Apostle's Appointment (3)
He charged at the beasts and cut them down.
By the time the number of beasts he'd slain surpassed two hundred, he'd given up counting altogether. Eun-hyeon focused solely on slaughtering the horde of quadrupedal monsters swarming him from all sides.
Attacks rained down from the front, the rear, the flanks—even leaps from above. Though their numbers were overwhelming, he sensed every direction, every assault, and sliced through them one by one.
Kyaaak!
The beasts' agonized shrieks twisted the air without end.
The one stroke of fortune was that there was only a single type of monster. He didn't have to rack his brains over varied countermeasures.
These were humans corrupted and transformed into beasts, their limbs no longer retaining any human form. While their arms and legs had mutated or warped grotesquely, they still possessed the elongated limbs of humans—yet they chose to lope forward on all fours like beasts. Saliva dripped from their maws as they lunged at Eun-hyeon, their eyes devoid of any reason or intellect.
This was a breed unseen even among standard beast categories—a peculiar mutation where humans had devolved into monsters. An unprecedented case.
Yet it felt no different from facing a pack of wild animals. Eun-hyeon didn't agonize over it; he simply cleaved through the charging horde in sequence.
Craaaack!
"Huh."
The sword gripped in his hand—the only one he had—shattered and crumbled to pieces.
After felling hundreds of beasts, it had finally exhausted its durability and met its end.
Without a moment to think, Eun-hyeon invoked his replication power and conjured a fresh blade into his grasp. It took mere seconds.
Of course...
"Urgh..."
One beast sank its jaws into his left leg, clamping down with savage force to tear away flesh. In that instant, Eun-hyeon's sword plunged deep into the monster's throat.
Kiiik!
The beast slumped lifelessly, its jaws going slack. Eun-hyeon shook his leg free from its maw, swiftly kicked the corpse, and sent it hurtling into another beast leaping toward him.
The two collided midair. He drove his blade through the second beast's gut and slashed upward with brutal strength.
At a glance, with over two hundred slain in what seemed like a blink, Eun-hyeon appeared utterly dominant. But he wasn't unscathed.
Even if only ten seconds had passed in real time...
Thanks to the time acceleration granted by his powers, his body had endured the equivalent of two or three full minutes of exertion.
The fatigue burdening his flesh piled up far faster and more relentlessly than expected, dulling his reflexes.
As time wore on, minor wounds began accumulating across his body.
His armor was already mangled beyond recognition, shredded by fangs and claws. Rather than protection, it now dangled in tatters from his limbs like useless rags.
He slammed one sword into the ground, then tore off the cumbersome, functionless plates with his bare hands—even as he continued massacring the onslaught.
"Grrraaagh!"
Overwhelmed by accelerated fatigue, Eun-hyeon failed to react in time. Another beast clamped onto his left shoulder, refusing to let go.
He stabbed its eye with his right-hand sword and wrenched it free with raw power. But the corpse hung stubbornly from his shoulder, jaws locked.
In that brief opening—not exploited intentionally, but seized nonetheless—dozens more beasts swarmed him.
"Arrrgh!"
Arms, legs, shoulder, thigh, flank—every patch of exposed flesh and bone was mauled and ripped away.
Their grip strength was inhuman, unimaginable for once-human forms.
Flesh hung in strips, bones gleamed white; one leg was outright severed below the right knee.
The unimaginable agony would have killed an ordinary person via shock. Yet Eun-hyeon clung to consciousness.
He swallowed the scream rising in his throat and activated his powers, slashing through the beasts.
Invoking time reversal, his torn flesh and lost limbs regenerated. He carved through the ravenous horde once more.
No respite, no mercy—the beasts kept coming.
No time to breathe, every muscle screaming in protest. But to falter, to drop his sword, meant death.
Even after dozens of blades had shattered.
Even as his clothes shredded and flesh was devoured.
Even as overtaxed muscles tore and snapped.
Eun-hyeon reset his body's state with time reversal, then accelerated his thoughts and time anew. The slaughter never ceased.
Yet even he, who seemed invincible, reached his limit.
His mental stamina could no longer sustain the constant resets.
