Chapter 56
Translator: Vine
Chapter: 56
Chapter Title: Violence is the Answer
Modifying his memories was a success.
According to the Saintess, it was a part of his treatment.
It wasn't a perfect solution; without repeated modifications, they would eventually return.
The Saintess took the opportunity while Han Si-hoo was unconscious to clean the house.
Though "cleaning" just meant hiding the medicine box.
She considered what she should say when Si-hoo woke up.
She thought about where and how to conduct the next treatment.
It would probably take him thirty minutes to wake up.
A normal person would have been out for hours.
Awakeners with strong mental fortitude tended to wake up faster.
"Ugh..."
"Oh? You're awake."
Not thirty minutes, but five.
He came to far too quickly.
Right after the "treatment," his memories would be jumbled and confused.
Most people would even be confused about what they were just doing.
"This is...?"
He questioned why he was in the Saintess's house.
"Th-this is my house. Don't you remember? You suddenly collapsed."
The Saintess immediately started lying.
It was just a habit.
The Saintess wasn't exactly a kind person.
So, was Han Si-hoo kind from the beginning?
Was he always so righteous?
The Saintess had naturally assumed so.
"Why am I at your house?"
He sat up.
"We had plans, remember?"
It was true they had promised to meet.
"[Purification]... It's not working."
Han Si-hoo used the skill on himself.
He instinctively felt that something was wrong.
"W-we were supposed to discuss the materials we got from that place we went to last time. Don't you remember?"
Han Si-hoo wondered.
What score the Saintess would get on an intelligence test.
"[Stamina Recovery]"
Stamina Recovery VI, to be precise.
He used it because he was in a state of exhaustion for some reason.
The Saintess looked a bit tired, too.
And he was about to find out why.
"Explain yourself properly. There's no reason for me to be at your house. We may have had plans, but..."
Han Si-hoo looked at the clock.
It was far too early for their appointment.
He should still be at school.
"It's too early. Explain what happened."
Han Si-hoo checked his status window.
There were no particular status ailments.
It was impossible for him to just collapse suddenly.
He wasn't that weak.
"Uh, it's, it's just like I said before..."
"Is that so?"
"Yes."
In that case, there was only one way.
To resort to physical means.
"That can't be right."
"Huh?"
It couldn't be.
He couldn't be satisfied with such an answer.
"You can heal yourself, so you'll be fine, right?"
"W-what?"
Thwack.
He threw a punch.
The Saintess was hiding something.
Waking up collapsed in her house wasn't a normal situation either.
"Wait—"
"Why?"
"Ugh, why did you hit me?"
"Because you're not telling me the truth."
He was more violent than before.
The Saintess wondered if she should have just left Si-hoo and run away.
Waking up this quickly was unexpected.
Resorting to his fists immediately was also unexpected.
Nothing was going according to plan.
"Seo-ah, you came because of the picture of Seo-ah."
"A picture?"
"Yeah, this one."
She handed him the photo she had.
She had tampered with many of his memories of Seo-ah.
There was no reason for Han Si-hoo to overreact.
"...Ah, so you're with the Doctor, too?"
"Huh?"
Thud.
Han Si-hoo cornered the Saintess against the wall.
Then he rolled up her sleeve.
There were needle marks on the Saintess's arm as well.
"I knew it. Is it because of the drugs? The Doctor made you do it."
"The, the Doctor?"
"Come to think of it, the Doctor seemed to have connections to the government. Isn't that your area of expertise? If you're using drugs too, there's no way you wouldn't know."
The Saintess searched her memory.
"Drugs? Uh, that, the D-Doctor, is he the one I know? The drug pusher..."
"The guy who wears all black. He's the one who gave Seo-ah the drugs."
"Ah, ahh, he's famous. He's dead."
"...What?"
"I heard the government took care of him because he was handing out drugs everywhere. I don't know much more than that."
"Then where did you get this picture?"
"Y-you're the one who found it and showed it to me."
Han Si-hoo was momentarily at a loss for words.
There seemed to be some truth in the Saintess's confident words.
His last memory was at school.
Nothing seemed out of the ordinary up until he arrived.
A bookstore?
Did he stop by a bookstore?
Why?
His memories were a mess.
He had no memory of finding a picture.
No, he felt like he'd seen something.
Was it a picture?
Why would he show a picture to the Saintess?
One thing was clear: the Saintess was hiding the truth.
It was so obvious even a non-Awakener could tell.
The Saintess was not a good liar.
"Why, why are you so obsessed with Seo-ah? Were you two close?"
He didn't know the intention behind her question.
Were they close?
"How do you know Seo-ah's name?"
"Huh? S-Seo-ah's name, you told me."
"When?"
"Th-that was... when..."
It was frustrating.
"Speak—"
Thump.
He grabbed the Saintess by both shoulders and shoved her against the wall.
"Explain—"
Slam.
Again, he slammed her against the wall as if to embed her in it.
"yourself."
Bam.
He punched the wall.
Fragments fell from its surface.
The Saintess was terrified.
"Th... that's..."
"Right, what did you say earlier?"
She had asked why he was so obsessed with Seo-ah.
"You asked if Seo-ah and I were that close?"
Why would the Saintess ask such a thing?
"Why? Do you think it's okay for a friend to disappear if we weren't on good terms? Is it normal to abandon a friend just because she's doing drugs? Is it okay for her to be treated however they want just because she's turned into trash?"
The Saintess had performed memory manipulation in the name of treatment.
