Worse Than You Imagine

Ivo looked at Jinsu, who was still standing in front of the building, staring at it intently.

His eyes moved between its towering walls and closed windows, as if he were trying to figure out what was behind that door.

Especially after the words Ivo had said at the end.

My father.

Just two words.

But they left countless questions in Jinsu's mind.

Ivo noticed his gaze and said calmly:

"Listen, stay here. I'll be back, okay?"

Jinsu answered quickly.

"Yes, yes."

Ivo gave him a brief look, as if making sure he wouldn't do anything stupid while he was gone.

Then he turned around.

He approached the door.

He reached for the handle, opened it, and stepped inside.

The door closed behind him.

Jinsu was left alone.

He stood in front of the building, waiting.

He didn't move.

His eyes remained fixed on the door behind which Ivo had disappeared.

Did he really say his father?

Did that mean Ivo was someone important here?

He thought about it for a few moments.

Ivo hadn't said much since they arrived.

He hadn't told Jinsu much about himself.

Everything Jinsu knew about him was nothing more than small pieces, scattered fragments that weren't enough to form a complete picture.

But now...

Ivo's father was the Lord of the Assassins Village.

And that alone made Jinsu rethink everything.

Perhaps Ivo was far more important in this place than he had thought.

Perhaps his presence here wasn't simply a return to his homeland.

Before Jinsu could think any further, he heard a voice nearby.

"What do we do if we meet a Yami?"

Jinsu stopped.

He turned toward the source of the voice.

There was an old man.

Jinsu had seen him before.

But he didn't remember him clearly.

The old man was sitting in the garden belonging to the building, with four children gathered around him.

The children sat close to him, listening attentively.

At first glance, the scene looked ordinary.

An old man sitting with children.

Children talking with their grandfather.

But Jinsu no longer trusted appearances in this village.

After what he had seen in the square, he could no longer look at anything here and consider it normal.

He remained where he was.

Then he waited for the children's answers to the old man's question.

One of the children raised his head.

He thought for a moment.

Then said simply:

"Pluck out his eyes?"

Jinsu froze for a moment.

He looked at the child.

Then at the old man.

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What?

The answer had come from a child.

A child.

But Jinsu wasn't as shocked as he should have been.

Not after what he had seen moments ago.

He had seen children watching a Yami being killed.

He had seen a child stab a Yami.

And he had seen children looking at him as if they were waiting for an order to attack him.

So despite how strange the answer was, it wasn't entirely surprising.

But another child raised his voice.

"No."

Jinsu looked at him.

The child continued:

"If you take out his eyes, he still has two hands to kill you with and two legs to run away."

A brief silence followed.

Then a third child spoke, as though offering a perfectly logical solution.

"We should cut off his legs, Grandpa..."

He paused for a moment.

"Then hang him from a tree."

Jinsu continued staring at them.

The children weren't talking about anything strange to them.

There was no fear in their voices.

No hesitation.

They spoke as if they were discussing something simple.

Something they had learned.

Something that had become a part of their lives.

The children continued giving different answers.

Each one suggested what they thought was appropriate.

Some answers were more brutal than others.

And some made Jinsu wonder how these children could even think of such things in the first place.

But something else worried him even more.

The old man.

He was smiling.

He listened to their answers with a clear smile on his face.

He wasn't disturbed.

He wasn't shocked.

He didn't try to correct them.

Instead...

He looked proud.

As if the children were answering exactly the way he wanted them to.

Jinsu continued staring at him.

Then the old man finally spoke.

"First, children..."

The children's voices fell silent.

Their attention turned toward him.

The old man raised his hand slightly, as though he were about to explain something important.

"We must tear out the Yami's tendons..."

He paused.

"So that it falls to the ground."

His eyes remained calm.

"It must kneel before you..."

Then he smiled.

"So it can see who is truly in control."

The children listened carefully.

As for Jinsu...

He couldn't take his eyes off the old man.

The man continued:

"We must break its pride first."

Then he raised his fingers.

"After that, we tear off its hands..."

He paused.

"So it knows who has the right to touch."

Then he pointed toward his own eyes.

"Then we tear out its eyes..."

He said it as though it were the simplest truth in the world.

"So it knows who has the right to look."

Silence filled the garden.

Then he continued.

"Then its tongue."

His voice didn't change.

It didn't tremble.

There was no hesitation.

Then he said:

"And finally..."

He looked at the children.

"...after it surrenders."

He smiled.

"We kill it."

Jinsu froze.

He didn't know what to say.

Even the children fell silent.

But their shock wasn't like his.

They were shocked because they had never thought of that idea before.

As for Jinsu...

He was looking at something entirely different.

He was seeing something that should never have been placed in front of children.

Something a child should never learn.

Something that should never become a part of a child's mind before they had even grown up.

He continued looking at them.

Four children.

Small bodies.

Small faces.

But the words coming from their mouths were not the words of children.

And for the first time, Jinsu understood something he didn't want to understand.

He couldn't save them.

Even if he wanted to.

