“Benefactor.”
Our unit’s Spirit User,
Jung Sua spoke to me.
“We captured every contractor who was hiding here and there... or tried to flee.”
“Good work.”
Their spirit was the best scout.
No contractor who hid somewhere or tried to run escaped the spirit’s sight.
All those scattered everywhere were subdued.
“Kh... heh heh heh...”
“What, did he lose his mind?”
And the contractors we subdued.
The one who seemed to be their leader figure
was this guy.
When I walked up, leveled my muzzle at his face, and spoke,
he suddenly started laughing like a madman.
“You... what did you do to me? Brainwashing?”
“Huh?”
Me, brainwashing you?
I was just thinking you were the ones who’d been brainwashed.
“Heh heh. Since you’re soldiers who preserved your force intact... what, did you use some kind of chemical weapon I don’t know about?”
Ah.
That part, at least, you could say was somewhat close.
It’s a stretch to call it a weapon, though.
“Cooking.”
“...Ha. You’re openly mocking me.”
Cooking is, at base, chemical action.
Even so,
he shook his head as if he didn’t believe a word I said.
By contrast, our unit had... roughly these reactions.
“What the—so that’s how he did it,”
“it was cooking again?”
“Sergeant Shin’s debuff cooking has effects that varied? No, when did you even make them eat it, to begin with.”
“Stop questioning every little thing like that. It makes your head hurt.”
“So this time it’s something like a skill seal?”
More or less like that.
‘...Aren’t they putting me on too much of a pedestal?’
I did think that a little, but whatever.
Be that as it may.
“I don’t know what means you used... but since I’ve been subdued anyway, I suppose this is as far as I go.”
What mattered for the moment was this side.
He looked like he’d resigned himself to his fate.
Yet
his eyes still burned holes in me.
“You’ve won now... but someday, you’ll regret it.”
“Regret?”
“Heh heh... You people probably think you’re justice. That we’re the villains.”
“So you’re saying you aren’t?”
I don’t think we’re justice.
Even so,
from our standpoint he clearly belonged to evil.
“In time you’ll understand. In the end, the ones leading humanity to ruin were you. When that time comes, it will be too late to regret...!”
“Hmm. Finding out later is a bit late.”
“...What?”
I’d considered the possibility they might have been brainwashed.
That was why I went to the trouble of subduing them with such a tedious method.
Muzzle pressed to his forehead, I asked,
“If you value your life, answer.”
Which made me
all the more curious.
“Why... did you serve demons even at the cost of not valuing your lives.”
****
There was a man.
Among the contractors he was called the Guide.
There were several reasons for that designation.
First,
[Demon Guide]
his class was literally “Guide.”
Beyond that,
he connected other contractors to the great being,
and acted as the guide who led those contractors.
However,
before he was called that, the man was mostly called Assistant Manager Choi.
Before that, Employee Choi.
Before that, Choi Wonjun.
Long before that—
“Trash.”
Trash.
If a drunk on the street had called him that, it would not have felt so unfair.
The one who called him that was none other than his father.
“...”
His parents brought him into the world but did not raise him.
An unwanted marriage, an unwanted child.
A result nobody wanted.
The only reason he deserved to be called trash was that.
It was a household that could hardly be called harmonious, even as a joke.
His parents were busy hurling curses at each other every day.
When the fights fizzled out,
they turned the anger they couldn’t vent at each other onto their only son.
“I want to die.”
Whether that was good luck or bad, who could say.
That wish never came true.
A couple who never wanted each other.
They fell into a dispute over divorce,
and at the end of that suit one side came out with a knife,
one side went to prison,
the other went to heaven.
Perhaps that flow was natural.
Wonjun became an orphan.
Not from the start, but from the middle.
Even so,
though he officially received a title others might despise,
“Ha.”
he was not all that sad.
He was even glad.
“I’m finally free...!”
The beings who called him trash—
he was freed from them.
Complex legal wrangling he could not comprehend went on,
and the conclusion was that none of his relatives would take him in.
Wonjun entered an orphanage.
He had lived every day thinking only of wanting to die,
but those thoughts soon faded.
Life in the orphanage,
compared to what he’d known, was fairly satisfying.
Materially it was a bit—no, quite—lacking,
but the nun who cared for him was gentle.
The wounds of the past showed no sign of washing away,
but he gained siblings with whom he could share those wounds and soothe one another.
Whatever others might say,
to Wonjun it was a happy environment far beyond anything his life had known.
If one thing nagged at him, it was that—
“Everyone, let’s pray before we eat...”
His new mother’s
teaching as a nun.
“A god.”
According to the nun’s teaching,
a being who loves humans without price,
omnipotent and omniscient.
If that was true,
one question arose.
“If a being like that exists... then why me?”
What had he done wrong
to have to live that kind of life.
The question blanketed his head,
but the young boy let it pass with a “so be it.”
“Because it’s what the nun says. It must be right, I guess~”
He could not really understand it,
but anyway, if he was happy now, wasn’t that enough.
“Because this current happiness is something that person called god must have made.”
If he gave thanks simply,
that was enough.
That trial, or whatever it was—
anyway, the time he had suffered must also have had its reasons.
Believing so, he let it pass,
and, as the nun said,
he always prayed to God with a sincere heart.
That faith was shaken badly
around the time he graduated middle school.
“I’m sorry, children... I’m truly sorry...”
