-Whoooom...!
Suddenly, I felt the ground beneath my feet grow heavy.
How should I put it? It was like my body was slowly being dragged downward.
-THUD!
Soon, that force drove me to my knees.
I strained desperately to force my muscles to move, but my blood vessels burst and my organs collapsed.
It was hard even to breathe.
“Gravity: Ton!”
Along with the shout of the man whose greatsword had broken, my entire body was instantly smashed into the floor.
“Guh!”
-CRUNCH... CRASH!
My whole body shattered into pieces and scattered.
But soon, the pieces of my body squirmed back together, and I rose after restoring my original flesh.
“What the hell...!”
“Damn it!”
-WHOOSH!
Then Seo Jin-woo, the master of the blue spear who had been sent flying far away, abandoned his spear and rushed at me.
With the tips of his fingers extended, he lowered himself and lunged at me just as my body had barely finished restoring itself.
“Spatial Severance: Hand!”
-SLASH!
He raked across my chest.
“...Guh!”
Along the path of his fingers, five branches of dark space were severed,
and my organs, bones, skin, and blood all spilled out and were lost.
“Hup!”
Then he quickly thrust forward the hand he had pulled back and punched me in the face.
-CRACK!
My skull caved in, and my left eye flew far away.
The result was death, needless to say.
But.
-SPLAT!
A head began growing from the left eye that had flown away.
And just like my tongue had, hair slowly grew, clothes sprouted, my neck emerged, and I regained my original body.
“...What kind of nonsense is this...?!”
That shock was familiar now.
[ Ding! ]
[ Skill: Intimidation activates! ]
Just like the monsters in the tower had, the Hunters began backing away one by one, seized by fear.
And at that moment.
“Infernal Flame!”
-WHOOSH!
“!”
At one man’s shout, I lifted my head toward the scorching heat I felt in the air.
I saw a black flame falling toward me.
An intense heat.
Soon, a fragment of that flame touched the arm I had unconsciously raised to cover my face.
“...?!”
The flame that began as a point soon became a line,
then a surface, wrapping around my entire body.
“G-Gyaaaaaaaaah!”
My skin and blood vessels burned, then regenerated, over and over.
My eyeballs evaporated, then grew back again,
and my bones were revealed before being hidden beneath the skin that sprouted over them.
“F-Fuck. What the hell is this!!!”
“It is a flame that never goes out. For a regenerator like you, it is the perfect death and pain!”
“Bullshit, fuck!!!”
Because of the pain, nothing but curses came out.
It felt as if my body would slowly turn to ash, but because my regeneration speed was so fast, it never reached that point.
If I could just become ash, if I could disappear as ash, I would grow back from the beginning.
“Grrk, gyaaaaaaah!”
The pain would not stop.
Because my brain and nerves were screaming, I stopped moving and could only shriek in place.
“Now! Everyone!”
“I know, fuck!”
The Hunters did not miss that opening.
“Gravity: Ton!”
-CRUNCH!
“Gah!”
The gravity that had already crushed my body came down on me while my entire body was burning.
As if a giant were stomping on me from above, my cheek warped while my face ground against the floor.
“Vacuum Wave!”
-BOOM! CRUNCH!
My organs burst, and pieces of flesh flew out of my mouth.
“Emerald Dagger: Corrosion!”
-STAB! STAB, STAB!
Green daggers flew in and lodged themselves in my body, and I began rotting slowly from those spots.
“F-Fuck...!”
And those parts were burning forever, too.
Indescribable pain kept feeding into me until my eyes rolled back.
Then a man in golden armor took a stance as if he were drawing a bow in archery, and a golden bow formed in the empty air.
“Bow of the Holy Spirit!”
Then he released the right hand drawing the bowstring.
-SWISH!
A golden arrow flew toward me.
-STAB!
It pierced my forehead exactly.
“...Ghk!”
An unknowable discomfort.
As if inflammation had spread through my entire body, a cold, aching pain swept from my head to my toes all at once.
“F...uck...!”
I could feel it instantly.
That fucking bastard in the golden armor.
Whatever it was, he was clearly the polar opposite of this ‘Curse of Immortality.’
The gravity crushing me down,
the vacuum bursting me from within,
the corrosion slowly rotting my outside.
Even more than this endlessly burning fire.
“G-Gyaaaaaaaaaaaaaah!”
More than anything else, it tormented me with pain.
“...Isn’t that thing a complete monster?”
“Insane... He still won’t die after all this?”
The Hunters looked at me with horrified eyes and whispered among themselves.
Who are they calling a monster?
Sure, my whole body is burning and rotting, I am crushed against the floor, spitting up my entrails, and there is a golden arrow stuck in my head.
