79th Episode: Cockroach
I opened my eyes.
The crimson sunset was fading.
“… Ugh.”
Wait a moment. Why am I lying here looking up at the sky?
As I thought about it, a sudden sharp headache surged. Simultaneously, all the events up until now flooded back into my mind.
“Damn…”
I realized my memory was intact and muttered curses under my breath.
I hadn’t died. Apparently, the last-ditch absorption of ether saved me in the end. Though I’d wondered if it was too late. It seems I had fainted from the pain.
“… Was I right to survive?”
This question came first to my mind.
At the moment I was dying, I had the thought ‘I can’t end this way’ and clung to the ether like a straw. But now that I have survived, my thoughts have become complex.
Wouldn’t it be more time-efficient to die and restart?
“A- no… this is nonsense.”
The very thought of that made me uneasy, and I violently shook my head to dismiss it.
I have to live. If I can survive, I must live no matter what. Am I crazy, Park Jeong-yong?
Is dying really that easy, you idiot?
― If you’re consumed by dark magic, you become unafraid of death… your own or anyone else’s.
Luci’s voice once again sent a cold shiver down my spine.
It seemed to be reproaching my current complacency, and without realizing it, I brushed my chest.
“Y-Yeah. The Demon King… Luci!”
Then I remembered Luci’s safety.
I immediately leapt up from where I was lying and started running. Naturally, my destination was toward Kern.
Thud! Thud! It had been a while since I put my all into a full-speed dash, yet my speed was comparable to that of a fierce beast. The wind slicing across my cheeks was almost deafening.
“Damn it… Why is it so quiet?”
As I approached Kern, a feeling of unease bubbled in my mind.
The surroundings were eerily silent, as if all the rats had died. It was odd for the time, as it wasn’t yet nightfall.
Kern’s appearance grew closer with each passing moment. I tried to suppress the rapidly beating of my heart as I entered through the city gates.
“What… is this?!”
Then I froze in shock.
The guards who were supposed to be standing watch at the gates were scattered in pieces all over.
People with broken limbs and heads lay sprawled everywhere, mixed in with shattered supply carts.
The entire area was soaked with blood, the crimson hue more prominent than the original color of the stone walls.
“What… is going on here?!”
In a state of shock, I passed through the gates and entered Kern.
I couldn’t help but mutter as I wandered through the streets.
It was as if a storm had swept through and uprooted countless trees. Collapsed houses and buildings lay in twisted wreckage.
And the bodies.
Massive piles of corpses were scattered everywhere, eerily reminiscent of Halsenburg.
While some bodies were relatively intact, there were others that were dismembered, torn apart, or reduced to unrecognizable shapes.
“It wasn’t caused by an explosion…”
I knew this from personal experience.
This was not the result of the white explosion’s aftermath. If it had been, all the bodies should have disappeared without a trace, just like my previous self’s body did.
At the very least, the people who remained intact must have died from something after the explosion.
“Kuuuuh! L-Luci!!”
I hastened my steps, sprinting through Kern with all my might until I reached the inn where we had stayed.
But there, I had to doubt my eyes once again.
“It’s gone?”
The inn where we had stayed was nowhere to be seen. To be more accurate, it had vanished completely. In its place, there was only the grimy black remains of an explosion and a colossal crater. Everything in the vicinity had vanished cleanly.
The massive crater, easily a hundred meters in diameter, was still radiating scorching heat.
“Crazy…”
It was an unimaginable level of destruction.
What could possibly cause such a gargantuan crater? Could it be that I was being pursued by something like this in my previous life?
“However, if this is what happened…”
A doubt about the explosion’s power arises in my mind.
The explosion itself didn’t possess the power to completely overwhelm all of Kern. In other words, it wasn’t a level of destruction that made escape impossible.
Yet in my previous life, I had failed to escape Kern 33 times.
What does this mean?
“Could it be… They traced our group and caused the explosion?”
There is no other explanation.
By carefully observing the remains within the massive crater, I reached this conclusion.
At some point, I regained my wits. Hastily, I began thoroughly searching around.
“Luci!! Hey, Demon King! Answer me if you’re alive!!”
I frantically scoured the ruins, running here and there, my cries echoing off the crater.
The area outside the reach of the explosion’s impact still retained at least some semblance of the town. But here, there was nothing left. Luckily, this made the search for people easier.
“Damn… Could she really have died?”
An overwhelming sense of despair began to seep into me. I tried my best to shake off these negative thoughts.
First, I’ll look. I’ll thoroughly search Kern, and if I still don’t find her then, I’ll feel sorry afterward.
“… uh.”
Finally, as I searched the crater’s perimeter, I spotted something vaguely resembling a person.
Unconsciously, I froze in place. After staring at it for a long moment, I shuffled toward it.
“…”
There it was, sprawled on the ground.
It was a decapitated corpse, peppered with large and small wounds, and with twisted limbs. For a brief moment, I thought it might be the Demon King’s. But it wasn’t.
Even though the shape of the person was unrecognizable, I still identified it immediately.
“…”
The reason was clear: a translucent baby dragon was hovering around the body.
I silently stared at Aaran. In turn, Aaran locked eyes with me and then opened its mouth towards the sky.
―ROOOAAAR!!
A gale swept through the surroundings.
The wind was so sharp that it cut into my cheeks and the back of my hands, causing them to bleed. Yet I didn’t flee.
“Damn it… What nonsense.”
As I watched the dragon’s agony, it somehow felt as if I too had received some form of solace. There was also an urge, a feeling, that I wanted to somehow console this pitiful dragon.
With a weak smile, I approached Aaran quickly.
“Your master is dead. Stop it.”
―EEEIIIKKK! KIIIAAAARK!!
“It seems my master is probably dead too, so we’re in the same boat, huh?”
