ICWDS 2

Chapter 2

The Evil Deed That Shattered the World

The exact moment I donated 31.65 million won to the orphanage where I was born and raised.

Ah, crap!

I realized I’d made an irreversible mistake.

“W-What have I done…?”

【……】

Just as I was trembling, the demonic sword shook violently in my grip.

Soon, its voice echoed in my head.

【Mo… Money? To think that money was the price for forming a contract with this Heungno (Black Road)?】

The demonic sword, who introduced himself as Heungno, was quivering with rage at the fact that he had been bought for mere cold, hard cash.

Mere money? That was my entire net worth!

【Whew… While I am thoroughly dissatisfied that mere currency was the price of our covenant… everything is relative. If you say it was your entire fortune, it must indeed be an extraordinarily vast sum.】

You bet it’s a vast sum! A whopping 31.65 million won! That was literally all the money I had to my name!

【At any rate, the price has been paid, so the contract between you and I is complete.】

Contract?

I had no intention of binding myself to such an ominous, bloodthirsty blade.

I need to toss this damn thing away right now—

“Don’t move!”

Right on cue.

A woman clad in an official uniform burst through the doors of the bank.

With navy-blue hair and a cold, sharp expression, she raised an open palm, taking aim directly at me.

“I am Kang Cheong-hwa from Team 2 of the Hunter Administration Bureau’s Special Task Force. Drop the sword and surrender!”

“I-I surrender!”

I threw both hands into the air at top speed. Instantly, Heungno began making a racket.

【How dare you, the contractor of this great entity, cry out in surrender?! Stand tall and fight! Slash those arrogant bastards to pieces and drink their blood!】

What the hell are you babbling about? Didn’t you see your previous owner get blasted to death by a pea-shooter?

“Drop the blade and surrender immediately!”

“A-Ah, okay! Please calm down!”

I hastily tried to toss the sword far away. However, the Special Task Force agent’s warning was far from over.

“I told you… to drop the sword!”

“Huh? What are you……”

I had clearly thrown it away as ordered, but a strange weight still rested in my palm.

When I glanced down, Heungno was still firmly gripped in my hand.

【It is useless. The moment the contract was forged, I became bound to you. You are destined to walk the path of the great Demon King. If you dislike that, your only option is death.】

What is this crazy sword talking about?!

“Hey! Get off my hand right now!”

【Did I not just tell you it is useless?】

If this keeps up, I’m gonna die!

“This is your final warning. If you do not drop the weapon, we will proceed according to protocol.”

【Fight! You can win! Quench our thirst with that wench’s blood!】

Amidst the noisy shrieks of the demonic sword, something shifted.

Uh-oh, wait, don’t tell me—?

The blue-haired officer’s arm suddenly began to transform.

It looked just like the transforming cars from Hollywood blockbusters.

Clank! Whirrrr! Click! Vrrroooom!!

Her gloved hand went through a rapid process of mechanical disassembly and reassembly, morphing into a heavy cannon in the blink of an eye.

Chak!

The energy concentrated at the muzzle hummed with a terrifying threat.

I immediately thrust my hands up higher.

“I-I surrender!”

【KILL HER, I SAID!!】

A piece of cutlery that lost to a pea-shooter has no right telling me to kill anyone!

I sat trapped inside an interrogation room, wrists bound in handcuffs.

The air in the room—a place I’d only ever seen in dramas—was thick and heavy.

Not that I ever wanted to experience it firsthand…

And this damn sword still won’t detach itself from me.

The demonic sword, which kept screeching for me to feed it blood, was clinging to me like a leech.

The officers tried to confiscate it several times, but it kept snapping right back to my hand.

About two hours had passed since I was locked in the room.

Finally, the door swung open, and two people stepped inside.

“Mr. Yoon Ga-on? Apologies for leaving you waiting for so long.”

One was Agent Kang Cheong-hwa, who had arrested me.

The other was a man wearing sunglasses, looking like the absolute archetype of a military NCO.

He had a sharp, imposing look, built with dense, tightly packed muscle.

He gave a light nod of greeting and took a seat across from me.

Agent Kang Cheong-hwa stood at attention behind him.

“I am Team Leader Park Do-gyeong, heading Special Task Force Team 2 of the Bureau.”

“I’m Yoon Ga-on. 37th batch from Immanuel Orphanage. Currently unemployed.”

“Hahaha…!”

Team Leader Park Do-gyeong let out a hearty laugh and slid off his sunglasses.

His eyes glowed ominously, as if rings of fire were embedded inside his pupils.

“I’ve reviewed the CCTV footage. Your misunderstanding has been cleared up, so you can rest easy. You were just unlucky.”

Hearing his words, I let out a sigh of relief. My name was cleared.

“However, there are a few tests we need to conduct. To put it bluntly, your current situation isn’t great, Mr. Ga-on. You’ve formed a contract with a cursed artifact.”

