NOVEL WEB Chapter 20 - Guilt (1)
Chapter 20. Guilt (1)
“Cough! Cough…!”
I coughed twice and couldn’t steady my body.
Then, Lee Saebom rushed over and supported me.
“Hey! Are you okay?!”
“Hah… Hah…”
Leaning on him, I looked ahead.
My vision was blurry.
Yet, I could clearly see Jin Jae-hee killing all the remaining Blue Team soldiers.
Good.
If it weren’t for her, our Red Team would’ve… Ugh…
Suddenly, my vision dimmed.
It was like my consciousness was slipping away, as if a film reel had been cut.
Lee Joo-yeon, who was holding a gun, quickly came over to treat my wounds.
I gasped for air.
It felt like my lungs couldn’t take in oxygen, a sharp pain stabbing through me.
It even felt a little chilly.
“Saebom, lay him down. Spread something soft on the ground.”
“Got it.”
“Hurry up!”
“I’m trying!”
Saebom quickly moved, covered the ground with clothes, and laid me down.
The dark ceiling was all I could see.
The only other things visible were Lee Saebom and Lee Joo-yeon.
Joo-yeon examined my condition and touched various parts of my body.
Then, she spoke to Saebom.
“He’s in shock. Open his airway.”
At her words, Saebom lifted my neck.
“Sss… Hah… Hah!”
Finally, I could breathe and comprehend the situation.
Joo-yeon kept looking at my wounds, unsure of what to do.
Saebom asked her, “What do we do, noona?”
“…We have to pull the knife out.”
Joo-yeon referred to the dagger still stuck in my thigh.
Honestly, I could breathe now, but even listening to their voices was becoming hard.
Saebom reached for the dagger lodged in my thigh.
Joo-yeon stopped him immediately.
“Wait. If the knife nicked an artery, pulling it out could cause him to bleed to death.”
“Then what are we supposed to do?!”
“Leaving it in won’t work either because of the bleeding. In the end, we have to pull it out…!”
“Then what?!”
Saebom grew increasingly frustrated and snapped.
Joo-yeon tightly shut her eyes and shouted back.
“I… I don’t know! I’m not a doctor! All I know is basic first aid from the army.”
“Then do that! If you don’t, we’re all going to die!”
“What…?”
Joo-yeon turned to Saebom in shock.
Saebom yelled angrily.
“The rule! Did you forget?! If the king dies, we all die too!”
“That’s… not the issue here, Saebom.”
“Cough!”
My cough interrupted their argument.
Joo-yeon, seemingly unable to delay any longer, leaned in close and whispered to me.
“Don’t lose consciousness. Keep breathing and stay tense. I’ll do my best to handle this, so you must hold on. Until I let go, don’t give up.”
“Ahh… Huh… Hah…!”
I nodded twice.
Their voices no longer reached me.
I focused all my energy on clinging to consciousness, as she had said.
Joo-yeon asked Saebom for something, and he sprinted off immediately.
Joo-yeon stayed by my side and held my hand tightly.
I gripped her hand back with all my strength.
To be honest, I was terrified in this moment.
More than the eternal rest of death, the thought of never seeing my sibling again scared me more.
But I would survive.
No matter what.
Shortly after, Saebom returned, panting, with supplies.
Even though I saw the items, my blurred vision made them unrecognizable.
Saebom gripped the handle of the dagger.
Every slight tremor in his hand sent waves of unbearable pain through me.
Joo-yeon raised her fingers and counted down for me.
Three… Two… One.
In that moment, Saebom pulled the dagger out in one swift motion.
A scream tore from my throat.
An involuntary, instinctive cry.
“Ahhhhhh!”
Joo-yeon immediately pressed clean cloth against the wound to stem the bleeding.
When that wasn’t enough, she used blood-soaked clothing to tightly wrap the area closer to my body.
She pulled with all her strength.
Squeeze—!
Saebom handed Joo-yeon a needle and blue thread.
Yes.
A needle and thread usually used for sewing clothes.
Joo-yeon said something to Saebom, who then took my right hand in his.
With her hands now free, Joo-yeon began stitching the wound.
