Side Story: Solitude (2
Side Story: Solitude (2)
After the clan leader died, nothing remained inside the Gordok but chaos.
Even in such circumstances, there was still food left, and several strong members managed to keep the situation under control.
Among them, Sa seemed startled, but quickly composed himself, grabbed my arm, and took me to his room.
Then, inside the room, he forced me to continue training.
As if he wanted me to avoid looking at what had happened as much as possible.
"Haa... haa..."
My heart was pounding like mad from the training and the poison.
It hurt.
Perhaps knowing that, Sa handed me some water.
"Drink."
"Gulp... gulp..."
I drank the water carefully, treating it as though it were holy water.
"It's dangerous from now on, so sleep in my room."
"Really?"
"Yeah. And it's fine if you meet Yi, too."
"..."
An unexpected answer.
The room fell completely silent.
Feeling uncomfortable with the silence, I asked Sa a question.
"What kind of person were you before you came here, Senior?"
"..."
At my question, Sa closed his eyes and thought for a long time.
He covered his mouth and nose with one hand.
After pondering for quite some time, he finally answered.
"I was a student."
"A student?"
"Yeah."
"What's that?"
At my answer, Sa let out a hollow laugh.
He nodded as though my reaction were only natural.
Then he explained.
"It's a place called a school. A place where everyone studies as equals, makes friends, laughs, and is taught the right path."
"There was a place like that? Even though the world has fallen apart like this?"
My own parents had sold me after the world collapsed, sending me into the Gordok.
And yet a place called a school had existed in such a world?
"Yeah, there was. And I have proof."
As he said this, Sa walked over to a corner of the room.
He opened the floor and took out a box.
Inside the box were trousers, a white shirt, and a tie.
"It's called a school uniform. Students had the right to wear this."
"Then you wore this uniform?"
"...Yeah."
Sa handled the school uniform delicately, as though it were a priceless treasure.
Then he placed it back inside the box and hid it beneath the floor again.
"Eat. You're hungry."
"But the bell will ring soon."
"The bell only rang because the clan leader was here. There is no bell anymore. It might have already rung."
As time passed, the food eventually ran out.
We began attacking those who might have hidden food and fighting over it.
Some fought to protect whatever food remained.
But eventually, everyone realized that there truly was no food left.
Then Soran headed toward the center of the Gordok.
He picked up the clan leader's head.
He tore off a piece of flesh from the clan leader's body, ate it, and casually threw the head aside.
But that became the signal for everyone else.
People rushed toward the clan leader's head.
Multiple sounds overlapped.
In the Gordok, cannibalism had once been something only the strong could do to become stronger by consuming others.
But now it had become a means of satisfying hunger rather than gaining strength.
The people who rushed forward looked like starving insects.
The sound of flesh being torn.
The sound of bones breaking.
And the sound of them chewing.
Those sounds echoed throughout the Gordok in place of the bell.
Once, seeing such a scene would have made my stomach turn.
But I remained still.
I simply watched.
That didn't mean I wasn't disgusted.
I felt nauseous, but I simply didn't let it show.
Someone approached me.
It was Soran.
"Baek."
"..."
"You're hungry, aren't you?"
I couldn't say anything.
Soran was holding a piece of flesh torn from the clan leader's head.
"Gulp..."
My mouth watered.
Then—
Tap.
The piece of flesh fell from Soran's hand.
Sa was holding Soran's arm.
"Stop."
"Why?"
"This kid isn't someone who'll be swayed by your amusement."
"How hypocritical, Sa."
Ignoring Soran's words, Sa placed a hand on my shoulder.
"Let's go."
I followed Sa.
Behind us, the sounds of chewing continued.
Once we entered Sa's room, he locked the door.
Then he sat down in a corner.
For a long while, neither of us said anything.
I carefully opened my mouth.
"Senior Sa."
"..."
"Aren't you hungry too?"
I asked Sa that question.
He closed his eyes and seemed to think.
"Baek, are you going to eat people?"
"...Yeah."
I thought about it for a moment before answering yes.
Sa opened his eyes and looked directly into mine.
"Let's make one promise."
"What is it?"
"Even if you eat people, only eat those who attack you."
"Okay."
I agreed, and from that moment on, Sa and I had our own promise.
Before long, the room was filled with silence.
Outside, the sounds of chewing could still be heard.
The sound of flesh being torn.
I sat with my back against the wall.
I couldn't tell whether my stomach hurt because of the poison or because I was hungry.
Then—
Thud.
Something slammed into the door.
Sa opened his eyes.
Then he slowly stood.
Thud.
