Chapter 64
Chapter 64
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Translator: MadScientist
Chapter: 64
Chapter Title: Chae-ryeong's Past, Present, and Future as a Human (1)
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Dark Knights executive villain 'Trickster'.
Real name: Chae-ryeong.
She didn't inherit the surname Chae from her parents.
She simply had the single name Chae-ryeong, with no family name at all.
◇◇◇◆◇◇◇ The laboratory, filled on all sides with stark white walls and unidentified machinery,
was the place where her oldest memory began.
"Subject No. H1789. 19 years old. Female. Current health condition is excellent." A massive experimental tube, so cold it felt like being trapped inside ice.
A single girl lay asleep within it, connected to some kind of device.
She had very fine black hair that fell long and straight, and eyes as red as a rabbit's.
The girl, who possessed a truly beautiful appearance, gently lifted her eyelids.
"H1789 has opened her eyes!!!" "Report to the section chief right away!" The moment she awoke from a sleep as deep as Snow White's, the researchers who had been watching her were overcome with shock and joy.
Yet the subject herself had no idea why she had awakened here,
or why these people were looking at her with such delight.
She didn't even know who "I" was in the first place.
But she didn't ask the researchers a single question about who she was
or why she had awakened like this.
"It's really strange. All the previous subjects showed emotional fluctuations..., and some even had their supernatural abilities go berserk." She was just as confused as anyone,
but for some reason, there were no signs of intense emotional turmoil or a supernatural ability rampage.
In the first place, she had no memory at all of even possessing a supernatural ability.
"The results seem fine, fortunately, but just to be safe, assign a researcher to look after the subject and monitor her condition." "Yes, sir!" She had awakened at an age already nearly nineteen, practically an adult,
but a researcher was assigned to care for her and keep an eye on her state, given her complete lack of memories.
"You're H1789...? You're really pretty! I'm Seo Young-chae. Let's get along from now on, okay?" A neat-looking female researcher who introduced herself as Seo Young-chae.
"Calling you by your subject number feels off..., but I can't just call you 'you' either..." Young-chae pondered how to address the still-nameless Chae-ryeong.
"Hmm... How about Chae-young, flipping my name around? Or maybe Chae-ryeong sounds better...?" "...I like Chae-ryeong better."
"Great! Chae-ryeong it is from now on. Got it?" Unlike the other researchers, who treated her like an object and called her only by her subject number,
Young-chae even gave her a new name derived from her own and always treated Chae-ryeong with kindness and warmth.
She was the one who taught the eerily calm and emotionless girl—ever since awakening in the tube—how to communicate and handle her feelings.
"How about this? Looks totally delicious, right? It's called mala tang... I hear it's all the rage these days." "Super spicy... feels like it'd clear out your insides!"
Young-chae showed her things that girls her age in the outside world might enjoy,
and they exchanged silly little jokes, as Chae-ryeong gradually took after her lively personality.
"Sister, what's that you're drinking...?" "Ah, this? It's coffee. A bit bitter, but with a nice nutty flavor."
"Why drink something bitter...?"
"Coffee's amazing! The aroma is incredible..., and it clears your mind, you know?" One day, when Chae-ryeong asked about the coffee in the tumbler Young-chae always carried,
Young-chae kindly explained it to her.
"If you're interested, want me to teach you how to make it?" Young-chae even brought photos of her coffee maker and beans,
and sneaked tastes of coffee to Chae-ryeong when the other researchers weren't looking.
"At first, I wondered why anyone would drink something so bitter, but now I think I get it." "Right? I seriously can't live without coffee."
From the day Chae-ryeong first tasted coffee, it became her absolute favorite food.
Of course, the flavor and aroma suited her tastes perfectly,
but more than that, it was because she wanted to treasure anything Young-chae loved.
In that way, they spent a period that was long if considered long, short if short—a few weeks—
coming to cherish each other like blood sisters before they knew it.
From the outside, there seemed to be no problems at all for Chae-ryeong and Young-chae,
but from the researchers' perspective, there was one critical issue with her.
