Chapter 36
My hand pierced through Seo Da-hee’s abdomen.
Red blood spilled from her mouth.
A nauseating pulse of life throbbed from my hand.
“Ah…….”
Her hand grabbed mine.
As she slowly turned her head, my reflection appeared in her fading eyes.
I stared back at her with a hardened expression.
In the light that was slowly leaving her eyes, indescribable emotions swirled.
“Why…… you……?”
Instead of answering, I pulled out the hand that had pierced her abdomen.
With a wet, slashing sound, her body collapsed to the ground.
Red blood soaked into the earth.
The life in her eyes gradually faded away.
“Keulk keulk keulk, so you thought this would be your grave and dared to resist. How pitiful.”
The Demon, who had now returned to his human form, nudged her face lightly with his foot.
She had raised her shield to protect me until the very end.
And that was “pitiful,” he said.
As if sensing my boiling emotions, Lia’s voice rang in my head.
[Husband, endure it. You know this is only the beginning. We must deal with the situation first.]
Lia was right.
I looked toward the creature that had taken on the old man’s form.
“There’s no time. We move now.”
I pressed the signal device I had brought.
The moment I pressed that button, the emergency signal would be sent to the Student Council and to Instructor Kang Jae-seok, the advisor.
Or perhaps—
Yoo Iseo might have already realized that Seo Da-hee was dead.
I looked down at the bloodstained name tag on Seo Da-hee’s chest.
The Student Council’s badges were equipped with communication, location tracking, and life-sign monitoring.
I deactivated the Gauntlet wrapped around my hand and activated the Asura Divine Art.
Raging flames erupted, reflecting the turmoil in my heart as they burned through the tree-lined path.
The Demon’s face twisted from the scorching heat.
“What an unpleasant aura your martial art carries.”
“Enough talk. Attack me.”
“Very well.”
The creature’s body morphed once again, and its enormous hand swung toward me.
Its claws tore across my chest.
With excruciating pain, a chunk of flesh was ripped away.
“Must you really go this far to wound yourself?”
“The woman I killed was strong. A shallow wound wouldn’t make the deception believable.”
“Truly ruthless.”
Saying that, the creature slashed at me several more times.
Soon, wounds that looked like I had fought a fierce battle covered my body.
The only thing left to do was make it look like a desperate struggle.
“Come at me with everything you’ve got.”
“Understood.”
The Demon let out a thunderous roar and charged at me.
When its massive tail swept across the ground, the earth was gouged apart.
But the attack, though powerful, was not threatening.
I had already learned its attack patterns while watching its fight with Seo Da-hee.
I leapt to evade, then closed the distance in an instant, driving my fist—burning with the heat of the Asura Divine Art—into the Demon’s abdomen.
“Kuwoooargh!”
It let out a pained howl and glared at me.
“If you hit me properly like this, how am I supposed to pretend to flee?”
“You tore open my chest as well, didn’t you?”
The creature lunged forward as if to crush me in its embrace.
At that moment, a massive spear of lightning struck down from above.
A horrific screech burst from the Demon’s mouth.
“Kuuaaaargh!”
Sensing it was time to flee, it quickly retreated into the darkness.
Then, beams of light rained down from the sky and struck the ground.
From within that lightning emerged Yoo Iseo.
Her hair, pure white, shimmered under the storm as she ran toward me with a shocked expression.
“What in the world happened here? That wound—what is that!?”
Then, her gaze fell upon Seo Da-hee’s lifeless body lying on the ground.
“Ah…….”
Yoo Iseo’s eyes trembled violently.
Her breathing became ragged as she stumbled toward Seo Da-hee.
Her knees gave out, trembling uncontrollably.
“Da…… Da-hee……?”
Before the cold corpse of Seo Da-hee, Yoo Iseo collapsed to the ground.
With trembling hands, she pulled Seo Da-hee into her arms.
“W-what is this…… Ah, ah…….”
Her voice quivered, unable to form complete words.
As she stared at the gaping hole in Seo Da-hee’s chest, tears welled up in her eyes.
Then, that sorrow and pain—too deep to be spoken—burst forth as a scream.
She howled like a wounded beast.
“Ah, uaaah…… Uaaaaah, no…… Uaaaaaaaah!”
The burning path.
There, the cry of a girl who had lost her family echoed through the night.
Rumble—!
As if reacting to her grief,
the once-quiet night sky began to flash with light.
Dark clouds slowly gathered, and rain began to pour.
Within moments, the downpour drenched my body.
I stood motionless in the rain until—
Instructor Kang Jae-seok, Ha Yoon, and Park Siwoo, having received the signal, arrived at the scene.
The first to arrive was Instructor Kang Jae-seok.
Facing the horrific scene before him, he approached me.
“Your wounds are severe. You must be treated immediately.”
“……”
“Hurry. You’ve already lost too much blood. At this rate, your life will be in danger as well.”
As well.
Those words from Instructor Kang Jae-seok made my feet feel even heavier.
Yoo Iseo sat numbly, clutching Seo Da-hee’s body as she wept.
All of this— was a tragedy I had brought upon myself.
* * *
Instructor Kang Jae-seok handed things over to Park Siwoo and a few others, then dragged me off himself for treatment.
The place he took me to was none other than the instructors’ dormitory.
“Chun Ga-eun! Chun Ga-eun!”
He knocked as if he would break the door down, and before long the room’s door rattled and opened irritably.
“You crazy bastard, at this hour…!”
Her face twisted like a demon’s as she puffed and glared at Instructor Kang Jae-seok, then her gaze met mine beside him.
