episode_0062

*****

I entered the world of a novel. I know the future of this world. There is almost nothing I don’t know here.

So, if it were me, I could make this world a little happier.

Because I am a hero.

There was a time quite a long time ago when I truly thought that way. No, I’m still thinking about it.

What has changed is confidence. It took several years to change from “I can,” to “I want to,” “I can,” and “I have to.”

Saved countless people. He was praised by the country, even being given the title of Four Heroes, and achieved achievements commensurate with it.

But how many failures and regrets were there behind it all? Nowadays, the number of people who know everything can be counted on one hand.

Junseok was also one of those failures. I don’t really want to think about the details. What is certain is that I killed his precious person and became painfully aware of my personal limitations once again.

“It wasn’t your fault.”

“… Were you awake?”

“Well, if you talk that loudly, you have no choice but to come to your senses even if you don’t like it.”

Sia makes a pouty face. Her hair, which would normally be tied up in two pieces, is loose, which feels a bit refreshing.

Whenever I talked or thought about Jun-seok, Sia always comforted me like that. I don’t know if it’s true or not.

And my answer to him was the same every time.

“Thank you for thinking that way, but──”

“Don’t tell Junseok, okay? I know, I know. If you’re going to be blunt about it, shouldn’t you have already said it? It’s been almost ten years.”

“That’s true too. Actually, I thought we might have already talked about it.”

You wouldn’t have known it when I was alive, but after I was dead, you wouldn’t have had to listen to my dissuasion. Sia must have sensed the gratitude mixed in with my words and nodded slightly before answering.

“I thought about that every time I saw his face, but every time, my senior’s words came to mind. There were some parts that I sympathized with my senior’s thoughts.”

“Yes. Thank you.”

Was it really the best, did I make the right decision? As someone who thinks like that, Sia’s words are quite comforting. At least, I think the judgment I made wasn’t entirely wrong.

On the other hand, I feel depressed because the victim, Jun-seok, seems to be trying to make himself comfortable even though he has not forgiven me. I don’t know if it’s a plus or a minus when combined, but a person’s mood is not expressed in numbers.

“Okay, that’s enough of that depressing thing.”

Clap clap, Sia’s applause raised my consciousness from falling deeper. I was wondering what to say, but for some reason, Sia got down from the bed and moved to the bed next to me.

In other words, he crawled into the bed I was in.

“You… .”

“Isn’t it a bit cold, perhaps because you shed too much blood?”

Sia, who made a ridiculous excuse, quickly managed to get under the blanket. If there wasn’t enough blood to feel the change in body temperature, the Doctor’s hair would have blown off before Sia’s.

Things like saying that girls shouldn’t cling to other people or asking the doctor to turn on the heater if it’s cold. There was a lot to talk about on my part as well.

But I moved my body slightly to the side to give Sia space to enter. After receiving my silent permission, Sia hugged my arm and came closer to me.

I didn’t drag Sia into bed with strict thoughts in mind. A life-threatening crisis, and the subsequent feeling of death. That cold sensation that sends shivers down one’s spine sharpens a person’s spirit.

Of course, Sia also had a lot of experience, so she had to overcome the danger of death several times. Every time, Sia would cling to me as if asking for human warmth.

Sia is much stronger than before, but this fundamental aspect has little to do with strength.

“You’ve become a lot softer, senior.”

“Silver.”

Unfortunately, there are some things that have changed significantly since then. In the past, I would have wondered if Sia’s head would touch her shoulder even if she leaned on the sofa. Right now, I feel like I’m slightly in Sia’s arms.

I feel a little anxious because the voice and breathing sound seems to be coming from right next to my ear. I turned my head to the other side for no reason and heard laughter again.

“Why are you all so embarrassed?”

“No, should I say it’s something close… .”

“Just holding on to the arm. Otherwise, are you having any strange thoughts, senior?”

