Chapter 46:

Chapter 46:

Chapter 46

“Please, save me! Please!”

Baek Woo-hyun shouted as he trembled with fear.

He tried to struggle for his life, but his arms and legs were all broken and he looked worse than a worm crawling on the ground.

Kang Hye-rim, who held a sword in her hand, slowly approached him.

He desperately moved his mouth.

“If you kill me, you won’t know who ordered you to do it! Are you okay with that? You seem to have a lot of enemies, don’t you?”

“Hye-rim.”

Yu-hyun called her name and she stopped her steps. Baek Woo-hyun sighed in relief and smiled smugly.

He hoped that he could survive with the information he had.

Of course, Yu-hyun had already seen through him.

“Tell me.”

“Wha, what? You think I’ll tell you right away? You think I don’t know that you’ll kill me as soon as I do?”

Baek Woo-hyun swallowed the rest of his words.

He was the only one who knew about the teller who had bribed him from behind.

And this was the only chance he had to live.

He felt a hammer hit the back of his head as he faced death.

His mind was spinning.N0v3lRealm was the platform where this chapter was initially revealed on N0v3l.B1n.

He looked at Yu-hyun with disbelief.

“Do you really think so? Really? If you kill me, you won’t know who the teller is who told us to kill you!”

Baek Woo-hyun was confident.

That’s why he was more brazen.

Yu-hyun shook his head.

‘What a self-delusion.’

Baek Woo-hyun didn’t know how worthless his information was.

A thin paper wall that would tear apart with a slight breeze, a foolish belief that it would protect him from the storm.

‘That’s why it’s easy to fool those who know too little.’

Yu-hyun decided to end this and tell him the cruel truth.

He leaned closer to Baek Woo-hyun and whispered in his ear.

“Hey, Woo-hyun. Do you know something?”

“...”

“We don’t care who ordered you to do it. We don’t even think it’s worth our attention.”

Baek Woo-hyun asked him with his eyes what he meant.

Yu-hyun told him honestly.

The cruel truth that he hated to see and hear.

“Jin Pung, a teller from the Pentagram department of Celestial Corporation. Did you think I didn’t know that he made a deal with you?”

“Wha? What?”

Baek Woo-hyun’s eyes widened as he heard a familiar name from Yu-hyun’s mouth.

“Ho, how...”

How?

He couldn’t finish his sentence as he faced the unbelievable reality.

Baek Woo-hyun looked up at Yu-hyun with a stunned expression.

Yu-hyun didn’t answer him.

He just made him realize that he knew everything.

‘Ah.’

Baek Woo-hyun shivered.

He finally realized how futile it was to threaten the other side with what he had.

He felt the world shrink around him.

He felt his feet sink and the sky crack and collapse.

In that illusion, he saw a devil who looked down at him and smiled as if he couldn’t contain his joy.

“Ah, ah, ah.”

And the fact that the devil would bring him death.

“Ahhhh!”

“Hye-rim. I’ll leave the rest to you.”

“Okay. I got it.”

Kang Hye-rim stepped forward again.

She had already drawn her sword.

Baek Woo-hyun’s face turned pale.

“No, no! Don’t come! Save me! Please save meee!”

Splash splash

As Kang Hye-rim walked through the puddles of the swamp, Baek Woo-hyun wet his pants and screamed loudly.

“Yo, Yong-pal! No, Yong-woon! Please save me! We were friends, right? Huh? Hey, you bastard! Don’t you remember how good I was to you?!”

He begged or cursed at Han Yong-woon who just watched him silently.

“Hye, hyung-nim! Hyung-nim! Please save me! Please! I must have gone crazy for a moment! Hyung-nim! If you spare me, I’ll do anything for you! Please!”

He bowed down to Yu-hyun and pleaded with him.

“Ahhh! Fuck! Don’t come! Don’t come! Ahh! Someone, someone help me!”

He hoped for help that would never come.

But Kang Hye-rim’s steps never stopped.

And when she got close enough to him, Baek Woo-hyun’s frantic movements stopped like a machine that was turned off.

The look of someone who denied reality in despair, and realized that even his vain hope was meaningless.

It was resignation.

‘Ah.’

Kang Hye-rim’s blade flashed in the fog, and red blood splattered.

