Beauty Of The World
The sad part about us humans is that we are cursed, so that we can never, have ever, nor will we ever be able to completely agree on anything. It doesn't matter who it is or what it's about; people will always have different opinions on it, and those opinions will clash with others.
In a barren wasteland, ten figures stand opposite one, each of them wielding weapons and covered in powerful armor. The one who stands against them is covered by a glass-like armor, barely noticeable, but still there. He wields a falchion and has a bored, almost annoyed expression as he looks at the ten standing across from him, without a single mark on his body, except for an old scar running from the left side of his forehead down to his left cheek. The ten are all injured, some worse than others, a few of them missing an arm or an eye, and slowly healed back. All of them have a look of shock on their faces.
"Why…"
One speaks, his voice desperate and full of fear.
"Why, no matter how many times we hit him, does he never get injured? I thought defense skills had a limit to how much they can protect, but this is absurd… It's been hours, and he's the only one without a scratch on him…"
The man, wielding a certain spear, with holy armor, says, unable to believe the sight in front of him. A single man was able to fight ten of the strongest people in the world and successfully defended against them for hours, unharmed. Such a thing was thought to be impossible, especially since this world's hero had banded the entire world for the sole purpose of killing this one man.
That hero is Kang Kimsung, one of the eleven Z-ranked humans produced by the ten disasters. Even in all his resets, he'd never been able to defeat this one man, no, this monster in human skin. In Kimsung's eyes, this thing defied all logic, having taken even full-powered attacks from the strongest weapons and brushed them off without a scratch on his invulnerable body. Kimsung knew that there were skills out there, capable of defying reason, but even then, they had to have a limit, right?
Unfortunately, in over one thousand resets, he'd been unable to kill this one man, no matter who he allied with, what monsters he sent his way, whatever blessings or perks he'd acquired. All of them felt useless in front of this man, the Achilles of America, they called him. Then, the man in seemingly translucent armor spoke.
"This is boring, little salmon. How many times does this make it? How many times have I killed you, only for you to return and begin this little game of yours? How many times have you allied with the strongest, only for it to be meaningless against me in the end? You've even recruited the demon queen, and still, you fail to even get close to victory. Don't you think this has gone on long enough? Isn't it finally time for you to take a break from whatever path of revenge you're on?"
The man asked, genuine curiosity and a hint of concern in his voice as he spoke.
"In the end, this path of revenge leads you into nothing but a spiraling circle of failure. You weren't meant to be hellbent on such a fruitless goal, yet here you are."
He sighs, disappointed in Kimsung. Ever since he'd figured out Kimsung's skill of returning to the past, he'd slowly become concerned about the path that this fated hero was veering from, perhaps all in an attempt to satisfy his ego. Either that, or because he probably hated losing. It didn't matter to Achilles, since it wasn't his duty nor his desire to entertain such a useless struggle.
"Please, just give up. I didn't like killing you since the first reset I could remember, and I won't like killing you now. I've given you chance after chance to give up, to start anew and forget about me, to save the world like you were meant to. But time and time again, you obsess over killing me, even though my goals do not clash with your own."
Kimsung grits his teeth, enraged at the man for trying to teach him a lesson he's heard hundreds of times before.
"Shut up, you liar! You don't care about anyone but yourself, and I can see through your lies, you snake! You say I had a chance to start anew, so why do you continue to live? You could just let me kill you, and all of this can finally end!"
He yells in anger, remembering all the resets which Achilles had killed his friends, his comrades, even his own wife, Anastasiya, simply because he defied that monster. Achilles looks at him with… sympathy. The Achilles of America pitied Kimsung, he truly did. He could help but feel sad that it was his very existence that brought about this obsessive behavior.
"Please, Kimsung. You can still turn back. It's not too late. All of you can, all of you can turn around and change the world like you were meant to. Forget me, forget what I've done. I don't care if I am forgotten by history; I simply wish for you to help humanity."
A few feet away from Kimsung, is Shadow Samurai Jamal, barely able to kneel. He laughs, blood dripping from his mouth, his ribs shattered, and most of his body having large cracks over them as he uses his katana to rise to his feet.
"You… Do you really think being forgotten fixes any of this? Don't you remember? It was you who told me the greatest lie is pretending something never happened… I'm sure even David would look at you as a monster if he could see you now…"
He chuckles, coughing out blood as his body heals slowly, but enough to keep him alive with his current wounds. He looks at Achilles with disappointment in his eyes, ashamed that his five-year-long friend is his enemy now. He could almost feel the disappointment from David.
'If that bastard didn't die during that battle, would the world have been a better place by now?'
Achilles looks back at his old friend, then slowly closes his eyes.
