I Got a Gallery in the Wild - Chapter 699

Hyun-woo softly closed his eyes. Right before my eyes, peacefully.

I muttered bitterly toward Hyun-woo, doing nothing but sorrowfully holding his hand.

Just as the tragedy seemed about to conclude, the scene shifted abruptly, as though there was still something left to see.

The new location was, surprisingly, a funeral hall. I had held a funeral for him, just as Hyun-woo had wished.

"...Tin Can."

[Why do you call?]

"I don’t know much about funerals, but is it normal for only one person connected to the deceased to be there?"

Lackey also seemed to feel the weight of the mood, asking Cain quietly rather than asking me.

Even though I could hear everything even if he asked quietly, asking like that was his way of being considerate of me.

’He really knows how to read the room remarkably well.’

At any rate, the reason Lackey asked such a question was simple.

Because there was no one else in the funeral hall besides me. In fact, calling it a funeral hall was somewhat vague.

On the surface, it looked like I had simply rented a large room to pray for the deceased’s soul.

[Normally, funerals are conducted by acquaintances or relatives. But at that time, most of humanity must have suffered from Qi Deviation. When the world is collapsing, even a funeral would have been a luxury.]

"Mm... I see."

Cain was right. With most of humanity dead, who could possibly hold a proper funeral?

It wouldn’t have been strange if virtually everywhere became a funeral site. That was likely why I had just found a spacious room.

Above all, it wasn’t just Hyun-woo’s funeral. Looking closely, there was also a family photo of Hyun-woo.

’Beside it are photos of Dong-hyun’s and Jae-hyun’s families too.’

Likewise, there were funeral portraits of their families.

I didn’t know where I had gotten those portrait photos, but one thing was certain.

My friends had died one after another in a short span of just a few months.

Civilization had gone completely to hell, so there was no one left to hold funerals for them, and I—the last one remaining—had commemorated them.

Seueuk—

The funeral service began. Neatly dressed in a suit, I honored them.

Wearing an armband on my right arm to boot. I knew that two lines on the armband meant chief mourner and direct family, one line meant a direct descendant, and none meant a relative within eight degrees of kinship.

And I was wearing an armband with two lines drawn on it. Even if I wasn’t family, I seemed to be wearing it because I was the chief mourner.

Jjorroreuk—

"Bastards... couldn’t even one of you stay alive...?"

I muttered bitterly as I poured liquor into a glass. Only one person was keeping vigil at the empty memorial room.

Perhaps that was why. The feeling of extreme loneliness was definitely not an illusion.

"Fuck... Do I have to stand as chief mourner again because of you guys...? You guys are seriously awful bastards..."

A trembling voice that sounded like it would burst into tears at any second. I had served as chief mourner at my parents’ funeral.

That experience had been agonizing enough, so standing as chief mourner once again for several friends who weren’t even relatives—the emotions must have been beyond words.

Perhaps my past self in the memory found it hard to cope with those searing emotions, as he was chugging refined rice wine straight from the bottle.

But even after chugging a whole bottle, there was no sign of him getting drunk at all.

Even though the world had gone mad due to mana, my body was bizarrely fine.

Hadn’t it been the same when I watched Hyun-woo’s final moments earlier? How he said I was caught trying to smuggle out mana-related research in the United States and subjected to human experimentation.

I suspected that as a result, my body had become acclimated to mana. What was even more shocking was the experimental result Hyun-woo had mentioned.

They injected my blood into others as a cure, but in the end, their bodies couldn’t endure it and exploded.

’The Demon Race corpse we found at the laboratory before was like that too.’

The corpse of the Demon Race whose upper body had exploded, leaving only the lower half dangling.

At the time, I wondered what on earth had been done to make it end up like that, but I had an intuition that they had experimented with my blood.

’And Aris thoroughly smashed that laboratory to pieces. If they wanted my blood, they would have had to take my body too...’

Roughly, a major conflict erupted between the twin siblings; Avalon experimented using my body, and Aris declared war.

Somehow after that, she succeeded in seizing my body. But having suffered severe injuries, she hid away.

If the story unfolded roughly like that, it would make complete sense.

’Mm... So does that mean I kept being subjected to human experimentation? What a strange feeling.’

At any rate, the three-day funeral came to an end.

Usually, once a funeral is over, it is customary to cremate the deceased’s body and place the ashes in an urn.

However, with the world ruined, the reality was that finding a proper coffin was difficult, let alone an urn.

Heading to a crematorium in the first place would be an issue in itself. So what did my past self in the memory do?

[Mmm... A farming ox felt just like that, but...]

"I feel weird saying this, but that is seriously simple-minded and brute-like."

It was truly simple. He dragged a truck over by himself and neatly stacked coffins onto the bed.

Then, realizing there was no remaining fuel in the truck, he tied ropes to his body and began pulling it.

It was like an ox pulling a plow—a jaw-dropping method in many ways.

It was a method that only someone like me, possessing absurdly massive physical strength, could pull off, making me laugh dryly.

