The Demon's Heart
The dark blood pouring from the severed stumps of its arms and legs looked like far more than the original body could ever have contained.
When he looked down at the creature that continued to pump out blood in a stubborn, relentless flow, the torso—now nothing but a head on a ragged stump—twitched. Then he saw its face, laughing as it muttered in a low voice.
“……”
He glanced around. Nothing alive still moved. He was the only one left standing.
So they had all fallen.
Some might still be breathing if he looked closely, but he doubted they would last until help arrived.
“You’re one to talk.”
The creature didn’t even have the strength to speak with its mouth and had to resort to telepathy. What did it have to be so smug about?
He reached out, grasped the crude sword hilt buried in its chest, and gave it a slight twist. Only then did the laughter vanish from its face, as if it had finally grasped reality.
Even through its pain, the creature kept talking.
One of the arms he had ripped from the creature’s torso was now buried in his own chest, fingers clenched around his heart.
And just as it said… if it recovered even a little more, it would crush it. Demons could move their severed body parts, after all.
In fact, with two fingers already sunk into his heart, he was already halfway across the threshold of death, exactly as the creature claimed.
Apparently that amused it.
The creature let out another giggling laugh.
It must have recovered somewhat; this time the sound didn’t echo inside his head. Instead, it moved its mouth and laughed with an audible voice.
“The human who reduced me to this state—or rather, any being of any species—has never done so before. You are the first. I commend you.”
“Should I be thrilled?”
“What was your name again? I will remember it personally. If you wish, I’ll even erect a grand monument in your honor. Every human alive will remember you for a very long time. Assuming any of them survive, of course.”
Or they might curse him as a failure.
The creature added that with another laugh. The blood flowing from its severed limbs was slowing. Either it had run out, or it was recovering in step with its growing voice.
In contrast, Tae-sung was growing steadily paler. The strength in his hand was fading. The creature knew it too. That was why it looked so pleased.
“Kang Tae-sung.”
At that moment the creature tilted its head, puzzled by the name. It had a tone rarely heard in any human nation.
But it didn’t matter.
“Yes. Kang Tae-sung. A fine name.”
Die here, Kang Tae-sung.
I’ll build you a splendid monument and place your head atop it.
The creature, which had been babbling freely, suddenly changed expression the moment the sword buried in its chest—something it had been unable to drive deeper at all—began to move freely.
He clearly had the strength to twist it, but not to drive it down. If he had, he would have done so long ago.
“…You bastard. Were you holding back?”
Why? For what possible reason?
“The one dying is you. Demon.”
Squish. Squish.
With no intention of answering the creature’s question, Kang Tae-sung simply worked the blade, brutally carving open its chest, then casually thrust his hand into the wound.
Crack.
He snapped the ribs, yanked them free, and seized the heart inside—just as it had done to him.
“Do you even realize what you’re doing right now?”
“I’m not dying.”
“You bastard… you’re drinking my blood.”
How could a human suck blood?
And doing it with his bare hand, drawing in the blood that touched his skin.
“You… you are not human.”
“Keep talking.”
Even so, I will survive today.
Kang Tae-sung spat the words like they tasted foul.
His once-pale skin had taken on a dark, bruised tone as he forcibly ripped the demon’s arm from his own chest, the one still clutching his heart.
In the process a sizable chunk of his own heart tore free with it, but even as blood surged out in a hot flood, Kang Tae-sung remained standing without flinching.
“The regenerative power of a demon’s heart is incredible. Thanks to it, I lived.”
Its strength to speak seemed to have left it again; the words rang inside his head once more.
“A reasonable compromise is essential for survival.”
“Troll… ogre… lesser vampire… blood from so many monster bastards I can’t even remember them all. Now that demon blood is mixed in too, the Saintess will have her work cut out for her for a while.”
“This is your home. Your grave. Farewell, demon.”
“Shut up and die. I have no interest in remembering your name.”
Rip. Riiip.
The demon’s eyes were losing focus, yet it could still see its own heart—freshly torn from its chest—being crumpled and shoved into the gaping wound in its enemy’s chest.
“If I die, I won’t be able to regret it even if I want to.”
Feeling the demon’s heart settle inside his chest, moving on its own to reconnect the torn vessels and restart blood flow, Kang Tae-sung gave his answer.
