Chapter 46
“Please, save me! Please!”
Baek Woo-hyun shouted as he trembled with fear.
He tried to struggle for his life, but his arms and legs were all broken and he looked worse than a worm crawling on the ground.
Kang Hye-rim, who held a sword in her hand, slowly approached him.
He desperately moved his mouth.
“If you kill me, you won’t know who ordered you to do it! Are you okay with that? You seem to have a lot of enemies, don’t you?”
“Hye-rim.”
Yu-hyun called her name and she stopped her steps. Baek Woo-hyun sighed in relief and smiled smugly.
He hoped that he could survive with the information he had.
Of course, Yu-hyun had already seen through him.
“Tell me.”
“Wha, what? You think I’ll tell you right away? You think I don’t know that you’ll kill me as soon as I do?”
Baek Woo-hyun swallowed the rest of his words.
He was the only one who knew about the teller who had bribed him from behind.
And this was the only chance he had to live.
He felt a hammer hit the back of his head as he faced death.
His mind was spinning.
He looked at Yu-hyun with disbelief.
“Do you really think so? Really? If you kill me, you won’t know who the teller is who told us to kill you!”
Baek Woo-hyun was confident.
That’s why he was more brazen.
Yu-hyun shook his head.
‘What a self-delusion.’
Baek Woo-hyun didn’t know how worthless his information was.
A thin paper wall that would tear apart with a slight breeze, a foolish belief that it would protect him from the storm.
‘That’s why it’s easy to fool those who know too little.’
Yu-hyun decided to end this and tell him the cruel truth.
He leaned closer to Baek Woo-hyun and whispered in his ear.
“Hey, Woo-hyun. Do you know something?”
“…”
“We don’t care who ordered you to do it. We don’t even think it’s worth our attention.”
Baek Woo-hyun asked him with his eyes what he meant.
Yu-hyun told him honestly.
The cruel truth that he hated to see and hear.
“Jin Pung, a teller from the Pentagram department of Celestial Corporation. Did you think I didn’t know that he made a deal with you?”
“Wha? What?”
Baek Woo-hyun’s eyes widened as he heard a familiar name from Yu-hyun’s mouth.
“Ho, how…”
How?
He couldn’t finish his sentence as he faced the unbelievable reality.
Baek Woo-hyun looked up at Yu-hyun with a stunned expression.
Yu-hyun didn’t answer him.
He just made him realize that he knew everything.
‘Ah.’
Baek Woo-hyun shivered.
He finally realized how futile it was to threaten the other side with what he had.
He felt the world shrink around him.
He felt his feet sink and the sky crack and collapse.
In that illusion, he saw a devil who looked down at him and smiled as if he couldn’t contain his joy.
“Ah, ah, ah.”
And the fact that the devil would bring him death.
“Ahhhh!”
“Hye-rim. I’ll leave the rest to you.”
“Okay. I got it.”
Kang Hye-rim stepped forward again.
She had already drawn her sword.
Baek Woo-hyun’s face turned pale.
“No, no! Don’t come! Save me! Please save meee!”
Splash splash
As Kang Hye-rim walked through the puddles of the swamp, Baek Woo-hyun wet his pants and screamed loudly.
“Yo, Yong-pal! No, Yong-woon! Please save me! We were friends, right? Huh? Hey, you bastard! Don’t you remember how good I was to you?!”
He begged or cursed at Han Yong-woon who just watched him silently.
“Hye, hyung-nim! Hyung-nim! Please save me! Please! I must have gone crazy for a moment! Hyung-nim! If you spare me, I’ll do anything for you! Please!”
He bowed down to Yu-hyun and pleaded with him.
“Ahhh! f*ck! Don’t come! Don’t come! Ahh! Someone, someone help me!”
He hoped for help that would never come.
But Kang Hye-rim’s steps never stopped.
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And when she got close enough to him, Baek Woo-hyun’s frantic movements stopped like a machine that was turned off.
The look of someone who denied reality in despair, and realized that even his vain hope was meaningless.
