The Girl, Day of Revenge(4)

The elevator rises with a rattling sound.

The floors slowly change from 1 to 2, 2 to 3.

And inside the ascending elevator, Neon leaned her back against the handrail and looked down at her two hands stained with blood.

Splash—

“…It’s sticky.”

The blood that had been dripping like water until just now became sticky like soda after some time had passed.

But thinking that this blood was shed by the villains from her memories as they died, it felt like disinfectant.

Disinfectant washing away her dirty memories, her nightmares.

“This is truly the best.”

Didn’t someone say revenge is only empty?

But right now, Neon felt like she could fly from the refreshing feeling.

How could she not feel refreshed when washing everything away with their blood?

Of course, some might say Neon herself has gone mad seeing her like this.

“To others, it might look that way.”

A little girl who had never killed anyone in her life and only been victimized is now laughing after killing hundreds of people like a murderous ghost.

When seen by ordinary people, it wouldn’t be strange to call her a crazy bitch whose head has gone completely wrong.

But right now, Neon’s mental state was clearer than ever before.

It was a much clearer state of mind than in the past when she received two pieces of bread from an organization member as a treat and drank cool water.

Therefore, Neon recalled the one and only reason why she was carrying out revenge and murder.

“For my daily life…”

Because even if she escaped from the hellish slums to the outside world, if this nightmare didn’t disappear, she would never be able to live an ordinary life.

She wants to go to school, make friends, eat delicious food, and sleep in a soft bed.

Wishing for such a daily life, she’s trying to completely cut off this connection that would come up as a nightmare every day with the atrocity of murder.

Neon clenched her blood-stained fist tightly once again as she recalled a happy future, and stood up straight in the rattling elevator that had stopped.

Ding—

Immediately after, the elevator doors opened with the arrival bell sound.

Neon slowly moved her steps, leaving bloody footprints on the marble floor illuminated by bright lights.

To cut off the last bad connection remaining for her.

---

“Huff…! Huff…!”

Inside the fitness room where various exercise equipment was arranged.

A man’s rough breathing echoed regularly.

The owner of the sound was none other than a black-haired man in the middle of exercising.

The man with hair grown to a moderate length tied in a ponytail and impressive fierce eyes exhaled roughly a few more times and then threw the barbell he was holding to the side.

Clang clang clang—!!!

The 500kg barbell that flew to the corner rolled on the floor with a noisy sound.

It would have been extremely rude behavior in an ordinary place, but there was no one to point it out in this fitness room where the man was alone.

No, even if someone else had been there, they wouldn’t have thought to point it out to the man.

“Phew… Now I feel refreshed.”

After all, pointing it out to Cha Baek-gi, the leader of the Hyeonhwa organization that ruled over the 8th District slums, was the same as saying you’d throw away your life.

Therefore, in the fitness room where there was not a single person to point it out, Cha Baek-gi looked over his post-workout body in the mirror.

“Just right. This much is enough for today.”

The body reflected in the mirror with reddish hair growing here and there. The muscles of that body were twitching while sweating as if they had been warmed up.

The exercise Cha Baek-gi did every day to train the tiger clan body he had implanted.

Doing the same routine as always, Cha Baek-gi was satisfied with his loosened up body and finished some light stretching, then gathered his clothes that he had hung on the equipment to prepare to return.

“By the way, that Raje… What on earth did she want to buy that she even left her post to go to an auction?”

And before putting on his clothes, Cha Baek-gi muttered the question that came to mind at the memory from earlier.

What on earth did she want to buy that she left the post she always stuck to?

As the question grew bigger the more he thought about it, Cha Baek-gi decided he should check what she bought when she returned later, and then put on his clothes completely.

“Then I should go take a shower…”

Then, as he was about to leave the fitness room to wash his sweaty body.

Thud—!

“Hm?”

At the sudden vibration of the fitness room door, Cha Baek-gi stopped in his tracks.

Usually, there were almost no instances of such noise being heard and vibration felt from inside.

That was because all the corridors and rooms on the upper floors had soundproofing and vibration-proofing work done.

Therefore, the fact that such a sound and vibration occurred meant that something had directly hit the door.

However, it wasn’t a knocking sound, but something that collided as if falling.

And the moment he finished that thought, Cha Baek-gi felt an ominous premonition and carefully opened his mouth to ask.

“Hey! Is someone there?!”

A question uttered in quite a loud voice.

If the situation outside had been as usual, the subordinates standing next to the door should have immediately entered upon hearing his voice.

However, there was no sound returning from outside. At that, Cha Baek-gi raised the hairs on his body that had only been on guard.

“An intruder?”

In such situations, Cha Baek-gi’s own premonitions had never been wrong.

Intuition honed from sitting in the leader’s seat of the organization for a long time. The premonitions that came from that were mostly correct a hundred times out of a hundred.

And muttering one of the most likely possibilities among several, Cha Baek-gi gritted his teeth and took out a device from his pocket.

“What the hell did those guys below do for an intruder to come all the way up here…!”

The reason for taking out the device was none other than to check the situation on the lower floors through CCTV.

