Chapter 46: speechlessness

I used to think it was perfectly normal to have conversations while fighting, like in movies and comics.

I couldn’t do it.

With projectiles flying at me and Hye-yeon swinging her sword as she charged, I had to keep my mouth shut and dodge.

In that sense, Lee So-hyun was the perfect hostage.

I wouldn’t die from being stabbed, but it seemed like Lee So-hyun would die if she was injured any further.

“You don’t want to die, do you?If you want to live, tell her to let me go.”

I poked Lee So-hyun in the side, but she didn’t answer, only making gurgling sounds.

“Oh, right, I stabbed her in the neck.”

“What I saw when I first visited you… that was you, wasn’t it?It was you who did that, not some villain who happened to be captured.”

“Yes.”

“You’re good at lying.Pretending to be in pain, pretending to be suffering.”

“I don’t know about that.”

“So-hyun “unni”, let her go, now.”

I didn’t think they knew each other.

Did she come to visit the hospital with Seo-jun?

“Why?”

“If you die, I’ll cut you in half with her.”

She was probably trying to scare me, but it wasn’t very threatening.

I’d been cut in half countless times.

Come to think of it, no one really knew how I lived, how I survived.

They just looked at my appearance, assumed I had a hard time, and pitied me.

I liked the pitying gazes.

I loved the looks of sympathy.

But I wished they understood me better, saw me for who I really was.

That’s the kind of pity I wanted.

“Do what you want.”

I stabbed Lee So-hyun in the back again and pushed her forward.

She tried to resist, writhing in pain, so I twisted the blade already embedded in her.

Lee So-hyun, now a rather useful tool, despite being a bit damp, only trembled and made gurgling sounds.

I had a lot of options.

A weakened human shield, my still-intact body, and the bottles I left in the hallway.

I heard the sound of glass shattering from down the hallway.

The blood surged forward, engulfing the kids behind me, slowly consuming them.

I wasn’t the type to take my anger out on innocent people.

So I threw Lee So-hyun at Seo-jun, who was ready to pounce, and lunged at Hye-yeon.

It felt a bit awkward, but we weren’t that close anyway.

We hadn’t become close enough to bridge the distance between our hearts, and there hadn’t been any particular event that brought us closer.

I just hung out with her because she seemed like a nice person.

We weren’t really deceiving each other. We just hid the parts of ourselves that could cause trouble.

Hye-yeon hadn’t opened up to me enough to tell me what happened to her when she was young, at the hands of villains.

Knowing everything doesn’t mean you can do everything.

That’s why I envied the protagonists in novels.

No matter how much I thought about it, I couldn’t retaliate when something terrible happened to me. I just kept pushing forward, unable to forgive.

When someone approached me, I was suspicious, I overthought, I couldn’t accept kindness at face value.

And yet, I only offered sarcasm and inflicted wounds on those who genuinely approached me.

With no obstacles in front of her, Hye-yeon’s blade came at me swiftly.

She tried to maintain a neutral expression, but her face was contorted with anger as she thrust her sword at me.

I managed to deflect the first blow with the blood I’d collected from the hallway. The second attack, a beam of light from Seo-jun, evaporated the blood. The next three blows pierced my arm.

I glanced at Seo-jun with my left eye, trying to gauge whether she would kill me or save me.

It seemed like she didn’t intend to kill me. Did she want to capture me and lock me up somewhere?

A villain with this kind of ability, whose limbs regenerated endlessly… it was hard to imagine how many test subjects I could awaken.

It was strange that eating people could awaken abilities in the first place.

Anyway, the glowing something wouldn’t fly at me unless it was a fatal blow to Hye-yeon.

Sometimes it targeted my limbs, but I didn’t care. I could just let them hit me.

I was more used to controlling the blood flowing inside me than dealing with my constantly severed, burned, and torn limbs.

“Stop messing around! Childhood friend or whatever, if she’s a villain, you have to kill her!”

Despite Hye-yeon’s words, Seo-jun just watched, waiting for an opportunity.

Or maybe she would try to save me, caught up in some trivial thought.

That’s the kind of person she was.

Too kind to live in that kind of village, I thought.

It felt like we would be killed by the villagers before we even became adults.

Everyone there hated us, the outsiders.

They hated us for trying to live decent lives.

Seo-jun escaped the village in the most ideal way, while I escaped in a rather gruesome way.

Our eyes met.

All sorts of useless thoughts filled my mind.

Thoughts created openings, and a blade pierced deep into my shoulder.

Then something glimmered at the tip of the sword, slicing through my left arm and half of my torso.

A large gash appeared on my chest as the blade sliced through me.

Blood gushed out, not flowed, as if my heart had been cut.

I stumbled and fell towards where I’d dropped the gun while stabbing Lee So-hyun in the neck.

It was always useful to feign a fatal injury, twitching and writhing as if in immense pain. The hesitation in their eyes…

Most people seemed to die from this kind of injury.

In that basement.

Countless test subjects recovered from this kind of wound quickly.

Because it was filled with psychopaths who couldn’t even speak properly, let alone have a sense of self.

It’s not like I didn’t have friends.

The kid who was my friend for a day, two days, maybe three days, was the longest.

There’s no point in remembering their names or faces.

They would disappear soon, change, or cease to exist.

That’s why I didn’t want to remember names or call out to anyone, but Si-hyun “unni” approached me.

And so did this kid.

As my heart began to regenerate, I quickly grabbed the gun and fired at Hye-yeon.

Bang.

It was an explosion, but still a gunshot.

She wasn’t injured, but she crashed into the wall.

She seemed fine, though.

But I couldn’t finish her off.

The blood that had transformed into thorns and flown towards her evaporated instantly.

The three of them were trying their best to erase me from this world, but the strongest one was just dithering. There was no way this would end quickly.

“……I’ll catch you here, no matter what. I’ll listen to everything that happened, how you became like this, and then I’ll decide.”

“You won’t.”

The amount of blood engulfing Seo-ha and the unknown A-rank student was minuscule compared to what I brought.

The rest was engulfing the countless nameless people in the ward.

People whose age, face, name, gender, life story, achievements, purpose in life, and will to live I didn’t know.

Judging by the faint screams and death rattles echoing from the ward.

I glanced towards the window and saw a child in a wheelchair desperately trying to wheel away from the approaching sea of blood.

The child’s efforts were futile, and the wheelchair, along with the child, was swallowed.

Still, it must have been faster than when they couldn’t move their legs. A small satisfaction.

Seo-jun, who made so many friends at school, grew as a person, and found her direction in life, shouldn’t let this happen.

I wanted her to become a great hero.

For that, I couldn’t just become a villain because the country labeled me as one. I had to become a truly bad person, far worse than the average person in this world.

That’s why I did all those things.

I revisited my hometown and burned it all down, I burned down the research facility, and I killed anyone who got in my way, even children.

And now, even these injured people.

“I came because I was a little lonely waiting, because I wanted to be with you.”

But it seemed like no one wanted this.

Not even you.