Chapter 149 – Chapter 148 – Beyond (12)

There was a man.

A handsome man with gray hair.

I now know the name of the man I have seen many times.

‘Siegfried.’

Stronger than TRP, the man trapped in an unending promise wielded a sword today.

Nine slashes were swung, tearing through the densely packed mass of flesh.

Blood splashes, splashes, splashes.

However, Siegfried, who was doing it, swung his sword with a resigned expression, as if he were used to it.

‘… That’s crazy.’

Looking at Siegfried from above in the sky, I was amazed.

Those sword attacks that I casually wielded were beyond my awareness.

Chew-! Chew-! Chew-!

Blood is splattered in all directions.

Curiously, blood did not fall around Siegfried’s body. Only his sword was drenched in blood.

10 minutes, 20 minutes, 1 hour, 3 hours.

Siegfried, who continued to draw his sword, swung it like that for nine days.

However, instead of shrinking, the red flesh that was struck by the sword swelled even more.

“… This.”

After 9 days, the wriggling red flesh stopped.

Siegfried glanced at his dripping sword and walked back.

Dump.

Sitting down, Siegfried moved his body over the hollowed ground.

“It’s terrible.”

Siegfried muttered, clutching his gray hair.

His words were half mixed with anger and resignation.

A piece of red flesh cut without rest for 9 days. I knew that it was a promise that Siegfried was bound to.

Wriggling

After an hour passes, the red flesh begins to stir.

Siegfried raised a rusty sword with a dull blade and stood up.

Dalgrak.

A faded stone moved in the center of the sword’s handle.

Again… Again, Siegfried swung his sword at the proliferating mass of red flesh.

* *

“…?”

Blurred sensations float thinly over my body.

When I noticed that, the scattered consciousness gathered in my brain and I woke up.

Jump up.

Get up and open your eyes.

The first sight I entered was the familiar view of my room.

However.

“Hi. Did you sleep well?”

The appearance of Choi Seol-yeon, who came in afterward, made the previous memories intertwined in his mind.

“How is it?”

As my memory returned, I reflexively asked Seolyeon Choi.

Choi Seol-yeon laughed bitterly, and then she pulled back the curtains in my room that were closed.

“Fuck…”

I blankly spat out curse words.

I can see the dimension that Fenrir broke in the distance.

Obviously, until I killed Fenrir, the dimensional rift, which was the size of a sewer hole, was already the size of a house.

“I can’t help it. As long as the dimensional rift is widened, it can’t be stopped.”

It was as Seolyeon Choi said.

Even at this moment, the hole was gradually increasing its size.

Beyond the dimension, I see a land shimmering with darkness.

The land was swarming with demons, looking at this place.

Darkness, evil spirits, masked ghosts.

The by-products of Fafnir, the demonic dragon, were pouring out, laughing on the other side of the boundary.

“Hey, why aren’t you coming over?”

Seeing that figure, I almost grabbed Levatein and ran out right away.

I stopped when I realized that the demons were just staring at me as if something was on the line.

“I’ll see you soon.”

Choi Seol-yeon gives a meaningful message.

It didn’t take long to understand its meaning.

Kwajik!

The bodies of the demons standing on the border disappear.

An eerie cracking sound was heard, and those who disappeared were enveloped in thicker darkness.

On the surface, it may feel as if darkness is wrapped around it, but I knew the color of that darkness.

The scales of Demon King Fafnir.

Just now, the Demon Dragon swallowed the demons on the border.

Squeak.

The darkness beyond the dimension moves suddenly.

The darkness shimmered, revealing orange eyes.

A creepy lizard’s pupil that was torn vertically.

Those big eyes stared at this place and slowly disappeared.

“… Driving me crazy.”

I realized the moment I met Fafnir’s eyes.

It had some kind of ‘class’.

He was no mere devil.

Choi Seol-yeon grabbed my trembling hand.

When Choi Seol-yeon’s hand touched her warm grip, she calmed down a bit.

“The Fafnir over there… Is now eating the by-products it poured out.”

Choi Seol-yeon quietly explains to me.

Feeling Choi Seol-yeon’s warmth, I accepted the story of gradually disappearing hope.

“To swallow the by-products that were spit out again in order to encroach on the previous world with demonic energy…”

Choi Seol-yeon didn’t even say anything behind her back.

I tightly closed my eyes.

Even without listening to behind the scenes, it was obvious what Fafnir on the other side would do.

Release all those by-products here.

There was nothing else.

“But why aren’t you coming over now?”

I have a question.

If he came over even now, why didn’t someone capable of destroying this world come?

Seolyeon Choi answered my question.

