The Hope of Becoming a Better Being, and the Courage to Keep Living
"Team Leader Mir...?"
Mir was looking down at me, her brow furrowed.
"You're in the infirmary. You with us?"
"Haa... ha..."
My breath came out ragged. My hands wouldn't stop trembling. My heart was pounding like mad. The world swam before my eyes.
It still wouldn't leave my sight.
Yuri's blood.
Carmen's voice.
And even that final ■■■.
"Calm down."
Mir's voice came low.
"This is reality."
Only then did my mind start to clear a little. I steadied my ragged breathing and looked around.
The faint smell of disinfectant. A white ceiling. Cold fluorescent lights. And the familiar interior of the medical room.
I'd been here a few times on duty, but I never thought I'd be the one lying here as a patient.
"This is..."
The moment I tried to sit up, Mir pressed down on my shoulder.
"Take it easy. You've been out for over twelve hours."
"Ugh..."
"Your wounds are all treated, but your mental state is still a mess."
Ah... so they used a K-Corp ampule...
"You and Yuri are both done with treatment."
Mir leaned back against the chair as she spoke.
"We're just keeping you here for observation and to let you rest."
"Well... I should've gotten there sooner in the first place."
Her crimson eyes dimmed for a moment.
"I never thought that Command Team bastard would go that far."
That was when it happened.
"Um..."
I turned my head and saw Yuri sitting up against the bed next to mine. Her external wounds had all been treated as well. Only her face looked a little worn out.
"You're awake."
"Yuri."
Yuri hesitated for a moment before speaking.
"I'm sorry."
"For what?"
"Your sleep-talking, Han."
Yuri averted her gaze.
"I heard it..."
She heard it... Well, given how badly I was thrashing around...
Yuri fidgeted with her fingers.
"At first I just thought you were having a nightmare."
"But then you suddenly started going on about sin and atonement..."
Yuri carefully continued.
"And later you couldn't even breathe properly."
"..."
"I figured you couldn't handle it alone, so I called the Team Leader."
I couldn't get the words out. The moment I spoke, everyone would look at me like I was someone else—like they'd point fingers and call me a murderer, just like before.
The voice I'd heard in the dream dug into my ears again.
"It really is your fault, Han."
My fingertips started trembling again.
Mir watched me for a while before speaking briefly.
"So?"
"What happened."
She added in a low voice.
"I'm asking as your Team Leader."
"..."
"Because I'm worried."
My throat closed up tight. I couldn't say anything for a long time.
And then.
I finally managed to move my lips.
"I..."
My voice cracked.
"I've committed an unforgivable sin."
Yuri's expression hardened. Mir listened in silence.
"It was my mistake."
"So I tried to atone for it."
I clenched my hands tight.
"So that no one would end up like me."
"So that no one would lose someone precious."
"..."
"That's why even after coming here, I tried to help people."
"Tried to save them."
"I thought that was my own way of atoning."
My breath settled heavily.
"But..."
"After going through this, I don't know anymore."
I slowly lowered my head.
"Whether I was really moving for others."
"Or..."
Strength entered my fingertips.
"Just thrashing around to ease some shallow sense of guilt."
The air in the medical room sank.
"It feels so hypocritical... I want to go crazy at myself."
A moment of silence.
And then I forced myself to continue.
"Do you know? I knew."
"About the things that would happen from now on."
Yuri's eyes wavered.
"Not everything exactly."
"But who would die."
"And who would survive, at least that much."
My throat burned.
Reason screamed at me to stop right now. Saying this was insane—it would mean losing every advantage of being a transmigrator. If I said this, I could never go back to the way things were.
But still... I had to say it...
"Yuri too..."
I slowly lowered my gaze.
"I knew she wouldn't die."
In that instant, the air in the medical room sank.
"So I let my guard down."
"I arbitrarily believed she'd be fine."
"I decided she wouldn't die."
"And so I overdid it for no reason."
Strength entered my fingertips.
"In the end... in the end I almost got her killed."
"If the Team Leader hadn't arrived in time, she definitely would have died."
Yuri quietly swallowed her breath.
I looked down at my trembling hands.
"In the dream, this being that called itself a god said so."
"..."
"That I was an impurity twisting fate."
A bitter smile escaped.
"It didn't seem wrong."
"I was arbitrarily meddling with what was supposed to flow."
"Using the fact that I knew to manipulate people."
"Han..."
"And in the end I got someone hurt again."
My breath caught in my throat.
"And in the dream..."
My voice trembled softly.
"You were there too, Team Leader."
Mir's eyes narrowed.
"...Me?"
"Yes."
I slowly lowered my head.
"Looking at me."
"Saying I'd failed to protect someone again..."
"..."
"That if I kept going like this, I'd kill everyone around me."
The medical room fell quiet.
"Deputy Leader Doyun too."
"Senior Nova too."
"Yuri was there as well."
Yuri flinched.
I clenched my trembling hands tight.
"Everyone looking at me."
My throat tightened.
"Saying I was ruining everything."
"But you know what?"
My breath caught.
"I couldn't even argue back."
"Because it all seemed true."
With that, I closed my mouth.
A moment later.
Thud.
Something hit my forehead.
"Ah..."
I looked up to see Mir frowning, having thrown an empty wet-wipe container.
"You sure do think a hell of a lot of useless crap."
