Bare-Handed Men vs. One Gorilla (Revised)
I let out a low hum. “Hmm… This is tricky.”
I was currently stuck in one of the greatest dilemmas of my life.
Probably something no one could answer easily.
“Who would win between a hundred bare-handed men and one gorilla?”
Tsk.
With a hundred of them, it felt like the men should win, but then I pictured the gorilla’s muscles and the outcome suddenly seemed different.
If about forty guys sacrificed themselves to pin it down and gouge out its eyes, maybe the hundred men could pull off a victory.
But then again, if the gorilla grabbed one man and started swinging him around like a human club, the result would flip again.
“Ugh, I don’t know.”
Having finally reached the truth that I couldn’t come to a conclusion, I tossed my phone aside.
I flopped backward onto the soft, fluffy bed.
My long hair splayed out beneath me, and the uncomfortable sensation made me frown.
Damn, it’s getting in the way.
With no other choice, I sat up to fix my hair.
The strands flowed down like smooth silk.
After arranging it to a point where it felt manageable, I turned my head and noticed the hand mirror sitting on the desk.
Reflected in it was a beautiful woman with long black hair and brilliant ruby-red eyes.
Facing the woman in the mirror, a strange yet familiar feeling washed over me.
It’s already been a year.
A whole year had passed since I started living in this body.
I used to be a sturdy adult man, yet here I was, now this stunning woman.
At first I couldn’t accept it at all, but now I had grown so used to it that the body felt like my own.
Well, technically it is my body…
If I had to pick one cause for all this, it would be the final battle against the Demon King a year ago.
S-class Hunter Haerang Kim Yeonu.
The world’s strongest hunter, the last remaining hunter.
All those titles had referred to me.
“Haerang!!!!!!”
“You don’t have to yell that loud. I can hear you just fine. I’m right in front of you.”
“If it weren’t for you!!!! If it weren’t for you!!!!!”
“Man, you really don’t listen, do you?”
The Demon King was sobbing blood tears and howling.
My ears were starting to hurt, so I had no choice but to dig into them with my pinky.
What kind of lungs did this guy have?
Sure, I had killed all his subordinates, taken out the Four Heavenly Kings, and half-destroyed his castle, but did he really need to scream like that?
And honestly, he seemed way more talented at sound magic than dark magic. Maybe he had chosen the wrong career path.
The blood-weeping Demon King wrapped himself in darkness and charged at me.
He’s fast, I’ll give him that…
But to me, he was painfully slow.
I blocked the incoming fist with my left hand and slammed him into the ground with my right.
Boom!
The darkness gathered around his face scattered as he coughed up blood.
I planted my foot on his face and pressed down.
Ha. This is the Demon King?
Watching him writhe like a bug beneath my foot, I couldn’t hide my hollow feelings.
The world had been destroyed because of this pathetic creature?
It was so absurd I could only laugh bitterly.
The gate-ravaged world reduced to nothing but ruins.
Every time I closed my eyes, those scenes flashed through my mind like nightmares.
My comrades, friends, lover—
Their faces as they fell one by one haunted me every night.
“Yeonu. You’re our last hope.”
Those were the last words my comrades spoke before they burned themselves alive.
I would never forget their backs as they walked away.
And yet the Demon King who had thrown us into that hell was only this strong?
This pathetic bastard who couldn’t even handle me and was now crawling on the ground?
My rage had already spiraled out of control.
I put more strength into my foot, intending to crush his skull.
“Kuaaaaaaaaagh!!”
The Demon King thrashed in agony.
If I could, I would have torn his limbs apart over and over, but unfortunately that wasn’t possible.
Crack.
A sound that should never have come from his forehead echoed as it split like cracking glass.
And then—
Splat!!
His head burst open like a watermelon.
The end of the one who had destroyed the world was so hollow it was almost comical.
“Is it… over now?”
It had been such a long time.
Gates, monsters, and endless war.
In the end, the final victor was me.
Though what’s the point when all of humanity is already dead…
I collapsed onto a nearby rock with a heavy thud and slowly caught my breath.
“What do I do now…”
A feeling of utter emptiness filled me.
At that moment—
“Haerang!!!”
The voice of the Demon King I thought was dead rang out.
A silhouette appeared through hazy smoke. I reflexively grabbed my weapon.
So he really was the Demon King after all.
To think he was still alive even after his head had exploded.
I gripped my weapon tightly and prepared for the final battle.
“I hate you!!! If it weren’t for you, we could have easily conquered this world!!!”
How ridiculous.
Since when did the aggressor say that to the victim?
“That’s some serious victim-blaming. You invaded first, so where do you get off talking shit? And didn’t I already tell you that earlier?”
“I curse you. I will burn every last fragment of my soul to curse you. An eternal, undying curse shall bind you, trapping you in agony for the rest of your life. No one will remember you. No one will recognize you. Everything you have built until now will turn to nothingness, and within that despair you will suffer until the very end!!!!”
“Everyone else is already dead, you idiot.”
“Uwaaaaaah!!”
