Episode 58
‘Don’t tell me those people made some kind of bet over me.’
Just as that reasonable suspicion began to fill his head, Baekdam smiled brightly and took hold of his chin.
“Well done, Mr. Han Chasu.”
“Pardon?”
“It looks like there won’t be any problem with you joining the training system.”
Jeong Iheun let out a loud sigh, as if making sure he heard it.
“Still, the most important thing is Mr. Han Chasu’s own will.”
“Aha, so this is how you’re going to slip out of it?”
“Were you planning to shove a patient into such a horrific environment without saying a word?”
“You make it sound as if I’d lure Mr. Han Chasu into a trap. How surprising. To think I’d hear that from someone who forgot he was a walking ball of flame, kneaded the hand of a person who had collapsed from heatstroke, and nearly made him collapse again… I’m so moved I’m breaking out in a sweat. Ah, there’s no need to call a healer. Fortunately, unlike Mr. Han Chasu, I can treat myself.”
Baekdam’s combat power, now that he had thrown off his veil, pierced the heavens. The torrent of merciless abuse hurled right in front of him was enough to make Han Chasu feel dizzy.
But Jeong Iheun was no pushover either.
“I see. That truly is fortunate. If you hadn’t been able to do that, I couldn’t have entrusted Mr. Han Chasu to Hunter Baekdam on the way to the Administration Bureau.”
“…
Are you mocking me right now for only treating my own body and not being able to treat Mr. Han Chasu?”
“Did my words sound that way? My, I should have been more careful. It was pure admiration. If it were me, I don’t think I could have stepped forward on the spot and said I’d take responsibility for Mr. Han Chasu.”
Baekdam burst into a dazzling laugh. At that beautiful, flower-like smile, chills ran down Han Chasu’s spine. That was an extremely bad sign. What kind of sign, you ask.
‘If I don’t stop them now, everything will be reduced to ashes.’
It meant the two shameless S-ranks were about to fight.
‘If you’re going to fight, go outside and fight. Why here of all places… Haa.’
No. He didn’t even have time to lament. Han Chasu hurriedly raised a hand and cut off the staring contest between the two.
“Excuse me.”
The eyes that had been glaring as if they would burn each other to cinders moved toward him all at once. Pale brown eyes and red eyes.
Though their colors differed, the heat in both gazes was the same, and Han Chasu clicked his tongue inwardly.
“I believe I heard something just now about me joining the training system. What exactly is that?”
“Ah.”
“Haa….”
He had thrown out the question carelessly to change the subject, but their reactions were starkly different. Unlike Baekdam, whose face brightened as if he had been waiting for this very moment, Jeong Iheun looked gloomy.
‘What is wrong with these people?’
Just what was that so-called training system that they were acting like this?
‘Did I choose the wrong topic…?’
It was a subject he had raised to stop the fight, but it might have produced the opposite effect instead.
Should he change the subject even now? Just as Han Chasu was deliberating while glancing at Jeong Iheun’s shoulders, which had drooped visibly—
“Mr. Han Chasu, you don’t have to hold back anymore.”
“Pardon?”
“I’ll make it so you can blow away every bastard you don’t like. No, I shouldn’t put it like that. I’ll help you kill and kill them again until your anger is soothed, until every bit of resentment knotted inside your heart is reduced to ashes.”
What was this, something like the torture Han Chasu from the original story had suffered?
“What on earth are you talking about?”
Baekdam clasped Han Chasu’s horrified hands tightly and cried out with an excited face.
“Don’t worry. Although you have a hopelessly weak body with no answer in sight, if you learn the technique properly, taking off one of a person’s arms is nothing. Ah, did you say you preferred grabbing people by the hair? Perfect. If you lift the hair like this and slice underneath here…”
“Hunter Baekdam, I believe I clearly asked you to be careful with your choice of words.”
“Ha, seriously, how annoying. Are you Mr. Han Chasu’s father or something?”
“…….”
There were many twists and turns before they managed to drag the whole story out of Baekdam. Mostly because of Jeong Iheun’s interference, but… well, to summarize, it was as follows.
“So if I use that training system, I can personally interrogate the culprits.”
According to Baekdam, the dispute between Gi Taeyeon and the development lab had also been caused by the training system. The development lab had taken everything they were supposed to receive and run off, and that was why Gi Taeyeon had turned the development lab upside down.
‘Well, he wouldn’t have started something without that much justification.’
He had wondered why Gi Taeyeon had been harassing the place that supplied his antidote. So this was what had been going on behind the scenes.
The scales of his heart, which had already been leaning toward Gi Taeyeon, tipped completely. It was not particularly because the things the development lab had done to him were unforgivable.
