Chapter 87

Episode 87 Kill the President (6)

Zoom.

Holding a mirage that changed shape in my hand, I threw it up and looked at Kim Min-Jae again.

"What is that? Stone?"

He burst out laughing as if dumbfounded.

That was right. It was a stone. The mirage held in my hand had the shape of a stone that would roll on the ground.

"Uh. That's right."

I answered Kim Min-Jae, putting a total of five stones in my pocket. It was nice to have something here that could be a stoning, but... even if I didn't do that, the story in my body would increase its power sufficiently.

The moment he saw a stoning, the power of this myth would be rapidly weakened.

'An enemy stronger than me. And an enemy's carelessness.'

Only when these two were validated together, the story 'David and Goliath' could fully exercise its power.

'I got my memory when my spear came into contact with his fist on the pole. That means......that contact through a mirage could be accepted.'

Zoom.

I threw the stone up one more time. Kim Min-Jae was still approaching me with no caution. Someone's voice flowed from my head.

[I killed a lion and a bear. Can't I kill the Philistine who insults Heaven? I will surely kill him.]

Bam.

A stone landed on my palm. A heavy sensation was felt from a very small stone. The little stone sucked stories. It was not food for rabbits, but it became a powerful weapon to kill even a giant with a single blow.

There was no need to strengthen it more.

I clasped the stone in my hand.

"So what have you been doing......."

As there was a distance, I glared at Kim Min-Jae, who was not wary and was only talking about what he had to say. The target was the middle of his forehead. I checked the target and threw a mirage. I turned my back and shoulders to load the full power on it.

Thud.

As soon as the mirage escaped from my hand, my fingertips touched it to add more power. The mirage, which used to fly in a straight line, flew around the trajectory as if it were shaking.

"......!"

It was too late when Kim Min-Jae saw my posture throwing something, and then checked the flying object. He hurriedly raised his hand.

However, since a while ago, Kim Min-Jae had only taken the same defense posture, and I was a fool if I didn't expect it.

The mirage, which was shaking from side to side, lost its power and fell. And as soon as it passed Kim Min-Jae's guard, it soared up again and went right into his forehead.

"Argh......!"

An enemy was stronger than me. An enemy off his guard. And a stone stuck between his eyes.

It met all three conditions. Then there was only one thing that would happen the next moment.

[It has met the conditions.]

[The story of 'David and Goliath' is full of power.]

"Argh......."

Kim Min-Jae, who had been holding out well, was hit by a stone and fell backward. With a long history, stories loved by countless people had been reproduced here.

[The stone was hit right on Goliath's forehead, and he fell to the ground.]

"Ahhhhh!"

Kim Min-Jae grabbed his forehead and screamed as if he could not endure the pain.

[Contact succeeded.]

As soon as the stone fell to the floor, other memories of Kim Min-Jae flowed into my head.

[You have succeeded in making contact through 'Story'.]

['Link' is further enhanced.]

[Target: Completed collecting information for 'Kim Min-Jae'.]

[The story's 'intensity' increases further.]

.

.

.

And this time, a completely different scene was seen before my eyes.

I felt like I had been watching his life from afar earlier, but this time I felt as if I had entered his body.

"Mr. Kim Min-jae......."

After that one word, I slowly lost consciousness.

* * *

Kim Min-Jae was born with multiple disabilities. He couldn't walk since he was born, and he couldn't speak except for the dreary sound of "Uh-oh...". He had never eaten food properly or interacted with anyone.

Furthermore, when he was young, he lost his parents in a fire accident. For Kim Min-Jae, the world was only a cramped hospital room: a bed, and a rooftop where he sometimes went out on a wheelchair.

"Ah... ah...."

"Kim Min-Jae, you should eat. Please..."

Students often came to see him as volunteers. They pretended to be kind in front of other people and spoke abusive language loudly behind other people.

They did it because they thought Kim Min-Jae couldn't understand. However, Kim Min-Jae's only hobby was watching TV, and he was fluent in various languages and all kinds of swear words. He couldn't speak because of his physical disabilities.

"Ahhhhhhhhhhhhh..."

Kim Min-Jae, however, did not show that he could hear. It was better to pretend he didn't know anything and he couldn't hear or speak because it was more comfortable.

So he had a hard day. It was a repetitive life, but he thought it was better than dying.

When he recalled his parents dying and the pain he had when his face was burned, he was so afraid of death. Kim Min-Jae was a coward.

-This is breaking news. Citizens should never come out of the house. In an unidentified hole in the sky, there are Monsters......!

Then one day, the disaster that happened to the world changed his life.

"Even if yesterday's Kim Min-Jae and today's Kim Min-Jae were different, everyone would believe it."

And the disaster saved Kim Min-Jae.

"Ahhhhhhh......."

The handsome face with no burns and the joy of walking on two feet. Kim Min-Jae cried for a long time on the spot with the joy of being reborn. He felt like he had a chance to live like a normal man after living like an animal.

"What... what should I do? Shall I go around first? Yeah, that would be good......."

Kim Min-Jae, who was discharged from the hospital, was very excited about what to do in the future. His life was new.

[You've entered the twisted Crack.]

Unless he had not been involved in a dimensional distortion, Kim would have ended his life as an ordinary human being.

[There is no crack name.]

[There is no monster in the Crack.]