This time, it hit even harder.
"Sa."
An unfamiliar voice came from outside.
"Open the door."
Sa didn't answer.
"Give us some food."
"..."
"You have some hidden away, don't you? That's food, isn't it?"
Sa's expression turned cold.
It was another expression I had never seen on him before.
"Baek."
"Yes..."
"Stay behind me."
Not long after he said that—
CRASH!!!
The door shattered.
A thin boy entered the room.
His eyes were bloodshot.
There was blood around his mouth.
"I'm hungry..."
Perhaps because several people had shared a single head, there hadn't been enough meat, and it seemed to have only made their hunger worse.
Two more large men entered behind him.
When they saw me, they shouted.
"If there's no food, we'll eat you instead, Baek!!!"
The three rushed toward us.
But Sa engaged the two larger men, preventing them from reaching me.
Even so, the thin boy charged at me, trying to tackle me.
I assumed a fighting stance to stop him.
I planned to use the thrusting technique Sa had taught me.
The thin boy entered my attack range.
Smack!!!
I thrust my fingers into his eyes at incredible speed.
But the thin boy didn't stop and continued his tackle.
Perhaps because he was so thin, or perhaps because his speed had been reduced after I jammed my fingers into his eyes.
Either way, he didn't fall.
I used the opening to grab his eye socket with the fingers still buried in his eye.
Then I slammed the thin boy's face into the ground.
Bang!!
By the time I subdued the thin boy, Sa had already subdued the other two men.
Sa looked at me and said:
"Good job."
It was the first direct praise I had ever received from Sa.
Because of that, I was flustered and didn't know how to react.
"What do I do with him now?"
"With what?"
"This."
I pointed at the thin boy.
Sa answered:
"You decide whether to save him or eat him."
"..."
I thought for a moment and made my decision.
My teeth sank into the boy's neck.
And that became my first act of cannibalism.
Several months passed.
The Gordok was quiet.
The bell no longer rang.
Not in the morning.
Not at noon.
Not in the evening.
We simply woke when we were hungry and slept when we were tired.
Those days repeated themselves.
As we devoured one another, only four people remained in the Gordok.
There were no more sounds of flesh being torn.
No laughter.
No screams.
Nothing.
Nothing could be heard anymore.
"Baek."
It was a familiar voice.
I slowly opened my eyes.
It was Sa.
"Get up."
"Okay."
I rose.
My body was much larger and sturdier than before.
Calluses had formed on my fingers.
Scars covered various parts of my body.
Whether they had come from the poison.
Or from fighting.
I couldn't even tell anymore.
We left the room.
The cold air brushed against my body and scars.
The hallway was filled with bloodstains and broken bones.
We wandered around, wondering whether anything had changed.
Then it happened.
A laugh echoed from somewhere in the distance.
"Heh-heh."
I looked toward the source of the laughter.
Soran was sitting against a wall, covered in blood.
The blood covering Soran probably wasn't hers.
After all, there was a corpse in front of her that had been half eaten.
"Long time no see, Baek!!"
Soran slowly stood.
Yet even after several months, Soran hadn't changed.
That was strange.
"Baek."
"..."
"Was it delicious?"
She was asking whether eating people had been delicious.
I didn't answer.
Soran smiled.
"Everyone remembers their first time because it's special."
I didn't know what expression I was supposed to make, so I simply stared blankly.
But Sa's expression had hardened.
"Shut up."
"Why?"
"You're asking because you don't know?"
"Oh. You thought I was talking to you?"
"..."
"I was."
Sa charged at her.
But—
Sa had eaten as little of his own food as possible so he could give me enough to stay full.
As a result, the speed and destructive power behind his thrust were reduced.
And to Yi, that was nothing.
She dodged it effortlessly, then sliced through Sa's right arm with the edge of her hand.
Then Yi's hand blade cut across Sa's neck.
But it didn't sever it.
What mattered wasn't that she had cut him.
It was that she had injected poison into him through the cut.
Sa collapsed.
But Sa was staring at something.
It wasn't me.
It wasn't Yi either.
It was something else.
Perhaps the past.
"Hey. Are you the new guy?"
"Huh? Who are you?"
"I'm Sa. So you're O?"
"I guess?"
O gave an ambiguous answer.
It irritated me, but since this was our first meeting, I decided to let it go.
Suppressing my irritation, I observed O.
A white shirt, black trousers, and a black tie.
Was he from a relatively well-off family?
The thought was absurd.
It was ridiculous that someone this weak had been put into the Gordok.
Of course, before O arrived, I had been the newest member.
But the moment O entered, I forgot all about that.
