For a Dying Flash, This Has Way Too Much Freedom

Bleak, ash-gray articles climbed the feed one after another.

"So this is how it ends."

"Why are you even reading that? You're killing the beer!"

Suhyeok, already half bald, tipped his head back and chugged. He used to be tall and handsome. With the world in this state, he'd stopped taking care of himself, and this was what remained.

Well... I'm hardly in a position to talk.

I smiled bitterly and stared at the yellowish beer in my glass.

"The whole dimensional team vanished? That's bullshit! Those guys already got scouted by other dimensions. Every last one of them transferred."

"Over a relegation from the third division?"

"A dimensional representative is still a representative, even rotten, Jaeha. They figured that even if those guys can't make the first team, park them on the second or third and you'll find some use for them."

As expected of a man who'd coached ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠a prestigious team in his prime. The hair might be gone, but the brain still turned.

"Even so—betraying the Earth that raised them and running off on their own...! Those traitors!"

"......"

I couldn't argue with that.

Earth had been relegated from the Third Division of the Dimension Cup. That meant the Channel would close. And that, in turn, meant one thing.

The end.

It meant the dimension could no longer be protected from the Outside.

Decades ago, a system called the Channel had appeared on Earth without warning.

The Channel was an unknown civilization in every sense of the word. Like a game, you could log in anytime, anywhere. Death was not death. You cleared objectives across countless dungeons and dimensions and walked away with rewards.

Scholars analyzed it and probed it, and came away with nothing that mattered. One fact, however, was certain.

Only a Player—someone who had awakened a special power—could access the Channel.

Once the Channel existed, human society changed fast. A Player's status shot past the sky. Baseball, soccer, and the rest of the old sports withered, and something else surged up in their place.

Player League.

Matches played by teams of superhumans. Before anyone quite noticed, the Player League had become humanity's greatest obsession, and Players became athletes as a matter of course, joining good teams with a championship as their goal. Win the World Player Championship—the W.P.C., where national representatives from every country on Earth ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠collided—and there was no glory beyond it.

Then humanity learned that all of it had been nothing but a children's game.

A league where dimensions fought one another. The Dimension Cup. Humanity was invited there, more or less by force. Three tiers in all.

Humanity built a dream team and sent out a dimensional representative squad. They could not begin to match the level of the other dimensions.

Humanity was, quite literally, a frog at the bottom of a well. And in the middle of it came another shock.

Players with real skill turned their backs on Earth and moved to other dimensions. The ones who had been watching the wind realized there was no hope left here, and then they left too, one after another, without shame.

What remained on Earth were the unawakened, and Players with neither skill nor worth. Me, for example.

"Since we're all fucked anyway, I'll just say it... Doesn't it eat at you? For real?"

"What does?"

"Don't play dumb. Let's be honest, you and me."

Suhyeok gnawed a squid leg tough as leather.

"Your skill doesn't lose to a first-stringer on a First Division team. You know it."

"......"

"If you'd been on Earth's representative team? We wouldn't be in the relegation zone! We might even have won the Second Division...!"

"Hyung."

I cut him off before he could go any further. I was sorry—he'd looked after me like an older brother for years—but everyone has a past they don't want touched.

"...Sorry."

"It's fine."

His shoulders sagged. Honestly, he wasn't wrong. I thought about it sometimes too.

If I'd been on the representative team...

Maybe Earth wouldn't have ended up like this. The more I turned it over, the more my stomach burned, and I was about to drain the lukewarm beer in one go when—

Kuuuung...!

The whole bar shuddered, and a presence that was anything but ordinary pressed in.

"Goddamn it. Earth really is trying to die. Monsters showing up at a dump of a bar like this."

Drop in the Dimension Cup, and the league's level falls with you. The Channel's protection thins. Gates open in every corner, and beings from the Outside—monsters—come through. That was also why you had to grit your teeth and win.

"We have to run...!"

"No. It's fine."

I pushed the glass aside and lifted the enormous war hammer that had been resting beside me. It was far larger than my own torso.

"I'll handle it."

"Even you might not manage this. It's a Grade 1 pack. The dimensional reps couldn't stop that either."

"That's them."

I set the haft on my shoulder and smirked.

"I'm me."

At the same time I fished a blue pill from my pocket and bit down.

Crunch!

A clear, cool energy spread through my mouth. Mana seeped into my body, and superhuman senses woke my flesh.

