“Hmm... This is a tough one.”
I was currently agonizing over the dilemma of a lifetime.
Probably no one could come up with an easy answer.
“Who wins: 100 bare-handed men or 1 gorilla?”
Tch.
Since there were a hundred of them, it felt like the men would win, but then when I thought about a gorilla’s muscles, the result seemed like it might change.
If they sacrificed about forty people and swarmed it, stabbing at places like its eyes, then I felt like the hundred men might be able to win.
But then again, if the gorilla grabbed one man and used him as a Human Calibur, swinging him around, the result might change again.
“Ah, I don’t know.”
Having ultimately arrived at the truth that I couldn’t reach a conclusion, I tossed my phone aside.
Then, as I flopped down onto the soft bed just like that,
my swaying hair got caught under my back, making me feel uncomfortable.
‘Ah, it’s in the way.’
Left with no choice, I sat up to fix my hair.
Hair that flowed down like soft silk.
After tidying it up until I thought that should be enough, I turned my head and noticed the hand mirror sitting on the desk.
And reflected in it was a beautiful woman with long black hair and red eyes.
Facing the woman in the mirror, a familiar yet unfamiliar feeling washed over me.
‘It’s already been a year.’
It had already been a year since I began living in this body.
To think that I, who had been a healthy adult man, had become such a beautiful woman.
At first, I couldn’t accept it at all, but now I had grown so used to it that this body felt like my own.
‘Well, technically, it is my body...’
If I had to pick one cause for how this happened, it would probably be the final battle with the Demon King one year ago.
S-rank Hunter Haerang (Sea Wolf), Kim Yeonwoo.
The world’s greatest hunter, and the last remaining hunter.
All of those were words that referred to me.
“Haerang!!!!!!”
“You don’t have to shout that loudly. I can hear you. I’m right in front of you.”
“If only it weren’t for you!!!! If only you!!!!!”
“Wow, you really don’t listen to people.”
The Demon King was howling while shedding tears of blood.
Thanks to that, my ears hurt, so I had no choice but to dig at one with my pinky.
How good were his lungs?
Sure, I had killed all his subordinates, killed the Four Heavenly Kings, and half-destroyed the Demon King’s Castle, but was there really a need to scream that much?
And he seemed more talented in sound magic than dark magic. At this point, I couldn’t help wondering if he’d chosen the wrong career path.
The Demon King, still shedding tears of blood, wrapped himself in darkness and charged at me.
‘He’s fast, but...’
To me, he was far too slow.
I blocked his incoming fist with my left hand, then used my right to slam the Demon King into the ground.
Boom!
The darkness gathered around his face scattered as the Demon King coughed up blood.
I crushed that Demon King’s face under one foot.
‘Ha, this is the Demon King?’
Looking at the Demon King lying like a bug beneath my foot, I couldn’t hide the emptiness I felt.
The world had been destroyed because of a bastard like this?
It was so absurd that only a hollow laugh came out.
A world reduced to nothing but ruins after the Gates swept through it.
Every time I closed my eyes, that scenery flashed past like a nightmare.
Comrades, friends, lovers—
The sight of them collapsing one by one became a nightmare every night, tormenting me.
“Yeonwoo. You’re our last hope.”
My comrades had said that as they burned themselves away.
I would never forget their final backs for the rest of my life.
And yet the Demon King who had plunged us into that hell was only this much?
This bastard crawling on the ground because he couldn’t handle me alone?
My rage was already beyond control.
Just like that, I put strength into my foot, intending to crush his head.
“Kraaaaaaagh!!”
The Demon King writhed in pain.
If possible, I wanted to tear the Demon King’s limbs apart again and again, but it was a pity that I couldn’t.
Crack.
From the Demon King’s forehead, splitting as if it were cracking, came a sound that should not have been heard.
And then,
Pop!!
His head burst like a watermelon.
It was so empty an end that it was hard to believe it belonged to the one who had destroyed the world.
“Is it... over now?”
It had been a long time.
Gates, monsters, and war.
In the end, the final victor was me.
‘Though I suppose there’s no meaning in it when all of humanity is already dead...’
I sank down onto a nearby rock with a thud and slowly began to catch my breath.
“What am I supposed to do now...?”
A hopeless feeling filled me.
At that moment.
“Haerang!!!”
I heard the Demon King’s voice, though I’d thought he was dead.
At the silhouette that appeared along with a grayish smoke, I reflexively raised my weapon.
As expected of the Demon King.
To think he was still alive even after his head had burst.
I gripped the weapon in my hand tightly and prepared for the final battle.
“I hate you!!! If not for you, we would have easily conquered this world!!!”
Unbelievable.
Was that usually something the perpetrator said to the victim?
“There’s a limit to being shameless. You were the ones who invaded first, so what kind of bullshit are you spouting? And you already said that earlier.”
“I curse you. I will burn even the final fragment of my soul to curse you. An eternal, undying curse shall bind you, trapping you in pain for the rest of your life. No one will remember you, and no one will recognize you. Everything you have built up until now will turn to nothing, and within that despair, you shall suffer to the very end!!!!”
“Everyone except me is already dead, you bastard.”
