Stagnant Water of Apocalypse

Despite the heavy rain, Seokhyun’s murder did not stop. He was like an Asian Giant Hornet who jumped into the hive of Bumblebees. The difference between Bumblebee and the Chinese was the fact that while the bees were always united and defended their hives until the end, the Chinese weren’t. They all ran away as the fear of death gripped them.

In the end, the Chinese began to flee into their boats. Their destination was, of course, their hometown.

However, Seokhyun chased them all the way to the oil-covered sea and killed them all. The heavy rain washed their bodies away, but it couldn’t do anything about the blood and oil.

As Seokhyun went back to the beach, he saw a man who was yet to join his compatriot in the afterlife. He suffered a huge wound to his stomach and was breathing his last few breaths.

As Seokhyun approached, he let out a cry mixed with blood from his mouth.

“Is this… your justice…”

“…I never said I did all of this for the sake of justice.”

“We… We just wanted to live…”

“Us too.”

“C-can’t you just drive us out? Why did you do such a cruel thing?”

“I don’t have the talent to convince those who have decided to close their eyes and ears.” Seokhyun got down on one knee. “I know that your end goal is killing Koreans and taking over all of our uncontaminated land and supplies.”

“T-that’s not it. We also have thought of coexisting with you guys… A-at least some of us…”

“You should have done it sooner.”

With those words, the conversation between the two ended. Flood of blood gushed from the man’s mouth and his body instantly went limp.

Without giving the man more attention, Seokhyun stood up and headed south. Thundercloud rolled in, and suddenly, his surroundings darkened. Then, when lightning struck the ground, everything was lit up in an instant. In that momentary brightness, he could see that the faces of all the fleeing Chinese contorted in fear.

Once he killed them all, Seokhyun turned around. It was only then he saw a silhouette of… Something.

When its big mouth opened wide, a dull emotionless voice came out.

“I have been waiting for you.”

However, Seokhyun didn’t say anything in return. Instead, he rushed towards the monster and hit it with his fist.

Bam-!!

The body of the enhanced ghoul was scattered in all directions as soon as Seokhyun’s fist landed on it. However, unlike a normal enhanced ghoul, the flesh of this enhanced ghoul gathered once again and reconstructed itself.

Seokhyun laid his eyes on it once again and tilted his head.

“What a mysterious ghoul.”

“I am… Giudecca. I have come to greet you.”

“Giudecca? That monster who dwells in the deepest part of the Great Labyrinth?”

“Yes, a monster… Just like you.”

“I’m sorry, but please refrain from lumping me with you guys.”

“Are we really different, though?” Giudecca, who had come in the form of a ghoul, spread its arms.

Since a lot of people had died, corpses could be seen all over the place. Blood was also pooling everywhere, painting the places crimson, despite the heavy rain. All of that monstrosity was Seokhyun’s work.

“That strong power, infinite stamina, and madness, was what made me move. Come to me, I’ll give you everything.”

“Really? Can you stop this apocalypse?”

Giudecca gave a low laugh at Seokhyun’s sarcasm.

“Do you really want that? I don’t think so. You have now become someone that cannot live in the normal world anymore. It is the same for your comrades as well.”

A person who had committed countless murders was bound to never live a normal life. However, Giudecca looked down on Seokhyun far too much. After all, his mind was still 100% normal, even at the moment.

“Sorry to say this but, I’m perfectly normal. I don’t want to be part of a monster like you.”

“Oh please… You are also a great monster now.”

“Your perception is your freedom to choose. But please don’t force it on me. I want to beat you right now.”

“Haha… you know that it’s impossible, right?”

“Why is it impossible?” Seokhyun immediately rushed at Giudecca, grabbed him by the ankle and swung him around.

“Giant Swing!” When he let his grip on Giudecca’s ankles slip, the ghoul flew like a kite and disappeared into the distant sea. It was truly a demonstration of his great strength.

“It’s a little quieter now.” Seokhyun said as he made a hand-washing motion.

However, not long from then, Giudecca once again appeared before him. This time, he’s not coming in one body of enhanced ghoul, but numerous.

“I am everywhere…”

“You guys can’t beat me…”

“It is best to surrender to me when your worth in my eyes is still high…”

“Even at this moment, I am evolving…”

Seokhyun laughed at him.

“To think a low-level monster that can’t even get out of the Great Labyrinth dare to say such grand things…”

“…”

A moment of silence came between them. Only after a few seconds had passed that the enhanced ghoul started to talk once again.

“You will regret it…”

“No one has ever made me regret it after saying such things.”

“Don’t think that you are the only pureblood…”

“That’s good, then. Find those other purebloods and transform them into a tentacle monster. Don’t mess with us.”

“…”

After that, Giudecca didn’t try to talk to him anymore.

