Chapter 270
Chapter 270
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Translator: crow
Chapter Title: Finding Lost Time
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"What... is this...?"
Yoo Daon couldn't believe the sight before her eyes.
Herself, in duplicate?
And why was she seeing this in the first place?
Doubts multiplied endlessly in her mind.
"Hey!"
She raised her hand and called out, but the Yoo Daon standing there under the golden rain didn't seem to hear, keeping her hands clasped together as she bowed her head.
Yoo Daon watched the scene.
This was something she didn't know.
A sight she had never witnessed.
And yet.
"I..."
She spoke to someone.
No, not just someone.
It was a man she knew all too well.
With a thud! he pounded his fist against the glass door.
"I've never been afraid of death."
The man kept slamming his fist against the glass door, and the Yoo Daon under the golden rain lifted her head.
Finally, she continued speaking.
His punches grew fiercer, but she finished her words without a care and leaped back.
"...That guy..."
The one she lunged at was a face even the Yoo Daon watching this remembered.
Kim... Kim Wan... something like that. Someone important enough back then, but she'd erased his name from memory since he wasn't anymore.
The regressor.
It had been called a fight, but Yoo Daon had been utterly overwhelmed.
Not this time, though.
Yoo Daon's fist slammed into the man's face, and he staggered back with a bewildered expression.
"Damn it...! Why here of all places...!"
"You can't pass."
Yoo Daon glared at the man, her body repeatedly turning to sand and reforming.
His body was turning to sand too.
"You idiot...! If I die, no one will save the world!"
At his shout, Yoo Daon raised her fist and charged, the two locked in fierce combat.
Fierce combat that amounted to little more than punching each other.
The fight ended anticlimactically.
Regardless of victory, the man's body crumbled to sand first and scattered.
"The world..."
The man muttered as he dissolved into sand.
...
Under the golden rain, Yoo Daon turned back to the glass door and slowly walked toward it.
The watching Yoo Daon followed behind her.
...
She sat gazing at the sky.
Her body was already melting away, and regeneration could no longer keep up.
Yoo Daon sat beside her too.
Yeah. No way she'd let her final moments look pathetic.
"What does the world even mean."
Yoo Daon muttered.
The melting woman stared at the sky.
"I've already saved my world."
And she melted away.
Yoo Daon watched her until the end.
Only then did all the doubts in Yoo Daon's mind clear up.
Why the man had always been so kind to her.
Why he'd shown her a bit more affection than others, noticeably so.
"...You weren't looking at me."
Well, he had been looking at her—but the Yoo Daon in his heart was long dead.
Yoo Daon clutched her knees, fingers sifting through the sand.
She wanted to be alone.
*
Jang Chaeyeon opened her eyes.
...
She sat up, looking around as stone dust fell from her body.
Stone dust?
She looked up at the sky,
...
And spotted the Cube spinning lazily overhead.
Beneath it was her own haggard self.
"...Me?"
Jang Chaeyeon blinked, and her haggard counterpart dropped to her knees right there.
"I lost."
She muttered, and the Cube spun on.
"I'll do anything. Just... let me out of here. Please."
Her voice desperate, she stared at the Cube.
The Cube kept spinning, and the haggard woman dropped her gaze to the floor.
Jang Chaeyeon followed suit, looking down,
...!
And gasped softly.
A man's corpse lay there.
"I can't... hold on anymore..."
The haggard Jang Chaeyeon muttered, and the Cube shot forward, piercing her head.
"Ahh...!"
Her face twisted in agony as she clutched her forehead and screamed,
And then time accelerated rapidly.
For a long stretch, Jang Chaeyeon lay there gripping her forehead.
Only the quick rise and fall of her chest amid the sped-up time showed she was still alive.
After a long time passed,
Jang Chaeyeon watched herself sit up.
"Haha... hahaha..."
She laughed.
"No..."
Then cried, then laughed again, repeating the cycle.
How many times did she go through it?
A spark suddenly returned to her dazed eyes.
"Th-this won't do."
She muttered to herself, scanning her trembling surroundings until she picked up a sharp shard of glass.
"Think... think..."
She gripped the glass shard with shaking hands, blood starting to drip from her palm.
Undeterred, she began muttering like a madwoman.