Sia thinks it’s time to make fun of me. If you want to make me feel that way, bring me a chest three times that size. I tried to say, but I remembered the time when I was completely ignored for three days, and I barely held back.

In the first place, there was no way I would think like that, having even seen Sia when she was young. In the past, I would at least have a physiological reaction, so I would recite the Heart Sutra in my heart, but now there is nothing like that, so…

… huh?

A thought suddenly occurred to me and I turned my head towards Sia. Sia looked surprised, as if she hadn’t expected me to turn my head.

“!? Oh, I’d be surprised if you suddenly did that!”

I didn’t know you were that close either. It was closer than I thought, so I was really scared. However, it was a perfect situation to confirm what I was trying to find out, so I made eye contact with Sia.

“Seo, senior… ?”

There was something else I wanted to check, but it was kind of fun to just stare at Sia’s face. Sia’s eyes were constantly moving up, down, and sideways as she was so busy.

When I saw him biting his lip slightly, it looked like he was trying to say something, but all that came out of his mouth was a hot sigh.

“Ah… .”

For a moment I thought our eyes met. Sia opened her eyes slightly wide and closed them. Well, I was a little embarrassed to be staring at him too.

My arm was wrapped around Sia’s, and we were both covered in the same blanket. Their faces were less than a span apart, so their breaths could barely touch each other. Looking at Sia’s appearance with both eyes closed and her chin slightly protruding, both objectively and subjectively, it would be enough to be called a beautiful girl.

It’s a situation like a man’s utopia, where he naturally has to fight between accumulated anguish and feelings of self-destruction… .

“ugh… , senior… ?”

What can I say, I don’t agree with it.

No, I think she has a very pretty face. No matter how much I think of myself as a daughter, I am also a man, so I naturally become nervous when interacting with the opposite sex, and my heart rate is still quite high even now.

But what can I say, there is no feeling like my head is going blank due to my elevated heart rate rushing between my legs.

Of course, the disappearance of the object between my legs did not happen yesterday or today. However, after becoming in this body, this moment is the first time that I have been in a situation where I think, if I were a man, I would have been extremely excited.

Did you say that you only feel the emptiness of something precious when you lose it? It was something I couldn’t hope for, to stop harboring ugly lust for someone I was supposed to cherish and care for… . The feeling that filled my heart right now was a sense of emptiness and loss.

“… ?”

Sia, who had her eyes closed, slightly opened them and looked at me. Either way, I was deeply saddened by the realization that a close friend of mine for decades had passed away.

It’s still okay for now. Because I haven’t had anything to write about so far anyway. But what should I do if I meet the woman of destiny in the future?

It would be okay if I regained my original body quickly, but honestly, I’m not confident. At first she says she’s fine and doesn’t care, but there’s no guarantee that will last. In the end, the absence of my close friend was the beginning of a tragic catastrophe that led to the loss of the person of my destiny.

“… Senior?”

“Huh? Why?”

“What are you doing now?”

What should I answer about what I am doing? I used to feel bad when you treated me like this, but now that I’ve gotten into it, I realize that I don’t feel that blatant and I’m feeling depressed. Is it okay to say that?

Of course, I have no intention of getting caught for sexual harassment.

“I was considering the sense of loss that comes from the absence of existence.”

“… ???”

Even without mind-reading potential, it wasn’t difficult to guess Sia’s inner thoughts. Facial expressions sometimes convey more than words.

Unfortunately, I didn’t have the psychological space to argue at length about the fact that I wasn’t crazy. I turned my head to the ceiling again, and I heard a long, deep sigh that seemed to fall to the ends of the earth from next to me.

“Phew─… .”

“Yes, yes, life is meaningless.”

“Of course. I guess I’m a fool for relying on my seniors. Okay, give me an apple next to you. I’m hungry.”

“Do you have no hands or feet?”

Sigh. The hand that Sia took out from under the blanket had bandages wrapped around each finger. Yes, there are no hands.

