Episode 343 Ha
Seong-yoon enters the simple building, and as time passes, the atmosphere becomes calmer.
“….”
Kwon Yeon-hee thought.
‘…I feel a little strange….’
Is it just me who feels this way?
She wasn’t very perceptive, but even to her, the current atmosphere of the survivor team was very subtle.
However, when asked to explain what felt so strange, even Kwon Yeon-hee was at a loss. This was because she did not know the cause of this discomfort.
“What are you doing, employee Kwon?”
“yes yes?”
“Sit down and don’t look around like a chick that just left home.”
“The chick left home….”
“Stop complaining.”
“I didn’t complain.”
Kwon Yeon-hee was curious about how we ended up in Lee Jae-heon’s mind.
‘He’s quite a bit of a brat.’
Of course, if Lee Jae-heon had known what Kwon Yeon-hee was thinking, he would have screamed and rubbed his goosebumps, but unfortunately, there was no one who could stop Kwon Yeon-hee’s thoughts. Kwon Yeon-hee pouted her lips but obediently sat next to Lee Jae-heon.
“Look how nice it is to sit quietly.”
“…What did I do….”
It had been quite a while since I sat next to Lee Jae-heon like this.
‘You’ve been very busy.’
After receiving the consolation that ‘you will be able to return to reality’ in the park, Lee Jae-heon became a spiritual support for Kwon Yeon-hee, but there were many people other than her who used Lee Jae-heon, who seemed like he would fall straight down even if he collapsed, as a support for his heart. Unlike Kwon Yeon-hee, who was fine because she had nothing to do, Lee Jae-heon was busy taking care of tired and tired survivors.
‘In the midst of all that, I couldn’t act foolishly…’
Kwon Yeon-hee decided to fully enjoy the ‘Lee Jae-heon usage rights’ that had been handed over to me for the first time in a long time. The discomfort she felt for a moment still lingered in a corner of her mind and tormented her, but if there was anything she learned in the behind-the-scenes world, it was that some mental problems could be passed off as normal.
Ignoring the vague ominous feeling, Kwon Yeon-hee looked at Lee Jae-heon’s arm.
“This… was this done by Bian?”
The splint was a fairly reasonable measure.
“You started talking?”
“Oh yeah, whatever. “I’m older too…” “
Well, I guess that’s enough to be like your older sister or younger brother. And it’s true that student Vivian did it.”
“I guess you studied a lot before coming to the other side.”
He said the reason he brought a saw to school in the first place was ‘to build a more proper house.’ I heard that they prepared nails and screws, but they were corroded when they came to the other side, so they were thrown away, and the saw that they had in mind was safe, so they brought it with them. Vivian, who said that, had the face of a craftsman.
“I heard they were thinking about whether they could make a simple countertop.”
“What do you do for a living? “People are getting crazy.”
“Ahaha….”
“What else should I do about this?”
“….”
Kwon Yeon-hee immediately understood what Lee Jae-heon was saying.
‘Well, you’ve been busy taking care of other people these days.’
Lee Jae-heon had recently put a lot of effort into improving the mental health of the survivors, and it was a blessing that he couldn’t thank them enough for having someone he could comfortably confide in in this situation. Most survivors accepted the conversation with him warmly.
Among them, Kwon Yeon-hee was someone who had not talked much with Lee Jae-heon recently, and among the survivors, her mental health was almost intact. Lee Jae-heon’s favorite Pompitz monster is no longer present, so there was nothing to bother Kwon Yeon-hee.
“Well, I’m really fine. “You know, right?”
“It has to be okay, so why not be okay? “What would be difficult if you don’t do anything like employee Kwon?”
“Even if you say it like a child, really.”
If I had heard these words from Lee Jae-heon in the past, I would have thought, ‘That cheesy…’, but now I know that everything Lee Jae-heon said was an act. Even if he didn’t have any particular intention, his acting was ingrained in him and he often said such rude things, so there was no reason for him to be hurt too much.
Then, suddenly, the uneasiness that had been buried in a corner of Kwon Yeon-hee’s brain reared its head again.
―When did Jaeheon Lee start acting like that again?
do.
“….”
So suddenly and awkwardly.
I felt a sense of discomfort towards Lee Jae-heon.
“…Uh….”
“…Employee Kwon?”
