Chapter.5 Inside Out (5)
***
Woojin patted his knee and laughed heartily before continuing his explanation.
“A person’s inner self is revealed most dramatically when they face fear. “Professor, I don’t know what emotions you were just exchanging with that Hydran guy, but I was looking at something else.”
Woojin held the scalpel upside down and tapped the professor’s left hand with the handle
.
“Now look. The fingers that were complaining earlier are calm now, aren’t they? “Are your fingers moving normally now?”
The professor looked at his left hand, unable to hide his bewilderment. As Old Man Woojin said, after Hyde took it, my fingers, which had felt a little foreign every time I moved them, felt completely like their own.
“It means that the secondary personality, feeling a sense of crisis, hid behind the main personality. It means that he is relying on you. “At least for now.”
The professor looked at Woojin in bewilderment as he explained as if he was very proud. Blood was still flowing from the forehead where he had stabbed himself to come to his senses before his finger was cut off. With each drop of blood, the professor’s patience seemed to run out.
“Then the blood flowing from my face right now…”
“Oh, I’m a bit sorry about that. Professor Park, I didn’t know you would react so strongly. Um… it’s not that big of a wound, so I guess I could just apply some hemostat.”
“No, you’re blowing off people’s fingers. Is it okay to just say it was an act and say it was an act? In the wasteland, if you don’t have three fingers, you’re practically retired-”
“I never said it was completely acting, right? “Professor, if you were out of your mind until the end, of course I would have cut you off.”
Woojin said after roughly dabbing the ointment he took out of the drawer onto the forehead of the sighing professor.
“Isn’t it obvious? If it’s to the point where you can’t speak until your fingers are cut off, it means that the secondary personality that feels the crisis is not relying on the main personality, but is moving more fiercely to take over the body, and you, professor, are unable to shake it off. At least if you remove the sensory receptors he has, he will have no choice but to rely entirely on you, professor, for stimulation from outside. “You will naturally be able to take the initiative.”
The professor was about to say something but closed his mouth. Because Old Man Woojin’s serious eyes proved the fact that he was really going to cut off his finger.
Woojin
scribbled something on a piece of paper he took out of a drawer and handed it over to the professor.
“Now, here is the prescription. A tranquilizer, anti-inflammatory medication, and antibiotics that I always took with me. end.”
“Is this the end? “There’s nothing different from usual?”
“I told you. It’s not a problem that can be solved with medicine. “The way I see it, there is only one way to solve this problem.”
Percussion –
The professor swallowed his saliva as Young Master Woojin’s voice turned serious.
The sound of the pen being put down felt like a judge handing down a verdict to the professor’s ears.
“GG How to solve it in the game. It’s questionable whether it’s Gedreutz’s game or something, but one thing is certain: it was created with technology that can implant a new consciousness in people’s consciousness, just like you. If so, doesn’t that mean that on the other hand, we also have the technology to extract new consciousness from that consciousness? Well, the best way would be to achieve ‘all clear’, where the Dom guys hang themselves by hanging them on their bedside tables, and then go to the Gedreuts Company and grab that crazy old man by the collar and shake him.”
“Go to Gedreuts…? “What does that mean?”
“hmm? Ah, this is a fact that quite a few people haven’t noticed yet, right? I guarantee it. Andrey Gedroits The old man is alive. “One way or another.”
*** Professor
Woo Jin
was going up to the third floor of the hospital to get medicine and was thinking about his conversation with Young Master Woo Jin.
‘Andrei Gedroits is alive.’
This is a topic that many people have doubts about and that has been quite controversial in the community.
Old Man Woojin was confident about this.
‘Gedroits Company GG is the headquarters of the only online service of this era and the last remaining headquarters of Lost Technology. But everyone can only guess that the remnants of a great technological civilization are lying dormant, but they don’t know exactly what’s there, right?’
Young Master Woo Jin was reminiscing about the past with distant eyes.
‘Three years ago, before I opened this hospital, I received a job that marked the end of my mercenary career. Well, you probably heard it too. The Dome said that anyone who could find out the whereabouts of the Gedreuts Company would be given an amount of shillings that they could never use up in their lifetime. In my old days, I was active in the Great War and had a reputation as a mercenary, so I gathered quite a bit of information, but the only thing I found out about this Gedreuts Company was wave after wave of ghost stories.’
After that, Woojin told the story about the information he had discovered about Gedreuts Company. The designers and workers of the ‘secret bunker’ who disappeared without a single person left, including old items sold by GC on the endlessly produced drone exchange…..