I am not responsible for Sia becoming like that in the first place. Asking for Sia’s help was absolutely necessary, and I also saved her, but that doesn’t take away the fact that Sia almost died because of me.

Reflecting on that fact, I obediently reached to the side and picked up a piece of apple. I said, “Okay,” and handed it over to Sia, who once again showed me her bandaged hand from under the blanket.

“… What are you asking me to do?”

Instead of answering, Sia opened her mouth and said, “Ah.” The request for help from Sia is omitted below. Reflecting on that fact, I obediently brought the apple to Sia’s mouth.

The apple disappeared in an instant with a crunching sound. Is this how a mother bird feeding her baby birds feels?

“Ah─.”

Requesting a refill again. Sia, who had been glaring at me with a cold gaze just moments ago, was nowhere to be found.

When I saw Sia smiling with her mouth open, I unconsciously put another piece of apple into Sia’s mouth. Of course, he also disappeared in an instant.

“Wait a minute. It flowed a little.”

Because her posture was not upright, there was a little apple juice around Sia’s mouth. I tried wiping it off with my hand, but there was no tissue nearby. hmm… .

Naelum.

“!?”

“Oh, sorry. I guess it was a little dirty.”

“Oh, no. It’s not dirty. It’s okay.”

As I unconsciously licked my hand out of habit, Sia was extremely surprised. Well, even so, it was a bit dirty in front of the girl. They say we’re like family, but there are lines that need to be kept.

So, to properly dispose of it, I asked the doctor for a wet towel.

“Doctor, please bring me a wet towel.”

“!?!?”

“… Yes.”

In a corner of the room, the doctor rummaged through a drawer and took out a wet towel. Although that was all it did, Sia was startled and quickly returned to her bed.

“Uh, uhuhuh, when, since when?──”

“Since when? It’s been there from the beginning?”

The association’s VVIP hero became critically ill and was hospitalized. Of course, there is at least one medical staff stationed there. I could feel the professionalism of a medical professional as the doctor spends his time quietly helping the patient rest comfortably.

“You two get along really well.”

“It’s a bit embarrassing to say this, but we’re like family.”

“Are you family? family. haha. For your information, I ask: When was the last time you stayed with your blood-related family?”

A somewhat sudden question. However, I thought about it sincerely because it might be a question necessary for examination.

In this world, my parents died right after the great chaos occurred, so wasn’t it about 27 years ago? In terms of actual time, it would be about 20 years.

When I only talked about the time and not the details of my parents, the doctor nodded as if he understood and then turned his sharp gaze to Sia. As for Sia, her usual smirk had completely disappeared and her gaze was very trembling.

“This, this, that, so… .”

” Although individuals are free in how they contact each other… . Um, no. I think this is presumptuous meddling.”

“Ah, ahaha… .”

The Doctor pushing Sia is quite a valuable scene, but Sia has just entered a life-threatening struggle. Let’s take Sia’s side more here.

“Understand, Doctor. After fighting for your life, you tend to get a little anxious, in many ways.”

“Yes, definitely. Since I am also in charge of a hero, I try to pay attention to that aspect. However, the results of Mr. Sia’s mental examination were very problematic──”

“Ah! Well, come to think of it, I forgot to mention it. Director Lim, would you like to have a drink with Soyeon? Something good just arrived!”

“… great. However, it will still take a few more weeks for you to recover to the point where you can drink.”

If you’re looking for alcohol when you’ve only just been injured, this is a bit of a problem. It’s not that I hate alcohol, but I have to say something later as a senior and as a guardian.

“Isn’t it almost time for dinner? Doctor, do you want to eat dinner first?”

“No, seeing them making fun of each other right in front of me while I was working made me feel like my clothes were going to explode and I wouldn’t be able to eat anything. Oh, of course I’m talking about the drama.”

Perhaps it was because of his mood, but his tone seemed to convey infinite hatred and curse towards insiders.