To be honest, my condition looked awful by any objective measure.
Because I had protected myself with the bare minimum mana, my wounds weren’t immediately mortal… but still—
The large claw marks across my chest.
At a glance it looked like blood was pouring out and perhaps even my organs. It was a wound that made one worry.
Her face went pale at the sight.
“Don’t bring corpses into my room!”
“Can’t you see I’m standing? I’m alive. I took a lethal hit from a Demon. I need treatment right away.”
“Then call 119 and get a top-tier healer here at once…! For now, get him inside immediately.”
So I was carried straight into her room and laid on the bed.
She tore off my shirt and inspected the wound carefully.
“That’s nasty, fatal. You’re keeping your wits together well.”
Warm energy gathered in her hands as she said that.
“I’ll deal with the chest wound first—it's the most urgent.”
When her hand touched the wound, warming energy seeped in.
The bleeding began to stop, and the torn flesh slowly knit back together.
Sweat beaded on her forehead.
It had to be that way.
In this world, healers needed to handle mana with as much precision as most mages.
Treating someone’s wounds consumed more spirit energy than most imagined.
It was like performing surgery using only magical power, without tools.
Without tremendous mana control, one couldn’t even attempt healing.
She wiped her sweat away and sighed.
“I’ve stabilized the fatal wound for now. His life shouldn’t be in immediate danger, but things aren’t great. A blood transfusion is mandatory, and the smaller cuts need treating before they get infected.”
“That’s a relief.”
“So what happened?”
“Well……”
Kang Jae-seok chose his words and briefly explained the situation.
The school nurse’s face contorted when she heard it.
“So did you catch that Demon?”
“Not yet.”
“And Iseo…?”
“……”
She drew a deep breath, took a cigarette from somewhere, and put it to her mouth.
“You’re in front of a student. You should refrain from smoking…”
“If you’re going to nag me, get out. My mood’s awful right now.”
“……Fine.”
Kang Jae-seok nodded and left the room.
She really did want to scold him.
Cigarette smoke thickly filled the nurse’s room.
“Is that tasty?”
At my question she furrowed her brows.
She pulled the cigarette from her mouth and asked,
“Tobacco?”
I nodded slowly, and she grimaced.
“Why, do you want to smoke too? You just died and came back—don’t you know cigarettes are poison for a patient?”
“You’re smoking in front of a patient, though. Secondhand smoke is still smoking, right?”
“You little— you’re rendering me speechless. But with the way the world is, how am I supposed to last without smoking?”
“……”
I couldn’t deny it.
Honestly, I wanted a cigarette too.
A brief silence passed.
In the end she raised her hands as if admitting defeat.
“Sigh, only this once. I’m already half-dead anyway.”
The school nurse clicked her tongue and shoved the cigarette she’d been smoking into my mouth.
Thick smoke traveled down my throat and filled my lungs.
“Cough, cough, hack.”
Coughing burst out from the smoke filling my lungs.
My throat stung and blood mixed into the coughs.
Aside from the wounds, I had never smoked before—my body had been clean.
“You brat, a student smoking. So? How does it taste?”
“It’s true—tastes like crap.”
She snatched the cigarette from my mouth and brought it back to her own.
“Right? It really does taste like garbage.”
While I rested in the school nurse’s room, the ambulance she called transported me to the hospital.
Surgery began as soon as we arrived, and real treatment started in earnest.
After the operation I woke up in a hospital room and looked around.
Someone was watching me from beside my bed.
“Oh, you’re awake.”
“Berid.”
An unpleasant face greeted me.
A smile spread across his features.
“You exceeded expectations on the mission. Truly, Pandemonium’s finest fixer.”
“How did things go?”
Seeing his face made bile rise in my throat.
He was the root of all this. Seo Da-hee’s death had happened because of his ambition.
He spoke in a nauseating voice.
“All went smoothly. The Demon that aided the mission escaped via the route I provided. Seo Da-hee’s death was handled as an unfortunate accident.”
“How did Yoo Iseo and Park Siwoo react?”
He smiled and showed me his phone.
About twenty missed calls were displayed.
Those were calls Berid had made to Yoo Iseo.
“She’s gone off saying she’ll rip the Demon that killed Seo Da-hee apart with her own hands. She moved alone without answering anyone.”
“What about Seo Da-hee?”
“Her body went to the autopsy room for investigation. After the autopsy, there will be a funeral.”
“I see.”
He patted my shoulder with that smug smile.
“All of this is thanks to you. The grand plan is finally beginning.”
“That’s fortunate.”
I nodded at his words.
Laugh all you want now.
I didn’t know how long that smile would last.
I vowed that his end would be crueller and more horrific than anyone’s.
“I’ll be off now. I’m busy with the aftermath, I only made time for a bit.”
He activated a teleport and vanished from sight.
Once he was gone I checked my body’s wounds.
The largest wound was mostly treated, and the smaller ones were in decent shape—perhaps thanks to the surgery.
The doctor insisted on complete rest, but I felt I could move enough.
“Aftermath, huh.”
He would now proceed with Pandemonium’s orders—to seize control of the Student Council and corrupt Yoo Iseo.
The Academy would gradually become a den of Demons.
But I had no intention of watching that happen.
Now.
It was time to bring Seo Da-hee back to life.
I had taken part in this damned play and held the keys for this very moment.
To do that, I first needed Yoo Iseo.
I had to find her—she had gone to deal with the fleeing Demon.
Her pure, righteous lightning would be the most important key to reviving Seo Da-hee.