The Boss Wants to Die

Chapter 21

The Boss Wants to Die

After gulping down whiskey straight from the bottle, Akt wiped the liquor dripping from his mouth with his sleeve.

Only then did his headache seem to ease a little.

“Pride doesn’t help. So I threw it away. A long time ago.”

As if a fierce drunkenness had shot straight to his head all at once, he looked at me with soft, unfocused eyes.

The languid flutter of his eyelashes was openly seductive.

“I want to. Play at love.”

“……”

“I don’t care if I’m being used like an idiot. Not anymore, not about something like that.”

He drained nearly half the bottle in another swig, then pulled something from his inventory.

It was a small golden plaque engraved with the names Akt Hevgenia and Evil God Hellroad.

The Token of Contract Akt and I had shared.

“The contract isn’t broken, and you’re still by my side.”

“……”

“You didn’t die.”

Repeating it as if drilling an essential truth into his mind, Akt muttered that I hadn’t died a couple more times and shook the plaque.

“No matter what happened, we’re together right now. That’s what matters.”

“……”

“Let’s do it—play lovers. What does it matter if we’re just fooling around lightly? Feelings can deepen that way, too.”

“Why……”

It was bizarre how Akt still wanted me, unwavering no matter how harshly I lashed out or hurt him.

He must have seen my ugliest side clearly.

Yet he wanted me just the same, longing to be together all the same.

He wanted to play at love, laughing and smiling as if nothing had ever been wrong.

Without a thought for the lies that covered us, or how much we had hurt each other……

Simply because he loved being with me.

‘Is he an idiot?’

My heart churned.

Akt seemed so foolish, acting so dumb even when he knew full well what had been done to him.

And that was why I wanted to take a bite out of him.

I wondered what he would taste like.

Wouldn’t it be terrifyingly sweet?

Wouldn’t it be warm enough to melt my frozen heart……?

Telling myself not to be fooled, biting my lower lip to stay on guard against him, the defensive walls I had built kept swaying as if on the verge of collapse.

‘I shouldn’t. I need to sever my attachment while I have the chance……’

Could I shake it off?

Was that even possible?

I looked at Akt.

As if remembering something, he rummaged through his inventory once more and pulled out a small turtle-shaped key ring, handing it to me.

When I pressed the turtle shell, an adorable little turtle head popped out from inside.

“I saw it on my way and bought it. What do you think? Do you like it?”

“Because of this……”

Was this why you came back to the inn?

After saying you were going hunting, you rushed back only to see something you never should have seen……

I bit the inside of my cheek hard.

If I didn’t, tears felt ready to spill over.

‘When you know full well that I want to die.’

The hand holding the soft turtle key ring trembled faintly.

‘You’re the only one who gets hurt if you do this. You know that, Akt.’

And foolishly, I couldn’t push him away completely either.

Really, we were both hopeless.

Both me and Akt.

“While pretending to play along with your tune, I’ll still search for my own way. I’ll use both methods to die no matter what.”

“……”

“Do you still want to do it? Even knowing I’m two-faced about it?”

“Yeah. I do.”

Akt smiled slyly.

“I want to be fooled by you.”

At those words, I crumbled completely.

Feeling the chilly air subtly warm, I bit my lip.

‘I won’t ever be able to push Akt away in the end.’

What was more, his proposal had no disadvantage for me.

Whether making him happy or finding another method, all I had to do was search in every direction for a way to die.

It was just that Akt weighed on my heart……

“Then do whatever you want. I’m going to exploit everything. Don’t you forget that.”

I deliberately made it crystal clear.

No matter how much Akt weighed on my mind, I couldn’t live inside a game forever.

Nothing could stop my desire for death.

And for some reason, I had a feeling Akt knew that, too.

Tearing my gaze away from Akt’s dark eyes, which refused to leave me, I stepped out of the room.

Akt did not hold me back.

---

A rather cold wind blew outside.

Afternoon had just passed and the sun was dipping toward the mountain ridge, so I climbed onto the inn’s roof to watch the sunset.

Crouching at the peaked edge of the roof, I pulled my knees to my chest.

The tranquil world was as beautiful as a photographer’s finest snapshot.

Sky blue and crimson blended like a cocktail across the sky.

Artificially shimmering green leaves dazzled the eyes.

It was an unrealistically beautiful world.

