“Are there… lots of good restaurants around Cheongnyangni?”
The convicts exchanged bewildered glances at Jae-hee’s baffling question.
Soju Bottle was the first to answer, sloshing the liquor in her hand.
“Gyeongdong Market is right next door! Tons of great places there~!”
It was a traditional market, much like the one he’d visited with Dia Kim on the last mission.
Giggling, Soju Bottle added, “They’ve got great twisted donuts, and the gukbap is decent! Perfect for drinking soju, you know~?”
Juliet looked over at Roo and asked, “Isn’t there a fried chicken alley around here? We’ve been there before, right, honey?”
“Well… I rember it being decent enough.”
Jail Mojik chid in. “This whole neighborhood is pretty old-school. Lots of long-running joints. You see grandpas and grandmas sitting around, talking about how great mala hot pot and rosé tteokbokki are.”
“Wow, mala hot pot and rosé tteokbokki? Sounds like sothing straight out of the 2020s. Didn’t that stuff go extinct thirty years ago?”
“I’ve been to a few places. I’ll treat you when I get out, babe.”
“I an, I’d go if it’s with you, but y’know…” Razor pouted and grumbled.
Jae-hee gave a small nod. “If we can’t defeat the Demon Lord now, then even if we manage to solve this later, the entire Cheongnyangni area will definitely be turned into a wasteland.”
“So what?” Razor said, dumbfounded. “You’re saying we should fight for the restaurants of Cheongnyangni? Is that the bullshit you’re about to spew?”
“For …”
Jae-hee scratched the back of his head, looking sheepish.
“Honestly, whenever I hear people talk about the world ending, all I can think is, So what? My life is already way more screwed. I don’t care what happens to the world. I’m just fighting tooth and nail to survive today. It’s not like I did anything to make the world this way. I was just born late into a world that was already a ss.”
Children were simply thrown into a world already hurtling toward ruin.
“I don’t know what I’m supposed to do, and I have no idea if anything I do will change a damn thing.”
As he spoke, Jae-hee lifted his eyes to the scene before them: the Demon Lord radiating a malevolent aura, and his master, who stood with her back to them, facing it.
“So… if I have to fight against this world, it won’t be for so grand reason. But for all the delicious things I haven’t gotten to eat yet… for that, I want to fight. And I want to help my master. And I really, really want to flip the middle finger to that great big monster.”
Even if it was as aningless as an ant trying to move a boulder.
Even so, if he could at least try to do sothing.
It would be purely…
“I’ll go fight… simply… because I want to.”
Because that’s what his heart desired.
Jae-hee gave an awkward laugh.
“I’m not going to force any of you. This isn’t an order! You can back out if you want. Follow if you want, hide if you want, or even run away completely. The choice is yours.”
Razor let out a heavy sigh. “Telling a convict to ‘freely choose.’ If that ain’t the craziest shit I’ve ever heard.”
He shook his head.
“That thing over there is a Demon Lord. It makes the Gate Lords we’ve fought look like nothing. How the hell do you plan on taking that on?”
“We don’t have to fight it head-on, do we? The skilled people over there will handle that… and honestly, we’re not in the right league to join this fight anyway.”
Jae-hee humd, stroking his chin.
“For us… wouldn’t it be enough to just buzz around like gnats and get on its nerves?”
“For example?”
“Like… picking our noses and flicking boogers at it?”
Razor’s mouth fell open at the sheer absurdity.
“You want us to pick our noses and flick boogers at the Demon Lord’s face?”
“Yep.”
“And then run away?”
“Yep.”
“Fuck. I’m actually okay with that.”
The other convicts readily nodded in agreent.
“Well… if that’s all it is. Sounds fine, right, Juliet?”
“Mhm. Whew, for a second there I thought he was going to say we should go stab it or sothing. Figured the kid lost his mind.”
