Chapter 113 |
If the timid Kang Mina had one thing to be proud of, it was her perceptiveness, her uncanny ability to read the room. And so, immediately after arriving in this world, Kang Mina realized that something was terribly wrong with her surroundings.
Her coworker, who she used to have lunch with, seemed to have lost his mind. The flower shop owner, who she’d thought was normal, exuded a disturbing, unsettling aura. Kwon Yeonhee, who had always been so cheerful, was becoming increasingly stiff. And one of her team members, a doctor, kept smiling from a distance for some reason.
The most striking of all, however, was none other than Manager Lee Jaehun.
“I’ve been to this world several times.”
He’d called everyone together, saying he had something to tell them, and then blurted that out.
“If my memory serves me right, about five times. The first time was when I was at least eleven, I think.”
“…Yes?”
“To be honest, I don’t remember everything clearly.”
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Well. To be honest, she had thought something was off. At least the grumpy department manager that she and the others remembered was a facade. Kang Mina wasn’t s*upid enough to not notice, and Lee Jaehun’s unsettling aura was too thick to ignore.
So, she was curious. Why was this person so calm? How could he be so composed? And why did he put up an act before?
But, what? He’d been here before?
“…”
“…I know it is absurd and ridiculous to say now… but I thought I should let you all know. Some of you already knew.”
“Uh…”
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Five times? Since he was eleven?
He then went on about rules and sequences and other things, but honestly, everything after that went in one ear and out the other. It was almost ludicrous that all this information was gained through Lee Jaeheun’s blood and broken bones. Kang Mina’s mind was too overwhelmed to process it all at once.
Until now, Lee Jaehun had been a respectable adult in Kang Mina’s eyes. Well, not entirely respectable, but at least in the sense that he could take responsibility for others besides himself.
That led her to a question.
‘…Then, who protected him?’
It was a scream disguised as a question.
Manager Lee Jaehun had a childhood too. A time when he was much younger and weaker than the two students who had spent the night with her. Who could have possibly protected him then? Who was by his side as he became so broken?
Who broke him?
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“And what else… Ah, the green algae monster. When I was being chased by that green monster, I managed to meet a police officer. Her name is Kim Yeonwoo, one of the survivors in the other group.”
“Was the first aid you received back then also given by that person?”
“No, it was given by an elderly woman, also in that group.”
“Ah…”
“Thanks to her, I didn’t dⁱㅌ.”
His face was as calm as ever, even as he spoke of death.
“…”
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Shouldn’t he have grown into a different kind of adult?
He was kind, even if not entirely healthy. The results weren’t bad, even if the process wasn’t good. But if all of this was eating away at Lee Jaehun, shouldn’t it be stopped?
That thought suddenly crossed her mind, but Kang Mina couldn’t bring herself to voice her frustration.
Lee Jaehun was already an adult, had already taken too much responsibility, and had already firmly established his beliefs. Kang Mina, a mere subordinate, couldn’t possibly challenge that.
“Are you and I the same?”
“…What do you mean?”
“Well, even if I dⁱㅌ…”
Even after hearing such repulsive words.
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“…”
“…Ah…”
Kang Mina felt like crying a little.
It wasn’t Lee Jaehun who was repulsive. It was the entire environment that had instilled such a mindset in this kind and good person that Kang Mina found repulsive and abhorrent.
And…
“…Am I, the same?”
After all, she was also one of those who had disliked ‘Lee Jaehun.’
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He hadn’t explained why he put on that act, but Kang Mina understood him. He had essentially lied to them, so he might have felt embarrassed after revealing the truth. Even Kang Mina’s limited experience allowed her to understand that much.
But before that? Before they were dropped here. Before they were almost eaten. They constantly criticized and scorned Manager Lee Jaehun. They even insulted him, saying he was an incompetent parachute, oblivious to their mockery. Kang Mina hadn’t joined in, but she had silently agreed.
What must Manager Lee Jaehun have thought while watching them?
“…”
…Couldn’t he have been hurt?
“I misspoke.”
Even after hearing Lee Jaehun’s apology, Kang Mina couldn’t bring herself to speak.
Monsters trying to kill everyone. The white sky driving her insane. A handful of unlucky people trapped in this world, and Manager Lee Jaehun’s facade. A body constantly on the verge of death and a patient who never rested. A terrible self-sacrificing spirit. Twisted beliefs.
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A murderous intent that arose regardless of his will.
‘…Isn’t this too much?’
If it was her, she wouldn’t want to live.
Yes, it felt like the whole world was looking at him and telling him to just dⁱㅌ. As if echoing Lee Jaehun’s own perception, the world seemed to say, With your useless, sickly body, you no longer have any practical value. You were raised as a tool, and you accepted that. So dⁱㅌ, without burdening anyone.
Moreover, he was injured this badly trying to save them. And now, he was in a state where he could snap and kill someone at any moment. And all of this was because of the monster that tried to hurt them.
The monster, yes. That green algae monster…
“…”
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Why didn’t he come back to them right away that day?
