The God Slayer’s Confession

【An urgent message from GM <Sirin> has arrived!】
【…Hello, Awakener ‘Shinbi-jui’-nim! We deeply apologize for belatedly discovering a critical error in the bug report you submitted….】

“Valta, listening to this, the word ‘apologize’ suggests they don’t mean to harm Shinbi-nim. What if we just hand over the weapon, follow them in reverse, and bring the Valtael back?”
“That’s right. Isn’t getting to the Valtael as soon as possible the priority?”

As the moon waned and waxed, the Suras slowly began to spout nonsense. Suggesting they hand over your information to the Grim Reapers and tail them.

“Stop spouting nonsense. Those bastards are trying to send Bi back to her hometown.”
“It seems that way, but surely Shinbi-nim wouldn’t follow them?”
“Of course she would stay by the Valta’s side!”

The Suras are confident that you would never leave.
That no matter what happens, you would stay by my side.
That you would trust and choose me. They believe we will grow old together.

‘I am, different from you.’

But I know. You would leave me without any lingering attachment.
Seeing the countless incomprehensible words you spouted and the hesitation you occasionally showed, I instinctively knew.

‘Before we have different races, before I’m an Awakener…. I’m ‘Shinbi’. Bi! Do you understand what that means?’

My world is only you, but you belong to many worlds.
So whenever I had the chance, I sought confirmation from you.

‘Promise me you won’t leave me.’
‘The place you belong is by my side. Bi.’

You are my Bi, my mate. Even after whispering it in your ear like breathing, I was anxious.

Because I know better than anyone that, even though you seem tied to me, you would unhesitatingly sever your leash on the blade offered by the Grim Reapers and leave.

【Hello, Awakener ‘Shinbi-jui’-nim!】

So I decided to cover your eyes.
If you know nothing from the start, there will be nothing to be sad about.

My vicious possessiveness and desire to control morphed into a greed not to lose you again.

“Valta, still, wouldn’t it be better to give her a hint? She might be confused, but she will eventually understand.”

Even though I did that, the subordinates who heard my plan continued to spout naive nonsense.

“It’s said there should be no secrets between mates….”
“Are you the Valta?”
“…Please kill me! B-but if Shinbi-nim finds out even later, she will be very sad…!”
“I’m afraid even we might be hated…!”

Even while tucking their tails and whining, they groaned and begged me to reconsider, saying that deceiving you didn’t sit well with them at all.

While their behavior was ridiculous, the fact that they had come to follow you that much made me feel strange.

“I will tell her when the time comes, so take the pack and go to a safe place.”
“Yes, yes sir!”

I handed over command to Tegen, whom I had silenced, and left the pack alone to start dealing with the bastards.

【…Hello, Awakener ‘Shinbi-jui’-nim….】

Even as I cut them down again and again, the bastards kept reappearing and spouting the same words.
I decided to cut them down until their spouting changed.

“Karvan Baharga! The bastard is alone! Wring his neck!”

The Grim Reapers are invisible to the eyes of ordinary people.
Did I look like a madman, swinging my sword at the empty air day and night? Or did I look like an easy target?
The beasts who had been living like dead mice bared their claws and attacked.

“You disgusting bastard, the enemy of our Bear Tribe…!”

Inevitably wringing their necks in the process, several days passed.

【…Residual dat▒ of Awa▒ener ‘Shinbi’ has been found. Attempting to extract location data…. Unknown… ▒▒.】

I was more exhausted from not seeing you than from the day-and-night battles with the Grim Reapers.
Whether I closed my eyes or opened them, you lingered in my mind.

As if I had contracted a disease where I felt pain every time the wind brushed past, it broke my heart how much I missed you with every breath.

However, I scraped together my non-existent patience and endured.
I would wring the necks of the wicked things that dared try to steal you from me, hold you in my arms, and never let you go. I engraved this into my bones countless times to soothe my boiling insides.

…Bi.

Today again, while looking at the bright full moon and thinking of you, I saw a streak of light that resembled you.
A light pink plum blossom color. A sweet-looking peach hue.

