The Jelly Alien Will Save You! Chapter 71

“<Squishy Squishy! Planetmon!>?”

 

“…?!”

 

My jaw dropped wide open.

 

Meanwhile, Jaehee Oppa looked me up and down with his characteristic gloomy yet expressionless face.

 

“Our youngest is as cute as ever.”

 

He spoke as if it were truly nothing out of the ordinary, then asked:

 

“Where’s Kyeol?”

 

“H-here….”

 

When I lifted up the flapjack octopus, Kyeol Oppa waved his tentacles in greeting. 

 

Jaehee Oppa nodded his head. 

 

“He’s gotten fat.” 

 

Opening his eyes into triangle shapes, the flapjack octopus launched his tentacles. 

 

At that, Jaehee Oppa tilted his head to dodge as he spoke: 

 

“I’ll go wash up first. I’m covered in dust right now, and you shouldn’t breathe in dust. Is the bathroom over there?”

 

Jaehee Oppa pointed toward the bathroom.

 

“Mhm….”

 

Jaehee Oppa didn’t even seem surprised that I had become an alien from a video game.

 

No matter how nonchalant and extraordinary Jaehee Oppa could be, how could he act like this? He wasn’t even going to ask why Oppa and I were in this state? Why was I the only one surprised in this situation?!

 

“Dam-ah, you’re not going anywhere, right?”

 

“Mhm….”

 

“I’ll be out in a second.”

 

Jaehee Oppa looked slightly uneasy leaving me alone(?), but seeming to realize he couldn’t exactly take me into the bathroom with him, he soon turned around.

 

“…?”

 

Shane the hamster, who had flown up, rolled his eyes oddly.

 

Only then did I realize Shane was still there, and I told him to turn off the drone immediately.

 

When Shane wailed loudly, truly unwilling to turn it off this time, Oppa gave Shane’s rear a few sharp smacks with his tentacles.

 

In the end, Shane had no choice but to shut down the drone before taking any more hits.

 

After Jaehee Oppa finished washing up and came out, the initiation ceremony began with Bora Unnie waking up and bursting into tears.

 

Oh no. Unnie started crying.

 

“Jaehee Oppa, I’m so sorry. Uwahhhh!”

 

“You don’t need to apologize. The situation was completely understandable. If you keep apologizing, it actually makes me feel more uncomfortable. So stop crying.” 

 

Jaehee Oppa patted Bora Unnie’s shoulder. At that, Bora Unnie sniffled, drawing in a sharp breath through her nose, and stopped crying.

 

Oh, she stopped right away. 

 

Having finished that brief reunion with Bora Unnie, Jaehee Oppa spoke to Cha Haeeon, who had been standing blankly and watching the scene. 

 

“Same goes for you, Haeeon. The circumstances justified it, so we can just understand each other and move on, right?”

 

“Let’s do that.” 

 

“It’s good to see you again.” 

 

“Yes.”

 

Having answered bluntly, Cha Haeeon, who was on breakfast duty today, went to cook the ramen.

 

With the situation settled in an instant, I could only watch with my mouth agape.

 

I had imagined us explaining everything to a bewildered Jaehee Oppa, but far from it, he was the one comforting us instead.

 

Trotting with squeak-squeak sounds, I followed right behind Jaehee Oppa as he offered greetings to Captain Gong Juwon. 

 

Having finished his greetings, Jaehee Oppa moved to scoop me up, then hesitated.

 

“There’s too much dust on my clothes, so I can’t hold you.”

 

“It’s okay. I don’t hurt at all now!” 

 

When I reached out both arms, Oppa picked me up and said worriedly:

 

“Still, you never know. If you feel like you’re in pain, let me know.” 

 

“Uh-huh. But Jaehee Oppa, do you remember everything that happened?” 

 

Jaehee Oppa rolled his eyes thoughtfully.

 

“Hmm, only in scattered bits and pieces when my mind cleared up a little?”

 

“…!”

 

If so, I had many questions to ask, but we decided to eat breakfast first before talking. 

 

Jaehee Oppa joked that ‘it would taste good if we put octopus in the ramen,’ got smacked once by the flapjack octopus with a tentacle, and then finished off two bowls of ramen by himself. 

 

For someone who normally didn’t care much for eating, he ate with such gusto that it felt like watching a ramen commercial.

