By Zephyria 
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‘…….’
It felt as if his consciousness had cut out for a moment. It was likely because he was so angry.
The back of his head stung, he thought of Jin Mu-hae, and he realized that the man had walked into a trap alone.
At that same moment, Joo-oh lost several seconds of memory. It meant he had been blinded by rage.
Taang—! Tang! Tang!
“Fuck, what is this!”
“Kill it! Shoot it in the head more!”
Flattened bullets fell to the ground with a tuduk sound. A few drops of blood trickled down the nape of his neck.
It hurt. It hurt incomparably more than when Jin Mu-hae had shoved him. When he rubbed the area with his hand, he felt scattered burn marks.
‘Jin Mu-hae likes my hair.’
He felt something that had been suppressed surging up from within.
Swish. Something long and flexible moved below his waist. It was the shape of a tail, billowing like black smoke.
Kwaaaang—!
Immediately after, a bomb flew in. The ground he stood on screeched and was gouged deep.
Joo-oh stopped abruptly while massaging his stiff shoulders. His jacket… the hoodie Jin Mu-hae had bought him was tattered and burning.
Looking down urgently, his boots weren’t on fire, but the soles were half-detached and the zippers had burst.
The red boots Jin Mu-hae had made for him. The greatest Gift, made of the same hidden leather as Jin Mu-hae’s jacket.
A treasure he had never seen even after playing the game thousands or tens of thousands of times, and one that could not be obtained anywhere else, was ruined.
“……My shoes.”
The reason he had barely managed to cling to shook violently. Whap! The tail lashed out fiercely, slicing a passing tree trunk in half.
“What… what on earth is this!”
Screams that sounded like howls erupted from all directions. The tail lengthened, wrapping around two pieces of human meat who had recklessly charged in.
“Keuk, ke-ack!”
Ududuk. There was a sensation of a hard core snapping, and the struggling movements stopped.
Gunshots rang out in rapid succession once more, but this time, the limp piece of meat blocked all the bullets like a shield.
—What’s happening? Did the assassination fail?
—I asked what’s happening!
—Stop panting and speak!
Panicked voices echoed several times through the earpiece.
“He’s… not human……”
At the groan-like mutter, Joo-oh slowly scanned his own hands.
White, soft skin. A total of ten fingers. No. I am Joo-oh. I haven’t become a monster yet.
Tuduk. Something fell on his forehead, and when he looked up at the sky, it was thick with dark clouds.
Heavy raindrops began to fall. Judging by the scent of wet earth vibrating everywhere, a violent rain was about to pour.
“Where is Jin Mu-hae?”
Only after struggling to suppress the emotions surging inside did he finally manage to utter that name.
No one answered. It was only natural, considering he was asking insignificant extras whose names weren’t even mentioned.
Hop. He jumped down from a rocky hill. It wasn’t particularly high, about the height of a fifth-floor building in the Jaegang District.
As the agile figure dropped from the sky, the meat guarding the vegan society panicked and fired their guns.
Tasers and gunpowder bullets only stung; they didn’t hurt much. However, his clothes were now practically rags.
Sodden scraps of cloth fluttered down to the ground. I’m angry. His head, wearing an inorganic expression, tilted to the side.
“They said he was just a leftover with intelligence issues… what kind of monster was that crazy mercenary bringing around!”
The voice of a second person. They were clearly using a language he knew, but the content didn’t register well in his mind.
“Let’s retreat for now! Then we can report—”
“No, no. We can’t do that. Look at this.”
A third person ran toward a nearby tree. When he shook a lump of red meat caught in the branches, a smell that felt like it was boiling inside wafted over.
His consciousness flickered, dipping and rising. Red pupils moved back and forth, following that fluctuation.
“How could this happen……”
Whether he had realized something, the face of the second person sitting in the wheelchair turned pale.
“Now, now. Your friend. You remember him, right? Your friend.”
“……Jin Mu-hae.”
“Yes. Jin Mu-hae! He’s with us right now. You have to be well-behaved if you want us to bring him to you.”
Drenched like a rat in the pouring rain, a grey-haired man spoke to him as if soothing a child.
