Ring-ring-ring-
The sharp sound of the bell made me nervously fumble with my right hand.
I pressed any button on my smartphone as soon as it touched my fingertips, and the frantic noise stopped abruptly. But it would ring again in 10 minutes anyway.
I wished I could spend the whole day in bed, watching Netflix and rolling around, but that was not possible.
I had to look for new internship opportunities, go to the TOEIC academy, participate in a study group, finish my assignments, and even attend an interview study session.
Damn, why is it so hard to live as a job seeker in Korea?
As I grumbled inwardly, the sweet 10-minute break time ended, and the crazy alarm started ringing again.
Fine, I get it. I just have to get up.
I forced myself to get up and opened the mini fridge as soon as I turned off the alarm. I took out a water bottle that was lying sideways and gulped it down, and then I felt a bit more awake.
That’s when it happened.
───Wake up!
“What?”
I was startled by the scream that pierced my head, and I dropped the water bottle, making the floor a sea of water.
“···This is crazy.”
I quickly straightened the water bottle and then slumped into a chair and turned on the computer. The water would dry on its own over time.
I wondered if there were any new job postings, and I saw a familiar but strange icon on the internet.
The icon of a sword, a shield, and a staff crossed in an ‘X’ shape looked like a game. The strange thing was that the folder name was blank.
How is that possible? No, what is this in the first place?
I naturally moved the mouse cursor to it and shook my head. I had so much to do today.
───Get ready!
The unknown scream tore through my head again. I reflexively put my palm on my ear and took a deep breath, calming my pounding heart.
“What, what is it?”
I quickly looked around and saw the scenery of my small studio apartment.
A mattress with no life, a childish patterned turquoise curtain, a drying rack with laundry, a broken microwave, a rice cooker that never did its job.
I felt a strange sense of alienation in the same scenery as yesterday.
What did I do yesterday?
I pressed both sides of my temples with my thumb and slowly lifted my head. Then I saw the icon floating on the black background.
Two clicks.
Then the opening video popped up on the screen.
All kinds of demons and monsters, and the blood and flesh that sprang out of them, the friction of the blades, the light, the roar. All of that passed by in an instant.
Now there was only one man standing on the screen.
The man had a thick face, broad shoulders, and a large height that impressed me. His eyes were indifferent, but somehow he looked tired.
At that moment, I felt a shock that swept through my body with a sense of foreboding. I endured the nausea that made me feel like I had to vomit right away and barely blinked my eyes. Then I saw a short sentence flashing on the screen.
[Your story is not over yet.]
As soon as I saw that sentence, the nausea subsided as if it were a lie. At the same time, countless memories that I thought were just a feeling of foreboding began to find their place in my head.
When I looked back, I saw everything that filled the narrow room scattered in vain. Like a dream.
“···Yeah, it’s not over yet.”
I sighed lightly and pressed the mouse twice.
And Ruon opened his eyes.
***
The first thing that came into Ruon’s sight was Kyle’s face, looking down at him with a worried expression.
Why are you so close to me?
Kyle shouted at him, frowning.
“Ruon! Are you awake?”
Ruon, who propped up his upper body with his palm on the floor, gave a hollow smile.
“···So it was you who called me like that?”
“What are you talking about?”
“Never mind. It’s nothing.”
He briefly answered and looked around. Then Kyle said.
“This is the tent that Gullan gave us. Do you remember? He’s the merchant who asked us to check what’s in the underground temple.”
Ruon recalled the face of the scruffy middle-aged man who was holding a cat in his head. He nodded and asked.
“What about the other two?”
It was obvious who Ruon meant by the two, so Kyle answered without hesitation.
“Strabo is probably chatting with Gullan. He’s obsessed with explaining what happened in the underground in a plausible way. Gullan, that guy, he’s so interested in hearing the same story over and over again···”
He shook his head and continued.
“Igor went outside a little while ago. He said he was going to get some fresh air. He wouldn’t listen to me when I told him to rest, even though he was in a dire situation until yesterday.”
Fortunately, it seemed that no one had died.
Ruon, who had been nodding his head quietly, asked.
“What exactly happened?”
At that, Kyle rolled his eyes up and down. As if he was hesitating where to start the story. After pondering for a while, he slowly opened his mouth.
“…As you know, we were also fighting with the corpses, so we had no time to spare. To be honest, I thought we were going to die then.”
Kyle lifted his shirt as he said that. Then, a large scar engraved on his side was revealed. It looked like he had been literally torn apart. Luckily, it seemed to have healed well.
Kyle made a bitter expression as he looked at his wound and added.
“But then, the corpses started falling like haystacks. I thought Ruon had done something, so I looked…”
The rest of the story was like this.
As soon as Kyle saw that Belducius’s body was collapsing as the undead fell to the ground, he picked up Ruon’s body that had fallen to the floor.
At that moment, the cave interior, which could not withstand the repeated shocks, began to collapse with a loud noise.
As they tried to escape right away, Igor shouted urgently with a dying face.
‘Ruon and Belducius are fighting for control over the body. The great demon is not dead yet.’
He left only a meaningful word and lost consciousness because of the priest. The choice was entirely up to Kyle and Strabo.
Whether to take Ruon, who had the possibility of becoming Belducius’s new body, or leave him.
The two did not hesitate.
They could not leave their companion in the collapsing cave because of that possibility.
The party, who barely escaped from the collapsing cave, managed to return to the surface with their creaking bodies.