“Uaaaaaagh!!”
A dark light erupted along with the Demon King’s scream.
“Urgh.”
I reflexively covered my eyes with my arm against the surging light.
The light that burst forth swallowed me whole.
And when I opened my eyes,
“Where is this...?”
I had no choice but to stare blankly at the scenery spread out before me.
Before everything was destroyed.
The scenery from back when the world was still intact unfolded before my eyes with such clarity that it was as if time had been turned back.
The shock made me freeze for a moment.
But soon, I became certain that the Demon King had cursed me to see an illusion.
If so, there was only one way to wake up.
I climbed onto a bridge and threw myself down without hesitation.
Because the easiest way to wake from an illusion was to give yourself a strong shock.
After I fell to the ground like that, I naturally thought I would wake from the illusion.
‘It’s not breaking?’
I was flustered by the illusion that refused to break even after an impact strong enough to crack the ground.
Apparently, the Demon King’s curse was more powerful than I’d expected.
Thinking once or twice wouldn’t be enough, I fell from the bridge several more times.
While the repeated impacts gradually formed a crater in the road that resembled the shape of a person,
Wee-oo, wee-oo—
At the sound of police sirens coming from nearby, I had no choice but to hurry away.
‘What is this? Why am I not waking from the illusion?’
No matter how strong an illusion was, it should have broken after this many repeated shocks.
As I ran away with that doubt in mind, I suddenly froze at the sight of my reflection in a glass window.
‘What the...’
In it, the sturdy young man was nowhere to be found. Reflected there was a woman about 165 centimeters tall.
Soft black hair that seemed like obsidian unraveled into strands.
Red eyes that shone beautifully as if jewels had been set into them.
And lips so alluring they felt sinful.
Wondering if this was also an illusion, I pinched my cheek, but all I felt was a soft, squishy texture like mochi.
‘What the fuck is this...’
It was only later that I learned this place wasn’t an illusion, but actual reality.
And the reality of a “parallel world,” at that.
A world unbelievably peaceful, where no Gates had opened, and there were no monsters, no hunters, and no mana.
And within it, I was living not in the body of a healthy man, but as a delicate woman.
‘To be precise, the me of this worldline had been a “woman” from the start.’
Among the curses the Demon King had spoken, there had been, “No one will remember you, and no one will recognize you. Everything you have built up until now will turn to nothing, and within that despair, you shall suffer to the very end!!!!”
I never imagined that was what he meant.
To think it was a forced TS route.
Still, fortunately, perhaps thanks to my experience clearing countless Gates, I accepted this ridiculous reality faster than expected.
‘I went through so much, after all...’
This was a peaceful world where there was no need to fight, and no need for anyone else to die.
I worried that perhaps the Gates might open again.
But the time when the first Gate had appeared in my previous world had long since passed.
This was truly a timeline where Gates never opened!
And I...
For the first time in fifteen years, I was able to set down the burden on my heart.
Unlike me, who had been a hunter, the me of this world was an ordinary office worker.
But I quit immediately without hesitation.
I had lived myself to the bone saving the world, so I wanted to rest a little now.
Fortunately, perhaps because this version of me had lived far more carefully than my previous-life(?) self, there was a fairly comfortable amount of money in the bank.
‘More than anything, I’m younger too.’
The me here was not thirty-five, but twenty-five.
With both body and mind lightened, I was able to begin my second life.
As an unemployed bum.
For reference, when I saw on the news that a person-shaped crater had been discovered in the road, I was so startled that I nearly spat out all the milk I was drinking.
‘If I’d known this was reality, I wouldn’t have done that.’
In the end, I spent the past year at home, shitting, eating, scratching my belly, and living like a hikikomori.
However,
‘I’m bored...’
I was so bored I thought I might die.
I hadn’t wanted it, but after living steeped in battle for fifteen years, my brain had been completely marinated in dopamine.
For a year, it had stayed relatively quiet, but now it had begun thrashing around in search of dopamine.
More, even more dopamine!!
My body had become one that couldn’t endure without it.
So I tried this and that, but all of it was useless.
There was nothing in this world that could provide as much dopamine as combat.
On top of that, perhaps because I had transferred into this world, even in an ordinary human world without mana, I still possessed physical abilities “beyond human.”
Exercise and the like couldn’t even make my heart beat properly.
Just as I was wondering what to do—
“Nyua!!!”
A cute sound came from beside me.
When I turned my head, the spirit Nyua, who had come to this world with me, was diligently watching my phone and bouncing to the beat.
Bounce, bounce!
Seeing the thing that looked like a black ball moving to the rhythm was cute in many ways.
“What are you watching that’s so fun?”
“Nyuaat!!”
“A game stream?”
Come to think of it, maybe because I’d mostly only thought about things that used the body, I hadn’t thought about games.
Would they be fun?
Intrigued by Nyua’s reaction, I lightly pushed Nyua aside with my hand and peered at the phone screen.
And soon, I found my eyes briefly stolen by the flashy battles going on inside.
Of course,
“Nyuat?!”
Pong.
Pong.
Nyua, who had gotten angry after being suddenly pushed aside, hitting me with little pongs from the side was nothing more than a minor incident.