Chapter 12
I shouted frantically.
“You crazy bastard! Why are you trying to avenge my mom when even I’m not doing it?!”
Something welled up inside me, I wasn’t sure if it was anger or tears.
This is why I didn’t like novels.
Boring! Frustrating!! Annoying!!!
The tentacle monster stretched its giant, slimy tentacle toward Baek Yi-heon.
Baek Yi-heon barely dodged it by throwing himself to the side.
Right behind him, the giant mole was chomping and chewing its food.
Once it finishes eating, it’ll soon look for other prey.
My face turned pale as I muttered.
“Damn it. No. Even if you’re the main character, this isn’t right…”
Baek Yi-heon pulled out a small MacGyver knife.
“Don’t you remember the radio broadcast?! Human weapons and attacks don’t work on these monsters!!”
But Baek Yi-heon didn’t budge.
That serious expression wasn’t a joke, nor was it the look of someone who had given up on life.
This man was really going to fight. And he intended to win.
Wow.
Wow! How frustrating!!
If it weren’t such an urgent situation, I would have pounded my chest with both hands like King Kong.
While the tentacle monster was occupied with Baek Yi-heon, the mole, having finished its meal, slowly moved its massive body toward where I was.
“Baek Yi-heon-ssi!”
“Don’t try to stop m—”
“Then, good luck.”
“…What?”
Vroom!
I floored the accelerator and drove away from those monsters.
“…..”
I could see Baek Yi-heon’s dumbfounded face gaping in the side mirror.
‘Sorry. My life is too precious to me.’
I kept my foot on the accelerator and left that place.
✦
“Gah!”
Yi-heon let out a harsh groan as if he was about to spill his guts.
He was suspended in mid-air, bound by a giant tentacle.
The monster holding him with its tentacle seemed to be postponing its meal to deal with the mole-like creature in front of it.
With no prey left but himself, the mole and the tentacle monster began to face off.
Their strength seemed evenly matched, but the mole had a slight advantage.
The tentacle monster’s tentacles, which had been impervious to his attacks, were easily torn by the mole’s sharp claws, just like a jellyfish.
Now, of the nine tentacles, only two remained. And one of them couldn’t move because it was holding him.
‘Will I be eaten by the mole or the octopus?’
Yi-heon smiled bitterly even as death approached.
He had already resolved to die while trying to save people, so it didn’t matter.
But, one thing.
‘I wonder if she escaped safely.’
Thinking of those dark eyes that always tried to appear indifferent, a strange ache filled a corner of his heart.
Those eyes kept glancing toward her mother and sister while pretending not to.
Those cat-like eyes pretended to be calm even while trembling slightly.
‘I wanted to protect her…’
But if she was able to flee after predicting this miserable situation, her situational awareness must be quite good.
She’ll probably live well.
As the tentacle tightened, cutting off his oxygen supply, his consciousness began to fade.
Perhaps this was better than being sucked into the mole’s terrible teeth and ground up like in a blender…
Vroom—!
It was then that he heard the sound of a harsh acceleration.
‘…Noah?’
Why did she come back? He thought she was smarter than that.
A green SUV charged fearlessly towards the mole monster.
The tentacle monster was the first to notice the human inside the car.
The tentacle that was facing the mole lunged towards the car.
The green car zigzagged skillfully, barely avoiding the tentacles as it sped along.
A window opened.
Whoosh—!
A familiar bright red cardigan was thrown onto the mole monster.
Just as the car immediately sped up with a vroom, moving away from the monster.
Splat—!
The tentacle chasing the green car rushed straight towards the red cardigan, and with it, pierced through the mole monster behind it.
“What…”
Before he could grasp what was happening, the mountain-sized mole that had been pierced by the tentacle suddenly vanished without a trace.
There wasn’t even a corpse left.
The tentacle monster writhed stupidly in the air for a moment, trying to remove the cardigan stuck to its tentacle.
The bright red cardigan, now soaked in blood, was torn to shreds in mid-air.
Vroom—! Screech!
Taking advantage of that brief moment, the car door opened with driving skills bordering on miraculous, and a pale, thin hand shot out to quickly grab something that had fallen where the mole had been.
