novelraw Chapter 28 : Chapter 28
Chapter 28 : Chapter 28
Chapter 28: Terror (4)
The spot hollowed out like a crater from the giant fist that had crushed it.
Ryu Jinwoo was lying inside it.
Ryu Jinwoo is more agile than anyone.
He was fast enough to even dodge Instructor Hojin's sword strikes.
There was no way such a Ryu Jinwoo would be hit head-on by such a slow attack.
'He got hit because of me. Because I wasn't good enough…….'
Seol Hayun's heart sank.
A suffocating sense of self-blame washed over her.
“Kwahahat!”
Suddenly, a loud shout erupted. It was Balzac.
He was laughing with his mouth wide open from afar.
“After scurrying around like a fly, you’ve finally been squashed. That is your fate!”
He was sneering from behind the undead.
Seol Hayun couldn't say anything to that insult.
Because in the end, it was her fault that things had turned out this way.
Just as Seol Hayun was looking down at Ryu Jinwoo with trembling eyes.
“……”
The body that had looked flattened twitched.
Ryu Jinwoo, who had been lying down, had moved slightly.
He, who had his eyes closed, opened them for a very brief moment and gave a light wink.
'……What?'
Seol Hayun suppressed her bewilderment and began to examine Ryu Jinwoo again.
Ryu Jinwoo's wink, as if to say he was fine.
With that one short signal, the pieces of the puzzle began to fit together.
The center of the broken floor and the position where Ryu Jinwoo had fallen were slightly misaligned.
Above all, there was no bloodstain flowing from Ryu Jinwoo.
There were only pieces of flesh that had fallen from the undead, exquisitely scattered here and there.
From a distance, it looked as if Ryu Jinwoo was injured.
'Don't tell me, he dodged it in that moment?'
Seol Hayun swallowed her breath.
He had momentarily rolled his body to dodge the blow, then returned to his original position and pretended to be hit and collapsed.
Perfect timing and perfect acting.
'Which means…….'
Seol Hayun quietly looked at Ryu Jinwoo.
And then she slowly turned her gaze to Balzac.
“……”
A moment of silence. Then she opened her mouth.
“……Take me with you.”
A neat tone.
An unwavering voice that showed a firm resolve.
“The other people…… please spare this person.”
She bowed her head.
A sense of desperation seeped in.
“Hey, I told you before.”
Balzac tilted his head as if twisting it and leisurely took a step.
The corners of his mouth slowly rose.
“It's a given that I'm taking you.”
Tap-tap-
He continued, lightly tapping the ground with the toe of his shoe.
“Killing the rest is a separate matter. Whether you're caught willingly or caught while struggling, that won't change.”
One step, two steps.
Balzac approached, passing by the undead that surrounded him.
As he stepped forward, dark red Magi rose from his feet.
The air shimmered and unabashedly exuded an ominous aura.
“It’s over now! All of you will become my materials-.”
Just as a triumphant shout was about to erupt.
[Shadow Chase]
Swish-
Ryu Jinwoo’s form appeared from behind Balzac, slipping through a momentary gap.
“……What?”
The sharp blade of the sword in Ryu Jinwoo’s hand glinted in the air.
There wasn't even a hint of hesitation in his movements.
As if performing a pre-inputted motion.
An indescribable sense of dissonance distorted the surrounding air.
Seol Hayun silently watched the scene.
An unknown power.
It wasn't magic power, nor was it Magi.
It was something more primal, deeper, and more unfamiliar.
“……”
The moment she held her breath and watched.
Swish-!
The protective barrier of Magi that surrounded Balzac was torn apart like a piece of paper.
And through that gap, the blade, rushing in like a flash of light, accurately cut across his neck.
Swish-
Balzac's head slowly slid off as if ice were sliding, and then fell with a thud.
A silence as if time had stopped.
Ryu Jinwoo, holding the sword in his right hand, took a deep breath.
***
Thud- thud-
Balzac’s head fell and rolled on the floor.
It was as clean as a Lego head being detached and falling off.
At the same time, the undead that had been rampaging in various places also came to an abrupt stop.
Like puppets whose strings had been cut in an instant.
In the brief silence, everyone began to look at each other.
