Ch.145Season 2 – Just One Chance

Karune and Laira were transported to the underground village after being knocked unconscious.

It was the first time in human history that Han Shinwoo’s children had been captured.

“Did our village even have a prison?”

“Of course not. We’re living like mayflies who don’t know if we’ll survive another day—who would have time to build something like that?”

“Then what should we do with these two? Should we just kill them here as an example?”

Han Shinwoo’s two daughters lay collapsed on the ground, tightly bound with rope like kimbap rolls.

Looking down at them, Kitsune Asuna wanted nothing more than to kill these children of Han Shinwoo, if only to avenge her sister.

However.

“That’s not for us to decide.”

“Mr. Lorensky?”

“In war, the fate of prisoners has always been determined by the ‘general’ who captured them.”

Lorensky smiled slightly and turned to the silent hero of humanity who had accomplished this feat.

The past Shinwoo.

“Tell me, Shinwoo. What do you want to do with these children?”

“Me? Well, I…”

He’ll obviously say to kill them.

Even if they were his own children, they were complete strangers from a future that didn’t yet exist in his past.

And if this incident changed the past, they might become beings that never existed at all.

So Asuna was waiting for Shinwoo to say, “I don’t mind if you kill them.”

But his answer was different.

“I want to take a new approach with these kids.”

“A new…”

“Approach?”

At this completely unexpected answer, not only Asuna but also Dorothy, the rebel leader who was listening, tilted their heads in confusion.

“What exactly do you mean by that, Shinwoo?”

Dorothy decided to ask Shinwoo his reasons for not immediately executing the two imperial princesses.

Shinwoo looked down at the two unconscious children and answered.

“They’re still young. I think they can change.”

“They can change…”

“Are you seriously suggesting those kids could join our side?! Mr. Shinwoo.”

“I can’t guarantee they’ll join us.”

“Then why not kill them? They’re the children of Han Shinwoo who has slaughtered humanity!”

“More precisely, they’re the children born after the future me slaughtered humanity.”

“…!!”

The children he met in the past, as well as the ones captured now, were all monster children who had never properly met humans except for Leon.

Of course, the future Han Shinwoo was someone who needed to be killed.

I’ll kill him myself.

But should that hatred be directed at these children who barely knew humans?

Before being his children, the past Shinwoo wanted to give these two sentient beings a possible “chance.”

“They seemed like children who came out not to kill humans, but rather to see what humans are.”

“So! So you want to send these two back unharmed?”

“No. I want to keep these two children in the underground village. And I want to teach them about humans if possible.”

“Teach Han Shinwoo’s children…”

“About humans?”

“Hmm. That’s certainly an idea no one else would have thought of.”

I looked around at the remaining forces of the underground village.

From leader Dorothy to Mr. Lorensky, Yoo Sihyeon, Joo Sangho, and Xiaoling.

Fortunately, although everyone was dumbfounded at first, as I was the one who had captured these two…

“Hmm… But are you confident you can manage them properly?”

“Of course.”

“While we’re at it, I’d like you to find out how they discovered our location.”

“Ah, right! Come to think of it, how did they find out where we were?”

“Whatever happens, we’ll just fight to the death if they attack.”

“No, we need to know how they found us before we decide whether to kill them or not!”

By majority vote, the survival of Karune and Laira was decided on the condition that I would manage them…

“Don’t be ridiculous!!”

Or so it seemed.

“Monsters understanding humans? Are you kidding?”

“Princess Asuna…?”

“You can say that because you’re still the innocent Shinwoo who just arrived from the past. These creatures are vermin! Better to kill them now than be stabbed in the back later.”

Despite everyone’s approval, Princess Asuna drew her sword and leaped toward the two unconscious figures without a word.

“Princess Asuna!!”

“Princess Asuna! Stop!”

“Someone grab her!”

It happened so quickly that no one had time to stop her, and everything seemed…

Clang!

About to end.

“Stop it, Asuna.”

“S-Sister…!”

“Lady Kurumi!”

The blade that was about to behead the two princesses was blocked by none other than Asuna’s sister who had arrived from the past.

Kurumi had summoned Inari from the shadows to stop Asuna.

Then, looking straight into the eyes of her vengeance-blinded younger sister, she spoke firmly.

“Asuna. Calm down first.”

“Sister! You don’t understand! How do you think they found this place? They obviously came to slaughter the remaining humans!”

“That’s…!”

