Chapter 58
Terminally Ill, but It's Okay — Episode 58
Cheon Seo-yoon laid out everything that had happened today without embellishment.
Limited Lifespan.
That she had realized something while watching a person waiting for death live out his days with such composure.
"So I'm going to try to pick myself back up too. Once I'm really okay, I'll tell you everything that happened then."
"Ha. You're really something......."
Joo A-rin pursed her lips, clearly still having some complaints about the hunting-ground trip, but soon nodded.
Talking about it would only turn into nagging, and at the tail end of an exhausting day, she didn't have the energy to persuade anyone.
"But why do you look more worn out today? Is something bothering you?"
It was at that moment that Cheon Seo-yoon asked.
"......Huh?"
The silence that hung for a moment was filled by the savory smell of fried chicken and the fragrant scent of shampoo.
Joo A-rin realized she had been awkwardly stalling, and hurriedly opened her mouth.
"Me? I'm fine, why?"
"Hmm, are you?"
When Cheon Seo-yoon narrowed her eyes and stared, Joo A-rin swallowed hard.
Because her usually nonexistent perceptiveness sometimes flashed sharply, and today seemed to be one of those days.
"Really, it's nothing?"
"Yeah, I'm just a little tired. There's a lot to deal with because of the direct team assignment......."
Joo A-rin continued, thinking that was the main reason.
Although there were other things — the reason Park Ha-yul had invested, the reason he had done the wolf investigation for her, the reason he had taken her hand and pulled her out, and so on.
It wasn't that she had no worries, but there was no guarantee they were even real.
And even if they were, she had already sorted things out to some degree.
When she thought about it, it was one of those utterly common things.
To Joo A-rin, the attention from the opposite sex that came with her striking appearance was as commonplace as sand in a desert—something she found meaningless and tiresome.
"Now that I look at you, you really do live a tiring life. If there's anything I can help with, tell me anytime."
Cheon Seo-yoon didn't press further and picked up the chicken leg she had set down.
Just as they were about to resume eating and drinking—
────!
In an instant, lightning flashed brightly enough to scorch the night sky, flooding the room with light as thunder rumbled.
Then came a fleeting stillness.
It was at that moment that the two of them, as if by agreement, looked toward the window.
Bzzzz.
Joo A-rin's phone rang.
* * *
Roberto's Demonic Energy induces powerful hallucinations.
Several times stronger than heroin, it recreates longed-for situations as illusions and breaks down the boundary with reality.
It was like a dream in which someone unable to walk could walk and a blind person could see. Most victims succumbed and mortgaged their minds to the Demonic Space Canvas.
At first glance, it was an absurdly overpowered ability, almost godlike, but because it was still wielded by a human, it had side effects.
Occasionally, backflow of emotion causes abnormal behavior, and one of the spaces where this trait shows itself most clearly is personal social media.
Click—
And so, I was currently snooping through the Dodam members' Byeolstagram accounts.
The original work only mentioned the victim immediately before Joo A-rin and omitted the rest, so following the flow of events made this unavoidable.
But had I moved too early?
Most of the club members were going about ordinary daily lives—
Shaking off idle thoughts, working hard again today. Thanks, Aeri.
#quiet Taehak #that cafe coffee
Joo A-rin's recent feed was a photo of coffee taken against a park backdrop.
I attended the Dodam special lecture. The article is scheduled to be updated over the weekend.
#speciallecturereview #Roberto #studentreporter #Dodam
Min Young-ji had gone silent since Thursday's special lecture.
In the end, I leaned back in my chair empty-handed.
"This isn't getting me anywhere."
It was about time to focus on the case, but with information so thin, it was hard to grasp the flow.
Even that great Appraisal was useless on the intangible internet, and simply waiting didn't sit right with me either.
"Maybe there's something on Eta."
Once my thoughts reached that point, I sat up again.
I connected to the site and was about to skim through the posts from the last three days when—
Click—
......Huh?
But contrary to plan, I only blinked.
A word showing up all over the place looked strangely familiar.
