Don’t panic. I tried to sort out the situation.
This woman had probably tried to leave the password hint blank and move on.
But the input box wouldn’t let her proceed unless she typed something.
So she must have put in a single period with an annoyed look on her face and moved on.
As expected of a Sherlockian. See one thing, know ten. I might have felt proud if only it hadn’t been completely useless information.
-As expected. You seem to have a sharp eye only for things that don’t matter whether you know them or not.
...If the old man had known, he would have laughed at me for ages. I could practically hear that peculiar intonation in my ears.
Phew. In any case, the computer was a bust.
Even if I was going to find out the password, I’d have to look elsewhere.
It felt like I was playing an escape room game.
The only difference was that, unlike an escape room game where hints and a way out were definitely prepared, there was no guarantee of anything like that in this room.
When I looked around the room again, the original owner’s belongings came into view.
At first, I hadn’t had the leisure to examine them amid the flood of overflowing information, but now it was time to look at each one carefully.
Of course, the pills and wet wipes on the desk were exceptions.
Honestly, I’m scared even to look at those.
But even without going out of my way to inspect the suspicious items, there were things I could obtain much more easily and simply.
For example, the phone and wallet on the shelf where the liquor was displayed.
Right. If I was going to search, this came first. It wouldn’t be an exaggeration to say that the true personal information of modern society comes from one’s phone.
Various personal details, relationships, and direct conversations would be left here, and the occasional photos in the gallery would show her movements.
I might be able to infer all sorts of things by looking at the names saved in the contacts.
It was a staple subject in detective novels too.
I picked up the black phone on the dining table. It was a Galaxy phone.
I thought it might be an Apple phone, but it was an ordinary Galaxy.
It seemed like a fairly new model, but the case was functional and simple in design.
Between that and the rough outfit, I found myself thinking she didn’t live up to her face in all sorts of ways.
Or maybe not. Since she still looked good even dressed like this, was that living up to her face?
Turning it this way and that, I saw a card wallet attached to it, with not a single ornament or picture. I felt like I could faintly glimpse the owner’s personality.
Of course, none of that mattered.
What truly mattered was something else.
If the owner of this place had a sloppy personality like mine, the last eight digits of her phone number might be the computer password.
That’s it. I’ve got the experience of reading detective novels for over a decade, starting with Sherlock!!
“Fuck...”
And there was no way such an important phone wouldn’t have even a pattern lock on it. Self-loathing left me speechless.
Getting hit by the same thing again kind of hurts, huh?
Worse, this one was also an eight-digit PIN. With a pattern, I could at least try to crack it, but an eight-digit number left me with no answer.
“...C-calm down.”
I muttered to myself and tried to regain my composure.
Deep breaths. Deep breaths.
I didn’t know how many times I’d thought that today. Sadly, it had never worked.
Until now, I’d been too flustered to even have the leisure to properly despair, but grabbing onto some sort of clue only to lose it dealt a heavy mental blow.
Even in this bewildering and difficult situation, I had forced myself to come up with a concrete alternative...
But with even that blocked off, I suppose I’d once again realized just how hopeless the current situation was.
“Ah... I really want a cigarette.”
With a hollow laugh, I sprang up from my seat.
I couldn’t stand the frustration.
I had roughly searched the house, but I hadn’t seen a lighter, let alone cigarettes.
I even secretly checked the pockets of the coat hanging there, but found nothing.
Then I’d have to go outside and buy some... Rather than being holed up alone in one room, digging myself deeper, it would be better to go out and run into something, anything.
To be honest, I was a little scared of what lay beyond the door.
But compared to floundering in absurd delusions, it seemed faster to just close my eyes and face it head-on.
Let’s see. For that, I needed money and an ID...
I turned my eyes again, this time toward the wallet. Even at a glance, it was quite thick.
Opening someone’s wallet without the owner’s permission felt a little wrong... No. Come to think of it, this body was the owner.
Then it’s mine. If I’m looking at my own stuff, you can’t call it theft.
“...???”
When I opened the wallet with that self-justification, I soon learned the reason for its thickness.
It was full of 50,000-won bills.
One, two, three... twenty.
There were twenty 50,000-won bills inside. A few 10,000-won and 1,000-won bills were wedged in there too.
This was my first time seeing a wallet carry this much cash.
...Wait, don’t tell me. Is this payment for the trouble of cleaning up the body?