As I followed that light sparkling just like you as if possessed, I found myself in the middle of a lake. I dove in at once and scooped up the ball of light.
The earring resembling your stigma that I gifted you.

I searched thoroughly, wondering if there was another one, but there wasn’t. Just the one without its pair.

…Did she lose it. Believing so, I turned around and saw a land I had never seen in my life spread out before me.

At first, I didn’t recognize it.
The hometown I found after hundreds of years had changed too much.
It wasn’t the sight full of pink peach blossoms that I remembered.

A land full of blooming red flowers, overflowing with whitish mist, and swarming with vampires.

‘Ahhh, I don’t want to hear it!’

However, the moment I saw you chattering like spring sunshine within it, I instinctively knew.

‘Can’t you see what’s written there? Neu-tral Ci-ty! Everyone is equal and fair here, so….’

This place is paradise. Dowongyeong.

Tap, tap, tap.

Finishing his thoughts, Karvan was lost in thought while tapping the armrest of the sofa.

Inside the empty room with no one else.
Neat to match the owner’s taste, the artificial cherry blossom tree always in full bloom in one corner resembled the room’s owner. Staring at the occasionally fluttering illusionary cherry blossom petals, he looked down at his hand.

‘Why do you keep saying ‘later’! Have you decided not to tell me again?’
‘If you’re going to be like that, I won’t talk to you either!’

Beast-kin do not intentionally engage in long conversations.
They can tell affiliations by scent, rank by nail length, strength by the number of scars, and mood by the angle of the tail, the movement of the ears, and the puffiness of the fur.

Because of this, he, a mutant without ears or a tail, always held a unilateral advantage in conversations.
Whether he was afraid, anxious, or terrified right now. Because they couldn’t fathom his inner thoughts at all, beast-kin found him difficult.

But humans are different. Since everyone equally has no ears or tail, they always converse and specifically want to confirm things with words.

That culture was unfamiliar and hard to understand at first, but now he thinks he understands it a bit.
He has discovered the joy of mixing words as much as bodies.

‘I need you. Don’t go.’
‘Yeah, good job! Karvan! Thank you.’
‘…Say ‘Master’ one more time!’

Even if you hiss like a wildcat and say things you don’t mean, even if you sulk and grumble, just hearing your voice makes me laugh foolishly.

‘If I satisfy your curiosity.’
‘What do I get in return? Can I receive proper compensation?’

Wordplay. Having a long tongue. I used to absolutely hate all of that.
Fearing that you might draw the curtain without lingering attachment and not even show your face once the conversation ends, I elongate the ends of my sentences like a pup spinning to catch its own tail.

‘What happened to the Suras?’

…However, with that pretty mouth, you keep looking for other guys.

‘Are Tegen, and Mashak, are they all okay?’

Why are you so worried about guys strong as iron who would crawl back up on their own even if thrown into hell.
Meanwhile, how did those underlings find Dowongyeong, they are making a fuss about coming in to help.

‘Valta! That guy Radugan told us the location of Dowongyeong!’
‘We will also infiltrate as prisoners and help!’

I told them not to come, that it wasn’t necessary. After begging to stay quiet as dead mice, they crawled in on their own accord and finally stole your attention.

At the fact that you keep bringing them up in the precious time you could be calling my name even once, the twisted temper I had stepped on slowly raised its head.

‘Do you even know what the Suras are doing right now? They came in as refugees and are in the hardest mine in Midvalen….’

Even though I wanted to grab you right then and lock you in a birdcage, I decided to wait this once, since I had already committed many sins.

‘I, I’m different from you!’

Until you admit it yourself.
That you too, are a being like me, and feel the same way.

…Even if we are different, I will make us the same.

Karvan, tilting his head, laughed softly.

“Huff, huff….”

As if cutting through his thoughts, faint footsteps, light as a rabbit and swift as a deer, could be heard from afar. The sound of breathing recognizable even from several meters away.

Pretending nothing happened, he returned behind the iron bars and sat down. Then the door opened with a pant, and a heavily flushed face appeared. Seeing those pink, peach-like panting cheeks made a laugh leak out naturally.

“Karvan!”

Wondering what expression she would be making today, he looked at her with anticipation.

