Waiting For Your Reincarnation Chapter 102

With his help, Yeon-young made it to the shelter safely.

 

The Snarl invasion continued until the next day.

 

When the phantoms from the other branches joined the first branch, the Snarl army decided to retreat.

 

The fields and pillars of Iris were defended by the efforts of the spirits.

 

Zhaolin returned to the shelter with a grim face and broke the news to Yeon-young.

 

Yeon-young looked down at Ryu Won, unable to hide her distress.

 

The aftermath of Snarl’s invasion had completely paralyzed the emergency room system, forcing Ryu Won to set up shop at home to continue his treatment.

 

“Mr. Ryu Won…”

 

“…….”

 

Her clear voice echoed through the room.

 

Luckily, his damaged core had been mended with the Sly’s powder.

 

The emergency team checking on him assured her that he would wake up soon, but he didn’t regain consciousness until a day later.

 

Yeon-young stretched out her index finger and pressed down on his cheek.

 

She thought he would open one eye at any moment, revealing his white pupils and telling her it was a joke, but he never woke up.

 

Pulling on her uniform coat, she slowly approached Ryu Won and took his hand in hers. His hand was lukewarm.

 

Anxiety surged in her chest at the thought of his warmth gone.

 

“Ryu Won.”

 

Yeon-young repeated his name over and over again, out of habit. Then, without realizing it, she dug into his memory.

 

She continued to follow his tracks through Ryu Won’s memories. She stared at his beaming smile for a long, long time, as if she could imprint it.

 

“What are you doing?”

 

As she stared at his brilliant smile, she suddenly felt a sinking feeling. She desperately realized that this was only a memory, not reality.

 

She concentrated, trying to pull herself out of his memory.

 

“Iris.”

 

A voice called out from the space of his memory, calling for Iris.

 

Yeon-young spun around, and all she could see was the library on a field.

 

But it was a voice she recognized from her memories.

 

She took a step toward Ryu Won’s memory.

 

“Iris.”

 

The voice called out to her once more. As she turned in the direction of the voice, a memory unfolded.

 

Ryu Won was sitting in front of a glistening ocean. His blond hair, shining like the sun, swayed wildly in the breeze.

 

Ryu Won looked a little tired.

 

He clutched something in his hand and stared blankly at the sea. A faint glow emanated from his clenched fist.

 

He stuffed it into his pants pocket and took out a piece of paper and a pen. Placing the paper on the sand, Ryu Won began to scribble something down.

 

Yeon-young moved closer to him and glanced at the paper. When she saw what it said, she had to cover her mouth with both hands.

 

[To Iris]

 

A familiar beginning and style. She had seen this before, in the book in Jaeho’s lab.

 

The sentence began with a call to Iris.

 

After writing her name on the paper, Ryu Won stared at it for a long time. It was like he was staring at something very precious.

 

He picked up the pen again to write the next sentence, but time passed and he still couldn’t write anything other than the name.

 

He gripped the pen hard enough to make the veins on the back of his hand stand out, but that was it.

 

He laid the pen down on the sand and looked longingly at the name Iris.

 

Ryu Won brushed his lips over the paper and closed his eyes. Then he spoke in a voice so small it was lost in the waves.

 

“Iris.”

 

He called her. It sounded like the languid voice in Yeon-young’s memory.

 

Ryu Won already knew who she was.

 

When he realized it, the space in his memory shattered into shards.

 

Yeon-young still held Ryu Won’s hand. She gently laid his hand down on the quilt and blinked slowly.

 

“I know who Iris is…”

 

He said her name so carefully, so softly, as if it might break.

 

Hearing his voice say Iris’s name made her blood run cold all over her body.

 

‘Why was Ryu Won calling Iris, the source of this world, so desperately?’

 

‘Why did that voice appear in his memories?’

 

Sitting still on the side of the bed, she came to a conclusion.

 

“…Could it be me?”

 

It suddenly occurred to her.

 

Ryu Won existed alongside Iris, the source of this world.

 

The voice calling out to her like a lover.

 

The way he urged Yeon-young to love him when she returned to this place.

