—I Didn’t Die
I quietly held my breath.
I was watching him through a crack in the plank wall. Beneath the crack was a small hole I had drilled myself.
Slowly, I pushed the muzzle of my pistol through the hole.
He was right in front of me.
He stood less than five meters away, his back turned toward me.
Carelessly, with nothing to protect him.
Surrounded by his bodyguards and feeling secure, he was babbling away while revealing his true, evil nature.
My heart swelled at the thought that I could finally kill him.
For a while after the great fire, he had vanished without a trace. At times, I even wondered if he had died.
He disappeared so completely that it was as though he had never existed in the first place.
But I never gave up searching for him.
For years, I methodically tracked him down. I missed neither the thinnest clue nor the faintest trace.
Finding and eliminating him was something I had to do myself. Besides, as long as I failed to accomplish it, I could not truly be said to be alive.
‘The bastard who ruined my life and my family’s. A scourge upon humanity. Someone who must never be allowed to live! Samir! I’ll be the one to kill you.’
Clenching my molars, I slowly released the pistol’s safety.
It was a gun I had gone to great lengths to obtain. A Ruger fitted with a titanium pin. They said it was a pistol even beginners could use easily.
I had never fired a gun before, since I had not even been able to serve in the military, but I absolutely could not fail.
‘At this distance, I won’t miss as long as my hand doesn’t shake. Stay calm. I have to finish this with my own hands. I have to kill that bastard.’
I had to end it in one shot. Finding him and getting this close had only been possible thanks to extraordinary luck.
He never showed himself openly, and bodyguards were always stationed around him.
This opportunity would never come again.
My hand began to tremble with excitement. I gripped my right hand tightly with my left. Before holding my breath again, I took one last deep breath.
At that moment, a powerful blow struck the back of my head.
Clang!
‘What the…?’
A gunshot should have rung out, but instead, a light, sharp metallic sound echoed.
Ah, that hollow sound.
Someone sent my head flying like a baseball with a bat. My forehead slammed into the plank wall, followed by the sound of the wall caving in.
The back of my head burned as though it had caught fire. Then a hard piece of metal repeatedly battered my head and torso.
A searing, dizzying pain exploded throughout my body.
‘Ah… I could have ended it. If only I’d been a few seconds faster…!’
A pain greater than the physical agony tore into my chest. The injustice of it all cut deep.
I thought I had succeeded. I thought no one had followed me.
Laughter came from beyond the plank wall. He was laughing. Mocking me.
My heart ached at my own inadequacy. I was consumed by furious anger at myself.
I couldn’t end things like this. I couldn’t collapse so helplessly.
The club continued to rain down on the arm holding the pistol. Yet even amid the pain that felt like fire, I still had not let go of the gun.
Pressing my body tightly against the plank wall, I was shielding the pistol embedded in the hole with my entire body.
Something sticky ran down, blocking my vision.
It didn’t matter. I pulled the trigger.
I couldn’t aim at him properly, but I kept firing until the magazine was empty.
Bang! Bang! Bang!
Loud, thunderous reports burst out one after another. At the same moment, blood gushed from my side.
It wasn’t from the wounds inflicted by the club. A long, sharp blade was repeatedly stabbing my side and back.
My vision blurred white.
‘At least I don’t need to run away. I never managed to prepare a way to escape after firing the gun….’
Gradually, darkness like that inside a cave descended upon me. My body crumpled like an exploded sack.
The inside of my chest grew cold. Once my rage surpassed its limit, it seemed to freeze solid instead.
For me, who had lost the target I had pursued for so long at the very last moment, both resentment and anger were luxuries.
Only the thought that I could not end like this spread outward from my heart in all directions, like a spiderweb.
‘This can’t be happening!’
But my mangled body seemed to abandon me, as though it could no longer contain my consciousness.
Soon, my consciousness went out.
* * *
“Why is he so heavy? He’s just some old man who’s gone senile.”
“Quit grumbling and load him up. We have to leave right away.”
“Fine. Start the engine first.”
“If you’re done loading him, hurry up and close the door.”
“Stop rushing me.”
Thud!
My consciousness fully returned with a dull sound.
In truth, my consciousness had been flickering in and out for some time.
I could hear the two men’s voices, but I was in a strange state where I could not properly feel my own body.
I quietly listened to them in that state.
They had said something strange. “Some old man who’s gone senile”? Were they deliberately spouting nonsense to mock me?
Now, as though a fog had lifted, my consciousness grew clear, and I could feel my body as well. Soon, I heard the vehicle start, and it began moving with a rattling lurch.
I was being carried in a vehicle. A sack had been pulled over my head, a gag had been stuffed in my mouth, and my wrists had been tied.
