Chapter 15. The End of the Scum.
Chapter 15. The End of the Scum.
He flinched, mana gathering in his fist as he threw a punch straight at me.
—Boom!
I tilted my head aside and glanced behind me. The wall was caved in.
'Hm... For this world, he's on the stronger side among the Awakened I've seen, I suppose. Strong enough to have a chip on his shoulder.'
"Just what the hell are you?"
"I already told you. I'm the bastard who came here to kill you."
I dodged his attack like it was nothing and answered him with a sneer.
"...So you're from that school that got hauled in today. Did the people from the school put you up to this?"
He stopped attacking and tried to keep the conversation going.
"Work under me. I'll promise you whatever you want—women, food, anything."
"Ever heard the saying, 'A wolf cannot serve under a dog'?"
I giggled as I said it. When he realized I was mocking him with wordplay, he started throwing punches indiscriminately.
—Bang! Bang! Crash!
None of his punches landed, but he raged on, tearing his own office apart.
"Can you really give me what I want?"
"...Have you finally decided to negotiate?"
"I told you from the start. I came here to kill you. If I asked for your life, could you give me that?"
"You leave me no choice. I'll make you regret this."
—Whoosh!
Flames ignited along his arms and legs. Whenever he threw a punch or a kick, fire erupted from his limbs.
Deciding there was no point in talking any further, I gripped my sword.
—Shk! Shk-shk! Shk-shk-shk-shk!
I cut through his flames and carved countless shallow gashes all over his body. Then I unleashed a monstrous wave of killing intent and spoke.
"Still haven't figured out the situation you're in?"
"Kuhuk... khk...! Take all the food and the women. Just spare my life."
'Still trying to negotiate, even now. Hasn't come to his senses.'
"The moment you think things aren't going your way, you just fold like that? You're a funny bastard..."
He must have sensed the shift in the air, because the look in his eyes was that of a man who had nearly given up.
"Now then, explain. Every single thing you've done from the beginning until now. In detail."
"Heh... talking won't make you spare me, so just kill me..."
"Even if you want to die, you don't get to die without my permission. You wait right here."
I sealed his blood points and planted a wisp of mana inside his body. Until I released it, he wouldn't be able to die, but his whole body would be wracked with unbearable agony.
Before I came up here, I'd already sensed the foulness of their auras and put the women who seemed to be collaborators to sleep. I headed back toward the lounge where the others were waiting.
"Sihu, the hostages are all here. Are you hurt anywhere?"
"As you suggested, we radioed the people from the school. What do you intend to do now?"
"It was nothing. For now, we'll head downstairs and deal with the rest of those scumbags."
I placed a qi barrier over the survivors here. They'd stay safe even if the building collapsed. We went back down to the first floor and outside. The fires had died down somewhat, and the thugs were now heading our way.
"You... you're the people who were taken from the school. Did you come here planning this from the start? Just look at our numbers. You should have chosen to run—"
"Hey, you little rat. Shut your mouth. I'm going to deal with you and your boss separately later."
Sure, there were a lot of them and they were Awakened, but they were just a disorganized mob leaning on raw Stats and Skills without any real form.
"If we have no choice, we kill them. But try to just keep them alive if you can."
Chaeyeon, who had been casting in advance, launched an attack that froze their limbs in place. Jia likewise drew her bowstring, aiming to subdue rather than kill.
At the same time, the old man deployed his shield technique to cover them, while the remaining two dove into the enemy's midst and swung their blades freely in every direction.
That was when the so-called Advisor lunged his hand toward me.
—Thrum...
'Gravity... no... telekinesis?'
"Heh... that's what you get for picking a fight with us! Even the Boss can't beat me that easily!"
I tensed my whole body and broke free of the telekinetic grip, the way a taut rope snaps under too much strain.
The look on his face was well worth it—his pupils were quivering with disbelief.
"What? Things not going the way you expected?"
—Shlkk!
I severed every tendon in all four of his limbs, then glanced back at the others. He wouldn't even be able to relieve himself on his own anymore.
'Looks like everyone was more on edge than usual, fighting other humans instead of zombies.'
Just as the fight was nearly over, we saw the school's people arriving in the distance.
"You really... pulled it off..."
The man who was their captain glanced around, then asked me again.
"But I don't see the man who's clearly the leader of this group?"
"He's on the top floor. If you go up, you'll find the hostages gathered in the lounge—bring them back down. There were also some women next to him; I left them separately since I suspect they're collaborators."
