Episode 98
In the underworld, what is important is mental strength, and with this, the survivor solves everything and also falls apart. The stronger the trauma an individual has, the higher and more precarious the person stands on a spire.
Therefore, the person who created the first noticeable phenomenon in the story was President Garam Yoon.
‘Because I have a very strong trauma that occurred when I was in high school.’
While on a 4-day, 3-night trip to a mountain lodge with her family, she witnessed a forest fire and the mountain cabin where her family was sleeping burning down. Unfortunately or fortunately, Garam Yoon came out far away to enjoy the dark dawn breeze.
But maybe something collapsed inside, or maybe the owner locked it up during the night. Garam Yoon pounded and scratched at the door of the mountain cabin where his family was, but in the end the door would not open. Even though I worked hard until my fingernails flew off and my fingertips became stained with blood.
When she collapsed in despair, something caught the eye of Yoon Garam, who raised her head.
‘Request for rescue from family members still alive.’
They couldn’t even get out of the top room on the third floor.
Yoon Garam’s family members were screaming inside, barely breaking the old glass window with a chair, and half sticking out their upper bodies, screaming for Yoon Garam to save their lives. However, Yoon Garam, who had already called 911, could do nothing more.
But something fell right in front of her nose.
‘Brother.’
Its small hands were crushed by the heat of the fire.
One of the brothers, unable to withstand the heat of the fire, struggled and fell from the third floor, breaking his neck and dying immediately. The eyes of the head, bent in a geometric direction, were looking at her even in death.
Those eyes, which had already lost their vitality, were speaking towards Yoon Garam. Please save me, please save me. Even though he was dead, there was a longing for life that clung to him and a vague resentment in its traces. It was my resentment toward her for not being the only one who didn’t go up in the fire.
There was no way that Yoon Garam, who was a minor, could have come to his senses even after seeing that terrible scene.
‘I knocked on the door that was on fire again.’
Thanks to this, she suffered burns almost all over her body.
Hitting, knocking and scraping. Whether my clothes caught fire or my back melted, the screams in her ears never stopped. Even when the paramedics rushed to take Yoon Garam to the hospital.
In the end, she was the only one who survived, and Yoon Garam, lying in the hospital room, suddenly realized.
‘ah.’
It was fun.
Watching families being consumed by fire and strangers turning into handfuls of ashes. I was delighted with that amazing experience that I will never experience again.
That was Yoon Garam’s trauma.
‘It’s really crazy that a person like that would open a flower shop.’
Because the first episode of the story was in a park, her physical characteristics were revealed first.
When Garam Yoon looks at plants, he always remembers the events of that time. Burning tree leaves and flowers. person. A big building. A person who was burning inside the building. Just like when you burn a doll, it turns into a handful of ashes.
Since he is a person who enjoys even his own nightmares, even the bright red lights would avoid Yoon Garam.
Jaeheon Lee continued calmly.
“Director Kang and the students… I confirmed that Yeon-seok is safe as well. “He’s over there with other people right now.”
“…iced coffee. ah. “Have you seen Chief Kang, Manager?”
“It was at the edge of the park. “I put it on a tree so the monster won’t harm it.”
He quickly changed his plan.
‘I think trying to distance ourselves now will only backfire, so let’s try the next opportunity.’
His disappointment was that these chicks were softer and more affectionate than he imagined. I thought they would distance themselves when the time and situation was right, but aren’t these just brats? What on earth makes it stick again?
In the end, the distance that was supposed to widen became narrower, and unnecessary feelings of guilt and debt were added. There is no such thing as a major failure, so Lee Jae-heon lost the will to proceed with a new plan.
Looking at him like that, President Garam Yoon asked.
“Do you happen to know where Teacher Ha Seong-yoon is?”
“…Couldn’t you find it?”
For some reason, only three of the four who were gathered together were visible, and Ha Seong-yoon seemed to have gone somewhere.
‘But… I can’t get a feel for it.’
At least, if you read the novel, you can understand the personalities of the main characters to some extent.
