Chapter 83
“That’s your problem. I’m not stupid enough to let a traitor live.”
Chris answered coldly, stopping just two steps short of the buried bomb.
‘He has no choice but to approach me if he wants to kill me!’
Chris didn’t have any long-range weapons. He could throw stones, but that wouldn’t be enough to take a life. Human life is surprisingly tenacious.
‘Damn it. I chose the wrong side.’
The man had temporarily allied with Chris, only to betray him later to join a powerful team favored to win.
‘F*ck. They used me and then tossed me aside?’
Thanks to him, they had almost killed Chris, but when Chris escaped, they attacked the man who had betrayed Chris for their sake.
As a result, the man lost an arm and an eye, barely escaping with his life. Yet now Chris, whom he had sold out, had returned alive.
“You need information, right? I know where those guys are hiding. I’ll tell you everything!”
Despite the man’s desperate pleas, Chris just gave him a sullen look.
“I don’t care. Attacking their group isn’t efficient. Other people will take care of them.”
Just one step left.
The man lifted his head again, meeting Chris’s deep crimson eyes.
He had allied with Chris to save his own life, but it wasn’t a special relationship. It was merely a strategic choice.
When all the other contestants were dead and only the two of them remained, Chris would undoubtedly attack him without hesitation.
‘A heartless monster.’
Chris was an inhuman monster, devoid of any humanity.
The man was always curious about what a monster like that was fighting for.
“What are you staring at? Ah, do you have some hidden trick?”
“N-no! Please… for the sake of our time together…”
“Don’t give me that crap about bonds.”
Chris scoffed with a short laugh before stopping.
“You must have some hidden card, huh? It’d be dangerous to approach recklessly, right?”
Just one step short, Chris backed off slightly.
Though he was frustrated, the man didn’t show it. If Chris backed off, that was enough.
“Y-yes! I have a trump card. I’ll let you go this once, so get lost!”
“Smells like gunpowder.”
With animalistic senses, Chris took a few more steps back before picking up a rock.
“Did you plant a bomb or something?”
“!”
Having struck the mark, Chris lazily tossed the stone up and down.
“Waiting for me to approach, it must be the kind that explodes when stepped on. Hmm, let’s see.”
Chris narrowed his eyes, judging the distance.
“It won’t reach where you are, will it? Then I’ll have to target a different bomb.”
“A…A different bomb?”
The man frantically scanned his surroundings. The well-hidden bomb was invisible to the naked eye.
The only reason he knew its location was from glimpsing another participant’s map detailing it.
“Don’t be ridiculous. As if there’s another one!”
That map had marked just a single bomb.
“Oh? We’ll find out soon enough if it’s real or not.”
Chris threw the stone. It arced through the air, passing by the bomb and the man.
‘This is just mind games!’
For an instant, the man gulped. Though he trusted the information he had, he could not let his guard down against Chris, perceptive enough to sniff out the bomb’s scent.
Thud. After an eternity, when the rock finally hit the ground, the man instinctively squeezed his eyes shut.
But nothing happened.
The man opened his bloodshot eyes wide, twisting his mouth into a sneer.
“Ha! You were just toying with me, weren’t yo—”
At that moment, the buried bomb exploded. With no time to react, the powerful blast flung the man’s body like a ragdoll.
Debris pierced his body. The searing pain made him nearly lose consciousness.
“Ughhh…”
Forcing his mangled body upright, he found Chris had approached through the spreading smoke to squat before him, their eyes meeting directly.
“Didn’t I tell you not to betray me?”
“Hnghh…”
“If you’re going to betray someone, do it when you have a chance of winning. Why go out of your way to get yourself killed?”
“Kahh…”
Blood gushed out. The man flailed his hands as if trying to gather the blood he had lost.
His vision kept blurring, the pain gradually numbing.
Instinctively, he realized there was no escaping death.
“Damn…you…May your family die and your homeland perish…”
Mustering all his strength, the man spat out a curse.
“Everything precious to you… you’ll lose it all. A monster like you… doesn’t deserve… happiness!”
“That’s funny.”
Chris ignored the man’s words and continued.
“I already have, you know?”
The last thing the man heard was a hollow laugh.
Then the man’s breath stopped. His eyes, unable to close, would never reflect anything again.
No one would mourn him or collect his body. A fittingly wretched end for a traitor.
“Seems there’s no one to be trusted in this world.”
Chris sighed. Though it wasn’t his first betrayal, his heart felt heavy. Sadness? Disappointment? Or maybe despair?
No, none of those indulgent emotions. He had expected such a day would come eventually.
Even if they had fought together, if it came down to the last two, they would have turned their weapons on each other.
In that moment, hesitation means defeat. In that sense, betrayal may have been the rational choice.
