Not falling down
‘···I feel like I’m going to fall behind.’
I forced myself to hold on to my clouded mind. After spitting out the blood that had flowed back out of my mouth, I was finally able to breathe comfortably.
My left arm was broken and dangling. I tried to apply force to it, and even the slightest movement caused excruciating pain, but I was able to move it.
Phew. In order not to look weak, he spat blood like spit. He might have looked like a punk, but the battle was a battle of momentum. Even if the opponent was a demon.
It was a rudimentary demon with only one arm eroded, but it was still a demon, so it was a tough opponent for me, who had no aura. I tried to attack the part that wasn’t eroded, but the speed of that left arm was too fast.
If I could buy some time, wouldn’t the article not wake up? But looking at the way he was kneeling and spitting blood out of his mouth, it seemed like it would take quite a while.
‘I think that guy is at his limit.’
The body of the devil, as skinny as a mummy, trembled. Judging from the fact that he didn’t open his mouth anymore, it seemed like he had no strength to speak.
Now it was a fight to see who would fall first.
And not falling down was one of the things I was confident in.
I twirled my sore right hand. My muscles screamed, but they still moved. And that was enough.
Gulp.
The guy’s left arm swelled with an unpleasant sound effect. As I watched his face turn blue every second, I knew his days were numbered.
after···.
He kicked the ground, exhaling hot breath as if it were on fire.
bang!
For a moment, my mind became clouded by the shock that felt like I had been hit by a truck. When I opened my eyes, I was flying. Every part of my body screamed that it was hurting more.
I glared at the demon, straining my eyes as I flew. The guy stumbled and fell to his knees. Yellow pus flowed out from the corner of his mouth as if his stomach acid had refluxed. It was clear that he was also trying too hard.
‘I win as long as I don’t fall down.’
Thud. I hit the damp, hard ground roughly, and a terrible pain, as if my back was being broken, struck my whole body.
Whether it was the aftereffects of the shock or not, my body wouldn’t listen to me. It was refusing to move.
Knock knock knock.
Heavy raindrops fell and hit my face.
I opened my mouth to receive rainwater due to my burning thirst.
I drank the rainwater that filled my mouth, and I came to my senses a little.
“Tongue… Brother.”
A small voice was heard from the side. I turned my head with a creaking sound and saw a weasel lying among the zombies.
‘Did you think it was safe to lie there?’
Even the guy had cut off the zombie’s arm and covered its feet like a blanket. He was staring at me with only the upper part of his face sticking out. It was such a perfect camouflage that I wouldn’t have even known he was there if he hadn’t called me.
In a way, I was a bastard. No matter how much I wanted to live, lying down among corpses is not something a normal person can do.
Apart from that, I was so shocked that I coughed. The blood I spat out quickly mixed with the rainwater and became cloudy.
“Hee… Cheer up! I’m rooting for you! It’s really unfortunate that I can’t help you, hyung, because I can’t move due to my leg injury. Ugh… My heart is with you, hyung… Let go! You idiot! I have to help hyung!”
The guy was embarrassed, rolling his eyes and continuing to talk. He grabbed the zombie’s arm and acted as if he had grabbed his own collar, which was really great. He fought with the headless zombie corpse.
‘What a sick leg injury.’
As someone who saw the guy who brought out the mercenary tussle with a zombie and then sneak away, I was dumbfounded.
I laughed out loud at the sight of a guy being grabbed by a headless zombie and squealing. As I let out a small laugh, my body started to move.
The pain was still excruciatingly vivid, but my body was moving again. That was enough.
“Tongue… Brother. Are you possessed by the devil? Th… Th… Th… Th… Th….”
The weasel, who must have thought I was crazy, muttered softly and did a poor imitation of a zombie. Judging from the similarity of the sound, it seemed like he had been practicing while lying among the zombies.
‘That guy is something special.’
He laughed even louder and slowly got up. His body staggered, but he didn’t fall. He screamed as if the muscles in his legs were torn, but he still moved.
Then, an axe appeared rolling next to the weasel.
‘That would be more suitable than a sword.’
An axe was better than a sword when dealing with something so stupidly large.