“It can’t come over. That gap hasn’t had enough strength for Fafnir to come over yet… So, maybe a month from now.”

Choi Seol-yeon’s brown eyes looked at me sadly.

“By that time, Fafnir will come over.”

A month later, the complete Fafnir, who returned after eating his fragments, comes over here.

It was as if he had already predicted the end of the world.

“… Seriously, the fuck.”

My head is complicated.

I thought I was progressing well, but I went astray in an unexpected place.

There was nothing I could do now.

The best course of action would be to cross over there right now and catch the imperfect Fafnir.

Going in there in my current state was tantamount to suicide.

What should I do?

He kept asking me questions, but the answer never came.

“Jun-ah.”

Choi Seol-yeon said to me who was in trouble.

When I looked away, Seolyeon Choi grabbed my hand even tighter.

The brown eyes trembled slightly.

“Shall we run away?”

Seolyeon Choi looks at me and whispers.

“It won’t work for everyone, but you and I. We can both live for sure… Let’s run away.”

With her trembling hands, she moves her hand towards my cheek.

Seolyeon Choi was proposing to me right now.

Let’s survive in a world that will soon perish.

But I stared at Seolyeon Choi.

Choi Seol-yeon was shaking from time to time, and the corners of her mouth were tender.

Seeing Choi Seol-yeon like that, I said.

“If only. If you had really said that to me, I would have thought about it. No.”

When she came over to this world through her former Ongdalsaem, I still remember the appearance of Choi Seol-yeon.

Choi Seol-yeon, who walked the streets without making eye contact with people, as if she had committed her sin.

She was weighed down by her guilt for not having saved them from her former world.

Even now.

Choi Seol-yeon’s brown eyes were shaking dangerously.

Her hand on my cheek was shaking.

She wanted to save me, but at the same time she didn’t want to abandon this world either.

So I can’t accept her offer.

“Don’t try to reduce my sins by giving me more choices.”

I got up and said to Seolyeon Choi.

She blankly looks up at me.

“Who am I in the first place?”

As always, I draped the Levatein slanted across the closet around my waist.

“He’s the one who got through to the end of hard mode with a single sword. Who would have predicted that?”

Knocking on the handle, showing off.

“I did something I couldn’t do all the time, so I’ll try again this time.”

“Under…”

Seolyeon Choi smiled lightly.

Her trembling eyes had stopped before she knew it.

“As expected, the strongest swordsman is 999.”

“Cancer.”

I grinned.

“Originally swordsmen are full of romance.”

* *

“Joe… Aim!”

As I opened the door and went out, Aris ran at me, her pigtails bobbing.

I skillfully held Aris in my arms.

Aris’s distinctive sweet body odor fills my nose.

“I was worried… Black…!”

As I was stroking Aris’ hair, the rest of the female crew rushed to me.

“You…!”

Violet looked at me and shouted as if she was genuinely worried.

“Hey.. You bastard!”

Cheonghwa also speaks to me with a mixture of swearing and crying.

As a result of talking to the women, I realized that I had fallen asleep as if I had fainted for three days.

I also heard about what had happened over the past three days.

The Hunter Association, realizing that the dimensional gap has opened, is trying to come up with a countermeasure.

Occasionally, with Choi Seol-yeon, he caught a small monster that escaped from the gap in the dimension.

I listened to the events of the three days when I was fainting and sorted them out in my head.

“Jojuna… But, what are we going to do?”

Aris, held in my arms, trembled in fear.

“That monster out there… That’s…”

When Aris brought up the story, the women all reflexively shrank.

Fafnir’s existence was already known to everyone.

I grabbed Aris’ shoulders tightly.

At the same time, he said to the female crew as if not to worry.

“Don’t worry, I’ll do my best. I have strong reinforcements from the other side, so I can do it.”

He came out of the room before he knew it and pointed at Choi Seol-yeon, who was leaning against the wall.

Choi Seol-yeon looked at me surrounded by women, and she waved her hand at us with a complicated expression.

“Jun-ah.”

Then Aris stared at me from my arms.

“But what’s your relationship with that woman?”

“Yes…?”

Two bright red eyes shimmer as they look at me.

To those eyes that demanded an answer, I struggled to come up with an appropriate answer.

“Chi.. Friend! Friend!”

“Just friends? Or, girlfriend?”

Aris persistently asked me, so I answered clearly.

“Of course we’re just friends!”

“Hmm… Really?”

In Alice’s eyes, Choi Seol-yeon’s expression was regretful at Jung Jo-jun’s answer.

“Tell me if you have any other thoughts later.”

Perhaps, thinking that, Aris was held back in the arms of Jeong Jo-jun, whom she missed.