“Ha……”
The one who broke the silence was Seol Hayun.
She let out a deep breath and sat down.
The people around her, who saw her sit down, also gradually regained their vitality.
A look of relief crossed everyone’s faces.
“I-, is it over?”
“Aah- help me. My arm…… it won't move.”
“Ugh……”
After confirming the reactions around me, I turned my gaze and looked at Balzac’s head, which had fallen to one side of the floor.
Wide-open eyes.
A surprised gaze, as if staring at something.
His mouth was half-open and frozen, and the tip of his tongue protruded slightly below his lips.
The severed head was exactly as it had been when it was alive.
It looked like a bizarre exhibit of a deranged collector.
‘Kuuuuh…….’
Even in the midst of that, the recoil from the skill came without fail.
Muscle pain and soreness in my calves and lower body due to the recoil.
And the recoil of ‘Hundred Night Yaksha’ that made that pain seem like a joke.
My whole body was screaming, but I suppressed it as much as possible to not show it.
Because I knew that, contrary to everyone’s expectations, the matter was not completely over yet.
Crackle- crack-
A faint sound like static electricity crackling could be heard from somewhere.
Swish- swish-
Following that, a sound like lightly scraping with sandpaper echoed.
Seol Hayun, who seemed to have heard the sound, began to look around.
When our eyes met, I gestured to Balzac’s head with my eyes.
The sound was coming from Balzac’s head.
Balzac’s eyes were moving restlessly.
Like a curious child spinning a globe, both of Balzac’s eyeballs began to roll around.
His gaze wandered restlessly here and there, and then his right eye stopped, looking at his own mouth.
His left eye was still rolling around, so it was a bizarre sight.
And at that moment.
Swoosh—
His mouth opened wide, and his tongue began to move like a sea anemone.
Then, something slowly crawled out from deep inside.
‘A meatball……?’
A round ball of flesh clumped together in bloody mucus.
Anyone with a sharp eye would recognize it immediately. It was the same piece of meat that Balzac had used to create the undead.
The strange meatball slid from the tip of his tongue and moved between his teeth.
Chomp- crunch- chomp-
The head that had fallen on the floor began to chew the meatball by itself. As if it were alive.
Fwoosh- crackle- crack-!
The sound of flames erupting was heard, and flames in the shape of kingfishers were repeatedly lodged in Balzac's head, but it was useless.
A black, translucent protective barrier was protecting the head.
“No way. A post-mortem spell? Is that even possible?”
Seol Hayun muttered as if she couldn't believe it.
The problem wasn't just the protective barrier.
What was happening now was Balzac’s own bizarre technique.
After chewing the meat diligently for a long time, Balzac’s head stopped moving.
A brief moment of silence. That was also brief.
A dry, white vertebra suddenly shot up from the severed surface.
Following that, a drop of blood formed.
“Krrruuuu-.”
The flesh of the undead that had surrounded Balzac began to fall off one by one.
The fallen flesh flew through the air and gathered towards Balzac.
And it began to stick to Balzac’s protruding bone.
Chwarararak-!
Bones were constructed as if branches were extending from the spine, and the undead’s flesh continued to stick to him repeatedly.
Limbs and muscles that had grown in no time.
And on top of that, organs, a layer of fat, and skin were successively layered.
After that, it was instantaneous.
Balzac’s body returned to its form before it was cut, and what had been his original body began to melt away and disappear.
Balzac approached his own ‘corpse’ with one or two unsteady steps.
“I hate this part the most. To have to put on clothes with flesh paste on them again. It feels like a snail is crawling all over my body.”
A grumbling voice.
It was so calm that you wouldn't think he had just been dead.
He, who had gotten dressed again, looked back at me.
His right eye was looking at me.
On the other hand, his left eye was still rolling around in the air.
“Tsk-.”
Balzac pressed his left eyelid with his regenerated hand.
As if forcibly fitting a broken toy.
When his left eye was fixed again, he lightly swept his eye and opened his mouth to me.
“It was an amazing movement. I didn't expect it at all. I was careless.”
His voice was calm.
A plain voice without anger or contempt.
So for some reason, it felt like he was genuinely sending me his admiration.
