I Return Alive Today
I return alive today as well.
On the top floor of the Orion Guild Headquarters, inside the guild leader’s office, Choi Jinchul stood by the window, gently swirling a glass of wine.
“Heh. Heheheh.”
From up here, he could see everything.
People crawling like ants, roads choked with traffic, and countless high-rise buildings stretching into the distance. All of it lay beneath his feet.
And of course, that included the sight of Lee Seoyun locked in battle with the hunters below.
Watching the scene unfold, he could no longer hold back his laughter. He savored his wine slowly, drinking in every moment of Seoyun’s suffering.
“Look at you. Lee Seoyun. This is the difference between you and me. Heheheh. Neither of us is who we used to be!”
A twisted smile spread across his face, flushed with excitement.
How long had he waited for this moment?
Branded a perpetual A-rank, constantly measured against Seoyun—he had never forgotten a single second of that humiliation.
When Seoyun cleared an A-rank gate alone, he himself had failed to conquer even a B-rank. Everyone had laughed at him. Only Seoyun had told him it was fine, offering encouragement. That memory still lingered.
And the hand Seoyun had always extended had always been nauseating.
“You pretentious bastard. You always acted like you were above me.”
But that ended today.
Today, right here, the S-rank hunter known as Lee Seoyun would vanish into history.
He would be recorded as the first hunter ever executed in South Korea.
Just imagining how widely that end would be known for generations to come filled him with anticipation.
“Puhuhu. Farewell, Lee Seoyun. I’ll take good care of your little sister.”
Choi Jinchul tilted his wineglass, waiting for the hunters surrounding Seoyun to finish him off.
“…….”
A heavy silence settled over the battlefield.
I slowly pushed myself up and looked ahead.
From the newly arrived S-ranks down to the A-ranks and below—so many of them had gathered just to take me down. The sight drew a hollow laugh from my throat.
“Ha… haha……”.
“Lee Seoyun! It’s over! Surrender while you still can!”
“You criminal bastard! Look around you! Look at what you’ve done!!”
Frenzied hunters bellowed at me.
Collapsed buildings. Hunters half-dead and scattered across the ground. Every single person here pointed an accusing finger at me.
People who couldn’t see the truth, chasing after the illusion right in front of them, capable of nothing but shouting.
I looked at Kang Hanna standing among them.
“Ugh……”.
She flinched the moment our eyes met. Then she tightened her grip on the staff aimed at me and held my gaze.
“Seoyun. Please, stop here. It’s not too late for us……”.
She pleaded with everything she had—using the same mouth that had just threatened my sister.
“…….”
And yet, strangely, I felt nothing.
No anger. No desire to argue. Rage, disappointment, despair, injustice, and that last thread of hope—every emotion that had burned out one by one on the way here was gone. Nothing remained inside me.
I simply looked over her and the rest of them with empty calm.
“Eighty-two……”.
I quietly counted the hunters before me. Strength gathered of its own accord in the hand holding my dagger.
Why? My abilities were nearly spent. My strength was almost gone. There was nothing left.
So why didn’t it feel like I was going to lose?
“Huu……”.
I exhaled deeply. I steadied my ragged breathing and shut my eyes completely, cutting off my blurring vision.
“S-Seoyun? What are you doing……?”
Someone called my name. I ignored it. It no longer mattered.
I erased every distraction and forced up whatever power still remained inside me. Even if my body was at its limit, it didn’t matter.
One more time.
Right here, I would make the Final Bloom open once more.
“Don’t tell me that guy… is he still planning to fight?”
“Damn it. That crazy bastard. Is he trying to die here!?”
Whispers rose all around me, but I kept my eyes closed and focused.
“…….”
Blood trickled from the corner of my mouth. Even so, I didn’t stop. I pulled even more power into myself.
Blood surged back into my mouth. My entire body felt ready to burst. I didn’t care.
More. Just a little more.
As long as my heart held out, this kind of pain was nothing. I would take as much of it as I needed.
“That idiot Lee Seoyun. Putting on airs when he’s already half-dead? If you’re that eager to die, I’ll grant your wish!!”
“He’s right. Let’s finish him before he tries anything else!!”
Irritating noise and approaching footsteps closed in. Even with my eyes shut, I could see them—the hunters’ blades already leveled at my throat.
“Die, you son of a bitch!!”
“…….”
But it was already too late.
A flower only truly blooms in the midst of the end.
Today, in this place, I would surpass my limits.
Final Bloom
KRAAAAAAAAAANG!
The energy inside my body detonated. A thunderous blast swept away everything around me.
“W-what the—”
The hunters’ panicked voices vanished into smoke and dust. They weren’t given time to scream, nor time for their blades to reach my neck.