 

We watched dumbfoundedly as Jaehee Oppa gulped down even the broth in the blink of an eye.

 

“Haa….”

 

Letting out a long breath, Jaehee Oppa set his bowl down.

“Where is the yellow hazmat suit’s headquarters? Is it inside the contaminated zone?”

Then, after wiping his mouth, he spoke.

 

“Questions, anyone?”

 

Everyone raised their hands at the same time.

 

“Where is the yellow hazmat suit’s headquarters? Is it inside the contaminated zone?” 

 

“Oppa, how did you end up getting controlled by the yellow hazmat suit?” 

 

“Are the others alive?”

 

“Jaehee Oppa! How did you know I was a character from <Squishy Squishy! Planetmon!>?”

 

At my question, everyone looked at me. What, why, what?

 

Meanwhile, Jaehee Oppa asked back, looking even more perplexed than anyone else.

 

“We played Planetmon together.”

 

“Th-that’s true.”

 

I nodded clumsily at the returned response. 

 

Jaehee Oppa had started playing the game around the same time I did.

 

Though he claimed he loved games too, I knew that in truth, he had carved out time from his busy schedule just to play with me.

 

Thinking about it that way, it would actually have been stranger if Jaehee Oppa hadn’t recognized that I was a character from Planetmon.

 

But not being freaked out by it was a completely different story, wasn’t it?

 

“But why weren’t you surprised?!”

 

Jaehee Oppa’s expressionless face turned toward me.

 

“Dam-ah, Oppa’s head was a goat until yesterday.” 

 

“Th-that makes sense!”

 

I lost.

 

Jaehee Oppa’s adaptability was genuinely terrifying.

 

Having knocked me out in a single blow, Jaehee Oppa moved on to the next question.

 

“Next, regarding the yellow hazmat suit….”

 

* * *

 

Woo Jaehee’s pale finger tapped against the low dining table.

 

Everyone watched him tensely.

 

“Bora, how much do you remember of the Yongsan Dungeon?”

 

“I’m not sure. I thought I was completely dead in the Yongsan Dungeon, but when I opened my eyes, I was on top of a building….”

 

“It’s similar for me.”

 

Nodding, Jaehee dredged up his memories and spoke.

 

His last memory was coughing up blood in the Yongsan Dungeon, stumbling toward Do Kyeol whose head had been severed.

 

He had wanted to support his friend’s collapsing body, if nothing else. That had been the end.

 

The monsters swarmed, dyeing his vision black, and after that…….

 

“When I woke up, I was no longer human.”

 

Though he spoke lightly, Jaehee vividly remembered the despair of that moment.

 

The place he had awakened in was an empty school in Yongsan.

 

Everyone had put their lives on the line, but in the end, they had failed.

 

A Dungeon Break erupted, and Yongsan was contaminated.

 

Although the civilians had been evacuated beforehand, there must have been countless casualties.

 

That realization plunged him into even deeper despair.

 

From time to time, he brooded over the deaths of his comrades, and the terror of losing his humanity visited him every waking moment.

 

A tangled knot of black thread grew larger inside his head. Contamination dyed him deeper and deeper.

 

He didn’t dare even think of escaping the contaminated zone.

 

Putting aside whether he even could get out of here—

 

What on earth could he tell Damie if he went outside? What could he tell the families of his other comrades?

 

And so, Jaehee had tried to die.

 

But ironically, the one who stopped him was the yellow hazmat suit.

 

He tried to die multiple times, but each attempt was thwarted by the yellow hazmat suit.

 

After that, held under the hypnotic suggestion of the yellow hazmat suit, he simply waited to be completely consumed by contamination.

 

Until they came to find him….

 

“Jaehee Oppa….”

 

Jaehee gently bumped his head against Damie’s head beside him.

 

Her round eyes were brimming with concern. Her face looked as if she were agonizing over what thoughts were running through his mind.

 

“It’s alright. Right now, I think it’s fortunate that I’m alive.”

 

It was humiliating and he hated himself, but even so……. 

 

“Thanks to our youngest, I was able to see everyone again.”

 

Only then did Damie begin to smile with relief.

 

My cute, pitiable little sister.

 

Jaehee lightly kissed Damie on the cheek.

 

It was then.

 

Bang!

 

Haeeon slammed his spoon onto the dining table.

 

Everyone’s eyes shifted to him.

 

“…My hand… slipped for a second.”