By Zephyria 
「Is it a neeeew employeeee……?」
“No.”
「Then you’re just a dead maaan!」
It seemed the rules here were extremely insular, to the point of killing without question. Jeil Heon split the head of the lunging Aberration without hesitation. Starting with that one, Aberrations poured out with murderous intent from the cremation furnaces, from coffins preparing for departure, and from the waiting rooms.
Jeil Heon swung his weapon, careful not to be pushed back by the cremation furnaces lining the corridors. The narrow hallway was soon overflowing with the death rattles of Aberrations and glistening chunks of flesh. When the steel frame he was using broke, he replaced it with a metal hook held by an Aberration that had been working the furnace. When that crushed, he used a shovel; when the shovel became unusable, he fought his way through the corridor swinging a broken pipe.
Even for the Aberrations surging in as if the hallway would burst, there was an end. Finally reaching the end of the corridor, Jeil Heon threw the fire extinguisher he had been using as a makeshift weapon to the floor. The extinguisher, drenched in bodily fluids, rolled over the flesh of an Aberration.
At the end of the corridor he had walked, there were two diverging paths. One led to the morgue, and the other to the charnel house. The coffin where Lee Yeo-jin and Nam Hyeon-woo had taken refuge in the Bukmangsan Crematorium was in the morgue. Without hesitation, Jeil Heon opened the door leading to the morgue.
「…….」
Countless coffins were strewn about haphazardly in all directions, and amidst them stood the figure of the Smiling Man. Jeil Heon took Nam Soon-ho’s Divine Blade out of the wooden sword case and gripped it in his hand. No matter what action he took, the Smiling Man did not react.
He merely moved his unfocused eyes.
「Do you know where I first met Yeo-jin?」
“I heard it was at the Management Bureau.”
「As you know, Sunbae, my mother wanted me—who lacks the true eye—to live a normal life without getting involved with the Bureau. But because she suffered a severe cold, I, who was asked to run an errand, visited the Bureau in her stead.」
Since he was already there, Nam Hyeon-woo had stopped by the Enforcement Division’s training ground to see Jeil Heon’s face, and there he met a woman. A rookie Agent who followed Jeil Heon’s training doggedly, even though she was struggling to the point of vomiting from the grueling regimen.
Looking back, he had already fallen for her then.
「Until I met Yeo-jin, I thought I was a human incapable of loving anyone except my mother and Sunbae.」
Among ordinary humans, Nam Hyeon-woo was merely the illegitimate child of a shaman, but among those familiar with the Otherworld, he was always followed by whispers that he might be a being born from Nam Soon-ho’s collusion with an anomaly. Either way, there was nowhere he could feel at home or give his affection. Except for his only family, Nam Soon-ho, and Jeil Heon, who had looked after him like an older brother.
And through that narrow crack in his heart, Lee Yeo-jin entered. Nam Hyeon-woo finally felt as if he had become human. A human who could love and be loved normally.
The Smiling Man screamed, his neck tearing wide open.
「I just wanted to protect my family! To protect my child from that goddamn fate that is nothing short of a curse! Yeo-jin’s and my child!」
“I know.”
「Then why are you getting in my way!」
“Because your method was wrong.”
The only Aberration remaining in this Aberrant Realm was the Smiling Man. Jeil Heon gripped the handle of the Divine Blade tightly and stepped forward. The Smiling Man’s shoulders shook convulsively.
〈How can you still call yourself human after this? Do you truly not fear your karma! This child is your own!〉
〈Hyeon-woo, your way is not right.〉
The grief-stricken voices of Nam Soon-ho and Lee Yeo-jin overlapped with Jeil Heon’s answer. Everyone he loved denied him. They told him his answer was wrong, obstructed him, and took his child away. I was the one who sacrificed. I was the one who became a murderer, soaking both hands in people’s blood to protect the child.
The Smiling Man recalled the Aberrant Mother, who, even after being captured, refused to tell Jeil Heon where the child was. Only after devouring her was he able to find Jeil Heon’s whereabouts. It was to protect the child. It was to protect his family. That was why the Smiling Man devoured the Aberrant Mother. Nam Hyeon-woo killed Lee Yeo-jin. Nam Hyeon-woo wanted to protect his family. That was why Nam Hyeon-woo killed his mother and his wife…
「Aaaagh! Sunbae! Sunbae stole my baby! If you hadn’t kidnapped my baby! Yeo-jin wouldn’t have died!」
As the Smiling Man became agitated, the Aberrant Realm he had contaminated also writhed. The floor he stood on and the ceiling creaked and twisted. Jeil Heon replied indifferently, feeling the heat of the cremation furnaces gradually intensify.
