Chapter 50: Playing With (Someone)

I loved this.

The silence that fell when I suddenly appeared.

And me, watching them.

The countless people working at the bank.

The people withdrawing money, the people handing out money, the people wasting time in some spacious office.

And the countless people guarding the bank.

I kicked open the bank’s front door and put on my half-broken mask.

Whether they were ordinary people with pistols or ability users, everyone charged at me instead of running away.

I threw the bag on my back to the floor, shattering the bottles inside. The red liquid seeped out, staining the floor, and solved everything.

There wasn’t even a fight.

Everyone who rushed at me was pierced and exploded instantly. The people with guns just trembled, unable to pull the trigger.

The people inside the bank just stared at me blankly, instead of screaming and running away.

Even as blood rained down from the ceiling.

The red droplets that splattered on the ceiling slowly coalesced and started dripping down.

Like condensation forming on the ceiling of a shower.

In the still-silent bank, I quietly spoke to the man in the security uniform.

“Bring me the money. Fill the bag.”

I drained the blood soaking the bag and tossed it to the man.

Soon, screams erupted.

And the woman who screamed exploded.

The explosions seemed contagious, as more and more rude people started screaming.

Of course, I exploded them all.

I wasn’t in the mood for this today.

If this were the past, I would have been completely confused, unable to understand what I was doing.

Trapped in strange thoughts of morality, ethics, and common sense.

There was no reason for life to be respected.

People just agreed to create rules because if someone tried to kill another, that person would try to kill them back.

I just refused to agree.

It wasn’t my fault.

And that kind of agreement was usually between similar beings.

The ones who fed me people, opened my skull and stuck electrodes in my brain, stripped me naked and experimented on which parts of my body hurt the most when burned, and then casually mocked me.

They said the researchers were all innocent people.

They all had families.

They were loving fathers, cherished their wives and children, always protecting them.

I was innocent too.

Except for being born in that village.

Born among the idiots who were meant to create a protagonist, always left alone, waiting for so long.

She didn’t come, even when I waited in the village.

Even when I contacted her, thinking I was going to die, I was always ignored.

Even when I went to find her, it was pointless.

She didn’t care if I was stuck in that village, what happened to me, or if I was even alive.

Not even when I was stuck in the research facility.

But I still liked Seo-jun very much.

I didn’t know why, but… maybe…

On the hill where I sat for a long time before burning down the village, the hill where I often sat with Seo-jun, the hill where I often sat with the big dog that I burned alive after it tried to drag me to the brothel…

It’s a long story. Anyway, I felt really good being with someone on that hill.

It was the place where I talked with Seo-jun, where I confessed my love for her, where I said I wanted to marry her someday.💕

I couldn’t forget that hill.

Even if I forgot the village, I couldn’t forget the view from that hill.

The snow-covered hill where we spoke our love, not in whispers, but aloud.

Even now, I’m speaking aloud, not whispering.

Asking her not to forget me, to make good friends at school, and even if she met someone, not to erase me from her memories.

But it seemed like she forgot.

A clean bank with red rain falling from the ceiling wasn’t that different from a small, snow-covered village.

If you inject yourself and imagine something, everything turns into a beautiful scenery.

While I was momentarily dazed, everything disappeared.

The people inside the bank were gone, only scattered limbs and chunks of flesh remained. The floor was slick with blood, soaking my shoes.

I was definitely wearing high heels.

Where was I?

A bank.

I came here for money… no. I came here because it was close to the school. Right, that’s right.

Someone’s head was under my feet, and beneath it, a tattered uniform and someone’s body.

And then, a cold sensation brushed against my left arm, waist, and neck.

I almost lost them, but I managed to hold on with blood.

They started reattaching soon after.

“Hey…”

I turned around and saw her standing there, trembling.

Her legs were covered in wounds, and her body was marked with cuts, as if someone had been carving words into her skin.

It was Hye-yeon.

“Why are you here? You should be running away.”

She was quite righteous.

A good idea came to mind, and I sent some of the blood pooling at my ankles outside the building.

As I endured Hye-yeon’s boring swordplay, reattaching, detaching, and reattaching parts of my body, I heard screams in the distance.

Soon, people engulfed in blood were dragged into the bank.

There were dozens of them.

Did she think she had to end this quickly after hearing the commotion?

Hye-yeon abandoned her stance, lunged at me, and straddled me.

Then she grabbed the hilt of her sword with both hands and started hitting me in the face.

“Hye-yeon. I told you before, remember?Let’s be friends. You said you would. Was that a lie?”

My face split in half with each blow, sometimes even forming a cross because she was so fast, but it quickly regenerated.

“Shut up and just die…!”

A large, fleshy doll appeared and grabbed her wrists, making her drop her sword.

I casually had the doll bite her hand, picked up the sword that fell into the blood, put it back in her hand, and smiled faintly.

Was this how the researchers felt?

Then it was understandable.

How could they resist, feeling like this?

Conducting unnecessary experiments, inflicting pain, doing pointless things, breaking their spirits…

It was understandable.

Because they’re human.

We all are.

“See those idiots who slipped on the water and ended up here? Pick five. I’ll let them live. If you kill the rest, I won’t show up for a month.”

The captured people trembled.

They looked at Hye-yeon pleadingly.

“You’re doing this to your friend, so… well, they’re strangers.”

Hye-yeon didn’t react.

Her hands and feet trembled. Her vision seemed blurry, unlike when she glared at me and stabbed me with her sword.

She kept trying to drop the sword, so I held her hand tight, wiping away the blood from her wounds.

I should play a fun game.

The “make an innocent person guilty” game.

“You, get up.”

I pointed at a rather unattractive, balding, middle-aged man.

He stammered, “Me?” Judging by his clothes, he was probably a day laborer.

“Yes.”

The man stood up.

“Assault her.”

I ripped Hye-yeon’s clothes.

Even if it wasn’t full nudity, being half-naked must be very embarrassing.

But it was something I did all the time.

Stripped naked every day, stared at like a rat in a cage… why were they looking at me like this because of something so trivial?

“Then I’ll spare you. I’ll kill everyone else.”

I gagged everyone else, just in case someone tried to interfere.

You’re supposed to choose someone who’s usually ignored, someone with no social standing.

If I chose a handsome young man in a nice suit, and he acted all righteous, Hye-yeon’s heart might soften.

The man hesitated, his face a mixture of excitement, wickedness, and guilt, as he approached Hye-yeon.

He stood in front of her, took a deep breath, and touched the strap of her bra.

And then, he flew.

Just his head.

And I exploded everyone else.

“W-why! Why! You said I could choose!”

Hye-yeon stabbed me with her sword and started shaking me by the collar again.

So I answered.

“I said choose, not stab. You should have done that after choosing.”

I threw the sword embedded in my stomach to the fleshy doll.

It carefully took the sword and stuck it somewhere in its body.

Then I took out a cigarette, put it in my mouth, grabbed Hye-yeon’s blue hair, and slammed her head against the floor. When her struggles weakened, I gently placed my foot on her head and pressed down.

“This is all your fault. I wouldn’t be like this if it weren’t for you. If we hadn’t met that day…”

Smoking didn’t do anything anymore.

Whether I swallowed the smoke, exhaled through my nose, or just held it in my mouth.

“I knew it from the moment you pulled a knife on me over something so trivial.Your father, the people here… they all died because of you.”

“……What… what was I supposed to do?You were going to kill them all anyway……”

Hye-yeon continued speaking, even though her mouth must have tasted of blood.

“If you do something wrong, you apologize. Why are you asking me something so obvious?”

Not just you, everyone.