True Name.
Name.
Having had my memories read by the god of death, I ended up letting him learn my name.
And the moment my name flowed from the mouth of Death…
My consciousness was immediately severed from that space.
After that…
“Ugh…”
When I came to again…
“…What the hell?”
I was still in the exact same posture as when I had lost consciousness inside the domain.
– Attempting to cast tenth-rank magic or higher with a mortal body…
“…What the hell are you babbling about…”
– Should I call it brave or just plain stupid?
Ignoring the voice of Death echoing in my head,
I slowly looked around—
But the false god I had been fighting just a moment ago was nowhere to be seen.
Ugh…
However…
…There’s no discomfort in my feet. Did all the ability suppressors break, forcing me to be trapped in the domain? Did that false god get trapped here too? No… don’t tell me…
With my head pounding like it might split open, I instinctively realized it.
“Haah… damn parasite…”
– A lowly mortal dares to speak so arrogantly?
The false god had entered my body.
The proof was clear.
Even though the god of death wasn’t visible nearby,
His voice was still ringing endlessly inside my head.
– Consider it an honor, mortal. Soon you shall leave the Land of Chaos, and when that happens, you will sleep forever in my embrace.
“Honor, my ass…”
There were only a few things I could vaguely understand.
When he talked about aiming for tenth-rank or higher magic with a mortal body,
He was clearly referring to the eleven abilities slumbering within my body.
He just dressed it up in fancy language to say that a human trying to contain eleven abilities would obviously die.
And that talk about eternally sleeping in the false god’s embrace…
That just meant he was planning to use my body in the real world however he pleased, didn’t it?
“In that case… just die already, you bastard. Summon.”
And so,
Without hesitation, I summoned a handgun and brought it to my head.
Bang—
I pulled the trigger with my finger—
“Grrgh… guh…!”
– What a pathetic little worm, trying such a worthless move.
My body’s regeneration ability…
instantly healed a wound that should have been fatal.
“Haa… ha… …fuck…”
– Accept it. Just give in.
“…If I die… if I die… then you can’t control me… right?..”
– Do you really think I’d answer that? A worthless human like you is expecting too much.
“Thanks for the answer… so if I die, you can’t do anything, huh?”
– What happened to your fighting spirit? Where did that human who dared to challenge me disappear to?
Maybe it was because I was now one with the god of death—
– But I could feel what that false god was feeling.
Anxiety.
He was anxious that I might actually die.
Click—
And once I picked up on those emotions,
There was only one thing for me to do.
I immediately raised the gun to my head again.
When I tried to shoot myself in the head, planning to continue until my stamina was completely drained and recovery became impossible—
– Go Min-hyuk, stop.
The moment he called my true name…
My body became paralyzed.
And so…
“Move.”
I immediately used word magic myself, freeing my body from his restraint, and pulled the trigger without hesitation.
Bang—
Seeing what I had done, Death said…
– A human who doesn’t fear death… I’ve never seen such a lunatic like you.
As if he was disgusted with me, he threw out the words with a sigh.
– Go Min-hyuk, do not speak.
“Mm… mmph…”
He forcibly sealed my mouth shut.
Even though I could no longer speak, it wasn’t enough to stop me from trying to end my own life.
I quickly reloaded the revolver and tried to pull the trigger toward my head again—
– Go Min-hyuk, stop.
Just as a grim reaper calls out the name of the dead to lead them to the afterlife,
The god of death kept calling my name… and so, all my actions were restrained.
Trapped in this domain…
I had no choice but to spend this awkward time with the false god that resided inside my mind.
Wouldn’t it be better to just die? Rather than spending this awkward time with me?
Just like when I used to exchange trivial jokes, all the while secretly vowing to die someday.
Realizing that now was that very moment, I was desperately trying to think of a way to kill myself…
…It moved.
– What could you possibly do with just that?
Realizing that my fingertips were moving, I kept moving my hands, trying to find a way to aim the gun at myself…
“?”
Suddenly, I felt my body released from the god of death’s restraint.
“Ah…!”
– Don’t struggle, foolish human. That doesn’t mean you’ll be able to die.
Then I remembered. I had once absorbed the power of an anti-magic ability user, one who could nullify others’ supernatural abilities.
Without hesitation, I raised the gun and aimed it precisely at my heart…
Bang—
When I fired straight at my heart without a hint of hesitation.
– Haah… You humans, less than beasts who can’t even understand words. Why do you keep trying these pointless acts…?
Cough…
Bright red blood spewed from my mouth.
