Wanna Die?
"Aaagh—! Nngh—!"
The crack of a whip rang through the empty air. Han Mir showed no mercy, bringing Mihang's own whip down across her back again and again. Vivid red welts carved themselves into her skin as tears streamed from her eyes.
Bunny and the surviving Anomalies swallowed hard at the sight. Not a single one of them so much as considered approaching Han Mir. Covered head to toe in blood, the Hero swinging that whip looked like a true demon descended straight from hell.
Mihang tried desperately to open a portal and flee, but every time one began to form, a mind-blanking surge of pain crashed through her. All she could do was twitch. The moment she realized that no amount of struggling would free her from the Hero's grip, she switched tactics on the spot. She dropped to her knees and groveled for dear life.
"I-I'm sorry, Hero! I've committed a crime worthy of death! I'm reflecting so, so deeply, so p-please! Please forgive me just this once!"
Han Mir met Mihang's glistening eyes with a look of utter boredom.
"Answer my questions."
"Y-yes, yes!! I'll answer anything, sincerely and without a single lie!"
Crack.
"Kyaaah—!!!"
Mihang clutched her arm and rolled across the floor. Tears welling in her eyes, she looked up at the man who had just whipped her.
"W-why would you—"
"Just looking at your face made me want to hit you. Got a problem with that?"
The Hero cracked the whip through the air with a vicious snap, and Mihang flattened herself against the ground in terror.
"Eek! No! None at all!!"
"Good. So how did you get to this world?"
"W-well, you see. T-to be honest, I don't really know."
"Oh, is that so?"
Han Mir beamed and swung the whip.
Crack.
"Kyaaaaah! It hurts, it huuurts—!"
"Of course it hurts. You think I hit you so it wouldn't?"
He cocked his arm for another strike, and Mihang frantically waved her hands.
"I-I'm telling the truth! I-I don't know anything! Please, just believe me!"
Han Mir yanked her up by the collar and whispered.
"Then how the hell did you end up here? Huh? Did you pick up reverse-summoning magic while you were running from us? Hmm? If you don't want your skull caved in, stop playing cute and spill everything you know. I'm not a patient man."
"I-I'll talk. P-please, just don't hit me."
She moved her crimson lips, her voice thick with tears.
"Hic... A-as you well know, Hero, I served Lord Dolselenese, the Demon King of Hedonism. After losing to you, going back would have meant certain death. So I was racking my brain over how to survive when, out of nowhere, this bizarre portal just... appeared right in front of me."
"And I'm supposed to believe that?"
"I-it's the truth! If I'm lying, I'll become your slave and serve you with total loyalty! I'll lick your feet if you tell me to, I'll flip over and show my belly, whatever you want!"
"You're already my slave, though?"
"...What?"
Han Mir smiled sweetly and unfurled the whip to its full length. Sensing that refusal would mean execution the second the questions were over, Mihang nodded frantically.
"Of course! Of course, of course! Absolutely! I-I am y-your faithful slave, Hero!"
"That's right, Slave Number One. We got a little off track. Anyway — a portal just popped open out of nowhere, you walked through, and you were here?"
"Th-that's correct. Crossing that portal brought me into your world, and for some reason I still don't understand, my power had gotten even stronger. Hehe."
"Then what about those guys?"
Han Mir pointed behind him at the Anomalies from the second game — the ones staring at him with the glittering, starry-eyed look you'd only ever see in a romance manga.
"Those aren't familiars you created. You're hiding something from me right now, aren't you? Wanna die?"
"D-don't misunderstand! Those are ones I ran into after I crossed over to this world. They had nowhere to go, so I took them in!"
Mihang lay flat on the ground, trembling. She had once held a fairly high rank in the Demon King's army, but now she was nothing more than the Hero's weak, terrified slave. Unbearable shame and humiliation burned through her face like a fever. This was the second time she had been treated this way. The first had been after her defeat at the hands of the Hero's party, when she'd been taken prisoner and tormented by Shurun. She had sworn that day she would never suffer such treatment again — and yet here she was, reduced to a slave. The irony of her own fate was almost too much to bear.
"Hmm. So putting it all together — a portal to this world suddenly appeared, you came through, and remnants of the Demon King's army came through as well?"
"Th-that's right."
"Are there any more of the Demon King's forces who crossed over that you know about?"
"I-I really don't know. Aside from the ones over there, I haven't run into anyone else..."
Han Mir tipped his head back and let out a long, heavy sigh.
"Haaah."
Then he dropped his gaze back down to Mihang. Just feeling his eyes on her made her spine twitch of its own accord.
"Slave Number One."
"Y-yes, sir!"
"Who am I?"
"Y-you're the Hero."
"Wrong. No. I'm not a Hero anymore. If I still were, I wouldn't have asked a single question. I'd have just killed every last one of you."
"W-what do you mean by that..."
Han Mir crouched down, settling into the slouch of some two-bit thug loitering in an alley.
"I already told you. I spent five years working myself to the bone and killed every last Demon King. I even cleaned up all those bastards' leftover scraps. That's how the age of peace arrived. So tell me — does the world still need a Hero, or not?"
"I-it does not."
"That's right. The world didn't need a Hero anymore, so I retired and came home. In other words, I'm a retired Hero. You following?"
Mihang nodded so hard her head might have come off.
"Y-yes! I understand!"
"Alright, then think about it. I spent years doing a job I never even wanted, busted my ass, and finally made it home — ready to kick back and live the sweet life. And then the Demon King's army I thought was dead and gone pops up out of nowhere. How do you think that makes me feel?"
