The End of the Girl’s Revenge

Thwack—!

Neon’s fist strikes Cha Baek-gi’s abdomen.

“Cough…!”

Cha Baek-gi coughs up blood at that heavy blow.

Neon stomps on the floor where a puddle has already formed from the blood he spat out, and pulls back her fist once again.

“As expected of the tiger clan, it feels good to hit. Different from your subordinates who died in one hit.”

“Kuh… You crazy bit- Guh!!”

Neon’s fist thrusts out.

Cha Baek-gi tried to curse after who knows how many dozen punches, but got hit in the abdomen again and only exhaled emptily.

“Don’t worry. I’ll start really killing you soon.”

And Neon grabbed Cha Baek-gi’s head as he was about to collapse, stood him up again, and raised her fist for the last time.

She didn’t ask pointless questions like why did you give birth to me, why did you abandon me in such a bottom, do you have no remorse for that dirty life.

There was no point in asking in the first place, and she wasn’t curious either.

Neon had no desire to look into the mind of Cha Baek-gi, whom she detested.

Crack—

Therefore, Neon began to draw out her full power while releasing the strength she had been controlling.

To blow away that dirty head with a single blow.

Neon’s muscles that had escaped restraint began to loosen, and veins popped up on her arm.

“Phew…”

Then Neon exhaled the last remaining lingering feelings and memories in a sigh and thrust out her fist to cut off the final bad connection.

A fist that extended quietly, without even the sound of cutting through the air.

The fist that would conclude everything as a mountain of blood and corpses flew aimed at Cha Baek-gi’s head and.

“Khik… You’re just a slum kid in the end, you stupid bitch…”

At the words Cha Baek-gi uttered just before the moment of death, Neon unknowingly stopped her fist.

“…Don’t speak carelessly.”

Although she knew there was no need to answer, Neon gritted her teeth and expressed her anger at Cha Baek-gi’s words.

If it had simply been words trying to inflict scars on Neon herself before dying, she wouldn’t have even opened her mouth.

However, the reason Neon answered was because Cha Baek-gi’s appearance when saying those words just now was calm, as if just stating his thoughts, unlike earlier when he was begging for his life or just cursing.

Was it because his survival instinct lowered its tail as he approached death? A subtle relaxation settled on Cha Baek-gi’s face.

And Cha Baek-gi grinned and opened his mouth again.

“Trash… Yes, calling you trash was my fault. I admit it. But you know… Whether you’re trash or a person, the fact that you’re a human from the slums doesn’t change.”

“…”

She wanted to extend the fist she had just stopped and crush that ugly face right now.

But if she killed him without properly shaking off his words, it felt like those words she couldn’t refute would cling to her tail and someday become reality, so Neon couldn’t bring herself to thrust out her fist.

If she had known it would be like this, she should have killed him a little faster.

Unable to find words to refute, belated regret circled in Neon’s mind.

If she had blown away that head even a little faster, she wouldn’t have had to worry about this at all.

Neon inwardly muttered like that while her fist trembled, and in the end, the only words Neon could utter were the one superior condition she had.

“I-I was taken in by the General Management Team. They said they would back me. So there won’t be any problems in my future life!”

“Oh, that’s a bit surprising. Being picked up by the General Management Team after escaping from the slums is truly a miracle. But so what? What does that mean?”

However, even that one thing Neon had painfully uttered was laughed off by Cha Baek-gi as if it were ridiculous, and he asked back.

“What…?”

“I told you. The problem is just you in the end. As long as you’re a human from the slums, whether it’s the General Management Team or the Punishment Team backing you, you’re just an outsider muddying the waters. Pine caterpillars have to eat pine needles to live.”

“Don’t talk as if I have to be like you just because you were!”

“That’s not it. I’m simply telling you the future that will unfold.”

Nonsense!

Neon felt nauseous at the sight of Cha Baek-gi shamelessly pretending while his words were undoubtedly correct.

But at the same time, seeing herself unable to refute those words, Neon swallowed her tears.

Originally, these should be words that don’t even need to be refuted with such excitement, but perhaps because she had been stained with liters of blood and taken human lives, her heightened emotions were uncontrollable even for Neon.

And to that extent, Cha Baek-gi’s words felt like they had to be shaken off, almost like an obsession.

However, she could only swallow her tears because no words came to mind at all.

Will she really end up feeling different from others in essence and running away even if she lives with the help of the General Management Team?

Will she end up crawling back into this hellish but familiar slum and living in the nightmare she thought she had finally cut off?

‘No…!’

Imagining such a future, Neon burst out with a sincere cry inwardly.

A future that absolutely must not happen.

But fear washed over her at the future that seemed like it could happen.

And perhaps because such emotions showed outwardly, Cha Baek-gi, seeing her appearance, opened his blood-covered mouth and burst into laughter.

“Kahahaha!!! See! You too, in your mind…”

However, that laughter continued only for a moment.

Pat—

“What’s the problem with that?”

Someone who suddenly appeared from empty space cut off his words while placing a hand on Neon’s head.

“Ah…?”

No, there was no need to even say someone.

That rough touch stroking Neon’s head was the hand of the one person she had become accustomed to after experiencing it so many times over the past four days.

