Chapter 505: What He Wants (3) |
I wasn’t scared. Kim Hyun-Sung was frowning, but he wasn’t trying to harm me nor did he look threatening.
Actually, he looked kind of sad, so I couldn’t look straight at his face.
In addition, I wasn’t exactly happy about this situation where I was pushed against a wall.
Eventually, the glaring Kim Hyun-Sung lowered his head. His trembling shoulders told me what he was feeling. He neither denied nor agreed, but I could feel that he didn’t want to accept it.
I frowned slightly as if I was in pain, and he stepped back, seemingly surprised.
Kim Hyun-Sung looked like he had no idea what to say.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Kim Hyun-Sung said.
“Bullshit…” I commented.
“Let’s stop for today…” he suggested.
“I don’t think you’re fully conscious,” he said before turning around quietly and gathering his belongings.
“You’re the one who’s out of your mind, not me.” I pointed out.
I started getting angry because I somewhat understood his feelings.
“You look exhausted,” he remarked.
“Don’t change the subject,” I told him.
“...”
“...”
“Why are you saying this?” he asked.
“You know that better than I do, Kim Hyun-Sung,” I answered.
“I’m tired, so I don’t want to do this any longer. I don’t want to talk about that anymore. Please stop,” he requested.
“You’re not tired. You’re running away. You really want to rot here for the rest of your life?” I asked.
“That’s none of your concern,” he said.
“What about the people who look up to you?” I asked.
“Please… stop…” he mumbled.
“You’re just going to let them die?” I questioned.
“I don’t want to see them die. I don’t,” he replied.
“They’re going to die in places you can’t see. If you don’t wake up, that’s what’s going to happen, you loser,” I told him.
“Yes, I already failed once, so even if I leave this place, nothing will change. What happened will happen once more, and I don’t want to be there. I don’t want to see everyone die once again. Criticize me all you want, but I’m not confident that I can endure it, so please stop. There have been too many changes that I can’t keep track of things anymore,” I mocked, imitating him.
“It’s all because of you… Mr. Ki-Young,” he said.
“Things changed because you saved me, idiot. No one asked you to carry the heavy burden all by yourself and to just watch people die. Don’t act like everything is over just because you slipped once. I don’t plan on letting things end here as well…” I continued.
“I told you to stop it!” he screamed.
“Stop what?! You crazy bastard,” I yelled.
“Damn it! What do you know?! You know nothing!” he screamed once again.
“...”
“Damn it, damn it! Don’t mock me. Stop it. Shit! Why did you come here to give me all those burdens?! Please stop it. I never said that I wanted to start over, and I didn’t wish to start over, so leave me alone! Please… stop! Just leave me alone! Don’t give me any more burdens! You bastards…! Stop it… shit…!” Kim Hyun-Sung cursed.
“...”
“Please don’t even think about it… please… please don’t. Please don’t make me remember it… I’m tired of it now. Please don’t… Don’t make me remember anything…” he begged.
“...”
“Please stop… please… please don’t put those burdens on me while looking like him…”
Kim Hyun-Sung had gone crazy, and I couldn’t quite describe it. I was surprised that he yelled at me all of a sudden, but I didn’t think that he was yelling at me.
He still wasn’t aware that I was the real Lee Ki-Young, so he was definitely yelling at me, thinking that I was just an image that his consciousness had constructed.
He seemed like he was thinking that his unconscious was telling him to carry the burdens and take responsibility using Lee Ki-Young’s image.
In other words, he was yelling at his own consciousness to stop forcing him to take responsibility.
He was also telling his consciousness to forget his burdens and responsibilities…
‘Did he think that I’ll talk about something else with him if he were to forget his burdens and responsibilities?’
It seemed that he thought that way.
Kim Hyun-Sung remained silent. He stared at me wordlessly, seemingly trying to read my expression. At the sight, I couldn’t help but acknowledge the fact that half of my assumption was correct. However, I wasn’t going to play along with him. It was up to him to make the decision, but I still had to look at him once more.