"...I-I imagine you wouldn't feel very good."
"Pffhah! I wouldn't feel very good? That's it? That's all you've got?"
A suffocating pressure slammed down on her. Mihang couldn't even lift her head — it drove itself into the floor of its own accord. The killing intent pouring off Han Mir alone was enough to make her skin feel like it was splitting, like her bones were about to punch through. A searing, scalding pain rolled over her in waves. She barely managed to gasp out a ragged breath.
"Do you have any idea what it took for me to make it back? I clawed my way here over the corpses of comrades I still see every time I close my eyes — and now I have to deal with you people all over again. You think that feeling is just 'not very good'?"
Han Mir spoke into her ear, his voice calm, every word ground out through clenched teeth.
"Everything disgusts me. Even breathing feels like vomiting up filth, and my blood boils like lava. Something inside me is grinding itself to pieces, and all I can taste is bitterness. The urge to kill everything in front of me right now won't get out of my head."
He laid a hand on Mihang's shoulder.
"Ghhk!"
An ominous, violently thrashing energy she couldn't possibly contain tore into her from the inside. Mihang coughed up a mouthful of blood.
"I want to hack off your limbs right now, split you open while you're still alive, pull out your guts, and strangle you with them. You understand me?"
"...I-I'm s-sorry. I'm sorry."
Cold sweat poured off Mihang's entire body like rain. Blood streamed freely from her eyes and nose. She had only listened to his words, and yet it felt as though her heart were being ripped apart, her whole body melting in agony. The killing intent Han Mir radiated was no ordinary bloodlust. It was five years of accumulated, suppressed, nauseating emotion exploding outward — a killing intent steeped in ice-cold rage.
"Hooo."
Han Mir's sigh, and the killing intent receded with it.
"Hah... hah..."
Only then could Mihang breathe freely again, her body trembling violently.
"But what's done is done. I'm already retired from being a Hero, so I'm not about to go round you all up and slaughter you again. The Management Bureau can handle the rest. Right?"
"Th-that's right."
Mihang had no idea what the Management Bureau was, but she agreed anyway.
Han Mir rose slowly to his feet.
"Alright. Open a door so we can go home."
"Yes! As you command!"
The moment Mihang had been waiting for had finally arrived, and she broke into a wide grin. The second she got the Hero and his tagalongs out, she would slam the space shut and escape him. Even a Hero had no way of finding a space she herself had created. In other words, the moment she shoved them through, this world would be hers again, whole and complete.
A sly laugh bubbled up inside her as she opened the portal. The survivors offered their thanks to Mir before stepping through.
"Thank you so much. If it weren't for you, Mir, we'd already be dead. If the day ever comes when you need my help, I swear I'll repay this."
"Mmph mmph mmph!"
"Don't mention it. Sorry you had to suffer because of this piece of trash."
Lee Ji-han went through first, followed by Do Gwang-sik, whose mouth was still gagged and who kept bowing his head in frantic gratitude.
"What!? Is playtime over already? I don't wanna go home yet, aww. Does that mean we can't play anymore?"
Han A-reum said, sounding genuinely disappointed. Han Mir smiled gently and ruffled her hair.
"We'll meet up and play again later."
"You mean it!? You promised!"
"Yeah, yeah."
Once Han A-reum had gone through as well, Kim Min-jeong hesitated, then spoke to Han Mir in something close to a whisper.
"Thank you. If you hadn't saved me from that killer back then, it really would have been... I don't even want to imagine how horrible. Because of you, even with this disease rotting my skin, I want to keep living. Like A-reum said, I hope we can meet again."
Kim Min-jeong bowed her head and passed through the portal. And then there was one left. Kang Hyeon-su, lingering at a distance, edged closer with obvious reluctance.
Han Mir waved him off like he was a nuisance.
"If you don't get out of here, you're gonna have to play house with these monsters. That sound good to you?"
"I-I'm going, okay!?"
Kang Hyeon-su bolted toward the portal, then stopped dead right in front of it and muttered under his breath.
"E-even without you, I could've solo carried and cleared this game myself!"
Watching Kang Hyeon-su vanish after that little declaration, Han Mir could only think, What the hell is this guy's problem?
And then, at last, the moment Han Mir himself stepped through the portal—
"Kyahahaha! You stupid Hero! Me, your slave? That's the funniest thing I've ever heard! The only reason I played along with you was for this exact moment! I'm not taking a single step out of this space — I'll just keep kidnapping people right under your nose! You'll never be able to set foot in here again, so you'll get to watch people die one after another! And then you'll spend the rest of your life regretting that you didn't kill me! Kyahahahaha!"
Mihang poured out every ounce of resentment she had been holding back, her laugh dripping with spite. Han Mir was already inside the portal. There was no going back.
And yet he was smiling. A smile so wicked it would have put a Demon King to shame.
Mihang felt a flicker of unease at the look on the Hero's face, but the portal had already closed and he was gone, so she decided not to dwell on it.
"Huh?"
Something in her field of vision snagged at her attention. A light. A light pouring from her own stomach. A starlight-shaped brand had been carved into her belly.
"Huh? When did this get—!?"
A light so intense she couldn't even keep her eyes open swallowed her whole. Mihang's vision went white. Her stomach lurched, and she felt herself being sucked somewhere far away. And when she opened her eyes again—
"Peekaboo."
Han Mir was right in front of her, grinning from ear to ear.