"...Then what was I supposed to do?! Because of me, a precious colleague almost died. And I'm repeating the same thing again!!"
"Hey, first of all, that me who showed up in your dream... that wasn't me."
"How could I ever say something like that?"
Mir leaned forward. Her crimson eyes locked straight onto me.
"Those kinds of thoughts."
She let out a short breath.
"I'm still having them too."
In that instant, the medical room went quiet.
"You too, Team Leader?"
Mir was silent for a moment. Her gaze slowly dropped. She was smiling like usual, but the atmosphere was heavy.
She's wearing a mask to hide the sorrow...
"A long time ago... before I joined the company."
She muttered low.
"I killed people."
My breath stopped for a moment. Yuri also stared at Mir with a frozen expression.
"To be precise."
Mir let out a short laugh.
"Because of my arrogance."
"Because of my bad judgment."
"Because of my laziness."
Her crimson eyes wavered faintly.
"My colleagues died."
I couldn't say a word.
Mir looked up at the ceiling with a calm face.
"Back then I thought I was special..."
"A supernova among Fixers, or whatever..."
"I thought I could do well."
"Figured it'd work out somehow."
She smiled faintly. It was a bitter smile.
"And the result?"
"Not just a few corpses—hundreds left behind, and that was the end."
"..."
"After that I completely fell apart."
Mir slowly closed her eyes.
"Drinking myself stupid."
"Picking fights."
"Hunting for places to die."
"Just living half-assed."
"So even the colleagues I had left gave up on me..."
Yuri quietly swallowed her breath.
"Then I drifted into Lobotomy and met new connections."
Mir opened her eyes again.
"But you know what? When I got here, it was funny—there were tons of people more broken than me."
She let out a short laugh. And continued speaking slowly.
"But you know..."
"That guilt."
She tapped her own chest with a finger.
"It doesn't go away. If even I still have it, what about a kid like you with less life experience?"
"It stays the same no matter how much time passes."
"You'll be fine one moment and then it suddenly hits you."
"Suddenly you can't breathe."
"I still sometimes see myself and my dead colleagues in my dreams..."
The air in the medical room sank heavily.
Mir turned her gaze away and laughed low.
"It stays like a scar for life. And it keeps digging in."
"So I still don't know either."
She slowly looked at me.
"Whether I'm working here now because I want to save the connections I have left..."
"Or just."
Her crimson eyes wavered for just a moment.
"Whether I'm a puppet of guilt who couldn't even die properly and just survived."
My breath caught.
Mir looked at me like that and then let out a short laugh.
"But... does the reason really matter that much?"
"In the end, someone survived, right?"
Mir leaned back against the chair and muttered.
"Guilt isn't something that disappears."
"You just."
She closed her eyes.
"Live with it held close."
The medical room fell quiet.
As I was silently chewing over those words—
A careful voice came from beside me.
"Han..."
I turned my head and saw Yuri letting out a small breath.
"I'm your joining-class coworker, right?"
Yuri smiled faintly.
"We've been together since the first training."
"We've been on the field together."
"We've gotten knocked around a lot together too."
"So I know."
Yuri looked at me.
"That when you save people, you're not the type who calculates and moves."
My breath caught for a moment.
"Yuri..."
"Honestly, the problem is that you're too reckless."
Yuri let out a laugh mixed with a sigh.
"At least you're not a hypocrite."
I couldn't say anything.
Yuri looked at me like that and smiled softly.
"So. Don't try to carry everything alone."
Something in my chest ached strangely.
Silence continued for a while.
And then.
I slowly opened my mouth.
"I want to get stronger."
Mir's eyebrows twitched up.
"Out of nowhere?"
"I felt it after going through this."
I slowly looked down at my hands. They were still trembling faintly.
"I'm... too weak."
"If a situation like this happens again."
"Next time I really won't be able to protect anyone."
The nightmare was over. But strangely, Carmen's voice still lingered in my ears.
I slowly raised my head.
"Please help me... Team Leader, you're strong, right? I heard you were famous among Fixers..."
Her crimson eyes gazed at me.
And then.
Yuri's voice came from beside me.
"I... want to do it too."
"What?"
Yuri let out a short laugh.
"I couldn't do anything this time either."
"And honestly."
Yuri shrugged her shoulders.
"If I leave you alone, Han, you'll just do something dangerous again."
"That... I can't really deny."
"See?"
Yuri laughed.
Mir looked back and forth between the two of us and let out a long sigh.
"Ugh."
"You two suddenly shooting an awakening event or what?"
Still, the corner of her mouth was lifted a little.
"Fine..."
Mir slowly stood up from her seat.
"But be prepared."
Her crimson eyes looked down at both of us.
"Once training starts."
Mir let out a short laugh.
"It's really going to kick your ass."
"I'm suddenly getting scared."
"Too late to run now?"
Mir laughed.
And in that moment alone, the air in the medical room lightened just a little.
"Oh right, Team Leader, you said earlier you've lived longer than us? So how old are you now?"
"...Twenty-three—no, twenty-four, since my birthday already passed..."
"What... that's not much of a difference. Yuri and I were nineteen when we first introduced ourselves... so you're acting like a life senior over just four years?"
"Sh-shut up... Keep that up and tomorrow's training might get a whole lot harder."
"Yes, yes. Then one last thing—what year is it this year?"
"Out of nowhere? What, is this about the future? Well... 979. You came in after your tenth anniversary, so..."