And sure, I still am not dying.
But who made me like this?
“Do something, fuck!!!”
I shouted at the invisible curse, at the ‘Skill Window.’
[ Ding! ]
[ Death Detection activates! ]
As if answering me, Death Detection activated.
[ An eternally unextinguishing flame is interfering with Immortality and resurrection! ]
[ Regeneration is temporarily halted! ]
What?
That was possible?
And along with that notification window.
“G-Gyaaaah...!”
The muscles and nerves throughout my body burned away, and soon, I saw my right arm reduced to nothing but bone.
“F-Fuck...!”
Am I... dying?
Will my regeneration stop like this and end here?
My right arm, its bone exposed, gradually disappeared from the tip down to the bone and turned to ash, and my entire body became bone like my right arm, then turned to ash.
-Crackle, crackle...!
Soon, the flame that would never go out burned away everything I was and died down, leaving only the ash of what had all burned and vanished.
“...Is he dead?”
I heard some Hunter mutter.
Am I dying?
Is this the end?
Something like a laugh, yet not a laugh, rose inside me....
No, wait.
Only ash is left, so how am I still thinking?
And at that moment.
[ Ding! ]
[ Regeneration resumes! ]
-Vwoooooom....
From the ash.
From a single speck of dust.
Not from a tongue, not from an eyeball.
From that single speck of dust, my body regenerated again....
“...Fuck. What a ridiculous, insane bastard.”
I had a body again.
“...What a load of bullshit.”
I spat the curse.
Right.
My curse was not the ‘Curse of Regeneration.’
It was the ‘Curse of Immortality.’
So for the sake of eternal Immortality and resurrection, it could even stop regeneration for a moment?
Just as that Hunter had said, it was an insane curse.
I briefly checked the sensations in my hands and feet, wiggling them.
“...Are you done?”
I glared at the Hunters with eyes full of rage.
[ Ding! ]
[ Intimidation activates more strongly! ]
“...Guh!”
“Fuck...!”
I could see the cold sweat on the Hunters.
I could see their tense muscles and their faint trembling.
There was only one person it did not work on.
“A curse....”
A man quietly murmuring to himself.
He was probably the leader, the man in golden armor.
“...Phew.”
I took one breath and assessed the state of the battle.
“Fuck, fuck... Someone help me with this!”
Oh Yuk-il was still sprawled on the ground, a knife stuck in his eye and both wrists dangling.
“...Grrk.”
Lee Cheol-heon’s right fist had been completely crushed,
but he was looking this way with a hardened gaze.
“Damn it!”
Seo Jin-woo had set down his shattered spear and was looking this way with his fists clenched.
Then there was the man whose greatsword had broken, but who handled gravity-type magic with his hands, the woman who had burst my organs with vacuum, the woman who threw weapons wrapped in magic, and the man in golden armor.
So there were roughly four or five still in one piece.
“Where do you intend to go?”
The man in golden armor asked me.
“...Huh?”
What does he mean, where am I going?
“This is an arrest. I am asking where you are heading, that you would go so far as to refuse being taken into custody.”
“You crazy bastard. Is there anyone who wants to be dragged to prison?”
“That is not my question.”
The golden armor shook his head and said, “With power and abilities on your level, ordinary trials and the logic of the law are likely meaningless. You possess an ability of that caliber.”
“Are you complimenting me? You’re embarrassing me.”
“So, what do you want to do, and where are you trying to go? That is my question.”
“......”
Well. That was...
“I’m going to die.”
“To die?”
“Yeah.”
I slowly let go of my fighting stance and said, “For a little over the past month, my life as an ordinary person was completely destroyed.”
After I got my hands on that Curse of Immortality.
“My wife divorced me, and my father died.”
I became a wanted criminal.
“But the bigger problem is that none of that matters anymore.”
I became a bearer of the Curse of Immortality.
“Even if I’m stabbed with a knife.”
Even if my neck is chopped off.
“Even if my organs burst.”
Even if my bones are crushed.
“Even if every last nerve evaporates.”
Even if my body is chopped to pieces.
“Even if only my tongue is left.”
Even if an eyeball flies out.
“Even if I turn to ash, I come back to life. Can you even imagine it? My life?”
“......”
“That’s why I was merely climbing the tower to find a way for me to die.”
“...I see.”
The man in golden armor nodded and said, “My name is Bae Hyeong-seok.”
“All of a sudden?”
“At any rate, it seems this battle cannot be established. It seems we have no way to kill you or forcibly take you into custody.”
“...What?”
As if the strength had left me, I relaxed my shoulders.
“Wait! Why are you deciding that on your own, fuck!”
“No matter what anyone says, I’m killing that bastard!”