―…
“Stop making a fuss and come down. No matter how much you wail like this, the dead won’t come back to life.”
This was as much advice to Aaran as it was to myself.
Only then did I give up. My mind finally accepted this wretched situation.
―KIIIIING… GROOOWW…
Aaran wailed sorrowfully, then slowly flapped its wings. Descending slowly, Aaran landed on my shoulder and began rubbing its head against me.
Thud. I too collapsed onto the spot, silently gazing down at Seop Baek’s corpse.
“Shit…”
This isn’t right.
Why has it come to this? What did I do wrong?
Damn it, what does this wretched world want from me?
‘If I go back in time…’
Habitually, my hand reached for the sword at my waist. But then I stopped.
I still don’t know if Luci is alive or dead.
If Luci has already returned to the beginning, the Guardian Contract will be annulled, and I won’t be able to resurrect. Dying won’t give me a chance to try again.
Game Over. This might be the real final death.
“Shii… tt…”
Realizing this, my hand on the sword hilt began to tremble uncontrollably.
I cursed uselessly under my breath and gently lifted Seop Baek’s hand.
Crackle. Her hand crumbled like a sandcastle.
In my palm remained a single faded black ring.
“This is…”
The ring.
The ring Seop Baek had drawn from the random box. The very ring that triggered the second resetting point.
I stared blankly at it. As always, the status window popped up.
[Item Information]
[Name: Precursor of Isgrath]
[Correction Value: ???]
[Details: Already summoned a fragment of Astarte. It has now lost its function.]
[Reinforcement Possible Times: 0]
“What?”
Even amidst my stupor, my eyes suddenly widened.
It has changed. It’s not the question-mark-filled detailed description I remembered.
Once its role was fulfilled, it lost its function.
According to the detailed explanation, it seems to have summoned a “fragment of Astarte.”
Only then did I recall the second resetting point.
“Ahh…”
It struck me suddenly.
Thinking about it, this is what I should have taken from Seop Baek.
Focused solely on the final resetting point, I had completely forgotten about this ring. Perhaps, it was an even bigger key than someone like Zenon.
“One more chance…”
It’s so close now.
If I could have had just one more opportunity.
Then, this time, I might finally have grasped the truth.
“What’s the point now?”
In the end, I gave a bitter laugh and absentmindedly petted Aaran’s head.
This is the result of jumping around desperately for 34 cycles.
A city devastated worse than Halsenburg.
For some strange reason, even those who weren’t caught in the explosion were completely wiped out.
Seop Baek is dead, and so is Luci.
I tried hard despite myself this time.
Literally to the end, I worked hard, and now all that’s left is me alone.
An intense feeling of emptiness and loneliness washed over me like a tidal wave.
“Talking about being the immortal Demon King, and yet here I am, dying so easily…”
And what’s this nonsense about being the guardian of the immortal Demon King? How can he let his guardian die so easily?
I fell into self-abuse with a cynical smile.
“Young man, do you know the woman?”
From behind me, I suddenly heard an unfamiliar man’s voice.
With no expectation of hearing any human voice, I was startled and reflexively turned back.
There, I saw a man.
“Are you also a member of the Resurrection Sect?”
The man had quietly burning red eyes filled with murderous intent.
His silvery hair was drenched crimson with blood.
Under the coarse scars was an uneven beard. And…
“Judging by what you seek, it must obviously be… the Immortal Demon King, right?”
Luci. The Immortal Demon King.
There she was, her whole body lifelessly slumped in the man’s arms.
For a moment I could neither breathe nor blink, alternating my gaze between Luci and the man. As the man calmly observed my reaction, he smirked ever so slightly.
“Assuming you know this black-haired woman, I will ask you some questions.”
“…”
“Did you sacrifice her to activate the Precursor of Isgrath? And did you bring calamity to this land?”
“…”
“After interrogating a few members of the Resurrection Sect who were massacring citizens, I learned nothing. But, you seem different. There’s a feeling that you might hold the answer to this situation.”
“…”
“I implore you to answer. I’m not a patient person.”
Even as the man urged me to speak, I remained tight-lipped.
It was unavoidable. The current situation was as incomprehensible to me as it was to him.
Rather, from the man’s statement, I realized some facts myself.
‘Sacrifice…? The Precursor of Isgrath? Caused calamity?’
My eyes widened in realization.
The ring. It was the ring.
That explosion was not me, not the Demon King, nor even Seop Baek’s intended target.
The ring. The so-called Precursor of Isgrath triggered some kind of effect, causing that dazzling white explosion.
Of course, there was no escape from the explosion.
You can’t escape an explosion by moving the epicenter with it.
“Silent consent, I’ll take it as an affirmation.”
And as if to prove his introduction of having little patience, the man gently placed the Immortal Demon King… Luci, beside Seop Baek, and immediately adjusted his stance to charge.
Clang! The dark gauntlet covering the man’s right hand gleamed crimson, soaked in blood.
“Witches must be exterminated. I stake my name, Witch Hunter Adrang, on this.”
Adrang? Adrang?!
As the man revealed his name, I felt a sense of déjà vu.
I was sure I had seen that name somewhere, in my recent past…
“Ugh!”
But my train of thought was short-lived. Soon, I reflexively drew my sword in response to the overwhelming wave of murderous intent aimed at crushing my entire body. The man grinned mockingly and approached me gradually from the opposite side.
A feral grin. It was filled with a spine-chilling aura of death.
At that moment, I immediately understood.
“I’m going to die.”
My premonition turned into reality in no time.
I thought his figure flickered for a moment, but then he was already behind me.
Blam! A dull sound reverberated through my entire body.
“Kh… Ack…!!”
In my final vision, I saw the iron gauntlet piercing through my chest.
And the crimson heart held in his hand.
