Episode 470
Jeong Eun-woo has never thought of himself as sentimental.
It’s been like that since I was very young. When a classmate’s chick died, I thought, ‘Why are you telling me that story?’ Even when a murder happened right in front of me, I just thought, ‘Oh, I’m in trouble.’ All I could think was, ‘I’m treated better.’
He was a smart person and realized that he was a person close to what is commonly called a psychopath. Among them, they say it is a fairly serious axis.
He felt little fear or irritation, let alone joy or joy. Instead of being bored, I was always peaceful. The person named Eunwoo Jeong was like that.
But…
“….”
Jung Eun-woo was at a loss for words for the first time in a long time.
The ceiling I looked up at was as high as the sky, and the stretched out audience seats were as grand as the Colosseum.
Water scales, I don’t know where they came from, appeared everywhere the eye could see. The scene was as unreal as a dream. His puny brain couldn’t grasp the entire situation, but he knew one thing: that he had come to another world.
I came to another world. In response to this absurd reality, Jeong Eun-woo expressed an exclamation that I had never uttered even when I was young.
“…and.”
It was an unfamiliar feeling for my mind to lose its cool and become distorted.
Was it a moment or was it a long period of patience? Even though I was clearly feeling the world with my whole body with my eyes open, I was not aware of it. But I saw it with my own eyes, heard it with my ears, and felt the changes in the world with my skin. Even though I was looking at it, I didn’t feel like I saw it, and I didn’t feel like I stored it in my brain.
A strange emptiness and nothingness. It feels like everything slips quietly through my hands like the sand of a business owner, and only a few grains of sand remain in the palm of my hand. For Jeong Eun-woo, who had always lived a calm life, this process of change was very confusing and uplifting at the same time.
“It’s amazing.”
The whole world is blue.
It took a long time later for him to figure out who he was, what his situation was, and where he was. Lee Jae-heon caught the eye of Jeong Eun-woo, who unconsciously muttered something in admiration. Jaeheon Lee looked as if he was waiting for him.
Seeing him looking at me with dry eyes, I suddenly spewed out an assumption that resembled a question.
“…were you waiting for me by any chance?”
“…a little bit.”
“Have you been waiting long?”
“It must have been about 10 minutes.”
“Oh my god, 10 minutes.”
I felt surprised several times today.
“I guess I was bruised for 10 minutes.”
Unlike the chaos that I thought might be a moment or a few hours, it was an unexpectedly realistic number. The fact that there is reality within unreality surprised Jeong Eun-woo once again. It seemed like a mess and at times it seemed well organized.
It was difficult to define. Whatever it is.
“If I write a report, I will be very scolded.”
“I’m not sure what line of thought came up with those words, but…”
“Actually, I don’t know either. “I don’t usually do this, but I seem to end up rambling.”
In his own way, Jung Eun-woo calmly evaluated himself and the situation surrounding him.
“…I seem to be in a state of panic, and Jaeheon Lee is in a better state than me, so it seems like there are differences for each individual. The first thing that comes to mind is personal experience. mental. Or preparations. There will be a difference depending on what conditions there are, but I don’t know yet. It’s blue. Is this an aquarium? That’s right, I remember meeting Director Lee Jae-heon at the last exhibition hall. memory? Should I have used the word memory? It may seem too far away. Is it true that only 10 minutes have passed? Maybe 10 hours have passed. “But seeing as the clothes I’m wearing are fine and I’m not thirsty or hungry, I think it’s true that it hasn’t been that long.”
A blue, blue, bright blue world.
My eyes are immersed in blue light.
“Jaeheon Lee waited for me. If so, you can see that Director Jaeheon Lee is in a better situation than me. Is this an aquarium? That’s right, we just met here. Didn’t we just ask a similar question earlier? There is no pain anywhere. I feel a little sick, but I don’t think my internal organs are really damaged. Then it’s a matter of mood, right? It’s a feeling, it’s an emotion. That’s a really unfamiliar feeling…”
“Jung Eun-woo.”
“Yes, Manager Lee Jae-heon. Do you have something to say to me? Is this an aquarium? Can I ask a question? We just met. From here to here, the sea is…”
“All the way there.”
―Just right!
…There was a sound of fingers snapping.
“….”
“Looking here, who am I?”
“…This is Manager Lee Jae-heon.”
“Who am I seeing?”
“…It’s looking at me.”
“Then who are you?”
“This is Chief of Staff Jeong Eun-woo.”
Only then did Jeong Eun-woo realize his error.
“…There were many rude examples. “This is the first time I’ve experienced this kind of confusion, so it’s a nuisance.”
“it’s okay.”
“We will be careful to prevent something like this from happening in the future.”
Jeong Eun-woo laughed helplessly at the confusion he experienced for the first time in his life and the help of others.
“…It’s been a while since I felt scared.”
The fact that he could not trust his own perception and judgment was a very shocking thing for Jung Eun-woo.
I’ve heard many times that I’m more like a machine than a human, but I wondered if this is what it would feel like if I were really a machine and made an error. How do you feel? Comparing oneself to something, sympathizing with it, and acknowledging it was also quite unfamiliar.
Lee Jae-heon spoke to Jeong Eun-woo.
“Once you come to your senses, I think we should move on.”
“A seat.”
“Yes, as you can see….”
Lee Jae-heon’s finger pointed to a certain place.
“I think it would be a bit dangerous to just stay here.”
“….”
Let’s move our gaze along that finger.
“…ah.”
With a large glass wall.
Pure white water filled the inside.
We were able to notice numerous eyes looking at us in that transparent place.
“….”
It had the head of a man and the tail of a fish. Half human and half fish.
It occurred to me later that it was probably a mermaid.
