109 What Do I Care?

“Fuck! What are you doing?! I said cut the connection, now!”

“Haa! Haa! Haaak!”

“Hey, send some people over here. Right now! Hurry!”

Zeke Pulan’s penthouse was, quite literally, a scene of utter chaos.

The people who, until moments ago, had acted with faces like those of immortals from the Old Murim, as though they held everything in the world in the palms of their hands.

But the moment they experienced the scene of Rhino’s defeat and fall through Vichakos’s eyes, not one of them could remain seated, as though fire had been lit beneath their backsides.

“Cut the S.E.L.!”

“I want to! But the synchronization level is so high that it’s difficult to cut it immediately. And the hacking…”

Zeke Pulan, who had been in charge of the S.E.L., frantically hammered at a small laptop, trying desperately to sever the connection.

But the more he tampered with it, the stronger the connection became.

There was no way a mere film director could stand against Axis, whose hacking skills were enough to make even experts click their tongues in admiration.

“Villangsi! What are you going to do about this?!”

An old man leaning on a cane hurried over and badgered Villangsi.

Even now, whenever he closed his eyes, he could see how far Vichakos had come.

Her killing intent was clearly directed at them, as if she were reaching out with her fingertips.

But there was another problem.

That emotion was now slowly eating away at everyone in the room.

S.E.L. (Sensory Experience Link).

A technology that immersed viewers in a film to an extreme degree, making them assimilate with the emotions of the characters within it.

For as long as they watched the film, it was a device that made someone else’s emotions stronger than their own.

But because they were using it illegally, its sensitivity was far above the legal limit.

Put simply—.

“Why…! Why is this fun?! Fuck!”

“Don’t do this. This isn’t right. I’m the one in danger here.”

Vichakos’s joy and excitement at coming to kill them were crushing their own fear and terror.

They had to run.

Yes, running away from here was the right thing to do.

But they didn’t want to run.

Because she was hoping someone would be here.

Because she was excited that she would arrive soon.

That emotion.

It was holding their legs in place.

“Cuuuuut the S.E.L.!”

Even as the tycoons screamed nearly at the top of their lungs, Villangsi pressed his lips together and stared only at his terminal.

‘It ends like this? Don’t make me laugh. I’m someone chosen by the god. I’m not someone who’s going to end like this.’

Chosen by the Tower’s master.

The Hierarch.

The one who had uniquely been granted the authority to open and close the Sixth Floor.

There was no way someone like him could be defeated by a mere fixer and a hunter from the uncivilized Third Floor.

Zzzzt—!

At that moment, the light on the terminal Villangsi was holding came back on.

The assassins he had sent to the Third Floor to get Vichakos by the throat.

He had reconnected with them after contact had suddenly been cut off.

‘I won.’

As expected, the god had not abandoned him.

With this, he could control Vichakos however he pleased again.

Relieved, he loosened his tie and forced the corners of his mouth upward, pretending to be calm.

“What’s the situation? Did you capture the children?”

When the screen lit up, what appeared was—

A pair of nostrils.

…Nostrils?

- Huh?

Even the voice sounded a little silly.

As the camera slowly pulled back, a face was revealed.

There stood a pink-haired elf Villangsi had never seen before, fiddling with the terminal and tilting their head in confusion.

- Ohhh! Look at this! This is super cool! Isn’t this that thing? A video buddy?!

- Wh-what are you doing?

- It’s the phone those guys had earlier!

“……”

The elf smiled brightly and waved at the terminal.

- Nice to meet you! What’s your name?

- Th-that filthy thing. D-don’t play with it.

When someone beside them who was stammering tried to snatch the terminal away, the elf stuck out their lips and resisted.

- Why?! There’s a person inside!

- A person?

- I’m saying hello! Hello!

“……”

The sight of the elf smiling and waving grated on Villangsi’s nerves. Though he felt his head growing hot, he forced himself to remain calm and lowered his voice.

“What about the fixers?”

They weren’t as formidable as Rhino, but he had carefully selected fixers who were each renowned in their own right and sent them there.

But.

- Fixers? Ah! You mean those guys from earlier? The ones with machine bodies? The police took them all away!

“……”

- Raichen’s magic went fwoooosh! Fwoosh! Fwoooooosh!

“……”

- I didn’t even need to draw my bow! The boss’s friend went bam! Bam! Pow-pow!

“……”

- Even Ms. Kim took one down! Bam!

- Co-cool, right?

- Though he was running away!

“……”

- Anyway, they all went to the police station! It’s almost dinnertime, so maybe they’re eating bean rice?

The police station?

Bean rice?

Strangely, he didn’t feel particularly screwed over.

Vichakos’s excitement had already swallowed up every other emotion.

That was probably why he could ask so calmly.

“What… are you?”

They had been interfering ever since last time.

After the cathedral assassination failed, he had naturally finished investigating Kim Juseon’s background.

And he had mocked him.

He was just the owner of a matchmaking agency.

A lower-class man who had graduated from hunter training but failed to obtain a license, scraping by from day to day.

Yet moments ago, he had defeated Rhino, both his greatest asset and one of the legendary fixers.

Wasn’t it a bit much to call him merely a variable?

“What the hell are you people?”

Why had they suddenly appeared and interfered?

How had they suddenly learned about all this and found their way here?