She swallowed hard, repeatedly pushing the needle through my skin and pulling it out the other side.
After that, I remembered nothing.
It felt like watching a movie while half-asleep.
I could see their figures in my vision, but nothing registered in my mind.
I only felt the ceiling, Joo-yeon, Saebom, and the faint tremors of my body.
Some time passed.
When Saebom finally let go of my hand, I lost consciousness.
“Ahhhh… Aghhh… Hahaha…!”
Kim Dong-gil spat phlegm before bursting into laughter.
Even with a blade pressed against his throat, he didn’t seem to care.
Jin Jae-hee frowned and immediately slashed his right shoulder.
Swick! Splurt.
Blood spurted from his shoulder.
Yet Kim Dong-gil laughed again.
“My stomach’s already torn open… So what’s a shoulder slash gonna change… you dumb… punk…”
His words were slow and pathetic.
Jin Jae-hee withdrew her sword.
She spoke to him.
“I can make it even worse. I can start with your fingernails and teeth, maybe even gouge out your eyes if you ask. Don’t think you need ears, either.”
Swish.
Jin Jae-hee crouched down to meet Kim Dong-gil’s eyes.
Though trembling, he stared back at her without flinching.
“You must be in immense pain right now. I know. You probably just want it to end. You’d beg to die if you could.”
Her voice was as cold as ice.
It carried no emotion.
“I’ve killed plenty of people. Far too many to count. So, I know how to kill without causing pain… From here to here.”
She traced her finger along his neck.
“If I strike this joint in your spine with a single slash, you can die without suffering. This is the last mercy I’ll give you.”
Kim Dong-gil stared blankly at her before breaking into a grin.
Then, he spat.
“Ptoo.”
The blood-mixed saliva he spat stuck to Jae-hee’s right cheek.
The thick saliva trickled down her cheek.
Jin Jae-hee didn’t care and spoke again.
“…How many people’s guts, blood, and spit do you think I’ve had on this face? Did you really think spitting would provoke me?”
Jin Jae-hee sheathed her sword and grabbed a random dagger lying on the ground.
“I’ll start by cutting off your ears.”
“…Pathetic fool.”
“The king can’t be replaced anyway… If you’re not really the king, despite pretending to be until now… Did you hide it just to spite us? It’s only a matter of time.”
Jin Jae-hee kept questioning, but Kim Dong-gil remained silent.
At that moment, Kim Dong-gil thought to himself.
If he couldn’t be at the top, then no one else could be either.
To him, there were only two endings in this place.
Either everyone lived, or everyone died.
In the end, the conclusion was the latter.
Jin Jae-hee, who was about to cut off his ear, suddenly stopped.
Even for Jae-hee, who was now living her second life, the scene unfolding before her was so grotesque and irrational that she could only gape in disbelief.
“Grrrrgghhh…!”
Kim Dong-gil stuck out his tongue.
He was biting down on it, causing it to bleed profusely.
His lower jaw moved side to side, as if it might break, while his bloodshot eyes glared at Jin Jae-hee as though he wanted to kill her.
At the same time, his lips twisted into a faint grin.
Crunch!
He bit his tongue off.
His eyes rolled back, and moments later, he met his end.
Before his death, Jin Jae-hee could do nothing.
She merely withdrew the blade she had been holding to his ear.
The war between the Blue Team and the Red Team was over.
The Red Team suffered heavy casualties.
Out of 32 members, only 12 survived.
However, the Blue Team was completely annihilated.
Not a single one survived, including those trembling from injuries.
Though the Red Team had won, the air was silent.
“Ugh… I killed someone… A person… Ah…”
“Bleagh! Bleaaaagh!”
Half of them were vomiting, and among them were those who collapsed in despair, sobbing where they sat.
Lee Joo-yeon and Lee Saebom were tending to Sion.
Most of the survivors were overwhelmed by guilt for killing someone.
Among those still alive, none had survived without stabbing at least one person.
The sole surviving middle school girl among the three Red Team students stood silently, holding a knife and staring at the corpses.
The bodies were those of friends from neighboring schools, with whom she had formed brief bonds.
