Even If the World Ends Tomorrow

Zzzzt.

A face filled with noise like a broken TV.

Beyond that bizarre face with no eyes, nose, or mouth, Yuseong could sense sticky malice and killing intent directed at him.

Though their gazes were pointed forward, the two weren’t looking at each other.

What was reflected in their eyes wasn’t the present but the future.

‘If I use ki to pressure him from range while maintaining distance… No, keeping distance would be disadvantageous. I need to fight up close.’^[1]

‘Should I use karma for striking? First I need to buy time to recover…’

Countless possibilities intersect as the future keeps changing.

When one side observes an unfavorable future and tries to change it to their advantage, the other side observes that changed future and repeats the same process.

Through countless repetitions, Yuseong was the first to falter.

‘At this rate, his fist will crush my head in 14 seconds.’

Despite his body not being in normal condition from the surprise attack, when he thought he had managed to create an opening without showing any gaps, the intruder would change fate.

There was only one way to win this fight.

He had to use more karma to break through future sight and fate manipulation.

But Yuseong had far less karma than the intruder.

‘If he wanted to, this fight would have ended instantly. The reason he’s playing along in this meaningless fight is just to kill me as efficiently as possible to conserve karma, nothing more, nothing less.’

He needed more karma to defeat the intruder but this wasn’t a situation where he could do quests.

Eye of Truth, Infinite Origin Force, Crimson Blood Divine Art, Nine Phases Manifestation, Dragonia, Kang Changseok, Alice.

While desperately racking his brain trying to turn the situation around, something suddenly occurred to Yuseong.

‘That might work…’

Time that had been flowing so slowly it seemed frozen gradually sped up as the predestined fate drew near.

Yuseong smiled back at the intruder who was grinning with certainty of victory and threw his fist.

Boom!

With a thunderous sound, the intruder was sent flying, crashing through buildings across the city with Yuseong in hot pursuit.

Up to here was as both had foreseen, but what followed was different.

Before launching a follow-up attack, Yuseong reached into his subspace and took out a small fragment.

The Calamity Fragment obtained from clearing the [One Day Suddenly] quest.

A grayish energy that started from his fist instantly enveloped Yuseong’s entire body.

It wasn’t internal energy, magic power, or spirit power.

It was karma obtained by burning the Calamity Fragment.

“You crazy bastard!”

The intruder cursed and tried to quickly retreat, but Yuseong’s fist wrapped in massive karma was too fast and too powerful.

Thud!

A single strike that transcended future sight and fate manipulation smashed into the intruder’s solar plexus, driving him into the ground before he could even scream.

“…Kuhak?!”

The intruder’s condition was miserable.

Like broken pottery, countless cracks covered his entire body with characters and numbers leaking from the gaps.

He looked so fragile that a light touch might make him crumble, but Yuseong didn’t approach or launch another attack.

Because he saw a future where a massive explosion large enough to engulf the city occurred centered on the intruder.

After failing to get up several times and pathetically rolling on the ground, the intruder finally raised his head to glare directly at Yuseong while still prone and shouted:

“…Haa, haa. A criminal who should be groveling and begging like a dog dares to resist? Fine, I’ll make you pay for that arrogance. Just wait. I’ll mobilize our company’s full forces to erase this planet, this dimension without leaving a trace!”

Zzzzt!

After leaving those vicious words, the intruder vanished between the gaps of space before Yuseong could respond.

Yuseong, who had been watching from a short distance away, landed on a nearby rooftop and sat cross-legged the moment the intruder disappeared.

Though he heard Kang Changseok’s voice from behind, he had no leisure to pay attention.

‘Why is it like this?’

When he closed his eyes and entered his mental realm, he saw the Outer God’s thoughts raging madly and murky darkness spreading in all directions.

Fortunately the thought storm stopped before long, but many stars had already been tainted by darkness.

There was only one possible reason why the Outer God’s thoughts that had been docile until now suddenly showed an abnormal reaction.

‘The Calamity Fragment.’

Just as there are different types of oil like kerosene, diesel, and heavy oil, karma obtained from killing living beings, karma from solving quests, and karma from stars are all different.

True to its name, the Calamity Fragment was the materialization of negative karma accumulated by a being that committed countless evil deeds worthy of being called a calamity.

The moment it was burned, the contained negative karma was instantly released, clearly affecting the Outer God’s thoughts within.

‘This level isn’t dangerous.’

Judging by the untainted stars remaining and the speed at which darkness was spreading, it would still take about a month for the mental realm to be completely submerged in darkness.

Though it would be a bit tight, if he slightly increased the ratio of karma collected from users, he could gather enough karma needed for the Sun-Moon Ritual.

After opening his eyes with a relieved sigh, the first thing that entered Yuseong’s vision was Kang Changseok blankly staring down at the destroyed buildings and roads.