A dark light exploded out with the Demon King’s scream.
“Ugh.”
I reflexively raised my arm to shield my eyes from the surging light.
The burst of light swallowed me whole.
When I opened my eyes again—
“Where… am I?”
I could only stare blankly at the scenery before me.
It was the world before everything had been destroyed.
The peaceful landscape from back when the world was still intact unfolded before me so vividly it was as if time had been reversed.
The shock made me freeze for a moment.
But I soon became convinced that the Demon King had cast a hallucination curse on me.
In that case, there was only one way to wake up.
I climbed onto a bridge and, without hesitation, threw myself off.
The easiest way to break out of a hallucination was to deliver a strong shock to the body, after all.
When I hit the ground, I naturally expected to snap out of the illusion.
It’s not breaking?
I was stunned that the hallucination hadn’t shattered even after the impact of smashing into the pavement.
It seemed the Demon King’s curse was far stronger than I had anticipated.
Deciding one or two times wouldn’t be enough, I jumped off the bridge several more times.
As the repeated impacts gradually carved a human-shaped crater into the road—
Woo-woong—
The sound of police sirens nearby forced me to quickly flee the scene.
What the hell? Why isn’t the hallucination breaking?
No matter how powerful the illusion, that much repeated shock should have shattered it by now.
While running away in confusion, I suddenly caught my reflection in a glass window and froze.
What the…
The sturdy young man was gone. Instead, a woman around 165 cm tall stared back at me.
Soft black hair that flowed like strands of obsidian.
Brilliant red eyes that sparkled like embedded jewels.
And lips so seductively beautiful they almost felt sinful.
Wondering if this was still a hallucination, I pinched my cheek, but all I felt was a soft, squishy, mochi-like sensation.
What the fuck is going on…
I only learned the truth much later—this wasn’t a hallucination. It was actual reality.
And not just any reality. It was a parallel world.
A peaceful world where gates had never opened, where there were no monsters, no hunters, and no mana—an unbelievably tranquil Earth.
And in that world, I was no longer a strong man, but a delicate woman.
To be precise, the version of me in this world had been a woman from the very beginning.
The Demon King’s curse had included the line: “No one will remember you. No one will recognize you. Everything you have built until now will turn to nothingness, and within that despair you will suffer until the very end!!!!”
I never imagined that was what it meant.
Forced gender reassignment. Seriously.
Still, thanks to all the insane things I had experienced while clearing countless gates, I was able to accept this ridiculous reality surprisingly quickly.
I’ve been through way worse…
This was a peaceful world where there was no need to fight and no one had to die.
I had been worried that gates might open here too, but the time when the first gate had appeared in my previous world had already long passed.
This was truly a timeline where gates would never appear!
And for the first time in fifteen years, I was finally able to set down the heavy burden in my heart.
Unlike the hunter I had been, in this world I had been an ordinary office worker.
So I quit my job without hesitation.
I had spent my previous life grinding myself to the bone to save the world. Now I just wanted to rest.
Luckily, the me of this world had lived far more responsibly than my previous self, so there was a decent amount of money in the bank account.
Most importantly, I had gotten younger.
Here, I was twenty-five instead of thirty-five.
With both body and mind feeling light, I could start my second life.
As a NEET.
Incidentally, when I saw the news report about a human-shaped crater discovered on the road, I was so shocked I nearly spat out the milk I was drinking.
If I had known this was reality, I wouldn’t have done that.
And so, for an entire year, I had lived like a hikikomori—eating, shitting, and scratching my belly at home.
However.
I’m so bored…
I was bored to death.
I hadn’t asked for it, but after fifteen years of living soaked in combat, my brain had become completely addicted to dopamine.
It had been manageable for the first year, but now my body was writhing, desperately craving it.
More. More dopamine!!
I had become a person who couldn’t endure without it.
I tried all sorts of things, but everything was useless.
There was nothing in this world that could give me the same rush as combat.
Moreover, perhaps because I had crossed over from that other world, even in this ordinary human society without mana, I still possessed physical abilities far beyond those of a normal person.
Ordinary exercise couldn’t even make my heart race properly.
While I was wondering what to do—
“Nyua!!!”
A cute voice came from beside me.
When I turned my head, I saw Nyua—the spirit who had crossed over to this world with me—staring intently at the phone and bouncing around excitedly.
Doom-chit doom-chit!
The sight of the little black ball-like creature grooving to the rhythm was adorable in every way.
“What are you watching that’s so fun?”
“Nyuaat!!”
“A game stream?”
Now that I thought about it, I had only been thinking about physical activities, so gaming had never crossed my mind.
Could it be fun?
Intrigued by Nyua’s reaction, I gently pushed the little spirit aside and peered at the phone screen.
And soon, I found myself completely captivated by the dazzling battles unfolding on it.
Of course.
“Nyuaat?!”
Poke. Poke.
Nyua, who had been suddenly shoved away and was now angrily poking me in the side, was nothing more than a minor, cute little incident.
A fierce battle between a hundred bare-handed men and a single gorilla is about to begin!