The Boss Wants to Die

Chapter 23

After that, he acted differently, so he never had reason to cross paths with Michael.

Unless Michael came directly looking for Akt and the Evil God like this, they would never have met in this lifetime either.

“The more time passes, the harder it is to remember where it all began.”

“The first time?”

“Did you think you were the only player who ever tried to kill the Evil God?”

Akt snapped back sharply, then suddenly furrowed his brow.

A dreadful migraine had struck him.

Habitually pressing his temple, he waited for the pain to fade enough so he could move.

This damned headache only grew worse with each passing day.

“The situation has gotten complicated, but it’s not entirely bleak.”

Akt swallowed down the pain and continued.

“Why?”

“Because you’re the only person I ever pleaded with about all this.”

“……”

“I was a bit… younger back then.”

Recalling the distant past, Akt let out a low breath as the headache subsided.

“You know roughly what’s going on.”

“……”

“How much do you specifically remember?”

Michael bowed his head. He looked down at his empty hands.

He saw palms rough with calluses from tearing through a storm of quests.

“My first memory… is the moment I killed the Evil God.”

With these very hands.

Akt leaned back against his chair with his arms crossed.

It was a gesture telling him to go on.

“Once I killed her… you appeared.”

Michael remembered that moment vividly as well.

The day he killed the Evil God for the very first time.

***

The earth, swirling with ash and dust, gleamed crimson beneath the glow of the sunset.

The dying light pooled over the scorched cinders like drops of blood, and the reek of burning and the chill of death all around brought hell itself to mind.

Michael Louvre stood in the middle of it all.

His breath caught ragged in his throat.

Sweat streamed rapidly down his temples, reflecting the fierce battle that had just ended.

He could hardly remember what level he had been, what clothes he had worn, or what the exact situation was.

Yet one thing was undeniably clear: he had killed the Evil God Hellroad.

“*Haah*, *haah*, *haah*…”

Crack, crackle.

The sound of houses burning and the sound of Michael’s heavy breathing rang sharp and clear.

Treading upon that horrific silence, a white-haired man stepped onto the bloodstained earth.

The man’s silhouette wavered and staggered as if suspended in air.

Every time he forced his buckling legs forward, his trembling breath scattered across the pools of blood.

Soon, the man’s shadow reached the corpse lying on the ground.

“Ah, *aaah*…”

The moment Akt Hevgenia discovered Hellroad’s body, a faint moan tore from his throat.

It sounded like the feeble groan of a condemned criminal whose tongue had been severed, echoing from beyond the grave.

Unable even to scream, he fell to his knees.

In truth, he had simply collapsed.

“No, no, no…”

Pathetically covered in dirt and dust, crawling toward the Evil God like an animal, Akt shook his head in meaningless denial.

His wide, shocked eyes were bloodshot and seemed dry for a fleeting moment, but soon hot tears came pouring out.

With his sharp sight, Michael could see every minute detail from afar.

Even the sound of Akt sobbing like a wounded beast reached him.

“No, no. Noona. You can’t…”

With soot-stained hands, Akt fumbled over the Evil God’s porcelain-pale face.

Sniffling heavily, he tried to regain his senses, but it clearly wasn’t working.

He forced himself to speak bravely to the Evil God.

“Just a moment, Noona. I’ll… I’ll do something about this. Just wait a second. Just a moment…”

After wiping her bloodstained face clean with his sleeve, he pressed his ear against her chest.

And there, without a single heartbeat, he heard only cold void.

“Noona.”

He tried to deny it, but that was his limit.

He had no choice but to accept it.

“No, you can’t…”

He tried healing her with skills, and when that failed, he began scooping up the spilled blood with his bare hands.

Spilled water of life could never be poured back.

Even so, Akt Hevgenia repeated the futile attempt again and again.

Clutching her cold hands to warm them, gripping her shoulders and shaking her, even tearing his own clothes to wrap her wounds.

Yet her chest—the decisive cause of her death—was the one place he could not wrap in cloth.

Because Michael’s Holy Sword was still stubbornly driven deep inside it.

Akt could not bring himself to pull the blade out; his hands hovered awkwardly, his entire body trembling violently.

“No… No! Please, Noona…”

That dreadful despair, that suffocating sorrow rising in his throat—Michael could feel it all with uncanny clarity.

As he chewed on that agony, Michael Louvre was soon seized by an irrational dread that he had committed a grave, unforgivable mistake.

