Chapter 113
I drove after stuffing the snake-man into the trunk.
My destination was Coincidence Who, the building in Sinnonhyeon.
As I’d been wondering where to take him, that place had suddenly come to mind.
Since the building was practically empty, whatever I did there wouldn’t attract any attention.
I parked in the completely deserted underground garage.
The World Tree Sapling has sensed a writhing, repulsive presence.
The sapling advises the Manager to be careful.
As I got out and walked toward the back of the car, another message popped up.
Looks like the snake-man in the trunk had woken up.
To thank Saessak, I touched the screen and opened the trunk.
Sharp eyes gleamed from below the opening trunk lid.
Those eyes moved without a sound.
The snake head lunged at my neck, jaws wide open to tear it out.
I’d been prepared thanks to Saessak, so I caught it by the neck with my right hand.
The scales made it a little slippery, but I held on perfectly.
“Kek—khk…!”
It let out a pained groan, like it was being tortured.
Maybe because its neck was being squeezed, a forked tongue slid from its mouth.
I grabbed that tongue.
“…Huh? Wai—!”
The moment I had it, I yanked as hard as I could.
The snake-man’s body came flying out of the trunk like a fish hooked on a line.
Thud!
I looked down at the snake-man I’d hurled to the floor.
Maybe because tree roots were binding both its arms and legs, the way it flailed really did make it look like a snake.
It didn’t seem to have much strength either, though that was probably because of the World Tree mana flowing through the roots.
“Hmm….”
First, I needed to calm it down.
There was no way I could have a conversation like this.
I tugged on the tongue still in my hand.
……!
It froze.
The writhing stopped, and it looked up at me.
From the way its eyes were scrunched tight, I could tell it was in pain.
“Hello?”
I greeted it with a bright smile.
First impressions mattered, after all.
The snake-man stared up at me, sprawled on the floor.
It looked flustered, maybe.
Whether it was or not, I kept going.
“I don’t know if you know me. I’m Baek Do-woon.”
……!
Its eyes widened when I said my name.
So it had a reaction once it heard it.
It didn’t know me personally, but it seemed to know the name.
“Seo Ji-hyeok turned you over to me.”
……!
“I’ll be counting on you, then.”
…….
It didn’t answer that.
Well, I hadn’t really been expecting a reply anyway.
“I’m going to ask you a few questions now. I’d like you to answer them properly, and promptly.”
…….
“First… Yu Jae-i. Why are you people after Yu Jae-i?”
…….
The snake-man stayed silent.
It just looked up at me.
Huh. That was annoying.
I’d actually expected an answer this time.
This wasn’t one of those questions where I wanted it to just stare blankly at me.
“If you don’t talk—”
“……?”
“I’ll cut this off.”
I shook the tongue I was holding as I spoke.
As the trapped tongue swayed left and right, the snake-man’s head swayed with it.
It seemed flustered, because it hurriedly started slurring something out.
“I caw! I cawn’t speah wif’ it!”
“What’s all this mumbling— ah.”
Right. I was still holding its tongue.
It hadn’t been refusing to answer. It couldn’t answer.
“My bad.”
I apologized honestly and let go of the tongue.
The snake-man tucked it back into its mouth.
Maybe having it hanging out in the air had dried it out.
It kept swallowing hard.
“Question again.”
…….
“Not answering? Want me to cut out your tongue?”
“N-no, I’ll talk! I’ll answer!”
It blurted that out, raising its hands in alarm.
It would’ve been nice if it’d been a little more responsive from the start.
“Good thinking. As long as you answer well, I won’t kill you.”
“T-thank you!”
Well, I was still going to rip out the mana in its heart and leave it unable to use mana again, but that was beside the point.
“Why are you after Yu Jae-i?”
“Yu Jae-i? Who’s that…? Ah. The blacksmith? You mean the female blacksmith?”
“Yeah.”
“That woman… we’re after her because she’s supposed to make a key…?”
…….
They were targeting Yu Jae-i to have her make a key.