‘If you think about it, they are people like us. The community and GG They don’t attack drones because they need to. For psycho gangsters and some scavengers who never think about tomorrow, drones are just a bunch of flying money. Just looking at the number of new rechargeable fuel cells being listed on the exchange, a significant number of drones are being hunted. I’ve never heard of a deal being delayed due to a lack of drones.’
Young Master Woo Jin gathered all of this information and came to one conclusion.
Gedreuts Company’s secret server room is not simply a place to extend the life of the game, but a huge facility equipped with all the infrastructure necessary for survival after destruction, and Andrey Gedreuts is proudly living and breathing inside the facility and observing the current situation.
“So Dom and Raptor are all so obsessed with clearing everything?…”
Well,
“50,000 shillings.”
“Oh wait a minute.”
The professor stopped thinking, placed his wrist on the simple biometric scanner in front of the pharmacy, and completed the deposit.
As soon as the scarred man inside the reception desk, which was covered by two layers of iron bars, confirmed that the deposit had been made, he handed me two glass bottles with small labels.
“Morning and evening. Take one pill after each meal. “It’s something you can’t die from even if you eat a lot of it, so don’t waste it needlessly.”
“Hey, by the way. “Do I really look like that type of person?”
“If you’re not like that, you don’t need that kind of medicine.”
The professor came out of the pharmacy laughing at the blunt man’s words.
“Now I’ve made money and have some free time, but in the end, I have to focus on that game again.”
The professor thought of Hyde in his now quiet mind. He’s a complicated guy. A guy who has both affection for me and a desire to get rid of me and take over my body. Just by being able to vaguely read his state, I could see how dangerously deep he had penetrated my consciousness.
“Yes, it’s right to solve problems that arise in the game in the game.”
First, let’s find a way. It is true that there are many things that are annoying to just cut out. But if you can’t find a way and one day he crosses the line…
‘At that time, I will regard you as an enemy without hesitation.’
It’s true that I view him favorably, but there’s no reason to give him my life and keep him alive.
[You’re doing this too much! Where can there be an infection agent as kind as me?]
‘That’s because you don’t have the means to take over my body, right? If there was a way to push me away right away, would you still be kind?’
….Giggle, giggle.
The guy was just laughing at what I said.
‘Let’s get along well since we are all different from each other. You will take over my body until I find a way to push you out of mine.’
Before I knew it, a smile resembling his had appeared on my lips.
As expected, this guy looks like me.
***
The doctor’s office where the professor left after finishing the consultation.
Ian and Bex were sitting in front of Woojin and listening to his story with serious expressions.
“You heard everything the professor said earlier, right?”
“hmm.”
“I was listening to everything.”
“okay. “You guys live in the wasteland, so it’s not like you don’t have any sense.”
Woojin put his hand into the cigarette pack that Ian gave him, but when he saw that it was empty, he turned his head to Ian, but when he saw Ian’s hand heading towards the holster, he continued speaking again.
“Are you trying to say that the professor was taken in by this Hyde or something?”
“also. “He’s a business guy, so he talks fast.”
It’s a hit and miss.
Bex was sitting on the chair in a restless state, and with an anxious look on his face, he began to organize the pens and paper medical records scattered on Woojin’s desk.
“Let’s leave all the other complicated things aside. ‘The guy moved his body while the professor was unconscious.’ Just by looking at this alone, the professor is in serious danger. This means that when your main consciousness is asleep, you can move your body arbitrarily at any time. When he was sleeping, he tied a rope around his neck, stood on a chair, and said, ‘If you don’t follow my opinion, you will die.’ They may be trying to control behavior in this way. Even Professor Park, isn’t he a master of all kinds of tricks and tricks? “For someone who has acquired that kind of knowledge, it might be as easy as fooling the professor.”
“It’s the enemy within… It’s a real pain in the ass. “You can’t just kill it and get rid of it.”
The two nodded at the same time, and Bex, who had neatly organized the desk as if measuring it with a ruler, was still anxious and this time began to organize the books on the shelf on the wall in alphabetical order.
“Professor Park says he’s not that kind of guy, but how do you know that? We all know what happened to the many victims of GG’s encroachment! In my view, that encroachment is not something that comes out of the game. The game creates something inside the player’s brain. It’s based on reality from the moment of birth. It’s a type of mental illness that has been programmed and implanted! And most of humanity survived! “I live by relying on that connector, which is no different from a psychosis generator!”
Quang!
Woojin hit the desk in an angry voice and confessed to the two of them the one doubt that had made him give up everything and retire during his days as a mercenary.
“Nothing in this world happens by chance. “I believe this world has been caught in a huge trap created by a man named Androi Gedreutz.”
And we are but a small part, powerless to change that great trend. No matter how hard I struggle.
A sigh filled with the futility of the past years flowed from the mouth of a strong old man who seemed to be invincible to any force.