Still, unlike an ox pulling a plow, the difference was that the truck had wheels and rolled well.

Deolgeureok— daldaldaldal—

I don’t know why it sounded like a cultivator engine.

Anyway, I steadily trudged forward through the now-barren city.

Where did I go? Toward the mountains that were plentiful outside the city.

I wondered why I was heading near the mountains, but that question was soon answered.

Peo-eok! Peok!

Using an axe found somewhere, I began chopping down trees.

Stacking the wood neatly, he placed the coffins on top and began the cremation.

Since civilization had collapsed, the method of cremation had regressed to ancient times.

Tadak! Tadadak!

Placing the coffins atop the towering pile of firewood, he set it ablaze.

Before long, fierce flames erupted, engulfing the coffin. It wasn’t just one coffin, either.Follow the newest chapters on novelping . com.

The other coffins were cremated in the exact same manner, and when it was over, only piles of ashes remained.

Seueuk— Seueueuk—

Seeing myself neatly gathering those ashes to place them into urns looked truly lonely.

Moreover, there weren’t just one or two coffins, easily exceeding ten. He had cremated the families as well, following Hyun-woo’s final request.

Perhaps because of that, I ended up watching myself spend over twelve hours doing nothing but cremations.

"Seriously making me suffer right until the very end, you bastards..."

The funeral and cremations, which lasted nearly a week, finally came to an end.

The final step was coming here—to an ossuary—and placing the urns inside.

Until this point, there didn’t seem to be major issues with the ossuary, as there were many other urns present.

Perhaps as time passed, only my parents, and further on my friends and their families were left.

I wondered if the memory would end here, now that the urns were placed in the columbarium niches.

However, when I stepped back outside the ossuary, the situation changed.

"Over there!"

"I saw it clearly earlier! That guy carried bone ash in there!"

Stepping outside, a swarm of vagrants was crowded together.

People who clung to life steadfastly even as the world hovered on the brink of total destruction. Beings who had fully absorbed mana.

"Master. Those people’s Qi Deviation isn’t over. It’s in progress."

But just as Lackey said, their condition couldn’t be described as good even out of courtesy.

Setting aside their shabby clothes, lumpy bulges were prominently bulging across their skin.

As Lackey said, they had fallen into Qi Deviation. The difference was that even while it was in progress, they were functioning normally.

Just as I was wondering what on earth was going on, my past self in the memory spoke up.

With an expression showing he didn’t understand, yet harbored an uneasy feeling about what he had heard.

"...What brought you all the way here? Did you bring urns too?"

"Bone ash! Hand over the bone ash while I’m asking nicely!"

The man presumed to be the leader threatened, pointing a kitchen knife. Desperation was written all over his face.

"Bone ash? What on earth are you talking about?"

"If you mix bone ash in water and drink it, this disease gets cured! You can endure a bit longer!"

"Don’t explain, just kill him quickly! That way we can burn that bastard’s corpse and get bone ash too!"

"Yeah! Why are you hesitating so much?!"

"Quickly! Catch him somehow! We barely found an ossuary!"

...What did I just hear? I blinked in disbelief.

Human bone ash being a miracle cure for Qi Deviation? I had never heard of such a thing.

Especially considering that when the Heavenly Demon suffered from Qi Deviation, didn’t she even have to consume a Crescent Moon Spirit Herb?

[It’s one of those old folk remedies. Just as animal bones are rich in nutrients, human bones also contain abundant nutrients. That includes mana.]

"...Was that actually a treatment that existed?"

[It was nothing more than a folk remedy.]

"Ha."

The fact that it might actually have an effect was absurd, but what was even more absurd was my past self in the memory.

At that time, Earth’s civilization was cutting-edge, having even integrated mana to break through the technological singularity.

Yet despite being pushed to the brink of extinction due to the fatal side effects of mana, to think they believed in such a method.

’Since chemistry was extremely advanced, they could have just comparatively analyzed the components of bone...’

Creating pills with ingredients perfectly matching bone would have been more than enough.

I didn’t know if scientists hadn’t had the time to intervene or if they genuinely hadn’t known.

Anyway.

"...With the world falling apart, all kinds of crazy bastards are crawling out."

My past self in the memory clicked his tongue at their unethical behavior.

Regardless, one of the vagrants charged forward holding a knife.

Usually, in bare hands versus a knife, the knife has an overwhelming advantage. Even more so when one cannot properly utilize mana.

Udeudeok! Udeuk!

"Kguaaak! Aak!"

However, I easily subdued the vagrant. Going beyond subduing him, I even snatched his knife back and drove it into his neck.

In less than two seconds, a human being was turned into a cold corpse.

"Uh, u-uh...?"

"W-What the hell is that guy...?"

The vagrants panicked. And no wonder—it wasn’t a messy brawl; he had been cleanly eliminated.

Anyone could tell he was no ordinary man.

"Is that really Master? Current Master fights like a brute, but that Master fights elegantly."

