Chapter 57
Chapter 57
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Translator: Vine
Chapter: 57
Chapter Title: Inside Out (5)
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***
Woojin laughed heartily, slapping his knee, before continuing his explanation.
“The human psyche reveals itself most dramatically when confronted with fear. I don’t know what kind of emotions you and that Hyde guy just exchanged, Professor, but that’s not what I was watching.”
Tap, tap.
Holding the scalpel upside down, Woojin prodded the Professor’s left hand with its handle.
“See? Those fingers that were twitching and grumbling earlier are nice and quiet now. They move perfectly fine, don’t they?”
Unable to hide his bewilderment, the Professor looked down at his left hand. Just as Woojin said, the fingers that had felt slightly off ever since Hyde took over now felt completely like his own again.
“It means the sub-personality, sensing the danger, hid behind the main one. It’s relying on you. At least for now.”
The Professor stared at Woojin, who explained with immense pride, his expression one of utter disbelief. Blood was still trickling from the spot on his forehead where Woojin had jabbed him before the finger-cutting act. With each drop, plop, plop, the Professor’s patience seemed to ebb away.
“So the blood running down my forehead right now is...”
“Oh, sorry about that. I didn’t expect you to react so intensely, Professor Park. Hmm... It’s not a deep wound, so just slap some hemostatic ointment on it.”
“Wait, you go on about chopping off fingers like it’s nothing, and ‘it was all an act’ is supposed to cover it? In the wasteland, losing three fingers basically means retirement—”
“I never said it was completely an act, did I? If you hadn’t snapped out of it by the end, I would’ve chopped them off for real.”
Woojin grabbed some ointment from a drawer and roughly smeared it over the Professor’s grumbling forehead before speaking.
“Isn’t that obvious? If you’re so out of it that you can’t even speak until your fingers are about to go, it means the sub-personality isn’t just relying on the main one after sensing danger—it’s rampaging even harder to seize control of the body, and you’re in no position to shake it off. But if you remove the sensory receptors it’s using, it has no choice but to depend entirely on you for external stimuli. Naturally, you’ll regain control.”
The Professor opened his mouth to retort, then closed it again. Woojin’s serious eyes proved he really would’ve cut off the fingers.
Scribble, scribble—
Woojin scribbled furiously on a sheet of paper from the drawer and handed it to the Professor.
“Here’s your prescription. Stabilizers, your usual anti-inflammatories, and antibiotics. Done.”
“That’s it? It’s exactly the same as always.”
“I told you. This isn’t a problem pills can fix. In my view, there’s only one way to solve this.”
Thwack—
The Professor swallowed hard at the sudden gravity in Woojin’s voice.
The sound of the pen being set down felt like a judge’s gavel in his ears.
“Solve it inside GG, that game. Gedroits’s Game—hell, I’m starting to doubt if it’s even a program anymore. But one thing’s certain: it has the tech to implant a new consciousness into someone’s mind, like it did to you. Which means it must also have the tech to extract one. Of course, the best way would be to get that ‘All Clear’ those Dome and Raptor folks are all obsessed with—stick it right by your bed like they do—march into Gedroits Company, grab that crazy old bastard by the collar, and shake him down.”
“Go to Gedroits...? What are you talking about?”
“Hm? Oh, right. Quite a few haven’t figured it out yet, huh? I guarantee it. Andrey Gedroits, that old coot—he’s alive. Somehow.”
***
Thud, thud, thud.
Heading up to the third floor to pick up his meds, the Professor mulled over his conversation with Woojin.
‘Andrey Gedroits is alive.’
A topic many suspected, with endless debates raging in the communities.
Woojin was absolutely convinced.
‘Gedroits Company—the command center of this era’s only online service, GG, and the last bastion of lost tech. Everyone assumes it’s brimming with remnants of advanced civilization, but no one knows exactly what’s there.’
Woojin had gazed into the distance, reminiscing about the past.
‘Three years ago, right before I opened this clinic, I took a job to cap off my mercenary career. You’ve probably heard of it. Dome offered enough credits to last a lifetime to whoever found Gedroits Company’s location. Back in my day, I made a name during the Great War and as a merc, so I gathered intel. But that company? Nothing but rumors and dead ends.’
