Chapter 56
Lee Hyun let out a rough breath. As if it were difficult for him to reach a decision, he kept his mouth shut for a long time.
There was 1 minute left.
Even so, I didn’t show any urgency. It was fine even if I couldn’t hear his answer right now. Lee Hyun wasn’t keeping his mouth shut to avoid it.
He showed the will to improve. On his own, he tried to think. He tried to reach an answer. The fact that he had come this far in just a single counseling session already meant he was doing well.
“……”
Another 30 seconds passed like that.
It wasn’t that I had given up on hearing his answer. I was just waiting.
When 15 seconds were left, Lee Hyun quietly opened his mouth.
“…No.”
He answered.
No.
That was not all of their choices that had been right. That was enough. Just because someone else makes decisions for me doesn’t mean those decisions are always correct or lead in a good direction.
“Yes. That’s enough.”
With my final words, the skill ended. That was enough. Truly, that alone was enough.
For now, he would inevitably look for someone to rely on. But even that one thought alone would momentarily put the brakes on blindly following someone else’s decisions.
“Is this the right choice?”
“Did that person make the correct decision?”
That kind of thinking.
That alone was sufficient. The seed I planted had sprouted; now I just had to wait for it to grow.
—
[Counseling ended]
—
Just like that, we returned to the inside of the car. I was still holding the towel, and Lee Hyun was still seated in the back seat.
For a moment, only the sound of breathing passed between us. Lee Hoin didn’t bother to break the silence.
Not much time had passed… It had only been about three minutes since the time I last saw.
‘Not great for combat use.’
It felt like entering some kind of super-ego space. Leaving the body behind here.
Last time, Cha Hyeongseo also just stood still for a moment, didn’t she?
If the body stays here, it’s meaningless. If your mind leaves and goes somewhere else, then your empty body is just a perfect sandbag.
With that thought, I let out a breath. I wiped the nosebleed that was still dripping down.
—
[Client ‘Lee Hyun’ has been recorded in the ‘Counseling Log’.]
[There are currently 2 clients in the ‘Counseling Log’.]
[You have completed counseling perfectly. Client Lee Hyun’s mental strength has changed.]
[Mental Strength 4 → 8]
—
…That increase is the largest so far.
Is it related to it changing from “successful” to “perfect”? At the very least, I felt that none of this had been pointless.
Lee Hyun exhaled deeply from the back seat.
It always takes time to fully internalize things. For him, and for me as well. Quietly, I organized the contents of the counseling session. And also the decision I had to make now.
—
[Chapter 8, Community ▼]
You have gained the opportunity to recruit a second companion!
Will you recruit Lee Hyun, or not?
[〉 Recruit.]
[〉 Do not recruit.]
—
If Lee Hyun came along, he would definitely be helpful. He could carry me and run for over ten minutes, and his shooting skills and raw strength were also useful.
However.
‘I shouldn’t take him along.’
For his sake.
I couldn’t recreate the same flow as the original story. It would only change the person he depended on. Of course, that would be beneficial for me. I would gain complete control of a card like Lee Hyun.
I knew that dependent personality disorder could transform into something called “perfect loyalty.”
—
[Wow. Just make a decision, and that perfect physique is yours indefinitely?]
[Slavery may have disappeared, but humans keep producing things like this while only removing the name ‘system’.]
—
…I didn’t want to easily equate it to slavery.
He entered my counseling room, and as long as he was my client, I couldn’t attach such words to him. I didn’t want to use him either. As a counselor, I didn’t want to exploit his weakness. No… in the first place, I didn’t even want to call it a weakness.
Giving a diagnosis to someone who comes to regain themselves isn’t a stigma; it’s a signpost to guide treatment. Calling that signpost a weakness would instead belittle them.
Mental illnesses are always spotlighted in a way that burdens the patients themselves. Their diagnoses are called weaknesses or used as words of contempt, and treatment is stigmatized as a silent red mark in society.