Seol Hayun's breath escaped from behind.
“Just now, his neck was cut…… why.”
She didn't properly understand what had just happened.
But it was a familiar scene to me.
Balzac doesn't die even if his neck is cut.
It was a sight I had seen to the point of being sick of it in the game.
“Did you think I would die just because my neck was cut? How naive.”
Balzac smiled at Seol Hayun and then turned back to me.
“You, what's your name?”
The final process had finally arrived.
If I say my name here, Balzac will say he will remember my name and then leave.
Because Balzac doesn't have much time either.
Heroes will soon rush in to deal with the terror.
He's just asking for a name before retreating! and then leaving.
“Ryu Jinwoo.”
So I tell him obediently.
While thinking to myself that he should just get lost now.
“Ryu Jinwoo, good. It’s a pretty good name. I’ve never heard it before, but from now on, I’ll be hearing it here and there……”
The next thing this guy will say is, ‘I’ll retreat for today. I hope to see you again.’
Just like the set game lines.
Then he'll disappear as if his body is melting away, and we'll survive cleanly.
It could be called a very heartwarming ending.
After a long pause, Balzac opened his mouth.
For the final line.
“That is why I must kill you here. You damn brat.”
“……Pardon?”
“I said I would kill you.”
Something is strange.
This isn't right. This shouldn't be happening.
It was flowing differently from the scenario I knew.
If you stall for enough time and then land a blow on Balzac, he will obediently retreat.
I had never seen any other route in the original work.
This was literally an unknown development.
‘What’s wrong with this bastard?’
Balzac narrowed his brow and continued.
“I still don’t like it. Your attitude. That composure, as if you knew everything. That’s not yours.”
He, who had been muttering lowly, suddenly raised his voice.
“The only one who can have such composure in front of me is my own reflection in the mirror!”
Balzac’s fist, filled with strength, trembled with anger.
The composure he had shown until just now had disappeared, and he was erupting with pure anger, as if he had returned to being a teenage boy.
‘This shouldn't be happening.’
It was a bewildering moment.
Not losing composure while facing an enemy should have been Balzac’s signature.
He had begun to get excited in an unprecedented way.
Above all, he had declared that he would kill me instead of just retreating.
While even saying a line that sounded like he had chuunibyou.
“Wait. The heroes will be here soon, are you going to spend more time just because your feelings are hurt?”
Now that it has come to this, I have to persuade him.
I held out my palm to him and began to speak.
“What did you say?”
“No, think about it. Even if you try to kill me out of anger, I have no intention of dying easily. Seol Hayun is here too. It’ll take that much more time. The heroes will definitely rush in before you can escape. You know that too, right?”
At my words, Balzac shut his mouth.
It must be because he himself knows that I am right.
However, he did not back down in the end.
A moment later, instead of answering me, Balzac took out a dagger from his breast pocket.
‘What is he trying to do……. Wait, no way.’
Thwuck-
He gripped the dagger and, without a moment’s hesitation, deeply cut his own palm.
“You’re right. If I drag this out any longer, I’ll be caught by those hero bastards.”
He cut his palm in half with force in his eyes.
“Then, I’ll just kill all of you here in an instant and leave.”
A stream of blood flowed from the deep wound of his split palm.
However, that was also brief.
Balzac’s wound soon began to distort into a strange shape.
A hard, clumped sphere squirmed in the gap of the flesh stained with bloodstains.
The thing that was writhing as if alive was none other than an ‘eyeball.’
It woke up in the middle of Balzac’s palm as if opening a closed eye.
A black iris reminiscent of the abyss, a quiet sense as if staring at the silence.
The moment the split palm opened wide and the eyeball fully opened.
The eyeball began to cause ripples throughout the surrounding space.
Black forms rose up from behind Balzac.
Something that couldn't be told if it was a shadow or smoke began to spread slowly.
Even the floor began to distort as if it were being eroded by something.
It was reminiscent of a deep abyss, or a nightmare.
It felt like the heavy air flowing into my lungs was pressing down on my internal organs.
Balzac’s eyes and the eye on his palm.
Two pairs of gazes were directed at me.
“It won’t take long.”
Like a judge passing a death sentence, his voice was calm yet ominous.