Then, it sped away before the tentacle could reach it.
Zigzag, zigzag.
As if taunting the monster, the driver’s window opened, and a familiar voice shouted.
“Catch!”
Yi-heon skillfully caught the long object thrown towards him.
“Do whatever you want with it—get your revenge or become prey yourself!”
With those words, the car backed away and disappeared.
“What is this…?”
Yi-heon, with a bewildered look, soon realized what he was holding.
It was the long claw that had been attached to the thick foot of the mole monster until just now.
“They say human weapons and attacks don’t work on those monsters!!”
“…Just now, they said human weapons don’t work.”
In other words, it meant that weapons from those monsters could work even if handled by humans.
He had just confirmed that monsters could attack each other.
If attacks work, dealing with this half-formed octopus monster would be a piece of cake.
“Let’s do some octopus hunting.”
Yi-heon gripped the claw like a sword and pulled up one corner of his mouth.
✦
“As expected of the protagonist.”
I parked the car as far away as possible and watched the battle scene through the window.
Even with a weapon, how could a non-awakened person with just a low-level item take on a Drank tentacle monster barehanded?
“At this point, he’s just not human…”
I muttered to myself as I tightly bound my thigh, which was still oozing blood, with pieces of clothing.
Just moments ago, I had soaked Baek Yi-heon’s cardigan in my blood and thrown it.
Monsters can detect human life energy. And the freshest blood contained the most of that energy.
And what remained after the dirty ground monster disappeared was the ‘Giant Mole’s Claw’.
When you kill a monster, it randomly drops items along with magic stones.
It’s the medium left behind that the evil god used to dedicate monsters to this world.
Baek Yi-heon, who had obtained a weapon effective against monsters, was literally flying.
Running at an incredible speed, he used the collapsed bunker wall as a stepping stone to jump up.
And in his swinging hand, the monster’s tentacles were cut off like slicing an octopus.
“If he’s like this before awakening… what will he be like after awakening?”
With all its legs cut off, the monster was left with just a round, squishy body, looking quite pathetic.
‘Is this the monster that has been terrorizing people for the past week…’
Just as a bitter reflection was about to come over me.
Baek Yi-heon leaped from his spot and plunged the ‘Giant Mole’s Claw’ into the monster’s body.
Screeeeech!
The monster fell to the ground with a scream as bizarre as itself.
Soon, its massive form, as big as a house, dissipated and disappeared as if it had never existed.
Only a shining stone about the size of a baby’s fist remained in its place.
‘It’s done!’
I slowly opened the car door and came out only after confirming it was safe.
‘It’s over…’
Baek Yi-heon, panting, looked at me with a bright expression.
But I passed by him and approached the ruins of the collapsed bunker.
The sight of the huge collapsed rocks looked just like a crudely finished grave.
No, it’s not just like a grave, it is a grave.
‘Mom’s grave.’
Inside lies the body of that middle-aged woman who tried to protect her child until the end.
Two mothers.
Surviving children.
The same result. But the process was entirely different.
It would be a lie to say there wasn’t a glimmer of hope.
That maybe mom actually loved me deep down, that she just couldn’t overcome the gaslighting around her.
“It’s fine. Forget it. It’s over now…”
I survived.
In this damned original work.
Just as the novel began, just as the destruction I had been wishing for started, I survived the fate of an extra who dies and disappears!
“Wahahahaha!”
Before I knew it, a huge laugh burst out of my mouth.
I tilted my head back to the sky and laughed loudly like that.
“Hahaha! Haha! …Hic, sniff…”
Mom died.
Only now that my survival is certain, that fact feels clearly real.
And, at this moment, I find myself utterly dreadful.
“Sniff, hiccup… No, no. Sniff, don’t cry. Haha… Laugh. I said laugh…”
Mom abandoned me until the very end.
Not just me, but even the adopted daughter she pretended to cherish so much.
In the end, she only cared about herself the most.
“Sniff… hic. Sob…“
It was then, as I was crying with my head tilted back.
Kuung—!
“…Huh?”
[In a moment, the universe split in two.]
A deep voice of unknown origin resonated throughout heaven and earth.
[A new holy war begins.]
✦
Thank you for reading! ♡