“…Why are you crying again?”

She had the face he least wanted to see.

She said she was going to give medicine to the Suras, but she was sobbing so hard she couldn’t even breathe properly.

What nonsense did those guys spout this time?
Even though he had silenced them so strictly. Just as his carefully suppressed base nature was about to flare up.

“I’m sorry, Karvan.”

…His twisted mood instantly unraveled at the female body that suddenly ran in and embraced him. He held her wet cheeks, hiccuping that she was sorry, that she was wrong, and met her eyes.

“What are you so sorry for.”

“Hngh, you suffered so much, but I, didn’t even believe you, and treated you like a s*ave, just….”

Unable to finish her sentence, she burst into tears again.

So she finally heard everything. It seems those loose-lipped guys confessed everything.

Why didn’t you tell me, how painful must it have been being chased by the Grim Reapers, she asks as if resenting him.

…How painful and lonely must you have been.

‘Help me! Log out is, n-not working….’
‘Ack! Wait a minute! I keep telling you, I’m not a hacker!’

The bastards imitated your voice in an attempt to survive.
To confuse me, they let me hear the traces of you struggling to survive.

‘…Please save me. Please, I, I really, don’t know anything….’

I didn’t even realize it was hard while living with the sole purpose of meeting you again for just 100 days.

But you lived like that for over a year.
Just as you said, bullied and ostracized by the whole world.

Who is worrying about whom, when you survived so desperately alone, chased by the Grim Reapers.

Holding you as you sobbed sorrowfully, I comforted you slowly, just as you taught me.

“I’m sorry, Karvan, I, I’m sorry….”

You, knowing nothing, keep apologizing to me.

But Bi. You don’t need to do that.

【…Command for immediate retrieval of Awakener ‘Shinbi-jui’. Commencing simultaneous execution….】

I wrung the necks of every single trivial thing trying to tear you away from my side.
So they could never dare to take you from me.

【…Residual data of Awakener ‘Shinbi’ has been found. Attempting to extract location data and retrieve….】

Even if they attached themselves with immortal bodies, I tore them off again. And if they attached, I tore them off again.
Thousands, tens of thousands of times. I will forever tear apart whatever tries to take you from me, even if it is the god of death.

“Awakener ‘Shinbi’ will not return. Tell them she remains here.”

【…Residual dat▒ of Awa▒ener ‘Shinbi’ has not been ▒ound. Attempting to ▒xtract location data …failed.】

Even the Grim Reapers, who seemed like inorganic matter, have intelligence.
After cutting down their fragmented bodies tens of thousands of times, their spouting about taking you away changed.

‘So what are you going to do now?’
‘Just what on earth are you thinking! Say something!’

You keep asking me.
Just what am I thinking. What is the plan.

‘Security is tight because of the Coliseum, and you’ve become a s*ave. Even if I secretly take off those handcuffs, what’s next?’

How could I say it. That I wrung the Grim Reapers’ necks so they couldn’t find you.
That my plan is to make it impossible for you to return to your world.
How could I say that I am waiting for you to break your own wings and settle into my arms.

If I tell you the truth, you would surely be horrified and run away like you did once before.

【…Residual data of Awakener ‘Shinbi’ could not be found. Location data extraction and retrieval failed. Memory frozen. Not Found Error….】

If the gods try to take you away, I will plunder you from the gods and make you mine.
If you leave for another world, I will destroy that world and make you return to my arms.

I will usurp this Dowongyeong, a land where even gods cannot enter, lock you inside, and make you live looking only at me.

【Awakener Shinbi ‘Irretrievable’ …Assimilation.】

…It took three months to make the Grim Reapers give up.
I broke their will and trampled on them so they wouldn’t even think of finding you.

Perhaps, if you find that out, you will definitely resent me.
Calling me a beast-like bastard, a bad bastard, asking how I could do that to you.
You might cling to me crying like you did one day, and perhaps this time you really will hate me.

You might ask me with pitiful eyes why I am doing this to you, what you did wrong.

If so, I have only this one thing to answer.

…Because you are, my ‘Shinbi’.

“Shin. Bi.”

Because you are my one and only God, and my one and only Queen.