“I have never forced you to take responsibility,” I said.
“...”
“But you should at least clean up your mess. Don’t you agree?” I asked.
“...”
“What? You think you created me?” I questioned.
Kim Hyun-Sung’s expression changed abruptly, and he stared at me in disbelief.
“Ah…”
“...”
“Ahh… Ah…”
‘I’m not sure if that worked… Shit.’
It was honestly a gamble. I wanted to play along a little longer, but it felt like all this would last forever if I didn’t put an end to all this right now.
The emotions within me were the reasons I got impatient, and I thought that this was the best time to end things.
I was honestly a little worried.
I was worried about explaining how I managed to reach him, and I unknowingly thought about the remarks I had made again.
I had made some dubious remarks, and I was sure that they would be strange from Kim Hyun-Sung’s point of view, but it seemed like he didn’t have the luxury to think about those things right now.
“Ah… Heuk… heuk…!”
‘This guy is crying again.’
I wasn’t certain, but he seemed as if he was more relieved than suspicious of me.
He was relieved by the fact that I was safe and that I had come here to look for him.
‘Damn it, man… You shouldn’t have lost your mind like this.’
I initially thought that he wasn’t too far gone yet, so I thought that the efforts of the guild members and his harem members had fallen into deep ears. However, it seemed that he simply couldn’t hear them from the deepest recesses of his consciousness.
I couldn’t help but mourn for Jo Hye-Jin.
Still, I smiled because I realized that the air around him had changed.
Kim Hyun-Sung was definitely aware of the fact that this wasn’t where he belonged.
“Y-You’re… still here. You’re… still here…” Kim Hyun-Sung muttered.
“...”
“Did you come to find me?” he asked.
“Because I knew you would be like this,” I told him.
“I must seem… pretty untrustworthy,” he commented.
“Not at all,” I said.
“Are you okay now?” he asked.
“You can say that I’m kind of in a dangerous situation right now, and coming here was like gambling for me,” I replied.
“I must’ve acted disgracefully,” he said.
“I understand,” I said.
“I’m sorry,” he apologized.
“No need to apologize,” I told him.
“...”
“No one has ever told you to take responsibility, and no one has any right to tell you that. I understand that people’s expectations can feel a bit burdensome sometimes and that it’s difficult to endure things when they’re too heavy to bear. There’s no need to feel stressed all by yourself. We can carry the weight together,” I explained.
‘That was a nice line…’
I started to feel motivated. I cringed for a moment, but so what?
I didn’t care as long as it would work on him.
I wasn’t sure why Kim Hyun-Sung cherished me so much, but if I had to find a reason, it was probably because of this…
“I’ll take responsibility,” I said.
It was probably because I had never forced him to take responsibility or carry any burden.
At last, I could finally see Kim Hyun-Sung’s genuine smile.
He grabbed my hand and stood up.
‘Now, Lonovera. I think this is the right time! Do it now. Right now! Damn it!’
The red sunset was no longer shining on us.
“It’ll be difficult to understand, but…” Kim Hyun-Sung paused.
“Yes?”
“Up until now, I thought the view I was looking at was the sunset. However, the sun doesn’t exist here, so the red sunset was just in my mind, and I kept on believing it,” he continued.
‘Our Hyun-Sung is sentimental…’
“But… that doesn’t seem to be the case,” he added.
The red sky would appear during sunset and sunrise. Normally, the sun would rise from the east and set in the west, but there was no way a ruined world like this would follow that kind of law.
Anyway, the Dark World version of Kim Hyun-Sung seemed like he didn’t expect that phenomenon to happen during sunrise, but his thoughts weren’t strange. Who would look at that and think that the sun was rising?
Well, it could be the case as long as that person was used to seeing a cursed red light during sunrise in their own world.
‘Actually, there’s a chance that the sun never rose again once the world in his first life was ruined.’
