Chapter 11: Bonds of Betrayal

If we assume there are 100 people in the world.

According to some ninja master, one in every five people is trash, meaning 20 out of 100 are trash.

Assuming 70% of them are average folks.

And assuming 10% of them are truly good-hearted people.

Then, in a life-or-death battle against the Demon King, where only five would survive to the end, which group would they belong to?

I’d say I fall into the 70% of average folks.

As for the others, they’d be the most extreme individuals in the 20% classified as trash.

This isn’t about gender.

If even one person had fought alongside me, despite any regrets, I would have returned to Earth with that person.

But these women, especially Min Sena, aren’t like that.

Level 30?

She shamelessly extends her hand toward me, a hand that’s never been stained with a single drop of demon blood.

Even that level was earned by leeching experience points through the Enchantment Eyes, not by fighting demons herself.

Level 30, raised by using Knight Commander Arhan as a shield and hunting under his protection.

“If I had to give it to someone, I’d give it to Chae Yuri, not you… No, there’s no point even considering it. None of you should even think about having the ring.”

“Ack… Ugh…!”

Min Sena, clutching her severed wrist, frantically tried to heal herself.

“Hey, does it hurt? We were used to getting stabbed in the gut and shot in the back on the battlefield, and you’re crying over losing just a hand?”

“Ack…”

Min Sena desperately tried to wake the unconscious Admut on the ground.

“Come on, it shouldn’t hurt that much. You got that special perk, right? ‘Pain Immunity.’ Isn’t that a Tanker Tier-1 perk?”

“Shut up…!”

“Look at you swearing after losing just a hand. When we got wounded, it hurt so much we’d faint, and some of us even died from shock when the Demon King’s army attacked.”

Someone once mocked Min Sena like this.

That she was the kind of woman who would use a powerful skill like Pain Immunity just to alleviate menstrual cramps.

They even joked that if she ever got pregnant here, she wouldn’t feel the pain of childbirth, and her baby would be born with three strands of hair sticking out separately.

“You… you think I’m that kind of woman? And now you think… I just fool around with anyone…?!”

“Oh, sure, it hurts. But do you know something? Mi-jung, that girl who was labeled loose with you? She shielded others as a tanker.”

What was it that she used to say?

“Do you even remember her?”

She’d say she preferred Tanker roles in games and fought with a shield and halberd.

–Haha… Sorry for making you clean up after my corpse.

–Why do I fight at the front?

–Why? Because… who else would fight up here?

She died.

Almost had her thigh sliced off to the bone, and without the power of divine energy, she would have lived with a dangling arm forever. In the end, she took an acid attack that left one eye permanently shut.

When it was too late to heal herself, cursed by her crippled body, she tormented herself over the comrades she failed to save.

–If you ever return home, tell my parents that I didn’t just die like this, but that I fought with everything I had.

It was suicide.

After fighting on the front lines, PTSD broke her spirit. She eventually ended her life with a whip used by the demon race.

“That was her!”

“Oh, are you trying to say that’s just the nature of combat roles now?”

“It’s not just some argument! It’s the truth! That was her thing, fighting up front, while support roles suited me best!”

“I don’t think so.”

I raised my demonic sword again.

“All those idiots you charmed, every last one of them, just useless trash, trolling in the backlines.”

“No!”

“They were trolls, alright. Fighting the Demon King’s army, they’d send fewer reinforcements for political reasons, supply garbage equipment, and even cut off escape routes. Think about it—half the continent was destroyed by the Demon King’s army, but only the Empire, Magic Tower, and Assassin’s Guild somehow survived? That makes sense to you?”

Min Sena didn’t respond.

Instead, she slapped Admut’s bloody cheek with her stained hand, desperately trying to wake him up.

“Wake up, brother! Wake up, quickly! That lunatic’s going to kill me!”

“Of course, you’d have no clue while being sheltered in the Imperial Palace. You stayed oblivious because you only mingled with men in this world… or maybe you orchestrated it yourself.”

“No! I… I didn’t know! If I had known, I would’ve done anything…”

“What’s the point of saying that now, when it’s all done and over with?”

Nothing she says now can bring the dead back.

“Just die. Don’t whine to me—die and tell your story to them in the afterlife. They’ll listen to their heart’s content.”

They’re likely even more eager to hear her side than I am.

“Guess I talked too much. Damn, now I understand why villains in movies go on monologues.”

Because without talking…

If I just killed her, my resentment would keep me up at night.

Not that I’m a villain myself.

“Alright, let’s make sure she never raises that hand again, starting with the other arm—”

“Wind Cutter!”

A blade of wind flew toward me from beside Min Sena.

I instinctively set my demonic sword upright and stepped back, narrowly dodging the blade that split around me.

“Demonic energy…?!”

“You…! This lunatic actually…! My lady, are you alright?!”

“Brother…!”

Awakened from his unconscious state, Admut’s face twisted as he saw Min Sena’s arm, and he immediately extended his hand to begin healing her wound.