Chapter 48 - Crime and Punishment

TICK, TOCK.

The Infinity Guild headquarters was a splendid building that should have been bustling with hundreds of people, from guild members to junior staff. But at this moment it was as silent as a tomb. Not simply because an order had cleared everyone out and barred entry. There was a guardian keeping watch over the silence.

TICK, TOCK.

"..."

In that desolate, empty space, a man with slicked-back hair sat cross-legged on a chair he had brought in. He had sealed off the building with an array of barrier skills. Lee Cheon-gi waited, as he had for the past four days, his gaze fixed on the pocket watch in his hand. He had watched its second hand tick forward more than 340,000 times.

Three hundred and forty thousand seconds without food, sleep, or rest would have left an ordinary person, or even most high-level players, collapsed from exhaustion. But Lee Cheon-gi did not so much as twitch an eyebrow. His face as composed as ever, he simply waited for the second hand to tick 345,600 times.

RING!

"... It's time."

The second hand finally reached its mark, and the pocket watch rang out. At the alarm announcing the end of the agreed four days, Lee immediately rose to enter the secretarial office, whose door had remained firmly shut all that time.

CREEEAK.

"Hm?"

But he never got further than the attempt. Before he could even grasp the handle, the door opened and a man stepped out.

"What are you doing here? Don't tell me you've been waiting outside all four days."

White hair and golden eyes. A sword at his waist. Even a small scar beside his eye. Limon Aspelder, a striking figure in every respect, looked at him in surprise.

Lee Cheon-gi did not answer. He did not even look at Limon. His gaze was fixed on a single spot: the narrow gap in the door Limon had left open.

'What is this...?'

Blood spattered across the floor and even the ceiling. A desk imprinted with the distinct marks of a skull and teeth, driven into it with terrible force. Flesh sliced thinner than paper and piled high. Fragments of bone and viscera scattered everywhere.

Lee stood frozen for a long while, staring at remains too gruesome, too extensive, to believe they had come from just one person. At last he managed to ask,

"What on earth did you do in there for the past four days?"

"Do you really want to know?"

"..."

Lee answered with silence. In truth, he did not want to know. No, he was afraid to know. Even after thousands of trips into dungeons and witnessing all manner of brutal deaths, the sight made him feel sick.

Limon gave a short laugh at his honest reaction. "Personally, I'd recommend incinerating the entire room."

He advised Lee to handle it carefully unless he wanted to leave the job to someone else and watch them lose their mind. But once again, Lee gave no answer. He only turned a gaze on Limon that was composed, yet heavy.

"What? Feeling sorry for him all of a sudden?"

"Not particularly." Lee shook his head at Limon's barb. Park Hyeon-gun might have been a close aide, but Lee was neither kind nor virtuous enough to pity a man who had deceived and used him.

Limon bluntly pointed out why Lee's expression remained grim.

"Then you think I went too far?"

"... I can't deny that."

Lee acknowledged it calmly. Anyone else would have felt much the same. More likely, they would have vomited, looked at Limon as though he were a monster, and fled. The sight was that horrific.

Was it right to kill even a criminal like this? Could someone who did such a thing still be counted as human? Anyone with the slightest sense of decency would have felt revulsion and doubt. All the more so when the victim had already been reduced to a helpless wreck.

"Did you really need to kill Chief Park like this when he was already ruined?"

After the Serpent That Connects the Ends seized Park Hyeon-gun's body, discarded it, and fled, Park had been left completely incapacitated. His condition was so severe that, far from moving or speaking, it was doubtful whether he retained any awareness at all. Yet Limon had known his condition and resumed the four-day killing the serpent's interference had interrupted. No wonder Lee's face had hardened.

But the man responsible for that atrocity showed neither guilt nor even shame. Limon merely tilted his head. "As far as I'm concerned, I've shown a great deal of restraint."

"Do you sincerely mean that?"

"Do you think I'm joking with you?"

"..."