“The followers of Guran, who were on alert because of the explosions in the underground, found us and we were able to get emergency treatment… Well, that’s the story.”
He was lucky.
Ruon could not help but think that as he listened to the story.
Julius’s sacrifice, who endured the years of suffering in Belducius’s mind, Guran, who healed the party that had become ragged, and the companions who did not leave him behind.
If any of them had not worked out, the feat of killing the great demon would have been impossible.
Ruon got up right away. Kyle’s eyes widened at that.
“Where are you going?”
“A walk.”
“What, a walk? You’ve been unconscious for three days…”
Ruon did not wait for the rest of the words and quickly walked out of the tent. The stars that filled the dark sky greeted him.
Ruon wanted to describe the beautiful night sky in a plausible way, but the words and sentences only floated emptily in his mind.
Yeah, I don’t have that talent.
Instead, he closed his eyes and sank into his mind. To check the reward of the bloody battle of the past.
He leveled up three times, and his experience was more than half full. Ruon immediately distributed his points evenly between strength and divinity.
The superhuman strength that was enough to be called the giant’s grip became even more powerful, and he felt it clearly under his skin.
The next thing he checked was the title.
A sentence that surpassed [Duermyr’s Blessing], which had been the most prominent presence in his mind, was clearly felt.
[Great Demon Slayer]
It was a title he earned by killing Belducius, a huge evil that was lurking in this world, and one of the beings who had seen the abyss.
Ruon opened his eyes quietly and smiled faintly.
It was a complex smile that mixed the pride and relief of finally defeating the great demon, and the vague and angry feeling about the unfinished story.
He did not know why the scenery of his old room and the ordinary start of the day, which had disappeared from his dreams long ago, were so vivid in front of his eyes. He just felt his nostalgia grow deeper.
He steadied his mind as he felt the breeze between his fingers. Instead of venting his frustration at the unchanging reality, he had something to do. It was a word of thanks.
Ruon murmured as he looked at the night sky.
“Thank you.”
He felt embarrassed as he uttered the words to himself, but he repeated them in a low voice.
To the young man who did not lose his courage even after suffering for hundreds of years.
“You did well.”
***
The party gathered in the tent late at night and looked at each other with a new look.
In front of them were simple snacks and wine provided by Guran. It was modest for a party that had achieved the feat of ‘killing the great demon’, but no one complained about it.
Strabo, who had found Ruon awake and cried loudly, blinked his red eyes and said.
“Do you know?”
As the party’s eyes turned to him, he added with a serious face.
“I thought Gullan was listening to our stories very well and believing in our achievements… But it turned out he thought I was exaggerating ordinary stories and making them interesting. He even recommended me to try being a poet.”
He added with a deep sigh.
“What’s the point of killing the Archdemon? No one would believe it anyway…”
Kyle frowned at his dispirited words.
“What do you mean? And speak clearly. Didn’t you hear what Igor said? It was Ruon who destroyed the Archdemon’s core and erased its mind. This, this thing. Are you going to lie to Garan later and say you killed it?”
Strabo snorted and blew his nose at Kyle’s teasing remark.
Ruon laughed at the sight of the dwarf with his bushy beard sticking out. His laughter, which was rare to hear out loud, made the others laugh as well.
Soon, Ruon drank the wine that Gullan had given him and turned his head. He looked at Igor and asked.
“Are you okay?”
It wasn’t a random question. In Ruon’s memory, the last thing he saw of Igor was him shooting an arrow of light and then being hit by the curse of the enraged Belducius.
Igor smiled faintly.
“Thanks to Garan’s favor.”
As he said that, he took something out of his pocket and put it on the ground. It was the bracelet that Garan had given him when they left Roverduck.
“It was a magic item. If it weren’t for the bracelet’s shield, I would have surely died.”
“That’s good.”
That was the end of the conversation. Silence filled the tent. Kyle, who was staring at the candle that lit up the tent, asked.
“Where are you all going now?”
Igor was the first to answer the question that was directed at everyone.
“I have to return to the Grand Church. I have to tell them that we defeated Belducius.”
Strabo muttered under his nose.
“That’s why belonging somewhere is annoying…”
“Strabo, don’t you dare replace the good word ‘responsibility’ with ‘annoying’.”
Kyle asked Igor, who chuckled.
“Can you go alone with that body? You were wandering around looking for Tivella until last night.”
He added to the hesitating priest.
“Gullan’s men said so. They couldn’t do anything about the wound on my side. You did something while bleeding from your nose and mouth, right? Strabo too, you know.”
At that, Strabo rubbed his chest and mumbled quietly.
“…No wonder it healed.”
He must have put on a show by himself.
Ruon muttered to himself as he looked at Igor, who was scratching his head with an awkward expression.
Kyle said.
“If you didn’t know, fine. But you can’t pretend you don’t know when you got help. You said ‘responsibility’, right? I’ll go with you to the Grand Church. I’m curious about what kind of place it is anyway.”
As soon as he finished, Strabo raised his hand.
“Me too, let’s go together! I owe you my life, so I have to pay you back! That’s romantic!”
Igor couldn’t say anything and just kept scratching his head.
Then Strabo said.
“Ruon, you’re coming too, right? You have to proudly tell the Grand Church about your great achievement. Let’s go together with pride!”
Ruon, who had been silent until then, shook his head with a faint smile. He said.
“That sounds hard. There’s a suspicious place I want to visit.”
As if to ask, where is that? he added briefly to the three men who looked at him.
“The Grand Church of Ganak.”
