Chapter 89
Chapter 89
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Translator: uly
Chapter: 89
Chapter Title: A Sudden Curse from Dun
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Suddenly, Dun spat curses at Seol Do-yoon. He racked his brain, trying to figure out the reason behind Dun's unexpected reaction and the unfolding situation.
‘A system glitch?’
He couldn’t find any cases of NPC malfunctions in a well-programmed system like Nina Pinta.
He’d heard that Dun occasionally made meta comments and joked around, but this was something else entirely.
He’d quickly wiped it away earlier, but it seemed like tears had welled up in Dun’s eyes for a moment.
Completely out of character.
‘It feels like a system glitch.’
Seol Do-yoon reached out and patted Dun’s back.
“What’s wrong, Dun? You okay?”
He spoke gently with a worried expression he’d learned to mimic. Ri Yu-hyeon had been a good model. Seol Do-yoon imitated her signature look of concern.
“I don’t know what happened, but cry it out. Don’t hold it in too much. You’ll get sick.”
To check if it was a system error, Seol Do-yoon hugged Dun. After all, Dun would kill anyone who touched him when her favorability was low.
‘No, why the hell is he hugging me. You damn bastard.’
He considered killing him but held back, since it had been a while and he felt a bit sorry.
Seol Do-yoon hugged Dun and patted his small head while eyeing the favorability system window that had been going haywire.
[Dun’s favorability has decreased.]
[Dun’s favorability has increased.]
[Dun’s favorability has decreased.]
[Dun’s favorability has greatly increased.]
[Dun’s favorability has greatly decreased.]
Her favorability was vibrating nonstop around zero.
Dipping to -1, then back to 0, up to 1, suddenly jumping to 3, then crashing to -3.
Affection was being stripped away and restored in an endless loop.
He’d heard that rapid ups and downs meant affection was forming. But he’d never heard of it fluctuating this wildly without pause.
And swings this extreme? Never.
Forming affection with Dun was supposed to be an incredibly arduous process from the start. Things that didn’t make sense were piling up, and irritation began to creep into Seol Do-yoon’s mind.
“Want to tell me what happened? All I can do is listen, and it hurts my heart, but I’ll listen hard.”
“Pfft, heh, hngh.”
As the clumsy comforting revved up, Dun quickly stifled a burst of laughter.
‘What the... Is he an idiot?’
Seol Do-yoon strained his facial muscles to maintain his worried expression.
He was putting on a sincere act with convincingly heartfelt words, but Dun burst into laughter. Irritated, he tightened his grip on the arms hugging her.
“...Glad you’re laughing. Feeling better?”
“Hngguh! Pfft, puhaha. Sniff, cough cough! Hngguuuuh!”
“...”
Something boiled up inside him, and his grip on Dun naturally tightened. He wished she’d either mock him properly or just cry—pick one.
Then, slowly, anger started to build.
As Seol Do-yoon pondered what this was all about, he suddenly flinched.
The only one who provoked and angered him like this was Yi Sa-byeok.
No way.
He’d thought Dun resembled Yi Sa-byeok based on outside info, but he hadn’t expected such precise programming down to these details...
Seol Do-yoon cupped Dun’s face—who was hanging her head and sobbing—and carefully lifted it.
Dun’s forced crying, unable to hide her laughter. It was eerily identical to Yi Sa-byeok’s taunting expression that he knew so well.
“...Ah.”
Seol Do-yoon spat a curse and tossed Dun out of his arms. He brushed off his clothes in disgust, then picked up the quiver he’d set down to hug her.
He’d heard she was mischievous, but he hadn’t expected it from their first meeting. Was she modeled after Yi Sa-byeok, with even the teasing traits copy-pasted in?
“I must look like an open book to you.”
Seol Do-yoon forced the corners of his mouth up.
“Could you stop laughing now?”
“S-sorry. Pfft, puhehe, ngh.”
“...”
Seol Do-yoon stared piercingly at Dun, who was struggling to hold back her laughter.
Excluding the fact that Yi Sa-byeok hadn’t awakened yet, she was the association’s finest test subject.
Incredible physical control. Flexibility, strength, wit—she had it all.
Her mind wasn’t bad either. She always scored second-highest to him in puzzles and spatial reasoning tests.
When building the Nina Pinta simulation, Dun might be an AI created to long-term compare and analyze Yi Sa-byeok’s potential.
He hated overhyping Yi Sa-byeok, but she was talented enough to merit creating an AI for research.
Suddenly, an intriguing hypothesis popped into his head.