Now that I think about it, it’s been quite a while since I heard the term ‘Employee Kwon’.
‘…is not it? Have you been listening? But it feels like it’s been a really long time since I’ve seen the manager like this…’
Even if Kwon Yeon-hee had a simple mindset, it didn’t mean she didn’t know what Jae-heon Lee had been through. Due to the nature of the underworld where injuries suffered in reality cannot be recovered, Lee Jae-heon would still have the wounds inflicted by his brother on his stomach and legs. Lee Jae-heon was unable to hide his tiredness from the beginning of this secret world.
That’s how much less he acts like an old man, and he speaks a little more freely. Kwon Yeon-hee was also somewhat accustomed to Lee Jae-heon, who even showed his weak side at times.
“What’s wrong with Employee Kwon?”
“…ah? “Oh no.”
“I was surprised that you suddenly became blank.”
So does Lee Jae-heon look weak now?
“If you have any pain, tell me right away. “I think I’ll probably go to the pharmacy tomorrow or the day after tomorrow anyway.”
“…The manager is so injured, then we have to go.”
“Seeing as you talk back, it seems like you’re okay.”
“You speak really meanly.”
Even as she responded like that, Kwon Yeon-hee could not shake off a sense of discomfort.
‘Since when did it start?’
At some point, Lee Jae-heon’s attitude changed.
‘Since when…’
Probably after I went to talk to Kang Min-ah. Lee Jae-heon maintained a light attitude, as if the intense fatigue I had been showing so far was a lie.
It was exactly like when I first met Lee Jae-heon.
“….”
It was a time when none of us trusted this person named Lee Jae-heon, and so Lee Jae-heon did not expect anything from us.
‘Oh wait a minute.’
Kwon Yeon-hee felt a moment of crisis.
‘Is this a bit dangerous?’
Until now, when Lee Jae-heon showed weakness, people were embarrassed, but at the same time liked him. This means that Jaeheon Lee is not overdoing things and is relying on us.
However, showing the same appearance as now means that Lee Jae-heon is thinking back to his original decision, ‘Oh, what do you want from these bastards? I have to do well.’
‘Wow, is that really true?’
Even though she urgently thought of the survivors one by one, Kwon Yeon-hee also had nothing to say with her current strength. Even if she were Lee Jae-heon, wouldn’t it be a situation that would automatically make her decide to sacrifice? Even if Lee Jae-heon had decided to change his body on his own, he had no right to mistreat me.
“…Uh uhuh….”
“Why did it suddenly break down? “Are you a cat?”
“Chief, you know cats well. But I’m not a cat.”
“Do you think I said this because I didn’t know?”
Kwon Yeon-hee thought as she saw Lee Jae-heon giggling as if it was a light joke.
‘Isn’t this actually a very dangerous situation…?’
On my own, I was quite serious.
Kwon Yeon-hee also knew that the survivors in the park showed an ugly side. It’s literally a newborn chick that doesn’t know how to eat alone or make a fire!
In Lee Jae-heon’s view, if that’s the situation we’re in now, no matter how optimistic he may be, he can’t say that the current situation is good.
“Director Boo.”
It was when she reflexively called Jaeheon Lee.
“Did you call me?”
“…Ugh.”
“…Your reaction has been really strange since a while ago, but I’m not sure if it’s okay.”
It came back with respect.
‘what?’
Was my judgment wrong?
No, it’s not the worst situation that Jaeheon Lee decides to change his body. It’s not a good situation at all, but isn’t this a situation where Lee Jae-heon will go out and die? Kwon Yeon-hee’s mind was complicated, as she wasn’t usually very perceptive.
And Lee Jae-heon, unaware of her true intentions, just continued speaking calmly.
“If you’re really sick, you need to tell me in advance.”
“Oh yes. i know.”
“…Anyway…”
A look of fatigue flashed across Lee Jae-heon’s face.
“There are no healthy chicks.”
“….”
Did I really think wrong…?
‘…Maybe I was thinking too much…?’
Something seemed askew, so I thought, ‘Oh my god, wait a minute, is this okay?’, but anyway, if Lee Jae-heon himself didn’t have any major problems, it was just a groundless sense of discomfort.
All you have to do is ignore Yeonhee Kwon.
“Anyway… I need to get some sleep too. “I’m so busy being chased by monsters.”