From there, Woojin spilled what he’d uncovered about Gedroits Company: endlessly produced drones, pre-war relics sold via GC on the exchange, the ‘secret bunker’ whose designer and builders had all vanished without a trace...
‘Think about it. We leave the drones alone because we need the communities and GG. But psycho gangs who don’t give a damn about tomorrow or certain scavengers see them as flying moneybags. Just look at the number of rechargeable fuel cells popping up on the exchange—tons of drones are getting hunted. Never heard of a trade delay due to drone shortages, though.’
Woojin pieced it all together into one conclusion.
Gedroits Company’s secret server room wasn’t just for extending the game’s life—it was a massive facility with all the infrastructure needed for survival after the apocalypse, and Andrey Gedroits was alive and well inside, watching the chaos unfold.
“So that’s why Dome, Raptor, everyone’s hanging everything on All Clear...”
Clink—
“50,000 credits.”
“Oh, one sec.”
Snapping out of his thoughts, the Professor pressed his wrist to the simple biometric scanner at the pharmacy counter and completed the payment.
The scarred man behind the double steel bars, confirming the transfer, handed over two glass vials with small labels.
“Morning and night. One after each meal. It’s not like you can OD on these, so don’t waste ’em.”
“Jeez. Do I look like the type to waste meds?”
“If you weren’t, you wouldn’t need ’em in the first place.”
The Professor chuckled dryly at the gruff man’s words and left the pharmacy.
“Made some money, got some breathing room, but in the end, I’m right back to hanging my neck out for that damn game.”
He thought of Hyde, now quiet in his head. Complicated guy. A mix of affection for him and the desire to shove him aside and take his body. Just sensing that much showed how deep Hyde had burrowed into his mind.
“Yeah, problems from the game get solved in the game.”
He’d look for a way, at least. Too many annoying things about the guy to just purge him outright. But if no solution came and Hyde crossed the line someday...
‘I’ll treat him as an enemy without hesitation.’
He liked the guy, sure, but no reason to hand over his life to keep him around.
[That’s harsh! Where else you gonna find an infection factor as nice as me!]
‘You’re only nice ’cause you’ve got no way to take over yet. If you could shove me out right now, you’d still play nice?’
...Heh heh heh.
The guy just laughed at his words.
‘Tit for tat, so let’s get along. Until I find a way to boot you from my body, and you find a way to claim it.’
Somehow, a smile like Hyde’s crept onto his own lips.
He really was just like him.
***
In the exam room after the Professor left.
Ian and Bex sat before Woojin, listening gravely.
“You heard everything the Professor said, right?”
“Mm.”
“Yeah.”
“Good. You wasteland rats aren’t clueless.”
Woojin reached into the cigarette pack Ian offered, found it empty, glanced at Ian—whose hand twitched toward his holster—and continued.
“You’re saying the Professor’s totally fallen for that Hyde personality?”
“Sharp as ever. Businessman’s gotta be quick.”
Tap, tap, click.
Fidgeting in his chair, Bex started anxiously sorting the pens, papers, and records scattered on Woojin’s desk.
“Let’s cut the complications. Just this: ‘While the Professor was unconscious, it moved his body.’ That alone means he’s in serious danger. If the main consciousness sleeps, it can take over anytime. Hell, it could loop a rope around his neck while he’s sleeping, stand on a chair, and say, ‘Agree with me or I die—and you with me.’ Control via threats. And Professor Park? Master of tricks and schemes. If that personality’s absorbed his knowledge, fooling him would be child’s play.”
“An internal enemy... Head-splittingly annoying. Can’t just kill it off.”
Both nodded, and Bex—who’d neatly straightened the desk like with a ruler—still anxious, began alphabetizing the books on the wall shelf.
“The Professor says it’s not like that, but how’s he know? We all know what happens to GG’s possession victims! I’m telling you, that possession didn’t come from inside the game. The game planted something in the player’s brain. It’s rooted in reality from the start. A programmed mental illness! And most surviving humanity relies on those login devices—the very generators of that illness!”
Bam!