The fatigue stacked from time acceleration in his reset body had peaked long ago. His eyelids drooped unbidden; maintaining awareness grew torturous.
Every inch of him screamed, but his fogged mind barely registered the pain.
Eun-hyeon no longer had the strength to grip his sword. His legs buckled, and he collapsed in a heap.
Bracing against the wall, he willed his body to move—but not even a finger twitched. It ignored him entirely.
'Ha... I was hoping to hold out until the kids took down the emperor...'
Regret and guilt mingled as he thought of his comrades ascending the hall above.
Suddenly, the beasts poised to tear into him froze in unison.
Like statues locked in time, their rigid forms convulsed in agony.
Kyaaak!
Eun-hyeon watched, dazed, as the frenzied horde dropped one by one. He didn't grasp what was happening at first.
Then realization dawned. He turned toward the stairs leading to the hall above and grinned broadly.
'They did it.'
His comrades had slain the emperor—the source of the corruption. He'd staked everything on that hope.
A profound relief washed over him, like fulfilling a long-held vow. He tried to rise, to join them...
"Uh..."
My body didn’t listen.
He even noticed that his breathing was slowing down.
Instinctively, Eun-hyeon could sense that this was the end.
‘Okay. I’ve lived a long time.’
Probably from the moment I became an apostle of the three goddesses of destiny. She has lived for over 400 years.
Finally, as Belldandy made her go through the rite of the apostleship, she hugged herself and remembered her words of apology.
[Sorry. Sorry. Someday… It’s fine if you resent me.]
Eun-hyeon smiled as she recalled Belldandi’s apology in her fading consciousness.
‘I don’t hold grudges.’
There were difficult times, but there were also many fun and happy times.
In the era of chaos called the Great War, he has had countless dirty experiences of killing people.
[Hey. Keep in mind. This authority is also ‘power for you’, but its ultimate purpose is ‘salvation of others’.]
Still, it was true that she was proud of her colleagues as she gradually grew up and became a hero.
[You must never be the ‘Lord’. Your role is to ensure that the fates of the heroes flow normally. It is a device created by the combined efforts of the three goddesses of our destiny. To put it in your own words… Yes, you are never the main character. It’s extra extra.]
‘The extras, the main characters I raised.’
The end was just as the fate Belldandy had read, a miserable end that was not affected by the Authority of ‘Creating Destiny’.
Eun-hyeon did not think that her death was miserable.
He thought it was a process of completing all the roles and preparing for the end, so he even had a feeling of relief.
[I will always watch and pray from above, so that the heroes of the underworld can properly grow and prevent all disasters, so that you can carry out our mission properly without collapsing.]
‘Wouldn’t this be enough to be praised?’
While thinking about how to use human standards to discuss the goddess’ standard for success, Eun-hyeon kept thinking of Verdandi’s words.
[Go. Regardless of your mission, keep in mind that I always wish for your happiness.]
‘Ah…’
Just before his consciousness goes out, he sees the face of the witch who tried to convey her heart to him.
‘I’m sorry, I’m really sorry.’
Eun-hyeon’s ceremony ended there.
That’s how the extras exited.
“This… Crab… What… ?”
The witch, who did not stop moving even as she dragged her one leg that hadn’t healed from her wound, reached the central hall of the imperial palace where Eun-hyeon was to remain.
But when she saw the situation in the hall, she said with her speechless look.
The corpses and bloodstains of tens of thousands of witches clearly showed what had happened here.
And the witch led her sick body and moved busily to find Eun-hyeon, who would be at the center of the massacre.
“Where are you… ?”
Perhaps because her voice was too low, there was no answer to the witch’s question.
Cried the witch, squeezing her voice once more.
“Where are you? Answer me! Hyuna!”
Again, no sound was heard.
“Hey! Don’t play around…! I really mad!”
The witch’s legs gave out and she sat down on the floor.
“Uh… ?”
The witch saw Eun-hyeon lying against the wall at the corner of the stairs and struggled to move her steps again.
As the distance between her and Eun-hyeon got closer and closer, the witch saw her Eun-hyeon’s condition and hardened her body.