· · ·

"Holy shit..."

Suhyeok stared at the wreckage, stunned. Monster corpses pulped past any hope of recognizing what they had been. Each one a Grade 1, said to stand equal to a Diamond-rank Player.

"Hoo."

To me, they were just slightly firm tomatoes. I shook the flesh and fat off the hammer.

"It gets me every time... A Grand Master really is a Grand Master."

I was about to toss him some half-answer when—

Throb!

A huge stab of pain tore through my chest, and a heat like my blood vessels catching fire crashed over me.

"Ghk...! Kkuhhh...!"

I bit my lip without meaning to and rolled across the floor. I should have been used to it by now. This damned body was always the same.

"Jaeha!"

"I'm... fine... hyung..."

When the pain finally quieted, the tension drained out of me all at once. All of it was a side effect of the blue pill I'd taken right before the fight—the mana capsule. A drug that fed you mana the moment you swallowed it. Usually an item taken by Players in the Mage position, when their mana stat wasn't high enough for a skill.

Me, though...

I wasn't using it to top anything up. I was using it for one reason only: to force mana in from the outside.

That's right. I cannot use mana.

The cause was an illegal mana circuit expansion surgery, recommended by the team I used to belong to. They threatened me—refuse the procedure, and the contract would not be renewed—and in the end I went through with it. The result:

I became a defective Player who could not use mana. Even the Warrior position needs mana to cast skills. As a Player, my life was as good as over. The team threw me away, of course, and I fell straight to the bottom.

Later the mana capsule was invented. Through sheer venom and a string of chances, I clawed my way to the skill of a Grand Master. And yet—

Unfortunately, there was no battlefield where I could step forward. Without a mana capsule, I was a man who could do nothing.

"One of only five Grand Masters in all the dimensions, fated to vanish along with his world..."

He said it as if he truly pitied me. Suhyeok propped me up, tears spilling. Sympathy for me, fear of Earth's end, terror of death—all of it mixed together, no doubt.

"...I'm sorry, hyung."

"Sorry for what! You're the one who ought to hurt the most!"

His jaw trembled.

"If I could go back, I'd wreck Sky Epic first—the ones who made you like this!"

"The past, my ass... Let's just drink."

I barely made it back to my seat and poured lukewarm beer down my burning throat.

It was three days before the end of Earth.

The day of doom was more peaceful than I had expected—if you ignored the people screaming themselves raw, slaughtering one another, and staging incomprehensible rites of human sacrifice.

"Hm. It's actually a little quieter than usual."

At least nobody was setting fires while ranting about God.

Tssss...! Tssssssss!

The blood-red sky split, and unknowable things began to come through. Beyond the rift: bundles of tentacles by the dozen, and pupils torn vertically.

Babbling something no one could understand, they began to unmake the world a little at a time.

"If today's the last day anyway."

I was going to throw everything I had at them on the way out. I dumped several mana capsules from my pocket into my mouth at once.

Crunch, crunch!

"...Khk!"

Mana so immense it choked the breath out of me flooded every corner of my body. My head spun. Molten metal seemed to run through my veins, and a searing pain scorched my brain.

Mana addiction...!

A fatal side effect. It could kill you. I'd already accepted that I was dying today.

"Even if I die...! I'm hitting you bastards at least once before I go!"

I kicked off the ground with everything I had.

BOOOOM!

The earth rang, and my body shot into the air in a single bound, closing on the beings outside the rift. I poured strength into the hand gripping the hammer, right up to the limit.

Kugu-guk!

Muscle screamed. My senses sounded the alarm. I ignored all of it and simply flew.

"Diiiiiie!!!!"

I bit my lip hard enough to flood my mouth with the taste of blood.

KRAAAAAANG!

I swung the hammer. Force enough to break space and shake a dimension.

CRACK!

One of the thing's tentacles was crushed and tore free.

I could feel its shock against my skin. A rich, almost savory taste spread through my mouth.

"Keheh... how do you like... huh..."

But my body felt wrong. Why was I so light?

"...Ah."

My arm had come off. The recoil had burst my torso as well, and my guts were spilling out in a trail. The mana dwelling inside me must have been jolted the instant I struck, and exploded.

Yeah. That much really was too much.

But without it, I couldn't have broken the tentacle.

"So... sleepy..."

My consciousness flickered wildly. All I could feel was the sensation of falling. A faint message glimmered before my closing eyes.