“…What the hell was that guy just now?”

Instead of answering Kang Changseok’s question, Yuseong stood up and stood beside him to look down at the city.

Becoming the world’s richest person isn’t possible with just a user’s abilities alone.

One must be clever and cunning.

On top of that, having been active as a user for nearly 10 years, Kang Changseok must have figured out what Yuseong had also guessed.

In other words, what he just said wasn’t a question directed at Yuseong but rather a lament.

So instead of answering Kang Changseok’s question, Yuseong countered with his own question.

“Kang Changseok.”

“…What?”

“Let’s say you’re the chairman of a huge weapons company operating on a global scale. A world war has broken out and your company is making massive profits selling weapons to every battlefield across the world – a company so huge and powerful that even nations can’t mess with it carelessly.”

“…”

“Then suddenly you find out that some unknown company, no, some backwater village is illegally copying and using one of your company’s main products. What do you think you’d do?”

“First I’d send people to investigate the details and then take measures to prevent them from producing or selling that product elsewhere.”

“Right. But what if the person you sent to investigate comes back half dead from those villagers? And those villagers say they’ll keep producing and using the product without permission? What then?”

“…”

Silence stretched for quite a while.

Just as Yuseong was about to ask another question, Kang Changseok finally spoke.

“I’d kill them all to prevent information leaks, then erase all traces.”

“Do you really have to kill everyone? No thought of sending someone again to negotiate?”

“Maybe in peaceful times, but during a world war? When we have the power, justification, and would suffer huge losses if company secrets leak or that village starts selling our products – of course we’d eliminate them, why bother negotiating?”

“For humanitarian reasons?”

“If we cared about that kind of thing, we wouldn’t be running a weapons company in the first place.”

“That’s what I thought.”

“…”

“…”

Heavy silence fell again.

Then Yuseong and Kang Changseok muttered simultaneously as if on cue.

“We’re fucked.”

“Haha, we’re doomed.”

Kang Changseok collapsed to the ground with a hollow laugh.

His eyes were completely unfocused and drool dripped from his mouth as if he’d completely lost his mind.

Yuseong massaged his temples while deep in thought.

Though he’d always lived imagining worst-case scenarios, he never imagined something like this would happen.

‘I just want to abandon everything and flee to another dimension using Dragonia. I could somehow gather the karma needed for the Sun-Moon Ritual if I work hard on quests. Or maybe becoming an apostle of the Outer God wouldn’t be so bad. I’m still an apostle, so they should treat me better than ordinary people.’

Slap!

Yuseong slapped his own cheek hard.

Though he didn’t hold back and could taste blood in his mouth while his head spun, the endless distracting thoughts filling his mind vanished without a trace.

Even quests that seemed impossible to solve could somehow be cleared once he actually tackled them.

‘This is no different.’

Transcendents and users coming on a flying fortress?

The Outer God’s thoughts gradually devouring his mind?

Invasion by dimension-scale transcendents and divine statuses?

Whatever, it’s easier to think of them all as quests.

There were only two differences from quests.

That this wasn’t someone else’s problem but his own, and that there were no retries if he failed.

‘Think about the quests you’ve solved so far. Were there any situations more desperate than this… No, there weren’t. Anyway, there must be a way to clear this situation too.’

“Heh.”

The moment he made up his mind, an idea occurred to him as if by magic.

An idea so absurd and far-fetched it made him laugh involuntarily.

After pushing that unrealistic but briefly amusing idea into a corner of his mind, Yuseong pulled Kang Changseok up and said.

“Stop moping around and let’s get to work.”

“…Work? What work?”

Yuseong lifted his chin to point at the Contractors Association building.

While he was wrestling with the intruder, the quest must have been cleared as people were looking around the messy conference room.

Even if they started planning meetings right now to distribute goggles to as many ability users as possible, there wouldn’t be enough time.

“What’s the point of working when this dimension itself including Earth will be annihilated in seconds at fastest, days at slowest? …Wait, that’s not it. Come to think of it, your floating fortress could travel between dimensions right? If we use that to escape now…”

Slap!

“Stop talking nonsense and help plan goggle distribution and war preparations.”

“Are you crazy? We barely have time to run away, what goggles and war preparations?!”

“Haven’t you heard the saying about planting an apple tree even if the world ends tomorrow?”

Kang Changseok, who had been looking at Yuseong like he was crazy, let out a long sigh and melted into the shadows.

If there truly was no solution it would be different.

But as long as the escape option using Dragonia remained and Yuseong held that option, he decided to set aside his doubts for now and do as told.

Looking at where Kang Changseok had disappeared, Yuseong opened his palm and stared intently at the shrunken Calamity Fragment.