CH 207

Chapter 207

“You still don’t realize? Don’t you know why you’ve come ‘here’?” Bae Jaemin said.

“What?”

“Is this an effect of being buried within the memory?” Bae Jaemin did not pay any heed to my nervous reaction and chatted to himself willfully. I felt a growing headache building behind my eyes and eventually took my hands off the ladder rungs and fell down.

Perhaps the drop was shallower than I thought; I was able to step on the firm ground quickly. The issue, though, was that Bae Jaemin also leapt after hearing me land. The bastard’s face was hidden in the dark, but his looming, approaching presence was clearer than a thunderclap.

“…What kind of unpleasant things are you mumbling to yourself?” I said, as I quietly reached out a dagger in his direction. I resolved to slash at him if he got any closer.

At that moment, the thought that the bastard was my guild member flashed through my brain, but my instincts were warning me. I knew I had to finish him before he said anything else.

However, I was half a beat slow yet again. Bae Jaemin leaned towards me, as if he were about to rush in, but, as soon as I opened my eyes wide to observe the man’s movements, he stopped in his tracks and burst out a [Light]. While my view was temporarily blocked by the sudden light, he moved out of sight and rushed at me without hesitation. In my anxiety, I had been caught in a rudimentary trap.

However, contrary to my expectations, my body felt no pain; rather, a soft hand embraced my face. At first I thought the bastard was aiming for my eyes, but he wasted his sole chance to aim for my fatal vital points. He simply cupped my face with both hands.

Without missing a beat, I penetrated his personal space and placed a dagger by his Adam’s apple. The situation was now reversed–I was now threatening Bae Jaemin.

However, the bastard paid no heed to his cut and bleeding throat. Instead, when I stepped inside his embrace, he opened his arms wider and looked down at me with eyes as deep as the bottom of a well.

I felt some dissonance from the moment my eyes locked with Bae Jaemin’s. Simultaneously, I realized that something didn’t make sense. “No way.”

“……”

‘This isn’t Bae Jaemin….’

When I first looked into Bae Jaemin’s eyes, I didn’ feel anything out of the ordinary…but, somehow, I couldn’t tear my gaze away from those ordinary eyes.

As if pulled by some invisible gravitational pull, I stared endlessly at the black darkness lurking behind his eyes. There was some strange magic laden in his gaze–as if I could see a swirling river right before my eyes.

It was different from when I had locked gazes with Bae Jaemin before. A deeper, richer emotion–more so than anything else I’ve ever felt–was within him. My impression of this man before and after I met his eyes was so different. It was to the point where I found it hard to know why I mistook this man for Bae Jaemin a while ago.

Only then was I sure that the person in front of me wasn’t really Bae Jaemin but someone wearing his skin as a shell.

Unfortunately, before I could steel my expression, I flinched; the mysterious man standing before me perceived what I had just realized. Nevertheless, the man hugged me more confidently without trying to hide or floundering.

This situation drove me crazy; I was too nervous to force strength into the hand holding a dagger, so I tried to weakly push him away. But, the man simply pulled me deeper into his embrace, and I had no choice but to stand around, wondering what my next move should be.

The man bowed his head towards me, ignoring my anxiety. Moreover, as if he were teasing me, his lips came close enough to almost touch mine; I stopped breathing…

Then, continuing onto my ears, he whispered in a low tone, “I came here to wake you up, [Lee-kyung-ah].”

And I… I foolishly kept my eyes closed until the man said my name. Then, after he called my name, I heard the sound of a window shattering from far away; this place slowly began to crumble and collapse.

* * *

Dizzied, I let go of my dagger. The released dagger melted into the ground and disappeared.

Normally, this would be an alarming occurrence, but, right now, none of that mattered. After all, everything here was fake. The dagger that had melted into nonexistence wasn’t a problem; this body–this ‘Jung Garam’–was also a falsehood. My body had already turned back into my original identity: ‘Choi Lee-kyung.”

