To a Place With No One
Choi Jinchul’s face twisted in agony right before my eyes.
“Aaaargh!!”
He screamed and thrashed, but the sight only made me calmer. I simply watched the blood pour from the clean-cut stump without interest.
“Guh—you crazy bastard!! Y-you actually cut me!?”
“…….”
“Do you even know what you’ve done!? You attacked the guild leader of Orion Guild! You dared attack me!! You’re finished—completely finished!”
He shouted at me even through the pain, as if he were certain I wouldn’t go any further. He was still seeing the old Lee Seoyun in me.
“You know something, though?”
“What, you son of a bitch!?”
“Even while you’re screaming like that, not a single hunter outside that door is coming to help you.”
And more than that—I had no intention of stopping here.
“…….”
At those words he finally shut his mouth. Whimpers still leaked out, but his dazed eyes were fixed on the door beyond. I let him go.
“Khuh!?”
He hit the floor, scrambled to put distance between us, but the blood made everything slick and he only floundered in it.
“Damn it, damn it!!”
Choi Jinchul limped from the earlier bullet wound. Even trying to crawl away looked like pure torment.
Slash—
I severed the bullet-torn leg clean through.
“Kyaaaaah!?”
He toppled mid-crawl and face-planted. Another pitiful scream rang through the entire guild headquarters.
“Ah—aaaah! M-my leg. My leeeeg!!”
He howled at the stump. I walked toward him slowly.
“Jinchul. Where are you rushing off to in such a hurry?”
“Stay back. Stay the fuck back, you bastard!!”
Thud!
I drove my blade into his remaining leg. The man who had been dragging himself forward went into convulsions.
“Ah—aaaah. Kyaaaaah……!!”
Choi Jinchul twitched and shuddered. I stepped in front of him and looked down. Even in agony he glared up at me.
“Well? Feeling a little clearer now?”
“You—you son of a bitch…….”
“Or do you still not get it?”
Crunch.
“Guhhh!?”
I crushed his shoulder under my foot and the scream tore free on its own. No matter how he thrashed I didn’t budge. I pressed harder and asked again.
“Jinchul. Do I still look like the one who’s fucked?”
“Kh—you, you bas—ghhh!”
He spat blood with the scream. When I lifted my foot he groaned and stared up at me.
“F-fine. I’ll help you! I’ll fix everything, okay!!”
“…….”
“Why aren’t you saying anything!? Isn’t this what you wanted all along!? I’ll clean up every mess you made!!”
“Ha…….”
I let out a soft, scornful laugh. Watching him thrash for the wrong answer was almost funny.
“Jinchul. What the hell are you talking about at this point?”
“Why! You put on this whole circus just to hear me say it, didn’t you? Am I wrong!?”
“No. You’re wrong. You’ve been wrong from the start.”
That was never the order of things.
I seized him by the collar, hauled him up, and dragged him toward the window. His face drained of color.
“L-Lee Seoyun! Snap out of it, you retarded fuck!! The more you do this the more your little sister goes down with you, don’t you get that!? So come to your senses right now and take me to a healer—hurry!”
“…….”
“Fuck. I think I’m dying, you piece of shit. If I die you become a real murderer, you know that!? You bastard!!”
He shouted in desperation, but I didn’t let go. His blood kept fouling the floor the whole time. Without a second’s hesitation I shoved him out the window.
“H-hiiik!?”
He glanced down and screamed. His one remaining arm clutched my wrist like a lifeline.
“Y-you! What the hell are you trying to do……!”
“You know. Why ask?”
I looked past him at the hunters below.
“You wanted a healer. There are plenty right down there.”
“Hey, you fucking psycho!! Even jokes have limits, you bastard!”
“Is that so? So all of this looked like a joke to you.”
“You—you. Fuck, why are you doing this? I said I’d fix everything. What more do you even want from me!!”
I snorted.
“I never wanted anything. Not from a piece of shit like you. Not from the beginning.”
“Th-then why? Fuck, there has to be a reason!!”
A reason.
The word itself was almost funny.
“Hey. Choi Jinchul. Did you have a reason when you did all that shit to me? You just did it because I pissed you off.”
“What……?”
“Same here. I’m doing this because you piss me off.”
For a moment the pain left his face and he just stared. Then, pale as death, he tried a new angle.
