“How’s life treating you lately?”

The foreman poured me a drink, his question casual as the worn-out brand of soju—rare to find these days—filled my cup.

“Feels like it’s killing me,” I sighed, half lament, half truth.

Since Mignium pulled me back from death, I hadn’t had a single day of peace. Fighting, killing...and now I was even facing off against a dragon.

“Like when you first started as a cleaner?”

“…Eh, well, not quite as bad as that.”

I scratched the back of my head, remembering those days when I was clueless and everything felt foreign. Hadn’t I broken equipment back then worth more than three months of James’s salary? Back when everyone in the Cleaner Guild called me a walking disaster.

The foreman must have remembered those days too because he let out a soft chuckle as he downed his drink, the sharp scent of diluted soju filling the air.

“Dung beetle.”

He had emptied his glass and called me by my old nickname with that evergreen, steady voice I’d grown fond of hearing.

“Yes, sir.”

“If it’s too much, you can stop right here.”

Stop? With so many people left to kill, how could I stop now?

I blinked, replying almost without thought. “…I haven’t even started yet.”

“All the better time to stop. You haven’t killed anyone famous yet, so you could stop here, assume a new identity, and live a different life.”

“….”

“Try killing even a minister, let alone a president. How do you think the world will see you then?”

“…They’ll think I’m a terrorist who killed a minister, I guess.”

“Are you okay with that?”

Okay? I looked up and met the foreman’s eyes. There, above his wrinkled face, worry filled his gaze as he looked back at me.

“If you fail, you’ll lose your life. If you succeed, there’ll be no future waiting for you—just a lifetime of being hunted. Is that really the life you want?”

Instead of answering, I reached over, taking the bottle and refilling his glass. As I poured, words escaped my lips, unplanned.

“…Then what am I supposed to do? Forgive them?”

Somehow, though I hadn’t poured much, the glass overflowed, spilling its contents. The liquor dripped down, like tears.

“Should I pretend that the dead are simply dead, and cast aside all the suffering and resentment they left behind? And then what?”

“We live the lives they couldn’t.”

“….”

“How about buying that supercar Chunshik always wanted to drive? Opening the fried chicken joint James dreamed of wouldn’t be a bad choice either.”

“…Sir.”

“Unlike Dukbae, you could even date, marry…wake up beside your wife, fall asleep watching your children, live life surrounded by family…and deal with teenage angst when they hit that age.”

The lives that we cleaners dreamed of. I looked at the brimming glass and spoke.

“If you’d lived, and I had died…do you think you could’ve lived that way, sir?”

A bold question.

Did he not expect me to ask? He paused, momentarily speechless, before grinning.

“No, I wouldn’t have lived like that. I probably…would’ve rigged bombs in the National Assembly and Blue House.”

“….”

“Hey, don’t look at me like that.”

He clicked his tongue in disapproval as I let out a long sigh.

“It’s been a while since we met, and instead of cheering me on, you’re just saying all this weird stuff.”

“Weird, huh? You punk, everything I said just now was my true feelings.”

“….”

“But since I’m this kind of person, I can’t tell you to give up on revenge either, can I?”

He reached out, placing his hand on my shoulder. Amid the familiar scent of alcohol, I felt his calloused palm.

“Dung beetle… No, Yeomyeong.”

“Yes?”

“Whatever choice you make, I’ll understand. But…”

His hand brushed my face. My vision blurred, and the smell of alcohol faded.

“…we’d like you to be happy.”

Before I could respond, he finished his last drink.

He’d already emptied one bottle. I looked around for another bottle.

But nothing was there. All around us was nothing but a thick, deafening darkness.

“Sir…?”

I turned back, but where he had sat, only an empty glass remained.

Only then did I realize…

As the Cleaner Guild’s “Dung Beetle” and as the man who inherited the foreman’s last name…

…I had woken up from a dream.

 

When I opened my eyes, I was met with Kim Mansu’s grime-streaked face. The moment he saw me awake, he yelled in shock.

“Yeomyeong! Are you back with us?”

Ah. Yeomyeong finally regained his senses and took a breath. His scorched lungs drank in the air, and his stalled mind rebooted.

“…The dragon? What happened to the dragon?”

“It’s not dead yet. Just knocked out, for now.”

Kim Mansu spoke as he helped Yeomyeong sit up a little, revealing the dragon stretched across the valley. Despite losing its wings, legs, and even its sight, the creature was still breathing, holding on with an almost ridiculous will to live.

“Don’t worry too much. The military will be here soon to finish it off.”

While Kim Mansu tried to reassure him, other mercenaries gathered around the two of them.

None of them looked in good shape, especially Commander Kwon, who was covered in burns and blisters from taking the dragon’s magic head-on.

“How’s Yeomyeong holding up? Does he need emergency evac?”

Of course, his injuries couldn’t compare to those Yeomyeong had taken directly.

“…I’ll manage.”

“Manage?”

Commander Kwon looked at him incredulously. Yeomyeong’s condition was bad enough to make any doctor shudder.