"Subject H1789. Condition excellent today as well. However... there seems to be an issue with her supernatural ability." The researchers took issue with the fact that Chae-ryeong couldn't use her supernatural ability,
and began subjecting her to all manner of experiments.
At first, they started with words designed to hurt her feelings,
or by taking away or destroying things she cherished.
But Chae-ryeong, having learned from Young-chae how to use and manage her emotions,
only felt a bit downcast at most—no major emotional outbursts.
"This won't do. Time to ramp up the intensity." Dissatisfied with that, the researchers escalated the experiments exponentially.
They held knives to her throat or cut wounds into her body,
and used blunt instruments to crush her fingers and toes.
Even then, Chae-ryeong failed to manifest her supernatural ability as they desired.
Young-chae always comforted and soothed Chae-ryeong through those brutal ordeals,
and even promised to help her escape the lab someday.
"In this world... there are heroes who protect people from evil villains. Someday... a hero will come to save you." 'Yeah... someday, I can get out. With sister Young-chae.'
Firmly believing a hero would one day come to rescue both her and Young-chae,
Chae-ryeong somehow endured the harsh experiments, over and over.
But despite Young-chae's comfort and encouragement,
the intensity of the experiments only grew more savage.
They locked her in with ferocious beasts,
and went beyond fingers and toes to smash her limbs and face, leaving her covered in wounds.
For Chae-ryeong, whose body and mind were already in tatters, even seeing Young-chae
was no longer permitted.
'Where are you, sister Young-chae...?
Save me... Help me...'
A life of cold solitary confinement, monitored around the clock, twenty-four hours a day.
It felt like things couldn't possibly get any worse.
But she soon learned that there was indeed a rock bottom beneath the bottom.
-Creak- "Hey! Drag subject H1789 out here." "I... I'm not H1789, I'm Chae-ryeong!"
"Doesn't matter. Bring her out now!" "Wh-what... what are you going to do to me! It's time to stop already!
Please... just let me go...!"
After days of providing only meager water and food while keeping her locked up,
the researchers suddenly threw open the solitary cell door and dragged her off somewhere by force.
The destination didn't look much different from the cell she'd been confined in,
but there was one key difference.
"Let... let go of me!"
They forced her into a chair and fixed her gaze in one direction,
then a shutter that looked like a wall began to rise very slowly.
-Whirr- Beyond the shutter, there was Young-chae, bound to a chair just like her, unable to move a muscle.
"S... Sister?! Why are you tied up over there!"
Young-chae was shedding tears, gazing at Chae-ryeong's face with profound sadness.
"What are you saying? Hurry up and untie her! Now!!" Young-chae seemed to be saying something to Chae-ryeong,
but a transparent glass wall stood between them on the other side of the shutter, muffling any sound.
Chae-ryeong tried to read her lips to understand,
but she couldn't make it out at all.
After a brief moment,
a gun was aimed at Young-chae's head.
"Sister!!! What are you doing to my sister!! Do it to me instead...! You can carve out my flesh... break my fingers... anything... please!!" Chae-ryeong struggled desperately to free herself from the chair,
and begged the watching researchers.
But her pleas went unheeded.
-Bang!! The gun aimed at Young-chae's head ultimately pierced right through it,
spraying a massive amount of blood around her.
The sturdy-looking glass wall cracked from the gunshot's impact,
and voices from the researchers beyond filtered through the fissures.
"Sister... Sister?! SISTER!!!!" Chae-ryeong thrashed wildly against the chair, wailing in a frenzy of grief.
In that short time, Young-chae had taught her everything despite her having no prior memories,
and become the most precious person in the world to her.
Yet that cherished soul had been killed—not by anyone else, but by a fellow researcher.
All to force her supernatural ability to awaken.
As Chae-ryeong wailed uncontrollably at the sight of Young-chae's blood-soaked corpse,
through her tear-blurred vision, she spotted someone else amid the researchers gathering the body.
A man not in a white lab coat, but some strange suit.
And the faintly overheard conversation through the cracked wall was utterly shocking.
"How'd it go? Any progress on the experiment?" "Ah! Hero, you've arrived. Regrettably... no progress."