The other guys who die soon also have a modern-day ‘Lee Jae-heon’, so of course there are parts that are a bit stuttering because he has no interest in the lives of his subordinates, but he still understands the employees.
But it wasn’t Ha Seong-yoon. He was originally a character who did not appear in the novel. To be precise, he did appear, but the lines he spoke were very rare, only in President Yoon’s flashback scenes, and it was not even clear whether those were Ha Seong-yoon’s own lines. It wasn’t easy to figure out because he was that kind of guy.
What is your ultimate goal, what kind of personality you have, what values you have, etc. Of course, you can tell if you keep watching from the side, but it’s not like Ha Sung-yoon and Lee Jae-heon have been building a relationship for a year.
As a result, Lee Jae-heon did not know much about the person Ha Seong-yoon.
“Where was the last time we met?”
“Uh… further up from where we had a bonfire. “It was a place with a lot of trees with domes.”
“….”
Huh.
Jaeheon Lee internally lamented.
‘That’s a man-eating tree… I think you’re talking about it.’
It is a tree that is mentioned twice in the story and has similar characteristics to Nepenthes, a commonly known carnivorous plant. It is a plant that looks like an elongated pouch and eats insects that enter it.
Man-eating trees are not much different. It calms down survivors who come in during the evening looking for a place to sleep or shelter and holds them still, then slowly closes the entrance while the survivors are asleep and causes them to starve inside. From then on, it was time for the man-eating tree to eat in earnest.
Of course, there are no survivors who die in the story. Starving to death itself takes quite a while, so if you take it out from the outside, you can escape, and the speed at which the entrance closes is slow, so if you come to your senses in time, you can come out with all limbs intact.
Because of this, towards the end of the novel, the main character even sleeps there. There were no monsters coming that way, so it was a pretty good place to sleep as long as you got the timing right.
‘No… but that’s still true.’
What is the difference between the main character who has become a stagnant person and the chicks of today? When I looked at the direction he ran away from, I couldn’t believe he had actually gone there. Even if they had gone in, I had faith that the group would escape without notice, but it was still absurd.
Lee Jae-heon blinked his eyes slowly and said.
“…Then… let’s look for Ha Seong-yoon first.”
And at the same time, Kwon Yeon-hee screamed.
“No!”
“What’s the problem with Employee Kwon?”
“Director, I’m dying…!”
“Kill someone now.”
“And then you die!”
“Huh.”
Lee Jae-heon frowned, looking as if he would cry if touched. I didn’t bother to talk to him because I was already anxious about the way people looked at him, but he was a really picky guy, wasn’t he?
However, to some extent, it was understandable that Kwon Yeon-hee was worried about him.
‘I’d like to tell her to improve her abilities while she’s worrying, but…’
In fact, from her perspective, isn’t it a situation where she abandoned Lee Jae-heon and ran away, but barely came back when she realized she had made a big mistake? To be honest, I don’t really understand, but it seems highly likely that Lee Jae-heon’s feelings of guilt and debt were further maximized due to the fact that his condition was not very good.
Of course, Lee Jae-heon can’t sympathize with why this chick is like this, and I don’t know why everyone rushes to this point when she’s so soft and warm, and the build-up I’ve done with all my efforts is such a waste that it’s hard to come out with a good sound.
But what can you do?
‘We shouldn’t ignore the problem that’s right in front of us.’
If you think about it, including Noh Yeon-seok and these chicks, even Director Kang and the other two students, I don’t think they would have any estrangement from Lee Jae-heon.
So I had no choice. The attempt to create an appropriate distance from Lee Jae-heon by scaring him was a failure, but he still had some more work left to do.
Lee Jae-heon decided to continue his acting from before, but looked a little dull.
“But… Intern Noh Yeon-seok almost died just now. “There’s no way Ha Seong-yoon isn’t dangerous.”
“But that doesn’t work…! “The manager’s condition is so bad!”
“If I just come back soon….”
“I really can’t, really. “Do you know that your eyes can’t focus right now?”
Yes, it’s a concept.
‘The setting of a villain who was brainwashed by a green algae monster should be maintained as is.’
