The Way of Life for a Terminal S-Class Hunter - C64
$64
“Yes. I was going to at least tell you that Kwon Ho-jun wasn’t anything special to me. I was going to make it clear that we were just meeting because we each wanted something. No, in fact, I was even thinking of not carrying out that plan, even if it meant taking a detour. If you hadn’t tried to throw your body away a few days before that incident, using the excuse of protecting me while being obsessed with dying.”
“So you wanted to punish me? Because I tried to sacrifice myself to protect you?”
Only after I spoke did I realize something with the impact of a hammer blow to my head. For that to be punishment, Seo-heon must have known about my feelings. And despite having feelings for me beyond friendship, he tried to hurt me.
“Dealing with the plan perfectly and in the fastest way to prevent you from thinking about dying was the priority, but I can’t say there weren’t such feelings.”
“What was your plan?”
“To win over someone close to Congressman Kwon. Kwon is cunning, but he’s not a perfect human. Especially to those he thinks he has completely dominated, he tends not to throw any bait.”
Seo-heon pressed his fingers to his head as if it hurt.
“The best option was to persuade one of the three people used in the arson incident. After investigation, Ko Un, who could read memories, was chosen as the suitable person. Although he grew up in an orphanage, he remembered his biological father’s face. He learned that his father was ill and cautiously asked Congressman Kwon for money, but was refused.”
Seo-heon muttered, “From Kwon’s perspective, he probably thought there wouldn’t be much affection for parents who abandoned him.” I was listening to the explanation, but honestly, I wasn’t understanding it.
“On the day I couldn’t keep my promise with you, I received information that Congressman Kwon was bringing Ko Un to test me. I wanted to refuse, but I didn’t know when the next opportunity would come. In the end, I went to the restaurant with Juhong, who had telepathic abilities.”
I recalled Juhong, whom I had encountered with Seo-heon a few times recently.
“From then on, everything went smoothly. We established secret communication methods and signed a contract. Thanks to the clues he provided, we were able to plant a spy, and with his direct testimony, there was no room for escape. After learning how to hide memories I didn’t want to show, even Congressman Kwon’s sudden visit wasn’t a problem.”
My mind went blank. I experienced firsthand that when you’re too shocked, you lose the ability to speak.
“Why on earth…?”
“You still don’t understand?”
Seo-heon, who had been hesitating for a moment, opened his mouth.
“I want you to be mine. To think of me as your top priority, unable to carelessly think about dying. I wanted us to belong completely to each other. Like before.”
“Like before?”
Is he talking about high school?
“Yes. Let’s go back to the starting point. Back to when we only knew each other. At least so you can’t think about dying without considering the other person, like me.”
His obsessive-compulsive disorder was manifesting in a strange way. I thought I knew him to some extent, but that was just the tip of the iceberg. Kang Seo-heon felt like a stranger to me now.
“So what are you trying to do…?”
Seo-heon smiled gently. My vision wavered, making even that seem grotesque.
“Anything, if it’s what you want.”
The hand caressing my face felt unfamiliar and frightening.
“It wouldn’t be bad to try loving each other.”
At his finally named emotion, I heard something shattering like an auditory hallucination.
“You’re crazy.”
Kang Seo-heon was a madman. That is, he was more of a madman than I knew.
“Yes. I’ve always been crazy. I’ve gradually become more of a madman waiting for this day for the past 10 years.”
I squeezed my eyes shut.
Apart from the feeling of betrayal, I didn’t have the courage to tell the truth that I would cease to exist in this world after a little over a hundred days.
“I can’t do it.”
It’s too late for anything. As Seo-heon said, I might have been obsessed with wanting to die. My remaining life force, which wasn’t much, made me lose even the strength to refute that statement. If he had known that, Seo-heon shouldn’t have used this method.
Just as I didn’t know Seo-heon well, Seo-heon didn’t know me well either.
He finally turned his gaze elsewhere.
“You’ll need time to organize your thoughts too. I’m good at waiting.”
Seo-heon put the paper back in his bag and sat down in a chair much too small for him.
“But don’t make me wait too long, since I’ve been patient for so long.”
“No. It’s all too late. Whatever you want now, whatever you do, I have no intention of being with you anymore.”
The feeling of betrayal, frustration, and perhaps even happiness lost right before my eyes – these were all things I couldn’t enjoy.
“It’s, too late.”