Challenger. The highest rank a Player could reach, a grade no one in the history of any dimension had ever attained. What did it matter, you might ask, when I was already dying?

"Challenger... heheh..."

And yet, for some reason, it felt good.

I had lived a ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠life of being discarded and cast out, over and over. I had tried countless times to prove myself, and failed. And in the last moment, I was acknowledged. The one and only Challenger-rank Player in the ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠dimension.

That didn't mean I could close my eyes in peace. I was deeply unsatisfied with Earth ending like this, and it pissed me off that the ones who had ignored me and ground me underfoot were living fat and happy in other dimensions.

If I could go back to the past, like hyung said...

I would change all of it, somehow. Staking everything I had. I would make an ending different from this one.

"...Fuck."

With that thought, my mind went completely dark.

· · ·

In a world swallowed by darkness.

A gentle warmth spread from my chest. A voice so soft and sweet that an angel, or a goddess, came to mind of its own accord.

What...?

And then that warmth swallowed me whole.

"...Ha."

What had just happened? I was certain I'd landed one last blow on that tentacle thing.

"...Jaeha."

And while I was falling, dying, some voice had suddenly woken me. At the end it had called my name, and I'd felt my body being moved somewhere.

"Shin Jaeha!"

Right. It had called my name like that. Though it hadn't been this irritable.

"You ignoring me? Shin Jaeha, you fucker!"

Thud!

Someone kicked me in the gut. The heavy impact snapped my mind awake.

"Guhk!"

My body rolled across the floor, and my eyes flew open. The scenery printed itself on my retinas: interior walls painted the color of the sky, a cutting-edge training system fitted out around me. This place was—

The Sky Epic training ground?!

My old team. The training ground of Sky Epic, the enemy that had made me a mana cripple. And the one who had just kicked me down was—

"A crazy bastard, sleeping in the training ground? This is why you third-team trash are useless."

Sky Epic's first-team Warrior, the guy who had bullied me every single day: Park Gyubo. It was a long time ago, but I could never forget that infuriating face.

"Wh-what... I definitely died..."

"Still spouting nonsense. Guess you haven't been hit enough. I told you to clean the training ground."

"......"

"Oh? Look at those eyes. An orphan brat ought to be grateful just for breathing the same air as us. There are people who'd kill to be here and can't."

Park Gyubo smiled, thin and mean. If my memory was right, here he had given me all of three minutes to clean. In other words, he just wanted to hit me, so he was grabbing any excuse and dressing it up as a reason.

"Tsk tsk. This is why you're eternal third-team waste. Fine. Today your hyung's going to educate you properly."

He loosened his fists and came toward me.

"...Aha. I get it now."

"What?"

"This is that thing, right? My life flashing before my eyes."

The thing you're supposed to see before you die. More realistic than I'd expected. I'd really thought I'd come back to the past.

"If this isn't reality anyway... I can do whatever I want!"

A clear answer, followed by a light and cheerful action.

Puk!

I hopped in and jammed a finger into Park Gyubo's eye.

"Guhhhk?! Aaaaaagh! You crazy—bastard!"

Even a superhuman has weak eyes. Especially at a level from before the Dimension Cup had even opened.

"Aaaagh! Agh!"

"You son of a bitch! Die!"

I stomped the groin of the man rolling on the floor, clutching his eye.

"S-stop...!"

"Stop, my ass! You dog of a bastard!"

Thinking of the beatings and the bullying I'd taken from him, even this wasn't enough.

Crunch!

I ground my foot down harder.

"Krrrgh..."

Unable to bear the pain, Park Gyubo foamed at the mouth and passed out. A satisfying sweat dampened my forehead.

"Hoo. That feels great."

I wiped it away with the back of my hand and smiled at a liberation I hadn't felt in a long time. Like a hundred years of indigestion finally going down. But for a dying flash, the degrees of freedom seemed a little too high.

"Wh-what?!"

"Gyubo! What happened!"

"Medical team! Medical team!"

By the time the other teammates came in late, saw the wreck of Park Gyubo, and shouted for the medical team, I had tested this and that on my own and realized it.

"Uh, umm..."

This was not my life flashing before my eyes.

Then... I really came back to the past?

And the very first thing I had done after coming back was gouge out an old enemy's eye and grind my foot into his groin?

"Perfect."

Truly the finest regression.