“H-hey. Let’s not do this. Let’s talk, okay? Wh-what’s friendship for, you asshole.”
“…….”
“You bastard. If you do this you really become a murderer. There’s no going back! Think about your sister. You gonna leave her as the little sister of a killer? Then school, jobs—her whole life goes to hell because of you, you retarded fuck!!”
He rattled on without even breathing, thrashing for survival even as he bled out. And through it all a little smirk still clung to his face. Maybe he was certain. Certain that no matter what I did, I wouldn’t actually kill him. That this was just a threat, a warning.
“Hey, Lee Seoyun. Think carefully. If you keep this up you don’t just ruin yourself—you ruin your sister and your grandmother too. Heh. You know that much, right?”
I could see it in his eyes. He was sure that once I’d made my point I would let him go.
Maybe that was why.
“Yeah. All right.”
Tap—
I simply let go.
“Ah?”
The certainty on his face cracked for the first time. Terror. Despair. The raw fear that he might actually die.
“W-wait…….”
Whatever else he meant to say never reached me. He plummeted in an instant. I leaned out and watched his face as he fell. Even then he seemed to believe it—that Lee Seoyun would grab him again at the last second.
Instead of catching him, I pulled my hand back.
Only then did his expression fully collapse. The scream came late.
“W-waaaaaaah—”
—Splat!
Even the scream didn’t last. Not a simple impact, but the wet burst of something rupturing echoed across the city.
“…….”
I looked down in silence at the flattened thing below. Hunters gathered around Choi Jinchul’s corpse. Then the screams started. One by one they lifted their heads until every face was turned up toward me.
“Quite the view…….”
I murmured it under my breath. Was there any freer sight than this?
Pain worse than death had been wracking my body for a while now, but I still hadn’t released the ability. Instead I slowly straightened and looked toward the door.
Bang bang!!
Commotion outside, then someone hammering hard. Crash! The locked door shattered and Association hunters poured in.
“Lee Seoyun! Surrender immediately!!”
“Drop your weapon or we will open fire!”
S-rank hunters leveled their weapons at me as one, ready to attack the second I moved. They glared and shouted their warnings.
“It’s already over! Just give up!”
“Still don’t get it!? You’ve made an enemy of this entire country!!”
I didn’t bother answering. Outside the window several helicopters were closing in. They really were going this far just to catch one man.
“Not bad treatment for a villain.”
A grand welcome, really.
I nodded once and looked back at them. A few familiar faces stood among the hunters. None of those ties meant anything anymore.
“So long, then. You blind fools.”
I simply leaned back and dropped out the window in a single motion.
“Th-that crazy bastard!?”
They lunged, but it was already too late. I looked up at the sky and murmured quietly.
“Scattered Blossom.”
Like petals scattering on the wind, my falling body vanished in an instant.
“Wh-what…….”
“Where the hell did he go!?”
The hunters spun in panic, but none of them could track my speed with their eyes. I landed on a rooftop on the far side and kept running without rest.
How long I ran, I couldn’t say. By the time the sun was setting I reached a small village.
“…….”
I stopped in front of a shabby house. When I knocked, Jian opened the door carefully.
“O-oppa?”
She stared as if she couldn’t believe it. A phone still showing the news about me was clutched in her hand.
“I’m sorry, Jian. Oppa…….”
“Hic. Hnngh!”
She threw her arms around me and covered my mouth before I could finish the apology.
“Hic. It’s okay. I’m fine, Oppa. As long as I have you, that’s enough.”
“…Yeah. Is that so.”
Why was it? The moment I heard those words, every pain that had been crushing me simply disappeared. Body and mind that had hurt enough to kill were forgotten as if they had never existed.
Jian buried her face against my chest and shook her head.
“So Oppa. Don’t leave me and go anywhere ever again.”
“Yeah. I’ll never leave you alone again.”
I held her and spoke. Maybe I had ruined her life—before coming here the thought had crossed my mind—but I decided not to think that way anymore. If her life had changed because of me, then I would simply make it better. Not by leaving her side, but by staying beside her for the rest of her life.
“Let’s go, Jian. To a place where no one is.”
“Sniff. Okay… I’ll go with you, Oppa.”
She nodded, and I took her hand.
And so, on that day, I completely vanished from the Republic of Korea.