The hand of the one person who was eccentric and twisted in personality, but nevertheless kinder and more reliable than anyone else.

Neon called out that person’s name as she turned her head.

“Shin-yeon!”

“Geez, I told you to take revenge, but you’re being swayed by some three-inch tongue?”

As she turned her head with tears welling up that had flowed out without her realizing, the one there was indeed Shin-yeon with her club slung over her shoulder.

Shin-yeon who answered the call with her usual smile and blunt words.

Until just now, it felt like being in a heavy and fearful air, but with just her appearance, that atmosphere was instantly dispelled.

At that, Neon wiped away the tears about to flow down her cheeks, and Cha Baek-gi, collapsed on the floor, looked up at Shin-yeon with a slightly dumbfounded expression and asked.

“Who the hell are you…!”

“Who am I? Hmm, I’m the one who picked up this kid here.”

“…Someone from the General Management Team. What a troublesome person has come.”

Shin-yeon answering while calling her a kid as she always had, and Cha Baek-gi clicking his tongue at her words.

At a glance, the two people looked equally relaxed, but the conversation just now clearly showed which of the two was in the superior position.

Shin-yeon, who snorted as if Cha Baek-gi’s very existence was insignificant, held the initiative over Cha Baek-gi who had played with Neon using obvious words.

That fact which could be easily guessed just from their voices and expressions.

However, perhaps because he was already facing the established fact of death, Cha Baek-gi nevertheless began to move that dirty mouth of his again as if it didn’t matter.

“I don’t know why a girl from the General Management Team came all the way here, but just get lost. I’m already half dead now and will be completely dead soon anyway. Can’t you at least give some space for a father and daughter to talk?”

“Don’t spout nonsense!! Who’s father and daughter with a bastard like you?!”

Neon reflexively shouted like that at words that made her want to vomit just from hearing them.

But as if her shout didn’t matter at all, Cha Baek-gi said that while staring only at Shin-yeon, and to that, Shin-yeon slowly opened her mouth and answered his request.

Or more precisely,

“I’ve been listening since earlier, you know.”

Shin-yeon slowly uttered an answer that would make Neon’s eyes go wide.

“Why is a piece of trash with no strength or anything equating this kid with himself?”

“…!”

At those words, Neon’s body trembled as if struck by lightning.

Even though she could have just not listened to what Cha Baek-gi was saying and ignored it, she was now trying to do the one thing Neon herself wanted more than anything.

An action Neon herself could never have done alone.

Proof.

Although there were many pieces supporting it in her heart, Shin-yeon was trying to do it on behalf of Neon who couldn’t fit it together herself.

“Someone with no strength to protect himself, no determination to endure somehow, no spirit to create it, and no one to help him, all alone… To use your words, someone who would be called trash. That’s you, but do you really think you and Neon look the same?”

“Sh-shut up!!! That bitch grew up in the slums anyway! A bitch who’s only seen ugly things, even if she goes outside…”

“So that’s your case, and Neon is different from you. Don’t equate her with trash like you.”

The starting point is different, the perspective is different.

Shin-yeon clearly stated the fact that Neon had cried out inwardly over and over, and gave assurance.

That she would never be a problem.

At that, Neon felt like the tears she had barely held back would flow, but she couldn’t help but burst into laughter at the words Shin-yeon uttered the next moment.

“In the first place, even someone like me is living fine while being treated like a king, so the outside isn’t so tough that it would be hard for a kid like this to live.”

“Pft…”

After all, in a world where even such an eccentric goblin is living normally, how could it be difficult for Neon herself to live?

And the one who took her in undoubtedly concluded.

That Cha Baek-gi was just a failed piece of trash, and that she could become an ordinary member of the outside world.

Therefore, Shin-yeon’s next words were directed at Neon’s fist, which no longer had any hesitation.

“Then… Let’s go home now, kid.”

“Yes… No, okay. And I told you before, don’t call me kid.”

“Ahah…! Alright, alright.”

Shin-yeon roughly ruffled Neon’s head as if pleased with her answer.

At that, Neon frowned and flicked her head to escape the patting, then put strength into her final fist that she hadn’t been able to extend.

The fist that had wandered in the air, unable to find its target after being swayed by his words.

At the final moment, Neon thrust that fist towards Cha Baek-gi’s face, which had returned to being terrified.

Crunch—!

Before he could even utter a death rattle, Neon’s fist touched his head.

Then the dull sound of death rang out.

“…Let’s go home now.”

“I got to see a good show in many ways today.”

And with that dull sound as the end, Neon got up from her spot and moved her steps together with Shin-yeon, leaving behind the memories of the past that had been completely cut off.

She lifted her feet from the blade of revenge that had been stained with blood, and set them down again on the ordinary path spread out.

Although Neon herself didn’t have perfect confidence yet, her steps were without hesitation because Shin-yeon, who gave her confidence, was beside her.

“It’s really over.”

Neon muttered like that at the reality that didn’t feel real, but the presence felt beside her reminded her that this was undoubtedly reality.

And on that way back, Shin-yeon suddenly clapped her hands as if she had just remembered something and said:

“Ah, come to think of it, Yeon-ah said she found a good school.”

“Really?!”

It seemed that on the way home, cheers would ring out after all.