Even though he vaguely feared that those two people who were offended by his words might kill him too, he couldn’t help but say it.

“Getting chosen by a teller! Getting attention from spirits and donations! Being so strong!”

I killed a person.

But what about the spirits?

Did they cry out for justice?

No, they didn’t.

They rejoiced instead.

They praised and rewarded the killers with points.

They called this the life of a collector, but when I witnessed the truth, I couldn’t bear the disgust.

No, it wasn’t disgust.

It was jealousy.

When I admitted that, I felt so pathetic.

My angry scream soon turned into a sobbing lament.

“So what do you know? How we feel when we have to live without having anything. How hopeless it is when we know we can’t succeed no matter what we do. And yet we have to go on living, while seeing this.”

I admired Kang Hye-rim.

From Han Yongun’s perspective, she had everything. Stunning beauty, strength that could defeat enemies in an instant, and a fearless heart to do so.

The more I saw her, the more I felt my life was worthless and pitiful.

I was a failure. The world pointed fingers at me as a failure.

Why? Why only me?

I wanted to succeed too.

If I had talent like her, I wouldn’t have lived like this.

But the world made me this way.

“Why...”

“Why are you and us so different?”

Yu-hyun, who had been listening quietly, opened his mouth.

“Everyone has their own role in their own lives. Your life has your role. My life has my role. We just refused our roles and tried to grab more than we deserved. To do that, we hardened our resolve, worked hard, and even risked our lives. That’s why.”

“That’s...”

“In life, being able to choose what you want is a privilege. But there are many more people who can’t do that. You may have seen us as the chosen ones, but is that really true? We are the same as you.”

“Then why, why am I like this?”

“Because you eventually accepted that reality.”

People have dreams, but they eventually face reality and bow their heads.

They accept their fate and comply with it while murmuring that they can’t help it.

Yu-hyun saw his past self in Han Yongun’s appearance.

He collapsed, gave up, and suffered while lamenting this reality.

But he still didn’t change and ended up conforming.

“I don’t intend to be satisfied with what I’m given. If I don’t have it, I’ll make it or take it from someone else. That’s the decisive difference between you and me.”

“...”

“Do you think that’s bad? Maybe you do. But I vowed not to stop this ambition even if the world condemns me for it.”

In the end, what Yu-hyun said was simple.

You gave up, but I didn’t.

Han Yongun felt something overflowing inside him.

“Do you think I wanted to give up?”

Hot tears ran down his cheeks.

“I tried to do something too. I wanted to try something too. But nothing changed even then. What can I do when I can’t reach anything even if I stretch out my hand? That’s how the world is! It points fingers at me as a failure. It doesn’t go away no matter what I do! What am I supposed to do here?!”

He didn’t just sit still. He had tried to do something in his own way.

But he failed every time and got nothing out of it.

His head that looked up was naturally lowered down.

He had no choice but to look down.

“The world made me this way...”

“The world of people is narrow.”

Yu-hyun said casually.

He didn’t sympathize with his sorrow or criticize him.

He just calmly told him the reality.

“You mistake what you see and hear and feel as the whole world. When someone points fingers at you as a failure, you think the whole world does that. Because that’s all you see. You and the people around you.”

As he heard that, Han Yongun’s eyes widened.

“Do you know that? The world beyond your knowledge doesn’t care about you at all. No one blames you. They don’t know who you are. They don’t bother to find out. The world is like that only in your mind.”

“...”

“If you want to change, you have to change your perspective first. And then show the real you to the people you don’t know.”

“...”

“It will be hard for sure. But at least it won’t be more humiliating than giving up without even trying.”

With that said, Yu-hyun turned his back.

“Let’s go, Hyerim.”

“Oh, yes.”

Yu-hyun and Kang Hye-rim left behind Han Yongun, who was still sitting and staring blankly.

When they were far enough, Kang Hye-rim asked.

“Is it okay to leave him like that?”

“It’s okay.”

To Kang Hye-rim, Han Yongun looked like he had been pushed to the limit and broken, but Yu-hyun saw it differently.

Because he saw the light coming from Han Yongun’s book change before he left.

From brown to a faint silver.

‘People change.’

The color of the light that showed the possibility changed.

The change that he thought would never happen, came to Yu-hyun as well.