"Remember. Kim Jaeheon, my sister, and... and..."
Mid-mutter, she snapped her head up.
"Aestheticism. How is that thing still alive?"
Then, muttering to herself madly again, she squeezed her eyes shut.
"I get it."
She hesitated a moment, then hurriedly raised the glass shard.
"C-can't let it... eat everything..."
She pressed the glass to her throat,
And Jang Chaeyeon could only close her eyes, unable to watch further.
*
My head hurts.
I clutched my pounding skull and got up.
"What the hell."
It was dead silent.
I frantically searched my pockets for the manual, but my hands came up empty.
Tch. I clicked my tongue and pieced together the situation.
What I'd seen: a massive eye, the sky, and now this.
I looked around.
Same as before?
No different from where I'd collapsed earlier.
The only change was no observer.
No Yoo Daon, Jang Chaeyeon, or Song Arin either.
Trapped somewhere again, I guess.
After a few rounds of this, it wasn't even that shocking anymore.
Time to find an exit.
As I wandered around diligently, I soon heard muffled voices.
Looking toward the sound, I saw myself and Jang Chaeyeon deep in discussion about something.
We faced each other, nodding as we ran.
Then hordes of gray humans charged at us.
Right. This happened too.
But where was Yoo Daon?
I seemed to recall Jang Chaeyeon literally blasting her to turn the tide back then.
No matter where I looked, though, no sign of Yoo Daon.
While I searched frantically for her, myself and Jang Chaeyeon broke through the surroundings.
In the end, a single nail pierced my gut.
I vomited blood, and Jang Chaeyeon supported me.
Still, we managed to push through somehow.
The problem was we couldn't properly treat or medicate.
I walked slowly with my torn clothes wrapped around me, but soon I couldn't even move, burning with fever and groaning on the ground.
Me wasting away, Jang Chaeyeon helpless beside me.
Even as I languished, we desperately tried something for escape, but nothing came of it.
Eventually, we both slumped down, seemingly giving up.
And time kept passing.
How much time passed? Jang Chaeyeon held my dying form, tears streaming down her face.
She whispered something to me, and I nodded, replying.
She endlessly stroked my forehead.
Soon, I breathed my last and went still.
Jang Chaeyeon burst into childlike sobs, kneeling and weeping nonstop.
...
A bitter scene.
That's why I had to get out of here.
No pistol in hand, no manual.
I rummaged my pockets thoroughly for anything else, but nothing.
How to escape from here.
Staying put like this felt like nothing would happen.
What could I do in a situation like this.
...
I approached the weeping Jang Chaeyeon.
Her eyes were so swollen she could barely see.
"...Chaeyeon."
I spoke softly to her, but she said nothing. She probably couldn't hear anyway.
Jang Chaeyeon.
When we first met, I'd never have thought we'd grow close. She'd killed Yoo Daon, and I'd nearly died by her hand too.
...
But to me, she was different.
That wasn't the point, though.
"Why?"
Why was she different to me?
Because we'd spent months together?
Sure, months together mattered.
But would affection really have bloomed in that time?
If so, why couldn't I remember it clearly?
Why did those memories feel so full of gaping holes?
What I did remember from the Cube: fragments, stories, and...
'I'll forget.'
Her words to me.
...
Forget?
What?
...
Come to think of it, yeah.
I'd spent months with Jang Chaeyeon. If my memories were right.
But I knew nothing about her.
I didn't know about her sister, her relationship with Song Arin, and she knew nothing of my family.
Wouldn't I have told her? Even if she didn't share?
If the time we'd spent together had been much longer.
So long we couldn't live proper lives.
'I'll forget.'
Her voice echoed in my head,
...
[Critical: 0->1]
A translucent window appeared.
I clenched my fist.
[Critical: 1->0]
The world turned monochrome,
"I knew it."
And then blood-red.
I raised my fist and slammed it down.
-Thud!
The ground shattered, and I felt myself floating,
I opened my eyes.
I bolted upright and naturally picked up the manual at my feet.
"Huh...?"
The observer stared at me in confusion, our eyes meeting.
"How'd you wake up?"
"Chaeyeon."
The observer tilted her head at my words.
"Yeah?"
"Chaeyeon. Snap out of it. It's me."
The observer froze.