Taking Out the Trash
Bang! Bang! Bang!
The building shook. All because of a single human.
Why? How did they find us!
Only they themselves, Pagwon, and his closest confidants knew this location. Yet the human attacking them had made a beeline for their hideout as though it were the most natural thing in the world, as if he had known it from the very beginning.
How did we get made? It made no sense at all. But one thing was certain: if I don't run, I die!
That thought filled Ramen's head to bursting, and he hurried to prepare his escape. Not that "preparing" amounted to much more than sweeping his belongings into his inventory.
I'm going to survive. He would live, and live in wealth and glory. That purpose was the whole reason Ramen had become a demon, and that purpose was still unfulfilled. He began to run for his life.
Hm? One of them's running.
A demon carrying a hefty store of demonic energy was fleeing beyond the edge of my perception. Running off with that much power still on him...
Swish! Bang! Boom! Even now the demons kept hurling themselves at me, desperate to land so much as a scratch, while that one slunk away with his tail between his legs. That one's the head. I could tell at a glance. The demon scurrying off so pathetically over there was their leader; if he weren't, he would have been charging in with the rest.
I'd better finish this quickly and go after him. If a demon like that slipped into a crowd of civilians, there was no telling what disaster might follow.
With each step, shattered fragments burst free and began cutting down the demons attacking me. Thud! Thud! Thud! Every time a fragment flew, another corpse hit the ground, and in less than five minutes every demon except the runner lay still.
Now then, let's go hunting.
I broke into a run, the footwork carrying me in the direction the demon had vanished. He had already left my detection range, but as long as I knew his bearing, running him down was no trouble at all. Found him. In under a minute the fleeing demon drifted back into my senses, and when I pushed my speed a little higher, his figure swam into view.
That's... Ramen, isn't it? He looked quite different from before my regression, but it was Ramen all the same. Envy's lieutenant, who had grown drunk on power and thrown his weight around until I killed him. Funny. Seeing him like this almost feels like running into an old friend.
The demonic energy radiating off Ramen was pitifully meager compared to before. Judging by what I could feel now, he would lose even a head-on fight against me. Still, I'll send him off clean. I had tormented him plenty in my past life, and I couldn't see any reason to drag it out this time.
Vmmm. I charged my dagger with demon-breaking energy and hurled it at Ramen. Thunk! The blade sank into his back, and he pitched forward onto his face.
"I'm going to live! I will survive!"
As I drew closer, Ramen kept muttering nothing but those words, crawling slowly forward on his belly.
"Then you shouldn't have become a demon."
"You! You're—!"
The moment Ramen's eyes found my face, the blood drained from it. He looked like a man staring at a ghost.
"You're the one who chose to become a demon. If you want someone to blame, blame your past self."
"W-wait—!"
I didn't stay to hear the rest. My dagger swept across, and Ramen's head dropped to the ground. For a man who had stood among Envy's lieutenants, one of the names people whispered in fear, it was a shabby end.
"Now then, time to deal with the guild."
The guild's main force would have entered the S-Rank Gate by now. It was practically an empty house.
"Is everyone all right?"
"A few injuries, sir, but no fatalities."
The report from his subordinate set Pagwon's mind at ease. The air around them hung thick and clammy, and a vast swamp stretched out in every direction. Of all the gates to draw, it had to be this one. What rotten luck.
Gates laced with swampland took a long time to clear, and there was no way the Association could have known that when it assigned them. They had simply drawn the short straw. Still, this is throwing my plans off schedule.
Pushing forward as they were would only bleed their stamina. With the strength they had left, clearing the gate would be a stretch. Everyone here was a member of Pagwon, an asset of the guild, and Pagwon was not a man with the patience to stand by and watch his people come to harm.
A forced breakthrough is out of the question. Every guild member, himself included, was exhausted. His heart wanted to smash straight through, but if they advanced any farther, there was no telling what would happen. An S-Rank Gate was nothing short of a natural disaster.
"We rest here for now!"
"Yes, sir."
At the guild master's order, his people began leaning against the nearby trees one by one, settling in to rest. Had Pagwon forced a reckless breakthrough at that moment... he might have been able to save his guild.
"Wow. Fancy digs."
A major guild really was a major guild. Their headquarters proved it in person; set it beside Geumgang's, and it wouldn't come up short.
Can't bring the building down, though. Toppling a tower in the middle of the city would send casualties soaring, and the moment I did that, I'd be no different from the demons myself. I walked in through the guild's front door, bold as brass.
"How can I help you?"