I can’t send this because I feel like the build-up I’ve accumulated so far is a waste.
Of course, considering the green algae monster’s slowness and low intelligence, it doesn’t seem to have anything to do with the word brainwashing, but what kind of zombie would be so smart that it would spread its forces around? If it were infection rather than brainwashing, the story would go faster.
The story is that Manager Lee Jae-heon, who was infected by a green algae monster through some kind of route during the night he was dragged away, gradually loses his senses and eventually attacks people.
‘I have an image built up, so I guess I’ll just have to pretend to hold on so I don’t lose my temper…’
That level of dramatic drama was enough.
“Chief, I know we’re really unreliable, but why don’t you get some rest?”
“….”
“…What if I really die like this….”
To be honest, with employee Kwon’s level of sensitivity, I thought there would be a suitably sad scene. Of all the chicks Jaeheon Lee collected, he was the most emotional.
Lee Jae-heon muttered inwardly that he was liberated.
‘I guess the main character will interpret the rest on his own.’
He is a man who already has a lot of thoughts and doubts. Immediately after the group dispersed, I would have sprinkled some rice cakes on them. Lee Jae-heon would have been the only one playing the drums and janggu, and the reaction would have followed.
Although ‘Operation Distancing’, which should have shown smooth results in the middle of the process, failed, why not fail for a day or two? This much could have been resolved. What he wanted was a natural distance, but since it was like this, adding a little new wave was all that was needed.
‘…Honestly, I don’t know if I’ll be able to distance myself like I did when I do that…’
Fuck you.
‘If it doesn’t work out, I’ll just say it hurts and lie down.’
There were a lot of things about the current chicks that were unreliable because they sucked on honey right away, but if things didn’t go as planned as they did, no matter how Lee Jae-heon was, he was bound to get annoyed. Let’s figure it out among ourselves.
Of course, he knew that if the situation became critical, Lee Jae-heon, a grown man, would have to step in, but due to the successive failures of his plans and repeated nonsense, he was so heated that he had to say something like this to feel at ease. Anyway, everyone becomes unhappy except me.
Moreover, if Lee Jae-heon hurt someone like that, no matter how deep his feelings were, he would have no choice but to be wary of him. How can you trust someone who is half a monster based on common sense?
Thinking like that, Lee Jae-heon felt so at ease that he blinked.
“…Okay, I’m sorry.”
“….”
“I’m sorry. “I won’t do that then.”
From now on, the acting he had to do was ‘infected with green algae but trying to survive it’. The image I’ve built so far is that of an altruistic psychopath but hiding it, so I had to at least pretend to protect or help my group.
Since he sensed that Lee Jae-heon would soon lose his temper and harm others, he would have to show signs of slowly moving away.
‘I don’t want the other person to get hurt by getting closer.’
However, ‘Lee Jae-heon’ also has a desire to be with the group. So, even if the act of trying to distance oneself is calm, it must seem complicated on the inside, and since you are trying not to lose your senses, it doesn’t seem bad to pretend that your head or somewhere else is in pain. It’s okay to look as dull as you have done so far.
He had to feel very complicated emotions when he saw the people who came to visit him because they were worried about him. Feeling grateful, sorry, and anxious about what to do next. I’m nervous about whether I can survive it.
And a level of resignation.
“I’ll try my best to not make you worry.”
Even though I know that I will soon break my promise, I try my best to say things to reassure the other person. Even if he later feels resentment due to a broken promise, he can handle it alone.
Employee Kwon seemed a little relieved by Lee Jae-heon’s words.
“…I’m sorry for yelling.”
“Employee Kwon has nothing to be sorry about.”
“I’m sorry…”
It was a creeping voice.
President Garam Yoon was watching the situation from a step away from them, and the main character and the detective were quiet, as if their conversation had come to an end. It seemed like they had a good conversation, as much as they wanted to share it with each other.
Lee Jae-heon looked back in that direction and said.
“Then…the others will look for us when tomorrow morning comes.”
“…yes.”
“Shall we rest for now, Assistant Manager Jeong?”
The protagonist answered him.
“Yes, manager.”
