episode_0004

“Dohyun.”

My eyelids twitched at the familiar voice.

It was gentle and soft, like waking up a friend who had fallen asleep in a movie theater.

Thanks to it, my cold body seemed to regain its vitality.

Only then could I feel the sounds around me.

The loud music, Hyunsoo’s hearty laughter, even Gyuseon’s clinking noises.

Those welcoming voices that I thought I would never hear again.

With half fear and half anticipation, I managed to open my eyes.

My cheek was stuck to the sticky table.

And just like that, Nuna was staring at me, her cheek also glued to the table.

For a moment, the distance between us felt too close, almost making me jump up.

But soon, I was mesmerized by Jisoo’s ecstatic pupils under the spotlight, feeling like I was being drawn into them.

“Look at this guy. He’s nodding off after just three whiskeys?”

Nuna says, as if finding me cute.

What’s going on…

She’s right in front of me.

Her face is clean, without a trace of blood or wounds.

Smooth, fair skin with even the cute little fuzz intact.

I barely lifted my heavy head.

Imprints from the table were evident on my cheeks.

“So, can you handle Victory Report?”

Nuna chuckles and grabs my shoulder.

I let out a short groan at the impact.

She seems to be getting stronger by the minute.

Still, thanks to that, I could somewhat gather my senses and barely survey where I was.

Subtle lighting and exquisite drinks.

Happy guests celebrating an unknown anniversary.

This was the moment we promised to come here if we caught Wyvern.

A man in a neat white shirt brings four glasses on a tray.

He places a glass on our table one by one.

Is this the ‘Victory Report’?

Creamy golden color adorns the long, transparent glass.

“Today was tough, so I’ll cut you some slack. But you have to finish this, okay? I came all the way to Sindorim for this because of you.”

Hyunsoo leans in on both sides.

Each time he tilts his neck, there’s a refreshing clink sound.

“Today was particularly tough.”

Gyuseon chuckles.

His speech slightly slurred from the few drinks he’s already had.

I gaze at the glass in front of me.

Their words seem to linger softly in my mind.

“Today was tough.”

Yes.

It was really tough.

I don’t know why, but it was insanely tough.

My chest tightens.

As if I’ve overcome a major hurdle, all the tension in my body dissipates.

My face flushes, and hot tears stream down my cheeks.

“Oh… Dohyun’s crying.”

Nuna teases, poking fun at me.

“What’s wrong, crying on such a good day. Did you have a nightmare or something?”

Hyunsoo puts on an arrogant look.

“No… No…”

“Yeah, crying on a good day won’t do. Let’s drink. We’re about to lose all the alcohol!”

Nuna pushes a glass towards me.

I pick up the ‘Victory Report’ in front of me.

“To the day we become Rankers! For our party!”

We clink our glasses together following Hyunsoo’s toast.

With a lively and clear sound, the alcohol spills across the table.

But unlike my colleagues, I didn’t drink the alcohol readily.

I just want to admire this cocktail a bit more.

“What are you doing without drinking?”

Nuna asks with a sly smile.

“Just because the color is pretty.”

Her eyes resemble the golden cocktail she gazes at.

“Go on, try it.”

Nuna watches eagerly as I cautiously touch my lips to the chilled glass.

The smooth liquor flows over my tongue and down my throat.

A sweet orange scent fills my mouth.

The lingering bittersweet taste enriches the flavor.

Delicious.

Not all alcohol tastes the same after all.

“How is it? Still think all alcohol is the same?”

“No, it’s delicious. Really…”

With a proud expression, she tilts her head.

Her face is one of pure happiness, without a trace of worry or pain.

“How about it? Do you still regret coming to our party? You’ve been saying how tough it’s been all this time.”

Regret.

Those two words strike my mind.

I pause for a moment, then reply with a lifted corner of my mouth.

To the woman who led me here.

“No. I don’t regret it anymore.”

It feels like I’m smiling after a long time.

I take another sip, using her smile as an excuse.

The sharp taste of alcohol proves, as if dispelling a nightmare, that the Snape film I experienced earlier was indeed a nightmare.

Yes, that was a bitter dream.

I hope this sweet taste lingers in my mouth for a long time.

If possible, forever.

I savored this ecstatic moment with my chin resting on my hand.

“I swung the sword like this back then! When I precisely cut the wyvern’s neck, I felt it. Ah, this must be a million-view moment.”

She mimics swinging a sword with her hand.

“Hey, you look so old-fashioned, it doesn’t work.”

Hyunsoo, who was listening to her martial arts story, firmly shakes his head.

“No. If we fail, it’ll be because of you, oppa. People would run away scared just by looking at your face. And Do Hyun and Gyu Sun should be in the picture too-.”

At Jisoo noona’s awkward praise, I chuckle quietly.

Sometimes she makes such silly jokes.

Empty glasses pile up on the table.

The busy waiters haven’t had a chance to clear our table filled with glasses.

Hyunsoo and the lightweight Gyu Sun fall asleep with their heads on the table.

Silent as if dead.

But Jisoo noona, still slightly tipsy, sits with her eyes wide open, holding a glass.

