Ch.195Somewhere (2)

# 195. Somewhere (2)

Suicide shortly after returning? That’s not just unhappy, it’s…?

“Why?”

“You already know a bit about Arang’s past from before. Her parents died in a traffic accident when she was young, and she practically lived in the hospital for a long time.”

“I know.”

“We were everything to Arang. And among us, Sunghyun, you were the most important.”

“No, but like you said, there were other raid members too…”

“Those other raid members weren’t doing well either.”

Even though it was just something that happened in Subin’s false world, the fact that everyone in the raid team ended up like that because of my death alone was… something.

“The plan to all live together in one house? It all fell apart. Without you as the center, everyone scattered.”

“…”

“When we get together, the first thing that comes to mind is the time spent in the Veritas raid team and the Tower. And then, naturally, we think of you. Someone we’ll never see again. So we couldn’t gather. We couldn’t comfort each other. Just hearing each other’s voices reminded us of you.”

Subin’s voice remained calm. But having spent quite a long time with her, I could barely notice. It was truly so sad that she never wanted to imagine it again.

“What about you? If it’s you, Subin, then maybe…”

“As the deputy raid leader, I tried of course, but I’m only human. If I hadn’t loved you, I might have tried to hold things together somehow, but I was struggling too. So, let’s forget it. Let’s just forget everything. That’s how it went.”

“Uh, um, yeah.”

“And some of them had PTSD on top of everything else.”

“PTSD?”

Ah. I think I understand…

“Going back and forth between life and death constantly, being on bloody battlefields, and then suddenly returning to a peaceful world where just carrying a weapon could get you arrested.”

“Among those few, please don’t tell me Yuri was one of them?”

“Correct. She was already sad about losing you, and then she developed PTSD too. Just when she thought she was barely holding it together, Arang committed suicide. But you can’t just swing an axe around when you’re angry or itching to do something. There’s no target for that. So she went insane.”

My chest feels heavy. Even though I know it’s an IF, it still affects me. Maybe it’s because this IF isn’t some far-fetched scenario but something detailed and plausible. Subin wasn’t done talking.

“Yehyun unni went crazy in a different way. She loved you, but the spirits were also incredibly precious to her. But when we returned, all her contracts with the spirits were severed.”

“Ah. That’s…”

“It was inevitable, of course it was inevitable. But for Yehyun unni, it was too cruel. You sacrificed yourself, the Veritas raid team collapsed, and then all the spirits disappeared completely. If Yuri went insane because she had to endure the changed laws and culture, then Yehyun unni…”

Putri, that bastard is truly vicious, isn’t he?

How could he force someone to see this? If someone had to experience it, it should have been me.

“And then there were Seyeon, Soyu unni, and me left. These three were relatively okay on the surface. Seyeon went back to school, Soyu unni started working again, and I just shut myself in at home. I had some money saved up.”

“Well… at least those three ended up somewhat okay.”

“I never said it ended there.”

“What?”

“Both Seyeon and Soyu unni ended up in prison.”

How could those two end up in prison?

“They both nearly got sexually assaulted around the same time…”

“What the fuck? Sexual assault?”

“They ended up killing their attackers and became murderers overnight.”

“No, this is such bullsh—”

“They fought back saying ‘don’t touch me with those filthy hands,’ and all their pent-up emotions exploded. They only hit the men a few times, but they died.”

While I thought those bastards deserved to die, it was a bit of a mystery how they died after just a few hits. Unless their stats were somehow preserved.

“What about legal defense?!”

“There was no evidence, and neither of them had the will to defend themselves. I spent a lot of money trying to help them, but in the end, they were imprisoned for murder. And me? Well, suddenly everyone I loved was either dead, insane, or in prison, so I rotted away alone in my room, drinking.”

That should be the end of the depressing story—

Subin stretched and looked at the raid members sleeping soundly.

“I think the other raid members probably had similar experiences. So it would be good to take some time to recover.”

“Yeah, we should. Just hearing your story made me feel like I was sinking into an abyss. I can’t imagine how desperate it must have been to actually experience it.”

