The Second Coming of Gluttony - Chapter 4

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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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Episode 4. March 16th, 10:30 PM

“Gasp!”
The first thing that came into focus was the harsh glare pressing down on her eyelids. After blinking away the blur, she saw the fluorescent light still burning overhead.
Seon-hwa gasped for breath, her body curling inward against the creeping cold. Sweat beaded across her skin.
“What…?”
She wiped the sweat from her brow, but the trembling wouldn’t stop.
Her mind felt unnaturally sharp. A storm of emotion churned through her chest, making it impossible to breathe.
She could barely stand, leaning against the wall instead, and the breath she’d been holding came spilling out.
“Ah……”
Seon-hwa closed her eyes.
A dream.
She’d had a dream. Not like the ones she usually had—this one was different. Profoundly different.
It felt as though she’d lived through it, experienced it firsthand. She’d even felt the emotions.
By any rational measure, it made no sense. Ordinary dreams were one thing, but the sparse background had been utterly alien to the modern world, and she’d fought creatures that weren’t human. Perhaps it was just a vivid nightmare, nothing more.
But why, then…?
What stayed with her most was the final scene. The man dying—he was full of regret.
Regret, sorrow, lament, anguish—those aching emotions that persisted until the very moment his life flickered out. They hadn’t faded. They were still echoing in her chest.
With effort, Seon-hwa opened her eyes and slowly surveyed the room.
A blanket discarded on the floor, clothes draped over an instant noodle box, soju bottles rolling across the grimy surface, a cigarette pack lying alone on the dirty ground.
Everything looked strangely unfamiliar.
A splitting headache crashed down on her. She lurched up from where she sat and staggered toward the bathroom, plunging her head under running cold water. The shock of it cleared her mind.
When she reached the limit of holding her breath, she gasped and lifted her head.
The face reflected in the mirror was unrecognizable. Her eyes were hollow, her complexion pallid—she looked like a sick person, a ghost of herself.
‘Is this really me?’
She touched her face, trying to convince herself it was real.
Her old face was gone. What stared back was only an addict ravaged by gambling and alcohol—like looking at a corpse.
Water dripped from her chin as she turned away from the mirror without bothering to dry it, threw on a jacket with jerky movements, and shoved open the front door.
Her stomach was sour, but she couldn’t bear the feeling without forcing something down her throat.