If you’re going to be that damaged, you shouldn’t watch the drama. I tried to tell her that if I invested the time I was investing in the host bar into making a boyfriend, it would be quick, but my intuition was desperately ringing an alarm, so I stopped.

“I think I need to talk to the doctor too.”

“Really? Then I will eat alone.”

I don’t know if it’s about the drinking plan or my physical condition, but if that’s the case, there’s no need for me to stay. I got up and left the hospital room without any regrets.

“You look really happy. I haven’t been able to get off work for several days. I probably told you that you shouldn’t eat anything there.”

“Woah, there is a deep and wide situation here──”

I pushed the doctor’s nagging sound from the other side of the door out of my consciousness and walked towards the hospital cafeteria. Recently, I feel a strange sense of awkwardness, perhaps because I eat alone less often thanks to Raon and Sia.

There were a lot of messages piled up on my cell phone, which I picked up for the first time in a while. After giving a general status report, I accessed the Internet. The Internet article was also almost as expected.

[Broken Paladin’s shield. 38 Is this the second coming of the defensive nightmare?]

[The return of the Brain Emperor. What is the true meaning of the military general’s statement that his intentions are clearly visible?]

[Confirmation of entry of high-ranking Chinese politician. The Blue House denies it.]

[Team Galaxy, the history of its glory and downfall.]

Among the articles that were recently posted, I clicked on the article by Team Galaxy that caught my eye. Actually, I also wanted to read the article about China, but when I tried to go there, it said the article had been deleted, so I couldn’t read it properly.

Team Galaxy’s crime is violation of the National Security Act. If you get involved with Genesis, most people get caught up in that. Judging by the fact that there were no other charges, it seemed like they had decided to bury the case of human experimentation.

Well, even if we delve into the human experiment area, it is the government that is in trouble. Of course, I have no intention of just moving on. Just as Changhyuk is moving to screw the guys who set up the plan, I also have to do what I can—huh?

The finger that was scrolling naturally stopped. Even if I rubbed my eyes, I didn’t think I had seen anything wrong as the letters remained the same.

At the end of the article, the verdict of the Galaxy team members was written. Dumping Cat, imprisonment. Hatter, jail time. Steam Ryan, jail time. And last.

Ratchet Rabbit. Dead.

It felt like something cold was falling down my spine. I immediately scrolled up to check, but the reporter’s name was not written down.

Of course, that doesn’t mean there’s no way to check. I clicked on the article’s details tab to check the media outlet that published the article.

Long loading for a simple task. When I saw the sentence that appeared on the screen, I held my head for a moment and sent a message to Changhyuk.

[The article has been deleted for violating the Information and Communications Security Act.]

***

Jump and jump. There was a woman walking fearlessly among the ruins lined up in the suburbs.

He has long brown hair and a pair of rabbit ears on his head. The eyes shining in the shadow of the ruins engraved the image and then disappeared into the darkness of the ruins again.

Regardless, the woman’s steps did not stop. This is because she knows that among the scum living in the shadow of these ruins, there is no one that can threaten her.

No, there was exactly one person. It was when she reached that one person that the woman’s steps stopped. The head of the old man sitting on the bench looked up at her.

“Thank you for your hard work. But is it okay to go around like that?”

“I was told to stay like this until I come in contact with my grandfather… . Anyway, I’ll report it to you. Doppelganger, mission completed… .”

“Geomwi, confirmed.”

As soon as the old man──Jin Hao finished speaking, the woman’s entire body was engulfed in magical light. By the time the light disappeared, a small child who appeared to be either a girl or a boy appeared.

“Ah~, it’s finally over. That woman is needlessly introverted and negative. As expected, I like this lively age group.”

“It must not have been a very difficult mission for you.”

“That was a piece of cake. In fact, the parts I thought were difficult were solved easily and the parts I thought would be easy were difficult.”

