Chapter 403

Chapter 403

Eat The World Tree.

Episode 403: Preliminaries (4)

-Clang! Clang!

Thorn Crown was the Korean Hunter Association’s criminal detention center. It’s a place designed to efficiently imprison those deemed natural disasters or individuals who posed a similar level of danger.

Lee Seyeong, wearing handcuff-like artifacts, was dragged in by hunters, her eyes unfocused.

“…Drag her in properly so she can’t escape.”

“Vice President. If this gets out….”

“Didn’t I say I’d take responsibility?”

Inside the cold iron bars, she responded chillingly to a hunter’s advice, who was worried about Byeol’s well-being. Everyone who knew them was aware of the relationship between Byeol and Lee Seyeong. Byeol and Seyeong had consistently appeared on TV broadcasts, and on the internet, they were treated almost like celebrities.

There was no way their fellow hunters wouldn’t know about this. Byeol’s actions this time were very unfamiliar to them.

-Slam!

The iron cage door closed, locking into place. Lee Seyeong, thrown against the wall, fixed her gaze directly on Byeol.

“You. Are you out of your mind?”

At Lee Seyeong’s question, Byeol’s face tilted to the right.

“I told you.”

Byeol was smiling bitterly. Her lips were slightly cracked, and a knife wound remained on her ear. Her eyes were red-rimmed, but hidden by the darkness of the ceiling.

She murmured palely.

“To cut ties with him.”

Lee Seyeong lost her reason.

“….”

Byeol’s words were clearly meant for the surrounding hunters, but Lee Seyeong, who had already shut her eyes and ears, couldn’t accept anything. Soon, a sharp scream that tore through the air erupted.

“…You.”

Even if it was a fabricated statement, the words were so sharp that Seyeong stammered several times.

“Yes, Seyeong.”

-Drip, drip.

Falling tears. Suddenly, Byeol’s face contorted.

“…Just. Kill me. You fing bitch.”

Immediately after the fractured friendship, hostility flowed out. Byeol knew that once someone lost their reason, nothing she said would get through. Even if her heart ached, there was a secret she couldn’t tell.

“I was going to anyway.”

Byeol turned her head. The surrounding hunters tensed at Byeol’s even more distorted face.

“…That is, once proof comes out that you helped the heretics.”

Water droplets fell onto the cold floor, forming a few circles before she rubbed her eyes with her arm.

Lee Seyeong was too exhausted. She hadn’t slept for a while, and her body’s fatigue had reached its limit. Even if Lee Shiheon had come directly, he wouldn’t have been able to persuade her. Since the minimum environment to relieve her fatigue was provided, perhaps the explanation could be postponed for a bit longer.

Byeol hid her bloodied fist behind her back, opened the prison door, and disappeared.

Following Byeol, the hunters whispered.

“…The Vice President is serious. Have you ever seen the next President so angry?”

“I haven’t either. She must have been very disappointed.”

Byeol’s reputation wasn’t as great as Mugung’s, but she’s favored by almost all guilds in Korea. That’s probably why she could arrest a big shot like Lee Seyeong, despite the flimsy evidence. If this incident was exposed to the media, Byeol’s reputation would be significantly damaged, but… she had accumulated so many good deeds that the public would likely defend her.

Byeol, glancing at Lee Seyeong, who had buried her head in her knees, silently returned to the association with the hunters.

A while ago. What Lee Shiheon had said to Byeol:

-Arrest Lee Seyeong using the Vice President’s authority as soon as possible, until the situation is resolved.

-Right now, the evidence would be weak…. After the situation is resolved, she can easily be declared innocent, right?

Lee Seyeong and Lee Shiheon’s close relationship wasn’t widely known. Even if the suspicion were true, there was no trace of Lee Seyeong interacting with Lee Shiheon after being deemed a heretic, nor was there any justification to arrest her.

However, only Byeol, Lee Seyeong’s best friend, could handle this. She could create false evidence, make coerced testimonies, and according to Byeol’s intentions, the sentence or trial period could be delayed indefinitely until the situation was resolved.

A cunning strategy, something only a sly old fox would devise.

‘…She’s really smart too.’

Byeol genuinely thought so. So much so that she wondered if this was really the kind of person who could think this way.