He seemed to take in my instructions and headed up, giving orders to his own people.
I turned back to my group and asked,
"This was your first real fight against other people. How is everyone feeling?"
"Me, I just kept my shield up and covered everyone. I wasn't the one doing any real fighting. The others must've had it harder."
"Brother, I tried to steel my mind for this, but actually killing a person... it wasn't easy."
"I kept hesitating too, just a little, whenever I had to aim my bowstring at a person..."
Still, I was very pleased with their performance. Besides, they had all seen firsthand exactly what had been going on in that hospital.
Feeling anything but rage for trash like that is a waste of emotion to begin with.
"It's fine to be angry at people like them. But don't let that anger cloud your judgment. Always assume that someone stronger than me might appear, and prepare for the worst."
* * * * * * * *
We brought the hostages and every last living thug back to the school.
The rat and the ringleader, I personally interrogated—separately.
The 'Advisor' was an advisor in name only. He was just a guy with some muscle that they kept around. The women exploited the fact that they were female to lure other women in. And the ringleader, true to his roots as a former gangster, figured laws and morals had collapsed, so he gathered anyone with power and committed all these atrocities.
The drugs were a tool to make people more compliant. They'd dope the hostages they brought in, and once the boss got tired of playing with them, he'd hand them over to his underlings as 'toys.'
The reason they ended up returning the hostages? Because the toys had gotten 'broken.'
As for the rest of the regular thugs, we simply tied them up and left them in the gymnasium. So that the other survivors could exact their own revenge.
* * * * * * * *
"On behalf of everyone, I'd like to thank you for the help you've given us."
Of course, we had loaded up everything from the hospital—the gang's weapons, their food, all of it. Unfortunately, the mental recovery was going to be the real struggle for the survivors here.
"We plan to stay and witness the end of those bastards, and then we'll be leaving immediately."
"Is there anything else you might need from us?"
"We'll be taking some food, some weapons, and one of the Starex vans. It'll be a lot easier to move around with a vehicle."
A few days later, the execution ceremony for the scumbags began.
The women in the gang were beaten mercilessly by their fellow women with clubs and other makeshift weapons. In the end, the things they did to them were so brutal that simply beating them almost seemed gentle by comparison.
The ordinary thugs were also tied up and killed, some slashed with knives, others stoned to death.
"All right, now there's just you two rats left."
I tossed a short knife between the two of them.
"Fight. The one who wins gets a clean death—no suffering, just one quick stroke."
Once they understood the situation, they grappled for the knife, tangling with each other, trading punches back and forth.
'Normally, who knows. But the muscles in their limbs were already shredded, and their mana circuits destroyed.'
Maybe it was because he was the boss. The ringleader eventually got ahold of the knife and tried to stab the rat. But in an instant, I dashed in and kicked the knife from his hand.
Trembling, the ringleader stared up at me.
"What? This isn't what I said would happen?"
"..."
"Sorry, but I don't make promises with trash."
After that, we tied the two of them up, stood them in the middle of the gymnasium, and burned them to death.
The school survivors watching were finally weeping, sniffling with the overwhelming reality that it was all over.
Our group was already packing up, ready to move out.
"So you're... really leaving now."
"Make sure nothing like this ever happens again."
"The other survivors seem to have woken up as well. They're taking training and work very seriously now."
Of course they were. If you want to survive in a world that's gone this goddamn rotten, you have to change, too.
'Now that I think about it, was I actually lucky to have landed in that bizarre forest, instead of somewhere full of people?'
I laughed to myself at the pointless thought and climbed into the vehicle, leaving them with a single remark.
"Don't change."
It was a short sentence, but he would have understood in an instant what meaning it carried, and why I was saying it to him.
The people from the school came out after us, bowing their heads to see us off.
I looked at my companions, who had taken another step forward.
'Mental growth comes through experience. But whenever a situation looks physically beyond them, I'll be right there to back them up. The way I always have.'
"Hoo... following you around, I've realized every single day is just spectacular."
"Ever since we were kids, not a single day with Sihu was ever ordinary."
I chuckled, asking if they hadn't already known that when they followed me, and looked straight ahead.
"All right. Our destination is finally Daejeon."
Chaeyeon had a look on her face that said she already knew what we were going there for. The others each nodded in understanding.
And with that, we started the engine and pulled out.