Chapter 317: End of THE WORLD (8)
A mansion in Yeouido overlooking the Han River.
Yoo Seol-ha was trapped there, tied to a chair.
“Mmm, Mmm……!”
She tried to move her arms somehow to loosen the rope that bound her.
However, the knot wouldn’t come loose easily, and the towel stuffed in her mouth only pressed against her molars.
As Yoo Seol-ha continued to struggle, Secretary Oh approached her.
“It’s about time you realized that your futile efforts are useless.”
Secretary Oh removed the towel from Yoo Seol-ha’s mouth.
Yoo Seol-ha, now able to speak normally,
She smirked and glared at Secretary Oh.
“What, you were trying to stop me from biting my tongue?”
“People don’t die from biting their tongues. It’s just painful. You already know that, Miss.”
“Of course. How could I not?”
“Then that’s good.”
Secretary Oh wiped the saliva from Yoo Seol-ha’s mouth with the towel he had just removed.
Even though she had sided with Kyung-joon and he had learned the truth about her being subject Y999, she was still the only daughter of the Seolha Group.
Secretary Oh neatly folded the towel and put it in his suit pocket.
As he was doing so, Yoo Seol-ha suddenly spoke.
“So, what is it? You have something to say, don’t you?”
The reason he had removed the towel from her mouth was obvious.
Secretary Oh looked at Yoo Seol-ha once again.
Unlike when she was first captured in Vladivostok, her eyes were filled with various emotions.
Sensing something there, Secretary Oh finally asked.
“Do you hate the Chairman, Miss?”
“What? Ha, why are you asking the obvious?”
Yoo Seol-ha glared, recalling the memories she had shared with her grandfather from childhood to the present, and the moment they had all turned into lies.
“I hate him. I f*cking hate him. That old geezer deceived me. No, it was all lies and hypocrisy from the very beginning.”
“Don’t you think it’s because of Lee Kyung-joon that things turned out this way?”
“What?”
Yoo Seol-ha’s brow furrowed.
Secretary Oh, with his wooden expression, continued to speak calmly.
“You say everything you had with the Chairman was a lie and hypocrisy, but I, who was by his side, know. The Chairman truly cherished you.”
“Bullshit. He probably cherished me as a test subject.”
“Yes, that’s correct. A successful subject, Y999, finally obtained on the 999th attempt after 998 failures. The Chairman truly cherished you and actually cared for you. Whether it was inhumane or immoral, it was an undeniable fact.”
“What the hell are you trying to say with that nonsense?”
“Have you ever thought about this? If you hadn’t fallen for that Lee Kyung-joon, have you ever considered how you would be now?”
Confused by Secretary Oh’s incomprehensible words, Yoo Seol-ha was a bit dumbfounded.
Regardless, Secretary Oh continued speaking.
“You would probably have been safely accepted into Seoul National University by now. And you would have begun the process of succeeding the chairman. The fact that you were a manufactured test subject or that you weren’t related by blood wouldn’t have mattered at all.”
“……”
“You were raised as the unique granddaughter of the Seolha Group from the moment you were born, and you grew up receiving education to inherit the position of chairman. If you were truly just a subject to be experimented on and disposed of, the Chairman wouldn’t have spent 19 years teaching and guiding you. Even though you are a manufactured being unrelated to the Chairman by blood, the fact that you are the granddaughter of the Seolha Group and the Chairman remains unchanged.”
“……Just get to the point.”
Yoo Seol-ha’s voice was subdued.
“It’s exactly as you’re thinking right now.”
Secretary Oh spoke as if reading her mind.
“If it weren’t for the intervention of that Lee Kyung-joon, things wouldn’t have fallen apart like this. You would have continued to maintain a good relationship with the Chairman. World wouldn’t have been ruined and shut down like it is now. You wouldn’t have been shocked, hurt, and faced with an irreversible future in this chaos.”
Secretary Oh bent his knees to meet Yoo Seol-ha’s wavering eyes.
“Even if it was a future filled with lies, hypocrisy, deception, and falsehood, a much better world and World would have arrived.”