"Enough, this cannot continue any longer. I've grown bored of you and your game. You want me to leave? Fine, I'll leave."
He says, as a crack forms in reality, then grows until it shatters, and Achilles walks through it, reality repairing itself immediately afterwards. The group of wounded heroes stares in confusion, then shock, and finally, anger. Confusion, and what had just occurred, shock, at Achilles' unexpected exit, and anger, that the man they had banded together to kill had calmly left, as if their battle didn't even matter to him.
"What? He just left?"
Says Keido, finishing the recent chapter of his favorite novel, The Ten Disasters. He groans in disappointment and immediately closes the tab to see what everyone else is saying on the official fan website.
Reading comment after comment, thread after thread, everyone is either shocked, understanding, or disappointed in the latest chapter. Some argue that Achilles was simply too powerful to stay in the story at that point, so it was probably the author's way of taking him out of the story. Others disagreed, saying it was lazy writing, that the author had made a character too powerful and didn't know how to kill him off properly.
Some were still in shock that the most anticipated battle in the whole novel's history ended in the hero's absolute defeat, and Achilles wasn't even injured at the end. There were too many comments to read, so Keido sighed, looking away from his computer, only to hear his little sister by two years, Heidi, scream and hit something outside his room.
'Shit. I bet Heidi's so mad right now. She wanted Kimsung to win so badly, too.'
He winced, and Song Heidi burst into the room with an enraged expression.
"What the fuck was that!? That ending was bullshit!"
She yells, jumping on his bed and grabbing a pillow to scream into. Keido gets up from his chair and sits down on his bed, putting his hand on her shoulder.
"Heidi, it's really not that bad. Achilles was really too overpowered a character to keep him in."
He tries to reason with her, only for Heidi to sit up and yell at him.
"I don't care! Kimsung spent a whole arc getting all those people to help him! Literally everything in the story led up to this fight, and all we get is Kimsung getting basically no diffed? Like, what the fuck!? That's bullshit!"
She yells in anger. Heidi herself loved Kimsung, and he was her favorite character, so it was only natural for her to be angry. There was a whole arc of the story spent solely on Kimsung growing his forces and strength to fight Achilles, only for it to all be useless and receive a one-sided beating instead of his deserved revenge, ever since the death of his wife, Anastasiya. Keido couldn't help but feel bad for all of the other Kimsung fans and wondered if they were taking the news just as badly as his sister was. On the other hand, he just knew that all the Achilles fans would go wild in the comments and message boards, proclaiming his superiority for days, maybe weeks, maybe months.
He went back to his chair and reopened multiple message boards, all of them flooded with Achilles fans posting memes and bashing on other characters.
-I knew Goatchilles would win! Fraudsung couldn't do it! Fraudthur couldn't do it!
-Achilles stocks are at an all-time high! I knew my goat was the best!
-I knew Henry was a fucking fraud! He gets carried by Longinus all the time-
'Ok, that's enough of that for today.'
Keido quickly closed that message board, getting the feeling that it would become even worse later. He looked to his sister, who was now crying into his pillow. Keido turned off his computer and, with another tired sigh, grabbed his sister's wrist, trying to get her out of bed, usually a very risky move for anyone with siblings who are sad about something.
"Heidi, c'mon, let's go get some snacks, ok? I'm buying."
He offers, and she gets up, her face still red from crying. She sniffles and wipes the tears off her face, getting up.
"Ok… fine."
The two put on some shoes and head out of their home in Mangwon of Mapo-gu, Seoul, and walk to the nearby convenience store to get some snacks. Once they've bought what they wanted, the two head out, and Keido looks up at the night sky, unable to forget the recent chapter of The Ten Disasters.
'I still can't get it out of my head… I can't believe they really lost.'
He smiles, with a question that he's asked his sister time and time again since the two of them got invested in the story.
"Heidi… If you were in the TTD world, what skill would you want to have?"
He asks, and Heidi looks up at him, still chewing on a candy bar she got. She finishes chewing and thinks about the question before answering.
"I'd definitely want a support skill. Like for chemicals and alchemy, just stuff like that. What about you?"
Keido pauses, thinking about it himself. Personally, he'd also want a support-type skill, since most of the strong characters had support skills that got them so far.
"I think… A skill that can control emotions and feelings. Yeah, definitely that."
Heidi smirks, giving him a knowing look. She knew that her brother personally had a liking for a lot of the female characters, as any straight male reader of TTD would have.
"What, so you can get Lin, or Helen?"
