Player who Returned 10,000 years Later

"Cough! Ugh!"

Fujimoto extended his hand.

His body was trembling. It looked as if he were trying to grab something, and his skin dried up.

Mana exhaustion…

He'd used all of his mana to summon and maintain Susanoo.

His body fell to the ground.

KangWoo caught the falling Fujimoto.

"Hmm…"

KangWoo put Fujimoto down on the roof. Fujimoto was approaching death without KangWoo even having done anything.

"Cough! A, Aaah! H, help me… Help m…"

He desperately begged.

Tears dripped from his eyes.

He was paying the price of Susanoo dying.

He twisted his body as if he were having a seizure.

His skin began to sag and dry out..

He was dying miserably, like a vampire without blood.

It wasn’t something that normal mana exhaustion would have usually caused.

"It seems like the price for summoning a god is quite high."

KangWoo looked coldly at the dying Fujimoto. Susanoo, a god that lived in a place that wasn't either Earth or Hell…

'He was strong.'

Their fight was short.

Susanoo hadn't shown a strength he wasn't capable of dealing with…

But considering that Susanoo hadn't shown his full power, he definitely had strength worthy of a 'god.'

KangWoo wasn't sure he would've been able to win if Susanoo had all of his strength.

"If the Gaia System keeps getting weaker… will guys like him appear on Earth…?"

KangWoo frowned.

He couldn't think of something worse than the gods appearing on Earth with all of their strength.

"Maybe the Demon Cult isn't going to be the only problem…"

There was a chance that beings more troublesome than the Demon Cult would appear on Earth.

The best solution was to repair the Gaia System that he'd damaged…

But he still hadn't found any clues on how to do that.

'The only thing I can do now…'

KangWoo opened his status window.

"A Demon God…"

He read the sentence that said, 'Second Step to Becoming a Demon God.'

He wasn't sure how many steps he had to complete, but it seemed like, once he fulfilled all of them, he would become a being similar to a god.

'The system hasn't lied until now.'

He wasn't sure what the logic behind it was, but he was sure he could trust the player system.

'Although it's a bit cringey that I need to become a god in order to stop gods.'

Anyway, he couldn't deny that, to be able to face a foreign entity, he had to become as strong as them.

"Tsk."

He clicked his tongue. Like restoring the Gaia System, which he couldn't see a way to do, he also wasn't sure how to fulfill the second step, 'Demonic Soul.'

'If it's something I can do right now…'

KangWoo walked toward Fujimoto's corpse.

Although he had dried like a mummy, his left eye was in a perfect state.

KangWoo grabbed the left eye.

Susanoo's Eye…

—It was the name of the myth-ranked equipment.

"But how did this guy equip this? Did he take out his eye and put it in himself?"

If that was the case, he had to recognize Fujimoto's willpower.

It wasn't easy to make the decision to take out your own eye.

Melt-

The eye became dust and scattered away as if it were answering his question.

There was a blue sphere about the size of a ping-pong ball there.

"Ah, I see."

It seemed like he hadn't taken out his own eye.

KangWoo took the blue sphere and put it near his left eye.

Ting-

[This item has already been bound to another user.]

"As expected, I won't be able to use it."

He had expected that to happen. KangWoo put Susanoo's Eye away.

After all, what he needed was the myth-rank ingredient that was inside Susanoo's Eye.

—He could use that to create an item using the 'Demonic Art of Creation.'

'Should I go back?'

He hadn't seen Echidna and Han Seol-ah for the past three days because he'd been preparing to get revenge on Fujimoto.

It was quite lonely to be apart from the two people that he had gotten used to seeing daily.

It almost reminded him of the lonely days he’d spent in Hell.

* * *

The group was staying in a three-star business hotel in Tokyo.

Considering the influence Chae YeonJoo, Jang HyunJae, and Baek HwaYeon had, it was kind of lackluster.

They'd probably picked a cheap hotel because KangWoo had been in prison.

They’d probably thought that it would be wrong for them to stay in a luxury hotel while he was in jail.

'…Although I'm not so self-centered.'

He smiled bitterly and walked into the hotel.

The group that was waiting in the lobby came running toward him.

"Hey! Where have you been?!"

"I went to finish things."

"Finish…?"

"Yes. I had to give as much as I received."

KangWoo sat in a chair that was in the lobby and explained things.

He wasn't completely honest with them.

Just like Cheon SooYeon was thinking, he told them that Fujimoto was really a member of the Demon Cult.

"Then did you know that Fujimoto Ryoma was a member of the Demon Cult from the beginning?"

"No, I realized that for the first time when I was underground. I just took some revenge after seeing how they were trying to accuse me of being a Demon Cult member."

"Why didn't you tell us…?"

"Because I had no time."

"But still!"

Slam-!

Chae YeonJoo angrily hit the table.