“A cursed artifact?”

Team Leader Park Do-gyeong stared at the demonic sword stuck firmly to my hand and explained.

“The items like the one you’re holding are referred to as cursed artifacts. They originate from beyond the Gate.”

Cursed artifacts. In short, items embedded with occult or mystical power.

Among the loot discovered beyond the Gates, these possessed peculiar, supernatural abilities.

“Among those, the one you hold is classified as a demonic sword—an artifact that bewitches its surroundings and corrupts its host.”

“No wonder it’s been spewing nonsense this whole time……”

──!!

The demonic sword threw another noisy fit in my mind, but I simply ignored it.

“So… what should I do? Even when I try to throw it away, it keeps sticking back to me.”

“That’s because it’s bound to you. Unless the contract is broken, it will be difficult to remove. Still, considering that even the elderly and young children at the scene managed to resist its influence, it’s likely not a high-tier artifact. At best, maybe E-rank.”

He says it’s an E-rank.

【You insolent fool! How dare you pass such a lowly evaluation on my grand self?!】

Unluckily for the sword, its voice couldn’t reach Team Leader Park Do-gyeong.

“Um… by the way, about the ‘price’ I paid to forge this contract with the demonic sword……”

“You mean the donation to the orphanage?”

“Is there any chance I could get that back? That was my entire net worth……”

Team Leader Park Do-gyeong shook his head softly.

“I’d advise against it. Even if it’s only an E-rank, a demonic sword is still a demonic sword. Reversing the cause and effect tied to the contract could end poorly for you.”

“Ah……”

“I’m sorry I can’t be of more help. Still──”

“Well, it can’t be helped then.”

Team Leader Park Do-gyeong looked at me intently as I spoke.

“I’ll just consider it doing a good deed. It’s the orphanage where I grew up, and it’s a wonderful place anyway.”

Besides, most of that money was accumulated from the allowance the director gave me penny by penny over the years.

Since none of it was earned through my own labor anyway, I might as well consider it money well spent.

I didn’t lose it; our ties simply came to an end.

After listening to a series of cautions and warnings regarding cursed artifacts, our conversation wrapped up.

“Please be careful for the time being, and we’ll monitor your situation. If anything happens, contact us immediately. Ah, you mentioned you don’t have a phone, right?”

Team Leader Park Do-gyeong reached into his jacket and handed me a smartphone.

“It’s spare Bureau property, but you’ll need a way to communicate, so use this for now. The service is active, so you shouldn’t have any trouble.”

“Ah, thank you very much.”

“Don’t mention it. It’s getting late—would you like to grab a bite before you go? The cafeteria chef here makes fantastic food.”

“Ah, would that really be okay?”

The menu was pork cutlet and stir-fried spicy pork, and it was delicious.

“Is it really alright to just let him go like that?”

At Kang Cheong-hwa’s question, Park Do-gyeong shrugged his shoulders.

“Well, why not? It doesn’t seem like a particularly dangerous object. If we ever need to retrieve it, we can do so at any time.”

“It is still a demonic sword. To an ordinary civilian, it poses a significant threat. According to protocol, we should send it to the Isolation Division for sealing……”

“Agent Kang. You know full well the Isolation Division doesn’t have the bandwidth for that right now.”

“……”

Kang Cheong-hwa bit her lower lip at the team leader’s words.

“Besides, once bound, there’s nothing we can do anyway. The only clean way is to kill the host, but we can’t just execute an innocent civilian.”

That was the simplest method, and the one the Bureau preferred.

While cursed artifacts granted immense power, demonic items like swords carried massive risks and were subject to strict surveillance.

In the vast majority of cases, hosts were seduced, corrupted, and ended up committing horrific crimes.

If the higher-ups found out, they would simply order the host’s execution.

“You heard the witnesses. A seven-year-old child and an eighty-year-old elder both resisted its temptation. And the price it exacted for the contract was mere cash.”

31.65 million won to the orphanage where he grew up.

It wasn’t a small amount of money, but as a sacrifice for a demonic sword’s contract, it was dirt cheap.

How dangerous could a demonic entity be if its required toll was so laughable?

“And above all……”

Team Leader Park Do-gyeong placed his left hand on the interrogation table.

On his index finger sat a gemstone ring—an item that ill-suited his military background.

It gleamed with an ominous, dark red glow.

He brought his other hand over, attempting to pull the ring off.

“……”

His right hand gripped the ring firmly, but that was all.

For a long while, Park Do-gyeong simply held onto it. To an outsider, it merely looked as though he was fiddling with his jewelry.

Soon, his right hand began to tremble, and beads of sweat gathered on his forehead.

His pupils vibrated violently.

His eyes darted frantically back and forth.

Just as his ragged breath reached its limit—

“Haaah…!”

