Episode 504
The man who was standing blankly thought about it later.
‘…what was my name?’
First of all, I’m sure it’s not ‘Lee Jae-heon’, but that doesn’t mean I can’t remember his original name.
Wait a minute, ‘originally’? The man unconsciously acknowledged that he was ‘Manager Lee Jae-heon.’ So, am I Lee Jae-heon? Following the steady stream of thoughts, I lowered my gaze and looked at my hands.
“….”
The bones are thick and
have almost no calluses.
There are only a few small scars.
“Uh…”
Yes, there is a scar.
A body completely different from the one I remember. Skeleton traces.
I can’t believe that I have a defect in myself, who has such tenacious regenerative power that even the superiors admit it. It was ridiculous. It shouldn’t have happened, but why are these marks left on my hands?
The man realized that I was holding a kitchen knife in my other hand.
“what is the problem?”
He muttered softly and plunged the knife into his arm.
Deep sleep!
“Why suddenly….”
“Manager.”
“I don’t know what’s going on.”
No matter how I tried, the arm showed no signs of regeneration. You may have been poisoned by some type of poison that prevents regeneration. What on earth is wrong with my body?
“Director Jaeheon Lee.”
“ah.”
Only then do you realize it.
“…I was Lee Jae-heon.”
This is the body of ‘Lee Jae-heon’.
Jaeheon Lee. A third-rate villain in a novel written by his wife.
In the original story, a high school brother and sister are used as bait at a hospital, but they end up dying horrible deaths. There is no way such a person would have the ability to regenerate.
“….”
…No, wait a minute. How do you know this? Has he ever written a novel? No, I was a police officer. We had the same body back then. No, I am not…
“….”
“….”
I took a deep breath and forced my pounding heart to calm down.
When I pulled out the knife stuck in my arm, blood flowed along with it. The pain was felt, but not clearly. It meant that more than just his physical condition, there was something wrong with his mind.
I looked back at the person who had called me several times as if to stop me.
“…Do you need treatment?”
“…who were you?”
“My name is Eunwoo Jeong. “I am working as Chairman Lee’s secretary.”
“Oh, thank you.”
Who was ‘Chairman Lee’?
My mind was a mess.
My name was Lee Jae-heon, I was also a police officer under another name, and I was also a villain who was hated by the main character.
Lee Jae-heon, who realized that his mind and memory were not intact, was able to get one word out after stretching out the wrinkles in his brain.
“…Sister’s….”
“Yes, Chairman Lee Jae-hee is Manager Lee Jae-heon’s older sister.”
“Huh.”
While I felt resentful for not being able to recall even a single basic memory, the person named Eun-Woo Jeong, who gave me consistent answers to such pointless questions, did not seem sane either.
He must have looked like a crazy person holding a knife and talking gibberish like this, but he kept it in tune.
‘Is he really crazy?’
Even in the midst of confusion, a part of me felt convenience. It was uncomfortable these days because chicks rarely work efficiently, but now I feel relieved.
…what?
‘No, our chicks were always good at their jobs, right?’
Why do I feel this way?
“…I am Lee Jae-heon….”
I do it because I am ‘Lee Jae-heon’, you half-poon.
I used all my strength to block the thoughts that were trying to go elsewhere.
Please don’t forget, he was Lee Jae-heon. Probably right. I can’t remember, but anyway, he is not called a poisonous snake now.
In the same sense, it doesn’t even seem to have the ability to regenerate. So what use is it to me? No, please don’t think like this. I mean, sort out the situation first.
“I’m Jaeheon Lee…”
“….”
“I think he’s dead.”
He’s fucking dead.
That was really funny.
‘Was it a day or two before I died?’
All I could think of as I struggled to endure the confusion that felt like firecrackers exploding inside my skull was this. But the man was sure. Apparently he just died and went back in time. I’m not sure, but I think it was roughly that way.
But can you die and go back in time and come back to life? Is this possible?
‘Rather than that in the first place….’
Why am I alive?
“….”
At that moment, the people who looked down at me coldly came to mind.
The children who saw me dying after being stabbed here and there and poisoned. He went home feeling much more comfortable leaving me behind and died. That’s how he died.
After that, my thoughts couldn’t continue. It was ridiculous to be alive and breathing like I am now. As the impatience and confusion spread, my mind turned completely white, as if it was broken.
“…Why did I die?”
“….”
“Why… did you survive? Shouldn’t he have died? I’m sure he’s dead. Eunwoo Jeong, have you ever seen our children? Those kids definitely killed me. It wasn’t possible to come back to life. Wasn’t it over? Was there something else I should have done in life? Probably not. I’m useless now, so why…”
“Manager.”
“Isn’t it all supposed to be over? What more should I do? “I shouldn’t be alive like this. Do you have any idea why this happened?”
“Director Jaeheon Lee.”
“….”
The man closed his mouth at the call of ‘Lee Jae-heon.’
“….”
“I’m sorry, but I didn’t even understand half of what you said. I would appreciate it if you could speak more slowly. And as far as I know, the manager has never died. My name is Jaeheon Lee, and I am the head of the planning department at the Oseong headquarters. “He is a member of the Idang Group and the third youngest among his siblings.”
“…That…”
The man blinked a few times, caught his breath, and continued.
“That’s good. Please keep calling me by my name.”
“I will.”
“…I need to rest for a while.”
“That’s a good idea.”
“I need to rest.”
He mumbled the same words again and slowly looked around.
A large cylindrical water tank, bright blue scenery and humid air. I don’t know what on earth I was doing, but my whole body was soaked in black water. As I was out of breath, my throat became itchy and I scratched it with my fingernails.
‘…Why is my ankle like this again?’