Even though the rain had stopped and the cloud hanging above had gone, Seokhyun did not stop his step. As he headed south along with Yoohyeon’s paper plane, the Chinese began to disappear one by one.

When Seokhyun finally arrived in Gwangju, only a few Chinese were left. Gwangju Clan leader Goo Yeong-hoon hurriedly tried to meet him, but Seokhyun just turned away and went to the beach.

At that time, he heard someone’s heavy voice along with the sound of flapping.

“Are you okay?”

Seokhyun turned his head. He saw a gryphon landed on the ground before his friends came towards him. Seokhyun’s face, which had been anything but happy for so long, quickly brightened.

“Well, it’s the same as before.”

“Thank god…”

“Told you so! Rapwi isn’t crazy.”

“Let’s sit down for a while.”

Seongho, Seokhyun, Da-jeong, and Geom-in sat side by side on a hill and watched the sun.

“Why did you do all of that all of a sudden? I was surprised, seriously! I thought you really went crazy.”

“I just did what I had been putting off.” Seokhyun spoke calmly, and Seongho lowered his head a little.

“Sorry. It’s something that I should have done.”

The conflict with the Chinese was something that had been going on for a long time. Seongho had removed every core of the big conflict until now, but that’s it; he didn’t take any radical approach on the matter. Thanks to that, Seokhyun was the one who had to shoulder the responsibility which should have been Seongho’s.

Seokhyun looked at Seongho.

“What you need to do is also what I need to do. We are friends after all.”

“Friend… that’s right. We are friends.”

They were people who walked the same path. Although their ages, backgrounds, and personalities were different, the four of them were already inseparable.

Da-jeong smiled cheerfully and put her arms around Geom-in and Seokhyun’s shoulders.

“Let’s stop with all the tearjerkers. Let us just talk about what we’re going to do next.”

“What are we going to do next? Ah, me and Geom-in briefly stopped in front of the elderwood grove before coming here.”

Seongho explained to Seokhyun what had happened. Starting from his fight with Transcendence Knights until the information he got. However, amongst all the story, the thing that piqued Seokhyun’s interest the most was the talking ogre.

“The ogre can really talk?”

“A little. But we managed to have a rough conversation. His size is also a bit smaller than usual, but he’s still bigger than us.”

“Is he on Lotus now?”

“Since we need to use the gryphon to come here, we put him inside Seongho’s dimensional warehouse.”

After Seongho met Geom-in at the royal palace of Ruat, he felt the need to deal with Da-jeong’s monster. The war with the Chinese was also a problem, but since Seokhyun had already jumped in, he had nothing to do. So, the three of them took control of Da-jeong’s monster, put the ogre in the dimensional warehouse, and left for the Elderwood Forest.

“Open the dimensional warehouse.”

The three of them struggled to pull out the ogre. When Little Fist came to his senses, he looked around and was startled.

“Here, home, no.”

“It is my hometown. And these are my friends.”

Seeing Seokhyun, Little Fist’s eyebrows creased.

“Not, human.”

“Puhahahahahahahahaha.”

“Understandable. Seokhyun is a bit out of ordinary.”

Seokhyun rose to his feet and looked at Little Fist.

“Ogre friend, are you strong?”

“Human, weak, Little Fist, strong.”

“That’s something we ought to duke out before deciding.”

Little Fist was taken aback by the monster that suddenly stepped inside his range. He tried to push him out moderately, but to no avail. The monster-like human’s strength was no joke.

The pair of human and monster rolled across the ground, tossing and turning. After struggling for a long time, the two suddenly stood up and caught their breath.

The thick chest of Little Fist moved in an erratic manner.

“You, human, no.”

“Thank you for the compliment.”

The two instantly became friends even though they had known each other for a short time. With a happy heart, Seokhyun danced. Little Fist, of course, also danced along.

The other three moved their gaze away from the ridiculous sight and sighed. Although their size and races were different, their mental state was the same.

.
.
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The Chinese have disappeared from Korea. Of course, not every single one of them died. A lot of them returned to their home countries, while some of them ran away to lay low as if they were dead.

Around the tense Gimpo Airport, only sighs of despair came out.

“Wow… He really killed them all. All by himself.”

“He didn’t really kill them all. Some people said there are more bastards who got scared and ran away.”

“Well, if it were me, I would have run away too. After all, One-Punch Man is running to kill you.”

“I wonder why he got angry all of a sudden…”

It was the biggest mystery for all bystanders. Of course, everyone knew that the stagnant waters and the Chinese forces were not on good terms. Ever since the Chinese set foot on Korean land, the two camps had always been fighting. And not long ago, their confrontation reached a boiling point due to the bottled water incident.

The situation also reached the ears of Jang Won-taek. He was standing on the roof of a building with cigarettes in one hand, and eyes looking at the western sky.

“…it is estimated that about 95% of the Chinese are dead or have fled. The remaining 5% seem to have hid in other regions. That is all.”