He blushes, and she giggles, knowing she's hit the mark. The two of them wait at the street crossing, and once it's their turn to cross, they begin walking, but suddenly, a certain truck comes speeding down the empty street, catching the two by surprise. Keido quickly shields his sister before the truck hits, but it's a useless effort; the impact kills both of them instantly.
"Shit!"
Keido wakes up with a shout, sitting up in bed. He breathes heavily, checking his body, but he has no bandages, much less any injuries. He looks around the room, which isn't his own.
'Where am I? Didn't a truck crash into me and-'
He isn't able to finish the thought as he hears a scream in the next room, which he assumes must be his sister, as soon after, she bursts into the room. Expecting his sister, Keido is shocked again as a girl who looks nothing like his sister opens the door in a rush.
"Who the hell are you?"
She demands, looking around the room.
"Wait, where am I? This isn't my house… Did you kidnap me?"
She asks, grabbing a nearby lamp and holding it menacingly. He looks at her in shock, still processing what's going on.
"Well, answer me! Before I call the police!"
She demands once again, and he opens his mouth, his lips trembling.
"Heidi? Is… Is that you? You look… different…"
He says, getting up from the bed. Heidi raises an eyebrow, confused at his question. He walks close, but she raises the lamp, silently threatening to hit him. He takes a deep breath, raising his hands up, before speaking in a calm voice.
'If this is what I think it is… I know exactly how to break it to her. Come on, Keido, you've read enough webtoons to know what to say!'
"Heidi, just look in a mirror for me, ok? I promise, I can explain after, or you can guess what happened."
She slowly puts the lamp down and looks in the mirror. Her once brown hair is now black. Her once black eyes are now a nice light brown, but at least her creamy skin remained mostly the same, with a very slight reddish tint now. Her eyes widen, and like any rational person in such a situation, Keido wisely covers his ears before hearing Heidi scream at the top of her lungs.
A short while later, the two are downstairs in the living room of this new home, sitting on the couch and each nursing their own cup of tea. Heidi is the first to break the silence since their conversation.
"So… That truck. It really…?"
She asks hesitantly, her eyes watering up, so she takes a sip of her now warm tea. Keido takes a deep breath, taking a sip of his own tea before speaking.
"Yeah… I guess so… Where are we, anyways?"
He asks, looking around the foreign house, different from their own in Mapo-gu. She also looks around their new home, having wondered the same thing since she had woken up.
"I think we're still in Korea… I hope it's Seoul, because I don't know any of the other districts. Do you think we might still be in Mapo?"
He takes a pause, and gets up, opening the curtains before taking a look outside, confirming their location after seeing the Korean World Cup Stadium, meaning they had to be in either Eunpyeong, Seodaemun, or Mapo-gu, the Northwest regions of Seoul, South Korea.
"I think we might be in Eunpyeong, Heidi. I can see the stadium from here."
He says calmly, looking back at his sister, who's been staring at her cup of tea with a distant look in her eyes. Heidi looks up from her cup in realization.
"Wait, you said Eunpyeong? If we really did get… Hold on, what's the word? The Japanese have a term for it… mmm… Transmigrated! If we really were transmigrated, hopefully to the TTD world, then we can find Kimsung here!"
She says in joy, quickly getting up and looking for a calendar.
"What day did the disasters start in the novel?"
She yells from the kitchen. Keido thinks for a while before remembering. Apparently, the author of TTD was very specific about the date and time of when the disasters began, so every time Kimsung returned to the start, he always knew what time and day it was.
"August twenty-third, at 7:30 AM in our time zone."
He responds, entering the kitchen and watching her skim through the months in the calendar. Heidi's eyes widened, her finger on the exact day.
"That's… just a month away…"
She says, looking back at Keido, both of them realize how little time they have to prepare for the day of the first disaster. She curses under her breath, walking around the kitchen.
What're we going to do? In a month, the first disaster will hit the world…"
Keido quickly hugs her, having thought of a solution.
"As you said before, we're in Eunpyeong, which means if we can find Kimsung, we'll be fine, ok?"
He asks, trying to assure her, but mostly himself. He never actually thought he'd be put in such a situation, and the reality of their situation had finally dawned on him. If they didn't get good skills at a good rank, the two of them would most likely die. He didn't want to die, especially not twice, after that truck most likely killed them on impact. At least that was a quick death. Who knew how they would die if they didn't prepare?
"We just have to find him, and we'll be alright."
He wanted to survive. Both he and his sister were going to survive these ten disasters and make it to the end, with Kimsung and everybody's help. He took a deep breath and looked up, wanting to test something before anything else. Anyone who was sent back in time or went to a new world in a novel always got a system or something to help them, right? That same logic should apply here, too. Keido swallowed hard before speaking.
"System, open."