Chapter 46 – Faith & Believers (6)

Faith & Believers (6)

I feel like vomiting.
It’s not because I’m using my abilities. It’s just that the man before me is revolting.

I’ve seen all of his misdeeds in the memories I’ve read. This man, who regards people as less than livestock, does not possess a human heart. That’s what I thought.

Not content with dismembering people, he turns dozens into pulp at once and feeds them to demons… Even if he became a faithful dog to the church, his sins are too great to atone for.

I looked at Flan, who had lost consciousness.
He seemed to have completely lost his mind.

Looking at him, I can vividly feel the texture of those turned into pulp.
Damn memory assimilation.
Reading someone else’s memories means there’s a chance of becoming assimilated with them. That’s why it’s always necessary to maintain an appropriate delay when reading memories.

But this time, I’ve been using my abilities continuously with minimal waiting time.
It was out of curiosity.

I find this man, who commits sins without any hint of remorse, detestable. Yet, I’m curious, what exactly happened that made this man cooperate with the human side?

And he’s still alive even though he’s done enough to commit suicide?

The atrocities I’ve seen so far would have been enough to shatter the psyche of any normal person. Indirectly killing people is one thing, but to dismember living people, to touch the mushy remains of humans… It was hard even for me to bear, and I’ve healed people whose bodies were crumbling.

In fact, Flan’s mental state was not normal. His mind was broken. He was completely shattered and incapable of doing anything. But Flan is alive. For reasons unknown, he has not taken his life.

It would not be surprising if he had gone mad, but how has he survived until now? I was very curious about that.

Is there someone who has healed his fragmented heart? Of course, even if that were the case, his current mental state is not normal.
Unless the entity that healed him is dead… If that were the case, he would have already taken his life.

Still, I was curious.
What exactly happened to him?

Despite the risk of side effects from memory assimilation, I needed to quickly explore his past. He was going to be executed soon, so I had to find out everything before that.

For an unfounded reason…

Anyway. I wanted to know the specific reason why he, who blames the goddess, sided with humans. Why did this trash, who used to work for the Demon King’s army, start listening to the hero and cooperate with humans?

Surely, if I read a little more, I would be able to understand.

Cecilia slowly moved towards Flan.
And she pressed her forehead against his.

All for the goddess,

And for Troka.

* * *

My reality is a cesspool. After graduating from school, I was destined to live a life of earning just enough to get by each day. That’s why I wasn’t particularly desperate to return to my original world. Who would dislike being called a hero?

Of course, that didn’t last long.
I thought I could escape reality… but I was expelled without understanding why, almost torn apart by demons, and ended up killing people, who were alive just moments before, as if they were mere chunks of meat.

It’s supposed to be an act of survival… but I’m not sure.
Even if there is a heaven, I doubt I’d be allowed in.

Unless there’s some consideration for my circumstances.

*

It was the same day as any other.

I wake up late in the morning, make do with leftover bread for breakfast, and head to work.
I push people into the cube and squeeze them out. It doesn’t matter if it’s a child, an elderly person, a man, or a woman; I push them in and squeeze them out. If someone survives, I cut off their breath and do it all over again.

When I see the squishy chunks of meat, I get confused whether they were people or livestock. That’s probably why I can endure without going mad.
If the red mass I pulled out were clearly in the shape of people, I wouldn’t have been able to bear it.

No, it’s already hard enough to endure.
I’m tired of deceiving myself and continuing with this nonsense.

I’ve thought that if I killed everyone in the containment area, maybe I could stop this madness. But the containment area never seemed to run out of people to pull in; despite grinding them up in the factory, the population never seemed to decrease.

When such useless questions arise, my head gets so cluttered that I can’t do anything.
Only after watching the children playing outside for a long time can I finally come to my senses.

But things have been getting better recently.

Thanks to Nerati bringing some other subordinates and setting up a drinking session. That officer’s name was… Valk something. I find it hard to pronounce, so I just shortened it to Gele.
When I have a drink with Gele, my mind is at ease. At least then, I can drink without thinking about anything else.

And when my mind starts to get weird, I endure by watching the children play in front of my house. In those moments, the place where I live, which is a hell where people are killed, feels like it could be the world I originally came from.
Plus, the children playing in front of the house are good kids. We don’t talk, but at least we greet each other when we pass by, so seeing them talk to someone like me, they must be good kids.

I wake up late in the morning, watch the children play, casually pull levers at the factory, chat with Nerati, and then drink with Gele.
It’s a decent life, all things considered.
It’s enough to satisfy me until I can return home someday.

I was barely hanging on, thinking that life was somewhat livable.

That changed when I found one of the children who used to play in front of my house inside the cube.

The cube was designed for adults, so occasionally children would survive.
If I fill two boxes, usually one person is alive. If they’re lucky, they’re whole; if not, they’re left clinging to life, missing parts of their body.