When cloning Yi Sa-byeok, had her memories been cloned too? The taunting reaction earlier, the easy affection loss and gain, cursing right in his face—these made sense only if she knew him.
If her memories were cloned and she recognized him, the flustered curse upon seeing his face made sense. And the crying...
Well, given the early development timeline, it was likely a clone from when she was about six. Dropped into an unfamiliar place with orphanage gate trauma and suddenly copied memories—seeing a familiar face would naturally bring tears.
The sudden teasing? Probably embarrassment from crying, then spotting this gullible guy hugging and comforting her, so she laughed at the absurdity.
Not killing him during the hug earlier? Could be chalked up to fondness.
From the circumstances, Dun seemed to be an AI cloned with memories up to Yi Sa-byeok’s age of six.
To confirm, Seol Do-yoon spoke up.
“Dun, Dun? Laughing’s done—come here closer.”
Dun, exhausted from laughing and collapsed, listlessly raised her head.
“You come here.”
How did she nail even that?
Seol Do-yoon scooted over and sat near Dun, who lay sprawled out catching her breath.
“Dun, do you know Abyss?”
“Yeah.”
“Could you tell me what kind of person she is?”
Yi Sa-byeok hated beating around the bush.
She’d know spilling everything to him would make things easier.
Dun blinked and stared intently at Seol Do-yoon’s face.
‘Sharp bastard.’
He didn’t know how he was interpreting or probing, but it seemed he’d accept it more easily than expected when she said she was Yi Sa-byeok who died at twenty and came back to the past.
But first, something to check.
If Seol Do-yoon learned her situation, he’d try to prevent the current Yi Sa-byeok’s death.
Would that make her, as Dun, disappear?
That’s why causality mattered.
She couldn’t vanish due to a time paradox and leave Ri Hao-wel behind.
Before telling Seol Do-yoon, Dun fired off a whisper to Prim, who’d be by Yi Sa-byeok’s side.
{Dun: Prim, you meet Yi Sa-byeok?}
{Primavera: Met her. Soon as I approached, she puked and ran off.}
{Dun: Chase her and talk. Curious how it’ll go.}
Dun suddenly stared blankly into space. Seol Do-yoon watched quietly, observing what she was doing.
“Wait a bit before I explain everything. It’s complicated.”
“Okay.”
Dun waited for Prim’s reply.
{Primavera: Says she’ll puke if she sees my face, asks where this mangy mutt rolled in from, tries to kill me. Her verbal jabs and moves aren’t ordinary even from childhood, Dun.}
{Dun: Insult her so she never forgets you. Call her a kid who can’t even awaken.}
{Primavera: Not exactly... Fine. Don’t like the method, but I love that she won’t forget me.}
* * *
Right now, Primavera was hovering near Yi Sa-byeok—who was clearing monsters in the dungeon—pestering and taunting her.
“A kid who can’t even awaken! Kid! You think you can kill me, you unawakened brat?”
“You XX, possessed by data or what?”
She’d been dungeon crawling, but this yellow-headed female NPC kept popping up and annoying her.
The closer she got, the worse her stomach felt. Her vision blurred more.
Yi Sa-byeok raised her fist to smack the suddenly aggro-pulling Prim but ended up fleeing again.
Her stomach churned whenever that kid got close.
“Cute little brat! Running away! Come on, hit me once! Get over here! One smack on my clown face and you’ll awaken!”
“Y-you, glitchy NPC! What the hell are you doing? I’ll remember you and kill you! Ugh, urghwaaack!”
But with her vision blurry, Yi Sa-byeok couldn’t make out Prim’s face or name.
* * *
{Primavera: ...That was her reaction.}
Hearing the story via whisper, Dun let out a hollow laugh.
‘No way, crazy—that was you????’
No wonder Prim had bugged her for no reason the first time.
Weird. Maybe the constant nausea from her past life was tied to her current self somehow.
She vaguely recalled a buggy NPC pestering her briefly during her gamer days. And that was Prim?
Shocking.
From the situation, it seemed every time Prim approached, she felt severe nausea.
Dun pulled a note from her inventory and checked its contents.
Seol Do-yoon, intrigued, peered over from the side.
『In my gamer days, I had little contact with Prim, so no real memories or feelings toward her.』
Before telling Prim to approach Yi Sa-byeok, she’d written this in case Prim-related memories were added without her noticing, blurring real from fake.
Prim’s approach hadn’t added or altered any existing memories.
But Prim was somehow failing to make her presence known to Yi Sa-byeok due to some variable.
