Episode 33
Lee Jae-heon knew a person named Jeong In-ho well.
In my past life, I knew it because I read it in a novel. In my current life, I know it because I was a subordinate. Jeong In-ho, the main character of this world, was a truly disgusting bastard.
He had a lot of thoughts.
‘If I make a mistake at all, I’ll just get annoyed.’
But instead of being smart, he was even disgusting.
He is a person who finds only 1% of facts that are difficult for him to understand on a topic that cannot be changed once he defines the other person, and then goes on to doubt it again. If I wasn’t so crazy about acting like a normal person, everyone around me would have run away.
‘In that sense, I, who remembered my past life, must be difficult for Assistant Manager Jeong to understand.’
At first glance, it seems like the person has changed a bit, but in some ways, it seems like he has been hiding his true personality all this time. When a person feels truly selfish, he sacrifices himself to save his companions. There could not have been a more difficult seed for Deputy Director Jeong, who had previously loathed Lee Jae-heon.
Perhaps because of this, Jaeheon Lee was looked upon with suspicion by Assistant Manager Jeong every time.
‘I guess I thought it would be better to keep an eye on me at all times because the definition of me keeps changing.’
Is there a chick more picky than Lee Jae-heon, who is hiding the fact that he remembered his past life?
Assistant Manager Jeong In-ho was a very disgusting guy to Lee Jae-heon, but no. On the contrary, being that kind of guy, he was worried about the main character who was looking for him. To be precise, the events that will occur due to such a protagonist.
‘Please, you need to keep your wits about you and not hit anyone.’
Lee Jae-heon, who managed to get away from Police Officer Kim, who was holding on to him, struggled to swallow his anxiety as he crossed the park.
It was dark when I jumped in and I couldn’t see anything, but since I had memorized the geography of the park in advance, I had no trouble finding the place I wanted.
So, it was not Lee Jae-heon himself who was anxious, but the crazy chicks.
“I’m going to start raising children at this age.”
Kwasik.
He trampled the vine that was crawling towards him with the heel of his shoe.
Even though the bleeding was stopped to some extent, is it because it still smells like blood? Even though it wasn’t a green algae monster, the occasional creeping vine caught my eye. In fact, even though green algae monsters are nocturnal, that is not an absolute truth, so I became more anxious.
It was roughly similar to a human. Even people who were sleeping well wake up when they smell the smell of crispy chicken oil. Or waking up from an external shock. If an appetizing smell arises or a separate problem arises, the green algae monster that was sleeping well could wake up.
And to that extent, Lee Jae-heon was in a very anxious state as he had no idea what the main character and his party were doing.
‘If blood breaks out here, everything will be ruined.’
It’s not something Lee Jae-heon, who walks around smelling of blood, should say, but that’s why the main character needed to remain still. From a psychological perspective, there is nothing good about a young chick being targeted by monsters.
But the timing wasn’t very good. As it happened, right around the time that the main character’s mental fatigue was in full swing, Lee Jae-heon was dragged away by a vine. Of course, it was half-intentional, but assistant manager Jeong In-ho, who had at least eased his mind, must have been at least shocked, even if the extent of it was unknown.
‘No matter how much you hate the old manager, it doesn’t matter that someone was dragged away right in front of your eyes.’
So I was anxious. Normally, you would think that the creepy main character would be doing well, but when those creepy bastards lose control, they become bizarrely aggressive.
And in Lee Jae-heon’s experience, he has never seen such a sudden situation resolved in a good way.
‘Of course, there is little chance of conflict occurring internally.’
If it happens, there must be an external cause.
After Lee Jae-heon disappeared, everyone in the group would have focused on Jeong In-ho. In that case, it means that Assistant Manager Jeong will become the temporary leader, but the siblings, who were the only members of the group who were not favorable to him, were perceptive, so they would appropriately bow to the strong man, Jeong In-ho.
If I were to find something convenient here, it would be that I was able to pass on my burden to Jeong In-ho, who became the leader. Although it would have been better if there were no other survivors in the park at all.
Jaeheon Lee muttered with a sour expression on his face.
“…You shouldn’t kill him.”
He recalled the contents of the novel.
Police officer Kim, the sacrificial character in the story, wanted to go to the end and live, but was sacrificed anyway, and it was the first time Jung In-ho killed someone. Needless to say, the steadfast detective went even wilder at that point. Even if the dead person was a murderer who took countless lives.
Then things get really complicated.
Firstly, the detective’s vigilance will be upgraded, and directly, the protagonist and other party members will also lose their mentality, and above all, the ecosystem of the behind-the-scenes world will go crazy.
Because the underworld is shaken by human thoughts, murder here has consequences that are more terrible than you can imagine. The less mature chicks had a lot of power.