The demon spoke no more.
The body with its limbs torn away soon lost all shape, melting like candle wax and soaking into the ground.
Kang Tae-sung lay down spread-eagled where he stood.
He rested in the middle of a vast pit of blood where thousands of humans and non-humans, along with tens of thousands of demons and their minions, lay tangled and fallen in every direction.
He had faced an ambush ten times his number and won. A great victory. Anyone who saw it would be astonished.
Yet today—or yesterday, or tomorrow—many would die or were about to die. He ought to mourn them.
“Sorry for surviving alone again.”
He raised one hand and waved it vaguely through the empty air, then fell asleep without another thought.
Or rather, he fell into a state closer to unconsciousness, but no further danger came. Every last enemy was already dead.
Three days later.
Those who learned belatedly of the Demon King’s surprise operation and the battle that had taken place here came running. They found Kang Tae-sung still unconscious in the middle of a sea of corpses being feasted on by millions of crows and vultures.
The voice of the Saintess from her younger days buzzed in his ear. Somehow it sounded thick with tears.
Yet Kang Tae-sung simply sat up, unconcerned. Instead of answering her, he rubbed his face with one hand, then vigorously scratched his head.
“……”
It was an old dream he had from time to time.
He sometimes wondered whether he should have bothered learning the dead demon’s name, but he always shook his head soon after, deciding he didn’t really care.
I didn’t expect to dream of that time even after returning home.
Was it unavoidable?
Kang Tae-sung rose without a sound and walked to the communal water station. He poured himself a cup and drank.
“……?”
He felt a gaze from a distance and turned. A small child who looked no older than ten was staring at him with a sleep-mussed face.
Had he woken the boy?
Kang Tae-sung took something from the pocket on his chest and flicked it with his thumb. The object traced a gentle arc and landed precisely on the blanket covering the child.
It was a piece of candy.
He had taken a few from the bag among the family’s luggage yesterday. The child recognized it, quickly slipped it into his own pocket instead of eating it immediately, and gave a polite bow.
Kang Tae-sung thought he was growing familiar with the boy, but he knew his own smile probably looked terribly awkward to others. He returned the nod with a faint, stiff smile, then quietly left the gymnasium. He walked through the night air, breathing in the cool darkness.
They could not afford to neglect the perimeter even at this hour. In the distance he saw children yawning at the makeshift watchposts placed along the school fence.
Some glanced at watches, perhaps waiting for their shift change, but none were openly sleeping.
Protecting oneself.
If you never learned that, you would never understand the weight of other people’s sacrifices.
Much of what the adults had once done was now being carried out directly by the children, yet no one spoke of child abuse or exploitation of labor.
“National reconstruction.”
At least the conversation he had shared with his younger brother Kang Han-sung yesterday had given him a rough sense of the current atmosphere in the country—more precisely, the movements of Seoul and the government.
They must have realized that clumsily splitting their forces would accomplish nothing.
The government he had assumed had abandoned the provinces was in fact concentrating its main strength in Seoul, preparing for the days ahead.
Of course a few major cities were holding on, but only just. Everyone worried about the exhaustion of resources and food.
“……”
Yet now was the time when the personnel the government had cultivated over the past several years were finally beginning to deploy to the provinces in earnest.
Among them were those who could be called “mages,” and he had heard some had been aboard the transport helicopter his family arrived on yesterday.
Plant growth acceleration magic.
That was the spell that had caught Kang Tae-sung’s interest. It seemed there was magic that consumed the caster’s mana or an external medium to dramatically speed up plant growth.
It had been passed down from another country, and it occasionally appeared in the system’s random magic book draws as well.
Because it used a person’s mana or an external medium—such as cores taken from monsters—there were no side effects like draining intelligence and turning land barren.
Since it allowed them to harvest in a short time what the same plot of land would normally yield in a year, humanity’s food crisis could be considered solved if they could only secure a steady supply of the required mediums.
The problem was the cost of cores.
No matter how great the benefit of faster food production, if cores themselves remained prohibitively expensive, the magic could not be used on any meaningful scale.
Besides, cores were already a highly versatile resource, powering various generation facilities. That was why they remained the hunters’ primary source of income.
Thank you.
See you next time…