"Hey, O."
"I'm not O."
"No. You're O. Forget who you were in the past."
"Okay..."
O's voice grew quieter.
It didn't matter to me.
"O! There are only five people here now, including you and me."
"..."
"One, two, and three are a family. That means we're at a disadvantage."
"So?"
"So we can't fight among ourselves. We have to become a team."
I grabbed O by the shoulder as I said this.
O's reaction to my words was:
"Okay. Sounds good."
The moment he said that, I put my arm around his shoulders.
O looked startled by the sudden gesture.
But he accepted it.
From then on, the two of us trained by fighting each other.
We had to become stronger than One, Two, and Three.
Then, one day, a question occurred to me.
"Why do you keep wearing those clothes? Aren't they uncomfortable when you fight?"
"Oh, you mean my school uniform."
"School uniform? Even something like that has a name?"
I should never have asked that question.
"Of course. A school uniform is proof that you belong to a school."
"A school? Is that the name of some delinquent gang?"
"A school is..."
O took a breath before speaking.
"It's a place where everyone studies as equals, makes friends, laughs, and is taught the right path."
"Does such a place actually exist?"
"Of course. I'm proof that it did."
And so began the stories about school.
Stories about studying.
Stories about playing with friends.
Stories about eating school meals.
Stories about going home from school together with friends.
Everything sounded like a dream.
For the first time, I began to wonder about the world outside the Gordok that had abandoned me.
From then on, O and I would train together.
When training ended, I would listen to his stories about school.
That routine continued.
Then one day—
"Senior Sa!!!!"
"What? You already want to train? Give it a little while."
"I found a way to get outside."
"What?"
"Let's go outside and go to school together."
I was overwhelmed by the sudden information.
But O continued speaking without stopping.
"If it's me, you, Senior Sa, and this older sister, we can kill the clan leader, take the basket, and escape."
"Yi agreed to it?"
"Yes! Yi was the one who suggested it first."
I held my head and thought for a moment.
Then I asked again.
"What about One and Three? I don't think they'll agree to this."
"Yi said she'd subdue One and Three."
"..."
The plan would fail if Yi couldn't subdue One and Three.
Even if she succeeded, it would amount to nothing if we couldn't defeat the clan leader.
I was about to object.
"Let's escape together and go to school."
"..."
The word school was such a wonderful and warm word that the thought of saying no melted away.
"All right. Let's escape together."
And so another day passed.
We woke up and went to where Yi was.
And there she was.
Yi was covered in blood.
"Are you okay, Sister Yi?"
Yi grinned.
Slash.
She cut O's throat.
Blood gushed from his neck like a fountain.
"I'm fine. It's not my blood."
"What are you doing, Yi?"
"I did it because it looked fun."
The veins in my neck bulged violently.
My breathing grew ragged.
I took one heavy step after another.
As soon as I entered striking range, I tried to stab my hand into her neck.
But—
"Senior... it hurts..."
O grabbed my ankle and cried.
Yi watched the scene and laughed.
"Interesting. I don't plan on killing you, Sa. I'm leaving."
And with that, Yi ran away.
Though I'm not even sure whether what she did could really be called running away.
More importantly, there was O.
"O, are you okay? I'll somehow keep you alive."
"No. I'm going to die."
"No. Don't give up."
"There's something I want to tell you."
O's lips moved for a long while before he finally spoke.
"I've never actually attended school."
"What?"
"I just found stories about school in a diary that belonged to a corpse and pretended they were my own stories."
"..."
"And I stole the school uniform from that corpse and wore it. That's all."
"Then you were planning to escape for the sake of a school that might not even exist?"
"No. I thought if I left with you, Senior, we'd be able to find it. I'm sorry..."
O's eyes lost their light as he said that.
I couldn't say anything in response to his apology.
Rustle.
Sa, whose throat had been cut, stood up.
Then he stabbed Yi through the heart.
"What? What is this...?"
For the first time, Yi looked genuinely startled.
Sa spoke quietly.
"It wasn't your fault. In fact, thank you for giving us a dream."
"You crazy bastard."
Sa wasn't speaking to either of us.
He must have been speaking to someone who wasn't here.
Sa pulled his arm out of Yi's heart.
A huge hole had been torn through Yi's chest, and red blood flowed from it.
Then Sa died on the spot.
And I was the only one left inside the Gordok.
I ate the corpses inside the Gordok.
Of course, I knew whose corpses they were.
But I didn't speak.
I simply ate to satisfy my hunger.
The poison accumulated in their corpses was tremendous.
My body couldn't withstand the pain.