So the feeling that filled his chest was likely nothing more than a sense of futility.
“Hah…”
Chris let out a sigh-like laugh. It was all meaningless now.
Then he felt a stinging pain under his jaw. Brushing his jawline, Chris frowned.
“Tch.”
Blood dripped from a long cut. It was the last mark left by the man.
“Getting injured by such a weakling… I must be losing my touch.”
Perhaps it was he who had hesitated after all. He scoffed bitterly.
Chris, a participant in the Sabbath Game, had spent some time in another dimension—an exceptional occurrence for the closed-off game.
He did not know how that was possible, nor could he recall how he had crossed over or anything before arriving there.
It was a cocktail bar in the middle of a forest, a place so peaceful it made him yawn.
Chris had done part-time work there to assist the bartender who saved his dying self.
That time felt so dreamlike that he doubted it was reality and thought it might be a hallucination.
Yet it had undoubtedly been real, as evidenced by the surgical scars on his body.
“That was unnecessary time after all.”
Chris muttered through gritted teeth.
The Sabbath Game, which granted the final survivor’s absolute wish.
A few winters ago, when Chris was mired in despair, a demon appeared, offering him a chance to participate.
“I will grant any wish.”
“But only if you become the last one standing.”
It’s often said that making a deal with a demon requires selling your soul.
But it seemed demons had grown weary of human souls, demanding a different kind of entertainment instead.
The rules were simple. Kill and survive.
Stand atop a mountain of corpses and have your wish granted. Everyone desperately desired that.
There were 50 participants in the Sabbat Game. The souls of the 49 dead were sacrificed to make any wish possible.
The blood spilled in battle completed the sacrificial Sabbath ritual to revere the demons.
This age-old death game had already claimed over half the original participants.
The last time Chris checked, there were 26 survivors remaining.
With one more dead before his eyes, that left 25.
‘I wonder if there were any changes while I was gone?’
Chris no longer felt anything about such events. He remained indifferent even as flies and maggots swarmed around the bodies.
“I’ll take the weapons.”
Looting corpses for necessary supplies was no longer revolting either.
He couldn’t bring the dagger Sena had given him. Items from other dimensions weren’t accepted. He had to be grateful they at least allowed his clothes.
The moment he retrieved a dull dagger and a sharpened wooden stake from his belongings, an explosion erupted nearby.
“!”
Chris instinctively rolled away, but before he could catch his bearings, bombs detonated in a chain.
“Damn it. I thought they just ran away, but they led me here.”
Such precise explosions weren’t the work of the traitor. Only one participant could pull this off.
“The Bomber must have changed territory.”
Chris’s face twisted in frustration. It seemed the flow had shifted while he was idling in another dimension.
As the prolonged battle dragged on, some had settled bases to mount defensive stands.
The Bomber was one such person, setting up explosives as fortifications across her territory.
Everyone hoped someone else would deal with her.
‘A woman who long held her position by the cliff. If she moved, the dynamics have significantly changed.’
Bombs erupted without pause, the thunderous roars deafening. Chris seemed to suffer temporary hearing loss, his ears were not functioning properly.
“Damn it.”
Though lacerated and pierced by shrapnel from the blasts, Chris grit his teeth and ran.
‘I need to get out of here.’
Each detonation flung his body mercilessly. His tattered flesh screamed in agony, but he did not stop.
If he faltered here, the next explosion would tear him to shreds.
After an eternity of seconds, the bombardment suddenly ceased.
Either he had escaped the Bomber’s territory, or she deemed it wasteful to use more bombs to kill him.
“Haah.…..”
Leaning against a crumbled wall, Chris took a deep breath. He pulled a nail out of his leg, causing blood to gush out.
“Homemade bombs are always the worst.”
Chris let out a hollow laugh and tore his shirt to bandage the wound.
Swoosh—
Adding insult to injury, rain began to pour. His already heavy body felt even heavier, but the cold rain cleared his mind.
He had to keep moving. Spending the night outside meant not waking up the next day.
‘I need to find shelter.’
Chris trudged onward with leaden steps.
🫧
In the vast, desolate desert, gusts occasionally sent sand swirling through the tranquil expanse.
“What is life, really?”
There are countless dimensions, each with numerous people like grains of sand.
Staring at the mountain of sand made everything feel meaningless.
‘Is this because I paid my subscription fee yesterday?’
Those coins weren’t even real money to me, yet being charged still left me vaguely unsettled.
“I get it now. It’s the feeling of a squirrel whose carefully hoarded acorns were stolen. Ah, life…”
Jingle.
Resting my chin on the bar counter, immersed in such existential musings, a sound resonated through the scenery.
🥂
Thank you for reading! ♡