“Boogers… I do admit to spending all day in my cell mastering this particular field… But it’s a little embarrassing to do it in front of you, babe…”
“I’ve got king-sized ones saved up in both warehouses desu.”
Flinging sothing gooey and sticky. That was the extent of the plan.
And so, just after everyone had agreed to join the battle…
“Still… it looks kinda scary desu…” Status Window shivered, gazing at the Demon Lord.
Soju Bottle popped up beside him. “Alright, alright, let’s all knock one back before we go~!”
She produced a green bottle from sowhere and began pouring its contents into paper cups, handing one to each person.
“This is the best… dicinal liquor I can give you! It’ll give you courage!”
While the others hesitated, eyeing the cups with suspicion, Soju Bottle held one out to Rabid Dog.
All this ti, she had been cowering before the Demon Lord’s aura.
But when she lapped up whatever was in that cup…
“Grrrrr—RUFF RUFF WOOF!”
She suddenly regained her energetic rageaholism. No longer did she whimper.
Curiosity piqued by this transformation, the other convicts took turns accepting a cup of the liquor.
As they drank, they all shuddered violently.
“Gahk!”
“My whole body’s burning… no, I’m dizzy…”
“What kind of alcohol is this strong?”
“I feel good… but also kinda pissed off…?”
The dicinal liquor enhanced all their physical abilities, but the drunkenness drastically reduced their judgnt.
Instantly wasted, the convicts, faces flushed red, slung their arms around each other’s shoulders and began to march.
“For Gyeongdong Market!”
“For fried chicken!”
“For mala hot pot and rosé tteokbokki!”
“For all the bar snacks in the world!”
Jae-hee led the charge, his eyes spinning from a single drink, hollering with all his might. “Let’s gooo! Booger Expedition, move out!”
And then he pitched forward as if soone had flipped his power switch.
A horrified Razor and Status Window caught him from either side.
“Are you serious? Yo! What the hell are you doing, passing out after one drink!”
Jae-hee whined, “I’m not… passed out. Jus’ hurry up and gooo~! Urp…”
Still, the group had no choice but to move forward.
And so, the Black Parade’s Deck 1 Leftovers Team, half-drunk, joined the Demon Lord subjugation force.
***
Ghost and Iron Knight dashed toward the Demon Lord simultaneously.
Across the stark blue ice field, across the sunset-stained shore, they sprinted at full speed, converging at the point where their seasons t.
They headed for the precipice where their worlds shattered and fell away, toward the valley of corruption that had risen from below.
Deyana Ludens, in the midst of expanding its corrupting influence, unleashed its draconic breath.
Fwoosh…!
“Iron Knight.”
“I’ve got it!”
Even before Ghost spoke, Iron Knight was already summoning his walls.
Layers of castle walls rose before them. But the corrupting energy instantly lted and corroded the steel, causing them to crumble apart.
By the ti the walls disintegrated, the two were already gone, launching themselves toward the next point at terrifying speed.
Just then, the entire floor of the corrupted valley writhed, and sothing shot upward.
A clattering horde of rotting skeletons, wielding rust-reddened weapons, erupted from the ground.
Dragon Tooth Soldiers. Deyana Ludens’s personal army, sown and reaped from the corrupted earth itself.
Slice!
But a black sword strike flashed past, and the monsters were instantly cleaved in two.
Without batting an eye, Ghost cut down the monsters blocking her path in a single strike.
Iron Knight raised walls to block ranged attacks.
Ghost cut down nearby monsters to clear a path.
The last ti they had fought in sync was thirty years ago, but the teamwork they had honed through bone-grinding battles during that war was still effective.
With perfect coordination, they blocked the attacks pouring down on them, pulverized the monsters in their way, and closed the distance to the Demon Lord in an instant.
“Still magnificent. I am pleased.”
The Demon Lord smiled with satisfaction.
“But only two of you, not all five.”
“…!”
“The sword and shield are here… but the ‘main force’ you were protecting back then is not.”