She stopped at the convenience store, but nothing appealed to her. It wasn’t really about wanting to eat—she’d fled that suffocating feeling more than anything else.
Seon-hwa picked out a single can of beer and left, walking without direction.
Her wandering feet carried her to Tancheon, beneath the bridge. This was where she came to brood whenever she lost money at the casino, indulging in self-pity and regret.
She cracked open the can and took a long pull. Her stomach screamed in protest, but she didn’t care.
As she sat quietly, the feelings she’d been pushing away came flooding back like the tide.
‘How did it come to this?’
Seon-hwa stared out at the murky waters of Tancheon.
She’d realized around elementary school that she was different from the other children. She’d named her ability “Green Eyes” and believed she’d been chosen, marked for something special. Back then, she’d been thrilled, convinced something extraordinary was waiting for her. Now, remembering those days made her face burn with shame.
She’d learned later—once she was old enough to understand—that being different wasn’t something to celebrate. It was something to hide.
In twenty-six years, she’d managed to define her ability in only four rules.
When she focused her eyes, living things and objects shone with a green glow.
Some of them, no matter how hard she concentrated, the glow would fade.
Anything touched by the green glow never led to anything bad.
But when the glow faded and she was entangled with that thing in any way, there was more than a fifty percent chance something terrible would happen.
Seon-hwa had latched onto that phrase: “more than fifty percent.” Which meant there was less than a fifty percent chance something wouldn’t happen. A loophole.
The casino had been her chosen laboratory to test it.
At first, she’d thought of it as a simple experiment. She lost six or seven times out of ten, but she only brought 100,000 won each visit. When it was gone, she’d walk away cleanly from the table. Her stomach burned, but it was only student pocket money anyway.
The problem came on the days she won.
Once, she’d turned her initial stake into five million won in just two days.
She’d eaten everything she craved, bought clothes she’d only browsed online, upgraded to the latest computer. And there was still money left over.
The taste of spending money.
That was when everything began to change.
Her visits to the casino became frantic, compulsive. The money she brought multiplied exponentially. She abandoned the pretense of experimenting and chased the high of winning.
Then one day, obsessed with money, her ability simply vanished.
There had been warnings. As she used her ability more frequently, her head throbbed constantly. She started suffering from insomnia, unable to sleep at night. As the symptoms worsened, the green color that once appeared at the slightest thought became harder to see, materializing only after minutes of intense focus, and then barely. It was like trying to see through fog.
After one particularly severe episode, she couldn’t summon the green glow no matter how hard she concentrated for hours.
She’d lost her ability through greed, but she couldn’t stop gambling.
After all, the money she’d won came from this place. If she could just win once more, she could restore herself.
No matter how much those around him tried to stop him, he wouldn’t listen. He’d already fallen into the thrill of gambling. The satisfaction of winning, of pulling in money—it was sharper than any pleasure he’d ever known.
From that moment on, his life had plummeted into an abyss.
So. So….
He clenched his teeth. Why had this feeling suddenly seized him overnight? His usual groundless confidence and defiance reared their heads unbidden.
But each time they did, the emotions from the dream came crashing down like a tidal wave, burying them.
The memory of what he’d done to Yu Seon-hwa that morning flashed across his mind. Then a wave of emotion so intense he could barely think struck him down.
[Bastard.]
“Ah.”
A can tumbled to the ground, spilling its pale liquid in a trickle.
‘Why did I do that?’
The young man wrapped his face in his hands, his ten fingers tensing. He scrubbed at his face like a man possessed.
‘Why did I do that?’
That wasn’t how it was supposed to be. That wasn’t what I was supposed to say.
“Ugh….”
His chest twisted tighter. The feeling he’d had just after waking from the dream didn’t fade as he dwelt on it—it only deepened. Regret seeped through his heart like a blade, and his eyes burned with tears.
Now he understood. Without the green glow, he was nobody. Nothing.
‘If only I’d never had this ability!’
The moment he admitted that truth.
He felt the stubborn pride that had clung to him all this time sweep away entirely.
“Kh… hh….”
Suddenly, laughter erupted from him. He laughed aloud, his chest heaving. The laughter gradually twisted into sobs.
“Huh… I’m sorry….”
Everything became regret. His chest felt like it would burst.
“Seon-hwa… I’m sorry….”
A grown man wept like a child, his whole body shaking.
‘I’d be better off dead.’
He’d lived like garbage. He’d dragged those around him down with him, caused them such pain and disappointment. His sister was right—maybe his death would actually help in the long run.
Slowly, he rose to his feet. The river flowing gently before him suddenly looked unbearably inviting.
As if in a trance, he walked toward it and gazed down into the water. His tears still fell, each one creating small ripples on the surface.
Then, with trembling legs, he stepped into the current. Staring down at the water as if he meant to pierce it.
That was when it happened.
“!”
Suddenly, the water’s color changed.
From the point where his feet touched the water—or more precisely, rippling outward from those ripples—green bloomed into existence.
As if drops of vivid paint had fallen into clear water.
As if color were gradually spreading across a canvas.
The color he’d forgotten, the light that had vanished—it suddenly bloomed vast and wide.
It wasn’t content to merely tint the flowing river; it climbed the pillars, reached the bridge, swept across where he’d been sitting, and eventually spread far, far into the sky itself.
Just as it had been in childhood, the entire world was suffused with green glow.
He could only watch with wet eyes as verdant light danced and shimmered everywhere around him. His face was one of disbelief.
“This is….”
When he finally broke his concentration—standing there like a man struck by lightning—the world returned to its natural colors. The moment he focused again, the green glow bloomed anew.
The ability was.
“…back?”
Just as it had vanished one day without warning,
“It came back?”
It had returned just as suddenly.
“But why?”
He’d tried everything to recover it, and nothing had worked. The sense of loss he’d felt had been overwhelming. But for what reason had the ability activated again?
Suddenly, the dream he’d had just before came to mind.
Now that he thought about it, the man in the dream seemed to be using the exact same ability.
He desperately tried to retrace the dream from its beginning.
…….
But soon he cautiously concluded there was no connection. No matter how hard he thought, it made no sense.
Perhaps his unconscious desire to recover the ability had manifested in some bizarre form. That explanation felt more rational, more comforting.
‘Wait.’
But thinking back on it, the dream had been strangely lifelike.
And now that he considered it, hadn’t the beginning of the dream take place at Tancheon—him drinking beer and lamenting his life? Just like now.
That was when he heard it: a sharp click-click-click of high heels striking stone.
The rhythm caught his attention, and his gaze turned of its own accord. And he could clearly see.
Among the entire green-tinted expanse, only one section began to lose its glow.
It was the direction from which the sound had come.

(To be continued)

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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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