The Boss Wants to Die - Chapter 25

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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The boss wants to die.
Chapter 25
Akt smoothed his clothes with natural ease and issued a command.
Michael’s head snapped up in shock.
“What?”
“Help me.”
“Why should I——”
“Why? You felt it yourself, didn’t you?”
His index finger slid across Michael’s chest, pressing inward.
“Here — the despair of the world.”
“You never explained the full situation to me.”
Michael clenched his fists, attempting what little defiance he could muster.
“I’m not idle enough to help you without reason.”
“Do you need a reason?”
Akt tilted his head, genuinely perplexed.
“You already know. That Iroun’s death must be prevented. You felt clearly that day — something went terribly wrong.”
……
“Or have you reflected enough? Was it still not enough?”
The smile vanished from Akt’s face. He bent low, bringing his face level with Michael’s.
“After butchering the Evil God so savagely, you still have the audacity to talk back? Still shameless enough?”
A voice that sounded like it had crawled up from hell itself, thick and low, glowed with a hatred so boundless its shape could not be perceived.
His voice was like an ancient curse.
“After you felt it in your bones — how badly you twisted things — you’re going to run away now? Like some brute with no sense of shame?”
“Ugh……!”
“Get your head straight, Michael. I never forgave you.”
Akt straightened.
“Don’t make me say it twice.”
“What should I do?”
Michael relented, finally speaking.
“Raise your Level until I contact you. You’ll need to be far stronger than you are now.”
Akt turned to leave the Tavern, but something occurred to him. He glanced back.
“And — don’t tell Iroun what you’ve remembered, or what happened today.”
……
“It will only make things messier.”
Whatever he was thinking, Akt’s face twisted savagely.
When Michael didn’t answer, Akt added with grim courtesy.
“If Iroun learns this truth, the world won’t end with just blackout then.”
Then he turned and left the Tavern.
***
“It looks fine right now.”
Akt, ascending the stairs of the Inn, suddenly clenched his teeth and drove his fist into the wall.
The swaying wall lamp scattered his silhouette into disarray.
White hair spilled to the floor as his head sagged.
His heart mirrored it.
Plummeting into the abyss.
‘It looks fine right now,’ he thought.
The old wooden stairs shrieked under the weight of his massive frame, crying out beneath the burden of his rage.
A laugh came out. Kek-kek.
Like a wind tearing through a shattered windowpane, it sounded like a whimper.
With each exhale, it felt as though acrid sulfurous gas was being expelled from deep within.
The resentment coiled in his belly mixed ancient, molten hatred into his blood and sent it coursing through him, heating him from the inside.
His prayers felt like they were burning away. His breath caught.
Pain stabbed his skull like a heated iron spike, violent and merciless, churning his insides further.
“Ugh……”
He clamped his mouth shut with one hand and bent his back.
There was the smell of blood in his nostrils.
A familiar smell of blood.
Iroun’s blood.
‘It’s an illusion. Don’t worry. Iroun is fine. She’s not hurt……’
He lifted his face, beaded with cold sweat.
Black, pointed High Heels came into view mere inches away.
The hem of an elegant Mini Chiffon Dress swayed gently before him.
It was a seductive gesture, as though she meant to draw out his very soul.
Spotting his eyes amid the disheveled strands of his hair, Iroun’s brow quirked with a strange mixture of irritation and concern as she asked, “What are you doing here?”
“What are you doing here?”
The Iroun before him was no hallucination—she was real.
He knew it with certainty: she wasn’t bleeding.
“Are you not feeling well? Your face is terribly pale.”
She crouched down before Akt with the same sharp tone she’d used moments before, as though nothing had changed.
He was nearly collapsed on the stairs, his knees barely holding him up.
“What’s wrong? Are you hurt?”
“Star, I…….”
“What is that smell?”
She leaned in close, catching the scent of his breath.
Beneath Akt’s characteristic smoky musk came the sharp, sour reek of beer.
“You’ve been drinking? Is that why you’re like this?”
She clicked her tongue in disapproval and hooked one of his arms over her shoulder.
She didn’t even seem to consider abandoning him.
She could rage at him with that cutting edge, but he knew it wasn’t her true nature.
Every time her unconscious tenderness revealed itself like this, Akt felt his heart shatter.
The world and all its Players—those who’d driven her to the brink, tormented her, transformed her—filled him with revulsion.
“You should know better than to drink like this. How much did you have to end up like this?”
“…….”
“You don’t usually get this way. Did someone poison you? Where did you drink this? Who gave it to you?”
She grilled him with rapid-fire questions as she dragged his body—more than twice her size—up the stairs.
His bulk made no difference; compact as she was, carrying Akt’s weight was nothing to her.