-Thump, thump.

Walking down the corridor, Byeol entered the Vice President’s office, leaned against the door, and slid to the floor.

“…Sniff.”

It was efficient. Lee Seyeong’s safety could be secured. The reason Lee Shiheon hugged her tightly and comforted her, and apologized by bowing his head several times, was because he knew she wasn’t cruel enough to do such a thing.

“Sniff, sob…”

Byeol, shedding all the charisma she had just shown, wiped away her tears and cried profusely.

A typical trait of a loser:

They endured until they burst into tears on their own.

-Tap, tap.

Tears, like a cluster of grapes, rolled down Byeol’s chin.

“Waaah… Seyeong, I’m so sorryyy…”

Time for listening to new anime songs, allocated in Byeol’s daily schedule to calm her mind. Today, it seemed she’d have to extend that time by about three times.

-Crash! Bang!

Time was tight.

I brought Sansuyu to a hotel I had previously scouted. We had to leave that studio apartment eventually. I found a suitable hotel that wouldn’t easily expose us and booked a long-term stay two months ago.

Naturally, it was a room reserved with a manipulated identity and using a human skin mask, so there wouldn’t be any issues unless a hunter who knew Sansuyu’s appearance well came looking.

“Shiheon?”

Sansuyu blinked her surprised, puppy-like eyes. As soon as I used spatial magic in the room, I grabbed her, who was holding her phone, and moved her as far away as possible before using spatial magic again.

In the process of protecting Sansuyu earlier, I got stabbed in the back, so I lost quite a bit of blood.

“Blood, blood…. There’s a lot on your clothes.”

Perhaps it was due to some past trauma. Her hands trembled, and she clung to me.

“It’s okay.”

I soothed Sansuyu, who was showing signs of anxiety, then regenerated my wound and showed her my perfectly fine back.

“Ta-da, it’s all healed now.”

Even though I tried my best to show it with a big smile, the gloom on her face still wouldn’t fade.

“…It’s because of me, isn’t it?”

Finally, she spoke the words she had been holding back. A few days ago, when I had a massive nosebleed. Since that day, she couldn’t calm down whenever she saw blood.

“Shiheon… became a heretic.”

“I told you before. It’s okay, didn’t I?”

I always say it’s okay. But it seems a great sense of guilt remains in her heart.

Indeed, if I thought someone I knew became a heretic for my sake, it would truly be terrifying.

“…I, I did as Shiheon told me.”

“Yes, you did well.”

“But… but. Shiheon got hurt. Shiheon…”

Shiheon. Shiheon. Shiheon.

It was I who exposed my location to Byeol and told Sansuyu to call me immediately if she sensed anyone.

Sansuyu had only listened to me, and the result was my injury. She likely felt a deep sense of disillusionment, given her near-obsessive feelings for me.

“I… won’t do what Shiheon tells me to anymore.”

“Sansuyu.”

The ego that had just begun to improve recently exploded again.

“I… like Shiheon. But if I do what Shiheon tells me… you always get hurt.”

“…Hmm.”

She didn’t want me to get hurt. Sansuyu pressed herself against me, her large chest leading the way.

“Here…”

-Thud!

Pushed by Sansuyu’s strength, I fell onto the overturned bed. Looking down at me, she pleaded like a child.

“Can’t we… just stay here?”

Sansuyu roughly understood my situation. She had almost no intellectual deficiencies.

“Just… be with me.”

Like a large dog pressing down its owner and licking their face, Sansuyu hugged me and whispered words of affection over and over.

-Pat, pat.

She stroked my head and patted my back. It was as if she was mirroring exactly what I had done for her when she lost her mind.

“I… Shiheon… saved me, didn’t you?”

“Yes, I did.”

As she became desperate, her voice, too, turned emotional.

“I can’t live without Shiheon.”

The anxiety she secretly harbored also burst forth. Lying on the bed, I accepted her words, realizing that Sansuyu had been thinking such things.

“Shiheon taught me emotions I didn’t know, and memories of Mom… and Jiho. And, also…”

To understand emotions meant that she could now fully comprehend her own situation. She could recall precious bonds from long ago, and remember a friend who had died recently.