[That’s precisely my point. Efficient, clean subdual and instant kills. If those techniques were transferred as they are...]

"I can use those, though?"

I replied as if asking why they were stating something so obvious. At that, Cain, Lackey, and even Elia stared at me.

Gazes that practically asked if I was lying. Leaving Cain and Lackey aside, Elia, why are you looking at me with that kind of expression too?

"All of you, rush him! It’s just one more corpse anyway!"

"Dieee!"

In the meantime, five men rushed at once. Knives, axes, steel baseball bats, and the like.

Each approached holding different weapons, but the outcome was completely one-sided.

Udeudeok! Kwajik! Peo-eok!

With my past self in the memory overwhelmingly crushing them.

Hurling the knife taken from the vagrant killed earlier, he eliminated the foremost attacker first, then used another vagrant as a human shield.You are reading on novelping dot com, the official source.

Soon, dispatched cleanly one by one like flowing water, only the leader remained.

Unlike the present me who forcibly overpowered with sheer physical scale, he pushed forward with pure efficiency and skill.

[If you could fight like that, why didn’t you fight like that from the start?]

"Those are techniques used when fighting people. Do you really think stuff like that would work in this damned forest?"

At my words, the party fell silent like dumbfounded muts. Because there wasn’t a single thing wrong with what I said.

Setting aside large animals, the only beings here where such techniques might work were goblins or gorillas.

But now, the gorillas were friendly toward us, and the Hobgoblins had reached a level of downright ’worship.’

Unless we went outside, there would be no occasion to display such elegant techniques like in the memory.

’Still, maybe I should practice steadily since it might come in handy someday?’

Cheolkeok!

It was right then. The vagrant leader pulled out a ’handgun’ from his coat and aimed it at me.

Even my past self in the memory seemed flustered, showing a visible flinch at the sight of a gun.

"G-Get back! Y-You don’t want to d-die either, right?!"

"..."

"Those corpses! If you cremate those corpses, we won’t touch the ossuary...!"

"Fuck off."

Before the leader could even finish speaking, my past self in the memory threw the kitchen knife held in his hand.

Perhaps the leader sensed I was making a move, as he pulled the trigger at the exact same moment.

Taang!

A roaring bang echoed as the bullet was fired.

Handguns are famous for having insanely low accuracy even at close range.

The problem was that this was the Republic of Korea, a nation with conscription, and occasionally there were units that used handguns.

Whether the leader was one of them or it was sheer luck, the bullet struck my chest dead center.

Peok!

Yeah. It just struck.

It would have been effective if it hadn’t bounced off as if shooting solid rock.

Pak!

"Aagh!!"

At the same time, the kitchen knife I threw lodged into the leader’s arm. Now, all that was left was subduing him.

I immediately charged and swiftly subdued the leader, first disarming the gun from his hand before subduing him.

Peo-eok! Udeudeok!

Not only his arm, but even his knee that I kicked twisted grotesquely.

"Euaaaaak!!! Aaaak!!"

"Are there more scum like you besides yourself? Tell me and I’ll spare you."

Looking at his murderously cold face, it didn’t seem at all like he was going to spare him.

The leader seemed to feel the same, barely opening his mouth through an expression contorted in pain.

"W-What the hell are you... How did you... a gun...!"

"Park Jong-hyuk... Does that name ring a bell?"

"I don’t know! Fuck! How the hell should I know that?!"

"You don’t need to know. So, I asked if there are more scum like you."

"Of course there are! It’d be weird if there weren’t...!"

Udeudeok!

Now that he got his answer, my past self in the memory snapped the leader’s neck without hesitation.

He coldly executed him the instant he obtained the information—an action without a shred of hesitation.

"...I’m scared of that Master. Current Master is way better."

"A-As expected of the Chief God, you have a terrifying side!"

[He’s nothing short of a killing machine.]

I scratched my head at their assessments. I had nothing in particular to say.

In the first place, I had served as a special forces soldier during the war and further worked as an agent.

It would be stranger if I had a revulsion toward killing. Even now, I still held that feeling of aversion.

"Sigh... With the world ruined, crazy bastards are crawling out everywhere."

Muttering thus, I dragged the corpses off to a corner.

Rather than going elsewhere afterward, I quietly sat down in front of the main entrance of the ossuary.

Just as Zhang Fei stood firm waiting at Changban Bridge, he felt like a gatekeeper.

Apparently, he was worried that similar scum might come, so he decided to guard the front.

"Over there! The ossuary is over there!"

"But what’s up with that guy?"

In fact, there were quite a few people who had come from afar to obtain bone ash.

My past self in the memory killed every single one of those bastards, ensuring that no information leaked out at all.

"...Seriously, what kind of ordeal is this?"

With that grumble ending it—

Shaaaaa—

The light gradually receded, and before long, the surroundings changed.

At first I thought it was the funeral hall, but it was not.

"...Huh?"

"Master. Don’t tell me this place is...?"

What appeared before our eyes was a tree stretching high into the sky.

"...Did we come back?"

It was the World Tree.