Despite Limon's light tone, his golden eyes were cold and still. Lee fell silent. He could not begin to understand how Limon could call this restraint.

"If this little is enough to upset you, you'd faint dead away if you saw a dark mage make a human sacrifice."

"If you have to compare it to human sacrifice, I hardly think it's normal."

"By your standards." Limon chuckled. He understood why Lee reacted this way. If anything, he understood it all too well.

In this day and age, killing itself was considered a sin. Torturing a person to death for any reason was an atrocity beyond wickedness, something only an inhuman fiend could do. But those were the standards of this age.

"Listen, kid. Long ago, there was a country that gathered its people to show off its human sacrifices."

To be offered to a god was an honor. Human sacrifice was a path to heaven. There had been a religion whose followers believed those teachings without question and volunteered to become offerings.

"There was a time when people watched comrades stab each other in the Colosseum and enjoyed hangings like festivals."

An age when everyone wanted to see brutal slaughter.

"There was a law that had even newborn babies thrown into pits of snakes to be eaten alive, simply because they were related to a criminal."

A law that decreed guilt could be inherited.

"There were teachings that praised and encouraged chewing out an enemy's liver in revenge."

A culture that considered failing to take revenge shameful.

"There was an army that studied how to kill people more horribly and more reliably."

Wars that consumed human beings like firewood. Today, every one of those things would be called insane. But in its own age, country, religion, culture, and circumstances, each had been accepted as common sense.

"Do you see now how flimsy and fragile this 'normal' you take for immutable truth really is?"

Of course, even Limon had not lived through every age and every part of history. But after centuries spent witnessing changes in what people considered common sense across countless places, he knew all too well how fleeting those standards were.

"Of course it's good that people have come to believe murder is a sin and to regard cruelty as taboo."

Was everything better in the old days? He had no intention of spouting that nonsense. The world was undoubtedly easier to live in now than when lives were treated as worthless and cruelty was encouraged. More than anyone, Limon knew how easily growing accustomed to such acts could destroy a person's humanity, so he welcomed the change.

The problem was another change that came with it.

"But I don't consider it 'normal' to protect villains and let them live without shame in the name of human rights."

Being forgiven every crime for being young. Being treated as a criminal for acting in self-defense. Being forbidden to kill even the most vicious murderer. Forcing a child who had lost their parents to forgive.

This age showed boundless mercy to perpetrators and cold indifference to victims. Perhaps that was proof it had become more civilized than the past, a virtue meant to keep needless hatred from spreading. But Limon could not simply accept a virtue born of a distorted peace.

He was, after all, a man of an older age: a swordsman who had lived by cutting out his enemies' hearts and taking villains' heads.

"Maybe that bastard was a good person once. Maybe he could've turned over a new leaf someday."

Perhaps Park Hyeon-gun would never have become such a villain if he had not contracted with the Serpent That Connects the Ends. Perhaps he too was a victim, made into a liar by using a skill specialized in deception called 『False God's Renown』, or by a constellation controlling him without his knowledge.

"But I don't give a damn about any of that."

Limon was unequivocal. Park's human rights, whatever goodness might lie hidden in him—Limon had no interest in any of it, and would pay it no mind.

"All that matters to me is that the bastard did something worth killing him for, so I killed him."

"... Even knowing people will question your own humanity for it?"

"Better that than wearing my humanity away myself."

There was no mistaking it. Murder and torture were not the only things that could damage a person's humanity, nor were negative emotions like arrogance and greed. Swallowing justified anger. Enduring an undeserved wrong. Being forced to be good and merciful. Those, too, wore people down until they became mere parts of society's machinery. Even love, great as it was, became destructive when someone pursued or confined another person until that person returned their feelings.

"I told you. I want to be human, not some fucking sucker."

Of course, if that was the direction the times were moving, Limon was willing to accept it to a degree. When he worked as a PAB agent, he had not killed criminals on a whim, no matter how fucking awful they were. If he alone had been harmed, he might have raised hell and stopped without killing anyone.