Her friends’ bodies had been slashed repeatedly, and their eyes were wide open in death.
Looking at the scene, the girl asked,
“What happens to us now?”
She wasn’t asking anyone in particular.
She just hoped someone would answer.
But there were no “adults,” as society defined them, left here.
They were just fragile beings.
No one answered the girl’s question.
Some only wept, while others held their heads in madness.
At that moment, a commotion erupted in one corner of the site.
“Eeeek! Please, spare me! Spare me!!!”
A man from the Blue Team, who had been pretending to be dead among the pile of corpses, revealed himself.
In front of him stood Kwon Kyung-soo.
The man looked to be in his forties and was completely unscathed.
He clung to Kwon Kyung-soo’s pant leg, pleading.
“Please, spare me, spare me…! I have a middle school daughter! I have one, I do!”
Kwon Kyung-soo couldn’t meet the man’s eyes.
He tightly shut his own and looked away.
The man’s cries became even more desperate.
“L-let’s not do this… Okay? We’re all fellow citizens of South Korea. Do we really… have to go this far? Please…!”
The man began crying like a child.
He sobbed like a child denied a toy in front of their parents.
“Waaah! Waaah… Please… Please…!”
With his eyes shut, Kwon Kyung-soo thought.
Do we really need to keep fighting like this?
The situation is already over, isn’t it?
Kwon Kyung-soo tried to lift the man to his feet.
At that moment, Jin Jae-hee approached the man.
Blood was still dripping from her sword.
Sensing danger, Kwon Kyung-soo stood in her way.
“Wait! There’s no need to harm someone who has already surrendered!”
“Surrender? That was murderous intent just a moment ago. Did you forget? If the roles were reversed, that man would be holding a knife to your neck.”
“But that’s not what happened. This is reality, and unnecessary killing…”
“Unnecessary killing?”
Jin Jae-hee’s rebuttal made the air grow heavy.
She stepped closer to Kwon Kyung-soo.
She spoke firmly.
“Don’t pretend to be righteous. Didn’t you just kill someone earlier? Was that unavoidable? And this is unnecessary?”
“Ah… Ah…”
Kwon Kyung-soo’s face turned pale.
The events from moments ago replayed in his mind.
Jin Jae-hee had singlehandedly slaughtered dozens of Blue Team members.
Kwon Kyung-soo had witnessed it all.
The woman before him was more than human.
In her presence, fear was inevitable.
Jin Jae-hee delivered the final blow to his conscience.
“Don’t be ridiculous. You just want to ease your guilt, don’t you?”
“…”
Kwon Kyung-soo had no response.
He couldn’t answer, nor could he make excuses.
Jin Jae-hee wiped the blood from the corner of her lips with the back of her hand and continued.
“If you understand, step aside. I’ll do the killing.”
She walked past him.
At that moment,
Thwack!
Kwon Kyung-soo grabbed her hand.
Jin Jae-hee stopped in her tracks and glared at him.
“Fine. I won’t justify my killings as unavoidable. Even if this is my way of relieving guilt, I won’t make excuses. But… but this has to stop. I can’t condone any more killing!”
“…Take your childish hero act elsewhere. Let go, or I’ll cut you.”
“I won’t let go. Go ahead, cut my hand off.”
“Do you think I won’t?”
Jin Jae-hee clicked her tongue.
It would have been easy for her to free herself.
She tightened her grip, ready to break free.
She even prepared to slash Kwon Kyung-soo’s arm.
But then, someone froze them all in place.
Squelch!
“Gah! Ack… Urgh…!”
When they turned to look, a Blue Team man was trembling with a knife embedded in his neck.
The person who had stabbed him was none other than the surviving middle school girl from the Red Team.
After stabbing the man, the girl walked away as if nothing had happened.
She approached a shelf in the corner, sat down, and bowed her head again.
Soon, muffled sobs escaped her lips.
They were desperate, sorrowful, and pitiful cries.
Everyone present fell silent at the sight.
They were all monsters now.
Merciless, unfeeling, slaughtering monsters devoid of any trivial compassion or pity.