An Ordinary Day (1)
Seol Ha-woon, who is currently appearing on Labyrinth Exploration NaN, is a school bully. There are quite a few people who got beaten up by him. He was super famous since middle school because of his good physique. My friend and I were beaten to a pulp whenever he was bored. It's absurd that he's appearing on a show to be chosen as a national explorer... (omitted).
Here is my middle school graduation photo, a medical certificate from when I was beaten, and proof of the settlement money transfer. I don't have a high school album because he dropped out and ran away.
And Ha-woon. If you have even a shred of conscience, you won't be able to deny this lol.
SHW was a famous psycho in the military. There were many trainees who gave up completion because of SHW, and many juniors who quit the UDT altogether. Physical beatings were a given, and during operations, he would threaten to shoot us with his gun if we didn't listen to him. I was hit in the head and carried away... (omitted).
But seeing him do similar things now, I can't stand it. If left alone, he's a guy who will kill someone, so I'm exposing him now.
Never trust SHW. He sells his military background, but he's actually trash that even the UDT filters out. It's guys like him who eat away at the world...
In the early hours of the morning, the exposure posts suddenly dropped.
I read through them, chewing over every word.
There were only two, but their impact was massive.
Perhaps because the former was verified with a graduation album and the latter with a military photo, the fire was burning incomparably hotter than it had for Ryu Yeon-hwa.
More than the evidence, though, it was likely because I simply didn't have any backing.
To reporters, I was a goldmine of controversy—an A++ grade Hanwoo beef they could slice into without any fear of repercussions.
“...Unbelievable.”
To be perfectly honest, it was all true.
And because it was true, those bastards felt even more shameless.
If beating up someone who deserved it was a crime, then sure, I was guilty. But... there was no need to get angry right now.
I'll think about it tomorrow.
First, I took a shower.
I thought about it every day, but my hair was getting too long and annoying. On the bright side, my telekinetic control was improving by the day because of it.
Ssssshh.
I washed my hair under the running water, washed my face, scrubbed my body, and applied the last drops of my skincare set. I wrapped my wet hair in a towel like a turban. Infusing a gentle trickle of mana into it would dry it naturally.
I activated the Dream Bubble. Pop, pop. A soft, squishy sphere floated into the air, emitting a gentle glow. I lay down quietly beneath it and used Sequence to summon sleep.
My brain ceased its activity, and all tension drained from my body.
It was a deep, dreamless sleep.
“...Heheh.”
Kim Du-gyeom chuckled under his breath.
He was worth every penny. The moment the transfer cleared, he posted it without a second thought. He must have pre-written the post and had just been waiting for the right moment to drop it.
“Seol Ha-woon, you bastard... you really lived like a piece of shit.”
Kim Du-gyeom had only paid for the school violence leak; the military abuse accusation was an unexpected bonus.
“Then again.”
Judging by how he had picked fights from the very beginning, the guy was clearly unhinged. He was just the type to make enemies wherever he went.
Kim Du-gyeom smirked as he scrolled through his phone.
• Summary of Seol Ha-woon's school and military violence posts
• Archiving posts that criticized Kim Du-gyeom
• I knew it when those idiots were putting down Kim Du-gyeom to overhype Je-Mal-Olh lol
• Can't Du-gyeom's guild just sue everyone?
Of course. Of course we have to sue. There are so many dumbasses who crossed the line.
“Fucking idiots. They don't call them brainless pigs for nothing.”
Public opinion had reversed in the blink of an eye.
Seol Ha-woon's fandom—though he doubted those sycophants even deserved to be called a fandom. They were just a collective of lunatics.
Regardless, those delusional freaks would be the first ones sued.
“Goodbye~ Farewell~”
Kim Du-gyeom hummed, rolling around on his bed with a wide grin. It looked like he wouldn't be getting any sleep tonight.
Kate calmly read through the exposure posts.
This is enough to get him expelled. At the very least, he won't make it past the first round of voting. People are already rushing to withdraw their profile votes.
“...Sigh.”
She let out a soft sigh.
In truth, the military exposure was a card Kate herself had been preparing. Her butler, Maeve, had tracked down a discharged soldier who held a grudge against Seol Ha-woon from his military days. They were in the middle of coordinating schedules for a thorough fact-check, but the whistleblower had gone ahead and set off the fireworks on his own. It seemed he couldn't stand seeing Seol Ha-woon's popularity reach its peak.