The rattling thing looked like someone had probably hit him with a hard iron club or something. Now that I think about it, there were injuries all over my body, and I wondered if I had been kidnapped or assaulted a few days ago.
The feeling of continuing pain due to non-regeneration was a bit unfamiliar.
“….”
Exhaling slowly with his eyes closed, the man organized his thoughts. Even if you don’t know why you are in this place, understanding the situation is a prerequisite for efficient work.
And soon I was able to understand my condition and situation.
‘…I think I was reincarnated after I died. Did you do it twice? Seeing as the memories belong to two people, it seems like that.’
Although the memories were sparse, I could tell that they contained memories of a total of three people.
In order, the memory of my past life as a government dog, the memory of being reincarnated as a police officer in my previous life, and the memory of an old manager who had a bad relationship with the main character of this world were classified as memories. But I wasn’t sure about all this.
I don’t know if it was because my mind was confused or because I was hit by something, but the gap in my memory was too big.
“…I am Lee Jae-heon….”
I listed certain facts, starting with my ‘name’.
‘Regardless of my past life or anything else, I barely remember anything about being a poisonous snake. I know that I am a third-rate villain from a novel. I definitely have memories of that time. ‘It’s up to that point, but…’
The man who was muttering to himself sighed loudly.
“I can’t organize it.”
I tried, but in the end I couldn’t regain my identity. It’s because my brain has melted.
I tried to act calm, but even that failed. As my foundation was shaken, my heart, which I had tried so hard to keep calm, was pounding with anxiety and I could not be sure of anything except that my name was ‘Lee Jae-heon.’
In the end, what the man chose was to ask the person next to him.
“Why are we here?”
“I don’t know about that either. “I understand that the manager was unable to explain the phenomenon.”
“Then where is this place?”
“This is Dreamcatcher Aquarium.”
“It doesn’t look like an ordinary aquarium. Is this a research institute that trains monsters?”
“To be exact, I understand that it is an aquarium in the underworld.”
“What is the other side of the world?”
“You said it was a world built through people’s thoughts.”
“I?”
“Yes, Manager Lee Jae-heon.”
“….”
Anyway, it was a dungeon.
‘…Lee Jae-heon was well aware of its existence.’
At that point, what came to mind was a novel my wife had written. This body belonged to the villain in the novel, and the underworld was a type of dungeon that appeared in the novel. I roughly understood it.
However, ‘Lee Jae-heon’ should have died long ago when he had the hospital episode, so why is he still alive in the aquarium?
“….”
Oh, that wasn’t me. Now this body belongs to the reincarnated ‘Lee Jae-heon’. I had to remember that.
“What was I doing?”
“I was getting the ball from that room.”
“ball?”
“Yes, a plastic ball like this.”
As Jeong Eun-woo said that, a total of three plastic balls, orange, yellow and green, were placed at his feet.
I still couldn’t figure out the intention.
“…What can I do with that?”
“By solving a kind of puzzle including these, Manager Lee Jae-heon wanted to check a total of six rooms here and gain information about this aquarium.”
“aha.”
“…don’t you remember anything?”
“That’s not true.”
The man continued speaking with an expressionless expression.
“I think I forgot a lot.”
In fact, even this could not be considered entirely correct.
Rather than saying that it was completely forgotten, it would be more accurate to say that it was damaged to the point where it was unrecognizable.
He could remember that he knew something, but he couldn’t organize his thoughts and get them out. It’s as if the paints were mixed together and couldn’t be separated…
“…Did you say you brought the ball from that room?”
When the man pointed to the door where the pool was, Eunwoo Jeong nodded. The man looked inside the door.
“What exactly should I bring?”
“It looks like you were trying to match all the colors of the rainbow. So, wouldn’t it be okay to bring red, blue, navy blue and purple balls from now on?”
“Way?”
“Once he got caught between the balls, he came out with each ball with a high probability. Director Lee Jae-heon gave me the order to ‘do nothing and maintain full strength,’ so I was waiting outside.”
“Why did I do that?”
Jung Eun-woo answered the man’s question obediently this time.
“I think he wanted me to protect the students he cared about when they arrived here.”
“…I wonder why you asked Eunwoo Jeong to protect you instead of me, but no, I understand. If my condition worsens and I turn into an enemy that is difficult to deal with, Eunwoo Jeong would have to protect the students from me. I know. Now I understand. “Am I right?”
“I think that was probably the case.”
“Yeah, I heard you’re right….”
Lee Jae-heon muttered like that and was confident in his heart.
‘Ah, I guess Lee Jae-heon was right too.’
‘Lee Jae-heon”s request to Jeong Eun-woo was clearly his own way.
In other words, even though his memories were mixed up and his identity was confused, ‘Lee Jae-heon’ was indeed him. Even though I don’t know what exactly happened that made him become ‘Lee Jae-heon’, the old man’s manager.
And that was enough.
“…If what I did was right, that’s fine.”
There must be a reason for everything.
There must be a reason why he directly consumed me, rather than a normal subordinate, and wanted to protect ‘students’ whose faces I can’t even remember right now. Everything he did had meaning and value.
So it will be like that this time too.
“Here… they tried to open these rooms. I.”
“Yes, more specifically, you wanted information to help you attack this aquarium.”
“Then let’s do that.”
“Can I help you? Your ankle isn’t fully healed yet and you have a new injury on your arm, so it might be hard to move, so if you don’t mind…” “No.
”
‘Lee Jae-heon’ flatly refused.
He pushed away Jeong Eun-woo, who approached him with his signature thin smile on his face.
“I will do it.”
“…Yes, Manager.”
“Please keep calling me my name.”
Because I have to remember that I am ‘Lee Jae-heon’.
(Continued in the next part)