The woman who used magic spat out a curse, and Oh Yuk-il shouted with the knife still stuck in his eye.
“...I’m telling you, if you can kill me, please do.”
“Look at this man’s attitude. He does not bear malice or intend to kill anyone.”
“Thanks for noticing.”
I was genuinely grateful.
Of course, not too grateful.
“Moreover... judging by what I just heard, it seems the killing of the Hunters from Lee Cheol-heon’s Lotus Guild was also a similar situation.”
“Lee Cheol-heon? Lotus?”
“The first three Hunters you killed.”
“Ah? Oh. Well, it was my first time....”
I scratched the back of my head and said, “Those three are the only ones I killed. I’ve never killed any people aside from those bastards.”
“Do you regret it?”
“Well, was I going mad? If I regret it, I do, but even if I went back, the result would probably be the same.”
I spent three straight sleepless days doing nothing but dying.
How could someone like me have escaped from there?
“I see. Understood. That answers my question. I will return now.”
“...Really?”
“I have lost my reason to capture you, and to be honest, I lack the confidence as well.”
After they swarmed me like a pack of dogs and tried to capture and kill me, now he was saying this?
“As for legal measures concerning you, the Hunters and I will discuss them again. For now, I hope a more human conversation can pass between us the next time we meet.”
“...Well, do whatever.”
“Ah. And.”
As if he had suddenly remembered, the golden armor, no, Bae Hyeong-seok, asked me, “Do you know Infinity?”
“...Infinity?”
I rolled that somehow familiar name around in my head.
‘This place that Infinity prepared was precious indeed.’
“Ah.”
The name that purple crystal had mentioned.
“Judging by your reaction, it seems it is not a name you do not know.”
“No, well. If you ask whether I know it or not, I guess I don’t....”
“He—no. She gave me a message.”
“To me?”
The man in golden armor nodded and said, “That she herself is waiting for you, Yoo Da-huin.”
“...Huh?”
For a moment, I lost my words.
“...Who is she? Where is she waiting?”
“I know neither. I merely conveyed the message I was told to convey.”
“What the hell, then there’s no point in conveying it, is there?”
It was so absurd that I let out a small snort of laughter.
“That is true.”
Bae Hyeong-seok also gave a small laugh and said,
“What the hell, are they making peace with each other now?”
“It’s five billion won, five billion! The money on that man!”
“Then why don’t you all try catching him yourselves? As I just said, I have no confidence.”
“......”
“......”
The Hunters who had been shouting at Bae Hyeong-seok fell silent.
Certainly.
I was confident I could subdue everyone here, even if it took some time....
“By the way.”
“...Huh?”
As if it were the last thing, Bae Hyeong-seok asked me, “...Why do you not kill us?”
“What?”
“I am asking why you do not kill us, as you did those Hunters.”
“Ah.”
He meant those S-grade Hunters.
“To be honest, can you not kill us? Everyone here, I mean.”
“...Well, that’s....”
I scratched the back of my head again and said, “...I told you. I regret killing them. I don’t intend to kill anyone meaninglessly again.”
If there had been a way to escape that place, it did not have to be murder.
At the time, I simply did not have that level of strength.
“I see.”
As if he accepted that, Bae Hyeong-seok nodded.
“Then leave.”
“...For real?”
Wasn’t there some emergency warrant or whatever out for me?
Could I really just leave like this?
-Murmur, murmur....
Sure enough, only then did the murmur of the crowd surrounding us enter my eyes.
Had there been this many people here?
Everyone had their phones out and was filming this way.
“We are in front of many people. Nothing good will come of letting this conversation drag on any longer. Let us meet again next time.”
“Hey! Bae Hyeong-seok! Why do you keep deciding this on your own...?”
“I will say it again.”
Bae Hyeong-seok cut off the woman who had been wielding the magical armament and left her with a warning.
“If you are confident, do as you please. I only said that ‘I’ am leaving.”
“...Fuck!”
-CRACK!
The woman drove the lightning spear in her hand into the ground, then turned away as if furious.
“...Ahem.”
“Damn it.”
The other Hunters also turned away one by one and left.
“You fucking bastard! Let go! Let me go!”
Only Oh Yuk-il, with a knife stuck in his eye, screamed at the top of his lungs and struggled with all his might, but Bae Hyeong-seok slung him over his shoulder and moved away.
“...What the hell. That was really anticlimactic.”
Just like that, the fight with the Hunters, and fairly strong-looking ones at that, came to an end for now.
-Click! Click! Click!
At the barrage of camera shutters rushing toward me, “...Guh!”
I hurriedly pulled up my hood and put strength into my legs.
-BOOM!
Using my increased Strength and Agility,
I quickly got far, far away from that place.