“This… This… My family is a family of lumberjacks, so it’s been passed down through the generations since my grandfather…”
As I tried to grab the axe handle, a weasel reached out from between the zombies and grabbed my hand. The weasel looked up at me with a face that looked like it was going to cry at any moment.
‘It looked like an axe with some pretty good metal in it. Did it come from a woodcutter family?’
If he had been a lumberjack, he would have been lying in bed by now, eating a warm stew and patting his belly, but he made the wrong choice and ended up chopping down zombies.
I’m sure the guy had his own story, but the circumstances were really strange.
“I’ll write it down and give it to you.”
“Ha···but···.”
“I said I’ll write it down and give it to you.”
“You really have to give it to me···.”
I was barely able to come to my senses, but when he kept asking me to talk, I got annoyed and crumpled my expression.
Then the weasel quickly thrust out an axe. If he couldn’t catch that devil now, everyone in this village would be finished. The devil wasn’t something that could be fooled by mere guessing.
‘The grip is good.’
He spat on his palm and then adjusted his grip on the axe. It was enough to split the devil’s head apart.
“Whew!”
The demon guy kept spitting out vomit that wasn’t even coming out. The yellow eyes on his hideous left arm glared at him like he was looking at a delicious meal.
I took a deep breath. I felt a stabbing pain, as if my ribs were being torn apart, but I forced myself to raise the corners of my mouth.
‘There’s not much time left.’
There was no way I would fall before that skinny guy. I mustered up my resolve and started running.
With every step I took, I felt a sharp pain that made me dizzy, but I could bear it. My feet were still moving. That was enough.
The demon guy’s eyes were filled with horror. His brow furrowed. His left arm stopped expanding, perhaps because it had reached its limit.
Within moments, I was within striking distance of the axe. The guy’s left arm merely twitched without moving.
At the last moment, the demon leaves the choice to the host. There is no other reason. That way, the despair will be deeper and more stinking.
“I’ll give you double… no, triple! Fulfill the contract!”
The guy yelled. I dismissed it as dog barking and was about to cut off his neck when I saw his eyes staring over my shoulder.
His dizzy head forced itself to think. His blood pumped as he searched for the part he had missed.
And then I could remember what I was missing.
I took back the axe that was about to split the guy’s head and swung it backwards with great force. My posture collapsed and I had no strength, but it was enough to block the sword aimed at me.
“You’re quick-witted.”
Beyond the overlapping swords, the old mercenary John was glaring at me with wrinkled eyes.
There was one other person besides me and the weasel who didn’t eat the delicious stew.
‘It’s such a common name, was it a pseudonym?’
John’s eyes glared at me with a menacing glare.
John’s wrinkled eyes scanned me from every angle.
A man like John, who wore clothes with iron lining and meticulously covered the seams to hide their presence, was certainly picky.
But the difficulty was that I didn’t know when he would stab me in the back of the head. On the contrary, it meant that if I just watched out for that back of the head, I wouldn’t lose.
“···hmm?!”
He forced his broken left arm to swing his elbow against the axe. Boom. The excruciating pain continued, but it was bearable. The balance of power was broken, and the axe pushed John’s sword away. The axe dug into John’s armor near his chest.
I didn’t feel safe simply by sticking an axe in his chest, knowing that John had something layered on top of his armor.
I clenched my teeth and struck the back of the axe with my left elbow again. Bang! Sparks flew from the axe blade and John’s body shook.
John thought it was too late, so instead of blocking the axe, he thrust his right hand toward my abdomen. A gleaming skewer protruded from the inside of John’s right hand.
It was a desperate move worthy of a man who had eaten knife-cut rice until wrinkles formed around his eyes. However, it was also not powerful enough to match the wrinkles around his eyes.
John’s skewer pierced my stomach, but that was where I had stuffed my books. The skewer pierced my leather armor, but not the worn-out books beneath it.
John’s eyes widened. Vivid emotions filled his eyes. Fear, regret, despair, pleading. I met his gaze without averting it, and struck him with my elbow again.
Crunch. With a sickening sound, the axe dug into John’s chest. Red blood poured out like a fountain and soaked my face. The blood was hot, not cold. It was red, not black. The blood and iron taste in my mouth greatly elevated my spirits.
John fell backwards, and I followed suit.
It struck again.
