“...Sergeant Shin!”
“Just hold on a little longer, please!”
The moment they realized my ambush hadn’t worked,
the two corporals started rushing over to help me.
“Not an assassin, but a cook?”
Gwangil’s movement was limited because he had to protect the First Lieutenant,
and Corporal Seo Suhyeok was specialized in firepower, but breaking through enemy lines wasn’t his forte.
Meaning—
“What a ridiculous lie!”
I was facing the highest-level awakened person in this Seoul,
and I’d ended up in a situation where I had to grit my teeth and hold out until those two arrived.
Slice.
‘Ghk...!’
Looking at the torn uniform and flesh,
I watched the weapons he swung.
A dagger and a pistol.
“I’ll ask again. What is the Legion after, bringing an assassin like you to Seoul?”
BANG!—
Jang Youngwoong shouted as he fired the pistol at me.
“Stealth so advanced you can’t read it even if you focus, and a deadly poison so extreme that even a high-level awakened person can only writhe in agony until they die.”
KABOOM!
“It was already ridiculous enough for you to run your mouth about being a cook with skills like that... and now....”
That bullet looked enhanced, like Seo Suhyeok’s.
It pierced my uniform and punched a hole through my shoulder.
If there was anything fortunate—
“Your wounds even regenerate?”
“......”
“What an absurd cook you are.”
It was weaker than before, but still—
the vampire healing power left in me quickly filled the wound back in.
“You come to Seoul with an assassin like this, and you talk nonsense about wanting cooperation!”
Slice!
“And then when it looks like that cooperation is going well, you grit your teeth and refuse at the very end!”
BANG!
“What the hell—!”
THUD!
“What the hell did you come to Seoul hoping to get!”
Jang Youngwoong shouted as he mercilessly swung his weapons at me.
I barely blocked some of those attacks,
and others I couldn’t block at all, taking deep wounds.
‘It hurts like hell...!’
My uniform was getting shredded, holes punched clean through my body.
And inside that intense pain,
I couldn’t help but feel a strange sense of wrongness.
‘Deadly poison?’
I’d pulled out [Soul-Melting Poison - Nepenthes] just now, sure,
but I’d been blocked before I could even use it.
Yet he spoke as if he already knew about my poison in advance.
‘Even if you’ve got a power related to information gathering, still.’
[Nepenthes] was a power even the squad leaders didn’t really know about.
If he had the ability to dig that up,
it meant his information-gathering ability surpassed even Sergeant Park Taejun’s.
KABOOM!
“You’re the one...”
With combat ability like this,
and yet he surpasses Sergeant Park Taejun, who’s specialized purely in information?
‘Impossible.’
Just like how no matter how hard I tried, a cook like me would always have shortcomings compared to pure combat personnel—
it was impossible for someone to have information-gathering ability that surpassed Sergeant Park Taejun’s if they weren’t purely specialized in information.
“Feels like you’re hiding something from us.”
“......”
“But you’re not planning to tell me, right.”
There were so many things that bothered me,
but unfortunately, I didn’t have the breathing room to focus on them.
CLANG!
Blocking his attack desperately, I said—
“We’ve got plenty we’re curious about too. But... you look like you’ve got quite a lot you’re curious about as well.”
If I had to call it lucky—
he didn’t seem like he wanted to kill me so much as solve those curiosities.
“And.”
If it weren’t for that, in the condition I was in right now, I would’ve been ripped apart before I could last long.
I would’ve done it, if I were him.
“That’s your mistake.”
Because—
RUMMMBLE....
“...!?”
“This sound.”
For the moment, the fight looked like it favored them.
But that was only “for the moment.”
“Above us!”
“...There’s someone fighting up there!”
If we could just hold out for time,
the side that benefited was us.
‘The Legion’s soldiers.’
Maybe not when we were that deep underground,
but now that we were this close to the exit, the Legion’s soldiers could definitely find our position.
“Sorry, sir. My friends are going to be here soon.”
Seoul’s forces were threatening, sure,
but I’d heard most of them were spread out on the outskirts.
‘With me and my soldiers, escaping from here won’t be difficult.’
We’d have to break through the soldiers stationed to the north to leave Seoul, but...