Jin Mu-hae. As soon as he heard that name, the boiling inside him calmed slightly. However, his mind remained hazy, as if shrouded in fog.
Is that… a gesture to reach out his hand? Even an Aberrant, which isn’t human, wouldn’t fall for such nonsense.
Despite wondering who they took him for, Joo-oh obediently extended both arms. Soon, restraints bound his wrists, snapping open with a pak sound and tightening around his entire body.
“Got him! Bring him in!”
Because only then would they bring Jin Mu-hae to him alive. A story that had changed, unable to withstand the intervention of a helper. And the precious protagonist caught up in it.
The eyes that had been flowing with ghostly energy became slightly more gentle. Whew. As he took a long breath, he felt the violently moving tail melt away and disappear.
Thank goodness. Now it would be okay for Jin Mu-hae to come. Just as he was thinking that, he faintly heard the engine sound of a Hover Car.
From the vehicle that arrived much later, a massive silhouette stepped out, as if being pushed, staggering.
With a deep purple bruise on his cheek and a bloody nose… Jin Mu-hae! It was Jin Mu-hae! The moment their eyes met, he felt the usually calm gaze shift violently.
Such a cold and ominous look. Why? Is he not glad to see me?
“……You’re not clean.”
Only then did his mind spin and he realized. Disheveled hair, a face covered in soot, a neck with a bit of blood flowing, and clothes torn into rags. And a body bound tight……
He wasn’t hurt, but Jin Mu-hae would worry. Sure enough, just as feared, Jin Mu-hae shouted something and flared up.
Simultaneously, the people surrounding him struck his messy head with a rifle butt.
Red blood trickled down the forehead of Jin Mu-hae, who staggered in pain.
“……!”
No. His breathing became ragged again.
Jin Mu-hae. Jin Mu-hae. As Joo-oh mumbled, his pupils dilated to a terrifying size.
“Those, those idiots!”
The meat standing beside him made a fuss, but now it felt more like noise than human speech.
All sounds, the sight in his vision, the smells, and the touch were bounced away, hitting an invisible barrier.
Jin Mu-hae must not be hurt.
Jin Mu-hae must not become meat.
“Cover this brat’s eyes! And tell them to bring him in carefully! Hurry!”
“Let’s move him into the vehicle first. His eyes seem to be getting weird again!”
“Let’s do that. We have to smuggle him out before central notices……”
He didn’t know. He really didn’t know. In the original story, Jin Mu-hae had to go through four more Quests before reaching this point.
And then, while hiding perfectly and monitoring them, he would immediately attack the grey-haired man once no one discovered him and they dispersed.
There were arduous battles in that process, but unless the mission failed, there was no instance where Jin Mu-hae was seriously injured and collapsed.
But since he was experiencing this kind of development for the first time, he couldn’t guarantee the situation would settle down exactly as he had memorized.
‘Jin Mu-hae will disappear forever.’
Someone whispered in his ear. Ududuk. His arms swelled, and the restraints pressing against his body burst.
Rain poured down so heavily that his vision became blurry. The moment he confirmed the rainwater flowing beneath Jin Mu-hae’s feet was red……
Snap.
His flickering consciousness broke with a clear, rupturing sound.
* * *
‘How foolish.’
No matter how unexpected it was, to fall so neatly into such a clumsy trap.
Jin Mu-hae glanced down at his bleeding flank. The wound wasn’t deep, but the amount of bleeding was unusual, perhaps because a blood vessel had been hit.
Since he was tied up anyway, he had tried to escape for nothing. After being pierced by a harpoon-like skewer, he felt his head spinning.
But he couldn’t just stay still. Because it seemed the communication between these damn things contained talk of Joo-oh.
No matter how mysterious the fellow’s strength was, could he really withstand human tactics?
Clank. As he twisted his arms tied behind his back, a fist flew toward him as if telling him not to try anything. Mu-hae spat out blood-mixed saliva and groaned lowly.
“I asked, what did you do with my companion.”