“Would you like me to open that door?”
“I have two hands, but only one arm is injured. The sprained ankle isn’t as serious as you think. Since you can handle it on your own, it would be better for Kwon Yeon-hee to rest for a bit and then go to sleep right away. “In the other world, sleeping is all that’s left.”
“Ah yes.”
“then.”
Jaeheon Lee lightly waved his healthy hand and stood up. Then, seeing Ha Seong-yoon naturally entering the simple building where he had entered, Kwon Yeon-hee once again felt a strange sense of discomfort.
She frowned and worried.
“…Umm….”
I don’t know what is true and what is okay.
‘…Something is strange….’
What on earth is that?
She had a vague feeling that something was going wrong, but she couldn’t figure out the identity of the discomfort. I couldn’t believe that Lee Jae-heon was preparing to do something on purpose and that Kwon Yeon-hee instinctively realized it.
‘Even the manager is acting like that when the atmosphere is already bad?’
Kwon Yeon-hee recalled several factors that made the atmosphere bad.
First of all, Ha Seong-yoon. If he had been Ha Seong-yoon in the past, he would have insisted on natural healing rather than going to the pharmacy. In any case, Lee Jae-heon is the only one with a broken bone right now, so shouldn’t Lee Jae-heon go to the pharmacy? If Ha Seong-yoon had really had time, he would not have thought of sending Lee Jae-heon, who was in critical condition with only stomach and leg injuries, to the pharmacy.
Jeong In-ho, who was already in bad shape due to Lee Jae-heon’s injury, seemed to be in a state of confusion, and it was difficult to say that the other survivors were in good health either.
“….”
Anyway, what if I die like that?
That was the reason why Kwon Yeon-hee butted heads with Woo Woo-young and Vivian.
* * *
First of all, they had something in common.
“I’m not the only one who finds this strange, right?”
“It seems like everything is really okay, but I feel strangely uneasy…”
“I feel like I shouldn’t leave it like this.”
The point was that I felt unfounded anxiety about the current situation.
They also had nothing to say if someone asked, ‘Why are you so anxious?’ It is true that the current survivor team is quite stable even if it is a little less active, and since the rules of the garden are the rules, something strange like a monster attacking will not happen.
“The problem is… yes.”
“Of course it’s just him.”
“Jaeheon Lee….”
Vivian said Jaeheon Lee had a constitution that brought about misfortune.
“Oh, let me correct that.”
“Tell me.”
“Rather than driving misfortune, perhaps you should absorb misfortune from those around you.”
“Isn’t that… an amulet against evil…?”
“…! That’s right.”
“For some reason, Mr. Inho kept treating it like a talisman.”
“Well, I’m not the type of person to think nonsense.”
“That’s right…”
Director Lee Jae-heon went from being a zombie man to a rag-tag person to being treated as an amulet to ward off evil, but none of them pointed this out. This was because the human rights that Jaeheon Lee himself had already thrown away were greater than respecting human rights in such a trivial area.
“No, but if it’s really an amulet to ward off evil, shouldn’t it be blocked more?”
I would be worried if misfortune had come from somewhere in the world or if he had created it himself, but when I thought that Jaeheon Lee was suffering the misfortune that would befall the people around him, I felt a strange sense of guilt.
“Someone already feels guilty just by looking at them…”
“Shall we cancel the statement that it is an amulet to ward off evil? They say words become seeds.”
“It makes sense since we are in an underworld, but think about it. “The path Jaeheon Lee has already walked is no different from that of an amulet to ward off evil.”
“….”
“….”
Kwon Yeon-hee and Woo Woo-young fell silent at Vivian’s words. In his first visit to the secret world, which is now quite a distant past, he was stabbed by a spider leg instead of Kang Min-ah, and most recently, he broke his arm while protecting Ha Seong-yoon.
“…Is this true…?”
“In the sense that you get injured instead of the person who should have been hurt… that’s right.”
“Wow, I feel even more uncomfortable.”
Vivian even applauded.
“If this is Lee Jae-heon’s superpower, I couldn’t be more pitiful.”
It is already a widely spread story among survivors that Yoon Garam had the ability to make fire and not be burned. Additionally, given that it was known that Park Da-young and Park Da-hoon were able to share a kind of spirit, it would not have been strange to say that Jae-heon Lee had the ability to absorb other people’s misfortune due to his background and nature.
