Swords, Dogs, and Bones—It's All in How You Use Them (4)
Why the hell was Kang Junhyuk in Ainharden?
If this were the start of his adventure arc, that would be one thing—but it absolutely was not. He was supposed to spend at least a full year at the Academy. I hadn't even been possessing this body for half a year yet.
Sure, he occasionally got sent out on field trips to places like the Demon Realm's forests or various dungeons. But Ainharden? A city this far from the Academy? He never came out this far.
And yet there he was. I'd seen Kang Junhyuk with my own eyes, in a land that should have been nowhere near him.
Are you certain you didn't simply missee?
No. That's impossible.
I had looked at Kang Junhyuk's face through the illustrations of Adokchoe more times than I could count. If someone like me mistook another person for him, that would be the truly impossible thing.
Which meant I had to assume this was a deviation from the original story of Adokchoe. My actions had changed the future, and the ripple effects had hit Kang Junhyuk hard.
And I had a pretty good idea what had drawn him all the way to Ainharden.
Hades, right? Has to be.
Looking back, the signs had been there. First and foremost—the Troll's Elixir.
In the original timeline, that legendary pill was supposed to end up in Kang Junhyuk's stomach. Instead, it had come to me through Hades. What if Kang Junhyuk had obtained the Troll's Elixir and then offered it up as tribute, trying to win Hades's favor?
The logic was so airtight it made my skin crawl.
The monster I had created—a Demi-Lich in the body of a peerless beauty who had enchanted over ten million people. Kang Junhyuk was one of those ten million.
He did seem awfully delighted whenever he was carrying merchandise related to that Lich.
Kang Junhyuk, a Hades devotee… I never saw that coming.
It wasn't impossible. The guy was the type to covet other men's women. As long as he didn't know who she really belonged to, he had every reason to go after her. It was awkward to say with my own mouth, but Hades's appearance was on a level you could scour the entire world and never find again.
So. What do you intend to do about it?
I don't particularly plan to do anyth— no. Wait. That's not true.
Before the possession, I hadn't held any particular grudge against Kang Junhyuk. That changed the moment I heard the full continuation of the story from a regressor who had lived it firsthand.
Bern—the man who fought for humanity and even taught Kang Junhyuk his own techniques. Having his childhood friend stolen? I could almost let that slide. Pingchaeng had been the more despicable one between the two of them, after all.
But at the end of it all, Kang Junhyuk had Bern executed on charges so absurd they defied belief—and that, I could not forgive.
He took everything he could get from Bern, then repaid kindness with a knife in the back. That garbage piece of shit.
I ground my molars and twisted my lips. Starting a sword fight with Kang Junhyuk in the middle of a packed crowd wasn't an option. For now, I decided to swallow the rage and start designing a proper way to ruin his life.
God, I was an idiot for trusting Pingchaeng.
I'd told her not to set them free—to live a life so blissfully happy the sesame seeds would never stop pouring—and I'd even handed over precious artifacts to make it stick. If the eternal-binding effect that was supposed to lock those two together forever had actually triggered, Kang Junhyuk would never have been standing here.
In the end, if I wanted revenge on that trash protagonist and Pingchaeng, it looked like I'd have to handle it myself.
Kang Junhyuk. You're first.
I was going to pay back every ounce of suffering Bern had endured—doubled.
Out of a fandom more than ten million strong, one hundred elite Ske-chans had been chosen by Hades herself. And the day they had been craning their necks for had finally arrived.
Hades's handshake event—held in Ainharden, the city that had outpaced its own era. Even those who hadn't made the chosen ten had flooded into the city just for a glimpse of Hades in the flesh.
In the middle of that sea of humanity, Kang Junhyuk stood with a look of pure self-satisfaction on his face.
Look at all these losers who can't even get near Hades-chan.
The reason for his swagger was simple: he was one of the ten people who would actually get to shake her hand. With Hades's popularity scraping the heavens, his shoulders were practically levitating at the thought of attending her handshake event.
In his own mind, he was invincible—and Hades was a goddess.
"Thank you all for waiting so long!"
Amid a crowd packed tight as a tidal wave, a single stage stood conspicuously empty. A man walked out onto it, carrying a staff enchanted with voice-amplification magic. His face was hidden behind a skull mask, and a hood—Hades's signature look—covered his head.
The moment the audience realized he was the emcee for today's handshake event, every gaze locked onto him. A roar like rolling thunder erupted from the stands.
"It's finally starting!"
"Damn it, I've been waiting forever!"