Blood burst from me as I screamed in agony.
"Aaargh!"
But there was no one to hear my scream.
My voice simply echoed quietly through the Gordok.
I endured those painful days one after another.
Now there was no meat left.
Only bones.
But I ate them.
Because I was hungry.
Crunch.
I ate the bones.
My teeth hurt.
Now even the bones were gone.
But my hunger didn't end.
Was there truly no food left?
No.
There was.
I looked at my hand.
"Gulp."
I found it.
My own flesh.
Crunch... crack.
I bit into my own hand.
My hand was already contaminated with deadly poison, making it extremely toxic.
Even so, I ate it.
It hurt, but I ate.
Then, light appeared.
A yellow glow emerged from the severed part of my hand.
Then my hand regenerated.
What did I feel at that moment?
Perhaps...
Not gratitude.
I was simply hungry.
I ate my hand again in the same way.
And that solved my food problem.
Once my hunger was gone, I had more room to think.
Whose fault was all of this?
The clan leader?
Soran?
Sa?
Me?
Who?
Who had caused all of this...?
Right.
Salvatio.
Everything had been ruined because of Salvatio—the ones who killed the clan leader.
Clench.
I bit my lip.
Blood trickled down from it.
Once I got out of here, I would crush Salvatio.
I would kill every member of Salvatio.
They were the reason this place had fallen.
And they were the reason I had to escape.
Find the cause.
It felt as though something weighing on my heart had finally been released.
"Hahahahahahahaha!!"
I burst into mad laughter.
I was no longer hungry.
My other senses had become even sharper.
The ceiling was still dark.
The walls were cold as ice.
The ground was hard as iron.
And yet I wasn't hungry.
For several years...
No.
That's not it.
It wasn't that.
It was a sensation I had never experienced even once since I was born.
A truly alien sensation.
I carefully touched my stomach as though I were touching a baby.
It didn't move.
There was no sound.
It was completely still.
Like a dead corpse.
"..."
Did the disappearance of hunger mean I was alive?
Or did it mean I was dead?
I didn't know.
I had been alone inside the Gordok for far too long.
I had reached a state where I could no longer think normally.
Slowly, I went to Sa's room.
I opened the floor in the corner of Sa's room and took out the school uniform.
I stared at it for a long time.
Memories of the past briefly flashed through my mind.
Whenever Sa held the school uniform, he looked happy and at peace, as though he possessed everything in the world.
I held the school uniform too.
But its coldness couldn't give me the same warmth it had given Sa.
Still, as though I wanted to deny that fact, I held the uniform tightly against my chest.
Even so, I felt nothing.
Yet I continued repeating the same action.
Clink... creak... clink...
The sound of something rusty being forced to move echoed through the Gordok.
Baek looked toward the source of the sound.
"The basket."
He simply watched as the basket descended.
There were two women inside it.
Baek crouched down, waiting for his prey to come closer, and remained there until the basket reached the ground completely.
The basket slowly descended.
Creeeak.
The rusty metal cable screamed.
I hid myself in the darkness.
I bent my knees.
I lowered my body.
My fingertips touched the floor.
Like a beast waiting for its prey.
My hunger was gone.
But something else remained.
The urge to hunt, a compulsion as deep as the Gordok itself, hadn't disappeared.
It had only grown stronger.
Then—
The basket touched the ground.
Thud.
Dust scattered.
Two women stood inside.
One had white hair.
The other had hair the same color as Yi's.
The white-haired woman looked around.
As though searching for something.
"They're all dead."
There was a hint of disappointment in her voice.
But the white-haired woman suddenly stopped and remained still.
As though she were trying to sense something.
"One..."
"Huh?"
The woman beside her spoke in confusion.
But the white-haired woman continued without paying attention.
"Someone's alive."
Baek's heart didn't race simply because he had been discovered.
Did prey become afraid just because it learned the identity of its hunter?
No.
Instead, it thought about killing the hunter as quickly as possible.
My body moved before hers did.
Bang.
The stone floor cracked.
Baek's body shot forward like a shadow cast by the rising sun.
His fingers thrust forward as though piercing through the very surface of empty space.
The thrust aimed straight for the woman's neck.
But—
"?!"
Baek was startled.
The seemingly paper-thin surface of empty space became as impenetrable as a towering mountain before the white-haired woman.
No.
That thought didn't come from his fingers touching her skin.
He genuinely couldn't pierce through empty space.
He couldn't break through the space in front of the white-haired woman.
He couldn't even approach her.
The white-haired woman smiled and spoke to Baek.
"If you kill just one person, I'll grant your wish."