Alone, I could witness her decadent beauty while regulating my own drinking.

“Why are you like that?”

Jisoo notices my gaze.

Now that we’re alone, I ask her the question I’ve wanted to ask all along.

“Noona.”

“Yeah.”

“Have you ever regretted being with me?”

Jisoo squints her eyes as if tired of hearing the same question.

“Again with that?”

Her lips, stained with cocktail foam, catch my eye.

Gradually, the lights around me dim.

Her red lips gently touch my cheek.

In that moment, my world comes to a standstill.

The soft touch on my cheek sends shivers down my spine.

“Not at all.”

Warm cream caresses me and slowly trickles down.

Jisoo wipes my cheek with her finger.

“Thank you.”

I say softly.

The confusion in my chest finally dissipates.

Thanks to this sense of liberation, I could wake up from this sweet dream.

I know.

All of this is a fantasy created by my power, Angelic Hand.

For dying me, my power prepared this final consideration.

The cream running down my cheek wasn’t from her lips.

The tingling sensation throughout my body wasn’t from her kiss.

The cream was like falling raindrops.

The thrill came from the shock piercing my side.

My unfocused eyes gradually regain focus.

My thoroughly wet body still lies amidst the ruins of a city turned to rubble.

But there is one fact that feels like a fantasy.

This is definitely not a dream.

The person lying next to me right now.

Facing me in the pouring rain.

It’s Jisoo noona.

As she smiles at me just like in the fantasy, blood flows from her body.

With black holes scattered across her body, she can hardly open her eyes.

Jisoo’s pupils have dilated so much that the whites have merged with the irises.

Even one eye protrudes slightly, unable to bear the pain endured over time.

“Thank goodness you’re alive…”

After experiencing such a harsh ordeal, those were the first words Jisoo said to me.

Listening to her cracking voice, tears flow from my eyes, which I thought had dried up.

In the midst of being tormented, her blood had stained the ground on her way here.

“Even you… are fortunate.”

Struggling to speak through frothy bubbles, he manages to say.

Each forced word feels like a weight on his chest.

“She kept poking me with the knife, so I held my breath and pretended to be dead. That’s why she just left.”

Even in this situation, she continues to smile softly.

Every time she smiles, blood rushes up, triggering a fit of coughing.

“I mean, the knife is poisoned anyway, so I’ll die soon…”

Why is she smiling?

Is she truly unafraid of death?

“Isn’t it nice? We can be together like this until the end.”

“Nice… but aren’t you feeling unjust?”

I ask, my voice trembling.

“What’s unjust about it?”

“Having such great abilities and choosing to die with someone like me. If only you had joined a big guild like those bastards earlier…”

“Dohyun.”

Jisoo interrupts me with a calm voice.

“Let’s just stay like this.”

…

There were many things I wanted to say.

But looking at her face devoid of laughter, those words retreated back into my mouth.

Her expression was not one of primitive joy but of resignation.

Without words, she already knew all these trivial truths.

—

How much time has passed?

The wheezing sound from her lessened.

We all know our fate.

That’s why I muster the courage once again.

I want to ask her one last question.

The very question I asked in that fantasy.

“Sister…”

“Yes.”

“Do you regret the time spent with me?”

I know the answer.

Yet, I want to hear that response several times over.

“Another one of those questions…?”

Jisoo’s dull eyes stare at me.

At the point where the pupils disappeared, it was impossible to know what she was looking at, but somehow, it felt like she was looking at me.

I could just feel it.

Finally, her violet lips moved.

“I regret it.”

Those three words pierced through my previously confident heart.

That one statement shattered the carefully constructed ending credits of my movie.

“If you had done as you said, I wouldn’t have died like this.”

Tears streamed down Jisoo’s gray eyes.

Mixing with rainwater, they trickled down her cheeks.

“After all the effort I put in…”

“To die like this…”

“It’s the worst…”

With those words, her lips fell silent.

The young woman who had tried to show only a bright side to her younger brother, now barely twenty-six, died like that.

She, too, was ultimately human.

My lips, left alone, tremble.

Was it then?

That my choked-up voice finally burst out.

My cry echoed through the city.

Cursing the me left alone.

Cursing the me faced with the death of someone I loved.

And cursing this rotten ability.

I drag my torn body towards her.

And extend the arm that remains.

“Don’t lie…”

The energy from my entire body gathers at my fingertips.

A faint radiance glows in my hand.

“Is that all you have to say to me?”

My trembling hand caresses her cheek.

My warmth begins to transfer to her.

Before long, from her face, it’s not tears but dark red blood that flows.

Then something rises from Jisoo’s cold body through my fingertips.

I realize that it’s the emotions she felt before dying.

Fear of death.

Regret for not joining a large guild.

Compassion she felt while taking care of me in my decline.

Within them, I do not sense the ’emotion’ I had hoped for.

I burned through all my remaining vitality to find that emotion.

My feet begin to decay.

Limbs contort and my face distorts, yet I still couldn’t find the answer I sought.

That was my end.

A life more pitiful and wretched than anyone else’s.