The orphanage ran on subsidies.
There were dozens of children, and the annual operating cost was in the hundreds of millions of won.
Complicated adult circumstances came into play, and when those subsidies were cut,
the orphanage lost the funds needed to operate and closed its doors.
By graduating middle school, Wonjun had finished compulsory education.
He could not transfer to another orphanage.
For complicated reasons beyond his knowledge,
he was driven into a complicated society he could not understand.
“God... are you really there?”
He had followed and believed because it was the nun’s word.
But
doubt began to settle into that belief.
“Whether this thing called God truly exists or not, I don’t know.”
However,
there was one thing he could say existed for certain.
“Human goodwill.”
Even though he was suddenly driven out into society,
the nun, who was like his new parent, did not abandon him.
She kept in touch and consistently extended a helping hand.
“The nun’s goodwill definitely exists.”
Wonjun was half in doubt about God’s existence,
but he came to believe in human goodwill.
He no longer offered prayers,
but according to the nun’s teaching,
he decided to love humans.
He did not have a strong attachment to life.
His life had held no joy since childhood.
He simply had not found a reason he had to keep living.
Even so, he kept living because
“If I die, the nun will be sad.”
Middle school education, orphan background.
Even with such poor labels hanging all over him,
he tried to be diligent and earnest in everything
so as not to become a burden to the nun who had raised him.
Whether by that effort,
or by the goodwill of the people around him who helped,
most people who knew him came to trust him.
Despite a troubled childhood,
he managed to obtain a relatively stable life.
“Mom!”
As a person who had found his place in society,
he went to see the biggest reason he had found his footing—
the nun.
By showing her the sight of himself established in life,
he hoped she would feel even a little better.
“...Mom? No, Sister?”
And
only then did he realize.
“...Grrk.”
The small house where the nun lived.
From one corner came the cry of a beast.
No.
A human sob that evoked a beast.
That day,
Wonjun finally became certain.
“God... does not exist.”
If God existed,
He would not have allowed such a farce.
“Slice.”
He cut the throat of the only human he had thought of as a parent.
Gripping a kitchen knife rolling around the kitchen,
when he roughly tore open the area near the spine of the being he had thought of as his mother—
[Congratulations on your Awakening!]
[Class: Novice Warrior Lv.1]
he Awakened.
...and the world ended.
What came after was war, day after day.
Having killed the nun, he even contemplated suicide,
but in the end he took up the sword and stood.
“I have to save other people.”
There is no God.
If there were, He would not have left the world to become like this.
However,
“Human goodwill... does exist.”
As the nun taught,
he loved humans.
He did not want others to die.
“Thank you, thank you...!”
“Mr. Wonjun. Truly, thank you...!”
A father who had stabbed his wife with a kitchen knife.
Perhaps he had inherited only the talent for killing from him.
Among Awakened, Wonjun belonged to the ones who fought quite well.
At first he killed monsters with a kitchen knife.
After he accumulated points, he purchased an iron sword and shield.
Even if it was a little dangerous,
if someone was in danger, he intervened # Nоvеlight # without discrimination.
Frequent battles and frequent experience gains.
His level rose quickly.
A bit late, but he was even able to figure out the Awakening method.
“We will join you as well.”
Those moved by him began to follow.
The group gradually grew in size.
Around the time the number of Awakened fighting with him surpassed ten—
“Ke... kerrk... you humans, we hate.”
He
encountered a monster that could speak.
“You... can you speak?”
“Kekerek... humans, self-centered. All our kind can speak. We just cannot speak human words.”
A monster like a mantis.
At the broken Korean spilling from its mouth, Wonjun could not quell his agitation.
Crunch.
“Kreeeeeeek!!!”
“I won’t say I won’t kill you. I’m going to anyway. Instead, I can make sure you don’t die in pain.”
Ramming his blade roughly into the mantis’s leg,
Wonjun spoke.
“Ke... kerec... w-what. What do you want.”
“Why... did you invade Earth? What do you want?”
An omnipotent, price-free-loving God.
He knew for certain such a thing did not exist.
If so,
what were the beings that had made the world like this.
“Kekeke... invade, what invade.”
That day,
from the mantis-shaped monster, Wonjun heard the history of the other world.
A world invaded.
A world ruined.
And—
“Our god, Kekerek-kekerec, let us escape.”
how they
fled the ruined world and arrived on Earth.
“Slice.”
The mantis monster who had answered everything.
As promised, Wonjun granted it a painless death.
And
staring blankly at his bloodstained sword, he muttered.
“...A god let them escape.”
A curiosity he had harbored for a long time.
The moment a part of it was resolved,
far from feeling relieved,
he felt even more stifled.
Earth was ruined.
Even if there were people alive for the moment,
as a seasoned Awakened, he knew.
“The monsters appearing in the world are getting stronger.”
With civilization completely shattered,
it was clear that even those still alive would not last long.
In the war between monsters and humans,
humans could never win.
Defeat was as good as certain.
If so—
“After we lose?”
When the mantis monster’s world was ruined,
they escaped with the help of their god.
If so—
****
“What about us?”
“...”
Subdued by me,
the man went on with a bitter smile.
“We who have no god... what are humans to do?”
At those words...
I did not know what to answer, and only kept my mouth half open.
“While I was wrestling with that question,”
it seemed not everyone was.
“A demon spoke to me.”