But I ignored her words.
I prepared my next attack.
I raised my foot, sharpening it like a blade freshly honed on a whetstone.
I lifted my leg, leaned my entire body backward, and swung it down.
I could push deeper this time.
But I still couldn't reach her.
Yet Baek didn't give up over something like that.
He stepped backward.
This wasn't a reversal of the roles between hunter and prey.
He was simply creating distance to accelerate his thrust, while also preparing a way to counterattack if the white-haired woman attacked.
Just as Baek expected—
The white-haired woman slowly raised her arm.
Various thoughts flashed through Baek's mind.
How is she going to attack?
Her stance wasn't one for charging forward and attacking him quickly.
But it was too slow and clumsy to be called a defensive stance, either.
And yet—
She smiled.
Whatever method she used to attack or defend, he would counter it all.
Suddenly, the white-haired woman extended her hand and pointed her fingers downward.
"Ghk!"
An enormous pressure crushed my body.
My knees cracked.
Breathing became painful, as though my lungs were being crushed.
It felt as though my heart had fallen even deeper than the Gordok.
The harder I tried to resist, the more blood rose into my throat.
"Cough!"
Blood burst from my mouth, eyes, and ears.
What was this?
Killing intent?
No.
It wasn't killing intent.
Killing intent couldn't exert pressure with such physical substance.
What kind of technique was this?
But did she really think I, who had survived to the end inside the Gordok, would lose to some cheap trick like this...?
"No."
Baek rose with a smile.
"?!"
For the first time, the white-haired woman looked startled.
Baek smiled even more broadly at her expression.
But he had no way to attack her.
Even so, Baek smiled and thought.
Sa's thrust relied on speed and quick counters.
Yi's cutting technique required flexible movement.
But this pressure prevented him from doing either.
If he moved carelessly, he would be crushed.
Yet Baek continued smiling.
He thought of someone.
Sixty-Six.
He smashed forward with his fists, just like Sixty-Six had.
Baek slowly approached the white-haired woman.
The closer he got, the stronger the pressure became.
It felt as though more and more weights were being added to his entire body.
Yet the white-haired woman simply watched.
Baek stopped in front of her and slowly raised his fist.
"Tough."
With those words, Baek concentrated all the strength in his body into his fist and threw it.
No.
He punched as though he were trying to smash something inside that empty space.
The attack that hadn't even been able to approach her shattered through the space for the first time.
Tap.
But Baek had used all his strength just to shatter that space.
All that remained was enough force to lightly tap her cheek.
His fist struck the white-haired woman's face.
"Ha... I'll admit it. You're stronger than I expected."
The white-haired woman answered with mild surprise and irritation.
Then she felt it.
Before, it had felt as though Baek had weights of steel attached to his entire body.
Now, an entire mountain was pressing down on him.
Baek was crushed beneath that mountain and fell to the ground.
But a mountain was still a mountain.
Under its weight, Baek's eyeballs were forced out of their sockets.
Seeing this, the woman beside the white-haired woman spoke.
"You said he was supposed to become our companion! You're just killing him!!"
"...You're right."
The white-haired woman agreed.
The mountain crushing Baek disappeared as though it had never existed.
But Baek's condition was horrific.
His eyeballs were protruding, and bones throughout his body had been shattered.
Blood was flowing from every opening in his body.
Seeing him, the white-haired woman clicked her tongue.
"Tch. I should've gone easier on him. At least he's still breathing."
"What?! He's still breathing? Like this?"
"Shut up. We can revive him with a relic."
But at that moment—
A yellow light radiated from Baek's body.
His entire body began regenerating.
"I'm back from the dead, you white-haired bitch."
Without stopping, he launched another attack.
But the white-haired woman didn't even take an attacking stance.
She simply didn't need to.
An attack came anyway.
Baek's ribs shattered.
The white-haired woman looked down at the fallen Baek and spoke.
"Now, shall we have a conversation?"
"I'll recover in no time and attack you again!!"
"Cooperate with us in killing a woman named Lebetri."
"This time, I'll tear your nose apart and eat it."
"If you succeed in killing the woman, I'll tell you where the boss of Salvatio is."
"..."
For the first time, Baek quietly closed his mouth.
But although he had become silent, his body had not.
His hunting instinct had become sharper than ever.
His pupils widened.
His breathing grew ragged.
He clenched his teeth so hard they nearly cracked.
"Cooperate. Don't you want to crush Salvatio?"
"I'll cooperate."
In Baek's eyes, there was no longer the white-haired woman.
There was no Sa from the past.
No Yi.
There was only one thing left.
Salvatio.