“Hyun? Isn’t it?”
Clothes that have become rags enough to be called clothes. Where did the armor such as boots, gauntlets, and mail go? Eun-hyun’s body was only visible with bare limbs.
Looking at the two swords right next to both hands meant that Eun-Hyeon did not let go of the sword until right before he collapsed.
“Am I, am I kidding you for coming so late?”
The corner of Eun-hyeon’s mouth, with his eyes closed, had an arc drawn for some reason, telling her that he was feeling satisfied until the very last moment.
“What makes you smile so much…?”
The witch howled as she hit Eun-hyeon’s chest with her fist, which had now completely stopped.
“You said you were alive to hear… You said you would listen to me!”
.....
The young man, whose entire body was soiled with dirt, scratched his head and looked at the pit in which he was buried with a puzzled expression.
“Ugh, dirt in my mouth…”
He frowned, spat out the dirt remaining in his mouth, and looked up at the brightly shining night sky with a confused expression.
“Why am I alive?”
He couldn’t understand it again because he remembered that he had definitely met his death in the hall of the imperial palace at that time.
“No way…”
(My sister just gave you the ‘Goddess Protection).
I came up with the only possibility as I searched through my memories of 400 years ago.
“Is it real?”
As if he couldn’t believe it himself, Eun-hyeon continued to mutter.
“How should I look at those guys’ faces…”
The man, who couldn’t imagine what kind of expression he would make when he saw himself come back intact, put on a puzzled expression.
But at the same time, Eun-hyeon was proud of the fact that his colleagues and protagonists ended the war with the empire and made a wonderful peace.
“Am I free now?”
Now that Eun-hyeon had forcibly created peace by preventing the Empire’s secret strategy and twisting the fate of the upcoming continental chaos, Eun-hyeon felt that he had completed his mission.
However, Eun-hyeon, who sensed the divine power imprinted on his soul, confirmed that the graces bestowed by the goddesses were not withdrawn and remained intact.
“The position of an apostle is the same…”
He remembered the faces of goddesses, but did not know what they were thinking, even though he felt a little regret for his situation of not being free.
“Come to think of it, it doesn’t make any sense right now. There’s no way you’ll answer me now, and for now… Shall we try to understand the situation little by little?”
Because he recalled the promise he had made with his fellow witch before he died, Eun-Hyeon set the current goal of meeting his colleagues once again.
Eun-Hyeon realized that 20 years had already passed while he was buried in the grave, and he reached his destination after a long journey without much trouble.
“You, you…”
Faced with his former colleague, now one of the great heroes, Eun-Hyeon scratched his head shyly and smiled awkwardly.
“Ahaha, long time no see. Could you please put me to sleep?”
“Uh, how…”
Surprisingly, the witch, who was Eun-Hyeon's companion, still maintained her appearance in her prime even after 20 years.
She couldn’t shut her mouth like a witch had gone through something he couldn’t be.
Eun-Hyeon asked her question again, puzzled, when the witch had no answer.
“Are there any vacant rooms?”
Eun-Hyeon looked embarrassed and asked the witch.
The witch, barely awake, sighed heavily and took her deep breath before answering his question.
“There is.”
“Oh, really?”
“I’ll give you a room, I’ll give it to you, I’ll give you rice too. Therefore…”
“Therefore?”
The man tilted her head as he saw the witch who was hesitant to say something.
The witch couldn’t make eye contact with the man properly.
She closed her eyes tightly, as if she had made up her mind, and finally put the words she had stored in her heart into her mouth.
“Don’t go anywhere again! You bastard!”
“Cheuk!”
As she screamed as hard as she could, the witch’s kicked Eun-Hyeon's crotch as hard as she could.
Unable to dodge the unexpectedly violent reaction of the witch, Eun-Hyeon forced himself to endure unspeakable pain and squeezed between his crotch.
“Uh? ah, are you okay?”
When the witch opened her eyes and realized that her body had reacted to her old personality, she hurriedly patted Eun-Hyeon on the waist.
The man gritted his teeth and suppressed his moans.
I was convinced by the pain and shock just now.
It popped