“As for the school violence...”
That was unexpected. If he had always been a bad person, then it made sense.
Kate suddenly placed a hand over her ear. Sound was filtering in from the rose she had gifted Seol Ha-woon, currently sitting in his private room.
—Zzz...
Snoring?
“...Is he sleeping?”
The man of the hour was fast asleep. Was he completely oblivious to the situation, or was he just that carefree?
Tilting her head, Kate looked back at her laptop. Every corner of her screen was filled with Seol Ha-woon.
She had scraped every single post about Seol Ha-woon and poked around accounts that shared rumors about him.
As a deep-cover Seol Ha-woon fan—a member of the Je-Seol-Dan—she had already infiltrated deep into enemy territory.
—Zzz...
“He really is asleep.”
Kate opened her social media.
Keep your friends close, and your enemies closer. The famous Seol Ha-woon fan account, @snowiscoming1, which was already treated as an influential figure within the fandom, was Kate herself.
Kate was someone who poured her entire soul into everything she did.
Of course, there was no real need to show this much enthusiasm, but she was curious. Why was her family so intent on excluding him?
It was an internal affair Kate knew nothing about. "You don't need to know," was all her family had said.
Her twenty-one years of life had always been like this. She had always moved and lived in the dark. She had held the naive belief that she would find out eventually.
Not anymore. She needed to act independently. If she simply waited to be deemed worthy, she would end up as nothing more than a cog in the massive machine of the Haleford family.
She would seize control of the family one day. She had to stand tall as an independent entity.
Scroll. Scroll. She scrolled down and searched for #SeolHa-woon.
#SeolHa-woon
#Je-Mal-Olh
#Mal-OlhSchoolViolence
#SeolHa-woonMilitaryViolence
#SeolHa-woonSchoolViolence
Social media was in an uproar over Seol Ha-woon's dirty laundry. I knew it, what kind of person stans a guy like that, execute him, and so on.
There were also plenty of screenshots from the live broadcast of Labyrinth Exploration NaN. Seol Ha-woon's face was everywhere. He had received a lot of solo screen time, and the current controversy was only amplifying his presence.
Click. Click. Right-click, Save Image As.
Kate stared at Seol Ha-woon's photos one by one.
She didn't know why.
But this face.
She felt like she had seen this face in the photo somewhere before.
In a dream she couldn't remember. A dream so faint that she could barely even call it a dream...
Morning broke. Sunlight filtered through the gaps in the curtains.
In the dimly lit room, a monitor flickered. A certain 'man' sat in a daze, staring at the screen.
• School violence and military violence... Is Seol Ha-woon originally this kind of person?
• Consecutive exposures, where is Je-Mal-Olh's character?
• Incompetence of the production team, or deviation of the contestant?
• SSEN Issue! Seol Ha-woon, the two sides of Je-Mal-Olh
To him, it didn't matter. He didn't care in the slightest what kind of person or soldier Seol Ha-woon was. The problem was...
Staring at the endless stream of comments, the man clenched his fists. He gritted his teeth.
These people are being fooled.
The entire world is being deceived.
Kim Du-gyeom is not that kind of person. He isn't the kind soul shown on television.
Absolutely not...
“Hey.”
He remembered when Kim Du-gyeom had come to find him. Returning home after finishing his part-time job one day, he had found Kim Du-gyeom sitting on his sofa as if he owned the place.
It was a home invasion.
“Long time no see.”
In that instant, his throat had tightened so much he couldn't speak or breathe. He could only stumble backward until he tripped over the threshold and fell.
“Why are you so scared? Fuck. Anyone would think I'm some kind of monster.”
Kim Du-gyeom had crouched down, looking at him with a mocking sneer.
“Hey. I came to apologize. Sorry about back then. But honestly, you were kind of a loser. Shit, was it really that hard to lend me a pair of shoes?”
The voice of the bastard offering a pathetic excuse for an apology while reaching out his hand still rang vividly in his ears. His heart hammered, and it felt as though blood was about to pour from his eyes.
“Hey. You're not gonna answer? Making me reminisce about the old days, are we?”
“...W-Why are you here?”
“Why do you think, dumbass? Still a loser, I see. I told you, I came because I felt bad. Here.”
Kim Du-gyeom set a bag down on the floor.