“Yes, perhaps that might have been the case. Mansin may have already passed, but maybe Yeo-jin would have survived.”
「If only you weren’t here…!」
“But Hyeon-woo. Even if I went back twenty-two years, I would still take your child away from you.”
Those words finally drove the Smiling Man into a frenzy. I’llkillyoukillyoubringyeojinbackgivemybabybackiteallbecauseofsunbaejustdie. A torrent of countless resentful spirits of hatred, tangled into one, poured down like a rainstorm.
It was content too gruesome and provocative to be reported in the press, but Nam Hyeon-woo hadn’t simply killed people and drawn smile marks. Just like the end of the man who had been contaminated by the Smiling Man and released his seal, he cut and tore the corpses, using their shapes and blood to draw smile marks.
Only then could one possess immense power as an anomaly.
Only by being that mad could a human spontaneously degenerate and become an anomaly.
The human who chose to become a monster to protect his child became a monster and killed his mother and wife. And then he went berserk to kill the man who had fled to protect the child from the monster.
Like the smile marks drawn in blood by tearing flesh, an intangible energy that tore everything apart slashed through the surroundings. It ripped through walls and corridors, shredding countless coffins to pieces. The blade of the Divine Blade shone coldly, repeatedly parrying the formless slashes. The deflected energy tore through the ceiling and returned like a boomerang.
The air split, and the pressure shifted. The things torn apart by the Smiling Man could not be restored to their original state. The torn debris was swept away as if screaming under the relentlessly surging energy.
“Kh…!”
Eventually, a chunk of flesh was sliced clean off his shoulder. The Smiling Man’s power to tear everything apart even cut through the Bearer’s ability to recover wounds quickly. In an instant, his forearm was drenched in blood. How many years had it been since he was injured this much? Jeil Heon swallowed a bitter smile.
Torn objects and debris from the space flew in, obstructing his vision. He blocked the fatal attacks, but no matter how skilled Jeil Heon was, he couldn’t defend his back and chest simultaneously. Bloodstains spread one by one on his clothes, and debris became embedded. Blood dripped with every step he took.
「If only it weren’t for you! Ahaha!」
The Smiling Man’s attacks, which tore down not only Jeil Heon but the Aberrant Realm itself, were closer to self-harm. The gaps in the space, shredded like sheets of paper, were torn, torn, and torn again. The flesh of Aberrations piled in the corridor burst out from the walls, and the flames of the cremation furnaces flowed from the ceiling like lava. The black flames of the Blind Eater, like a wildfire.
Ah, older brothers. It’s hot. It’s so hot. Resentment that was not his own boiled over upon touching the anomaly’s flames. Heat amplified several times beyond what he actually felt and the phantom pain of flesh sizzling burned his entire body.
The hand gripping the hilt trembled violently, and beads of sweat mixed with blood blurred his vision. Squelch. His thigh was deeply slashed, and his knee buckled. Grabbing the energy flying toward his head with his left hand, he took another step forward. Fresh blood burst from his grip.
Within the sin fire that burned both soul and flesh, a goblin wailing with hatred that wasn’t his whispered. How fragile humans are. Cast aside the skin of a human, who is nothing but weak, and accept me. Let us go together to find the livers of your older brothers. Jeil Heon looked down at his left hand, where the flesh was deeply torn and bleeding, and took a quiet breath. If he became an Aberration, he could not hold that child in this hand.
“…Besides, where would I find the livers of your older brothers who died hundreds of years ago?”
Slicing through the void that was being shredded along with him, he took the final step.
「Give me back my child!」
The Smiling Man shrieked. Now, almost nothing with a distinct shape remained in the Aberrant Realm. Fragments of space, already broken into pieces, were torn into pieces again and surged forward, and the frenzied energy filled the surroundings, crashing into Jeil Heon like a tidal wave.
As if a fragile human, who couldn’t even become a monster, was nothing more than a single bite.
Just like the Smiling Man’s despair.