[Achievement-219: Community Celebrity]
[Your nickname is currently ranked first in real-time searches.]
[Many Taehak students are curious about your identity.]
[As a reward, 5 days are added to your Remaining Time.]
[As a reward, you receive 15 SP.]
I clicked my tongue and smiled bitterly.
Well, gaining SP and time was certainly good, but I was not comfortable being talked about constantly.
I read through the posts to get a concrete grasp of the situation.
Has no one figured out Buhansi's identity yet?
Where did the follower pullback go.
I present evidence that pullback is a fraud.
.
.
But who the hell is pullback.
Whenever Buhansi was mentioned, that nickname unfailingly followed, so I searched it separately.
After digging in intensively for about ten minutes, I got a rough sense of it.
A follower who serves Buhansi.
The only witness who knows Buhansi's identity, and so on.
At first, I assumed he was just an attention-seeker trying to ride Buhansi's fame.
But that wasn't it.
The moment I read the best post the bastard had written, a chill ran down my spine.
Buhansi is real. The place where he wore a black tracksuit and competed in the virtual reality competition was the Third General Training Hall, and the time was around 11:30 at night. The reason a perfect score was possible was a single attack that.......
It read like an eyewitness account from someone who had been standing right beside me.
It didn't go into detail about the process of taking down the orc shaman, but the nuance suggested he knew about that too.
"......Who the hell is this bastard."
I pressed my temples and tried to narrow down the possibilities.
First, the possibility that he had secretly entered the training hall was zero.
The training hall door was structured so that it could not be forced open if someone was inside.
"Then did he see it from outside?"
Once I turned the idea around, the CCTV cameras installed inside the training hall naturally came to mind.
I first suspected security personnel, but shook my head.
Faculty couldn't join Eta, and Taehak was the kind of dream workplace anyone would kill for — there was no reason to violate regulations just for a moment of fun.
Then had some lunatic hacked Taehak's security system?
It was just a wild guess, but as my thoughts raced, one person suddenly came to mind.
"......No way?"
Just in case, I looked up the meaning of pullback in the dictionary.
pullback
1. (military) withdrawal
2. a decline (in prices, value, etc.).
And then I was certain.
Because one familiar name was sitting right there.
"Kim Cheol-soo......."
A fellow Sorcery Track student and a talent specialized in hacking and information gathering.
Judging by his posting history, he did not seem to have approached with bad intentions. Just as I began wondering why he had done it—
"......Hold on."
Then I realized how strangely convenient the situation was. This was exactly when I needed Cheol-soo's talent.
If I could borrow his skills to hack Roberto's phone.......
That could solve my lack of information in one stroke.
"Let's confirm it."
To uncover pullback's identity and the authenticity of the hacking, I accessed the Gauri system, searched for Cheol-soo, and called him.
The moment I heard Cheol-soo's voice, I came out swinging from the start.
"Kim Cheol-soo, you ready to eat prison food?"
* * *
Ssssshh—
A night when rough rain lashed against the window.
The phone's vibration sounded unusually clear in the room.
When the phone's black screen lit up with a message, both of their gazes naturally turned toward it.
[Sender: Kim Hye-jin]
[Arin, how have you been.......]
Cheon Seo-yoon glanced over and immediately recognized the name.
"Kim Hye-jin? Isn't she the one who was in the same department as you in first year? You two were pretty close because of her younger sibling's issues."
"Yeah, that's true, but......."
What could she want this late at night?
Hadn't they only recently reconnected after a long gap because of the club?
Joo A-rin tilted her head and checked the message.
[Arin, how have you been? I suddenly thought of you, and....... Can you come to the club hall right now?]
But right now?
Outside, the weather was foul with thunder and lightning. On top of that, it was late at night.
It was already nearly 11 o'clock.
Judging it impossible, Joo A-rin began to compose a message of refusal.
[......I'm alone and it's just too hard. My younger sibling's condition has gotten a lot worse lately.]
"Ah."
But the message that arrived next was not something she could easily brush aside.