I already knew that much.
What I wanted to know was something else.
“It doesn’t have to be Yu Jae-i who makes it. So why are you after her?”
Yu Jae-i had told me after looking at the key blueprint that to make it, you had to know how to infuse mana into materials.
And if you knew how to use that technique, then it didn’t have to be her specifically who made it.
And yet Crowd had still gone after her.
Why?
What was the reason?
“What?”
“What do you mean, ‘what’? What’s so confusing?”
“Because it doesn’t make sense.”
……?
“I don’t really know, but they said that key absolutely had to be made by Yu Jae-i.”
What?
I’d heard it straight from Yu Jae-i herself, after she’d looked at the blueprint.
There was no way she’d been wrong.
Woo Yeon-hoo had also said he’d heard from other blacksmiths that it was something “anyone could make.”
Then this guy was lying….
“I-it’s true!”
The snake-man shouted, panic in its voice.
It seemed worried I’d think it was lying.
Even with a snake’s head, I could still read the desperation in its expression.
“They said she was a woman absolutely necessary for the grand cause, and that we should grab her anytime the chance came!”
“Anytime the chance came?”
“I’m telling you, yes! I remember it clearly!”
So they really did need Yu Jae-i, then…?
I was going to have to look over that key blueprint again.
There had to be some secret I’d missed.
Maybe there was some magical processing hidden in it.
“Good. Next question.”
“A-anything. I’ll answer!”
“What exactly is that key for? What are you trying to open?”
“Hmm….”
The snake-man shut its mouth.
Was it trying to keep quiet out of some twisted sense of loyalty to Crowd?
What a fine and noble soldier, for a nobody whose only job was to fill a vacancy.
“If I’ve asked more than once and you still won’t answer, then you’re begging me to cut out your tongue.”
“N-no, no! I really don’t know! I’m not answering because I don’t know!”
“You don’t know?”
“I’m telling you, I’m just a grunt. I don’t know that much….”
“Seo Ji-hyeok said you were a senior executive.”
“I am a senior executive, technically… but only because I got pulled out at random to fill one of the empty slots this time….”
A senior executive picked at random, huh.
Well, that was Crowd for you.
The core members were four, and the other eight were just arms and legs for those four, or so the mushroom-man had said.
“Then what about Yu Jae-i’s father?”
“Huh? Who?”
“Yu Jae-i’s father. You guys have information on him, don’t you?”
When that mosquito bastard had taken Yu Jae-i, he’d brought up her father.
He’d even shown us the hammer her father had used in life.
If he had that, then even if he didn’t know the exact relationship, he at least knew there was one.
He might have commissioned something from him, or kidnapped him, or something along those lines.
“I-I don’t really know….”
“…….”
“It’s true. Like I said before, I—”
“Yeah, yeah. A senior executive picked at random.”
“…….”
The snake-man hung its head.
That much was probably true.
He’d only been made an executive to fill one of the recently opened slots.
The others would just be limbs too, so they probably weren’t any different.
Looks like I’d have to go after one of the core members if I wanted real information.
“You said you were newly appointed.”
“Huh? Y-yeah.”
“Why did you join Crowd? No. Why did you become one of the Followers of the Demon Race?”
“Because I wanted to live….”
“Huh?”
Because it wanted to live?
Was this bastard blackmailed into becoming one of them?
If that was the case, I might be able to help—
“I heard that if you became one of them, you could live a life close to immortality.”
“……?”
“So I decided to become one of the Followers of the Demon Race. Because I wanted to live a long time.”
…….
The Followers of the Demon Race.
To become one, you had to sell your soul to a demon race member.
This bastard had handed over his soul because he wanted to live longer.
The World Tree Sapling finds the thing before it pathetic.
It also waves its leaves in exasperation at such stupidity.
Saessak sent me a message.
I sighed, because I felt exactly the same way.
“Crowd will do anything if it suits their purpose.”
“Uh…?”
“Kidnapping women, killing and brainwashing children, turning humans into monsters with no reason left in them.”