It was resignation.
‘Ah.’
Kang Hye-rim’s blade flashed in the fog, and red blood splattered.
Yu-hyun felt a surge of joy as he watched the scene.
‘This is it.’
He was no different from a normal person in his daily life, but seeing a human being lose everything and fall into despair gave him an unbearable thrill.
The expression on their face when they realized that what they held dear and cherished was actually worthless.
It was truly the best.
Baek Woo Hyun was human trash.
He always ruled as a king in his narrow world.
He never looked outside, nor did he look down at his subordinates.
Nor did he try to climb up higher.
‘Exactly, those kinds of people.’
People who knew better, but thought they were the best and acted as they pleased.
People who didn’t know what was lurking below them, and just enjoyed the present without thinking.
They didn’t try to see the world properly.
Even if he tried to tell them, they would laugh at him and point fingers at him.
To make them realize the harshness of this reality.
That was what he wanted and enjoyed the most.
‘Surely, this is some kind of twisted sense of justice.’
Yu-hyun understood how strange his personality was.
But this was his irresistible nature.
It was a mark that he couldn’t erase after enduring that terrible world for 10 years.
That’s why he didn’t deny it. He accepted it.
Including this, that was who he was.
‘The storm of the Pentagram Department.’
Yu-hyun thought of the culprit who caused all this and acted arrogantly towards him, a teller.
‘I hope you too, make me happy.’
***
Kang Hye-rim killed Baek Woo Hyun.
It was a kind of murder.
But no one pointed fingers at her.
[The spirits are satisfied and happy.]
[Some spirits are still hungry and want more.]
[You received 3,400TP as a donation.]
The spirits threw points generously to Kang Hye-rim and Yu-hyun, satisfied with the process.
And Han Yong Un blankly took in the sight.
It was too unreal.
“What, what is this…”
He saw Baek Woo Hyun’s neck fly off clearly.
His bulging eyes, glaring at him until the last moment.
“What on earth…”
Baek Woo Hyun’s head that left his body floated on the surface of the swamp, then came closer to Han Yong Un.
Thud.
He watched the scene blankly, and when the head hit his ankle, he felt the emotions he had been holding back rush over him.
“Ugh! Uwek!!”
He vomited even though he hadn’t eaten anything.
His mouth was sour from the bile, and tears flowed endlessly for no reason.
He saw someone die for the first time.
And he saw someone kill for the first time.
Han Yong Un felt dizzy.
‘What, what have I done?’
He decided to save someone and thought he had courage.
But his determination and good deed had no meaning at all.
Kang Yu-hyun and Kang Hye-rim were playing with them from the start.
That fact made him so angry that he couldn’t bear it.
“Why!”
He bowed his head and shouted with his eyes closed tightly.
“Why did you kill him!”
“Because if we didn’t kill him, we would have died.”
Yu-hyun answered casually as he wiped off the blood on his hand.
“And if we hadn’t done this, you wouldn’t have been fine either.”
He knew that too.
In a way, Han Yong Un should have been grateful to Yu-hyun and Hyerim.
They saved his life.
They made Baek Woo Hyun, who had tormented him, fall into despair.
He should have been happy about it too.
But his reason knew that, but his heart couldn’t do that.
He felt like even having such feelings was playing into Yu-hyun’s hands.
How amused was he inside?
He must have found it cute how the people he wanted to kill acted without knowing anything.
He was sure he wouldn’t die, but he worried about their safety without knowing anything. How funny did that look to him?
His efforts to be brave and act were reduced to nothing in the end.
Han Yong Un trembled with unbearable pain.
He had to express this pain, this anger, or he felt like he would go crazy and die.
“You must have found everything amusing!”
So he spat out what he had in his heart.
Even though he vaguely feared that those two people who were offended by his words might kill him too, he couldn’t help but say it.
“Getting chosen by a teller! Getting attention from spirits and donations! Being so strong!”
I killed a person.
But what about the spirits?
Did they cry out for justice?
No, they didn’t.
