novelraw Chapter 494
Chapter 494
“Su-ho!!”
I didn’t mishear it.
I heard it right.
A voice pounding straight into my ears.
The name I’d wanted to hear so badly.
An Su-ho.
More precisely, Su-ho.
And my name, coming out of Mom’s mouth.
Maybe that’s why?
Without even realizing it, Su-ho reflexively shouted back.
“Mom!!”
KWA-GWA-GWA-GWA-GWA!!
“KYAAAAAAAH!!”
The moment Su-ho cried out for his mom, a nearby building collapsed, and along with people’s screams, his view was blocked.
“Mommmmm!!”
Again, a voice that burst out reflexively.
At the same time, his body started moving on its own.
Su-ho pushed through the obstructed view and headed toward where his mom was.
“Mom!! Mom!! Mom!! Mom, where are you!!”
His eyes reddened, and his throat burned hot.
His mouth, opened from how worked up he was, split strings of saliva, and even though his physical specs had already transcended the human category, Su-ho’s hands trembled as if he’d been hit by some powerful debuff.
“Uaaaargh!!”
Worked up, Su-ho started tearing and ripping at everything his hands could grab.
Mom.
My mom.
My mom who died in that gate accident in the past.
The mom who died in a gate accident when I was a teenager, the mom I could never see again, the mom whose entire area got blown away so I couldn’t even salvage a single photograph, and the mom so much time had passed that I couldn’t even see her in my dreams anymore.
That mom had appeared right in front of me after decades.
“Su-ho!!”
Mom’s voice.
He turned his head toward where the sound came from, and far away, he could see Mom again.
In that moment, shattered building debris started pouring down over Mom.
“Mom!!”
I have to save her.
This time, I have to save her no matter what.
Su-ho instinctively used his skills.
He used everything he could think of.
He called forth everything he could call forth.
But nothing happened.
“......!!”
His eyes widened.
Why?
Why ⊛ Nоvеlιght ⊛ (Read the full story) the hell?
In a split second, Su-ho saw the falling debris and Mom’s face.
At the same time, he felt despair at the fact that his skills weren’t activating.
“An.......”
KUA-GWA-GWA-GWA!!
“Mommmmm—AAAGH!!”
The building collapsed.
Since his skills didn’t activate, there was no way to stop the falling building.
Su-ho screamed for his mom until his voice was about to rip apart.
The impact of the collapsing debris kicked up dust in a hazy cloud.
Arriving late to where Mom was, Su-ho frantically searched for her.
“Su......ho.......”
A faint voice.
A noisy surrounding.
But Su-ho found it with uncanny precision.
And the situation was the worst.
Mom’s lower body was pinned under the debris, trapping her so she couldn’t get out.
“Uaaaargh!!”
So shocked he couldn’t even call out her name first, Su-ho burst into tears and grabbed the massive chunk of debris.
And lifted.
To do whatever it took to pull Mom out.
But for some reason, the debris didn’t budge at all.
“Uaaaargh!! Why!! Why!!”
Why the hell!
Why is this pathetic pile of debris—why!
It feels like his hands are going to burst.
Like his forearms are going to burst.
Like his face is going to burst.
But Su-ho didn’t stop forcing strength into his body.
In that moment, Mom spoke in a voice that sounded like she was dying.
“Su-ho...... Mom...... die...... die.......”
“Mom!!”
He could feel her spark of life going out.
In the end, Su-ho gave up on lifting the debris and used Heal on Mom instead.
[ Heal activates. ]
A system notification.
Thankfully, Heal activated.
He did his best.
He poured in all the mana he had.
But even so, there was no sign that Mom’s condition was improving.
'Why? Why the hell?'
He felt dizzy.
His head was a mess.
His chest pounded.
Like his heart was going to explode.
His breathing was ragged.
With both hands together, Su-ho kept treating Mom with all his strength.
And yet, even so, there was no sign that Mom’s spark of life was coming back.
In that moment, from behind Su-ho, another familiar voice spoke.
“Geez, Junior. I was wondering where you were and what you were doing, and here you are?”
Junior?
A familiar...... no, a voice so disgusting it was unbearable.
And in this world, there’s only one person who calls me Junior.
Holding back tears that felt like they were about to burst, Su-ho turned his head with a flushed, reddened face, and there was Pi Seong-yeol, hands shoved into his pockets, looking down at him.
“You......!”
“What are you so surprised about? First time seeing your senior’s face?”
“What are you? Why are you here?”
“How, my ass. I’m obviously here as the chief person responsible to supervise whether the Shock Project is going well. By the way.......”
Pi Seong-yeol glanced at Su-ho’s mom, then snickered as he spoke.
“Who’s that woman? A civilian?”
“What did you say?”
“Huh. Funny, she kinda looks like you. Don’t tell me that’s your mother, Junior? But she’s basically dying, huh?”
“You son of a bitch!!”
Furious, Su-ho pulled his hands off Mom and lunged at Pi Seong-yeol. At the same time, the instant he was about to throw a punch at Pi Seong-yeol’s face—
“Keuhuk!”
From Mom’s mouth, where treatment had been cut off, a mouthful of blood sprayed out.
“Mom!!”
Su-ho latched back onto Mom and used Heal.
He did it with all his strength.
With all the mana he had.
He was clearly the strongest healer in the world at this point in time.
But even so, Mom’s wounds didn’t improve.
Watching that scene, Pi Seong-yeol snickered.
“Unbelievable...... Junior, why are you trying so hard on someone who’s about to die? Just do it a little and take your hands off. I’ll even take special care of the paperwork so your mother gets a special compensation payout. Ah, of course, in your name.”
“What did you say?”
“Huh? Why are you so worked up today? I told you I’d get you two apartments in your name. Don’t tell me that’s not enough?”