Suddenly, the ‘Time Paradox’ penalty flashed in Dun’s mind.
It had been mentioned once during the Bachinum body conversion.
“Dun, what’s that you wrote?”
Seol Do-yoon giggled as he read the note Dun held, asking.
Dun staring seriously at the weird scribbles was funny.
“Can’t you read this writing?”
“Worm letters?”
Seol Do-yoon couldn’t recognize the note he’d written. It wasn’t that the handwriting was too ugly.
The situation wasn’t fully clear, but it seemed whatever he did wouldn’t greatly affect the future.
The past he knew was the future the current him had lived through.
“Seol Do-yoon, I’ll explain now.”
“Okay.”
“Hey, I’m Yi Sa-byeok.”
“What?”
“I died at twenty and came back to the past. I’m Yi Sa-byeok.”
“...What’re you saying?”
Seol Do-yoon tilted his head at the mumbling Dun, who seemed weird. It sounded like words, but nothing registered.
Frustrated to the point of bursting, Dun thumped her chest.
“Fuuuuck. I. Am. Yi. Saa. Byeeeok!”
“?”
Seol Do-yoon, not understanding, tilted his head again.
“Hey, you XX bastard!”
“Suddenly?”
“No, you only catch the curses?”
“You only pronounced the curses clearly.”
“No, ah. Aaaargh! This bastard’s not doing it on purpose. No, ha...”
Seol Do-yoon grabbed Dun’s hand and checked her pulse. It was racing from excitement. She wasn’t joking to tease; she seemed genuinely angry.
Mumbling to herself, spitting curses, and getting truly mad.
‘Did it even copy her anger issues?’
Remembering the orphanage trauma as the cause, he recalled how young Sa-byeok would snap over nothing back then, struggling to control her emotions.
If that era was copied, those traits could remain intact.
“Don’t get mad, calm down, Dun. Breathe, breathe. Like this: Suuuuh. Haaa. Suuuuh.”
It was the method Yi Sa-byeok had self-taught after that time to quell her anger.
She’d snap at supervisors, nearly fighting them, but hold back in her room crying to avoid other kids getting hurt, using this to kill her rage.
“No. Ah. Crazy. Suuuuh. Haaa. Suuuuh. Haaa.”
“Calmer now?”
Seol Do-yoon smiled as Dun seemed settled. She nodded and asked.
“So, did you get it this time?”
“The curses?”
“No, no. I’ll say it clearly again. Clean your ears and listen.”
“Okay. But don’t yell.”
“Got it, got it. Just listen carefully.”
Seol Do-yoon nodded, pretending to dig in his ear.
“I’m Yi Sa-byeok.”
“?”
Dun mumbled weirdly again. Seol Do-yoon tilted his head once more.
“I!!! Am!!!!!!!! Ah, ugh. Fine.”
Determined not to yell despite the frustration, Dun shut her mouth.
Watching Dun on the verge of exploding, Seol Do-yoon placed a hand on her shoulder.
Maybe when coding Dun to hide that her motif was Yi Sa-byeok, they’d added an info lock. To prevent leaking secrets about the association’s top test subject?
He couldn’t confirm without logging out for more info.
“Okay, Dun. If you’re really Yi Sa-byeok, nod.”
Dun raised one eyebrow, then nodded. Ah, good. Smart as expected, Seol Do-yoon.
“Don’t worry. I get the gist.”
“What.”
“That you’re Yi Sa-byeok.”
“Explain exactly how you’re understanding it.”
That you’re an AI cloned from Yi Sa-byeok.
About to say that, Seol Do-yoon held back.
An AI with emotions and high intellect might take that badly—especially a clever one like Dun.
No benefit in falling out with a Dun modeled after Yi Sa-byeok.
“That you have at least Yi Sa-byeok’s memories up to around age six.”
“...”
Yi Sa-byeok racked her brain wondering how he’d come up with that, then recalled Nina Pinta’s release date. When Yi Sa-byeok was about six, during Nina Pinta’s development. And the orphanage gate incident.
Seol Do-yoon seemed convinced she was an AI cloned from her childhood self. The most logical conclusion from his perspective.
“Haa...”
Dun decided to let Seol Do-yoon think that.
Either way, linking her to Yi Sa-byeok raised trust potential. And treating her like Yi Sa-byeok’s six-year-old version oddly made him kinder.
Anyway, this didn’t seem purely Seol Do-yoon’s or her issue.
Prim earlier too—something else was intervening.
An intervention to prevent messing with the past she knew.