The fact that they were able to have normal conversations in the reward room might have been because it was the reward room. Or maybe they could calmly move on like Subin did.

“Whether in the game or here, that fucking Putri bastard is the worst.”

“Agreed.”

I wiped the foreheads of the raid members with a cold, damp towel. Their expressions seemed to ease a bit.

Subin, who had been watching me, soon joined in, and one by one, the raid members who had been groaning or tossing and turning opened their eyes.

“Heh…”

“Ah…”

And as they woke up, they all looked around and sighed with relief.

Then they gulped down water, loosened their stiff bodies, and began sharing stories about the false worlds they had experienced.

Some had experienced IFs as desperate as Subin’s, and some had hopeful ones like mine, but those were just a small portion.

The conclusion converged on the fact that Putri had indeed come to cause trouble, and that might have affected our rewards too.

“So, what do we do now?”

“…Good question. We need something to prepare for. But there’s no message or anything.”

“Honestly, I thought something would happen once all of you woke up. Or at least we’d finish sharing our stories. But nothing’s changed.”

That’s how people are. They go crazy under constant pressure, but they also become restless when suddenly placed in an empty space with nothing.

We had just raided the boss Bonggaeag, hadn’t even had a chance to rest, then suffered Putri’s mischief, and now we were awkwardly resting in an unknown space that could change at any moment.

I wondered if other people would have been able to endure normally if they were here instead of us.

“Maybe there’s a portal or some gimmick here too.”

“In this space where you’d go insane just sitting still?”

“Even if there’s no gimmick, I don’t think there’s a portal… The view is so clear, and there’s not even a single obstacle, let alone a portal.”

“What should we do? Should we move? Or wait here longer?”

The raid members’ gazes turned to me. I’d been thinking about this since Subin and I were the only ones awake, but now that everyone was looking at me, I hesitated a bit about whether to say it.

“Looks like you’re thinking about something?”

“I am.”

“What is it?”

“Well, I was wondering if this place, or this situation, might also be Putri’s mischief.”

“Huh? You’re saying this is a false world too?”

“That’s absurd.”

Immediate objections poured in.

“Even though we’re all awake and aware?”

“Even if that’s the case, it’s strange. Right now, we’re in an empty space with no anomalies.”

“Are you talking about something like Matryoshka dolls or a brain in a vat? If we start thinking about those possibilities, there’s no end to it.”

This is why I hesitated to bring it up. Besides, I didn’t think the possibility was high either.

But if not this, I couldn’t think of any other meaningful possibilities.

“How is everyone’s physical condition?”

“I’m okay. Not at my best, but okay.”

“Me too.”

“Then, let’s recover a bit more and start moving. Just waiting indefinitely is death.”

The raid members agreed. So we set up tents, prepared meals, and took a proper rest. We didn’t even use Soyu unni’s healing.

“Wow… you’re really eating well despite everything.”

“We don’t know when something might happen, so we should eat while we can! Everyone, eat up and get your strength back.”

As more and more homely items were set up in the empty space…

*

“Well. These hu-mans are indeed in-ter-est-ing, aren’t they?”

A white mask with a grotesquely smiling face floated in the air as it spoke.

“Even though I just gave them a little poke, enduring in that space is no easy feat.”

Enduring?

Far from just enduring, they were eating meals and even lying down to rest. It took extraordinary mental strength.

“Of course, that was just a little taste I gave them then. Even considering that, their recovery is fast, which makes me a bit an-noy-ed.”

In truth, after finishing the conversation with Men-shima and arriving at the Tower, he had wanted to immediately spend some fun time with those humans.

But the restrictions Men-shima had imposed were beyond imagination. So he needed time to adapt, and revising all his existing plans took much longer than expected.

This being, who might be either male or female, showed no fear of being hunted down.

“Just wait a lit-tle, a ve-ry little while longer. Then you won’t have time to be bored or dull!”

After all, he was Putri, the demon of heat, who prioritized fun over winning or losing.