Chapter 144
“……”
“……”
A brief silence flowed.
When the lights came on, what was revealed was Sa Jaeheon, frozen in place with a dagger embedded in his forearm.
Instead of deflecting the attack or twisting his body to dodge at the last moment, it seemed he had simply raised his arm to block the blade that had been flying toward his neck.
He hadn’t realized it was aiming for his throat, but at least one of the blind daggers had done its job.
‘It stopped Sa Jaeheon.’
And then…
—
[It feels like the calm before a storm about to burst.]
—
I had become the target of hostility.
It was almost laughable to say that. They were the ones who attacked first, yet somehow it had turned into me being the one who pulled the trigger.
As if all of this were my fault.
—
[Well, if we had to pick who’d feel the most guilt in this space, it’d be the narrator’s side.]
[As if our protagonist would feel much guilt over hurting a person. The moment his safety is threatened, he’s the kind of great man who swings his sword first.]
[Anyway, that’s how it is. If the narrator doesn’t feel guilt either, then there’d be no blame in this situation.]
[In the end, isn’t everything about momentum?]
[If you’re standing there with a guilt-ridden face, of course, it’ll look like the narrator is in the wrong.]
—
Right. The point wasn’t about who was right or wrong.
Sa Jaeheon had tried to harm us anyway. This happened while defending against that. Even the best offense can be turned back into defense.
So the real point was elsewhere.
Sa Jaeheon had ‘recognized’ me, and was ‘regarding’ me as an enemy.
Even if not an outright enemy, then something dangerous.
Something to determine whether I could be ‘used.’ Or not. Whether I would become a tool or an enemy.
Just imagining all those calculations running through that head of his made mine ache.
Sa Jaeheon quietly straightened his body amid that stunned and wary silence.
Lee Hoin frowned and immediately raised his sword.
Reacting sensitively to even the smallest movement.
“……”
Sa Jaeheon remained silent for quite a while.
He didn’t look shocked. If he were, he wouldn’t already be doing what needed to be done… pulling the dagger out and immediately stopping the bleeding.
And all the while, he kept looking at me.
“You.”
One word. Just that single word.
At that, Lee Hoin stepped forward.
“…Who are you?”
A natural question, if anything. There’s no way I’d exist in that bastard’s database of several thousand years.
—
[No matter how much he racks his brain, something that doesn’t exist…]
[How could it be like this?]
[Is that the kind of question?]
—
Someone who has Lee Hoin with him, helped Cha Hyeongseo, can already use magic, albeit faintly at this point, and even manages to obtain and carry hidden items.
If someone like that had existed, they would have stood out at least once in the countless repeated lives.
And yet, across all that time, I had never once appeared before his eyes.
So in that bastard’s head, the irregulars he had encountered so far would be flashing by.
Irregulars.
Possessors. Dimension travelers. Reincarnators. Regressors.
Some were villains. Some were good.
Some could be used. Some could not.
‘No matter what ability they had.’
It was obvious… inside his head, I had already been categorized as an irregular.
If I had some kind of prophecy or intuition-related skill, then why had I never stood out until now?
—
A thoroughly nerve-wracking situation.
There was only one way to break out of this.
—
Sa Jaeheon always acted.
His small actions always changed the people around him.
For example, if Sa Jaeheon killed someone, then a person who was supposed to die later in that someone’s place would live.
With more time to live, they could accomplish something else or stand out distinctly in ways different from other timelines.
‘The most representative example.’
Was a character named Yoo Jichan.
If Sa Jaeheon killed “Yoo Jihyung” early on, then in another worldline, he would gain a title, be reborn as a hero, and later die.
If not, he would die early on.
He was the character with the greatest disparity.
‘Maybe if it were early in the regressions.’
But now, he had already gone through hundreds of regressions.
The novel had been serialized for thousands of chapters, and the Sa Jaeheon I knew had accumulated thousands of years.
That meant he must have made countless moves… and even he wouldn’t be able to immediately grasp what kind of butterfly effects his trivial actions had created.
After all, he was someone who stirred up Seoul every single time.
‘There’s no way he remembers all of it.’
How much could he remember?
As his mind spun furiously, mine spun just as hard.
In the end…
‘Denying it is the best option.’
He can’t see my traits or skills anyway.
So…
“Nam Muyeong,”
I answered.
—
[Oh, that’s practically a non-answer.]
—
Sa Jaeheon stared at me quietly.
With those dead eyes.
