Chapter 19
Chapter 19
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Translator: MadScientist
Chapter: 19
Chapter Title: Hypocrisy
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“Haa, this is the worst. Having to get ready for work all over again.”
Grumbling my complaints, I finished a simple breakfast.
I began preparing for my second commute of the day.
'Even in that nightmare, I'm sure I woke up from the dream at some point.'
Was it a dream within a dream?
It was my first time experiencing something like this, and it felt utterly unpleasant.
With a lingering unease, I left the house and got into my car.
On the way to the Research Institute, I glanced at the spot where I'd seen the man in white clothes.
'Not there this time.'
It must have been a hallucination from the nightmare after all.
This time, there wasn't a single person in white clothes anywhere in sight.
The Research Institute building came into view in the distance.
'Humanity's light, found in the darkest place.'
I read the phrase written on the outer wall of the Research Institute.
It was a short, powerful motto symbolizing the Ansong Research Institute.
'I joined the Research Institute at first because I wanted to help people.'
By studying Anomalies, we protected others from the unknown horrors.
Back when I was fresh out of school, I harbored such grand dreams.
'Thinking I can help people now would just be hypocrisy.'
I had conducted live experiments.
They were people who had committed capital crimes, and they had consented themselves, but I had still stood by and watched them die.
'I can't claim to help others when I couldn't even save the person right in front of me.'
The dream of helping others still lingered in a corner of my heart.
But I had no right to hold onto such a dream.
It would just be ugly hypocrisy.
Lost in thought, I arrived at the Research Institute before I knew it.
I stepped inside.
“Hello, Se-hwa.”
A fellow researcher greeted me.
Who was he again? Embarrassingly, I couldn't remember his name.
“Ah, hello.”
I gave an awkward smile and returned the greeting.
Come to think of it, all the researchers wore name tags.
Why didn't this one have one?
“The weather's nice today, isn't it?”
The researcher whose name I couldn't recall smiled brightly.
I smiled back appropriately to match the mood.
“Yeah, on a day like this, it'd be great to go out and have some fun, but oh well.”
The researcher laughed at my words.
He burst into roaring laughter, his mouth splitting wide.
“Hahaha! I want to go out and play too!”
Was what I said really that funny?
He seemed a bit unhinged.
This researcher must have lost his mind from the endless experiments too.
It wasn't anything too unusual.
“I... I want to go outside too!”
The researcher, wearing a grotesque smile, took a step closer.
I subtly backed away the same distance.
“If only I hadn't died, I could've gone outside.”
“...What?”
The researcher laughed.
His mouth splitting wide.
“I didn't want to die. Why did I have to die? I wanted to go outside too!”
The researcher's face twisted grotesquely into a hideous grin.
Ah, now I remembered.
This was the ■■■ researcher who died ■ months ago.
The nightmare wasn't over yet.
“Se-hwa. You're still alive, right, Se-hwa? Let me out. Don't let me die!”
The laughing researcher lunged at me.
I quickly dodged and slipped away.
While fleeing from the pursuing researcher, I tried to gather my thoughts.
'How do I wake up from a nightmare?'
I pinched my cheek while running.
It hurt, but I didn't wake up.
I tried everything I'd heard about escaping nightmares—moving my fingers, twitching my facial muscles, you name it.
But the dream didn't end.
As I ran, I spotted a Research Institute security guard.
I rushed over and grabbed his shoulder.
“H-Hey! Someone's chasing me. Please stop that person!”
If this was my dream, maybe it would bend a little to my will.
I clung to that faint hope.
“Someone's chasing you, you say?”
“There! Can't you see that person?”
The guard looked where I pointed, his face puzzled as if he saw nothing.
“There's no one there.”
I glanced back following the guard's gaze.
The researcher who had been chasing me was gone.
“Ha, haa. Even the nightmare's being ruthless.”
“Huh? Nightmare?”
The guard looked at me with a baffled expression.
His face was familiar.
“You killed me, and now you're trying to brush it off as just a nightmare?”
He was one of the Type 0 Personnel thrown into the Equivalent Exchange Machine experiment.
I shook off his hand as he tried to grab me and ran again.
The nightmare was worsening.
Everyone I passed looked like writhing human entrails.
The buildings and objects resembled slaughtered raw meat.
Everything was blood red.
'Sorry. Sorry. Sorry.'
I ran down the corridor, stepping on the squelching guts.
Monsters made of entrails charged at me to kill me.
“You killed me. You knew I'd die if you ran the experiment. You're the one who killed me.”
“For the sake of humanity, you had no choice? No, you just didn't want to admit it. You couldn't accept that people died because of you.”
“You disgusting hypocrite. You should've been the one to die!”
I fled from the monsters, exhausting every ounce of strength until my body felt like it would break.
'I just wanted to help people.'
Countless muscles reached out for me.
'...No matter the reason, what I did won't disappear.'
I dodged claws and sins as I ran.
'I'm a hypocrite. A filthy, ugly hypocrite.'
When I reached the point where I could run no more.
A sudden thought flashed through my mind.
'I'll die.'
If I died, I could wake up from this nightmare. In the last one, I woke up after my throat was slit by the sword.
A space made entirely of entrails, meat, and blood—nothing but red.
I pulled out my self-defense pistol.
The moment I raised it to my head.
The Black Princess appeared.
“Hello.”
In the midst of the blood-soaked red background, the Princess stood tall in elegant black, gracefully greeting me.
“What are you doing?”
The Princess walked over casually and spoke to me.
“Ah, trying to wake up from the nightmare.”
“Nightmare?”
The Princess tilted her head as if she didn't understand.
Then she looked not at my face, but at the empty space behind my shoulder.
“Bend down and stay still.”
I knelt to match the Princess's eye level.
The Princess reached out as if to stroke my cheek.
But her hand extended toward the empty space behind my shoulder.
Soon, she clenched her fist as if grabbing something and shoved it into her mouth.
“There, all done.”
The Princess chewed with her mouth and smiled serenely.
Was she trying to wake me from the nightmare?
Suddenly, sleepiness overwhelmed me.
“I... I'm a hypocrite. I wanted to help people, but all I did was bad things.”
The words slipped out.
Before waking, I wanted to confess to someone.
“In the end, it was all just excuses for my own satisfaction. I was just addicted to the feeling of 'I'm doing good.' It was nothing but disgusting self-justification.”
I'd used up all my energy running; I didn't even have the strength to cry.
With dry eyes, I looked at the Princess.
The Princess spoke.
As casually as a morning greeting.
Familiarly, as if it were the most natural thing.
“Se-hwa's such an idiot. How could wanting to do good ever be wrong?”
She spoke to me peacefully, like sharing light small talk.
My consciousness faded.
In my dimming mind, the Princess's words echoed.
◇◇◇◆◇◇◇ Se-hwa's an idiot.
She's been rambling on about hypocrisy and stuff I can't make heads or tails of.
Wanting to do good can't be wrong.
“Doing good deeds to get a Level 5 keycard doesn't make me a bad guy.”
Right. Doing good to get a Level 5 keycard isn't bad behavior.
No matter the intent or outcome, the desire to do good isn't wrong.
No one can change that fact, no matter what they say.
“By the way, you there. Who are you? I don't recognize your face.”
A person in white clothes floated in the air like a ghost.
When I spoke to him, the white figure startled and tried to flee.
“Hmm. Running off without even a greeting? How rude.”
I quickly moved to block the path where the white figure had tried to escape.
A familiar scent wafted from the white figure.
“It's you, isn't it?”
I'd found the one who attached that strange Anomaly object to Se-hwa.