[You are involved in the dimensional distortion.]

[There is no nucleus of Crack.]

.

.

.

[Clear condition: 200 years of stay within the Crack.]

What if he hadn't gone through it.

[Crack provides you with a means of survival.]

[Once a day, it provides water and proper food.]

[The Crack is a space created to train other levels of beings.]

[You can go beyond the limits and grow further here.]

"No... No, get me out. Get me out, get me out!"

Kim Min-Jae shouted, pounding in the air. He was so tired of 20 years in the hospital. It was painful and hard.

But it was talking to him to endure ten times of 20 years. He needed to survive in this place where there was nothing but water and food. Kim Min-Jae wanted to die for the first time in his life. Of course, he had no courage to die by himself.

"Ah......."

He laid still, wasting ten months. He did not even read the training methods or workbooks presented by the Crack. Kim Min-Jae could not realize that he still had 199 years and two months left. He had a lot of stupid laughs.

It was the voice of the Crack that changed his life then.

[If you don't train hard, you can't survive outside.]

[How do you survive the Cracks and Monsters that swarm outside with your physical condition? Don't you have any family or friends you want to protect? What if they die in vain?]

"...None."

[But you still have humanity. Would it be good if everyone died and you were left alone? Or would you like to go out and die right away?]

"I don't know."

[Ha... How did we take such a moron?]

Kim Min-Jae talked to the voice while lying on the floor. Perhaps because it was a place where no one was there, Kim Min-Jae thought he felt a little better just by talking with the voice of the Crack.

[Don't you want the world back to the past before the Monsters appeared? Don't you want the Cracks outside to disappear and return them to a peaceful world?]

"...What?"

Not until he heard that.

"The world is going back? Bring it back to before the Monsters showed up?"

[Yes. Now you're interested.]

"It shouldn't."

[...Yes?]

Kim Min-Jae's eyes were completely different from before.

"I can't go back. I don't know if I've never experienced it, but I got this body, and I've been moving and talking... I'd rather wait 200 or 500 years. I'd never go back before."

[What the hell is that......?]

"How can I stop the world from going back to the way it used to be? What should I do to keep the Crack and the Monsters from disappearing?"

He got active.

[...I can't tell you that.]

"Really? Then I'll have to find out. For now, I need to be as strong as you said. That way, I will be able to stop the things that try to save the world. I need to be stronger to stop those selfish idiots, huh! That's right!"

Kim Min-Jae's eyes were filled with intense madness. He began to train by following training methods and martial arts books. His body, which used to be about an ordinary adult male's size, had grown larger and larger, and his muscles had become compressed and as hard as steel.

"I need to build a group. They will obey me faithfully. Through them, I will arbitrarily control the Cracks' occurrence and moderately control monsters' population at the line where mankind does not perish. Then my body will never lose its ability......."

Until recently, Kim Min-Jae's head went off to such an extent that he could not think of himself as a dumbass who could not even speak properly. His obsession with his newly acquired body was beyond imagination, and for Kim Min-Jae, who had never received love, he had no such thing as humanity.

Kim Min-Jae finished his training and smiled at his face, which was reflected on a transparent membrane.

"Hello, I'm Kim Min-Jae, president of the Association."

* * *

"Huh......."

Unknowingly, I was sickened by the huge influx of memories. I almost lost my mind because I was buried in Kim Min-Jae's memories. His madness was too much for me to bear.

Those are the feelings created by all kinds of obsession and longing for life. Kim Min-Jae was a new kind of monster created by a disaster that came to the world.

"Uh... What the hell did you throw? Hahaha."

Despite the pain, Kim Min-Jae showed a unique smile. He wasn't laughing to pretend to be relaxed. He had practiced that expression so much that it showed instinctively.

I had goosebumps on my back—the number of objects in the monster and the occurrence of Cracks. The man had alone controlled the source of the world's disasters. Kim Min-Jae was a crazier bastard than I thought.

Did he sacrifice people due to his stupid choices? Was he blinded by money to make the wrong choice? Wrong. It was all intended.

It was to keep the Cracks from disappearing. He was afraid if these disasters went away, he would lose power. So he was deliberately manipulating everything. Sometimes he pretended to make stupid choices and mistakes.......

"Now I know everything. You were never supposed to live long."

He was the one trying to stop me from clearing the Monsters and pulled them back. What's scarier was that he didn't even know that he had been dragged. Without the Akashic Record, Kim Min-Jae's intentions would never have been found out.

The mirage was hovering around my body as it turned into a cluster of light. 'David and Goliath' was an excellent story to subdue an opponent, but it did not work well to "clearly kill" the opponent.

[Interesting. So did you find out anything about his martial arts? I felt the rapid flow of memories.......]

"Oh, it was a little hard."

Kim Min-Jae scratched his head and got up slowly. I approached him bare-handed, without any weapons. There was no need to use the mirage.

"I've never read martial arts books. It's not easy to break up the structure and dig up the weaknesses by memorizing all his martial arts."

I could use my bare hands to handle him.

"You'll be in danger if you come so close......."

As soon as I was in the range, Kim Min-Jae reached out. It was the same attack as before. I twisted his wrists, slapping my back without moving a lot.

"...Hmm?"

Crack.

His face was distorted with the sound of a broken bone.

"Arghhhhhh!"