"Give us our Cult Leader! Right now!"
"Haha! What a passionate reception. Don't you worry—our Cult Leader is already here!"
The words had barely left the emcee's mouth before the entire crowd started whipping their heads around, scanning every direction. The Ske-chans wanted to be the first to lay eyes on their idol. They searched frantically for the figure who had to be somewhere nearby.
The emcee watched them, wagging a single finger and clicking his tongue.
"How dull of you all. Did you really think our Cult Leader would make such an ordinary entrance?"
"You son of a bitch, you said she was here!"
"Are you screwing with us right now?"
"I'll turn you into a rag-golem, you bastard!"
The one they worshipped was Hades—not some emcee running the show. Of course they weren't going to let him mock them and walk away. If he didn't smooth this over fast, a few of them looked ready to rush the stage.
But the emcee simply sealed his lips and grinned.
"This asshole is smiling?"
At last, a Ske-chan adventurer with a well-documented anger management problem climbed up onto the stage. He strode forward, reaching for the emcee's collar—
"Ghk…?!"
A single black flash punched straight through his heart.
No one survives a pierced heart. As the man collapsed, the emcee came into view beyond him—index finger raised.
A jet-black ray of annihilation.
Target: heart — pierced clean through.
"I did warn you on the last broadcast, didn't I? Disruptive behavior that ruins the handshake event will not be tolerated."
The emcee's thick, masculine voice suddenly melted into a sweet, lilting woman's tone. He snatched off the mask and flung it behind him in one smooth motion.
And then—astonishingly—that solid, broad-shouldered frame began to shrink. The skeleton refined itself into something delicate and compact. A luscious curve of hipbone. Beautifully sculpted collarbones. And a mouth corner that ticked up on only one side, just irritating enough to drive you crazy.
The audience could not close their mouths.
Of course they couldn't. The person they had taken for the emcee was, in fact, the very Hades they had been dying to see.
"I have no use for Ske-chans who can't even recognize me and go straight for the hands!"
Hades looked down at the cooling corpse with a gaze full of contempt. Those who beheld the crimson-eyed beauty were silent for a beat—then erupted even louder than before.
"Death Beam! Death Beam! Death Beam!"
"Cult Leader! Hit me with a Death Beam too…!"
"She's the best! Hades-chan!"
A man had just died, and the Ske-chans only grew more frenzied. To them, Hades was worth far more than the life of some fool. The dead man had tried to lay hands on her—self-defense, plain and simple. Some of them even looked on with envy, treating a Death Beam execution like a baptism.
Every single person gathered in Ainharden was a hardcore Hades fanatic without exception. In that moment, the laws of the kingdom could go to hell. Hades's word was the only law that mattered.
And when fans love you that passionately, you answer them in kind. The contempt melted from Hades's face. She turned toward the stands and flashed a bright little smile.
"Sorry about the tiny bit of chaos just now—but thank you all so much for coming to my handshake event!"
"KYAAAAAAAAA!"
"Cult Leader! Turn my body into a zombie and my soul into a wraith, please!"
"I just came without even getting hard…"
Her appearance alone had plunged the entire city into a cauldron of madness. Calling it a cult gathering would not have been an exaggeration. But Hades funneled thirty percent of her sponsorship revenue straight to the royal family—so far from sanctions, the kingdom didn't even raise a fuss. She was a Demi-Lich who had weathered every storm imaginable. Her thoroughness was second to none.
"All right—we're starting the handshake event for real now! The one hundred Ske-chans I've chosen, come up on stage in order! And just so we're clear: any Ske-chan who comes up without being chosen gets Purified. Careful~?"
"Purified…?! Just kill me with a Death Beam instead!"
"You idiot! A Death Beam is a reward!"
Per the rules of Hades's broadcasts, every Ske-chan was required to think of themselves as undead. Purification, then, was death itself for the undead—the single most humiliating punishment a Ske-chan could suffer. Desperate to avoid it, exactly one hundred people climbed onto the platform. No more, no less.
Hades swept a satisfied gaze over the Ske-chans lined up in a neat row. And then her eyes stopped—just for a moment—on one particular spot.
The place where Kang Junhyuk was standing.
"Hah—!"
The fact that her gaze had locked onto him made Kang Junhyuk suck in a huge breath. He tried to look away, wrestling down the tremor in his chest—but Hades only smiled, soft and warm, and his pupils started shaking like mad.
I-Is this a green light?!
Kang Junhyuk thrilled to himself. At long last, he decided, spring had arrived.