I was satisfied seeing him looking at the light that was shining on his face, but for some reason, I started to feel bad because Lonovera had created that phenomenon.
‘The truth isn’t important.’
His emotions were more important than anything else.
I squinted at the bursting light, and the damaged buildings started to collapse one by one. The light started to spread as if it was going to completely destroy the burdens in Kim Hyun-Sung’s heart by completely erasing the traces of his past life in his consciousness.
Of course, this was all part of the play, but it was honestly a sight to see.
I actually couldn’t help but think that this show would help him shake off a bit of the burden in his heart.
Amidst all this, he started marching toward the light.
I could see dark hands trying to hold him back by grabbing him in places that the light couldn’t touch just yet, but Kim Hyun-Sung ignored them and continued walking in silence.
Eventually, he threw himself into the fake light while holding my hand.
Seeing that, I knew that it was time to wrap this up, so I let go of his hand.
However, he actually turned around and stared at me in confusion.
“I can’t leave this place,” I told him.
“Ah…”
“Aside from me, there are people waiting for you out there,” I added.
‘Why is this guy hesitating? Get out of here.’
“B-But…” Kim Hyun-Sung stuttered.
‘This idiot. Are you really not going to leave? Just leave already.’
“But…”
‘Just leave, man.’
I pretended to be sad, but inside, I was feeling desperate.
Lonovera had to have realized that things were going wrong because she improvised by creating figures. She created a scene where Park Deok-Gu, Jung Ha-Yan, and the other guild members were reaching their hands out toward him.
‘This isn’t right, Director Lonovera. Ah, this is too cheesy… This isn’t some old-school cliche. This is…’
“Bro, hurry up and come out. We have to fight together!” Park Deok-Gu shouted courageously, but his line made me blush out of embarrassment.
“Hyun-Sung o-o-oppa… Hurry up and come back.”
It was Jung Ha-Yan, one of our original party members from the tutorial dungeon. I wasn’t sure if it was because they were created on a whim, but their expressions looked unnatural. It wasn’t just them—familiar people were all waiting for him.
“Guild Master.”
“Oppa.”
“Mr. Hyun-Sung.”
The three heroines who had suffered a total of thirty-eight defeats.
Ahn Ki-Mo, Sun Hee-Young, Hwang Jung-Yeon, and the rookies.
The people he had established connections with—from the Sacred Democratic Country to the Republic—each and every one of those people were there.
In addition…
‘Why is she here?’
Lee Ki-Yeon was smiling at him as well.
The sight made me realize that Lonovera had gotten desperate, and I couldn’t help but feel a bit nervous.
‘You think something like this will work?’
She was ruining my plan.
I was worried that Kim Hyun-Sung would notice the incongruity.
“M-Mr. Hyun-Sung, you’re… you’re not… alone.”
In the end, I had no choice but to participate in Lonovera’s cheesy play, which caused me to mess up my line.
However, Kim Hyun-Sung became emotional when he heard me, so it was clear that he still hadn’t realized that all this was fake. He was the protagonist of this play, so he probably didn’t think that all this was cheesy and cringey.
To make things worse, the words he said were words that a typical protagonist would say, and hearing his words made me bite my lips.
“Right. I’m not alone… right now.”
‘Damn it… it’s a miracle.’
Of course, the sight in front of me wasn’t actually a miracle.
The true miracle here was how Kim Hyun-Sung had fallen for this cheap production.
I sighed in relief, and I tapped his chest with my fist.
“I’m sure we’ll meet again. And…” I trailed off.
“Yes?”
“I trust you,” I continued.
“Yes, no matter what, we’ll meet again,” he said.
He smiled brightly and threw himself into the light.
He looked the happiest he had ever been as he threw himself into the light.
Left alone, I clenched my fists. A small issue occurred by the end of the play, but the awakening cliche was done to near perfection.
“Pffft! Heh… Hahahahaha!”
I laughed unknowingly after imagining something fun.
“Let’s gooo! To El Dorado—the city of gold…!”
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