"What? What does she say?"
"Huh? Well......."
Joo A-rin paused for a moment and recalled their relationship.
In truth, the two of them were kindred spirits because of younger siblings suffering from "incurable illnesses."
Just as Joo Seol-hwa was the purpose of her own life, Kim Hye-jin's days were likewise devoted to her younger sibling.
Unlike Joo Seol-hwa, whose condition had been improving, Kim Hye-jin's younger sibling had not, and so they had drifted apart, but.......
The lingering sense of solidarity still caught at her ankles.
After a brief hesitation, Joo A-rin sent a reply.
[Okay. I'll go now.]
She couldn't bring herself to use the weather and the hour as an excuse.
"Sorry, but I think I need to go out for a bit."
Joo A-rin rose from her seat and explained the whole story.
"The club hall? She's so weird. What is she doing there alone at this hour?"
"I don't really know the details either. The content was a bit much to ask about over text."
"Tch. Got it. Get back safe."
After parting from Cheon Seo-yoon, Joo A-rin quickly gathered her clothes, got dressed, and left the dormitory.
Taehak's night streets, which had swallowed even the moonlight, were especially dark and rough tonight.
* * *
May God shine light upon our hearts, and may we firmly believe in God's mercy.......
......It was the kind of atmosphere that made me feel like I should be saying some prayer like that.
Through the receiver, I was listening to Cheol-soo's long-winded, pitiful confession.
To summarize, he had hacked because he was curious about Buhansi's identity, and he was happy that it turned out to be me.
But the community reaction was uniformly negative—calling it a fraud, an error, and so on—so irritation drove him to start posting.
As he actively defended me, he said, he had become a follower before he knew it.
-Sorry. I didn't mean to blow things up this much.
"It's fine. You live long enough, all sorts of things happen."
I treated Cheol-soo with a noticeably friendlier attitude.
After all, the fact that he had hacked Taehak's system was true. His ability was as good as proven.
I kept the conversation going a little longer, then casually broached the subject.
"Cheol-soo, let's do a job together."
"A job?"
I explained the situation with some adaptation.
I completely left out the word "Demonkin" and referred to him as a "sexual predator."
A famous artist had turned out to be a sexual predator, and it was suspicious that he was luring female students in.
"Still, looking into someone's personal phone is a bit......."
But look at this guy's logic.
"So CCTV is fine? Want to go ask the Student Affairs Office?"
"Ah, no. I'll do it. I can't leave a shameless bastard like that alone."
"Right? I'm asking you to do it right now."
Cheol-soo, who accepted the proposal readily(?), said he needed time and hung up.
Send Roberto a message with an infiltration link attached, and so on and so forth.......
Since I came from a liberal arts background, I couldn't understand the detailed mechanism.
Bzzzz.
Anyway, after waiting about twenty minutes, a call came saying it had succeeded.
"First, look through the recent conversation list."
-Got it.
The sound of rapid keyboard tapping came through the receiver. A moment later, one particularly familiar name flowed out.
-There's a record of a conversation up until thirty minutes ago. The other party is Kim Hye-jin.
But Kim Hye-jin?
For a moment I thought I had misheard, and immediately asked again.
"That can't be....... Look again. Are you sure it's Kim Hye-jin?"
-Huh? Uh....... Why? Do you know her?
When the same answer came back again, a sharp sensation flashed through my mind.
The last puzzle piece.......
Because Kim Hye-jin was the fifth victim, the only one I knew, and she had been the bait used to lure Joo A-rin out.
I forcefully suppressed the ominous premonition and asked.
"What are the two of them plotting? Is there any mention of Joo A-rin....... Is there any part where Joo A-rin is mentioned?"
-H-hold on.
Cheol-soo, who had grown just as urgent, frantically hammered at the keyboard. Then he shouted.
-Th-there is. It looks like about thirty minutes ago, he called Joo A-rin out through Kim Hye-jin.
What. He moved this fast?
For an instant, my head went blank as if it had been plunged underwater, and the view in front of me writhed.