Chapter 27 – The Path the Remnant Chose

Seungpil is dead.

Not even a body was left.
You can’t even make a tomb.

Seungpil disappeared like a piece of data. Even the blood on my hands and clothes. As if it never existed in the first place.

“Brother… Because of me… Brother…”

Seung-pil’s younger sister, Seung-hee, is sobbing beside me as I collapse in despair.

Dizzy.
That people die so easily?
Only one pistol shot in the back?

It wasn’t even a big mistake.
What more could I have done in that situation?

Should I have had Seungpil do a body search?
No. Even so, the result would have been the same anyway. As he approaches to search, he gets shot in the front and ends. Even if I went instead, I would have died first instead of Seungpil.

So, was there really no other way? If you get caught by a madman, you have no choice but to die?

What if we had guns?
Then the man wouldn’t have been able to attack first. If he tried to kill us, he would have risked his own life too.

The man pulled out his gun, knowing we only had melee weapons. He hit first because he was absolutely certain that he would win.

On this uninhabited island, the other survivors are potential competitors.
Collect coins quickly to buy guns, and use that advantage to eliminate competitors. Then you’ll be safe, and you’ll get loot from the people you kill as a bonus.

The man who tried to kill us must have thought so too.
He would have judged that killing and stealing would be more efficient than forming a tightrope cooperative relationship with an opponent who could be stabbed at any moment.

And, of course, we were the first survivors to encounter the man.
No, actually, we may not be the first. Maybe they’ve already encountered and killed other survivors before us. Or maybe the woman he came with was his real daughter, or the spoils he took from killing other survivors.

Dizzy.
What I feared when I first heard the rules of this island actually happened.
Now I really couldn’t trust anyone.

I don’t know. What to do in the future
If I encounter another survivor, do I have no choice but to kill them first?

I don’t want to die either. If I die, it means my mother will die too.
No, she would do something worse than the death of her mother. She is the spoils of the man who killed me.

What if I got hit by that guy again?
If it was me who died and not Seungpil… ?

In my ears, which had pressed my forehead at the thought of throwing up, the familiar alarm rang again.

『Teeling♪』

It wasn’t my cell phone, it was the alarm from Seunghee’s side.

“Due to the death of ‘Player Han Seung-Pil’, ownership of the device has been transferred to ‘Partner Han Seung-Hee’. The remaining coins are 83 coins.』

Seungpil is dead.
A system message once again confirmed that fact.

“Your partner has died. But don’t worry. He’s not completely dead in real life yet. Until both sides of the couple are dead, even if they die, they are not dead.”

“Uh? How?”

Seung-hee, who had been crying, heard the message and raised his head.
The face was red like a rabbit’s eyes from her tears.

I was surprised as well.
There was so much to think about that I forgot. Just because you die once doesn’t mean it’s over.

If you collect 10,000 coins, you can resurrect your dead partner.
And the way to earn that coin is to hunt wild animals or engage in lewd behavior with a new partner.

If Seung-hee, who was weak, wanted to resurrect her brother, she had only one option.

“Seunghee, you…”

I tried to say something, but I shut her mouth.

‘If you want to save your brother, do dirty things with me.’
Because I realized that no matter what I said, it would only sound like that.

『Would you like to hear an explanation?』

“Uh, huh? Uh?”

Seung-hee, who has come to a brain freeze, doesn’t know what to do and looks at my face alternately with the cell phone in his hand.

… What do we do? Should I explain?
However, no matter what I say with any intention, it only draws a future that Seung-hee will misunderstand.

In order to save Seung-pil, he must make a new partner with another man and collect coins by doing dirty work. I have the same desire to save Seungpil, so let’s cooperate and collect coins diligently. Is there no other man you can trust?

To put it bluntly, it does.
Will Seung-hee, who is usually emotional and rebellious, accept this offer?

She’s the only thing that pops into my head right now, she’s that woman who just shot herself with a pistol.

Some woman might think she’d rather die than she’d live like that.
And Seunghee might be that type too.

While I was thinking, unable to do this or that, someone gently touched my shoulder.
Was the mother

“It’s Changjae. Mom will talk to Seunghee.”

Mother speaks with a very serious expression.
The mother also watched Seungpil die and disappear from afar. She also knows how to resurrect the dead.
Certainly, it would be better for Seunghee to have her mother talk than for me.

“… Yes. Please.”