It seemed once wasn't enough.
She had twisted his memories as much as possible to distance him from Seo-ah, but it seemed to have had the opposite effect of what she intended.
It was an attempt to make his perception of Seo-ah the worst it could be.
That Yoo Seo-ah was nothing but a burden to Han Si-hoo, an ungrateful being.
That's how she'd altered his memories.
"...When we were kids, we were abandoned in the slums, knowing nothing. No parents, no relatives, no one."
He was talking about the past.
"We grew up in a place like that, so it wouldn't be strange if our personalities were twisted, if we had no manners, or if we weren't in our right minds. Do you think I became her friend because Seo-ah was some amazing person?"
The Saintess sensed that her judgment had been wrong.
Treatment? It had only made the situation worse.
Of course, she had thought multiple treatments would be necessary.
But this wasn't a problem that could be solved by repeating the treatment.
"It's fine if she's less than normal. Even if she's lacking somewhere, even if she's not ordinary, even if she lacks common sense, even if she's a slow learner..."
Si-hoo had spent more time with Seo-ah than she thought.
Perhaps more than a typical family.
This was his reaction even after she'd tampered with his memories so much.
Her attempt to separate him from Seo-ah had backfired.
Would the result have been different if the Saintess had been a bit more meticulous?
"I just liked seeing Seo-ah smile brightly. It didn't matter if she treated me thoughtlessly. Even if she hated me."
"...I-I'm sorry..."
The Saintess apologized.
"I was lucky enough to live in a world where Seo-ah existed."
The slums were originally a place without law and order.
A place where you could do anything.
"I wanted to be Seo-ah's hero, or at least pretend to be one."
Everyone wants to be someone cool.
He wanted to look good in front of Seo-ah.
Pretending to be mature next to her.
To be a cool person in Seo-ah's eyes.
A person who could keep her safe.
"Even if she uses drugs, even if she hates me, she's still my childhood friend."
Even if he tried to blame this situation on Seo-ah, he could only realize that it was his own immaturity at fault.
Did he become Seo-ah's hero in the end?
A hero who stops villains?
No.
"I think I'll stop pretending to be some hero of justice now."
The Saintess would soon be telling only the truth.
***
Han Si-hoo ran and ran.
The text the Saintess showed him had an address.
To that place.
Was it a distance he could cover by running?
Yes.
Somehow.
***
Before he started running.
Han Si-hoo discovered a new talent.
Uncovering the truth didn't require any special skill.
It took twenty-five minutes for the Saintess to confess everything.
Twenty of those minutes were spent with the Saintess stammering out the facts.
The use of violence.
It was convenient that the Saintess could heal herself.
That the Saintess had met Seo-ah in the past.
That Seo-ah was trapped in a lab for some reason.
That the Saintess had heard news of the Doctor's death before she met Seo-ah.
That the Saintess had performed memory manipulation under the guise of treatment.
And that the manipulated memories would return over time.
He heard it all.
He checked all the text messages.
The photos and videos sent by someone anonymous.
One thing was certain: Yoo Seo-ah was being treated like a monster.
Han Si-hoo couldn't keep watching the video.
He probably would have found it difficult to watch even if it had been a video of someone else.
"I... was there, too."
The Saintess said, her head buried in her knees.
"I just wanted to escape from there... When Seo-ah went inside for just a moment, I ran..."
"I see."
"I wasn't always this stupid, you know... It's because of the experiments..."
The Saintess lamented, but Han Si-hoo wasn't interested.
Han Si-hoo called the number saved on the Saintess's phone.
He hoped someone would answer.
-The number you have dialed is not in service.
But the number didn't exist.
Only one option remained.
To run to the address where the Saintess had been summoned.
***
So he kept running.
On and on.
Using his Stamina Recovery skill, converting all his mana into stamina.
Would taking a taxi be faster, or running?
The destination was outside the city, after all.
A high-crime area where it wouldn't be strange for magical beasts to appear.
Using a vehicle would require troublesome procedures.
Was Seo-ah alive?
And if she was?
What then?
If what he saw in the video was real, even Han Si-hoo himself wouldn't have been able to maintain his sanity in that situation.
Who was holding Seo-ah?
An enemy?
What was their purpose in summoning the Saintess for treatment?
He had thought the Doctor was the one holding her.
But he wasn't.
According to the Saintess, the Doctor had died a long time ago.
That's why Han Si-hoo could never find him, no matter how much he searched for revenge.
If not the Doctor, then who?
He would find out.
The road disappeared and a mountain appeared.
Still, he kept running.
A tree branch scraped his cheek.
"[Cleave]"
He drew his sword and used the skill.
A torrent of light beams cut down the obstructing trees.
The shortest route.
To the destination.
Was it a wise choice to just run blindly?
Shouldn't he call his comrades?
People he could trust.
But there was no time.
There wasn't even enough time to just run.
Faster!
Faster!
Faster!
He screamed it inwardly dozens, hundreds of times.
The thought that Seo-ah was probably dead anyway.
The reasonable assumption that she wouldn't be sane even if she were alive.
The conclusion that it wouldn't be strange if she had become someone's plaything.
Shut up.
He bitterly regretted everything.
Whether it was the memories the Saintess had maliciously planted or something else, all of it.
He hated it all.
The destination grew closer.
He ran until the sun set.
It was a time when the stars were clearly visible.
The air was cold.
His breathing was ragged.
A faint light was visible in the distance.