A Survival Guide for a Counselor in the Apocalypse Chapter 154 - End of "Saikai" Arc

Chapter 154 

 

“Hey, wait.”

Sensing something was off, Cha Hyeongseo frowned and grabbed Sa Jaeheon’s arm, turning him around. At her touch, Sa Jaeheon reflexively slapped her hand away.

“Don’t touch me.”

“Hah? Like I wanted to?”

Cha Hyeongseo frowned. What the hell was wrong with this guy? At first, she thought he was decent, but more and more, his behavior was crossing the line.

There was no justification behind his actions. And yet, he kept benefiting from them. Hyeongseo knew that living kindly wasn’t always the right answer.

Still, whenever she looked at him, he just seemed full of malice.

And that kept bothering her.

‘Out of nowhere, he just killed some old man.’

Sure, that old man had been strange. Covered in blood but without a single wound, and his clothes were oddly shabby.

She only realized he wasn’t an ordinary man after examining the corpse.

At first, when he suddenly appeared and was killed, she thought Sa Jaeheon was just insane.

Well, honestly, she still kind of did. The reason was simple.

‘How did he finish all the calculations in such a short time?’

From the moment the man showed his face to the moment he was killed… it took barely a minute.

The instant Sa Jaeheon heard his voice and recognized him, he killed him. It was unsettling. And yet, Hyeongseo thought it could make sense.

If there was something she realized after parting ways with Nam Muyeong and Lee Hoin…

‘Those guys were basically saints. And normal.’

Sure, even when she traveled with them, they had seemed a bit extreme… almost too aggressive. Especially Nam Muyeong, who could harm others without hesitation.

At the time, she thought they were too rough. But compared to Sa Jaeheon, they were practically gentlemen. Only after parting ways did she realize that those two had always thought things through and struggled with their decisions.

Afterward, she joined a few other groups, saved people, and watched how others acted.

The truth was, she already knew. In a world like this, it was easy to be consumed by malice. Hyeongseo knew that better than anyone… before she met them, she had been chased by that very malice.

Was it because Nam Muyeong’s “kindness without reason” had left such a deep impression? Could just those few days of kindness really have broken down the hardened edges she had built up?

Hyeongseo felt a new kind of shock.

People are turning their blades on those who saved them. Threatening the weak just to survive. Today’s ally is becoming tomorrow’s enemy, pointing a knife at something as trivial as a can of food.

“Can’t you act… at least a little reasonably?”

She was tired.

Before she met Sa Jaeheon, there had been a moment she thought it would’ve been better to go look for Nam Muyeong and Lee Hoin instead.

Then she met Sa Jaeheon, and she thought he was at least somewhat trustworthy. At the very least, his blade hadn’t been pointed at her.

But now? She didn’t know anymore. Could she trust this guy? Someone who swung his sword however he pleased?

Hyeongseo pressed her brow, exhausted.

He never said anything anyway. If he were someone you could communicate with, he would’ve answered at least one of the countless questions she had asked.

Hyeongseo gave up. With a sigh, she turned her back on him. This fragile partnership… she had always known it could break at any moment.

Of course it would. She didn’t trust Sa Jaeheon, and he never said a word.

‘What a complete mess.’

For a moment, she thought, “Maybe I should’ve been like Lee Hoin…” but she stopped herself.

It was too late. Everything was too late. This damn partnership had already spiraled into ruin.

Forget trust… was there even a reason to keep going like this? Did she really need to go this far? From the beginning, Hyeongseo had managed just fine on her own.

Alone. Ever since her school days…

‘No.’

She didn’t think any further. Thinking deeper would only poison her. She shook her head and let out a long breath.

“Hey. I’m leaving.”

They weren’t lovers breaking up, so there was no need for some dramatic declaration. They were just traveling together. If it didn’t work, they could just split.

She couldn’t trust him. No matter how much she tried to reason with him, he wouldn’t listen… just kept charging ahead recklessly.

Hyeongseo got into the car.

That pitch-black figure, impossible to read, just stood there blankly. When minds and intentions don’t align, it’s better to part ways quickly.

‘If it was going to be like this, I should’ve just followed Nam Muyeong.’

For a moment, Hyeongseo felt a pang of envy.