“Huff…” Acid smoke fluttered in the wind as Jang Won-taek exhaled.

“Mister President, we have to stop them.”

“Who are you talking about?”

“I am talking about Hwang Seokhyun and his colleagues. If we leave it like this, people will surely get angry.”

“Did you see anything while chasing after him?”

“Yes… I saw a terrible devastation. It was a landscape that seemed like hell had arrived in the human world. Maybe Auschwitz was like that? Or maybe the Nanjing massacre? I can’t possibly accept that one person has committed such a massacre…”

“War always requires blood.”

“It is not a war, Mister President; It is a massacre. As many as a thousand people died… Who has the right to do so?”

Jang Won-taek’s tired face hardened. He knew that his right hand man despise Seongho’s and his party way of doing things, but today he realized that it was more severe than he ever thought.

Was he shocked because he saw too many shocking scenes after following Seokhyun?

“Get some rest. Cool your head down and let’s talk later.” Jang Won-taek said as he took out a new cigarette.

However, rather than following his superior’s order, Lee Beom-seok stepped closer toward Jang Won-taek. His eyes were shaking violently.

“It’s not just me. A lot of people are also surprised. It’s not something a human would do.”

The other people he mentioned were the agents of the Korean Shelter. After all, even though they had lived in the same place for quite some time, not everyone welcomed Seokhyun’s extreme tendencies. However, they all were too afraid to talk about it. They were too fearful to be called an ‘Idiot’ once Seokhyun or the other stagnant water heard about it.

Jang Won-taek’s eyes sank coldly.

“Hey, are you always this oblivious?”

“What do you mean?”

“Don’t you know that while we were shutting ourselves in the office criticizing him, he acted.”

“Our position is different… So is our ability.”

“It’s funny that even though they did the thing we needed to do but couldn’t, we still talked shit about them.”

“T-talk shit? That’s too harsh of a word, Mister President.”

Lee Beom-seok seemed a little bit agitated. Otherwise, he wouldn’t have been able to stand up against the superior he had served for decades.

Jang Won-taek lit the cigarette on his hand and asked.

“What is the difference between three hundred men killing a thousand and one man killing a thousand?”

“The former is called war, and what Seokhyun did is a massacre. It’s a one-sided massacre…”

“Even though the results are not different?”

“The process is important rather than the result…”

“Can you survive in the apocalypse just by looking at the process? Look at what happened to District 2. How did the Chinese return the goodwill we showed to them?”

When the superior he respected yelled at him, Lee Beom-seok flinched in surprise. In fact, it was him who suggested letting the Chinese into the 2nd sector. He deliberately chose quiet people and repeatedly emphasized that they would not cause a commotion.

However, they complained not long after they joined. They also brought unauthorized personnel in, demanded more supplies, and called out the Korea Shelter to give them more authority. It was fortunate that Natalie and other foreigners stepped in to kick them out. Else, District 2 would have been completely destroyed.

However, Lee Beom-seok did not change his mind.

“It was you who said that human beings could always change, Mister President. If that was so, there was no need to commit such a massacre, isn’t there?”

“If the persuasion was going to work, we wouldn’t have to fight them in the first place. I am a believer of human’s good nature. But… I think the case is different now.”

Lee Beom-seok was shocked at the statement. The president’s mind has changed. For him, It was clear who the culprit was. It was Kang Seongho. The butcher who regards human life as insignificant as a fly..

Lee Beom-seok clenched his fist.

“Mister President, did you change your beliefs because of the current situation…”

“Rather than changing, it’s closer to completely giving up on it.”

The invisible glass wall between them cracked. Lee Beom-seok did not understand Jang Won-taek and vice versa.

“Stop it. We both need to cool our heads. Go and ponder the meaning of what Seokhyun did.” Jang Won-taek stopped smoking and told Lee Beom-seok.

“The massacre brought fear to a lot of people.”

“I see.”

“I’ll just excuse myself.” Lee Beom-seok went downstairs without saying goodbye. It was the first time he had been doing something like that.

Jang Won-taek smoked a third cigarette with a dejected mind and mumbled, “Huff… At this rate, he’ll die.”

While a rift opened up in between two backbone of the Korea Shelter, the stagnant waters entered the elderwood forest. They had heard the rough information about the forest from the elf Amelia.

“All of these trees had the same root? The scale is no joke.”

“Elderwood is said to be the oldest living organism in Lotus. It is said that it does not die even when it’s burned.”

Geom-in seemed somewhat awed by the huge fact, but Seokhyeon was different. He pulled out a fire stone from somewhere in his pants and declared.

“Then let’s start a fire.”

His friends freaked out and stopped him.

“Hey!”

“You madman!”

The four entered the forest while bickering non-stop. And then, the intertwined tree branches opened the entrance as if welcoming them.