So at the very least, I must not call it that. Nor use it.
Right now, as his counselor, I want him to get better. I wanted his well-being.
“Mr. Lee Hyun.”
When I called him, he quietly lifted his head and looked at me through the rearview mirror. I still had the towel pressed to my bleeding nose.
“I’ll give you one assignment until the next time we meet.”
Letting him loose in the world without anything wouldn’t help his steps. So I gave him a goal in the form of a mission.
By saying “until next time,” I naturally implied there would be a next time, and that today’s meeting wasn’t the end. That parting wasn’t a severance.
“Write down at least ten things that you personally judge as right and ten as wrong. Among the things you’ve done, what was right and what was wrong? What you shouldn’t have done. Why do you regret it? In what ways it was wrong, and in what ways it might have been right. Be detailed.”
If he lacked a sense of self, then he could slowly build it by engaging in actions that help form one.
If he had skipped the things one learns as a child and reached adulthood, then he could simply go back and learn them step by step.
Some people might complain about how simply I put it, but things like this need to be said simply. That’s not difficult. Overcoming it isn’t something impossible… it just takes time.
Because that belief is necessary. Running down a long corridor with no visible exit is completely different from running toward one where you can see the door in the distance.
‘That’s my job, after all.’
If someone is walking blindfolded, saying they can’t see the exit, my job is to remove the blindfold and point them in the right direction.
—
[Your professional mindset is surprisingly strong.]
[But how have you never passed the final round even once?]
[Why did your counseling activities remain volunteer work instead of becoming a profession?]
[Do not become arrogant.]
—
Without even looking at the mocking window, I stared at Lee Hyun through the rearview mirror and waited for his answer.
He seemed to think about what I said for a moment.
“…What if something feels both right and wrong?”
“Then leave it as pending. Once you have ten clearly ‘right’ and ten clearly ‘wrong’ cases, that will be enough.”
Ten each. He seemed to count them in his head before nodding.
“…Understood.”
“If the pending ones exceed forty, just come see me. Then we’ll sort them out together.”
He nodded. Perhaps because he now had a clear goal, he didn’t hesitate. Quietly, he opened the door and stepped out.
“See you next time.”
“Yes.”
I watched him leave for a moment. Lee Hoin looked at him with a somewhat complicated expression.
“Is it okay to just let him go? He’d be really useful.”
Everyone needs a chance.
A chance to live as themselves.
I didn’t want to take that away.
“It’s fine. For now.”
Someday, there might come a time when I need Lee Hyun.
When that time comes, I can politely ask for his decision.
For now, just the two of us, Lee Hoin and I, were enough to get through this.
In fact, perhaps because we had done so much together, our coordination had become even smoother.
“…For now, let’s rest for a day.”
Quite a lot of time had already passed since the apocalypse began.
Inside events, time flows very differently from reality. It felt like about four days had passed, but in our world, time was moving even faster. Since each timeline uses a different speed, it was impossible to calculate an exact ratio.
Even in the time we were gone, our world continued rushing toward destruction. Aging. Dying.
That felt somewhat futile… and at the same time, draining.
What if, before I could reverse this apocalypse, I spent a month inside an event, only to return and find Earth completely aged and ruined?
—
[Chapter 9, Strategic Point ▼]
Now, it’s time to choose the next strategic point. Let’s move quickly.
[〉 Start the engine.]
[〉 Get out of the car and check the surroundings.]
[Already the second clear!]
[You can feel the acceleration of the apocalypse.]
—
No matter what, this apocalypse would continue to accelerate. Until the point where you couldn’t tell whether the ones who survived truly survived… or were just standing alone after everything else was destroyed.
—
[The empty spaces in the narrator’s world are becoming more prominent.]
[Perhaps other worlds may invade through those spaces…]
[Vroooom]
[Like a scene from a disaster movie, the sound of wheels rolling echoes through a ruined city.]
[The narrator is racing across the apocalypse.]
—
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