I breathed quietly and checked my condition. The back of my head was slightly numb. But that was all.
I felt no searing pain throughout my body, nor was blood gushing from my side.
‘What happened?’
Before losing consciousness, I had been stabbed repeatedly in my side, back, and several other places.
I had been certain I would die, but apparently I hadn’t. Yet even if I hadn’t died, I was far too unharmed.
‘Have several days passed?’
There was no way the wounds from being beaten and stabbed could have healed on their own.
Nor did it seem likely that they had treated me. How had the bleeding stopped, and how had my wounds healed?
I could not even begin to guess why my body had recovered.
It was strange, but this was no time to solve the mystery. First, I had to think of a way to escape this situation.
I began moving my body little by little. Surprisingly, after twisting my hands a few times, I was able to undo the rope around my wrists.
Perhaps because they thought I had completely lost consciousness, they had tied me up extremely carelessly.
I could only be grateful. Slowly, I raised my hands, removed the gag from my mouth, and took the sack off my head.
Until then, the men seemed not to have noticed anything at all, continuing to exchange idle chatter.
“Take that back alley over there.”
“What, afraid we’ll get caught if we take the main road?”
“Of course. Do you want to get caught?”
“Haha! Right. It’s your first day, isn’t it? You worry about everything.”
“Shut up and take the back alley.”
I had to close and open my eyes several times before I could see properly.
My vision, submerged in darkness for so long, finally brightened. I was lying on the floor of the van’s rear compartment, while the men sat in the front seats and chatted.
The vehicle wasn’t traveling very fast. It seemed I could open the rear door and jump out.
I was cautiously rolling my body toward the door when a chilly blade suddenly pressed against my neck. To my surprise, it was a long sword.
“Where do you think you’re going?”
The man in the passenger seat had somehow turned around and was pointing the sword at me. His fierce, thug-like eyes glared down at me.
‘Damn it!’
The man held an absolute advantage in the fight. I was lying helplessly on the floor of the van, with a blade pointed at my throat.
Then something strange happened.
The man stared at me with his eyes wide open. He made a stupid, bewildered sound.
“Huh? Wha…?”
At the sound, the other man behind the wheel glanced at the rearview mirror and asked,
“What’s wrong? Wasn’t that bastard unconscious? Did he wake up?”
“Damn it! That’s not the problem. He’s someone else.”
“Someone else? What are you talking about?”
“I’m telling you, he’s not the old man from earlier. He’s someone else!”
“What? What the hell are you talking about?”
Now even the man at the wheel twisted around to look behind him.
I had no idea what either of them was talking about. No, I couldn’t understand the situation itself.
I had tried to kill Samir, only to be stabbed instead. When I opened my eyes again, I was in this situation.
How had I not died? Why didn’t I even have any wounds? Were these men not Samir’s underlings?
‘Not the old man, but someone else?’
Suddenly, the vehicle screeched to a halt. The abrupt movement nearly caused the blade to slice my neck clean through. A chill ran through my chest.
“Who are you? How did you get into the vehicle? Where’s the old man?”
The man in the driver’s seat shouted. He was aggressively demanding answers, but he looked extremely flustered.
All three people in the vehicle were equally bewildered.
What could I possibly say? If the men who were transporting me unconscious asked who I was, how was I supposed to answer?
Of course, I had no intention of replying. I was merely calculating how to escape this situation.
Since the vehicle had stopped, things had become slightly more favorable. All I had to do was evade the sword, pull myself free, and leap out of the vehicle.
But I couldn’t find a good angle. The blade was too close.
‘If only I could get rid of this sword….’
I focused my mind and stared at the sword, waiting for an opening. At that moment, my stomach churned.
Then, all of a sudden, the sword in front of my eyes shot upward. It was as though some unknown force had seized the sword and hauled it into the air.
“Huh? Wha— Aaaagh!”
As the arm of the man holding the sword was dragged upward along with it, he screamed.
“H-He’s a mage!”
“Damn it! He was a mage? What do we do?”
Both men shouted in panic. The blade that had been pointed at my throat had been moved away.
I had no idea what was going on, but this was no time to hesitate. I quickly opened the van’s rear door and jumped out.
As I rolled across the ground, the van hurriedly drove away. It didn’t even close the open door.
I was the one who had escaped, yet instead of chasing me, they were fleeing in haste.
“…A mage?”
I repeated what they had said.
Who were they calling a mage? What kind of nonsense were they spouting? They weren’t children, so why were they suddenly going on about mages? I couldn’t understand it.
In any case, that wasn’t what mattered right now.
I hadn’t died. I had been beaten mercilessly with a bat and stabbed repeatedly before losing consciousness, yet I had come back to life.
My revenge had failed, but I could start again. That was all that mattered.