Amidst such violent recollections, what had Sansuyu been thinking as she endured? Lying in an isolated one-room apartment, cut off from the world. With no one else but me to meet, even such minor injuries caused her emotional outbursts to intensify.

“I’m not the only one in the world, am I?”

Sansuyu, unable to recognize the affection she received as a child, wished for someone to fill the unnecessarily large emotional vessel she had developed.

I couldn’t bear that burden alone. Even though she had been deemed a heretic, Sansuyu needed to gradually learn about society, rehabilitating not just physically but mentally as well.

However, that reality must have been too harsh for Sansuyu still.

“…They’re all, dead.”

Before tears could fall, I reached out my arms and hugged her. Just as Sansuyu had done, I patted her back, stroked her head, and rubbed my cheek against hers.

“Every day… whenever Shiheon leaves… my heart aches.”

“Yeah.”

Even if I couldn’t empathize, I could understand. If I were to live with Sansuyu forever, what greater blessing could there be for me? This little yellow lucky pouch always cleared my mind, no matter when or where I was.

Soft and clingy. She’d push out her chest without even realizing how cute she was, and even cook for me. Who wouldn’t like that?

“Still, I can’t.”

“….”

Sansuyu’s mind wasn’t entirely stable yet. Feeling the dampness on my chest, I stroked Sansuyu’s head.

I considered it a process of gradual maturation. As for Lee Seyeong… I felt sorry. But if I didn’t become more resolute than this, I wouldn’t be able to settle my fate with just my own life.

I had seen a post on the internet.

That I was destined to die anyway. That once I was judged a heretic, there was a reason for it.

‘…I think it’s true.’

Was it really a coincidence that I fell into this world? Was the blessing of the World Tree that bloomed in me from the beginning not the future I was meant to walk?

If so, then I must be the one person among hundreds of millions in this world who deserved to die. It wouldn’t matter if I bore all that hatred alone, but…

“…Shiheon.”

“Yes, Sansuyu.”

You wouldn’t want to see even someone as innocent as her collapse, would you?

“Really… no?”

“I’m sorry.”

Sansuyu squirmed in my embrace, then felt along my back with her hands. A small laugh escaped me at the sight of her finding the most optimal position for a hug.

“You’ll adapt quickly, even without me.”

To others, if they heard that the Tree Spirit King’s successor had planned this, it would sound incredibly grand.

But that wasn’t actually the case.

It was nothing special, simply. I was laying the groundwork so that my future actions wouldn’t inconvenience others.

This included the White Ants, Sansuyu, Lee Seyeong, Jin Dallae, and Shiba.

‘Sargenti really criticized it as an abuse of power. But what can I do?’

So that I could burn everything down without hesitation, as it was.

“Sansuyu.”

“…Yeah.”

I brought my lips to Sansuyu’s crown and secretly prayed.

“Don’t like one person too much.”

The very next morning after Lee Shiheon’s hiding place was discovered.

The Korean Hunter Association’s 5th Branch in Gangdong-gu was half-destroyed. Casualties numbered 12. Fatalities were 0. Most were found unconscious, and reporters across South Korea were busy writing sensational headlines.

-Crunch!

The roof collapsed with a single kick. The approaching hunters knelt, powerless.

【 Cheonyangbo 】

Overturning Heaven, the madman’s reversed natural order.

Among the retching hunters, regardless of their rank, a young man calmly walked forward and removed his powerless mask. It was the same mask he had worn when he first entered the academy.

“…Hehehe.”

In the half-destroyed room, on the collapsed concrete, Mugung sat quietly, a bitter smile on his face.

“It’s been a long time since I’ve smiled like this, indeed… Black Mad Dog. Is this how you’re going to play?”

The man’s shoulders cracked as he stretched, his lips trembling slightly. Lee Shiheon, from behind the expressionless mask, uttered a single, precise sentence.

“Yesterday, I had a knife stuck in my back, so I came to chat with whoever nominated me.”

“….”

“Nothing’s changed from a dozen years ago, has it?”

Crack-

The sound of bones echoed from his neck.

“…What.”

“Doesn’t matter if you don’t know.”

A thick, sticky energy rose from the ground and gathered towards the man.