A mindset created by deep-rooted guilt doesn’t disappear easily, and such overwhelming betrayal stops proper thinking. Like that, among the collapsed and sprawled thoughts, frustration dressed in black mourning clothes walked steadily.
“Why are you doing this now?”
I didn’t have time to hate Seo-heon now, nor time to enjoy the joy that he had harbored feelings similar to mine. The glowing red guidance window was announcing that.
[You have 103 days of life force remaining. When your life force becomes less than 100 days, you will enter a state of apparent death.]
Everything loses power in the face of time. Neither great power nor the purest love can overcome it.
“Only you in my plan.”
Seo-heon’s voice trembled for the first time.
“Only you, don’t move according to my will.”
Fatigue showed in the place where madness had been surging. There was no way to know whether it was due to the dungeon conquest or because of things accumulated over the past 10 years.
“I just wanted only you to go according to my will. It’s not easy.”
Perhaps only I, for whom nothing moved as I wanted, and you were included in all of that?
“If you’re trying to persuade me, give up.”
“If I was going to give up, I wouldn’t have made such an elaborate plan in the first place.”
Even after finishing speaking, Seo-heon didn’t leave his seat. A heavy silence wandered around the hospital room.
If he leaves, I’ll quickly cool my head and do some thinking.
“Don’t think about running away. Let’s go to my house after you’re discharged tomorrow.”
I don’t know how he knew like a ghost that I was planning to leave again. His ghostly sixth sense was working normally today too.
“My head will explode if I’m with you now. Let me be alone.”
I deliberately spoke in a light tone. I wanted to pretend to be light to avoid being captured by heavy truths.
“There’s never been a time when leaving you alone at times like this was good.”
Seo-heon said that, but still got up from his seat. Judging by the continuous vibrations from both his phone and guild device since earlier, it seemed a considerable amount of work had piled up. There would be a lot to handle just from clearing an over S-rank dungeon, not to mention exposing someone who had been conspiring with him.
In fact, although Seo-heon had summarized it lightly, it was difficult for me to gauge how much planning and effort would have been needed within that.
“It’s a tracking item. I’ve prepared it so that I can move to that location immediately if it’s deactivated or broken, so don’t think about breaking it unnecessarily and just keep it quietly.”
He handed me a tracking item. Tracking items were typically used when transporting criminals or by wealthy parents raising young children. Moreover, a device that allows teleportation upon deactivation was generally more expensive than hiring a hunter with teleportation skills. I couldn’t have imagined he would go this far, not knowing that I didn’t have much life left.
“Stay quietly in the hospital today. I’ll take you to our house tomorrow.”
Seo-heon was confident, even though he was the one who had done wrong. As I watched Seo-heon turn his back and leave, I belatedly discovered the emptiness hanging behind the despair. It felt like my entire life up until now was being denied.
‘Don’t blame others.’
That was the rule I had made, but it was about to crumble. My weakened soul kept blaming Seo-heon.
Why didn’t you tell me about my father?
Why didn’t you tell me you liked me?
Knowing I wanted to die, why…
If I had known what you were angry about, we could have avoided the worst.
The thoughts that came to mind were as fleeting as waves scattering on land. Because in fact, I was the same.
I ultimately didn’t convey my feelings for you, saying the situation wasn’t good. I pretended to act for your sake, but in the end, I burned up all my life force wanting to die nobly. Believing that was a way to alleviate guilt, a way to express love.
This was the result.
I sat on the bed and buried my head in my knees. I thought tears would come, but surprisingly, they didn’t.
Knock knock.
“Come in.”
I answered thinking it probably wasn’t Seo-heon who had just left, but again my voice came out hoarse.
“How are you feeling?”
The one who entered was Halo, who had changed into comfortable clothes. He must have suffered injuries big and small too, but there must be a reason he came all the way to my hospital room.
“What should I do?”
Was that it? Without realizing it, such a question came out. I didn’t want to depend on him just because he was a prophet, but I asked as if entrusting everything to him who had come at just the right time. Halo was silent for a while.
“May I sit down, Woo-hyun?”
“Of course.”
Halo had a sunken expression.
“This was the best we could do. There was no way to prevent you from entering apparent death in 3 days by any method. Rather, if we had made even a small mistake, you would have died in that dungeon.”
“I don’t know why you care about my future, but thank you.”
I meant it sincerely. As he said, without his predictive ability, there might have been more injuries in the dungeon or it might have been impossible to clear.