“To think all of this is fake.”

And yet, nothing here was real.

Before I knew it, I had staggered to my feet and stood upright atop the roof.

The gusting wind whipped wildly, shoving me from left to right, then right to left.

The ground looked dizzyingly far below.

I tried counting how many stories high this place was.

Befitting the largest inn in the village, it was considerably tall.

Falling from here, I thought, not even the swiftest beast could escape death.

Stepping out into empty air like that, I didn’t think much.

My light body naturally plummeted downward.

My fluttering heart surged straight up into my throat, pounding as if it might burst out.

The ground rushed up in an instant.

Fast enough that it wouldn’t be strange if I died right then.

Flap—!

Suddenly, my body dangled in midair as though caught on a tree branch.

I stared blankly down at the ground.

The ground was still dizzyingly far away.

The wings of the Evil God, unfurling regardless of my will, set me back down onto the inn’s roof.

As if arranged by design, there was no one around.

No one knew I was doing something so useless up here.

I was alone.

Still.

“I want to get out of here……”

I murmured vacantly.

“I want to stop playing the Evil God.”

I looked down at my hands.

Hands that had claimed the lives of countless players.

“I want to stop mocking players who come to kill me.”

I want to see my family.

I want to see the real world.

I want to remember what I was originally like.

I don’t know what’s the Evil God and what’s me anymore.

I want to stop.

“……And I don’t want to hurt Akt anymore, either.”

But it was an impossible dream.

As long as I remained controlled by the Evil God.

I buried my face in my knees.

---

I kept the quest window open, glaring at it for a long while.

Akt had gone out to hunt, and I was sitting in the corner of the bed hugging my knees, locked in a meaningless staring contest with the screen.

‘Why did a quest window even appear for a monster?’

Sighing, I scrolled down the hologram with my finger.

Michael Iruvre’s affection level came into view.

[Michael Iruvre’s Affection Progress: 80 points remaining.]

“Huh?”

Doubting my eyes, I squeezed them shut and opened them again.

The affection value remained unchanged.

“This makes no sense.”

Bewildered, I checked and saw that Michael’s affection, which had been plummeting toward -100, was now at 0.

‘What on earth did I do for his affection to rise this much in a single day?’

I thought back to Michael, who had abandoned even his Holy Sword and fled for reasons unknown.

His massive sword was still leaning against the wall of my room.

‘Should I go see him?’

I opened the quest window.

[A Heart That Worships the Evil God.
— Time Remaining: 28 days, 12 hours, 32 minutes.]

A dull throb pulsed in my temples.

‘Failing means taking a penalty, so I have to go see him. It’d be best to find out why his affection went up, too.’

Since my plan to die by Michael’s hand had failed, I had no choice.

The real annoyance was the reward.

“’Unlock one hidden story’? How is this a reward? I don’t even want it.”

Grumbling, I read it over again and noticed a tiny ‘View Details’ under the reward.

The text was so small that I must have missed it until now.

Puzzled, I tapped ‘View Details.’

[Reward: Unlock one hidden story.

View Details

The hidden story connects to the players’ final quest, the ‘Subjugation of the Evil God’ storyline, and is related to the ‘Ending’ of this game.]

It was information shocking enough to make my eyes pop out and roll onto the bed.

“The ending?!”

I sprang to my feet, lost my footing, and tumbled off the bed.

But I felt no pain.

An unstoppable grin spread across my face as a laugh leaked out.

“An ending—!”

Rolling around on the floor in pure joy, I checked the holographic window again.

That thrilling word stood firm in the exact same spot.

“The ending! Why didn’t I think of that?!”

This game had an ending.

This was as good as concrete proof that I could log out once I died.

Not only that.

I could also gather information by clearing quests.

There might be another way to reach the game’s ending!

“I knew something was off. The boss monster was way too strong. There was a reason subjugation had failed for six whole years. We were supposed to get hints from the hidden stories.”

It was an interpretation excessively in my favor, but I had good reason to think so.

The standard rule for quest rewards was to give players what they needed.

In this game world, where freedom was no different from reality, that held even more true.

If each player had a different storyline, they would all move toward different goals, and motivating them required fitting rewards tailored to each individual.

The same applied to me.

Which meant this reward was information I absolutely needed.

“Let’s go meet him right now!”