Of course, the protagonist would not kill someone in this unexpected situation. Regardless of the chick’s humanity and all, there was no reason to do so. In other words, there was no benefit.
‘But you never know.’
Because there is a difference between directly killing someone and leading them to death.
Sometimes this dilemma arises.
A person could kill the same person by pushing him off the edge of a cliff, or he could make the person throw himself off the edge of the cliff. Which of these is more vicious has been a difficult issue with a long history.
The latter case is more complicated in that even the perpetrator may not know that he has hurt the other person. Of all the problems related to humanity, are there any that can be easily solved?
However, if the protagonist became a perpetrator like this, he would not deny responsibility even after seeing the results.
And that’s why Jaeheon Lee had to find his group before the friction he saw in the novel occurred.
Because the person who committed suicide in the 19-year-old impoverished survival drama was none other than a detective.
* * *
I will kill you if necessary.
* * *
Kang Min-ah was not a brave person.
“….”
Of course, I never fell into extreme self-loathing.
It may have been there when she was very young, but she was an adult now, and in order to function as a proper adult, she had to accept and acknowledge her limitations.
However, the reason she was able to work at one of the country’s leading conglomerates, even though she had no mental strength until now, was because her limitations were within the socially acceptable range.
Okay.
“…Ahh….”
Kang Min-ah looked at the crushed vines and drooled.
“Mina, Minah. are you okay?”
“Yes… yes yes… it’s okay. are you okay.”
The voice that came out of her mouth without realizing it was so cracked that even when she heard it herself. Jeong In-ho’s round eyes came into view.
“…That…”
Kang Min-ah lowered her head and looked at the vine that she had crushed.
“….”
It was a shape I had never seen before in my life.
Kang Min-ah hit the vine that suddenly popped out with the hammer she was holding. It missed at first, and Assistant Manager Jeong In-ho, who saw it, hurriedly approached him.
But in the end, just before he came, Kang Min-ah struggled in disgust and barely managed to crush it.
But why?
“…hmm.”
For some unknown reason, she couldn’t take her eyes off this incredibly disgusting figure.
It was as if those vines had turned into forks and were fixating their gaze on my eyeballs. I was sore and sore, and my head was pounding as if I had eaten a lot of shaved ice without restraint.
There was no red in the liquid scattered by those vines, so why did it smell like blood? Why did it look red? Maybe it was because I was already so crazy that I couldn’t even see the blood and couldn’t tell if I had hit the person.
Just as she was about to suffocate from this terrible feeling, a familiar voice shook Kang Min-ah awake.
“Are you hurt anywhere? “Are your hands okay?”
“…yes I’m okay. “Just like that.”
I just did it because it was disgusting.
Feeling nauseous for a moment, Kang Min-ah bit her lip and covered her mouth with one hand.
She suddenly remembered a habit that a person who was not present had sometimes displayed.
“….”
The manager often covered his mouth like this with his hand.
As if covering something that cannot be seen. Like pressing something that shouldn’t come out. I think I covered my mouth like that without even realizing it.
Kang Min-ah, who had been biting open her mouth, eventually closed her lips tightly, unable to say anything. It was something she couldn’t say with her courage while crawling on the floor, and the current mood in the group was not good for saying something new. I didn’t want to spit it out.
Instead, she decided to complain about something that could not be used anywhere.
“I just… don’t feel well.”
“…Maybe this world has that kind of influence. “Like Yeon-seok threw up as soon as he left the office.”
“Ah…”
Kang Min-ah blinked and then looked back at intern Noh Yeon-seok.
“…Why why?”
“Are you okay inside?”
“Oh, it’s not really okay….”
He let out those short words and then closed his mouth again.
Rather than closing it because I had nothing to say, it should have been seen as a reaction to the physiological feeling of nausea like Kang Min-ah just moments ago.
And seeing that, the mood in the group calmed down even more.
“…If you’re feeling really bad, I’d like to ask you to stay and rest, but everyone is exhausted, so it would be dangerous to go alone. “I apologize for having to make this unavoidable decision.”
Kang Min-ah shook her head at Jeong In-ho’s words.
“No, it’s really okay. Of course, everyone will be tired, but….”
“….”
“If you’re alone, yes. “It’s more dangerous.”
She did not hope that everyone would agree with her words.
There was no way anyone would want to walk on such a bumpy forest path while feeling nauseous and hearing tinnitus, and as Jeong In-ho said, it was rather dangerous that only a portion of it remained.
Kang Min-ah was not brave and was truly a timid person, but she rose to the position of director of a large company. Occasionally, I would get scolded by my manager and ask, ‘Why are you so distracted?’, but he said he wasn’t stupid.
She knew that her words like this could give strength to Jeong In-ho and calm down those who were dissatisfied with Jeong In-ho’s choice.
‘…We must unite around In-ho.’
