Ch.4Victory Report 4

“Dohyun.”

My eyelids twitched at the familiar voice.

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

Thanks to that, I felt blood flowing back into my frozen body.

Only then could I sense the sounds around me.

The loud music, Hyunsu hyung’s hearty laughter, even Gyuseon’s snickering.

Those welcome voices I thought I’d never hear again.

With half fear, half anticipation, I barely manage to open my eyes.

My cheek is stuck to the sticky table.

And noona is facing me with her cheek also pressed against the table, observing me.

For a moment, I almost jumped up because she was too close.

But soon I was captivated by Jisu’s enchanting eyes under the light, feeling like I might be drawn right in.

“Look at him. Nodding off after just three glasses of whiskey?”

Noona speaks as if she finds me adorable.

What’s going on…

She’s right in front of me.

Moreover, her face is clean, without any blood or wounds.

Her smooth, fair skin and the cute peach fuzz on it are just as they always were.

I barely lifted my heavy head.

My cheek is covered with marks from being pressed against the table.

“So, can you drink the Victory Toast?”

Noona grabs my shoulder with a beaming smile.

The impact makes a short groan escape from my mouth.

She seems to be getting stronger by the day.

Still, thanks to that, I’m somewhat alert now and can finally take in where we are.

Soft lighting and premium liquors.

Happy customers celebrating some unknown occasion.

This is Moment, the bar we promised to visit after catching the wyvern.

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

He places one glass in front of each of us at the table.

So this is the ‘Victory Toast.’

A creamy golden color fills the tall, transparent glass.

“Since today was tough, I’ll let you off easy. But you have to finish this one, okay? We came all the way to Sindorim just so you could drink this.”

Hyunsu hyung keeps tilting his neck from side to side.

Each time he stretches his neck, there’s a satisfying cracking sound.

“Today was especially difficult.”

Gyuseon chuckles.

His pronunciation is already slurring from however many drinks he’s had.

I stare at the glass in front of me.

Their words seem to echo faintly in my mind.

“Since today was tough.”

That’s right.

It really was tough.

For some reason, it was unbearably difficult.

My chest aches.

As if I’d just overcome a major hurdle, all the tension in my body released.

My face grew hot, and equally hot tears rolled down my cheeks.

“Oh… Dohyun is crying.”

Noona points at me, swaying slightly.

“What’s this? Why are you crying on such a good day? Did you have a nightmare or something?”

Hyunsu hyung makes a face.

“No… it’s nothing…”

“Come on, why cry on a day like this? Hurry and drink. The fizz is going to disappear!”

Noona pushes a glass toward me.

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

“Here’s to the day we become rankers! To our party!”

With Hyunsu hyung’s toast, we all clink our glasses together.

With a bright, clear sound, some of the drink spills onto the table.

But unlike my companions, I hesitate to drink.

I want to just look at this cocktail a little longer.

“What are you waiting for?”

Noona asks with a broad smile.

“The color is just so pretty.”

Her eyes, as I look at her, resemble the golden cocktail.

“Go ahead and try it.”

Noona watches me drink with expectant eyes.

I carefully put my lips to the chilled glass.

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

A sweet orange aroma fills my mouth.

The bitter aftertaste that follows makes the flavor even richer.

It’s delicious.

So not all alcohol just tastes bitter.

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

“No, it’s delicious. Really…”

Noona tilts her head with a satisfied expression.

A happy face without a trace of worry or pain.

“So? Do you still regret joining our party? You said it’s been nothing but hard so far.”

Regret.

Those two syllables strike my head.

After a moment of blankness, I answer with a smile.

To her, who guided me to this place.

“No. I don’t regret it anymore.”

It feels like it’s been a while since I’ve smiled.

I take another sip, accompanied by her smile.

The vivid taste of the drink is distinct, as if proving that the snuff film I experienced earlier was just a nightmare.

Yes, that was just a terrible dream.

I wish this sweet taste would linger in my mouth for a long time.

Forever, if possible.

I rested my chin on my hand, savoring this blissful moment.

“So then! I swung my sword like this. When I cut off the wyvern’s head, I just knew. Ah, this is going to get a million views.”

Noona gestures as if swinging a sword.

“Nah, your face is too plain for that.”

Hyunsu hyung shakes his head firmly as he listens to noona’s tale of valor.

“No way. If it fails, it’ll be because of you, oppa. Everyone will run away scared when they see your face. Our Dohyun and Gyuseon should be in the shot too-.”

I rub my nose at Jisu noona’s shy compliment.

Sometimes she makes these silly jokes.

Empty glasses pile up on the table one by one.

The busy waiters haven’t managed to clear our table full of glasses.

Hyunsu, who drank most of them, and Gyuseon, who can’t handle alcohol well, have their heads down on the table, sleeping.

Very quietly, as if they were dead.

But Jisu noona still has her eyes half-open, holding her glass.