Even in a world like this… having companions who weren’t bound by blood, who didn’t owe each other their lives, who hadn’t built some overwhelming bond… yet still chose to move for each other’s sake.

‘I thought it was nothing special.’

But after mixing with others and struggling like this, she realized… 

‘It’s not nothing.’

Finding even one person you can trust.

The engine roared to life with a loud vroom.

And just like that, the short-lived partnership came to an end.

Until the very last moment, Cha Hyeongseo found herself wondering what that pair of lifeless, dark eyes, simply staring, was thinking.

 

***

 

Only after getting far away did I finally catch my breath.

“Is everyone okay?”

“…We’re okay, at least.”

“Y-yeah, I’m okay too.”

Kim Taekjin and Lee Hoin answered, both sounding a bit dazed.

“Where are we now?”

At that, I looked out the car window.

It was definitely Seoul… and yet, it didn’t feel like Seoul at all. A place with a vast ocean stretching out.

“What, did we make it all the way to Incheon? This is way too big to be the Han River…”

It looked like the sea.

Given how frantically we’d driven, there was no way they’d properly seen the scenery passing by. Still, this wasn’t Incheon. If anything, we’d come the opposite way.

“It’s not the sea.”

Not the sea… and yet, Seoul had changed.

I turned my head slightly and glanced at my Apocalypse record. The number was nearing Chapter 30.

‘Someone must’ve opened Chapter 30… is this the result?’

There were definitely people ahead of us. No doubt some of them had already reached Chapter 30.

As I stared at the sudden “ocean” before me, a window appeared.

The delayed rewards from the “Labyrinth” dropped into my hands.

Along with the distant sound of dawn breaking, the window shimmered into view.

 

— 

[The day has broken.]

[At last, by a certain narrator who first recorded up to Chapter 30 of the Apocalypse.]

[The cracks in the world have widened further.]

— 

 

The cracks in the world.

The narrator trembled with excitement, the window flickering as if delighted.

 

— 

[Through those cracks, other worlds have drawn closer.]

[Closer… and closer.]

[To the point of becoming one.]

[Will you stop it?]

[Or will you become one with it?]

— 

 

The ones in the back seat fell silent as they read the messages.

Then Kim Taekjin spoke.

“Becoming one… doesn’t sound like a good thing.”

Because it wasn’t.

“Will you stop it? Or will you become one with it?” That question meant:

Would you struggle to avoid destruction, or accept it as it is?

It was only natural to feel conflicted. That was the whole point. The people of the world needed to struggle harder… so more stories would be born.

‘Considering the fastest world to fall was treated as if it never existed…’

That world hadn’t wanted to perish either. It was the one where a “Titled One” appeared faster than anywhere else, within just 10 chapters of the Apocalypse.

That world had already been vast and complete, so it wasn’t surprising that a transcendent being on the level of a “Third Party” emerged so quickly.

The narrator had been thrilled by that rapid growth. There had been no regressions, no possession, no dimensional travel… no shortcuts at all.

It was expected that the world would be more entertaining than any other.

Or maybe even to prevent its own destruction.

But…

‘They died too fast.’

Despite gaining a Title, they died far too quickly. By Chapter 12.

‘Because the narrator raised the difficulty at the same pace as their growth.’

It was the narrator’s mistake. Even if growth reached 100, difficulty should’ve risen to 70… not matched it.

Because the difficulty spiked even faster than the growth, the Titled One died in vain… and the world followed soon after.

That world, stubborn to the end, chose destruction… and truly ceased to exist.

‘Though it left behind plenty of byproducts.’

When that world collapsed, it spat out countless remnants.

For example, this subspace.

It was a crude imitation of the subspace bags that were commonplace there, a new item formed when one of those was torn in half.

In that world, even commoners used far more complete and higher-grade subspace items as something trivial.

If they had survived, the quality of items here might’ve been far higher.

“This… doesn’t feel like the Seoul I know anymore. It’s… unfamiliar.”

Kim Taekjin muttered from the back seat.

 

And the narrator…

 

Its gleeful, snickering message overlapped in my vision, as if saying:

 

“This is only the beginning.”

 

Yeah.

 

At every moment, we stand at the starting line.

 

The starting line… of destruction.