‘By then, the Legion’s main force will arrive.’
CLANG!
I knocked his attack aside and said—
“I’ve already seen the strength of the soldiers guarding this place. They look pretty impressive. But listen.”
Even so.
Not once.
“The Legion won’t lose.”
I’d never thought the Legion could be defeated by them.
They were a powerful force, sure—
but I was certain the Legion was stronger.
“...That.”
And.
“Yeah.”
“What?”
Seems like
I wasn’t the only one who thought that.
*****
“Hah...”
After continuing his attacks for a while, Jang Youngwoong suddenly stopped.
Then, with a deep sigh, he said—
“I really thought it was going well this time.”
“...?”
“You’re right. The moment the forces rampaging up there arrive, the guards I set up in Yeouido will be broken through in an instant.”
He even lowered the hand that had been gripping his weapon.
A bitter smile on his face.
“Even if I fire a signal flare and try to block you with the forces waiting to the north, in the end they’ll get pierced by the Legion’s main force and lose miserably.”
Hearing him, I couldn’t help but frown.
Because sure, it was what I’d said—
‘But he’s never even seen our main force’s strength.’
Yet he was accepting it so readily.
“I invested a lot into this shelter this time because I was worried it would end up like this...”
“What?”
“I already knew I couldn’t stop you the moment you linked up with the soldiers outside. So I planned to finish it inside.”
He let out another sigh and started rambling.
“Do you have any idea how hard it was to install blocking walls that even I would take time to break through? And you know what? I didn’t even explain the detailed route to the soldiers because I was afraid you’d learn the escape route through them.”
“You...”
“But you... without interrogating a single soldier, you broke through this shelter that easily.”
“What are you talking about?”
I couldn’t understand him at all.
“I really thought I’d succeed this time. Still, well, it’s not like I got nothing... I’ll have to be satisfied with that.”
He glanced at me,
then started talking to himself at length.
“Sergeant Shin Youngjun’s job is assassin, but if you press him, he lies and says he’s a cook. First Lieutenant Kim Hyeon-seok looked proactive about cooperation in every case, but depending on the situation he can become negative toward cooperation...”
“What?”
“Now that I’m confident about Shin Youngjun’s job, there’s no need to ask next time. Ah, and I need to keep in mind that monster attacks can happen at timings I don’t know....”
I realized as I listened.
That wasn’t something he was saying for me—or anyone—to hear.
‘He’s memorizing.’
Speaking it out loud,
trying to carve it into his own head.
“Still, compared to last time, you hesitated to attack Lieutenant General Kim Myeonghwan, so sending the general as the greeter was the right answer.”
“You bastard...”
“Should I change my attitude again next time? It would’ve been nice if I could’ve figured out why cooperation falls apart.”
“What the hell are you?”
“Hah. I don’t know about other factions, but I absolutely have to take the Legion and move on....”
The moment I saw that.
My instincts screamed.
“What are you hiding...!”
No matter what it took.
I had to stop whatever that bastard was trying to do.
SHHHK.
Up until now I’d been focused only on defense.
But this time, gripping my kitchen knives in both hands, I charged him.
“Five times already, just with the /N_o_v_e_l_i_g_h_t/ Legion... don’t tell me I failed again.”
I didn’t care whether he was stronger than me.
Even if my arms and legs got ripped off, I had to stop him.
“It’s been so long since I struggled like this.”
And then—
right as the two blades I held were about to touch his neck—
CLACK.
“Still, it’s not like I got nothing. It was a life without regrets.”
The bastard who’d been muttering to himself looked like he’d finished organizing his thoughts.
With a refreshed expression, he shoved the pistol he was holding into his own mouth.
‘...No way.’
Only after seeing that
did I realize my thought had been completely wrong.
Even if I have to kill him, I have to stop him.
That was a ridiculous misconception.
Because.
“Next time, I’ll do better.”
What he was trying to do—
was die.
BAAANG—!
The man they called Seoul’s hero.
The great figure who had kept nearly a million people alive on this land.
The leader of them all.
Thud.
With his skull punched through by the pistol he fired himself,
he collapsed to the floor, absurdly.
“What the hell is this....”