“Guess what this is~?”
Click. With a sickening grin, he dumped the contents. Fifty-thousand-won bills scattered across the floor.
“It's fifty million won. Fifty million. First time seeing this much? Think of it as hush money.”
He had only stared blankly.
“Hey. You know I'm on Labyrinth Exploration, right?”
The boasting voice. The arrogant face. The laughter-laced gestures. Every single bit of it was repulsive.
“If things go well later, I'll drop another hundred million in cash. How about it? All the other guys already signed.”
“...”
No words came out. More than anger or resentment, he just felt utterly hollow. It was so goddamn unfair.
“Sigh, fuck. You really love money, don't you? Fine. I'll give you fifty million more. Two hundred million total. Deal?”
That was the kind of person Kim Du-gyeom was. Someone who utterly despised those weaker than him, consuming them as mere tools to satisfy his sadism. Someone who didn't even view people like him as human.
“Now. Just sign the contract.”
He had forced him to stamp his thumbprint. The paper stained with his fingerprint—that contract was still in Kim Du-gyeom's possession.
“But. If you expose me later?”
“I will literally kill you. I'm not joking, I mean it. I'll slice your throat, your dad's, your mom's, and even that fucking dog's neck and make a skewer out of them.”
Do you think you can cover up your crimes with that contract if I expose you? That contract itself is proof of your devilish nature.
“...You absolute piece of shit.”
Tears streaming down his face, he placed his hands on the keyboard.
—Seol Ha-woon has been swept up in controversies surrounding school violence and military abuse.
In a logistics warehouse where forklifts buzzed back and forth, amidst the heavy scent of sweat and cardboard, a young man stood in a corner, staring at his smartphone.
—The contestant who became a hot topic on Labyrinth Exploration NaN...
“Hey, Lee Do-hyeon.”
A middle-aged man suddenly appeared behind him.
“Are you slacking off in the corner?”
The young man, Lee Do-hyeon, hurriedly turned around.
“I'm sorry.”
“I told you not to do things you'd have to apologize for... Ah, this?”
The foreman smirked, pointing at the smartphone screen.
“Seol Ha-woon's school violence? Man, I knew he'd be like that. You can just tell from his face. He looks like a wild beast. You know wolves? Cruel bastards that rip out people's throats and never let go—”
“No. It's not true. The school violence.”
Lee Do-hyeon's expression shifted instantly as he retorted. The foreman stared at him in bewilderment. Why was this usually gentle kid acting like this?
“...It's not?”
“Yes. Absolutely not.”
“Absolutely? How do you know that?”
“We grew up in the same orphanage. Me and Ha-woon Hyung.”
“...Ah.”
Lee Do-hyeon was from an orphanage. In other words, he had no family. To the foreman, who had two sons and a daughter of his own, this was the reason he always found himself looking out for the kid.
“I see. Wait, so that Seol Ha-woon guy was an orphan too?”
“...Yes.”
“Ah... I didn't know. Is that why you have that...”
The foreman trailed off, looking at the cane-shaped ring attached to Do-hyeon's phone. It was merchandise. Seol Ha-woon merchandise. Who the hell makes a cane into merch? the foreman had wondered.
“Ahem. Well... so you're saying Seol Ha-woon didn't beat anyone up?”
“He did beat them.”
“...What? Then it is school violence.”
The foreman frowned.
“The guys who got beaten by Ha-woon Hyung were the actual bullies. The delinquents who tormented the weak kids.”
“What... how do you know that?”
Lee Do-hyeon stared quietly at the foreman before replying.
“Because I was the one they beat up.”
“...”
The foreman's mouth fell open. He shifted his gaze awkwardly and cleared his throat.
“Ahem, well. That's that. Let's get back to work. Work. Alright~ we have a mountain of things to do today. I'll let you off before 1:00 PM, so...”
“Half-day off.”
Lee Do-hyeon boldly cut him off.
“I'm taking it. I have something I need to do.”
The foreman was taken aback. There was a lot of work today. A mountain of it, so much that they wouldn't finish even if they worked overtime until dawn.
“...Sigh.”
The kid's eyes were filled with determination. His fingers twitched. He looked ready to set the place on fire if he wasn't let go.
“Fine. Go ahead.”
Since this usually gentle kid had never acted like this before, it had to be something incredibly important.