Though when I returned to my original body, I strangely felt an incomprehensible pain all over my body. I couldn’t remain alert because my whole body felt so bruised as if I had been beaten all over; there was a strange chill deep within my bones. Dry heaves rose up from within automatically. “Ughh…”

Of course, I had nothing to vomit inside my stomach. Even though the disgusting scent of food wafted up to my nose, only saliva poured out of my mouth.

I could still vividly taste the hamburger I ate with Choi Kyung-sik, but I hadn’t actually eaten anything. My stomach–which had nothing to eat–was wrung and squeezed, but there was nothing but drool.

At that moment, someone’s soft hands touched the side of my mouth without hesitation. That person supported me, clutching at my faltering body. Holding my dizzy forehead, I looked at the person that still looked like ‘Bae Jaemin.’

“Seo Dawon?” I asked.

“Yeah. Lee-kyung-ah.”

When what I had assumed was confirmed, my head began to hurt more than my body ached.

How did Seo Dawon adopt Bae Jaemin’s appearance and come inside this [Vengeful Ghost Memory]? Moreover, he chose to look like Bae Jaemin–the enemy he hated the most?

I looked at the repulsive face, staring hard at the only familiar aspect–the red eyes–and asked, “H-How did you come here?”

“I devised a method because you wouldn’t wake for such a long time.”

“What? How long did I sleep?”

“Today’s the third day.”

Indeed, this amount of time would definitely worry Seo Dawon. Even so, something itched at my senses. I tried to repeat to myself that my life is simply just a critical variable in his plans… That’s all…

However, I couldn’t stay immersed in such sweet emotions for a long time. So, I buried all that I wanted to say and bowed my head to apologize. “S-Sorry… That’s…At a certain point, I thought I should behave perfectly like Jung Garam…”

“……”

“It didn’t feel like it’d be prudent to get caught… So, I actually remember why I came to this dungeon, but I have no memories ever since I came in…”

“…It would have been hard for you to resist. This is a well-made trap.” After remaining briefly silent, Seo Dawon comforted me.

However, to my embarrassment, his comforting words made me more upset. In fact, I barely heard his reprimand because of the few seconds of silence before his comforting words–that silence weighed down on my mind.

‘I can’t even do something like this…What on earth would he think?’

Not being able to act reliably as a ‘master,’–the sense of shame that came with the inability to judge and act as the [Red Lotus] guild members do despite our (admittedly brief) correspondence–weighed heavily on me now more than ever. Though it was fake, the memories of being able to move and act like Jung Garam also made me feel more bitter. How should I put this… I felt a severe sense of deprivation.

‘Seo Dawon must be really tired of this, right? If it weren’t for his situation, he would never have signed a contract with me…’

But, as soon as I thought that, Seo Dawon suddenly grabbed my chin and lifted it up. Surprised, I looked at him; Seo Dawon looked down into my eyes carefully. “What were you thinking?”

“Huh? I-I wasn’t thinking about anything…”

“But why do you look like you’re about to cry? Do you still feel nauseous?”

“No, it’s not that…” I fumbled and made excuses, but Seo Dawon still held my face in his hand. The longer this confrontation continued, the more my heart began to beat. Although it wasn’t Seo Dawon’s face in front of me, I started to feel nervous and oddly guilty.

At that moment, Seo Dawon spoke bluntly, as if he had read my inner thoughts. “You haven’t failed yet, so don’t be so melancholy.”

“Re… Really?”

“Yeah. It’s not over yet. I just came in early because I was worried.”

“Seriously? Haah… What a relief.”

I smiled when I heard that my ordeal hadn’t ended in complete failure. Seo Dawon looked at me and took one step closer; he looked as though he were about to do something, but immediately retreated again after doing nothing.

So, I looked at him curiously; when the Mage and I made eye contact, he simply shrugged his shoulders. “I can’t even ‘cheer you up’ with this body.”

“Huh? What?”

“Lee-kyung-ie likes it when I do ‘this and that’ to him, right?”

“W-What are you talking about!”

He implied that if he were in his original body, he would have done ‘something.’ Furthermore, his expression was so mysterious; I ended up yelling at him.