“So what?”
The snake-man tilted its head, as if asking what the problem was.
What a joke.
It had sold its soul because it wanted an eternal life, and yet it could be so numb to other people’s deaths.
Yeah. For it, only its own purpose mattered.
Just like Crowd, which did whatever it wanted for the sake of its goals.
“You’re always the same….”
The horned man who’d massacred the orphanage had been the same.
When I’d said the dead children must have hurt too, he’d snorted and said, “You think I’m the same as those brats?”
And if you looked at it one way, yeah, that wasn’t entirely wrong.
Comparing children to those creatures, who merely carried a head on their shoulders like decorative baggage instead of something meant for thinking, was a serious mistake.
The horned man….
Thanks to him, I’d come up with a good idea.
“…Rejoice.”
“Huh? W-what?”
“Thinking of how much you don’t want to die, I won’t kill you.”
“R-really…?”
“Yeah. Really.”
“Thank you, thank you!”
The bastard thanked me and squirmed in relief.
It looked like it wanted to bow, but its arms and legs were tied up, so it just resembled a fish hauled onto land.
I gave it the kindest smile I could manage.
“It’s too soon to thank me.”
“Huh?”
“I’m going to give you that immortal life you wanted.”
“What? What do you mean—mmph!”
I shoved my hand into the mouth of the dazed muttering fool.
I needed to grab its tongue.
The snake-man panicked at the hand thrust into its mouth and started making muffled noises.
Its fangs kept jabbing at my hand, but the bark armor activated and didn’t let a single one through.
The poison that slid down the bark dripped onto the floor.
Sizzle….
The floor began to melt where the poison landed.
I’d have to be careful.
If the floor got wrecked, I’d be the one who lost out.
After I pulled the tongue out of its mouth, I dragged it along.
“Mph! Mph! It hurts! It hurts, damn it!”
“Quit crying, it’ll hurt.”
Its tongue was out, so the pronunciation was a mess, but that was clearly what it was saying.
Whether it hurt or not, I couldn’t care less.
I dragged it into an empty storage room in the farthest corner of the first floor.
The room was fairly large.
Far too spacious for a room meant for this thing.
I swung my right arm wide and threw the snake-man.
Bang!
It hit the wall and got flung down to the floor.
“Ghk… Why are you suddenly doing this!”
“Didn’t I tell you already?”
“What?”
“World Tree Root.”
As soon as I used the skill, my right hand transformed into tree roots.
I thrust it straight toward the bastard.
“Hiiik!”
Maybe because I was pouring out World Tree mana, the snake-man recoiled in terror.
It couldn’t back up any farther, though, because the wall was right behind it.
“No need to be scared.”
To calm it down, I soothed it while wrapping the roots around its body.
Then I drained all of its energy.
Almost immediately, I felt something sticky in my hand, like I’d picked up slime.
I’d taken all the demonic energy from it.
My right arm was already at work purifying the filthy energy away.
“M-my mana…?”
“You’re lucky.”
“Wh-what…?”
“I didn’t touch your heart. If I had….”
I trailed off and gave it a thin smile.
The snake-man swallowed hard.
It had just realized that losing its mana might not have been the worst thing that could happen to it.
I used World Tree Root again.
I wanted to purify its body completely so it could never transform again.
“I said I wouldn’t kill you, but if I can’t hold back and you die, that’s entirely your fault, got it?”
“What are you ta—Aaaargh!”
I shoved my left hand, now turned into tree roots, into its forehead and poured mana into it.
I kept going until the snake body fell away and the human body began to grow back.
A little while later, blue light burst out from the snake-man.
“Hey, are you okay?”
“Ugh… ahh….”
“You okay? If you’re not, answer me.”
“Ahh….”
It didn’t answer.
All it did was groan like a zombie from a horror movie.
“Guess you’re fine if you’re not answering.”
“Ughhh….”
Even while groaning, it kept looking at me.
Yeah, it was fine.
“Good. We’re just getting started.”