Ch.221Futri (5)

# 221. Futri (5)

“…Wow, what the fuck?”

Ayuri felt an excruciating pain in her right wrist the moment she moved toward the option to cut her wrist without hesitation. Startled by the pain, she saw a red line drawn across her wrist, with blood flowing freely from it. While her wrist was technically still attached, considering the amount of bleeding and pain, it might as well have been severed.

Despite experiencing such sudden agony, her reaction was limited to a single curse.

It had to be Ayuri.

It wasn’t that she couldn’t feel pain, but among the raid members, she and Seon Seyeon were the ones who could endure the longest and tolerate the most.

While Seyeon endured through sheer determination due to her class bonuses and strong sense of responsibility, Ayuri was naturally resilient and tough, now further enhanced by her class bonuses.

On top of that, she was desperate to reunite with her beloved raid leader and sisters as quickly as possible.

Though the pain was absurd and unexpected, she had experienced far worse countless times before, allowing her to maintain her grip and balance without disaster.

With a mentality as solid as a fortress and a simplistic way of thinking, she was practically immune to mental attacks, and physically she was the strongest in the raid team…

In some ways, she might have been the strongest member of the raid team.

Had Futri anticipated that she would continue to grip the reins despite the pain of a severed wrist?

Whether he had anticipated it or not, he was a strange creature who would enjoy it either way. She recognized that even more severe pain might await in the next choice and prepared herself in advance.

“Futri, you fucking bitch! Bring it on! Keep it coming! No matter! How much! Pain! You give me! My carriage! Won’t stop!!!”

Not stopping at mere preparation, Ayuri embraced a vicious determination. For a while, ordinary pain wouldn’t even register as an obstacle to her. It might even fuel her stubborn resolve, extending its duration.

At this moment, her mind was focused on only one thing: forward, ever forward.

**

‘This is disorienting.’

It was an obvious tactic, but I couldn’t help falling for it.

Still not giving up? Still not giving up? Still enduring? Still enduring?

Just looking at it briefly made me angry, and the hallucinations were accompanied by infuriating whispers that made me even more furious.

The more I pushed through the choices, the more my body and mind were being eroded. But no matter how much I might be the weakest member of the raid team, I believed my willpower and mental strength were not inferior, and I actually endured until the end.

「One key. Two people. You must choose.」

「I give up.」

「Ask the other person to give up.」

「Both give up.」

This wasn’t even a trolley dilemma anymore. It was just absurd. The trolley dilemma was a thought experiment that could analyze personal values and provide philosophical lessons based on one’s choices.

This was nothing more than mental erosion disguised as a trolley dilemma.

No matter what I chose, the options kept cycling back to the same thing. With worse conditions each time.

‘At least now there’s only one person left. Since there’s no one else to reduce, things can’t get worse. This must be the end.’

I wasn’t about to change my beliefs now. A new option had been added—”Both give up”—suggesting this might be the final choice, but nothing had changed.

So I still struggled to turn the crazy horse to the left.

And what kind of absurd outcome would await me this time…

「Keys to return home (6)」

「I give up」

「Exclude the other person」

“…Huh?”

Why am I still being jerked around by this insanity? Wasn’t that supposed to be the final choice?

When I compared my current situation to a hamster wheel, it was just a metaphor.

I couldn’t have imagined that I would literally return to the point before making the first choice.

‘A real regression? Even in the Tower, even if Futri is a great demon, can he turn back time?’

My mental state cracked.

Everything I had endured was treated as if it had ‘never happened.’ All that I had planned while thinking of others, all that I had endured through that torment—it all disappeared without meaning or explanation.

Even in the midst of this, the threat of death approached relentlessly, and I reflexively turned the reins to the left.

And predictably, the scenario unfolded exactly the same as before, without a single difference.

If this had been some kind of prank, I might have laughed it off.

The funny thing was, while the situation had reset to before the first choice, the mental and physical exhaustion I felt remained intact.

Actually, thinking about it again, there was nothing funny about it at all.

Anger welled up inside me.

I didn’t know what mechanism had trapped the raid members, but was this about creating and observing seven Sisyphuses? Did the great demon want to play god?

What followed was a sense of helplessness.

How on earth could I overcome this obstacle? What’s stopping it from happening a second time after it’s happened once? What am I supposed to do? Is there any hint anywhere in this mechanism?

The minimal survival instinct and the existence of my beloved raid members served as anchors, but I couldn’t see any solution.

Is there anything more painful than a situation where you can’t see the answer but can’t give up?

I controlled the reins to avoid death. But even at the beginning, when my mind and body were at their best, I had no capacity to observe anything beyond the choices and controlling the horse.

After passing through the final choice of the second cycle, I inevitably returned to before the first choice, as if I had definitely missed something.

‘I might go insane.’

Honestly, I considered jumping off this hellish carriage.

Jumping out of a car on a highway would be suicide, but here there were no other vehicles, and my body was much tougher than before, so maybe it would be feasible?

The very fact that I was thinking this way suggested I was halfway to insanity, but you never know. When conventional wisdom offers no solution, sometimes you need to take risks and gamble.

I had little time to deliberate.

I loosened the reins and looked outside the carriage to jump, but I hesitated.

It was too fast.

Fast enough to snap my half-crazed mind back to reality. Regardless of durability or landing techniques, I would become nothing more than evidence of massive kinetic energy.

The fact that I hesitated meant I hadn’t completely lost my mind yet, and that I hadn’t completely given up… which was rather depressing to realize. But anyway, while I hesitated, the fork in the road appeared, and I had to grab the reins again.

And so the third race ended, and the fourth race—the fourth cycle—began.

The fourth cycle became the fifth, the fifth became the sixth, and the sixth became the seventh.

A wasteland with no changes except that I had become somewhat accustomed to the insanity and my body had reached its limit.

It was only after reaching the seventh cycle that I began to doubt whether the choices I had been making were wrong.

‘Is choosing to ask the raid members to give up the correct answer?’

For the record, there is no correct answer to this terrible mechanism. At best, there are choices that are less terrible depending on the situation. Right now, I didn’t have the mental capacity to distinguish such subtleties.

But despite being on the verge of passing out and having my mental state reduced to dust, there was something that remained steadfastly intact…

‘Subin, Seyeon, Yuri, Soyu noona, Yehyun noona, Arang, and even Danya… could I really give such an order to them?’

It was my feelings toward them.

The strong sense of belonging and camaraderie developed over more than a year maintaining Veritas as the top raid team.

The bond and friendship that grew alongside that camaraderie.

The love that evolved from friendship.

The firm trust that blossomed with that beautiful love.

I could give my life for them.

I would believe even the most absurd things they said.

Until death parts us, we will forever remain that way.

“Not a chance, you bastard…”

Only after reaching the seventh cycle did doubt arise due to my physical and mental limits—doubt that extended to my heart and beliefs, but that actually served as a stimulant.

‘I think I vaguely understand now.’

The idea of jumping off wasn’t entirely wrong. Of course, this assumes my current thinking is correct… but I couldn’t think of anything else. There was no other way.

The first choice of the seventh cycle.

「Keys to return home (6)」

「I give up」

「Exclude the other person」

I let go of the reins. I didn’t jump off.

I simply didn’t control the crazy horse and remained still.

Immediately, terrain that looked fatal upon impact rapidly approached. In the first cycle, I had panicked and desperately grabbed the reins, but now in the seventh cycle, I just remained still. Not because I had reached enlightenment or developed nerves of steel, but simply because I had no strength left.

A once-in-a-lifetime gamble.

If I failed, I wanted to go without knowing anything…

I closed my eyes just before impact.