But before Cha Baek-gi could even turn on the device screen, the fitness room door began to distort grotesquely with the sound of something colliding again.

Creak—!!!

“Wh-what?!”

A distortion as if trying to tear off the door itself without unlocking it.

The metal of the handle part was crumpling as if curling inwards with an ear-piercing sound.

It should have been a door made with metal with magic alloy added. But such a door was crumpling like a paper box.

At the unbelievable sight, Cha Baek-gi couldn’t hide his bewilderment but quickly moved away from the door, and immediately after. The distorted door was torn off with a roar.

Crash—!!!!!

Metal fragments fly up around as the door is torn off.

Then the sound of the door rolling in the corridor.

And after the loud noise, in the silence that began to flow, the one who had torn off the door and entered was a girl with her hands and clothes covered in blood so red.

“…He really was here. That huge guy didn’t lie.”

The girl who muttered like that while coldly lowering her eyes upon discovering Cha Baek-gi.

A stench of corpses so strong it made one’s nose tingle wafted from the girl, who must have killed who knows how many people.

However, despite having killed his organization members like that, at the face of the girl he was “seeing for the first time”, Cha Baek-gi let out a hollow laugh and opened his mouth.

“Huh, I wondered what madman had touched our organization, but it was just a little brat. Who are you? Which organization sent you? Or did you come from outside?”

“…Ha, it seems you don’t even remember my face.”

“What, were you someone I knew? Strange… You’re clearly a girl I’m seeing for the first time. Did I forget?”

As Cha Baek-gi said that while tilting his head, the girl laughed again.

The girl whose eyes faded for a moment as if feeling somewhat empty.

But since Cha Baek-gi still didn’t remember anything about the girl, he took off the clothes he had just put on and slowly approached her.

“It seems you know me one-sidedly, but think that you won’t be able to return safely since you touched our organization. You’ll probably live together nicely with the guys buried under this building.”

“One-sidedly… Yes, truly one-sidedly. Well, you’re a human who throws away your own child calling them trash. You wouldn’t remember trash.”

“Hmm…? Trash? Are you perhaps one of my children?”

“…Do you know if I say Neon?”

“Neon, Neon…”

A name that seemed familiar from somewhere.

At that, Cha Baek-gi stopped the fist he was about to raise in front of the girl and fell into thought for a moment.

And after chewing over that name several times, Cha Baek-gi uttered a short sound at the conversation with Raje from a few days ago that he remembered and raised his lowered head.

“Ah! That trash that ran away from the organization? This is just trash I thought, but it was a bitch hiding her teeth.”

“…Yes, just keep calling me trash like that. I’d just feel dirty if a bastard like you called my name.”

“There’s no need for you to point that out. Even if you were hiding your teeth, you’re still trash in the end. A cat challenging a tiger will only result in death.”

Trash born as trash will just be trash in the end no matter how hard they try.

It seems she somehow gained power after running away and killed organization members to come up, but that was all.

In the end, if she dies by Cha Baek-gi’s own hands, everything would just be the last struggle of useless trash.

Therefore, Cha Baek-gi tightly clenched the fist he had stopped just now and slowly raised it above his head, then swung it down towards Neon’s head standing in front of him.

“Pay the price for touching the Hyeonhwa organization!”

Whoosh—!!!

Cha Baek-gi’s fist swung down cutting through the air.

And just before that fist crushed Neon’s head, Neon raised her fist with a twisted smile.

“You’re going to die by that trash today.”

Crack—!!!!!

As Neon’s fist blocked the attack, Cha Baek-gi’s fist twisted into pieces with a terrible sound.

Crushed, broken, clumped together, Cha Baek-gi’s fist became a lump of meat.

His fist that could crush even steel was crushed into a disgusting shape in collision with an even more powerful force.

“Ugh?! Kuaaaargh!!!!!”

And the fist that had become a lump of meat.

Cha Baek-gi let out a scream like a newborn baby, shedding tears at the pain that began to be felt as he recognized the change.

Even a tiger that ruled over everyone would cry out when receiving an unbearable wound, and now Cha Baek-gi realized he was not a predator but prey with just one instance of pain.

“How strange… I can see tears coming out of your eyes?”

Neon who uttered those words looking down at him collapsed on the floor.

At those words, Cha Baek-gi looked up at Neon, grinding his teeth.

“Kugh…”

Cha Baek-gi himself was undoubtedly the master of the slums. He was a tiger that had ascended to the throne in this den full of beasts.

But unfortunately, Neon standing in front of Cha Baek-gi was not a being that a mere beast like a tiger could face.

A race that lacks nothing to claim the throne even among different races called yokai.

The girl Cha Baek-gi had thrown away as trash was somehow now descended from such a predator’s blood, and in this place where that food chain was clear, what would happen from now on was all too obvious.

“Shall we see how much more those tears will flow?”

Torment that will only be full of pain.

A path where neither escape nor surrender is allowed, where it can’t even become a fight, unfolds before Cha Baek-gi.

And Cha Baek-gi had already started walking that path.