As a faint sense of grievance, not entirely suppressed even by Vichakos’s excitement, rose up to ask the question, the elf smiled and answered.

- Us? Ah, wait and see!

The screen turned.

A beastman with ram’s horns stood there neatly, then bowed politely.

- We’ll find your miracle. Welcome to Meracle.

“You fucking bastards—!”

At last, Villangsi’s fury erupted.

He couldn’t stand their manner of greeting him so calmly, as though they were teasing him or airing an advertisement.

- She’s angry! She’s angry?! Why, why are you doing that?

- I-I don’t know! I-I said it nicely.

Unable to contain his rage, Villangsi stomped down hard and crushed the terminal beneath his foot.

Crunch! Crunch!

“Haa, haa—!”

And at that exact moment.

Crash—!

The floor-to-ceiling glass wall that had proudly overlooked the city shattered into pieces, and a nun carrying twin pistols walked inside.

“Did you enjoy the movie?”

Bang! Bang! Bang!

Three bullets fired in an instant.

Each in a different direction.

The shots were impossibly accurate, targeting only parts that were not prosthetic.

Blood burst simultaneously from the bodies of the three men.

“Aaaaaagh!”

“Guh, ugh!?”

“A, aaaagh!”

Behind the gunfire in every play, a scream always follows.

Villangsi, who had been about to clench his fist, let the strength drain from his body.

Because he was the only one who hadn’t been hit by a bullet, his emotions were all the clearer.

It was fun.

It was refreshing.

It felt good.

“Fu, ck….”

A short sigh escaped him.

The fact that the emotions he felt were diametrically opposed to what he was doing was horrifyingly bizarre.

“Don’t shoot!”

Yoo Yena hurriedly called out from behind her, but Vichakos had already walked toward Villangsi, her heels clicking with every step.

Click—!

The muzzle aimed at Villangsi’s forehead.

At the same time.

A smile appeared on both their lips simultaneously.

“You’re feeling this joy too?”

“Ah.”

Villangsi realized.

Even though he was on the verge of being killed, he was empathizing with the emotions of the woman about to commit murder.

He felt relief at his own death.

He was satisfied with his own death.

“Why…?”

Villangsi’s lips trembled.

“I can’t even fully feel my own death, can I?”

There was no resentment.

It was simply a question, and bewilderment.

“Where, exactly, did my sadness go?”

At Villangsi’s question, Vichakos tilted her head as if thinking for a moment, and—

She answered with a mocking laugh.

“What do I care?”

Bang!

* * *

“So that’s how it went. Villangsi died, and the other tycoons were arrested. Good! Good!”

Monday at the Meracle office.

I had announced that I would explain what happened and then left, so even though the employees had come to work, they weren’t preparing to work. Instead, they had gathered around me in small groups.

“Was the guy who came out of there really that bad!? If I’d known, I would’ve given him one good hit—!”

“Exactly! You should’ve shown me too! I would’ve taught him a lesson!”

I wasn’t sure how they planned to hit the man on the screen.

For now, though, Renea and Baek Yeonhwa were raising both hands and raging like primitive people.

I left the two excited barbarians alone as they clenched their fists and thrust them into the air, while Kim Yang and Raichen asked at the same time.

“D-did you kill him?”

“Did you kill him?”

“…Ahem, classified, classified.”

Of course, I hadn’t killed Villangsi.

No, I couldn’t kill him.

He was a confirmed Hierarch.

He was probably being held in the deepest part of the Tower Management Bureau, where they questioned him about all sorts of things every day.

There might even be torture involved.

Well, what could I do?

Torture was illegal on Third-Floor Earth and in Sixth-Floor Cyber City, but—

On the Fourth-Floor Rajesta Continent, it was carried out in secret,

and on the Fifth-Floor Old Murim, it was openly encouraged.

They probably had no choice but to make him spill the information.

“Th-then you didn’t pull the trigger?”

“I did shoot. That was quite—.”

You could say we had witnessed something amazing.

We had seen a story that normally circulated as a meme unfold right in front of us.

“Oversync is a technology that fuses a person with a machine or weapon, right?”

That was why it was a unique ability whose firepower was affected by emotions.

It was that difficult, and I had also heard that when it went berserk, the human body and machine fused together and transformed into something grotesque.

“Since Vichakos is a master of masters when it comes to Oversync… apparently the opposite is possible too.”

“Th-the opposite?”

Kim Yang still didn’t understand and tilted her head in confusion.

But Raichen seemed to realize and gave a small nod.

In other words, put simply.

“You can shoot a gun softly.”

It was fascinating.

Anyway, it looked like things had worked out nicely. Unfortunately, I still hadn’t fully kept my promise to the children.

Mosco Vichakos had been arrested by the Tower Management Bureau and was being interrogated, so she still hadn’t been able to return to the children.

At least, we had reassured them somewhat by letting them have a video call with her.

‘Yena said she’d pull some strings.’

I’d heard she would only accompany me and stand watch for about three hours today so I could go see the children—.

Bang!

Startled by the door flying open, everyone turned to look in that direction.

Yoo Yena and Mosco Vichakos stood there, with Yoo Yena accompanying Vichakos as part of the surveillance detail.

“Why are you here?”

Instead of going to see the children, she had stopped here first, and her expression looked complicated in more ways than one.