They rejoiced instead.
They praised and rewarded the killers with points.
They called this the life of a collector, but when I witnessed the truth, I couldn’t bear the disgust.
No, it wasn’t disgust.
It was jealousy.
When I admitted that, I felt so pathetic.
My angry scream soon turned into a sobbing lament.
“So what do you know? How we feel when we have to live without having anything. How hopeless it is when we know we can’t succeed no matter what we do. And yet we have to go on living, while seeing this.”
I admired Kang Hye-rim.
From Han Yongun’s perspective, she had everything. Stunning beauty, strength that could defeat enemies in an instant, and a fearless heart to do so.
The more I saw her, the more I felt my life was worthless and pitiful.
I was a failure. The world pointed fingers at me as a failure.
Why? Why only me?
I wanted to succeed too.
If I had talent like her, I wouldn’t have lived like this.
But the world made me this way.
“Why…”
“Why are you and us so different?”
Yu-hyun, who had been listening quietly, opened his mouth.
“Everyone has their own role in their own lives. Your life has your role. My life has my role. We just refused our roles and tried to grab more than we deserved. To do that, we hardened our resolve, worked hard, and even risked our lives. That’s why.”
“That’s…”
“In life, being able to choose what you want is a privilege. But there are many more people who can’t do that. You may have seen us as the chosen ones, but is that really true? We are the same as you.”
“Then why, why am I like this?”
“Because you eventually accepted that reality.”
People have dreams, but they eventually face reality and bow their heads.
They accept their fate and comply with it while murmuring that they can’t help it.
Yu-hyun saw his past self in Han Yongun’s appearance.
He collapsed, gave up, and suffered while lamenting this reality.
But he still didn’t change and ended up conforming.
“I don’t intend to be satisfied with what I’m given. If I don’t have it, I’ll make it or take it from someone else. That’s the decisive difference between you and me.”
“…”
“Do you think that’s bad? Maybe you do. But I vowed not to stop this ambition even if the world condemns me for it.”
In the end, what Yu-hyun said was simple.
You gave up, but I didn’t.
Han Yongun felt something overflowing inside him.
“Do you think I wanted to give up?”
Hot tears ran down his cheeks.
“I tried to do something too. I wanted to try something too. But nothing changed even then. What can I do when I can’t reach anything even if I stretch out my hand? That’s how the world is! It points fingers at me as a failure. It doesn’t go away no matter what I do! What am I supposed to do here?!”
He didn’t just sit still. He had tried to do something in his own way.
But he failed every time and got nothing out of it.
His head that looked up was naturally lowered down.
He had no choice but to look down.
“The world made me this way…”
“The world of people is narrow.”
Yu-hyun said casually.
He didn’t sympathize with his sorrow or criticize him.
He just calmly told him the reality.
“You mistake what you see and hear and feel as the whole world. When someone points fingers at you as a failure, you think the whole world does that. Because that’s all you see. You and the people around you.”
As he heard that, Han Yongun’s eyes widened.
“Do you know that? The world beyond your knowledge doesn’t care about you at all. No one blames you. They don’t know who you are. They don’t bother to find out. The world is like that only in your mind.”
“…”
“If you want to change, you have to change your perspective first. And then show the real you to the people you don’t know.”
“…”
“It will be hard for sure. But at least it won’t be more humiliating than giving up without even trying.”
With that said, Yu-hyun turned his back.
“Let’s go, Hyerim.”
“Oh, yes.”
Yu-hyun and Kang Hye-rim left behind Han Yongun, who was still sitting and staring blankly.
When they were far enough, Kang Hye-rim asked.
“Is it okay to leave him like that?”
“It’s okay.”
To Kang Hye-rim, Han Yongun looked like he had been pushed to the limit and broken, but Yu-hyun saw it differently.
Because he saw the light coming from Han Yongun’s book change before he left.
From brown to a faint silver.
‘People change.’
The color of the light that showed the possibility changed.
The change that he thought would never happen, came to Yu-hyun as well.