And I could feel it—my body… wasn’t regenerating.
– …What the hell…
As it happened, I was currently in possession of the anti-magic ability.
As it happened, I didn’t know how to properly use that ability.
As it happened, the god of death, having read my thoughts, let his guard down about the anti-magic.
As it happened, one of my random movements had triggered the activation condition of the anti-magic.
And to top it all off… for some unknown reason, even my body’s regeneration ability had just vanished.
All of these things, purely by chance, came together.
– No… this… this is absurd…!
“A god… not knowing something even I know… dumb~ass… kuh… hahaha…”
Only in the very final moment—
Was I finally able to laugh at him to my heart’s content.
– A worm… you worthless worm!!!
Yeah… I’ve accomplished everything I set out to do.
– You… Someone like you, such a lowly being, and I… I…!
“Yeah, well… you shouldn’t have messed with someone else’s parents. This is what Confucian values are about… or something like that. Take it to heart.”
The pitch-black domain began to collapse.
I thought my final death would be a lonely one where I would die alongside the god of death in this strange, unknown space.
But under the bright sunlight, it seemed I was at least able to leave behind a last will.
– You worm!!! A worm like you!!! How dare you..! How dare someone like you, a worm, do this to me!!!
And just like that, as the domain completely crumbled, I felt the god of death vanish from my mind far more anticlimactically than I had expected.
And with that…
He’s dead.
I even felt a strange sense of victory for having outlived that guy.
This was clearly… my perfect victory—
Cough…
“Oppa..!”
“…Seo-yoon?”
The confusion I felt at the scene that greeted me as soon as I came to my senses was short-lived.
“My last words are…”
Just as I tried to speak my final words—
“I’ve got the self-regeneration ability…! Quick, drink his blood…!”
“Got it…!”
“?”
Seo-yoon, saying she now had the regeneration ability, ordered Pyro Bomber to drink my blood.
And the moment that order was given, without any hesitation, Pyro Bomber put my finger into her mouth and stole one of my abilities.
As soon as I saw that happen, Seo-yoon immediately placed a single drop of her blood into my mouth.
At that moment…
…What? What’s even going on? What happened to my touching finale?
I could feel my regenerative ability returning to me once again.
“It worked on the first try!”
“Good job…! Really, you did amazing, Seo-yoon…!”
“??”
My touching finale words… ended up being postponed to the next opportunity.
“Mobia has taken down the villain hunter!!!!”
““““““““Woooooooah!!!””””””””
I was briefly startled by the sudden eruption of cheers.
The president of the Hero Association was walking toward me with a look of disbelief in her eyes.
“I tried not to remember… but it all came back, you know?”
I was able to look Yuana in the eyes.
“Well done. Do you know how many times I had to come back because of you?”
“…You had to regress?”
“No, it’s over now. You did well.”
As the association president moved, Seo-yoon and Pyro Bomber watched her with great caution.
“You remember?”
“Remember what?”
Yuana…
With everyone’s eyes focused on us,
She took something out from inside her coat and tossed it to me.
“What I said. That I wanted to hurry up and go see Mom and Dad too.”
“I remember.”
And then…
Tap… tap tap… tap—
She typed something into her phone…
As if she had finished all her business,
She dropped the phone straight onto the ground.
Crunch—crack—
She stomped on it and ground it under her foot.
And with that…
“Thanks for everything until now.”
“…What are you talking about?”
“I’m heading out. Our next association president, take care of Korea from now on, alright?”
Calling me the next president…
“…Huh?”
Fwoooosh—
Just like the sword of the Association had vanished, the woman began to gradually turn to dust and disappear.
The moment she vanished from this place, we realized it—
Yuana… had dumped all the cleanup on us and run off on her own just to be comfortable.
“Ah, come on…”
The hero who defeated the Demon King returns to their original world.
If this were a novel… the hero’s world would now be heading toward a happy ending.
But the extras left behind in the world the hero departed from…
Vrrrr—
Vrrrr—
Vrrrr—
Vrrrr—
Vrrrr—
“…What’s that sound?”
“…They’re saying the next association president is villain hunter…?”
“Now that I think about it, why did Mobia… why did she not… kill the villain hunter right away?”
“…Didn’t she subdue him?”
“Can you even call that subduing… didn’t she actually bring him back to life?”
We were in a situation where we had to get this chaos under control.
“…I’ll attack the two of them now, so just block them however and run—”
“I don’t want to fight anymore… I’m tired, oppa…”
“Same here… This fire ability— I really put my heart into throwing that, and now I’m kinda exhausted.”
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