....”
August 7, 2045.
Day 123 since the world’s end.
The assembled might of Seodaemun and Jongno-gu under the <Association>’s banner.
Northern front.
Marched north toward Nowon-gu.
At last... the [Era of Predation] commenced in earnest.