Ghost hated to admit it, but the Demon Lord was right.
Thirty years ago, while the two of them in the vanguard cleared the way, the other three heroes—the rearguard and main force—would follow.
But now, all three were absent.
“The two of you alone will not be enough to reach .”
“Whether it’s enough or not…” Ghost muttered murderously, “Why don’t you take this and then keep running your mouth?”
Whoooosh…!
A storm of blades was already swirling in the sky above.
Ghost had been preparing this attack the entire ti she was closing the distance, and now, the Demon Lord was finally in range.
As she raised her sword high, the storm of blades began to move in response.
Deyana Ludens didn’t stand idle. It gathered its breath and unleashed a jet-black torrent.
But Iron Knight stepped in front of Ghost, raising walls to block it.
Craaack…!
The Demon Lord’s concentrated breath of corruption instantly corroded and lted the walls.
But Iron Knight summoned another, and another, and finally took the attack with his own back, holding his ground.
While her old comrade shielded her with his body, Ghost swung her black sword down with all her might.
The storm of blades swirled with her motion, crashing down squarely on the Demon Lord’s head.
The colossal body, fused with the valley and steeped in black corruption, split clean in two.
“…”
“…”
Though their enemy was bisected, neither Ghost nor Iron Knight celebrated. They regulated their breathing, reset their stances, and waited for what ca next.
They knew full well it wouldn’t be killed by sothing like this.
“This brings back mories.”
Sure enough, Deyana Ludens’s shredded body began to reassemble like pieces of a mosaic.
“And just like back then, the two of you alone cannot kill . Had that last strike contained the Savior’s ‘light,’ perhaps… or if it had been joined by the Archmage’s firepower or the Spirit Lord’s disruption. But such a simple attack cannot defeat .”
“…”
“Or perhaps if there was just one more person with talent on your level… A vanguard without its main force is a lonely thing.”
The Demon Lord laughed as it skillfully stitched its body back together.
“That’s why I brought them,” Ghost growled. “The ‘main force’ you were looking for.”
Rumble!
The castle walls had moved, drawing closer until they were right above the valley. Behind the massive steel walls deployed by Iron Knight, a line of Hunters was advancing.
“Oh-ho. You managed to bring your subordinates this far, alive and through my breath of corruption. Impressive.”
The Demon Lord’s mouth stretched into a wide grin.
“But you are already inside my nest. It would be a mistake to think you are safe just because you are behind a wall.”
The Demon Lord snapped its fingers.
Fwoooosh…!
From the bottom of the valley, a thick fog of Corpse Poison billowed upward. The toxic mist flowed up and over the valley’s edge, washing over the Hunters hidden behind the walls.
“Ugh!”
Ghost and Iron Knight gritted their teeth.
This was a new attack the Demon Lord had acquired after its resurrection as an undead—one it didn’t have thirty years ago.
It was clear the poison fog alone would send their casualties soaring before the battle even began. Not even the Hunters’ gas masks could block its malevolent energy.
Then the wind stirred.
A cool current swept in from behind, scattering the creeping miasma.
The Hunters blinked in astonishnt as their pain ebbed away, then turned as one to find the source of the wind.
“I swear… who’s got such bad breath…?”
There he was—at the very rear of the subjugation force, leading the cautious ragtag stragglers of the Black Parade’s Deck 1 Leftovers Team.
Jae-hee tottered forward, swaying unsteadily from the poison… or maybe from the alcohol.
“Urp, I don’t feel so good… lem just crack a window…”
Behind him, the very air had split apart. A rift, glowing with pale blue light, had opened in the fabric of space itself.
It was the true source of the refreshing wind.
“Whew…”
Jae-hee blinked blearily at the rift, then down at his longsword, which he had no mory of drawing.
Flushed from drink, he looked around with a goofy grin.
“Ahhh… much better with a window open.”
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