By Zephyria 
Kim Si-baek covered his face with both hands, his shoulders shaking violently as if he were exhaling a long-held breath.
“……You destroyed the world once, and you still weren’t satisfied?”
Tae-un gave an exaggerated shrug.
“Because it was boring.”
“…….”
“As you know, Hyung, there weren’t any decent priests here who could use divine power. Everyone was just a bunch of people who couldn’t even understand what was happening, let alone oppose me, no matter what I did. It was too dull and tedious.”
“…….”
“But you’re different, Hyung. When I heard you became an apostle, I thought you’d be enough to play with. Since you lacked divine power, I used the system to help raise your fame. Since I’d already set the stage, I played fair. It would be boring if I won as easily as I did when I was alone, especially after bringing you from so far away.”
Tae-un sneered, feeling as though he had become some sort of final boss rambling on about his plans. Then again, he wasn’t exactly wrong.
Still, it seemed his primary objective had been achieved. Though he had been a close confidant, he was perfectly suited as the villain who betrays the protagonist at the very end by stabbing them in the back. Some villains repent depending on the story, but the end for a pleasure-killing traitor with no tragic backstory is obvious, isn’t it?
He felt Kim Si-baek take a sharp breath. The hands covering his face slid down. Tae-un waited for the anger that would be reflected in those hazel eyes as they were slowly revealed. A pleasant thrill resonated in his heart.
However, the gaze revealed through the purple-tinted sunset, while still harboring confusion, had deepened into a silent light.
“Un-ah, don’t lie to me.”
✽ ✽ ✽
In the center of a miserably destroyed city, listening to the sound of Federal Bureau of Investigation hunters swarming to arrest him, Tae-un asked again.
〈Can I die a normal death after 7,777 days?〉
「Of course. The limit of the time you can turn back is 7,777 days.」
If so, couldn’t he just hold on until then to avoid becoming a monster and then commit suicide? For Tae-un, death was the easiest thing. However, Chaos, having read his surface psychology, let out a laugh that sounded like a wide, tearing grin.
「Suicide is impossible. Do you think I would let the first apostle I’ve ever encountered die by his own hand without offering a single burnt offering?」
Damn it. Tae-un bit his lower lip, unaware that he was bleeding. How could he end it without killing Si-baek Hyung, even if he became a monster? I have to be the one to die, but if I can’t kill myself, there’s no other way……
Ah.
With a sudden realization, Tae-un snapped his head up. A way to die. Wasn’t there just one?
〈Didn’t you say that the grand warriors of mak slecht were eventually subjugated by the priests of other gods?〉
「That is correct.」
〈Then the same would apply to Si-baek Hyung, as an apostle of the god of the netherworld, right? That means even if I become a monster, Si-baek Hyung can kill me.〉
The laughter of Chaos grew louder.
「Indeed it is.」
Chaos whispered to its apostle, who had finally found a way to die.
「However, the divinity of Earth is so weak it cannot even be compared to mak slecht. Can the apostle of a young god truly kill you?」
Hunters shouted for him to disarm, aiming their weapons. The surrounding interference was extremely bothersome, so Tae-un stood up and raised his hand as if to attack. The moment he made the sudden move, a barrage of bullets and various attribute attacks poured down upon him.
Back on the rooftop, Tae-un continued. The shock and pain of the moment of death no longer had any effect on him.
〈What are the ways for priests to obtain divine power?〉
「They may raise the divine name of their god, or increase the fame of their apostle and grand warrior.」
With Kim Si-baek’s return, the task he needed to undertake was decided. Raising the divine name of the god Kim Si-baek served would be difficult. Even with Chaos’s explanation, he couldn’t clearly grasp exactly which god it was, and on Earth, it would likely be viewed as nothing more than a cult at best.
On the other hand, several ways to raise Kim Si-baek’s fame immediately sprang to mind. If refined well, it would become a good plan. Above all, he was glad he could restore even a small part of the honor that Kim Si-baek had lost, having been dragged into the mud because of him. He was a man who should always shine.
〈Do you intend to interfere with this as well, judging it as me trying to kill myself?〉
A crystalline laugh poured out—a sound that was one yet all, overlapping all ages and genders.
「How many kalpas has it been since such amusement occurred? Child, we shall not stop the end of a foolish apostle who does not even know his own heart’s desire. Show us your end. Just as you, at five years old, overcame the fate of death.」
「What was it that you needed to overcome death at five years old? Even now, you desire the same price.」
「Therefore, we declare that the apostle of the young god shall claim your fate.」
「This is the covenant of the god, originated when light and darkness opened in the primordial era.」
Chaos promised in the same tone it had used when saying, ‘On the 7,777th day, I shall surely bring that person.’ Because of that, Tae-un could be certain. Just as Kim Si-baek would return on the 7,777th day, this too would come to pass.
「Of course, you cannot simply allow yourself to be killed by the apostle of the young god.」
〈I know. Instead, after I die, if Hyung wants to return to mak slecht, open the path for him.〉
「I shall help. However, the apostle of the young god harbors feelings of extreme affection for you; how can you be sure he will kill you?〉
〈I’ll make the scales of judgment tip the other way when he places me upon them.〉
Though it was a world that had forgotten Kim Si-baek, people still lived and life still pulsed. He knew Kim Si-baek could never abandon that world. It was a world where the younger siblings from the orphanage he cherished so much lived and walked toward their futures.
Moreover, in that world, Kim Si-baek’s siblings—Cloud—remained. A sibling who, like Tae-un, still tenderly held every memory of him. Tae-un knew that Kim Si-baek could never abandon that sibling.
Kim Si-baek would choose the world where his sibling lives, not himself.
This was the right path Tae-un had chosen.
He had to die before killing Kim Si-baek. He had to die before destroying the world where the people Kim Si-baek cherished and loved lived.
In a sense, it could be called a suicide plan. But Tae-un did not view it that way. He thought he was simply returning to the proper order of things. To a proper future where he died in that semi-basement room and never became a stumbling block for Kim Si-baek.
Despite preparing a meticulous plan, variables popped up little by little. However, things went smoothly. Kim Si-baek’s fame rose quickly. Tae-un judged that his own role in that was minimal.
The nature of a man who would willingly reach out to save a child whose name he didn’t even know was not broken or corrupted even by decades of hardship. Kim Si-baek still saved people from danger without hesitation. Tae-un had merely provided a few catalysts.
If anything, it was more tedious to carefully manage things so that people didn’t die due to the magical beasts he summoned, but it was something that had to be done. Kim Si-baek would not want his fame to be built upon the deaths of others, and it was not Tae-un’s wish for his name to be tarnished.
So, truly, everything was going smoothly.
Now, only one final step remained. The thrill that had tingled every time he felt the divine power that would kill him had now become so intense it felt as if it would pierce through the thin membrane of his heart.
〈I will die immersed in Hyung’s memories.〉
He was a person he had barely managed to reach. How ecstatic it would be to die by his hand and keep him in his sight until the very, very end. An end that continues eternally without disconnection.
〈I hope I am the last person Hyung thinks of right before he dies. I hope his head is so full of thoughts of me that it feels like it’ll burst, and that he dies embracing only me. Please die like that, Hyung.〉
At the same time, Tae-un felt his own desires were utterly horrific—that while preparing to be killed by him, he could not cast away the selfishness of not wanting to be forgotten.
For Kim Si-baek’s sake, it would be right to pretend he didn’t even remember him, allowing Kim Si-baek to easily kill him by casting away even the last lingering attachment to him. Judging by reason, there was no better direction than this.