The Boss Wants to Die - Chapter 36

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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.
36
“Ah.”
The Demon God bent at the waist, her hand dropping toward her belly before she swallowed a short cry.
“Ugh…….”
The vicious pain shattered even her ability to scream.
She lay crumpled on the floor, her body twisting like a worm writhing on hot metal.
Noticing something wrong with her state, the Player who had been exchanging glances with the others approached her.
“Hnn, haa…….”
The Demon God rubbed her cheek against the marble floor, tears and mucus and saliva streaming down her face.
Unaccustomed to pain, she couldn’t gather her wits.
She should have fled this place at the very least, but she didn’t even have the strength for that.
“What is this. The final Boss, and she’s nothing?”
“Ah, ahh, hnngh.”
The Healer watching wrinkled her brow, finding the Demon God’s drooling form distasteful.
“Let’s just kill her.”
“Yeah. She probably does have something special since she’s the final Boss. If she suddenly gets up and starts fighting back, we’ll be in trouble.”
The Demon God opened her eyes as she heard their conversation.
Seeing her eyes burning with vivid red light, the Player gripped his weapon tighter, tensing.
But Michael recognized those eyes.
They were the eyes of a terrified rabbit.
The problem was that no one else saw them that way.
The moment the Demon God pushed herself up on her elbows to escape, the Archer cried out and fired an Arrow.
“Die!”
Startled, the Arrow missed her waist and clattered across the marble floor.
At the same instant, Michael’s strength gave out and he sank to his knees.
Michael, who had never let an unjust act pass unnoticed, had no immunity to this kind of one-sided violence.
He had seen Players suffer miserably because of Level Difference, but this was a cruelty beyond comparison.
It was because the Demon God knew nothing.
A soul like hers was exactly the kind the Lord God saved.
A soul as pure and harmless as a child.
And yet that soul stood before Michael now—wearing the mask of the Demon God.
“P-please……spare me…….”
“A monster talks?”
The Player cut off her words, his eyes alight with curiosity.
It was as though a wall from another world stood between them.
They understood nothing of the Demon God’s pain and fear.
Like children idly crushing ants to death, they merely wondered at her reaction, touching the Arrow embedded in her belly.
The Demon God curved her spine in agony.
“Hnn, ahh, please……spare me…….”
“Since she looks human, do you think she could fall in love?”
“With a monster? Are you insane?”
“Why not. She’s pretty.”
The Players exchanged idle chatter as they examined the Demon God.
Michael felt a boiling rage toward these Players, cruel beyond measure.
Yet soon he understood that there were no particularly evil beings in this place.
There were no villains here.
Just Players and Boss monsters.
The boiling rage flickered out into hollow despair, dragging Michael down into a swamp of helplessness.
A hollow laugh escaped him.
Even the Holy See, which Michael had followed so faithfully, had taught that the Demon God was wicked and must pay for her sins with death.
To expect these Players to act differently was too much to hope for.
“In this world, my existence is nothing more and nothing less than Demon God Helord. That’s why it shines so brightly.”
Michael finally understood the Demon God’s bitter laugh, tinged with resignation.
By what right could he condemn these Players?
He was already a murderer—he had already killed the Demon God.
“Kill her when she begs for her life. Seems like there’s some kind of special pattern.”
The Archer spoke, tapping the Demon God’s knee with the toe of his boot.
“If this pattern ends, things might get rough for us.”
“Then we should test it.”
A warrior-like player raised a greatsword.
“Please, stop!”
Michael stepped in front of Demon God, but the greatsword passed through his body and bore down upon her.
Michael closed his eyes, but mercifully, he heard no scream from Demon God.
Instead, the watching players let out sharp gasps.
“Told you so!”
Demon God had wrenched the greatsword from the warrior and turned the attack back on him.
The warrior, his chest pierced, made no sound as light enveloped him and he regressed back to the Holy See.
“That’s what happens when you rush. I said we should kill her faster.”
An archer clicked her tongue and dropped her weapon.
Without the warrior as their main damage dealer, defeating the final boss was impossible.
So it seemed they’d decided to die as quickly as possible and return to the Holy See.
“I didn’t… I never meant to…”
Demon God, who had lost the warrior’s greatsword, stumbled backward.
Paying her no mind, the players were absorbed in conversation among themselves.
“Let’s Retry after we Return. This time we’ll kill her the moment she starts crying.”
“Good.”
The rest of the players dropped their weapons.
Sensing the opportunity instinctively, Demon God’s fingernails began to grow long.
Numbed by a succession of shocking experiences, Demon God stood dazed, tears streaming down her face.
Her gaze fixed on her own grotesquely elongated black nails.