If Kyung-joon had remained unaware of the hidden secrets of The World, if he hadn’t touched it.
Then the world would have continued to function well.
Yoo Seol-ha would have safely graduated from high school and Seoul National University, growing up to be the next chairman.
Kyung-joon would have also entered a good university and lived a much better life than before he started playing the game.
The Demon King of World would have been properly managed and sealed by the Crusaders as originally intended, and the second Demon King, Chairman Yoo, would not have been born.
There wouldn’t have been a war in the underworld like there is now, and the Seolha Group wouldn’t have suffered a major blow, leading to the shutdown of World server.
There was only one culprit.
The fact that Kyung-joon had brought Pandora’s Box out of the abyss, a box that should never have been touched.
And the fact that Yoo Seol-ha had opened that box.
If Kyung-joon hadn’t stepped into the abyss and chosen to become a monster, the current chaos wouldn’t have existed.
“……Yeah, you have a point. Yeah, that’s probably how it would have been. It’s all Lee Kyung-joon’s fault.”
Yoo Seol-ha, as the Ultimate Daughter, was well aware of this fact.
Even though she knew it, she had made her choice.
“I’d rather die than live comfortably in a fake world without knowing any truth. I’ve already made that choice and made up my mind. That’s enough for me.”
Yoo Seol-ha’s eyes no longer wavered.
Her obsidian eyes stared straight ahead without a hint of falsehood.
However, she had no opportunity to take her own life.
Knock, knock, knock.
“Secretary Oh. The door is locked. Open it.”
Chairman Yoo’s voice came from beyond the door.
Secretary Oh straightened his bent knees and turned away from Yoo Seol-ha.
“Miss, no, subject Y999. You don’t even have the right to die. Live in the truth you chose, forever suffering and unable to die.”
Reaching the door, Secretary Oh opened it gracefully, a movement ingrained from decades of loyalty to the Seolha Group.
And he greeted Chairman Yoo as he opened the door.
“Chairman. You’ve worked hard―”
“Unfortunately, it was Kyung-joon.”
The person who knocked wasn’t Chairman Yoo, but Kyung-joon, imitating Chairman Yoo’s voice.
“……?!”
“So, die.”
Bam!
A fist infused with the mana of Vector Calculus struck Secretary Oh’s jaw.
“Ugh?!”
Secretary Oh, with a ridiculous expression, was launched upwards, breaking through the ceiling and embedding his head in it.
Dangle, dangle.
He hung limply from the ceiling, looking like a scene from an American cartoon.
Snap.
Kyung-joon lightly snapped his fingers, and the rope binding Yoo Seol-ha instantly broke.
He spoke to her in a playful tone.
“So, Miss Yoo Seol-ha. Is it true that you’d rather know the truth and die?”
“No, are you crazy? Did I say that? If I had, I would have sided with the old geezer long ago.”
Yoo Seol-ha got up from the chair and approached Kyung-joon.
“Is it over?”
“As you can see.”
Kyung-joon gestured towards the door behind him.
“Did I seal the Demon King and go through all this trouble for 700 years just to become a transport driver……Sigh……I feel self-deprecating and tormented……”
Beyond the door, the Fairy King, maintaining the teleportation portal in reality, grumbled with a sullen voice.
The fact that the Fairy King was complaining like that in reality explained everything.
Chairman Yoo was gone.
He had met his end, transcending everything and becoming the universe that connected the World and reality.
Chairman Yoo, with his cognition and objectivity, no longer existed.
“Yes. It’s all over. Good. It’s really good.”
Yoo Seol-ha smiled brightly.
Perhaps because of that.
A teardrop rolled down her cheek.
“Oh, really. I’m so happy I’m crying.”
Yoo Seol-ha, still smiling, covered her face and rubbed her eyes.
But the more she did, the more her tears wouldn’t stop, only blurring her surroundings.
Kyung-joon didn’t ask, ‘Do you regret it?’
He just hugged her silently, hiding her awkward appearance.
