* * *
Not even a scream escaped me.
The sensation of my flesh being torn apart, the raw pain—it was all too vivid.
I had no time to think.
Instinctively, I stumbled backward.
But even as I moved, I knew it wouldn’t be enough to avoid the knife.
There was nothing I could do.
All I could do was shut my eyes tight.
I braced for an even greater pain to follow, but suddenly, my darkening vision turned a shade of blue.
[Idiot!!]
“…?”
The pain was gone.
Not only that—the agony of my flesh being cut had vanished completely.
Snapping my eyes open, I saw a translucent barrier surrounding me.
On the ground, a dagger—likely the one Kim Minsoo had used—lay discarded.
And between Kim Minsoo and me, where there had been nothing just moments ago, something unfamiliar stood.
‘What… is that?’
Small, fluffy, and covered in white fur…
It was a tiny fox cub.
A mysterious blue light radiated from its body.
Standing firmly in front of me, it growled at Kim Minsoo.
‘A divine beast?’
There was no mistaking it.
The sacred energy coming from the creature was unmistakably familiar.
‘How is it here?’
I didn’t bring the divine beast’s egg with me.
Come to think of it, it had been unusually silent today.
Had it known something was going to happen?
“…Hey, come here.”
But it was too small.
Even if it was a divine beast, it was way too tiny to go up against Kim Minsoo.
Kim Minsoo was practically a hero in this world.
What could such a small thing possibly do?
I kept glancing at Kim Minsoo while calling out to the fox, but it didn’t budge.
It had been ridiculously stubborn even as an egg, and apparently, that hadn’t changed.
“Hey…!!”
And then—
“Hahahahaha…!!”
A chilling laughter echoed through the alley, cutting into my ears.
Kim Minsoo was laughing, bending over as if he had heard the funniest joke of his life.
Tears welled in his eyes as he finally turned to stare straight at me.
‘Shit…’
His eyes had lost all reason.
‘This psycho.’
The shock of nearly being stabbed to death was starting to wear off, and my mind finally began piecing things together.
No matter how insane Kim Minsoo was, he wouldn’t act so randomly without reason.
‘He must have gotten some kind of hint.’
Just like how I had Noah, Kim Minsoo must have had a connection to some kind of ancient god—or maybe even a group of them.
Maybe he had Noah, just like me.
Now, it all made sense.
That was why Noah had been giving me hints through quests rather than direct communication lately.
‘There must be a new rule.’
Twotransmigrated individuals.
Two factions of ancient gods competing over the survival of humanity.
Since they were essentially forcing us into a competition, they must have thought it fair to distribute information equally.
Just like I received my hints through quests, Kim Minsoo must have gotten his own clues.
And among those clues—
“So it was you? The other transmigrated one?”
—was likely the existence of another person like him.
I had known about Kim Minsoo, but he hadn’t known about me.
That imbalance would’ve been seen as unfair.
That much, I could understand.
But there was something I had overlooked.
‘Kim Minsoo is a regressor.’
I didn’t know what triggered his regression, but the important thing was that he had rewound time more than once.
His soul, having already failed at least once, was practically owned by the ancient gods.
Yet for some reason, he had been given multiple chances.
‘If I were him, I’d go crazy too.’
Whenever things didn’t go his way, he could just cause some trouble and reset everything.
His ultimate goal was to defeat the Demon King—he could always fabricate an excuse for his actions.
So, when he learned about the existence of another possessed individual, he decided to test the theory—by attacking me, Sean Kreveta, who was living as Shane Pantheon.
A logical move?
Like hell it was.
‘Why the fuck should I try to understand him?!’
The fact that he attacked me outright was infuriating.
He must have assumed that ancient gods wouldn’t let a possessed one die so easily.
But what if the divine beast hadn’t shielded me?
‘I’d be dead right now.’
That certainty burned in my mind.
Quickly pulling my thoughts together, I deliberately took a step back and raised my voice.
“W-What do you think you’re doing?!”
First, I needed to feign ignorance.
If I admitted I was a transmigrated one, things would spiral out of control.
Kim Minsoo smirked.
“Ah… I was just confirming something. But I was right, wasn’t I? You’re a transmigrated one. Otherwise, there’s no way a divine beast would be protecting you.”
Of course he figured it out.
As the wielder of the Holy Sword, he must have been able to recognize divine energy.
“…I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
But that wasn’t enough. There was no reason why the variable protected by the divine beast had to be a transmigrator.
Couldn’t it be that the ancient gods, in devising a new method, had chosen Sean Kreveta, who had been continuously dying?
This kind of reasoning was worth arguing.
‘There’s no way those ancient gods would have blatantly revealed that I’m a transmigrator.’
If that were the case, Kim Minsoo wouldn’t have gone crazy, grabbed a dagger, and tried to stab me.
“Ah, come on, don’t be like that.”
His tone and expression changed completely.
The mask of Karon Luavis that he had maintained all this time was now completely discarded.
“You can be honest. You’ve read the original work, so you know, don’t you? I’m the only one who can save this world anyway. That’s why I went through all this hardship after transmigrating here in the first place.”
In short, if I wanted to survive, I should stick with him.
“Ah, but seriously, I’m so glad to see you. You’re from Korea too, right? I’ve been alone all this time, and it’s been really tough…”
“Grrrrrrr!!”
Kim Minsoo was seriously, truly insane.
And I didn’t mean that as an insult—he was genuinely mentally unstable.
Despite not having absolute proof that I was a transmigrator, he had completely convinced himself and was rampaging.
The fact that he was speaking to me not as Karon Luavis, but as Kim Minsoo, was proof of that.
‘He’s barely capable of rational judgment right now.’
The divine beast growled menacingly, but Kim Minsoo didn’t even flinch.
The moment he reached out to grab my shoulder, I quickly bent down and scooped up the divine beast in my arms, putting some distance between us again.
“I won’t let today’s incident slide. First, you suddenly attack me, then you start spouting nonsense—I have no idea what you’re trying to do.”
“……”
“At the very least, please remember that I have no reason to fully trust Duke Luavis yet. Now, since it seems your condition isn’t great, I’ll take my leave.”
“…Wow. You’re really just going to slip away like this?”
Kim Minsoo’s eerie voice echoed from behind.
“Are you still clueless, or is there another reason…?”
Honestly, I wanted to knock some sense into him with a headbutt, but escaping came first.
Hugging the divine beast even tighter, I darted into a side street.
I kept glancing behind me, worried he might chase after me, but fortunately, that didn’t happen.
Only after climbing into the waiting carriage did I finally release the breath I had been holding.
*
“……?”
Feeling something off, Raizen suddenly turned around.
But there was nothing there.
Only the ruins of houses destroyed by monsters.
‘What was that?’
For a moment, an icy chill had run down his spine.
As he stood there in thought, a monster lunged at him.
It looked like a bipedal frog, but with deep blue skin, sharper features, and eyes that resembled a human’s.
Still staring behind him, Raizen swung his sword.
A dark red aura sliced through the air, cutting the monster down with perfect precision.
Only then did he shift his gaze forward, his brows furrowing.
‘I suddenly thought of Sean.’
* * *