“I… don’t want to…”
The fight was over in an instant.
There were no unnecessary screams, no back-and-forth exchanges.
In a single moment, it ended cleanly.
Bang—!
The moment the battle ended, the Great Hall of Demon Castle, which a player had left open, slammed shut with a tremendous noise.
Like a suffocating prison built for Demon God alone.
Drip, drip…
Only the sound of blood drops falling from Demon God’s body disturbed the silence of the hall.
She stared at the empty space where the players had vanished, having regressed to the Holy See after dropping a few items.
The arrow that had been lodged in her abdomen had long since turned to light and scattered.
As if she had been alone from the very beginning.
Silence.
Michael was overwhelmed by that silence, unable to look away from Demon God.
His chest burned.
The convictions he had believed in burned, betrayal serving as their fuel.
‘Why is Demon God known to be wicked? Because she radiates wickedness? Because many people have died by her hand?’
And yet Michael knew that Demon God had never once left Demon Castle.
He had never heard any tale of her slaughtering people.
Demon God had always been here, in the castle.
Rather, it was players who sought her out and fell to her blade.
‘The Holy See taught that evil is born simply by Demon God’s very existence.’
Then was she to be persecuted forever merely for existing, for something she never chose?
Was there truly no way to save her?
Questions he had never dared to entertain whirled through his mind like a tornado.
Michael pressed his forehead in confusion.
As the foundation of knowledge the Holy See had built crumbled beneath him, the thoughts he had constructed atop it lost their moorings and wavered.
Betrayal, wretchedness, sorrow.
Every emotion drove him toward the edge of an abyss.
What had he learned all this time?
The faith of those who believed Demon God was Absolute Evil?
Every player who sought to kill her?
The world that permitted it all?
…The sublime justice he had pursued?
It existed nowhere.
The justice he yearned for was nowhere to be found in this place…
“Ugh…”
At last, Michael collapsed where he stood, tears pouring down his face.
It felt as though the faithful life he had devoted entirely to his beliefs had been utterly denied.
Only Akt Hevgenia alone swam against the current of the world’s flow.
A lonely heretic, defiant against the Lord God.
***
The sun dipped below the horizon, and a hushed darkness settled over everything.
The Commercial District, if anything, grew more crowded, a thrumming chaos of bodies and noise.
I wandered near the taverns, chewing on a salty meat skewer I’d bought from a street vendor.
That’s when suitable prey caught my eye.
A Tank-class player with a crude, ugly smile plastered across his face.
He looked promising enough.
[Human blood tastes delicious!
— Condition: Blood Drain 10 times (3/10)]
Seven more kills and I’d complete the quest.
I thought of Akt, always pushing me to drink his blood, and my brow furrowed.
‘Have I lost my mind? Drink Akt’s blood?’
Every time I’d done as Akt asked, nothing good came of it.
Knowing that and still obeying would make me a fool.
I smiled with satisfaction.
I felt proud of myself for slipping free from his grip like a loach escaping a Venus flytrap.
“I won’t drink your blood even if the world crumbles.”
“That’s cruel.”
A pointblank refusal—yes, that was it.
It was perfect, except for one thing that nagged at me.
I recalled Akt’s downturned face.
‘Why didn’t he grab me when I refused?’
Given his usual temperament, he should have pestered me relentlessly until I gave in.
‘If he stops being pushy now, it’ll look suspicious instead…’
Turning over his reaction in my mind, I approached my prey.
There was no reason to hesitate.
“You look delicious. Want to be eaten by me?”
Two words were all it took to seduce them.
Catching a Player who misunderstood my meaning was child’s play.
“I like women who make the first move.”
The Player smiled lazily, his eyes crinkling at the corners.
After watching Akt’s theatrical affectations night and day, his attempt at charm looked utterly blank by comparison.
“Follow me.”
I commanded flatly and turned away.
‘Still, don’t people customize their characters when they create them? Why aren’t there any handsome ones?’
They all looked far too realistic.
Wrinkled, warped, asymmetrical.
I’d assumed all Players looked like Michael or Akt.
Even setting those two aside, the Players who’d made it all the way to the Great Hall of Demon Castle were uniformly beautiful—it made my assumption seem all the more reasonable.
But walking through Market Street, I realized I’d been operating under a delusion.
Twisted faces bearing the stench of thankless labor and the weight of individual pasts.
Market Street, where humans tangled and tumbled together, was thick with everyday squalor.
Nothing fantastical about it, nothing beautiful.
The people moving through it were so utterly ordinary that I found myself wondering if this might actually be reality after all.
‘Maybe appearance is randomly assigned? Do they earn money to get cosmetic surgery?’

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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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