 

His secret is that he knows everything but can’t tell her.

 

And Iris, who is being punished by God.

 

If Yeon-young is Iris, then everything that is happening now is explained at once.

 

Pivotal.

 

Just then, Yeon-young’s bracelet beeped. It was a reminder to attend a regular meeting.

 

She sat up, looked at his sleeping face, and stroked his soft, white hair.

 

The clues to her share were starting to come together.

 

* * *

 

Yeon-young let out a small sigh as she went to the conference room after receiving Zhaolin’s call.

 

The room had been bustling with spirits, and now it was just them.

 

He looked at Yeon-young and greeted her with a wave. She returned the greeting with a single nod of her head.

 

When Yeon-young entered the room, Zhaolin immediately turned on the video from the other branch.

 

It was about the strange behavior of the spirits she’d encountered in the emergency room.

 

“There are spirits who complain of headaches and snarlization even though they haven’t had any contact with the snarl,” she said.

 

“I’ve seen it myself in the ER, those…, the spirits I kept separated in the emergency exit portal.”

 

“Yes, I checked right away, but you must be mistaken, those souls were all examined and none of them had advanced snarling.”

 

“Well…, I nuked them at the beginning of the progression and they came back to normal…”

 

“Did you do anything else like that?”

 

“…I’m sorry. I was sure of something…”

 

Zhaolin rubbed her index finger and thumb between her brows. Yeon-young checked the image on the table.

 

The spirits were clutching their heads with both hands, complaining of headaches, and gradually becoming Snarls.

 

Each time they became a snarl, they repeated the same word, differently, but the same.

 

“Could it be mind control?”

 

“Most likely, yes. It would take brainwashing to convince me that the entire Snarl has a single purpose.”

 

Yeon-young thought about Daeheon’s abilities.

 

The day she’d been kidnapped in the dark warehouse, he’d tried to disrupt and manipulate the minds of the spirits.

 

With him at the head of Negro, it wasn’t impossible.

 

“How does he control so many spirits? It’s so far away… Was Lee Daeheon’s ability that great?”

 

“First of all, we don’t have any information about Lee Daeheon’s abilities in the spirit realm, but no matter how great his abilities are, it would be impossible for him to control so many souls without any medium.”

 

“A medium… We need to find out what that is.”

 

At Yeon-young’s words, Zhaolin nodded once in agreement. As Yeon-young thought about the medium, she suddenly felt puzzled and looked around.

 

Jung Jaeho still hadn’t shown up for the meeting.

 

She hadn’t heard from him since he saved her life in the emergency room.

 

“Ms. Zhaolin, where is Jung Jaeho? I haven’t seen him in a while.”

 

“You haven’t heard from him?”

 

“What? I haven’t heard anything… Did something happen to him in the meantime?”

 

“He went missing.”

 

“Missing?”

 

“No trace of him since he left the emergency room, though I’m focusing on disappearance rather than vanishing since it’s been a while…”

 

Zhaolin trailed off uncharacteristically. Her survival seemed uncertain.

 

Yeon-young thought back to the last time she’d seen Jaeho.

 

There had been as many Snarls as there had been when Ryu Won had arrived at Branch 1, and yet Jaeho had pushed her toward the shelter.

 

Yeon-young squeezed her eyes shut and opened them.

 

It was then that she realized she shouldn’t have left Jaeho like that.

 

Zhaolin stared blankly for a moment, as if reading her mind, and then slowly spoke.

 

“First, we’ll look for the other branch employees who were dispatched in case of a secondary invasion, so please keep your wits about you.”

 

“…Okay.”

 

Zhaolin retrieved the cube from the table. There was a moment of silence in the room.

 

She removed her hands from inside her uniform coat and continued.

 

“But no matter how I think about it, it’s still a little strange.”

 

“What, what’s odd about it?”

 

“The more I put together the events of this break-in, the more I see only one clear conclusion.”

 

Yeon-young stared into Zhaolin’s sunset-colored eyes as if asking what that was.

 

Zhaolin fiddled with her amber necklace, never breaking her gaze.

 

“I think we have a spy among us.”