That’s exactly the sort of thing a woman planning to commit suicide would do.
“...No!!”
Come to think of it, I was the one who ended up having to clean up after her.
There was no one who could criticize me for taking this fee.
Whatever its source, from my perspective, I could only be grateful.
One of the elements of survival had been solved for the immediate future.
I had no idea how long I could last on this, but at least I’d avoided the pathetic situation of trembling over a single cup of instant noodles like in a disaster movie.
Just as you had to secure water and food when stranded in a jungle, if you were stranded in modern society, you had to secure money and identity.
In civilized society, everything required to solve food, clothing, and shelter depended on money.
I didn’t know how much food was in the house, and clothes would be in the closet, but there might be monthly rent to pay. Money was a serious matter.
If this were a common regression-possession-reincarnation web novel, maybe a status window would have popped up saying Funds +1,034,000.
Now, if I just found an ID, I could go buy cigarettes.
“...Kang Jimin.”
So that’s what you’re called?
When I took out the driver’s license tucked into the wallet, I learned the name of this body’s owner.
She even had a Class 1 regular license. Isn’t that rare for a woman to get?
I also had a Class 1 regular license, so I used to tease friends who got Class 2 by calling them gay and whatnot, but even I would recommend Class 2 regular if my younger sister were getting a license.
As for age, let’s see. Born in 2001.
If she was two years younger than me, born in 1999, then she was twenty-five. Young. In the prime of her youth.
Young enough that I couldn’t understand how she had ended up making such an extreme... choice.
“...Anyway, this means she’s not a minor.”
Then there shouldn’t be anyone to say anything even if I smoked like a chimney.
***
At some point, the sunset coming through the blinds had turned bluish.
The dusk shifted from orange to navy, and then, as if flipped at a certain moment, turned black.
The digital clock was showing 8:30 as well.
Considering that it was starting to feel chilly, was this place also somewhere between summer and autumn?
Or maybe I had chills because of the drug’s effects? Should I have rummaged through the closet and thrown something on?
I roughly shoved my feet into the slippers and stepped out into the corridor.
And then I realized I’d nearly been fucked.
-Ddororong.
Only after I came out into the hallway and heard that sound
did I realize that I didn’t know the password to that front door.
“?!?!”
Startled, I grabbed the doorknob again, but with another ddororong, it closed.
“...N-no, no way, right?”
Cold sweat broke out.
My mind went bleached white, and only incoherent sounds came out of my mouth. I thought I might truly be fucked... but.
By a stroke of incredible luck, I remembered that there had been a villa resident card in the wallet.
When I brought the key card to the door lock, I heard a ddirorong again.
“I-it opened.”
It did open, but... wasn’t that, quite seriously, almost a complete disaster?
If I had come out without the wallet, I might have ended up sitting out on the street just like that.
I might have parents or relatives here that I hadn’t had in the other world, but since I didn’t know where they were, I couldn’t even contact them.
I soothed my chilled heart and got into the elevator, then turned back around and returned to the front door.
“Room 702. Room 702...”
If I forgot it by any chance, this wouldn’t end as a joke.
Keep your head on straight. Please. This was literally no different from being stranded in modern society.
When I trudged outside, it was slightly chilly. I had been so out of it that I hadn’t even thought to put on a coat.
It might be a little cold to come out wearing only an oversized T-shirt. I didn’t know what season it was. It had been late summer on the other side, but was it more like autumn here?
“No, wait.”
I could at least tell what month and day it was just from the home screen, couldn’t I?
When I took the phone out of my pocket, it displayed September 18, 2020.
“...”
Not 2025, but 2020.
The meaning contained in that number was... truly... plentiful.
But my head was already overloaded, so I didn’t want to add any more burden.
For now, let’s shove the various hypotheses implied by the gap between 2020 and 2025 into a corner.
...Still, I guess this means I wasn’t kidnapped and drugged with anesthetic. Time can’t flow backward, after all.
“Eutcha...!!”
I stuffed the phone back into my pocket and stretched wide.
...The more I thought, the more I wanted a cigarette. Let’s buy cigarettes first and think afterward.
“Let’s see... Born in 2001, in 2020...”
She was a twenty-year-old freshman. Buying cigarettes wouldn’t be a problem.
It’s not like smoking one cigarette is going to make anything worse.