They were simply bastards who deserved what they got.
‘Should I have ripped out more of their hair?’
He had been overwhelmed by the Defiance skill anyway, so he should have gone wilder. As he clenched and unclenched his hand in regret, Baekdam took hold of it.
“You’re not going to worry about collapsing in the middle of torture, are you? I told you, it’s virtual reality. Inside there, you can do anything you want to the other person. Yes, for example, you can bestow upon them every pain a human being is capable of feeling.”
Baekdam’s eyes gleamed wildly. Judging by the atmosphere, he looked ready to rush out and sever the assailants’ limbs right this instant.
There was just one problem.
“…
Why do I have to do that?”
Han Chasu had no particular feelings toward the culprits. It was true that they had caused the situation and that he had been injured because of it. He had also resented them for committing such an act of all times when he was at Baekdam’s house.
But that did not mean he was angry enough to personally tear off their limbs and slice their throats.
“What do you mean, why? Of course…!”
“…?”
For all the force with which Baekdam shouted, he could not continue properly.
Had he been struck speechless? Or was there something he wanted to say but could not? The one who unexpectedly saved Baekdam as he bit his lip was someone else.
“He said he was worried that Mr. Han Chasu might not be able to shake off the bad memories.”
At Jeong Iheun’s words, Han Chasu’s head whipped around.
At his gaze that seemed to ask what he meant, Jeong Iheun sighed.
“I’d like to ask just one last thing. Do you still have no intention of receiving counseling?”
“Why is that coming up now… Wait, don’t tell me.”
The physical interrogation of the culprits through the training system, concern for him, and the recommendation for counseling.
The three clues meshed together and formed one assumption.
“Don’t tell me you recommended that training system or whatever because you thought I might not be able to get over the memory of being attacked?”
“…
Yes.”
Baekdam answered curtly and turned his head away. Han Chasu was dumbfounded.
‘No, how on earth did they end up with such a ridiculous idea?’
If he had openly whined about how hard and scary it had been, he at least would not feel wronged. Han Chasu, who had done his utmost to maintain a calm attitude just in case Baekdam clung to him like Jeong Iheun and called him a benefactor, was practically out of his mind.
“I’m truly fine. I don’t have any trauma or anything like that. How on earth did you come to misunderstand things that way?”
“…….”
“…….”
The two men avoided his gaze at the same time. Suppressing the urge to throw a dagger at them right then and there, Han Chasu forced himself to speak.
“You can just tell me. No matter what I hear, I’ll be perfectly fine, so don’t worry. So please, give me a chance to hear your explanation.”
“Ha….”
When the word “please” appeared, Baekdam ground his teeth.
“Just tell him. Wasn’t what you confirmed earlier enough? You saw that Mr. Han Chasu is fine. I told you, he isn’t as fragile as you think.”
What did that mean now? As Han Chasu frowned, Jeong Iheun let out a deep sigh.
“Let’s do this another time, not now.”
“No, please tell me now.”
Taking hold of the hand of the man who was about to rise, Han Chasu spoke firmly.
“It’s harder for me to move on without knowing anything.”
He had a strong feeling that he could not let this situation pass vaguely. When Han Chasu refused to back down, Jeong Iheun sighed with a look that said he had no choice.
“Understood.”
A little while later, after hearing the story, Han Chasu wanted to disappear straight into the ground.
“…
I didn’t see it on purpose. I never imagined I would witness something like that. But once I saw it, I couldn’t simply do nothing, could I? It was no one else but Mr. Han Chasu suffering like that… Yes, that was also why I recommended counseling. I’m sorry for hiding it until now.”
This is driving me insane.
Han Chasu’s eyes wandered aimlessly through the air.
‘So all of this… is the result of my efforts to enter a state of suspended animation being discovered.’
It was truly absurd.
First, he was dumbfounded that the protagonist had seen that and come up with such a grand misunderstanding. Second—
‘This is a situation I can’t explain.’
His own position, where he could not say it was all a misunderstanding, was absurd.
What good was it to know the cause? He could not reveal the truth. It was not as if he could say that he had not been floundering in fear and unconsciously harming himself, but had deliberately choked himself in order to deactivate the earring.
No, if anything, telling the truth would surely deepen the misunderstanding.
‘A preference… Do I have to say that being choked is actually my preference?’
Since he had respected Baekdam’s preference as well, perhaps Baekdam would help him too.
He knew it was a ridiculous thought. But there was no other clear alternative, was there? As Han Chasu seriously agonized over it, Baekdam quietly took hold of his hand.
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