No matter how many times he asked, spitting the words out, there was no answer. The guys, who were still aiming their muzzles and guarding the hostage, suddenly murmured and drove the Hover Car they had parked far away toward them.
The moment he got in, he didn’t know where he would be dragged. But he couldn’t recklessly defy the group, who now seemed ready to shoot him if necessary.
Jin Mu-hae entered the vehicle obediently and felt around his lower back. Although all his equipment had been taken, he had something left for emergencies.
Pjijik. The wound, where the bleeding had slowed slightly, burst open again as he moved his waist. Hot, damp blood gushed out, staining his already wet clothes once more.
But thanks to that, he managed to thread an extra wire from his waist through the chain of the handcuffs. He intended to hook the suction hook at the end to the interior the moment he stepped out of the car.
Fortunately, the scenery outside the window wasn’t entirely unfamiliar. It was the route he had taken while chasing them on the bike earlier. It seemed they were returning to where Joo-oh was.
Now, if he could just confirm that the boy was safe, he could risk further injury to attempt an escape. While maintaining cold rationality with that thought, the fellow he had left behind finally appeared before Mu-hae.
“What on earth is that……”
Clothes that were scorched and torn as if he had rolled through a fire pit. Along the exposed neck and shoulder line, what remained were clearly bloodstains.
His expression was very strange, looking as if he were terrified. This was the first time Mu-hae had seen Joo-oh look so shabby, despite having rolled through all sorts of environments.
Something hot surged inside him, and he ended up shouting.
“You bastards!”
Naturally, a beating followed. After being hit hard in the head, his vision became blurry.
Still, he had one last trump card. Mu-hae pretended to lose his strength and staggered, while putting firm pressure on his bound hands.
If he pulled his arms hard enough to potentially dislocate his wrists, the loop of the handcuffs would break. Because it was a dreadfully expensive wire that dealt 120 damage per meter, harder and tougher than steel of the same thickness.
However, before he could brace himself to break his joints, a strange sensation enveloped his body.
Whoosh. A chilling aura that made his legs give out smothered his windpipe. His hands and feet turned cold instantly, and his shoulders trembled.
‘……?’
An incomprehensible fear stimulated his instincts and pierced his knees. Shouts were heard in the distance, and the roar of firearms discharging echoed.
Mu-hae struggled to lift his stiff head, as if someone were pressing his skull down.
Because the sound was coming from the direction where Joo-oh was. To check what was happening, and whether he was safe.
But……
“Keuk, h-ack! Aaaaaagh!”
“Kill them! Kill them!”
In the place where Joo-oh should have been tied, pieces of human flesh were flying.
Severed limbs and torsos with exposed bones. In the middle of the place where men in gruesome states were crawling away……
Kirrrrung—.
A face far too familiar, a face that sometimes made him frown because he wanted to smile just by looking at it, was being enveloped in black smoke without expression.
The tattered clothes were no longer visible. The black smoke simply gathered together, transforming into long, giant limbs.
Kwak!
Suddenly, four fingers pierced the head of a fleeing human. While being splashed by a fountain of blood, the once perfectly straight face disappeared into the smoke.
The body, which had grown beyond its original height to 2 meters, 3 meters, finally stopped its billowing proliferation. Eyes, a mouth, and facial features formed in the smoke that was rounded like draped cloth.
No, could those even be called eyes? Two holes punched through an endless darkness?
Soon, the shimmering holes became blood-red eyeballs, and a creepy gaze turned toward the people crawling away in terror.
Wajik!
A wide-open maw bit into a nearby man. The remaining lower half of the body convulsed, spurting blood.
Peok, degureureu…… A round object rolled to Mu-hae’s feet.
Half of a human head distorted in horror. When he realized it was the face of the vegan society bastard he had been chasing, Mu-hae collapsed, sitting down without even realizing it.
His mind, unable to comprehend the situation, asked a futile question.
Where is Joo-oh? Where is Joo-oh? He should be taking Joo-oh and escaping this place.
Kirrrrung—!
A pitch-black Aberrant, the likes of which had never been witnessed anywhere, curled the corners of its mouth amidst the blood.
180 – Became an Anomaly in a Dead Game