More than half of the axe blade went in.
My eyes stung from the spurting red blood, but I didn’t close them and faced John.
John’s eyes opened.
He brought his elbow down again.
Now the axe and its back were barely visible.
“Ah··· Ah··· Ah···.”
A squeak of air escaped John’s lips. He seemed to want to say something, but his breath was unformed and dissipated in the sound of the rain.
I didn’t bother asking John’s real name.
He just stomped on John’s face and pulled out the axe.
Hot blood soaked my entire body. The cold rain tried to wash it away, but because there was so much blood, bloodstains remained here and there.
My legs gave out and I stumbled for a moment, but I didn’t fall. That was enough.
There is still more to be done.
“···Horn, Roman.”
Every time I uttered a word, my heart ached, but I finished it. Words had power. And that power would move me.
“So… who are those kids…?”
The devil guy knelt down and muttered while looking up at the sky with a blank face. As expected of a devil, he was really shameless.
It was painful to move every step, but I moved anyway. ‘That’s enough,’ I kept mumbling.
The guy who was looking at me with a weary look soon bit his lip. The guy’s left arm, which had been quiet, twitched.
In that moment, the strength left my legs and I fell forward.
I hit my face on the ground, but strangely enough it didn’t hurt.
The damp, wet ground grabbed my body.
I pushed him away, banging my axe into the ground, and crawled towards him.
The boy was now looking up at the sky with black eyes, the whites of which had completely disappeared.
Somehow I managed to get in front of him.
But, the guy’s face was already completely consumed by that ugliness.
I didn’t think deeply about it.
He lifted the axe and struck down.
Boom! The grip was torn off, and the axe flew far away.
The yellow eyes covering the guy’s face stared at me. It felt like they were asking me, what can I do?
Since I didn’t know how to do much, my worries were short.
I struck the yellow pupil that I didn’t like with my fist. A sharp pain ran down my right hand as if I had struck a solid piece of iron.
But it still moved.
He looked into her eyes and struck her fist again.
A groan escaped from the terrible pain.
Now, my right hand wouldn’t move.
‘What can I do now?’
Still, my waist and neck moved.
He fell forward, opened his mouth wide, and bit into something hideous.
– I liked it.
A wonderful low-pitched voice echoed in my head, and that thing that had been as solid as iron became soft. Its size shrank.
Without hesitation, I took a handful and spat it out. It tasted so horrible that I thought the fish bread Brick’s mother gave me was delicious.
I swallowed the nausea that was rising and bit it again and spat it out. After repeating that, I got tired of spitting it out so I swallowed it instead.
He didn’t stop until the ugly guy’s face was revealed.
Soon, the ugly thing hidden inside the ugly fried coating was revealed.
The ugly guy looked up at me with frightened eyes.
The guy was shivering.
I looked at the guy and smiled broadly.
A sour smell wafted from below.
The guy’s out-of-focus eyes shook wildly.
“···Who the hell are those guys! I don’t know you crazy bastard!”
I laughed out loud as I watched the guy having a seizure.
‘Yeah, you don’t need to know.’
I threw my head back hard.
It stung, but I could still move my back and neck, and that was enough.
“Okay… Wait a minute!”
Bang! I felt a pain in my head and momentarily became confused, but I did not lose consciousness.
I threw my head back hard again.
bang.
I could still move.
He tilted his head back again.
bang.
Blood spurted from the guy’s face.
‘Isn’t it my blood?’
It didn’t matter.
bang.
My vision was red and blurry.
There was nothing visible anymore.
bang.
I heard something breaking.
bang.
My body wouldn’t move anymore.
In the cloudy, red vision, the guy’s vague form was visible. The part where his head had been was a mess, turning into something ugly and a mixture of various colors.
‘It’s just like pie dough.’
It was like a pie made by Brick’s mother, who was a terrible cook.
[Survive.]
A whisper that now sounds like a curse.
‘I’ve tried hard enough.’
My heavy eyelids slowly fell. I had neither the strength nor the will to stop them any longer.
Thud···.
Raindrops tapped my shoulders.
– I really, really like it. It’ll take a lot of effort, but I’ll gladly give it to you. You seem like you’d be very tasty.
A fucking voice whispered.