This was a hidden world where thoughts coalesced and materialized in the most horrific forms, and Lee Jae-heon was a person who had spent a very long time in that hidden world.
“You didn’t even say that Jaeheon Lee had any other abilities.”
“… Either they really have that ability but they don’t know about it, or they know but don’t say anything about it. “The best we can say is that our guess was just a guess.”
“Personally, I would like it to be the third. “If you really have that ability, I’m worried that you will use it in some way.”
“I completely understand what you mean.”
As Woo Joo-young nodded at Vivian’s words, Kwon Yeon-hee’s face turned white.
“Really… what will I do if the real manager dies…”
The reason Kwon Yeon-hee was able to survive in the underworld so well was because of her simple nature and Lee Jae-heon’s mental support, and not because Kwon Yeon-hee herself was well-suited to the underworld. She still remembered Lee Jae-heon’s breathtaking atmosphere at the park.
Jaeheon Lee suffered injuries to his shoulder and leg while escaping from the company building. The survivors were anxious when they were chased by a green algae monster and briefly separated from Manager Lee Jae-heon. In the end, Lee Jae-heon, who volunteered to become bait, was almost killed by a green algae monster….
“…If things go astray like that time again….”
Even now, Kwon Yeon-hee and other survivors still remember the nightmare in the park as ‘It was like that back then.’ ‘I couldn’t regard it as a memory. These were terrible incidents that cannot be talked about lightly, just as one cannot bring up the story of that time to the bereaved family of a victim who was killed by a murderer.
“….”
“….”
“…Um….”
Only Woo Woo-young, who was not there at the time, was just assuming the worst situation with his cool-headed reasoning.
“Looking at your reactions, I think we need to take more definite action. “Even if the manager really had that ability or not, the result was a similar situation.”
“I agree.”
“And the fact that two other people, not just me, are feeling similar anxiety could be an indicator. “If only one person felt that way, it may have been just a coincidence, but I think there is a statistical problem with not two, but three people doing this.”
The conclusion was this.
“You must not leave Jaeheon Lee alone.”
As Vivian said, I couldn’t leave Jaeheon Lee alone while feeling this kind of anxiety.
“That said, I can’t say that it’s all that good to have people with a different… different spirit… spirit… um… who are very tired.”
“Team leader is right. Even if In-ho Jeong and Seong-yoon Ha were by your side right now, how much would your efficiency improve? “It would be fortunate if we didn’t all collapse together.”
If Woo Joo-young felt untrustworthy toward Do-yoon Han and Kyeong-jun Hong, Yeon-hee Kwon felt strange toward In-ho Jeong and Seong-yoon Ha. These days, they are particularly absent-minded or make mistakes that they would not have made in the past… In addition to what can be objectively understood, unfounded anxiety has been emanating from them.
“Then we will also participate in the pharmacy trip.”
“…Do you mind if I don’t protect you?”
Vivian, who had outstanding abilities as Seo Jang-hwa’s friend but had always been positioned as a shelter keeper, asked a question. If Jeong In-ho was the leader of the exploration, Vivian was closer to the person in charge of shelter defense.
“I’m worried that the current mood of the survivors seems to be calming down.”
“It’s okay that it looks like that because I’m just overly stable. Of course, this is not a very good situation, but even if an emergency arises, you will have enough power to deal with it, so there will be no problem.”
“Then it would be better to leave this to Han Do-yoon.”
Vivian, convinced, looked at Woo Joo-young and Kwon Yeon-hee and asked.
“But you two… can you go?”
This was to point out that the two of them are not suited to the behind-the-scenes world and the battles that take place within it. In fact, the only people who fit well with the under-the-world are perverts or crazy people like Song In-myeong, but these two people are definitely okay in the underworld. It was different from Vivian who could act.
Kwon Yeon-hee, who understood his words, nodded solemnly.
“I’ll give it a try.”
“Oh that’s cool, that’s cool.”
“Please support us…!”
“Amazing, amazing.”
Kwon Yeon-hee strengthens her resolve, Vivian praises her, and Woo Joo-young looks at them with strange eyes.
In this way, three investigators were selected to go to the pharmacy.
* * *
You probably didn’t know that Lee Jae-heon had intended it that far.
(Continued in the next part)