With each gentle sway of her long black hair, her rich, intoxicating rose fragrance washed over him in waves.
Akt let his eyelids fall heavy.
The scalding heat of his breath was transforming into something sweet and soft.
“Are you feeling any better?”
“Ugh, bleugh…….”
“Whoa, hey!”
A splitting headache stabbed through his skull, churning his mind into mush.
Akt couldn’t hold it back and retched.
At least they’d made it to the room.
Since he’d consumed only alcohol, it was mostly liquid, but still—it would be unpleasant to witness.
Iroun’s expression wasn’t one of disgust, but shock.
“Seriously, what’s gotten into you?”
She rummaged through the shelf, pulled out a Handkerchief at random, and wiped around his mouth.
Some of the vomit had spattered onto her elegant dress.
Iroun surely noticed.
Her exceptional reflexes couldn’t have missed the spray of liquid.
Yet she simply crouched before him and examined his face.
“Can you hear me?”
“Hah, hah…….”
“Are you all right? Try to breathe slowly.”
Soft, gentle strokes.
Her slender fingers swept across his back in soothing motions.
It was a sensation he’d longed for.
Akt clenched his teeth to keep from crying.
“What can I do to help? Do you need anything? Tell me. I’m an Evil God, after all.”
Her words, offered as reassurance, pierced him like a blade.
She hated being an Evil God more than anyone else did.
And yet she invoked it—as if boasting of it—just to comfort him.
How could he not understand that pain?
Invoking her status as an Evil God was her habit—a way she often mocked her own circumstances.
A form of self-harm.
There had been a time when Akt himself didn’t grasp this at all…….
Tears finally gathered in the corners of his eyes.
They were tears that hadn’t come in far, far too long.
Her expression was vacant, and there were no sounds of weeping, yet tears gathered without resistance against her eyelids and spilled down.
Iroun’s expression grew even more grave.
“You didn’t actually drink poison or something, did you? Hurting so much you’re crying?”
“…….”
“Evil Gods have no Recovery Skill. Healers can’t cast skills on themselves anyway.”
Iroun placed her hand on Akt’s forehead and checked his temperature.
“Why is your body so cold? This won’t do. Wait here.”
She sat Akt on the bed, then threw open the wardrobe and sent a cascade of thick winter quilts tumbling out.
She grabbed several of them and began wrapping Akt’s body like a cocoon.
“Don’t you dare move from here!”
Iroun, having impressed her warning firmly, closed the door in haste and left.
Then, in just one second, she reopened the door and came back in.
“Heart! Heart!”
“Yes, mistress?”
Heart emerged from the shadows with a soft chime, blinking its eyes adorably as it waited.
Iroun pointed toward Akt.
“Watch over him, would you? He’s not feeling well right now.”
“Understood, mistress.”
Bang!
She shut the door roughly behind her, and the sound of Iroun hurrying down the stairs echoed through the room.
Even as the door closed, Akt remained perfectly still.
Hot tears continued to pour down from his statue-like, expressionless face.
It was as though his heart had simply vanished.
In truth, that wasn’t far from the mark.
He was lost in memories of a past he hadn’t encountered in so long, cycling through thoughts that held no meaning.
“Take this.”
Iroun returned with remarkable speed.
One might have wondered why she’d bothered to summon Heart at all, given how quickly she came back.
She forced a pill with hangover-relief properties down Akt’s throat, then studied his expression intently.
“Feeling any better?”
“…….”
“If you die, I suppose it works out in my favor, but there are cleaner methods, you know.”
She scolded him with a dissatisfied expression.
“Like a clean decapitation in one stroke, or something like that. This is just pointless suffering dragged out for no reason. I don’t like it. Understand?”
Iroun kneaded Akt’s arm—grown cold from poor circulation—while continuing her lecture.
“Here I am, massaging the arm of a Level 42 Player. This is ridiculous.”
“……Thank you.”
Akt finally opened his mouth.
Iroun could finally be at ease.
She wiped his tears away with her hand, naturally and without hesitation.
Large, clear crimson eyes gazed into Akt’s face.
Like an older sister comforting her younger brother after he’d cried his fill, asking what had happened.
With tenderness.
“How did things come to this?”
“I think I drank alcohol that was too strong.”
“Sigh.”
Akt took hold of Iroun’s hand as it wiped his face and lowered it.
His expression was one of someone unaware of how freely he was behaving.
Yes, this was the kind of person he was.
Though no one knew it—his mind seized by the will of the Evil God, thrashing about helplessly.
That tender-hearted person had died with a smile on his face.
It was the same expression he wore when Michael’s sword first pierced him and he met his death.

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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