“…Mermaid.”
They were beautiful.
well?
beautiful?
What is that?
“…I guess I should run away.”
I finally felt a sense of crisis.
“I’m glad you figured it out now.”
“Because I knew I was crazy.”
Jeong Eun-woo has never felt moved by the beauty of others in his entire life. However, when I saw strange creatures clustered so close together that they were disgusting on the wall of an aquarium large enough to be a flagship, I was amazed at how beautiful it was. The incomprehensible change in emotions only caused a sense of discomfort and rejection.
“Please come this way.”
Dry voice.
Lee Jae-heon was going to the first floor below the second floor bleachers. It was only now that Jung Eun-woo realized that there were stairs that could go down to the stands.
Jeong Eun-woo followed Lee Jae-heon without further delay, but he couldn’t help but lose his gaze once again due to the emotional turbulence and ecstasy he was experiencing for the first time in his life. He looked back at the exhibition hall bathed in bright blue light.
In the middle of the large theme zone, there was a cylindrical aquarium, and ‘mermaids’ that sparkled like pearls were swimming inside it. The audience seats were located in a circle around the aquarium, like a colosseum, with mannequins sitting sparsely in the seats. Eunwoo Jeong saw the mermaid inside the aquarium.
A fish monster with only a mouth and no face.
“….”
Still looking at that, Eunwoo Jeong felt ‘beautiful.’
They were gently waving their hands like seasoned employees toward Lee Jae-heon and Jeong Eun-woo as they left the audience. As if we are actors prepared for you, the audience…
“…what is the purpose of that?”
Inside such a cylindrical aquarium, there was a large glass box.
“Isn’t it one of the two?”
“Can you tell me?”
“Either a place for food or a place for ornamental fish.”
“I or Lee Jae-heon could go in.”
“It seems to be just the right size for one person to fit in.”
It was confusing.
That’s why my head cooled.
“Who is harassing us?”
It was Jeong Eun-woo, who lived a cold life his whole life. The impossible confusion actually served as an indicator for Jeong Eun-woo.
This aquarium could destroy mermaids or this world could destroy the human spirit. Personally, I guess it felt like that.
When I came down to the first floor, I got a better view of the large circular water tank in the center of the performance hall.
Even though I wasn’t even close, I could feel the strange power of the high water tank. The cylindrical water tank, which started on the first floor, was raised high enough to be easily seen from the audience seats on the second floor.
Jaeheon Lee responded to Eunwoo Jeong, who was observing the water tank.
“It feels like a world created for death.”
“It feels like Jaeheon Lee knows something about this situation.”
“I know.”
Lee Jae-heon, who was moving around busily while talking to Jeong Eun-woo, grabbed the handle of the door that looked like a warehouse where miscellaneous items were stored and turned it several times.
Jeong Eun-woo, who guessed that he probably needed a key based on the rattling sound, looked at Lee Jae-heon, and he continued speaking with a small sigh.
“Do you like apocalypse movies?”
“Yes, I like the movie itself.”
“Then what about a horror guessing game?”
“Games are to some extent….”
“Do you know about Cosmic Horror?”
“Cosmic horror?”
“I don’t know.”
“No, I know a little bit.”
Eunwoo Jeong continued.
“Aren’t you talking about people losing their senses when faced with great fear? “I don’t know the details of that field, but that’s roughly what I know.”
“Fortunately, the.”
“…Can I understand that this is our situation now? Genres like apocalypse movies, horror mystery games, or cosmic horror.”
“The situation is complicated, but I don’t think there will be any problems in your activities if you just know that.”
“Ah…”
Jeong Eun-woo skillfully ignored the confusion that was rising again, which was not funny. It was difficult to rule out emotions that I originally knew, but it was easy to pretend that emotions that I didn’t know didn’t exist.
Eunwoo Jeong asked with a smile.
“If we compare it to a game, what kind of situation are we in?”
“…If you don’t follow the set order and penetrate the map with a nuclear weapon to enter the final battle against the final boss, then you realize that if you don’t meet the conditions of the previous maps, a bug will occur or you won’t be able to attack successfully, so you investigate every corner of the map again from the beginning. “It would be like trying to go backwards.”
“Looking at something quite specific, it seems like you enjoy games as well.”
“I did it often when I was young.”
“Anyway, I understand.”
Nodding his head, Jeong Eun-woo summarized the situation.
“You’re saying that in order to escape from this situation, I have to move towards the exit of the aquarium and fill in the condition or find a hint that I don’t know what it is, right?”
“It’s similar.”
“Can I come with you?”
“If the circumstances arise, I will use Jeong Eun-woo as fish food, if you don’t mind.”
“Thank you for notifying me in advance.”
Lee Jae-heon blinked slowly as Jeong Eun-woo responded obediently.
“Are you asking anything?”
“I just asked everything I needed to know.”
What Jung Eun-woo considers important has always been ‘who, when, where, what and how’. ‘Why’, he thought, was probably the most useless question in the world. All that Jung Eun-woo needed was someone to tell him what he needed to do right away, conditions to handle the order, and his own ability.
That said, Jung Eun-woo doesn’t expect orders from just anyone, but Lee Jae-heon was qualified. Not only because he was a member of the Lee Dang group, but because he seemed to know a lot about the situation and background. Moreover, Lee Jae-heon had excellent combat skills, so there was no reason not to take orders.
Lee Jae-heon laughed while looking at Jeong Eun-woo like that.
“I like it.”
Jeong Eun-woo thought to himself at that smile.
‘It’s true that he’s from the Lee Dang group.’
I felt comfortable soon after.
He always needed someone to give him orders, and Lee Dang was a good partner.
(Continued in the next part)