Leaving behind Seunghee’s eyes as if she was clinging to me, I stood up from my seat.

Okay. It was not the time to be idly by.
Seung-pil is dead, but he is not completely dead. There was a lot to think about and a lot to do.

Seung-hee left it to his mother, and I decided to do my job.

First of all, it must be corpse farming.
I headed to the place where the two dead were.

The body was no longer there. Like Seung-pil, he died and disappeared.

『Player Hwang Taek-soo passed away. I received 100 coins as the highest contributor.』
『Player Hwang Yeon-ju passed away. I received 100 coins as the highest contributor.』

『Player Hwang Taek-soo has received 266 coins.』

As I approached it, a new message rang in succession.

Hwang Taek-soo. Yeonjoo Hwang.
Does having the same last name really mean that they were father and daughter?

“…”

I picked up the handgun that had fallen where the woman’s corpse had been.

A short revolver similar to that used by Korean police.
I don’t know the official name. 6 foot. There were two bullets left in it.

Was the pistol 500 coins and the bullet 100 coins per shot?
Then 700 coins for the pistol alone, plus 466 coins from the dead.

This made it clear
It is more efficient to do dirty things with your partner than to hunt creatures.
And rather than that, hunting humans is more efficient.

I went to the place where the man had fallen, but there was nothing special.
There were no bloodstains or clothes left.

The man also died, his partner’s daughter, so unlike Seung-pil, it must be seen that he is completely dead.
Both in this world and in real life.

I don’t know what the man was thinking when he attacked his daughter.
Maybe he thought it was necessary to survive with his daughter. He said it was a necessary sacrifice to ensure safety and the survival of himself and his daughter.

But obviously, she didn’t want her daughter to do that.

As a result, the man is killed by her daughter, who then takes her own life. Whether the man did it for survival or he just wanted to be with his daughter, the man’s choice ended up being the worst.

Then what about me

Me and my mother found an agreement. Maybe my mother was hurt beyond words, but at least I don’t think we’ve gotten along enough to kill each other.

This is all because of the concessions and sacrifices made by my mother.

If she had endured that her mother would not do it like Seung-hee, the situation would have been much worse than it is now. Maybe I wasn’t already a person of this world.

“Mother…”

Normally, in this situation, it would be normal to not be able to accept it like Seung-hee or the daughter who committed suicide.

But my mother accepted me, and she even encouraged her mother first.
Mother sacrificed you to save me.

──To protect such a mother, what will I do?

-It’s sweet. Drooling.

I touch the handgun I picked up here and there.

Lethality confirmed. Hitting the head or torso has a high chance of killing a person.
However, 100 coins per bullet is not efficient. If you’re going to kill him, you’d have to do it with a melee weapon, not a gun.

“Whoa-.”

Just as my mother had made up her mind, so I had to make up my mind.

‘Find other survivors, slaughter them, and loot coins.’

It was clearly an effective option.

You can reduce potential threats and also get coins.
If everyone who came to this island had come at the same timing as me, other people would not have fully adapted to the island’s rules yet. We had to move before the other survivors settled down.

You cannot kill an innocent person in front of your mother.
So, before the survivors came this way, I had to find them first and kill them.

I had to kill

“Hey, hey!”

I turn to the voice calling.
There was Seunghee with a determined expression on her face.

What about Seunghee?

If Seung-hee said she would sacrifice herself to save her brother, it might be okay.
At least I won’t betray him until I collect coins to save Seungpil.

But if you don’t like it, there’s no need to convince me.
I feel sorry for Seungpil, but there are things more important to me than Seungpil.
I don’t like it, but if I force myself to do it, it will only leave a potential threat like the daughter who killed her father. Your mother will hate it too.

So, if you don’t like it, let’s release it.
We don’t have to reap and feed them. To be honest, Seung-hee is of no help to survival.

Still, the weak-hearted mother would ask her to take care of Seung-hee.

If so, what should I do?
After secretly dealing with it behind the scenes, should I say to my mother that I left on my own?

Okay. I hope so.
It’s just a shame to send coins… There won’t be any corpses left anyway.

Unaware of the fact that I was thinking of disposing of myself in my head, Seung-hee told me with a nervous expression.

“I! Would you like to go out with me?”
“…”

… That was completely unexpected.

Embarrassed, I became a mute after eating honey.

Over there, my mother was smiling awkwardly at us.