Only I, who had been moderating my drinking, could stay by her side and observe her decadent beauty.

“What is it?”

Jisu asks, noticing my gaze.

Now that we’re alone, I ask her the question I’ve been wanting to ask.

“Noona.”

“Yes?”

“Have you ever regretted being with me?”

Jisu frowns as if tired of hearing this question.

“That again?”

I notice the cocktail foam on her lips.

Gradually, the lights around me dim.

Her red lips gently touch my cheek.

In that moment, my world stops.

My whole body trembles at the soft sensation on my cheek.

“Not at all.”

Warm cream caresses me and slowly drips down.

Jisu wipes my cheek with her finger.

“Thank you.”

I say quietly.

It feels like the knot that had been sitting in my chest has finally disappeared.

Thanks to that sense of liberation, I was able to wake from this sweet dream.

I know.

All of this is an illusion created by my ability, Angelic Hand.

It must be the final kindness my ability prepared for me as I lay dying.

What’s flowing down my cheek isn’t cream from her lips.

The reason my body trembled wasn’t because of her kiss.

The cream was falling raindrops.

The trembling was shock from my pierced side.

My unfocused eyes gradually return to normal.

My soaked body is still lying in the ruins of the city.

But there is one dreamlike fact.

This is definitely not a dream.

The person lying right beside me now.

The person facing me in the pouring rain.

It’s Jisu noona.

She’s smiling at me, just like in my illusion.

But blood is streaming from noona’s body.

She’s covered in black holes, almost unbearable to look at.

Jisu’s pupils have already melted and mixed with the whites of her eyes.

One eye even bulges slightly, as if it couldn’t bear all the pain she’s endured.

“I’m glad… that you’re alive…”

Those were the first words noona said to me after enduring such terrible things.

Hearing her cracking voice, tears flow from my eyes that I thought had dried up.

A long trail of her blood marks the ground from where she was butchered to here.

“I’m glad… you are too, noona.”

I manage to speak through my throat clogged with bloody foam.

My chest heaves painfully each time I force myself to speak.

“They kept stabbing me, so I held my breath and played dead. Then they just left.”

Noona still manages to smile.

Each time she smiles, blood surges up and she coughs violently.

“They said the knife was poisoned, so I’ll die soon anyway…”

Why is she smiling?

Is she really not afraid of dying?

“Isn’t it nice? Being together like this at the end.”

“How is this nice… Don’t you feel wronged, noona?”

I ask, sobbing.

“What’s there to feel wronged about?”

“Having such a good ability but dying because you hung around someone like me. If you had joined a big guild like those guys earlier…”

“Dohyun.”

Jisu interrupts me with a calm voice.

“Let’s… just stay like this.”

“…”

I had so much I wanted to say.

But seeing her face without a smile, those words retreated back into my mouth.

Noona’s face showed not a primal smile, but one of resignation.

Without saying anything, she already knew all those petty facts.

“—.”

How much time has passed?

Noona’s labored breathing grows quieter.

We both know our fate.

So I gather my courage one more time.

I want to ask noona one last time.

The very question I asked in my illusion.

“Noona…”

“Yes.”

“Do you regret spending time with me?”

I know the answer.

But I want to hear that response again, countless times.

“That question again…?”

Jisu’s cloudy eyes stare at me.

Actually, with her pupils gone, it’s impossible to tell what she’s looking at, but somehow I feel she’s looking at me.

I can just feel it.

Eventually, her purple lips move.

“I do regret it.”

Those three words pierce my chest, which had been filled with certainty.

That single statement shattered the ending credits of the movie I’d been desperately watching.

“If I had listened to you, I wouldn’t be dying like this.”

Noona’s gray eyeball slides down her face.

It rolls down her cheek, mixing with the rainwater.

“After all the effort I put in…”

“To die like this…”

“It’s the worst…”

With those words, noona’s lips stopped moving forever.

The woman who was only twenty-six, who always tried to show a bright face to her dongsaeng, died just like that.

She was human after all.

Infinitely weak and fragile, resentful of the world’s absurdity.

My lips, left alone, tremble.

Was it then?

That my tightly closed throat finally burst open.

My scream echoed throughout the city.

I curse myself for being left alone.

I curse myself for witnessing the death of someone I loved.

And I curse this rotten ability.

I drag my torn body toward her.

And I stretch out my only remaining arm.

“Don’t lie…”

All the vitality in my body gathers at my fingertips.

A faint glow surrounds 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, dark red blood flows from my face instead of tears.

Then something from Jisu’s cold body climbs up through my fingertips.

I soon realize that this “something” is the emotions noona felt before dying.

Fear of death.

Regret for not joining a large guild.

The pity she felt while taking care of me, who had fallen behind.

Within all that, “that emotion” I had hoped for cannot be felt.

I burned all my remaining life force trying to find that emotion.

My feet begin to rot.

My limbs wither and my face decays, but I still couldn’t find the answer I wanted.

That was my end.

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