The acrid stench of gunpowder from the bullet he fired,
and the stench of blood that splattered onto my face as his head burst—
it was sickening.
“...Hero?!”
“Hyung!!!”
And.
It didn’t look like I was the only one panicking at what happened.
*****
“What the hell happened!”
“H-hyung... suddenly, on his own....”
“On his own...? Something’s wrong!”
“This isn’t the time to think about that! We have to save him somehow—!”
Jang Youngwoong lay collapsed on the floor, bleeding.
Seoul’s people rushed to him, struggling to save him no matter what.
“...His brain blew out in one shot.”
“Saving him in this state... even if you’re an incredible awakened person, it’s impossible.”
When they realized he was beyond recovery,
they ground their teeth.
“He put a pistol in his own mouth and fired?”
“...Yes.”
“You all know it. He’s not someone who would suddenly make a choice like that.”
Their gazes
turned toward me, standing there staring blankly.
“That bastard....”
“......”
“That bastard definitely did something!”
I stood there with my mouth half-open, staring at the scene—
and I tasted the “flavor” of the man who said that.
‘Grief, sorrow, bitterness, regret, anger.’
With Jang Youngwoong dead,
they were truly grieving and raging from the bottom of their hearts.
“What the hell.”
But.
I, the one who’d become the target of that anger—
“Why... why would he make a choice like this...?”
I didn’t understand what was going on.
I was just confused.
“Kill him!”
“Hero’s vengeance...!”
“The Legion... I’ll never, never forgive you...!”
They attacked.
And against them—
“How dare you...!”
KABOOM!
Corporal Gwangil’s fist moved, protecting me as he stepped forward.
“Sergeant Shin! You have to escape!”
“......”
“Sergeant Shin? Sergeant Shin!”
“Ah.”
Only after Gwangil shook my shoulder roughly
did I finally register it.
“...Are you okay?”
“I’m fine. First... first, let’s escape. Leaving Seoul no matter what comes first....”
“...Yes!”
The two corporals carved a path,
and me and the First Lieutenant ran behind them—
even as we ran,
‘It’s not like he died fighting like the other soldiers... suicide?’
I kept thinking.
‘A choice that means absolutely nothing. Why?’
How long did we run like that?
Just when it felt like we could finally escape this shelter—
RRRRRRRRR....
“...!?”
The scenery around us
twisted violently.
“What the hell is this.”
“...Come to think of it, it’s been weird since earlier.”
The shelter that had been intact rapidly decayed,
and black noise settled over everything.
Staring at it, Corporal Seo Suhyeok muttered in a low voice—
“Even though there were that many Seoul troops just a moment ago... I don’t see a single one.”
They couldn’t have disappeared in that short time.
Yet I couldn’t sense even a trace of the people who had been everywhere.
“This is... no way.”
Like
we’d stepped into an old ruin that had been abandoned for years—reeking of decay and emptiness.
“...Sergeant Shin Youngjun!”
While I was panicking at the sight,
a voice grabbed my shoulder and shouted.
“An order!”
First Lieutenant Kim Hyeon-seok.
As if he’d noticed something—
he shouted at me.
RRRRRRRR....
“Confirm it the moment you regain yourself....”
Even as he spoke,
the unknown quake and collapse continued without stopping.
“Check my level!”
[A high-grade command order resounds.]
[Command Order - Confirm commander level.]
The moment I heard that voice—
the collapse swallowed the place where we were.
*****
RUMMMBLE....
With First Lieutenant Kim Hyeon-seok’s voice as the last thing I heard,
the world sank into darkness.
“......”
In that dark world, I blankly looked up at the sky.
A world without a single light.
And above that clear sky, countless stars were shining brilliantly.
[The divine power you possess.......]
And.
Some of those stars—
[Are sens...... external existences.]
Were looking down at this place.
*****
I lightly kicked off the ground and cleared the pit.
And the moment I crossed from Gangwon into Seoul like that—
[Undergr.......]
‘Huh?’
A bizarre sense of wrongness seized me.
That strange wrongness I suddenly felt.
‘...What was that just now?’
It was like I’d entered Seoul from Gangwon without trouble.
But at that unknown, odd sensation—
“......”
For several seconds,
I could only stand there blankly.