He was so expressionless that it was impossible to tell what he was thinking.
But one thing was clear…
It definitely wasn’t anything good.
Just as it seemed like Sa Jaeheon was about to say something more…
Kim Taekjin cut in at the perfect moment.
“There are injured people. Let’s stop.”
With an easygoing tone, he broke the tension and stepped into the lit area.
“I don’t think this is the time for this. Do you see that behind us?”
Kim Taekjin pointed behind us.
Something like a wall of flesh was slowly approaching.
Slowly, but unmistakably.
Ah, right.
Damn it, we were in the middle of an event.
“We should start moving forward.”
At that, Cha Hyeongseo frowned deeply.
Whatever was writhing toward us didn’t look pleasant at all.
In the end, Cha Hyeongseo, like Kim Taekjin, broke the tense atmosphere.
She smacked Sa Jaeheon on the back, telling him to stop, then pushed him forward while glancing at us.
Even as she was pushed a few times, Sa Jaeheon kept looking at me… before finally turning his head and walking off alone.
Kim Taekjin let out a deep breath in the remaining space and shrugged.
“Shall we go too? Good thing no one’s seriously hurt.”
The standoff had barely ended thanks to him.
Lee Hoin followed behind Kim Taekjin.
Far ahead, in the beam of light, Cha Hyeongseo’s back could be seen.
If we secured safety and followed the strategy I knew, we’d inevitably end up on the same path as Sa Jaeheon.
Whose strategy guide did I think I was using?
If we arrived late, there was a high chance that everything would already be looted.
So then…
“Lee Hoin, let’s split off. If we keep following them, it’ll just repeat the same thing.”
I muttered as I stood beside him.
There was a path.
If we had to take the same route anyway, it was better to go first and get what we could.
They’d grow more suspicious… but they already were.
At this point, I might as well go all in.
***
Lee Hoin kept running, cutting down the incoming chimera-like beasts with wide horizontal swings of his sword.
I stuck close behind, lighting the way with my phone flashlight.
Mana?
Long gone.
It would take time to recharge… and we didn’t have that time.
“Lee Hoin, the path!”
I shouted, illuminating a corner of the route as we ran.
Lee Hoin steadily cleared the way, I lit the path, and Kim Taekjin followed behind us…
A bit slower.
This path was filled with headache-inducing puzzles and waves like this.
A path Sa Jaeheon didn’t particularly like.
He preferred either just one of the two or even just continuous waves like this instead.
Bark! Bark! Bark!
Bark!!
Bark! Bark!!
With dog heads making those barking sounds…
From their feet came…
Thud, thud!
Clatter, clatter.
Their front legs had long claws, their hind legs struck the ground like hooves,
And from their rear, something like a snake writhed wildly, hissing toward the front.
Chimeras.
If they had proper names, I’d call them that… but the names that appeared when killing them were simply…
—
[You have slain ‘Chimera: Perfect Mutation.’]
—
That.
Either they weren’t a proper species, or the ‘third party’ who created them hadn’t given them names.
In other words, trash mobs.
‘Even those trash mobs are damn dangerous.’
Lee Hoin’s body was already covered in wounds.
We had chosen the dangerous path to take a shortcut, yes…
‘But if it keeps taking this much time…’
It might have been better to take a safer route.
I grabbed Kim Taekjin’s hand as he kept falling behind and pulled him forward in front of me.
“Ha… haha…”
Kim Taekjin let out a hollow laugh.
More like a sigh that came out sounding like one.
From the back, I was pushing, and damp and sticky flesh seeped through.
Even knowing he was pressing his wound constantly, I had no choice but to push.
“Ah, damn it…”
The faint composure that always lingered on Kim Taekjin’s face…
Was gone.
Lee Hoin knew that Kim Taekjin’s falling behind was putting us in danger.
And yet, not once did he suggest abandoning him.
Instead, after glancing at him a few times…
“Hey, I’ll carry him. You take the lead and clear the way.”
He chose a better option, one where we could ‘take him along.’
I ran ahead to the front and began cutting a path,
While Lee Hoin roughly grabbed Kim Taekjin and hoisted him over his shoulder.
If Sa Jaeheon saw this, what would he say?
‘An inefficient action.’
That all of this was inefficient… and at the same time, an act that threatened him.
He would have defined it that way and abandoned Kim Taekjin.
Whether he followed or not, he would have already gone far ahead.
That’s why we don’t match.
That’s why he and I don’t match.
You’re better off staying as a character in a story.
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