“…Unnie, are you okay?”
“I’m okay.”
Feeling the warmth reaching her, Kang Mina smiled faintly. It was a surprisingly natural reaction, but the revulsion that clawed at the back of her neck was overwhelming.
Manager Lee Jaehun had been dragged away by the monster while checking the surroundings with Jung Inho. He somehow managed to escape. In the process, he coughed up blood and simultaneously developed the urge to kill. He then escaped and met the police officer, Kim Yeonwoo, and survived.
That period of time must have been incredibly long.
“…”
And the world called this being the ‘bait’.
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How ridiculous.
“…I’m not trying to advocate some idealistic notion that all life should be respected.”
“…”
“I just want to say, you shouldn’t dⁱㅌ, Manager.”
Jung Inho seemed to be trying to fix Manager Lee Jaehun’s twisted thinking, but Kang Mina was skeptical. And Jung Inho seemed to know that too. Perhaps he was just venting his frustration.
And in the end, Lee Jaehun didn’t understand what he was saying.
“Why am I wrong?”
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“…”
“I saved everyone here with just myself, and I’m not even dead yet.”
Then, with an arrogant look, he said,
“I think this is a situation that calls for admiration, wouldn’t you say?”
Even though it wasn’t that kind of situation at all.
Kang Mina suddenly felt the urge to hit him on the back, but even with her meager strength, she felt like she might kill him in his current state, so she refrained. She just rubbed her face roughly and fiddled with the hammer in her hand.
She wanted to ask him where he’d learned such twisted things. She wanted to yell at him. Why, at his age, did he have such contradictory and messed-up thoughts? What had he seen and experienced while growing up to make him this way?
Was his sense of self-worth truly this low?
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“…”
How did things end up like this…?
Perhaps he had put on the act of a grumpy old manager to avoid getting hurt. As someone who could dⁱㅌ at any moment, maybe he didn’t want to leave a trace of his ‘true’ self. Or maybe his parents had instilled these strange values in him since childhood, long before he came to this otherworld.
After enduring it all for so long, Lee Jaehun finally gave them the last piece of information: That the people outside this world were going about their lives, oblivious to their absence.
“Then…”
Kang Mina couldn’t hold back any longer.
“What about you, Manager?”
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“…Me?”
“For you, it must have been like that all along.”
At those words, Lee Jaehun looked at her with an expression that suggested he didn’t quite understand what she meant.
It was truly miserable. No one noticed his disappearance, and this had happened repeatedly, to the point where Lee Jaehun had adapted to it. He felt that all this unfairness he was subjected to was perfectly normal.
It was so absurd.
“No one would have noticed you were gone.”
“…”
It was horrifying.
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Unlike Kang Mina, Lee Jaehun was a man prepared to dⁱㅌ.
The whole world seemed to want him dead. In reality, many people wished for Manager Lee Jaehun to disappear, and in this otherworld, both the world and he himself wished for his death. He was the kind of person who would willingly dⁱㅌ if Kang Mina pointed a finger at him and told him to.
‘…Does he think we’ll just turn away after he tells us this?’
That was impossible.
In the end, she was a shameless fool who couldn’t do anything.
They needed him, after all. They relied on him for so much, both materially and emotionally, but Lee Jaehun seemed to only recognize the former. He acted as if everyone in the world should hate him.
Because there was a time when it was true. A time when they truly hated him.
“…For now, shouldn’t we meet those people? The police officers who you met, sir.”
“…”
“I’d like to at least say hello to them.”
Clinging to this was all she could do.
In the end, she was someone who couldn’t take responsibility for anything.
* * *
Sensing something odd in Kang Mina’s reaction, Lee Jaehun frowned. Watching him, Ha Sungyoon raised a hand and touched his earlobe. A smile was still plastered on his face.
However, his gaze—
“…….”
—was fixed on Lee Jaehun’s neck.
A neck mangled as if chewed up and swallowed by a monster, one eyeball mysteriously missing, and a leg bent at an unnatural angle. A grotesque corpse that looked as if the entire body had been soaked in blood.
Looking at this bizarre form of Lee Jaehun, Ha Sungyoon felt a strange, inexplicable familiarity. Even when he had volunteered in war zones, he had never seen a corpse in such a state. It was even more absurd to see such a thing while looking at the living Lee Jaehun.
Due to the discrepancy in the visual information received by each eye, Ha Sungyoon blinked rapidly a couple of times.
‘…But I’m seeing it.’
Or rather, it felt more like he was being shown it.
Ha Sungyoon knew exactly what he wanted. There was a reason, a purpose, for him to immerse himself in this world. What his eyes, resembling the glassy surface of a small lake, had shown him was nothing other than a corpse that seemed to have just dⁱㅌd.
‘Why did I have to see this…?’
But it vanished with a single blink.
“Me too.”
“…….”
“…I agree.”
Ha Sungyoon simply smiled.
“Let’s go see them.”
It was, without a doubt, what he did best.