And this time, there was a survivor.
A girl. Blonde, pigtailed, a familiar face.
She was the child who always greeted me, and I had admired her for it, occasionally sharing bread or meat with her. She would always thank me with a smile.

Now, she lay there with her lower half crushed, waiting for death.

She looked at me, pleading for help, but my job was always the same.

If there’s a living person, I bring down the knife I’m holding.
For some reason, my hands were shaking.

The one who receives greetings is Kim Ji-hoon.
The one who kills people is Phelion.

My job is to bring down the knife.

Until the girl is dead.
Thud, thud, thud.
I keep striking without pause. Once the breath stops, I put the body in a cart and throw it to the beasts as feed.

I didn’t feel sorry. I acted to survive; could there be a sin in that?

Of course not.
That must be the case, and it has to be.

I thought my current life wasn’t too bad. I hid my sense of guilt, claiming innocence because I had to stain my hands with blood for survival.

The pink fluid flowing from the broken head was beautiful.
That was the result of my choice.
I killed her.

No, even if it hadn’t been me, the girl would have died. Surely someone else would have pulled the lever and killed her.
I had no choice.

That’s what I should think, but that day, I had a different thought. Even if the girl was destined to die, did it have to be by my hand?

I watched the girl being torn apart by the beasts, thinking.

Even drinking the alcohol I had secretly brought didn’t easily dispel the questions. For a while, I couldn’t pull the lever. But my job is to pull this damn red lever.

I knew it all along.
That engaging in this kind of shit would eventually come back to bite me.

After that day’s work was done, I spent over six hours throwing up my guts.

I felt utterly filthy.

*

…I still don’t feel good now.

Why the hell am I being shown this fucked-up past?

I don’t feel any guilt anymore. It was something I had to do to survive from the start. There’s no reason for regret.

What’s the point of showing me something so utterly useless, meaningless, and binding, something that prevents me from breaking free from the past? I don’t see the reason for watching this picaresque devoid of fun, hope, or enlightenment.
Why am I forced to watch this unpleasant past? To mock the sins I’ve committed?

Well, my life viewed from a distance must be a comedy.
A story so laughable that it’s hard to keep a straight face every time I see it.

It’s funny when a wicked murderer goes insane. It’s entertaining to see someone unable to accept their sins and fall apart.

Such a hilarious comedy.
My life has always been a comedy.

Is this what Cecilia wanted to see?
What’s so damn entertaining about this?

*

After I killed a child I knew, it became difficult to hand out bread.
Chewing meat was unbearably tedious.

It wasn’t because of the guilt over the people I had killed. It was just that living day by day was so dreadful that I couldn’t bear it, and I found it repulsive.
It would be nice to just drop dead without any warning.

Of course, that wouldn’t happen. Tomorrow, I’ll wake up, kill people, stuff food down my throat…

I’m sick of it.

For some reason, I couldn’t ignore the suffocating pain in my chest, the sensation in my fingertips when I struck people down.

Yeah, well.
Let’s die.

There was no particular reason to stay alive.

Even if I returned to my original world, all that awaited me was the debt my parents left behind and a life of day-to-day survival through odd jobs. If I stayed here, all I had were horrific monsters and one monster who had lost his human heart and gone mad.

People die when they have no meaningful reason to keep living.
That was me now.

Tonight, I’ve decided to die. The method… hanging, using a rope from the factory.

After being banished to the demon world, I wanted revenge on the goddess, and I wanted to kill the demon lord… but now, it’s a meaningless story. Even if I joined the demon lord’s army, I couldn’t kill the goddess, and if I ran away to join the humans, I couldn’t kill the demon lord.

Since I can’t do anything, the only way to be free is through death.

With that resolve, I dragged my wretched body out of bed. Since it was my last day, I felt like eating something delicious.

Even at the last moment, this is what I think, I couldn’t help but laugh as I reached for the doorknob.

-Bang.

“Ouch.”

A graceful voice echoed.

A woman was standing at the door. Not an elf with a skewer, not a kid with a bottle of alcohol, just a girl. Judging by her appearance, she seemed like a child who had been caught and brought to the detention area.

It was surprising. I even thought this might not be a dream.

“Um… why are you living here all alone?”

She had the same black hair as me, fierce yet somewhat vacant eyes, and above all… a beautiful appearance. I couldn’t believe that a girl with a beauty of a different dimension from someone like me would talk to me.

She was holding her forehead as if she had bumped it against the front door.

This was a first for me, both in my original world and in this one. Someone initiating a conversation with me? Since I had a habit of being momentarily flustered when strangers spoke to me, I was even more bewildered.

So the only thing I could say was,

“Nuh?”

Such a dumbfounded noise.

Despite my idiotic response, she seemed to like it, shyly showing a smile.
That was our first meeting.

And funnily enough, I fell for her at first sight.
It seems, after all, my life is a comedy.

A comedy so absurd it makes you laugh,

it was.