A white-haired old man in black uniform and a small child in overalls. On the surface, they were nothing other than grandfather and grandson, but their conversation showed that they were equals.

“So. The narrow-eyed manager must have been so suspicious of me that my heart sank. How can someone who is not part of your family be so perceptive? If I didn’t have memories of this woman, I would have thought they were in a relationship like that.”

“Hehe. Isn’t there a lack of discipline in fairy tales? When this mission is over, how about sparring again?”

“Yuck. I’d rather take on a mission than practice fighting with my grandfather.”

After that, the doppelganger continued to talk about the mission. It seemed like the most difficult goal was to get the hero team to participate in the internship, but it was surprisingly easy to succeed, and the original Ratchet Rabbit lived alone without any connections, so the work was easy.

Knowing that this was the doppelganger’s own way of relieving stress, the sword demon continued to move along while cooperating appropriately. However, as the one-sided complaint turned into a question, the Sword Demon also had no choice but to become interested.

“Purpose, you mean?”

“Yes. What was the purpose of the client, the girl who is said to be the leader of the cult, for causing this incident?”

“It is not praiseworthy for a mercenary to be interested in useless matters.”

“This is why old people with hard thinking are not allowed. The leader said that only by understanding the situation in this way can you decide where to join.”

“There may be such views.”

Originally, the Sword Demon would not be willing to consider such things. However, the narrow-mindedness of ignoring the leader’s words based on age was also something that the Sword Demon did not have.

After gathering his thoughts for a moment, the Sword Demon opened his mouth to see what he could see.

“What is certain is that it was to obtain good luck.”

“Yes, I thought about that too.”

Please send one chick student team to a specific research lab. Considering the doppelganger’s ransom, it was something that could be said to be ridiculously trivial.

However, as a result, Yongin joined Genesis. The doppelganger didn’t know what happened inside the lab, but it wasn’t difficult to guess that there was something about the chicks.

“But to be honest, if you’re going to pay for hiring me, wouldn’t it be better to kidnap that chick team and present it to Yongin? Why did they use this spinning method?”

“Well… .”

The impact of this incident was significant. The general public sentiment in society became anxious, publicized Genesis’ capabilities, and even foreign countries such as China were taking action accordingly.

“You said that creating global chaos made it easier for Genesis to move?”

“I wonder who didn’t even think of that! And although it is certainly noisy, it is not that big of an impact considering that Yongin has appeared near the capital. If I had used this part, I would have used it more clearly.”

Since that also made sense, the Sword Demon kept his mouth shut. However, a swordsman is someone who has devoted his entire life to the sword. There was no way the Sword Demon could come up with something that his doppelganger, who mainly focused on espionage and operations, couldn’t come up with.

‘For me, the only goal would have been the fight itself.’

Overcome trials and become stronger. Although it was something that the Sword Demon himself did not wish for, he also understood that it was not a common sentiment. Even if the target was a dragon, the risk would have been so great that even the Sword Demon would have thought about it and attacked.

That is why the Sword Demon did not share his thoughts with his doppelganger.

“Rather than that, let’s think about a new mission. Isn’t this the manager’s job anyway?”

“Chet. I know everything. Are you trying to change the story because you don’t know? So, what is this mission? infiltration? Peacock? or not… . Replication?”

“It is a replication. In fact, there are people with outstanding abilities in infiltration and operations among the executives over there. It won’t be often that we get a chance to turn things around.”

“Did you say Lilith? But you and I are different types. That person is suited for long-term intelligence, and I am much more comfortable with short-term hit-and-run.”

Swish, swish, the coin in the doppelganger’s hand moved around. The one coin had suddenly increased to four and was nestled between the doppelganger’s fingers.

“Then let’s go! Please take care of the escort, Grandpa!”

“Hehe. It’s been a while since I’ve warmed up.”

After that conversation, the two disappeared into the shadows of the ruins.

And the eyes that were watching the two people also soon disappeared.

*****