It was a truly bizarre experience.

Right up until he killed the Evil God, he had believed this was the only realization of justice.

Hellroad, the evil of this world, had to die. So he had slain her without a shred of doubt, and even now, he believed that had been the right thing to do.

And yet, it felt as though he had done something terribly wrong.

His heart moved entirely separately from his thoughts.

Michael, who had only been catching his breath, saw his face contort as if he were about to weep.

He couldn't bear the pain.

Even though he was a veteran who had successfully completed life-or-death quests, this was a terror he simply could not face.

That was what the death of the Evil God felt like.

“Why…?”

Catching sight of Michael, Akt questioned him with a hollow, dazed expression.

A voice that sounded broken somewhere inside stirred his mind like an echo.

Michael Louvre stared blankly at the two of them.

He was utterly lost.

He felt so ruined that he couldn't even understand it himself.

His soul screamed that he should never have killed the Evil God, that he had made an irreversible mistake.

His heart pounded madly. The whole world was dyed crimson, as though facing the apocalypse.

“Why did you do it, Michael?”

“Akt, I…”

“Why did you do it, why?! Why did you have to do that! She was already struggling so much… to the point she just wanted to die, she didn't want to be hurt anymore!”

Yet he had driven a blade into that fragile heart.

So she could never rise again.

So she could never, ever recover.

“This is all because of you, Michael!! This is your sin!! Do you even understand what this means?!”

The Akt Hevgenia of that time was younger than he was now.

If asked whether his appearance had been different, the answer was no.

Unlike his long hair now, it was cut short. That was all.

Yet the impression he gave was worlds apart.

Perhaps because his frame was more slender than now, or perhaps because of that pure, vivid light in his eyes…

Within those dark eyes, inexpressible emotions overflowed to bursting.

Akt Hevgenia had been a man who knew how to smile, weep, and move with far more youthful innocence.

His emotions sparkled with vibrant color, his unripened passion made him act out impulsively, and he reacted sensitively to every stimulus.

The social confusion experienced by a child who had just stepped into adulthood—Akt had experienced it too.

It was nothing like the deeply matured, heavy air he carried now.

Akt Hevgenia had been someone closer to a sweet-and-sour flavor.

At least, that was how he remained in Michael’s memory.

“You ruined everything!!”

“What are you talking about?”

Michael asked, wiping his cold, tear-streaked cheek with the back of his hand.

Akt seemed to have no intention of answering the question.

His rage turned into hatred, turning his voice thick and choked.

“Why did you kill her? Answer my question!”

Akt had cried so much he could barely open his eyes.

Michael, bewildered and helpless before the misery washing over him so directly, tried to rationalize it and yelled back.

“I merely struck down the Evil God! What did I do wrong?!”

“Just what do you believe in, what are you following?”

Tears streamed down Akt’s coldly set face.

“Do you think what you know is everything in this world?”

Akt shook his head.

His limp, short white hair swayed painfully.

Watching it, Michael felt an ache tearing through him as well.

“Why do you think she used you? Why do you think she tried to die? You knew it too! You knew the Evil God wanted to die! Yet you took advantage of that!”

Michael couldn't make sense of what was happening at all.

He felt wronged, yet guilt gnawed at him; he felt justified, yet Akt’s condemnation cut to the bone.

‘Do I know why the Evil God wanted to die?’

Of course Michael didn't know.

He had no desire to know either.

He had simply thought it worked out for the best.

What had he done so wrong? Since the Evil God had wanted to die anyway, wasn't it a good thing?

He ought to shout it out with confidence, yet his lips were sealed tight, as if zipped shut.

He was simply in agony.

Just like Akt.

Embracing the cold Evil God with his whole body as she lay with a sword driven through her heart, Akt wailed.

“The Evil God doesn't resurrect! This world, this world is…!”

He seemed to want to explain the reason, but he was so overcome with emotion that he couldn't bring himself to finish.

Every time Akt opened his lips, a sound like a weeping beast spilled out.

There was surely no one else in the entire world who would weep so desperately over the death of the Evil God.

The Evil God had died with a face happier than anyone else’s, resting in his arms for a long time.

It was a cruelly stark contrast to Akt, who rocked back and forth, putting everything he had into shaking off his sorrow.

And the fact that he had brought this about with his own hands was the most painful and unbearable truth of all.

Even though Michael Louvre had slain the Evil God, he felt not a single thing had been set right.

There was no justice to be found there.