“You know it too, Sister! Whether they reform or not, they’re just ‘mutants’ who need to disappear when humanity’s era begins again!”

Asuna’s confident voice momentarily froze the underground village.

Humans mixed with monsters.

Different from humanoid monsters, they were hybrids.

The word for them was mutants.

A term that applied to Han Shinwoo himself.

“Ah, um, that’s… I didn’t mean it like that…”

“No, Princess Asuna. I actually knew it too. That I’m not an ordinary human.”

“…!”

“But please, just this once, show mercy.”

From the moment I arrived from another Earth where monsters didn’t exist, I might have been a Kaijufication Hunter who didn’t belong in their world.

Kaijufication Hunter.

A hidden class that only appears in the game <Hunter’s Blood> when entering a specific code.

In other words, an otherworldly being that could never appear in the “official” story.

That was me, so Shinwoo didn’t bother denying that he was a mutant.

But he didn’t want his children to be discriminated against simply for that reason.

So Shinwoo knelt on one knee before Princess Asuna, who was much weaker than himself.

At that sight, all the combat forces in the underground village, from both future and past, swallowed hard, and naturally, the most surprised was…

“Father…!”

Shina, who couldn’t believe that His Majesty would put aside his pride for just two offspring.

‘This person really isn’t the father I knew… but at the same time, he is my father! …What exactly happened to Father?’

An emperor kneeling to persuade someone.

At least as far as Shina knew, Han Shinwoo was not such a person.

A tyrant who always got what he wanted and mercilessly killed anything he considered an eyesore.

That was the future Han Shinwoo that Shina knew.

However, seeing this completely different Han Shinwoo, Shina could only doubt her eyes.

Suddenly, she was becoming the first child in the family to wonder about her father’s past, curious about how the current father had changed like this.

***

Late evening.

Inside the time machine.

Of Han Shinwoo’s three children who remained there, only Leon had ventured outside the empire’s walls.

So currently, Leon was quietly standing guard around the time machine while looking at the familiar yet ruined world of humans.

“Impressive, standing guard from morning till dawn~.”

“…Are you alright?”

“Hm? What do you mean?”

“I mean, you… Ms. Katarina, you’ve been taking care of Brother Yujin without any rest since we arrived in the future via the time machine.”

“Ah~. Don’t worry about that. I regularly switch out with myself. So when I get tired, I’ll automatically change. You don’t need to worry.”

“…Switch? Change?”

Inside the time machine, Katarina was tenderly nursing the bandage-wrapped Yujin while Yurian watched.

Yurian kept marveling at how Katarina was still caring for her brother like her own child even until dawn.

It made sense because the woman was one of the key human rebel figures she had learned about at the Imperial Academy.

Katarina, the leader of the Villain’s Troupe, was written as one of the few great evils personally killed by Emperor Han Shinwoo.

‘At first, I was watching her constantly, worried she might do something to Brother Yujin while pretending to nurse him… But that’s clearly just sincere treatment.’

Was the textbook wrong?

Or was history itself recorded incorrectly before that?

Or perhaps she was different 20 years ago, before her death?

Various speculations ran through Yurian’s mind.

But she couldn’t confirm any of them with certainty.

That’s when it happened.

“Yurian, try not to come outside.”

“Brother Leon…?”

The Crown Prince Leon, who had been scouting, spoke while checking on the people inside from the time machine entrance.

“Imperial soldiers are heading this way.”

“Imperial soldiers…? Then I should go out to greet them. Why are you telling me not to come out?”

“Have you ever seen soldiers coming to meet a princess or prince while ‘armed’?”

“!!”

Imperial soldiers coming to find them.

But at the news that they were coming armed as if hostile, Yurian’s expression quickly darkened.

“It seems they’ve figured out our betrayal. You’re still just in a position of being abandoned, so try not to show your face. That way, you might have one more place to return to later.”

“B-Brother…!”

Leon had already turned against the future Han Shinwoo.

But the situation was different for his siblings.

Yujin was unconscious and didn’t even know he had been abandoned, while Yurian was honestly a child who would have returned to the empire immediately if she hadn’t been cast aside.

In other words, however they had found out, the person to greet the soldiers who would soon arrive at the time machine was…

“Wait a minute.”

“Katarina?”

He had thought it would be only himself, but…

“Then Leon, you should come inside the time machine too.”

“…What?”

At this completely unexpected intervention, Leon’s expressionless face was about to show surprise.