“Hey, old man with chin and legs. Are you friends with Professor Park?”
As the two nodded slowly, Woojin spoke as he entered the password for the safe located behind his drawer.
“Then let me ask you a favor.”
***
“Hootchwi! Oh shit. “This damn fine dust is really bad.”
The professor left the hospital and was on his way back home. Since I met Bex and Ian, I thought I’d go talk to them, but they said they had some urgent business and left for their own residence first.
“Wow, I can’t believe you walked away like that, leaving behind a sick friend. “You heartless bastards.”
[Cover your face and go. The feeling of sand crunching around is annoying.]
“Don’t tell the free rider what to do. “Even I, who eats it myself, stay still.”
Even as the professor said that, he tightened the turban covering his face even more.
‘How dare we encounter a sand storm in such an open area? ‘No luck.’
Based on the approximate travel time, it was estimated that it arrived somewhere between Areas 43 and 45. Where there are structures, there may be ambushes or survivors living in the area, so they deliberately crossed over to the open area where there was nothing. If I had known this would happen, I would have chosen a direction that would avoid the storm even if I only encountered a few people.
[So I told you to go there from the beginning, right?]
‘You just want to see the body. ‘You bastard cannibal.’
[Wow, that’s racism.]
Still, rather than crossing the wasteland alone, I had someone I could communicate with, even if it was someone like this, so time went by much better. He’s like a time bomb that doesn’t know when to explode, but since he’s already stuck, he needs to find his strengths and make up for his weaknesses in this way.
Cooooooo!
‘Shit. I hoped it would quiet down a bit, but it’s getting worse.’
[Isn’t this dangerous? This side of the body can’t just grow and reattach itself like the inside, right?]
‘I can’t. If I can’t decide, I have no choice but to dig into the ground and rest until the storm passes.’
There are days when it takes from as little as an hour to over three days for a sandstorm to pass. The professor calculates the remaining amount of food and water in the backpack and takes out the shovel hanging next to the
bag
.
‘Car sound!’
A harsh engine sound characteristic of an off-road vehicle was heard from behind.
[what! What happened! You came here while erasing all traces!]
‘I guess there was someone there who hit harder than me! Damn it, if you fight in a place like this with no cover, you’re going to die…!’
In a hurry, the professor roughly removed the sand with a shovel and lay down in it. In the distance, I saw a large black truck rushing through the sandstorm. The truck was clearly engraved with the scale pattern of the Raptor Society.
[Le Raptor! Wasn’t that a really big group? Those guys who say that if they get caught, they’ll burn everything except the live ammunition?]
‘It means you could really get kicked out here. They wouldn’t have come all the way here… Are you really saying they’ve been looking for traces of me all this time?’
The professor recalled Kesselring, who was screaming in anger with a half-burned face, and pulled out a loaded shotgun from behind his back.
[Oh, it’s a gun. It’s a gun. Listen with your left hand. Let me pull it.]
‘Shut up. If you get in trouble in real life, I’ll pretend it’s not real and cut off all your fingers.’
Buaaaaang-!
The sound of the engine gets closer and closer. The battle is inevitable. To stop the chase, the best way is to block the enemy’s mobility by targeting the tires, but…
‘The question is whether you can damage the tires of such a large vehicle.’
Even if slug bullets are used, it is unclear whether they can puncture the tires of large vehicles being driven. Even though the situation was bad, it was really bad.
‘It’s coming exactly this way. The windshield is in the front. If you do well, you can start by shooting the guy driving…!’
The professor slowly put the muzzle of his gun out. can do. The driver is shot and thrown away with one shot!
[Take a deep breath, eat calmly, and feel like time is passing slowly…]
‘Shut up!’
The gun is aimed at the right side of the windshield. I heard that the Raptor’s armored truck uses a strong windshield, so when I got as close as possible…
‘Huh?’
[Huh?]
The moment the professor took aim at the face of the driver, who had stopped breathing and his vision began to fade, the professor lowered his gun and jumped up.
That’s because the driver’s rifle at the end of the gun was mostly made of familiar metal.
“hey! “Why are you here!”
Kurrrrrrr-
bangbang!
As the professor got up, he must have discovered it only then when the armored truck Ian was riding came up next to him, blaring its horn. Behind the truck was a Hummer being towed on a chain, followed by Bex in a buggy with all kinds of accessories.
Squeak –
Ian stopped the car right next to the professor, turned the handle, opened the window, and said to the professor with a confused face.
“Hehehe! Hey, you poor young man! Do you want me to give you a ride?”
As he said that, Ian stylishly put one arm on the window, and a bizarre smile appeared on his lips, with only his upper lip smiling.
***