Park Do-gyeong gasped heavily, clutching at his pounding heart.

“I can’t even take it off. Could you do it, Agent Kang?”

At his words, Kang Cheong-hwa looked down at her own right arm.

Her demonic arm—capable of morphing into various firearms. Would it be possible to sever it?

The mere thought of trying to detach it brought a chorus of dark voices clawing at her mind, dragging her down into the abyss.

As if whispering that she could never escape.

“It is impossible.”

“Right? But Mr. Yoon Ga-on was completely different.”

He had casually thrown the sword away to surrender.

Though it returned to him, that wasn’t by his own will.

“A human consumed by a demonic artifact can never escape its grasp. Sooner or later, they inevitably fall into corruption.”

The only way to avoid corruption was to awaken one’s power and overcome the demonic entity.

“Yet Mr. Yoon Ga-on showed no signs of corruption whatsoever. In fact, despite losing his entire life savings, he treated it as no big deal.”

“He was too fine, if anything. It’s not like he possesses ‘Corruption Immunity’ or something.”

“Is there any record of such a trait?”

“None.”

That was their final conclusion.

The bank robber—the sword’s previous owner—had simply been an exceptionally weak-willed individual.

Since the sword’s caliber seemed low, they decided to monitor him for the time being.

After all, neither of them wanted to kill an innocent citizen unless absolutely necessary.

One week after the bank robbery incident.

Putting my lost fortune behind me, I threw myself into job hunting.

However, no place was willing to hire me. It was only natural.

“So… Mr. Ga-on? What’s with the sword strapped to your hip?”

“Ah, well, you see……”

I explained the situation, but the business owners either looked at me like I was insane or refused to hire me, claiming I brought bad luck.

Fair enough.

What sane employer would hire a guy walking around carrying a sword?

“Please! Just get off my body already!”

【Do not resist fate, Contractor! Feast on blood and accumulate evil deeds! Do you not wish to stand above all others, second only to one? You are capable of it!】

“Yeah, not interested.”

What would I even do with a title like that?

The director always told us:

Become a good person.

Learn to love others and learn to give.

Just as she had selflessly given to all her sons and daughters at the orphanage.

Wielding a sword to rule over people went entirely against everything she had taught me.

“I said I’m not interested, so just take the return.”

【Hehehe… Even so, you cannot escape your destiny.】

The demonic sword let out an obnoxious laugh.

【Has it been a week already? You’ve held out for quite a while. But that ends today.】

“What are you talking about—?”

At that moment, my head spun violently.

What’s going on? I’ve been eating properly.

Surviving on energy bars wasn’t ideal, but every two days I used the remaining funds from my low-income support to stock up on protein.

Yet something… something inside me began to boil.

A voice kept screaming in my head.

Commit it.

Just give in and do it.

【Perform evil, Contractor! Release the dark impulses within you to your heart’s content!】

“Ugh…!”

I fought back with all my strength, but I couldn’t stop the shift in my mind.

“Fine…!”

There’s no need… to hold back anymore!

I had the demonic sword. Even if it was just a useless E-rank blade that lost to a pea-shooter!

“I won’t… hold back any longer!”

【Khehehe! Yes! That is how it begins! Step by step, bit by bit, walk the path of corruption! Unleash the evil within you, release your squirming desires!】

I reached into my pocket and pulled something out.

Three energy bars bought from the supermarket, worth 1,200 won each.

The precious food supply I had been rationing, eating only one per meal to survive.

Without a single thought for tomorrow, I scarfed them all down at once.

Chomp! Crunch!

No nibbling, no savoring every bite—I tore through them ravenously.

A reckless act with zero consideration for tomorrow’s meals.

Pure gluttony. Was this truly one of the Seven Deadly Sins?

【……What in the world are you doing?】

Even Heungno seemed utterly appalled by this atrocious scene of sin.

Did you think it would end with just this?

I squeezed the empty energy bar wrappers into my fist.

The crumpled wrappers formed a neat, tight ball.

“Fire in the hole!”

I hurled it straight into the sandbox of a nearby children’s playground.

【W-What on earth have you done?!】

“Fuhu, I tossed unsorted trash directly into a children’s playground without recycling it.”

【……!】

The demonic sword trembled violently.

It must have been thoroughly shaken by such an atrocious, villainous act—polluting a playground meant for innocent children.

But it’s too late for regrets.

Right now, I am wielding the demonic sword.

In that instant, I felt a sinister aura surge from the blade, absorbing directly into my body.

A rush of boundless power filled my entire frame.

However, that feeling was brief. Overwhelmed by the sudden influx of energy, my consciousness snapped off like a turned-off TV.

【T-To think that an evil deed could be accumulated through this?!】

I couldn’t hear the demonic sword’s final words clearly, but one realization hit me before I blacked out.

What on earth… have I done……?