But the moment he cut Yu Na-gyeong down with his own sword, compromise ceased to be an option.

No matter how much the times changed, no matter how laws and customs changed, collecting the blood price for a subordinate who had died unjustly was his duty as her superior. To abandon it would be to abandon his humanity, though in a different way from becoming a monster.

"And Lee Cheon-gi."

SHING.

Limon slowly drew his sword and looked at Lee with cold eyes. "You're responsible for Na-gyeong's death too."

Whether it was out of his own greed or because a constellation had interfered, Park Hyeon-gun had taken the children at the orphanage hostage and forced Yu Na-gyeong to carry out a suicide bombing. But that did not make Lee innocent. Lee had ordered Limon dealt with, and he had failed to keep his subordinate in check. Puppet or not, Lee bore responsibility for what had happened, and Limon had never forgiven him. He had only deferred his punishment until he found the true culprit. Now that Park was dead, Limon had no further reason to keep Lee alive.

"Are you going to kill me?" Lee asked calmly, as though he had expected this all along.

Limon regarded him for a moment, then shook his head. "No. I won't kill you now."

It was an unexpected answer, especially for Lee, who had been prepared to die ever since losing to Limon.

"But not because you're a Monarch." In the same languid voice he had used when cutting Park down, Limon went on quietly. "I'm not worried about the chaos your death would cause, trying to get something out of you, or afraid of any retaliation that might come later."

Those were reasons anyone else would have considered. But none of that mattered when it came to collecting Yu Na-gyeong's blood debt. With the proud certainty of a man who had even slain a constellation, Limon gave his reason for sparing Lee.

"I'm only leaving you alive because you're too stupid to be worth punishing."

It was a merciless insult, a brutally harsh assessment of someone who was, after all, a Monarch. But Lee showed no anger, nor even a hint of disagreement. No one knew better than he did that he deserved it.

"Remember this," Limon told the silent Lee. "Ignorance is never an excuse, and you're still on the borderline."

The claim that ignorance was no sin was nonsense. Sometimes even incompetence was a sin. This time, the scales had tipped by the slightest margin. If so much as a speck of dust landed on the opposite side, he could reverse his decision at any moment.

"I'll be watching you from now on."

It was both a warning and a declaration. Just as Anubis, guardian of the dead, weighed a dead person's heart to judge whether their sins outweighed a feather, an absolute being warned that he would continue to judge Lee's life until the day he died.

"And when you cross that line—"

SLICE.

The moment Limon broke off, a pair of rimless glasses fell to the floor. Crafted by a master artisan from all manner of costly materials, they were a treasure of the highest order. Yet compared with what Limon's sword had cut, they were nothing but trash.

DRIP.

One of Lee's eyes had closed. Red blood streamed from beneath it, and the eyelid quivered with pain. Together, they showed what Limon had just cut away and what Lee had lost.

Looking at Lee, now blind in one eye, Limon finished in his languid voice. "I'll come to collect your remaining eye and the other ninety-six debts."

The words were cruel, an exceedingly harsh sentence to pass on someone who had just lost an eye. But Lee felt neither anger, sorrow, fear, nor regret. He did not suppress the pain with a skill like 『Pain Numbing』. He endured it fully conscious and simply nodded.

"... I'll remember."

As if to test the sincerity of that answer, Limon gazed into Lee's one remaining eye with his own still, golden eyes. After a moment, he said, "Good. See that you do."

CLACK.

Limon sheathed his sword and turned on his heel, ready to leave as though he had no business left there. As he walked away without a backward glance, Lee suddenly asked, "What will you do now?"

"Me?"

Perhaps the question caught him by surprise. Limon stopped for a moment, then glanced back over his shoulder. With a short laugh, he told Lee what came first now that he had settled Yu Na-gyeong's blood debt.

"Get ready for my wedding, I suppose."