“Give me…ten minutes to recover.”

Ten minutes for wounds like this?

The mercenaries stared in disbelief, but as they watched, Yeomyeong’s body seemed to affirm his words, healing rapidly. Burns were closing up, fresh skin emerging in real-time. Commander Kwon let out a sigh of relief.

“Well, that’s a relief. We won’t be losing the hero who saved Manju here today.”

The hero who saved Manju. As strange as the phrase sounded, none of them disagreed.

Without Yeomyeong, Manju surely would’ve fallen.

Yet, despite such an accomplishment, Yeomyeong’s expression remained troubled.

“It’s not over yet. Right now…”

As he began to explain, someone dropped down from above.

Thud!

Pasoon landed among them, his tattered winter coat draped in dark red mana like a cloak.

“Hey there.”

A smile spread across his androgynous face. The mercenaries tensed but held back from showing hostility outright.

They had, after all, just fought alongside him against the dragon…and above all, they knew they couldn’t guarantee victory if they fought him now, exhausted as they were.

But Pasoon paid them no mind, his gaze fixed solely on Yeomyeong.

“Cheon Yeomyeong, you remember our deal, don’t you?”

“…Yes, I remember.”

“According to our agreement, the dragon’s core…no, its heart is mine.”

The dragon’s heart? Commander Kwon’s eyebrow twitched, but he restrained himself.

Yeomyeong nodded, as if it were only natural.

“Fine. The heart is yours. Take it.”

Yet Pasoon didn’t go directly to the dragon. Instead, he looked back and forth between Yeomyeong and the dragon, a smirk forming.

“Giving it up so easily? Guess the fight with the dragon was rougher than I thought?”

“…I’m only keeping my promise.”

“A promise, huh…”

Pasoon trailed off, gathering mana. The mercenaries rose, alarmed.

“But as I recall, our agreement was only a temporary truce. Remember?”

Just then, something gleamed in Pasoon’s hand. In the same instant, flames erupted from Commander Kwon’s hand, directly in front of him.

Boom!!

A shockwave burst out as flames and mana collided like an explosion.

“Stop him!”

One of the nearest mercenaries threw a dagger, bracing against the shockwave. Pasoon calmly caught it between his index and middle fingers, flicking it back with a slight twist of his wrist. It sliced through the shoulder of its original owner.

One down.

Pasoon didn’t stop there. He turned his fingers toward another mercenary, aiming at the one raising a rifle, and released a wind blade.

The rifle and the mercenary’s shoulder shattered in unison, flinging the man back.

Two left.

As Pasoon prepared his next move, Commander Kwon charged forward. His entire body blazed, a fiery assault, but that was all it was.

Pasoon sidestepped, and in the same motion, struck Kwon squarely in the face, knocking loose a few teeth as blood splattered. Despite his injuries, Commander Kwon didn’t retreat. He only increased the intensity of his flames, pressing closer to Pasoon as if ready to burn himself alive.

“Planning on self-destructing?”

Pasoon scoffed at his desperate resistance, stepping back just out of reach and unleashing another blast of mana. First, he shattered Kwon’s knees, then his shoulder, and finally his ribs.

In under ten seconds, Commander Kwon lay collapsed on the ground.

Or more precisely, in less than a minute, the four elites of the Seonjook Mercenary Group had all fallen.

Pasoon looked at Kim Mansu, who was now blocking his path to Yeomyeong, and tilted his head.

“How should I kill you?”

Kim Mansu didn’t answer. He gripped his last remaining hand axe tightly, glaring at Pasoon.

“Oh, I like that look in your eyes. Alright. I’ll gouge out both of them for you.”

Pasoon spread his fingers, preparing a wind blade. As he gathered mana for the final blow—

Something pierced through his chest. Blood spurted from the gaping wound.

Pasoon turned his head, only to see a pale hand gripping a revolver emerge from the once-empty air behind him.

“You filthy b—”

“Sorry. I’ve got a habit of shooting at bastard dogs on sight.”

A coarse taunt, surprisingly sharp coming from the Saintess. Pasoon instinctively fired off a shockwave, but the Saintess vanished under the cover of her cloak once more.

“Saintess! Hiding behind that cloak won’t save you from me!”

Clutching his bleeding chest, Pasoon shouted in rage. The bullet had barely missed his heart, but even a minor wound was fatal with his frail body.

Facing a threat as severe as battling the dragon, his casual demeanor was gone, replaced by cold calculation.

'It’s too risky to go after the Saintess right now. I have to kill Yeomyeong first. If he regenerates…'

Just as Pasoon glanced back toward Yeomyeong, he saw him standing up.

Gone was the helpless figure unable to lift a finger; in his hand was the blue dagger that had released the Comet Sword’s radiant slash.

“What?”

He thought the regeneration would take ten minutes…

Just as the thought crossed his mind, a cold blue light flashed from Yeomyeong’s hand.

A chilling blue dagger pierced Pasoon’s throat.

And that was the last sensation Pasoon would ever feel.