Pi Seong-yeol’s sneering.
As Su-ho listened to that sneering, a ringing like tinnitus started roaring inside his head.
A physiological effect created by extreme stress.
But even in that hellish situation, Su-ho couldn’t do anything.
More precisely, he couldn’t take his two hands off his mom to keep healing her.
Because he knew it instinctively.
The moment he let go here, Mom would die immediately.
And so, paradoxically, reason was able to brutally suppress emotion.
But Pi Seong-yeol’s sneering continued.
“This is why you can’t get promoted. How long are you going to rot as some measly Grade 9? When you begged to be put into the Special Division because you said you could do it, that was then, but now you’re clinging to the lifeline of some parent who isn’t even helping you?”
“.......”
“Oh? Now you’re not even answering your superior?”
“.......”
Su-ho stayed silent.
His once-heated expression hardened more and more, and then, past hardened, it cooled into something chillingly cold.
Pi Seong-yeol’s sneering continued.
For a while.
Tuk-
Su-ho let both arms drop limply.
At the same time, Heal was cut off.
“Su-ho.......”
As soon as Heal stopped, Mom whispered Su-ho’s name like she was about to die any second.
A spark fading away.
“Su-ho...... Su-ho.......”
Mom kept calling Su-ho.
But Su-ho looked down at Mom with a face that had given up on everything.
“Su-ho.......”
Tuk-
In the end, Mom’s head fell.
At the same time, all life completely vanished from her.
Su-ho stayed kneeling, head lowered, staring at Mom.
Pi Seong-yeol was still standing behind Su-ho.
Seeing Mom’s death, Pi Seong-yeol pulled out a cigarette, stuck it in his mouth, and said,
“She dead?”
Then he flicked a light, took a drag, and—
“She’s dead, huh? See? What did I tell you. I told you not to waste effort on someone who’s already dying. Get up. You have to go work now. Don’t tell me you’re going to hold a funeral. Once the chain explosions start later, she’ll get buried under debris on her own, so just leave her. Then you can do a joint funeral all at once.”
“.......”
“You don’t know how lucky you are. The country pays for joint funeral costs. But don’t tell me you’re going to do a separate funeral anyway. Don’t do it—funerals are sneakily expensive, you know? In a world like this, you’ll lose at least a few thousand. And.......”
“Shut up.”
“Huh?”
Amid Pi Seong-yeol’s leisurely stream of sneering, Su-ho answered in a small voice.
Shut up.
At that, Pi Seong-yeol’s eyes went round.
“What did you just say?”
“I said shut up. That mouth.”
After giving his second answer, Su-ho stood up.
KUGUGUGUGU—
KWAANG! KWAANG! KWAANG!!
Explosions still ringing out.
All around them, destruction caused by gate shock was still unfolding.
Su-ho lifted his head.
“Whew.”
Then he swept his hair back and slowly looked around at the exploding scenery around him.
“Wow...... even when you know all the details, you still get hit by it right away.”
“What the hell are you talking about? Right now.......”
In that moment.
PUNG!
With a dull explosion, Pi Seong-yeol’s head exploded.
His head had been pierced through and burst apart by the blood rod Su-ho had summoned like an extending staff.
Shrrrk!
The stretched-out blood rod shrank down, becoming about the length of a blood sword.
Su-ho looked around again.
KUGUGUGUGU—
KWAANG!! KWAANG!! KWAANG!!
Explosions still going off.
And between them, thick screams filling the gaps.
It’s horrific.
There’s no disaster like this kind of disaster.
On top of that, right in front of him, even Mom had died with her lower body pinned down.
That was why he’d been helplessly fooled.
It’s absurd.
It’s downright ridiculous.
Su-ho knew what this class quest was.
Because he’d heard it from the First Crusader of his previous life.
That was why he’d tried to do the class quest before the trait quest.
This class quest, corresponding to the third singularity, was, as it always had been, a trial disguised as a quest, and he had to prove himself.
It was the same at the second singularity, too.
Back then as well, the beings I hated most appeared, and to prove my rage, I killed all of them and wiped them out.
So from my point of view, it was an extremely easy trial.
They were guys I wanted to kill anyway, and I could get vicarious satisfaction through the trial.
'And I became a Rage Crusader.'
If, at that point, I’d forgiven them or embraced them, a different result would have come out.
But I didn’t forgive a single one, and I cut every last one down and killed them.
I chose revenge, purely packed with rage and hatred.
In that sense, the class quest at the third singularity is basically a place to prove, one more time, whether my disposition might have changed as I went through growth all this time.
The System was vile.
Because it used one of my most painful memories as the theme of the trial.
And on top of that, under the name of “trial,” the System disrupted my mind and restricted my stats and skills whenever it felt like it, constantly making me fall into hallucinations.
So even though I went into the trial aware of everything, in the moment my emotions surged and I got swept up in the atmosphere.
But ironically, what brought Su-ho back to his senses was Pi Seong-yeol, who’d been inserted to intensify that rage.
More precisely, his flapping mouth.
'It went beyond excessive. Thanks to him, I felt a kind of rage that’s hard to count on one hand in my life.'
But paradoxically, thanks to that, reason came back.
Because when rage reaches its peak, it instead turns chillingly cold.
With everything coming back into focus again, Su-ho was able to become certain, once again, of his goal and his disposition.
Rage.
And revenge.
I will personally smash to pieces, with my own hands, all of it—the former comrades who stabbed me in the back, Pi Seong-yeol who killed my family, and beyond that, the damn System that affected me, my life, and my entire existence.
A chilling rage numbs emotion.
Instead, it makes reason even clearer.
That was when it happened.
[ The trial has ended. ]
The trial ended.