“Oh, really……Why are you doing this too……”
Yoo Seol-ha complained in a tearful voice, trying to hug Kyung-joon as well.
Whoosh!
However, Kyung-joon quickly created distance with the ‘quick’ spell.
In the end, Yoo Seol-ha hugged nothing but empty air.
“Huh……?”
Instead of Kyung-joon, her arms were filled with a heavy stack of document files.
Yoo Seol-ha looked back and forth between the stack of documents and Kyung-joon with a dumbfounded expression, unable to grasp the situation.
Kyung-joon grinned and said,
“Chairman ‘Yoo’. Shall we get to work?”
Yoo Seol-ha, who had now become the new Chairman Yoo.
Thud!
Yoo Seol-ha, overwhelmed by the absurdity of the situation and the lack of emotional impact, dropped the stack of documents.
“Fairy King-nim. Please set the coordinates to (37.526, 127.022).”
Kyung-joon turned his back without a care.
“Sigh, that’s just like you……”
Fairy King shook her head as she watched.
🔷🔷🔷🔷🔷🔷
『2030.10.30』
『Multiple misfortunes strike Seolha Group……Following the shutdown of ‘The World’, Chairman Yoo Geun-chul dies in an accidental fall?』
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『2030.11.11』
『2031 CSAT expected to be extremely difficult, with the cut-off for the 1st grade in all subjects predicted to be in the 50s.』
『Difficulty control fails for the 15th consecutive year, innocent students suffer the consequences.』
『Question 31, which determines the 1st grade in mathematics, leaves even math professors scratching their heads?』
『(Column) A Seoul National University medical student’s take on the math section (type A), I found it difficult too.』
『2030.11.13』
『Yoo Seol-ha, the only daughter of Seolha Group, immediately succeeds to the position of chairman. Is this the birth of the youngest chairman at the age of 20?』
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『2030.11.15』
『Seolha Group affiliates hit rock bottom with the worst misfortunes and concerns about the leadership of the new chairman. Stock prices reach record lows.』
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『2030.11.20』
『The three major Yakuza groups, ‘Sushiumai’, ‘Yamadora’, and ‘Donkatsuudon’, cease activities. What’s happening in Japan?』
『Public apology and declaration of social return of assets by the chairman of the Chinese mafia ‘Triad’. Some speculate that the sudden collapse of the waterway organization is the cause.』
『Italy’s violent crime rate drops 89% year-on-year, rumors of Mafia disappearance surface.』
『2030.11.22』
『TV show ‘Shocking Secrets’ flooded with calls about winged humans.”Prank calls are not appreciated.”』
『2030.11.24』
『Explosion video at Sinsa-dong Garosu-gil Plaza goes viral. Is it a company’s CG marketing?』
『Seolha Group unveils new hologram technology. Market reaction is lukewarm.』
『2030.11.25』
『Unexplained radiation surge in Vladivostok. Timing points to late October? Suspicion falls on Japan.”It wasn’t us.”』
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『2030.11.30』
『Seolha Group’s young chairman Yoo Seol-ha predicts a special announcement:”On the first day of 2031, the world will be turned upside down.”』
『2030.12.02』
『Despite the prediction of a special announcement from Seolha Group, stock prices remain sluggish. Shareholders want to replace the chairman, but the majority shareholder is Yoo Seol-ha.』
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『2030.12.05』
『Unexplained hijacking of electronic devices, simultaneous malfunction of displays worldwide. CIA launches investigation.』
『2030.12.06』
『Hacking location traced to 37km above the Pacific Ocean? Various conspiracy theories emerge, including alien domination.』
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『2030.12.09』
『Results of the extremely difficult CSAT are out, Lee Kyung-joon of Cheongshin High School is the unique perfect scorer in all subjects.』
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『2030.12.31』
『(Live Broadcast) The unique perfect scorer in all subjects of the extremely difficult CSAT.』
This is the press conference venue.
A male student is surrounded by numerous reporters.
The name tag and school emblem are visible on the left side of the student’s chest.
『Cheongshin High School』
『Lee Kyung-joon』
“Hello. I’m Kyung-joon.”
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