KangWoo smiled.

* * *

"Calm down."

"How can I calm down?! You were about to be labeled as a member of the Demon Cult!"

"But things worked out in the end."

"That's not the point…"

Tap. Han Seol-ah grabbed her shoulder.

"Ms. YeonJoo, calm down. Just like Mr. KangWoo said, things worked out."

"But still…"

"I think he followed them because he already had a plan."

Chae YeonJoo relaxed after hearing her calm explanation.

She crossed her legs and put them on top of the table.

"Mr. KangWoo…"

Han Seol-ah sat next to him and placed her hands on his thigh while making a sad expression.

"Once again… I wasn't of help. I'm sorry."

"I didn't need help."

"But still…"

Han Seol-ah smiled bitterly.

"Could I… be of help to you one day?"

"…"

It was a faint voice.

It sounded as if it were about to break.

KangWoo looked into Han Seol-ah's eyes.

'She really wasn’t of much help.'

He couldn't deny that.

She wasn't as helpful as Kim ShiHoon, Chae YeonJoo, Cheon SooYeon, or Echidna…

But still…

"Do you need to be helpful?"

"What…?"

"I don't care about the pros and cons of living with you."

He was, by nature, a calculative person—he wouldn't do something he couldn't benefit from.

But in the case of Han Seol-ah, it was different.

He didn't think of her as a cook who prepared delicious meals for him nor did he think of her as a tool to satisfy his desires.

If he had thought of her like that, he wouldn't have asked her to move in with him when he’d gotten the apartment near Seoul station.

She was like family to him.

He didn't spend time with her to gain something; he just enjoyed his time with her.

'Although I can't say that to her.'

It was the first time in his life that he had someone he wanted to call 'family.'

That was something he hadn't felt for the last ten thousand years, even before falling to Hell, he'd never experienced something like that.

It felt weird and awkward.

It was understandable that he would have problems expressing himself.

'If other people heard this, they would become frustrated.'

They might even hit their chest as if they had eaten hot sweet potatoes.

There was nothing he could do about it.

He wasn't god. He wasn't perfect, and he wasn't good at everything.

"I… I also don't care about things like that!" Han Seol-ah shouted in quite a loud voice.

She lowered her head while blushing. You could see that the tips of her mouth were going up.

"Leave the TV drama for when you two are alone," Chae YeonJoo said in a sharp voice. She moved her legs in annoyance as if she didn't like what she was seeing.

"Hey, you said you wanted to go eat sushi, right?"

"Yes."

"Follow me. I know somewhere good."

Chae YeonJoo stood up and looked at everyone just blankly staring at her.

"What is everyone doing?"

"Hahaha. It's my first time seeing YeonJoo act like this."

"Shut up!"

She turned around and began walking after shouting at Baek HwaYeon.

KangWoo smiled bitterly and stood up.

"Oh yeah, what happened with Kurosaki Yurie?"

"She returned after talking with the reporters for a while, but I'm glad she was there. If Kurosaki didn't have memories about what happened at that time, this incident wouldn't have been solved so easily."

"Ah… Yes, that's true."

KangWoo narrowed his eyes.

Kurosaki Yurie…

He still didn't understand why she'd helped him.

'Did she have a personal grudge against Fujimoto?'

There was no way to know that.

KangWoo followed Chae YeonJoo out of the hotel.

* * *

A traditional Japanese house…

A woman was sitting inside a simple room where there weren't many things except for some fundamental pieces of furniture.

Kurosaki Yurie…

She was the Emperor's granddaughter and was a woman with the title of 'Maiden of the Skies.'

She was looking at the mirror placed on top of her table.

"Oof."

She sighed.

At that moment, her face reflected in the mirror opened its mouth.

- Are you satisfied?

"No. There's no way that I'd be satisfied with just that."

She was talking to her reflection in the mirror.

If someone looked at her right then, they'd think she'd gone crazy.

"Ah, to think I could see that person only from such a distance. How tragic."

Kurosaki stroked her cheek while lamenting her situation.

- What are you going to do from now on?

"Fufu. Of course, I'll start making preparations so that I can be useful to that person."

She smiled while looking in the mirror.

At that moment, incredibly sexual energy came out from the usually pure-looking Kurosaki Yurie.

It was at a level that couldn't be compared to Cheon SooYeon.

She would’ve probably been able to turn any man into her slave.

Kurosaki's black defied gravity and rose.

Her hair began twisting and moving as if they were tentacles.

- If you're so loyal to him, why didn't you go to see him? The Kurosaki inside the mirror asked.

"Oh."

She frowned as if asking what she was talking about.

She put her hands on her cheeks and shook her head as if she didn't even want to imagine it.

"How could I go and meet that person with such an ugly face?"

- …

The Kurosaki inside the mirror remained silent.