Slamming the desk in agitation, Woojin confessed to them the one suspicion that had driven him to abandon everything and retire during his merc days.
“There are no coincidences in this world. I believe this whole world is a massive trap crafted by Andrey Gedroits.”
And we’re just insignificant specks with no power to change that giant current. No matter how we struggle.
A heavy sigh, laden with the futility of years gone by, escaped the resolute old man who’d seemed unbreakable by any storm.
“Hey, jawline and geezer. You close with Professor Park?”
As they nodded slowly, Woojin punched the code into the safe behind his drawer and said,
“Then do me one favor.”
***
“Ptoo! Damn, this fine dust is killer.”
The Professor was heading home from the clinic. He’d thought about chatting with Bex and Ian since he’d run into them, but they’d rushed off to their place on some urgent business.
“Sheesh, ditching a sick friend like that. Heartless bastards.”
[Cover your face better. The grit’s annoying.]
“Don’t backseat-drive when you’re just along for the ride. I’m the one eating the sand.”
Saying that, he still tightened the turban over his face.
‘Of all places, a sandstorm in open terrain like this. Some luck.’
By rough travel time, he figured he was between Sectors 43 and 45. He’d detoured through this empty flatland to avoid ambushes or locals in structured areas. Should’ve picked a route that dodged the storm, even if it meant running into a few folks.
[I told you to go that way from the start, right?]
‘You just wanna see corpses. Cannibal prick.’
[Ooh, speciesism.]
Still, crossing the wasteland alone beat having no one—even a time bomb like this. Words got them through faster. No choice but to leverage the upsides and offset the downsides since it’d already latched on.
Ruuuumble!
‘Shit. Thought it was dying down—getting worse.’
[This dangerous? This body can’t regrow or reattach like inside, right?]
‘Nope. Worst case, dig in and wait it out.’
Sandstorms lasted anywhere from an hour to over three days. Calculating his pack’s food and water, the Professor pulled the e-tool from his bag side—
Vrooom—
Screeech!
‘Vehicle noise!’
A harsh off-road engine roar came from behind.
[What! How? We covered our tracks!]
‘Someone else must’ve stirred them up more than me! Damn it, fighting in the open with no cover is suicide...!’
For now, he frantically scooped sand with the e-tool and flattened himself in the hole. Far off, through the storm, a massive black truck barreled toward him, Raptor Society’s scale emblem stark on it.
[Ra-Raptor! That huge group, right? The ones who burn everything but live ammo?]
‘Means we might actually die here. No reason for them to come this far... They’ve really been hunting my trail all along?’
Recalling Kesseling’s half-burned, venomous screams, the Professor drew the shotgun from his back, already chambered.
[Ooh, gun. Hold it left-handed. Lemme pull the trigger.]
‘Shut up. Glitch in combat, and I’ll really chop the fingers off, count you gone.’
Vroooom—!
Engine growing louder. Combat: certain loss. To stop pursuit, best to target tires and kill mobility, but...
‘Hitting tires on a beast like that’s the question.’
Even slugs might not puncture a moving heavy truck’s tires. Situation sucked hard.
‘Heading straight here. Windshield front-on. If I time it right, snipe the driver first...!’
The Professor eased the barrel out. He could do it. One shot, drop the driver, bolt!
[Deep breath, calm mind, slow and steady, time stretching out...]
‘Shut it!’
Barrel sighted on the windshield’s right. Raptor armed trucks used tough front glass, so as close as possible...
‘Huh?’
[Eh?]
Holding his breath, trigger on the driver’s face blurring into view—the Professor lowered the gun and popped up.
Because the driver’s lower face at gunpoint was mostly familiar metal.
“Hey! What the hell are you doing here!”
Rumble rumble—
Honk honk!
Spotting him stand, the armed truck Ian drove honked and pulled alongside. Behind it, a Humvee towed by chains; behind that, Bex in a buggy decked with accessories.
Screeech—putter putter—
Ian stopped right beside him, rolled down the window, and grinned at the stunned Professor.
“Keheheh! Hey, you young beggar-lookin’ fella! Need a lift?”
Leaning one arm coolly on the window frame, Ian’s signature creepy half-sneer curled his upper lip.
***