Kang Min-ah was a very timid person.
I struggled to lift the hammer, but the feeling of the vine being crushed still gave me goosebumps, and I thought that among her and us, the person who could best lead them was In-ho Jeong. If I could give him strength with just a few words like this, it would have been better to just pretend.
At her words, Jung In-ho looked at Kang Min-ah with pitch-black eyes and then smiled as usual.
A soft and neat smile.
“thank you.”
“….”
Kang Min-ah felt an inexplicable eerie feeling.
‘…But something…’
I think something has changed.
She looked at the hammer in her hand and quickly adjusted it again.
When I opened the door to the cold, empty basement and entered, it was the kind of creepy feeling you get right before a horror movie starts. In Jeong In-ho’s smile, I felt a sense of discomfort that resembled such coolness.
Of course, it was inevitable for people to change in these situations. That was a fact that Kang Min-ah also knew very well. Even if you just feel confident right now, don’t you feel intimidated quickly? No matter how timid and unremarkable she was, it was an overreaction.
“….”
This world was a little strange.
All I did was take steps and look at the world with my eyes, but with every step I took, I shuddered at an inexplicable disgust, and although the world I saw clearly contained color, it appeared in black and white, making me dizzy. I felt sick to my stomach, as if I was watching a program that was created but failed and was twisted.
In a world like that, people could change as much as they wanted.
Yeon-seok, who used to talk affably and regularly even when there was nothing special, became less talkative and turned pale, and employee Kwon Yeon-hee, who had always shown off her lively and friendly personality at work, became increasingly stiff.
‘I don’t know if it’s the other people since I haven’t seen them in that long…’
They probably also felt the slightest change. This is a change that we must experience instinctively because we are living people.
Kang Min-ah, who was looking around at the people while holding the hammer tightly, immediately remembered the empty seat and muttered to herself.
‘…the manager has also changed.’
I don’t know if it can be expressed in the word change.
Usually, Kang Min-ah harbored a slight fear of her manager Lee Jae-heon.
He was always frowning, got angry over insignificant things, and made me feel strangely uncomfortable when he smiled sometimes. Kang Min-ah could easily feel that the gazes looking at us did not contain any soft emotions such as consideration.
Even Director Lee Jae-heon changed after coming to this world.
His tone of voice became a little calmer and his inconsiderate gaze was still there, but his actions were consistent in helping us. Occasionally I would get irritated or click my tongue like before, but strangely, I didn’t feel as bad as before.
Yes, that’s true, but…
“….”
“… Are you okay, Mina? Should I lift the hammer?”
“Oh, it’s okay. “It’s really okay.”
Kang Min-ah shook her head as she looked at Yeon-hee asking me carefully. My hands were shaking a little from hitting the vine just now, but it wasn’t enough to hand the job over to someone else.
Instead, she thought of Manager Lee Jae-heon in her head. I remembered that gaze.
‘That’s not what’s changed, it’s not what’s changed here…’
Doesn’t it feel like a layer of cloth has been removed?
The moment she thought of that, Kang Min-ah suddenly remembered the time before she left the company. When we, who had been chased by a monster, were resting in an office, Jaeheon Lee asked them a question.
‘Among these, the one with a half-shirt.’
‘…yes yes?’
‘That can’t be possible.’
Then he probably looked for a bandage.
I was out of my mind at the time and just passed over it, but no matter how I thought about it, it was a strange context. If you just look at the flow, doesn’t it seem like Lee Jae-heon was looking for a bandit ring for treatment?
Kang Min-ah recalled Lee Jae-heon, who was pierced by a spider’s leg and bleeding bright red. This is a scene where a wound where it is not clear exactly how it was crushed is stitched up with silk thread and a needle, as if he was putting a bandage on it.
Kang Min-ah had never seen a wound that bad before, so she didn’t know what Lee Jae-heon wanted to do with the bandana. However, even with little medical knowledge, she knew how surgical suturing was done, and the silk thread, which was rough and not clean, was punctured by a thick needle. Accordingly, I imagined crossing that skin.
It was a situation that had never happened, but just thinking about it made me feel sick…
“…”
So suddenly a question arose.
Manager, is it true that Manager Lee Jae-heon really changed after coming to this world?
“…Keuhum.”
After thinking that far, Kang Min-ah consciously stopped the flow in her brain.
The tiredness and weariness that she no longer wanted to think about and the drowsy feeling of nausea scratching her throat made her stop.
Kang Min-ah turned her gaze and looked at Jeong In-ho, who was standing in front.
“What’s wrong?”
“No, just.”
“….”
“Just….”
Kang Min-ah, who was trying to swallow her words as always, opened her mouth due to the urge that quickly boiled over.
“…You’ve changed.”
So many things, including her, were changing without any time to change.
I feel afraid of the change.