Inside, a receptionist at the counter greeted me. I gave no answer, simply spreading my senses wide. The number of signatures I'm catching is small. Roughly five people in the building carried demonic energy. The rest had probably followed the main force into the gate.
Well then. Time to take out the trash.
As I began to loosen up, unease flickered across the receptionist's face.
"Sir?"
"Stay still and you won't get hurt."
The moment I took the step, the entire building vanished beneath a blanket of fog. Shouts erupted all around at the sudden whiteout, but I ignored them and headed upward. My targets were up top.
"Hidey-hide, hide away, your hair is showing."
Humming the nursery rhyme, I began my hunt, and it didn't take long to find them.
"Who the hell are you!"
"Ha."
The demons flared their demonic energy to its limit and warily ringed me. Not that any of them seemed to be making much effort to hide what they were.
"Trash, come to dispose of trash like you?"
Yes. This was right. Only trash could dispose of trash. I drew my sword because they were demons, and I cut them down because they were demons, for no other reason than that they were demons. There's no need to rationalize it. They were someone's family, someone's friends, someone's children. And I would cut them down all the same. Because they were demons.
"What the hell do you mean, tra—!"
Before the words could finish, my blade took his head. It slid free along the severed line of his neck and dropped.
"Aaagh!"
Seeing their comrade's head fall, the other demons poured their demonic energy into their weapons and came at me. Clang! Clang! Clang! The remaining four threw everything they had, and not a single blow got through. Then one strike of mine, Swish!, and every last head came off.
"This leaves a bad taste."
In the timeline I left behind, none of these people would have become demons, just as the Pagwon of my past life never had. But now they had chosen demonhood, and Pagwon was no different. The hero of my previous life had strayed onto the wrong path. Because of a choice I made.
I had fed the Geumgang Guild what I knew about the demons, and that information had brought about Envy's subjugation. The remnants had then flowed into Pagwon Guild, and that was how these people became demons. A butterfly effect, of sorts. And knowing that is exactly what makes it feel so filthy.
There was no way to know what the right answer was. But at the very least, I would act according to their choices. If they had chosen to become demons, then I would treat them as demons.
"Aaaaargh!"
Just then, a man rushed me from behind, sword raised.
As always, he had been training with his team in the training hall when, out of nowhere, a system message appeared.
'Strong Mentality (A)' has resisted a mental attack.
Along with the message, a fog suddenly billowed up around them, and his teammates panicked. Pak Hyun-jin gathered them all in one place and set out to find the source of the illusions.
So this was what that bad feeling had been about. Making his way through the building, he confirmed that everyone but himself was seeing things. Illusions on this scale... Only a mage specialized in illusions, level 200 or beyond, could pull off something like this.
And while he was still tracking the source, he saw it. Swish! The head of Director Park, who managed the guild's resources, tumbling from his shoulders. Director Park was a powerhouse of level 300. Faced with strength that could take a man like that in a single stroke, Hyun-jin's body froze solid and refused to move. Just who is that man...?
"Aaagh!"
Then the others nearby attacked the man all at once. He deflected every strike with room to spare, then cut them down as well. Swish! Heads separated with a crisp, unmistakable sound. Through all of it, Pak Hyun-jin couldn't manage a single word. Even if he ran in to help, it would be too little, too late, and his frozen body wouldn't answer anyway.
"This leaves a bad taste."
That was what the man said. As if someone else's will had made him kill. As if it hadn't been his own choice at all. The instant Hyun-jin heard those words, the instinct that had been pinning him down simply vanished.
"Aaaaargh!"
With a scream tearing out of him, Pak Hyun-jin hurled himself at the man's back, sword raised.
Clang!
Naturally, the ambush failed. The gap between them was far too wide for a surprise attack to bridge. The Righteous Sword, Pak Hyun-jin. Son of Pak Jin-sung, the master of Pagwon. Before my regression, he had been hailed as a hero.
Clang! Clang! Clang! Now that same Pak Hyun-jin was swinging his sword on nothing but rage. He had just watched his own guildmates die in front of him; the reaction was only natural.
"Kgh!"
But I couldn't keep humoring him forever. I gave my dagger a slight twist and cracked him across the neck with the hilt. Struck, Pak Hyun-jin crumpled, out cold.
"I'm sorry."
I apologized to him in advance. It was a cruel thing to do to a boy who was about to lose his father, but there was no way around it. Mercy was not something you could offer a demon.
With that step, I dispelled every illusion I had laid across the building. Time to go. Any more delay, and I might not finish the job inside the S-Rank Gate.
I stepped into the footwork and hurried toward the S-Rank Gate where Pagwon had gone.