In a single instant, everything was already over.
I slowly opened my eyes and looked at the hunters before me.
“Th-this can’t be……”.
They stared back at me with the same disbelief.
“He still has that much power left? How many hunters has he already fought alone!?”
“This isn’t what we were told… They said his abilities were spent! So why can he still move like that!!”
The hunters at the front unconsciously stepped back.
I glanced at the ones caught in my grip. Two S-ranks. They hung limp, never having managed a proper attack.
“…….”
My heart pounded harder than it ever had. My whole body burned as if it would explode at any second—and yet I could feel the power as well.
A realm where I could force anyone to submit, and where no one could force me to submit.
I was standing there now.
“Lee Seoyun! Have you lost your mind!?”
Kang Hanna’s voice cut through again. She pushed her way between the hunters and shouted urgently at me.
“Thirty seconds have already passed! If you use your ability again—what are you thinking!? Let them go right now! You’ll really die!!”
“…….”
No.
Even if my entire body screamed in agony, even if my bones felt ready to shatter, I knew one thing for certain.
This place would not be my grave today.
As long as I didn’t die—if the only price was pain worse than death itself—then the day my flower withered would never come.
I return alive today as well.
“Ready, you hunter trash?”
I smirked. The hunters’ faces twisted.
“Y-you son of a bitch!!”
“How dare you insult us!? When thirty seconds is your limit!”
They leveled their weapons at me, burning with humiliation.
“N-no! Everyone, stop!! Please!!”
Kang Hanna cried out desperately, but no one listened anymore.
I raised my dagger and looked ahead.
More hunters kept arriving. Their faces grew bolder by the second. Countless of them blocked my path—but that number no longer meant anything.
KUUUUUNG—
I stamped the ground and launched myself into the air in a single breath.
The free blue sky. The Orion Guild building rising into view. And directly below, the hunters staring up at me.
Falling Blossoms
“H-he’s coming!?”
I plummeted straight down into them.
KRAAAAAAAAAANG!!
A deafening crash. Beneath me lay a hunter—another S-rank, if I remembered right. The ones nearby froze, able only to stare. I stood, brushing the dust from my shoulder.
“You know something?”
I looked around at them as I spoke.
“I don’t even need thirty seconds to deal with the likes of you.”
“Y-you bastard……!”
Thud!
I drove my blade into the hunter in front of me. He collapsed without even managing to resist.
At the same time, the nearby hunters charged.
“K-kill him! Just kill him!! This bastard isn’t worth keeping alive!!”
“He’s not a hunter anymore. He’s the enemy of every hunter! We have to erase him here no matter what!”
“Nice. Look at you all uniting as one.”
Almost felt like I’d become the villain.
CRACK-CRACK-CRACK—
“—GYAAAAAAAH!?”
I stepped past a hunter whose legs had been twisted the wrong way and moved on to the next.
Thud. Thud. Thud. THUD!
Wherever I passed, the hunters who tried to block me crumpled in an instant.
“Guh… gahk……”.
“Eek!? Die! Just die already!!”
Their tangled attacks came at me, but they meant nothing. Before they could even swing their swords, I was already gone from that spot. Instead they cut and stabbed one another.
“Agh—my arm!?”
“S-sorry! I didn’t mean to—”
“My, you should have been more careful.”
Thud. I stabbed out the eye of the hunter who had been apologizing to the other.
“Gyaaaaaaah!?”
“Lee Seoyun, you crazy bastard! Know when to stop!!”
A spear from behind lunged for my neck.
CLANG—
I deflected it with my dagger and looked the man in the face.
“You look familiar. Do I know you?”
“You little shit. How dare you, to an S-rank hunter like me—”
—SHHHHRAAAK!
I cut out the tongue of the man who had just opened his mouth.
“Sorry. I wasn’t actually that curious.”
“U-ughk… aaagh!?”
I stepped over the fallen hunters and looked for the next target.
But no one approached me anymore.
The same people who had been so full of themselves moments ago now shrank back like drowned rats.
“Th-thirteen seconds. Seventeen left!”
“We don’t need to fight him. Everyone, just put distance between yourselves and that bastard!”
“He’s right! Hold on a little longer, everyone. Then he’ll—”
In that moment, the hunters froze solid.
As if time itself had stopped.
All of them stood still, only their eyes blinking, staring at me as I remained motionless in place.
“W-what……”.
“What the hell is that bastard doing?”
Seventeen… sixteen… fifteen seconds…….
Even as time passed, I still didn’t move from that spot.
While everyone watched me as if entranced—
Three seconds.
I poured every last scrap of power I could use in those three seconds into a single dagger.
Full Bloom
The energy unleashed at the end of that moment swept over everything before me and swallowed it whole.