What could he do?

Take them with him?

Where?

Could he change what had been planted in their minds?

Could he erase everything they had been taught?

No.

He couldn't.

And in that moment...

Jinsu felt something inside him break.

Or perhaps it wasn't breaking.

Perhaps that thing had already been broken long ago.

He didn't know.

All he knew was that he felt something strange in his chest.

Emptiness.

Heaviness.

And a strange feeling resembling surrender.

As if he had stopped trying to understand everything.

Stopped trying to fix everything.

And no longer truly cared.

But what surprised Jinsu the most...

Was that he felt pity.

But it wasn't pity for the children.

It was pity for the Yami.

He looked at the children.

Then at the old man.

Then at the place around him.

And he didn't know why he felt that way.

How had he reached the point where he felt pity for the Yami instead of these children?

He had no answer.

"Jinsu."

Ivo's voice interrupted his thoughts.

Jinsu raised his head.

He turned around.

Ivo was standing in front of him.

"Come on."

Jinsu looked at him.

Then looked back at the children and the old man.

His eyes remained on them for a few moments.

Then he turned his gaze back to Ivo.

"Yes."

Jinsu stepped forward.

Then entered the building.

And he had no idea what he was about to see.

He never could have expected it.

From the outside, the building looked elegant.

Quiet.

Even its design was different from the rest of the village.

But the moment Jinsu stepped inside...

He stopped.

He stood there for several moments.

He couldn't move.

The first thing that greeted him...

Was a Yami's head.

A head hanging at the entrance.

Jinsu stared at it.

Then slowly turned his head.

He looked down the corridor.

And there...

Yami heads were hanging from the walls.

One beside another.

Entire rows of them.

Countless heads.

More than Jinsu could count.

But what made his stomach tighten wasn't their number.

It was their condition.

Their eyes had been removed.

Their mouths hung open.

As if they had screamed before they died.

The muscles of their faces and bodies were frozen in tension, remaining that way even after death.

Jinsu continued staring.

This wasn't what he had imagined when he entered.

It wasn't a beautiful place.

Nor an ordinary headquarters for assassins.

He saw a massacre.

A massacre that had been arranged and displayed along the walls.

As if the deaths of these Yami weren't something to hide.

But something to display.

Ivo moved forward.

He began climbing the stairs.

Jinsu followed behind him.

He tried not to look at the walls.

But his eyes kept returning to them against his will.

With every step he climbed...

He felt that something worse was waiting for him above.

He continued forward.

Then he saw a man at the bottom of the stairs.

He was carrying a box.

At first, Jinsu thought it was an ordinary box.

But as he got closer, he looked at it more carefully.

It wasn't empty.

There was something else inside.

Organs.

But they weren't human.

Jinsu stopped for a moment.

He stared at them.

He didn't even know what some of those parts belonged to.

But he didn't ask.

He said nothing.

He simply continued looking.

Then he saw the man enter one of the rooms.

Jinsu followed the scene with his eyes.

There was a girl sitting behind a desk.

And behind her...

A Yami was hanging there.

Then another.

And another.

They were still alive.

Alive.

And the girl was experimenting on them.

Doing something Jinsu didn't know.

He didn't understand what she was doing.

But he saw it.

And he saw the man place the box on the desk.

The girl raised her head.

Then opened the box.

And suddenly...

Her expression changed.

She was delighted.

She smiled as though she had seen something wonderful.

Something she had been waiting for.

But what was inside the box wasn't something that would make a normal person smile.

They were organs.

And yet...

The girl picked them up happily.

Then walked toward the hanging Yami.

Jinsu continued staring.

He didn't understand.

He no longer wanted to understand.

"Jinsu?"

Ivo's voice brought him back to reality.

Jinsu turned toward him.

Ivo was looking at him.

"Come on."

Then he added:

"He's waiting for us."

Jinsu remained silent for a moment.

Then he moved.

He climbed the stairs.

The two continued upward until they reached a door at the top of the building.

Jinsu stopped in front of it.

Then raised his eyes.

Above the door was the same symbol he had seen at the entrance.

The same words.

He read them again.

We are the saviors.

We are the rescuers.

We are assassins.

He stared at them.

He didn't understand their meaning.

Not yet.

But he felt that those words hadn't been placed there without reason.

Ivo reached for the door.

He opened it.

And the moment it opened...

Jinsu saw the man.

The man the entire continents were wary of.

The man whose mere thought of moving was enough to make the earth itself fear him.

He was sitting in his chair.

Calm.

Motionless.

Simply staring toward Jinsu and Ivo.

And the moment Jinsu's eyes met his...

He felt it.

The same sensation he had felt when he first saw the leader of Gaia.

But this time...

It was different.

It wasn't the same anger.

It wasn't the same feeling.

It was something else.

A feeling of anger...

And thirst.

A genuine thirst.

A thirst to kill the person standing before him.

The feeling was like the eruption of a volcano.

A massive volcano.

Quiet at this moment...

But Jinsu could feel that it might erupt at any second any second