Lee Jaseong (1)
“······So this is how I ended up dead.”
Kang Hae-il opened his eyes and muttered to himself.
Even though his consciousness had returned, he was certain he had died.
“Hey, hyung! You’re awake?”
Of course he thought that. The first thing he saw upon opening his eyes was the face of the dead porter.
If a dead guy had come out to greet him, then he must be dead too. That was his logic.
Yet he still had consciousness, so this had to be some kind of afterlife.
Who would say that didn’t exist? In a world where gates opened in the subway and goblins massacred people, there was no reason an afterlife couldn’t exist either.
The moment he decided this was the afterlife, one person immediately came to mind.
“Father······ probably isn’t here.”
“Huh? Y-yeah. That person is······.”
At the sudden mention of his father, Junil averted his gaze.
Was it guilt?
“He’s in a different place.”
He had phrased his father’s death indirectly.
But that statement reached Kang Hae-il’s ears in a completely different way.
“So it really is hell.”
His father had gone to heaven, and he had fallen into hell.
He had already guessed as much when he saw the porter here.
Just as expected.
“······What?!”
Junil’s eyes widened as he jumped back in shock.
“W-what are you saying? Why would your father go to hell? Did he hit you a lot when you were young? No, even then······.”
“No, not my father. Us. Here.”
“······?”
Here?
This was the moment Junil started to sense something was off.
Because Kang Hae-il sat up and immediately began to complain.
“I can understand you being here, but why am I in hell? Did I kill Sar too quickly?”
“······?”
Junil reflected on himself.
Here he was, a hero who had traveled to another world seven times, yet his imagination was nowhere near as strong as Kang Hae-il’s.
‘Crazy. This guy genuinely believes he’s in the afterlife right now.’
It was absurd, but it was true.
“Wait a second.”
Then Junil noticed something strange.
“Why is it so obvious that I would go to hell?”
Why was it natural for the porter to go to hell? Wasn’t he Kang Hae-il’s savior?
‘Don’t tell me… does he know I’m Sagosul?’
All sorts of thoughts flashed through his mind in an instant.
“You’re an F-rank.”
It was simply because he was F-rank.
It didn’t seem like there was any deeper meaning behind it.
“Wait, a person’s entire life is decided by that? And that’s your only reason?”
“Yeah. You’re F-rank and your luck is pretty bad too. I don’t see any reason you’d go to heaven.”
Kang Hae-il rubbed his face with his hand as if he was already tired of answering and asked,
“So this isn’t hell? Then is it heaven?”
“No. It’s just a VIP room in a university hospital.”
“Ha······ Then what are you?”
“Huh?”
“If this is neither hell nor heaven, why are you alive?”
From Kang Hae-il’s perspective, Junil being alive made no sense.
He had even awakened because he thought the guy was dead. It was understandable.
“I didn’t die either.”
“Both of us survived? Does that even make sense?”
Grab!
He started touching Junil’s face all over.
Clatter!
Right then, a nurse walked in.
“Oh my. Kang Hae-il! You’re awake?! Your vitals looked good so I came to check… but, um… what are you doing right now?”
She had walked in on Kang Hae-il enthusiastically touching Junil’s face.
The nurse’s face turned bright red.
‘D-don’t tell me… is that why an F-rank could stick around an S-rank?’
Junil immediately refuted the nurse’s unspoken thoughts.
“Hey, nurse. It’s written all over your face. It’s not like that, okay? I’m with him because of my outstanding abilities.”
But of course, that was exactly when it happened.
Grab!
“You······ you really are alive?”
Kang Hae-il gripped his face even harder.
“You’re really alive?!”
Only now did Kang Hae-il finally grasp the reality and burst with joy.
From his perspective, seeing the nurse had finally given him solid proof.
That the porter had survived.
“Y-yesh, that’sh wha I shaid?”
Junil’s face was being squished in every direction, making it impossible to speak properly.
“No, how the hell······ how did you survive back there?”
“Mr. Kang Hae-il?”
The doctor entered the room.
“Let’s calm down first. Moon Junil will explain how both of you survived in due time. For now, I need to examine you.”
* * *
The examination was over.
“Well······ I expected as much since you’re an S-rank awakened, but everything is shockingly normal. That’s a relief.”
Eye response, consciousness, memory—everything showed normal reactions.
There was nothing to criticize.
Except for a bit of mental shock, that is.
“The government prepaid for a week in the VIP room. At the very least, take it easy during this Free Chapter period.”
“Ah, yes.”
After the doctor left,
Kang Hae-il immediately asked,
“Now tell me. How did you survive?”
Had his mind cleared up a lot?
His voice carried equal parts joy and suspicion.
During the examination, his head must have cooled down and he had started to feel something was strange.
But Junil wasn’t worried about that part.
The real question for him was whether he could explain it one-on-one. Now that they were alone like this, it was nothing.
“Do you remember the Troll Scroll? The one I got after killing everyone.”
“······Yeah. I remember.”
“That ability heals you once right before you die. Like a troll. But I was so badly injured that I was unconscious for a long time. In a comatose state. Thanks to that, Sar thought I was dead too.”
“Ha······? So that’s what happened?”
Only then did Kang Hae-il smile for the first time.
“As expected of an S-rank.”
After that, Junil and Hae-il chatted and laughed about everything that had happened.
Meanwhile, Kang Hae-il’s Constellations were practically crying.
* * *
Whiiiiiiiiiish······!
A desolate ruin.
Just a short while ago, this had been a hospital building.
In this place that looked like it had been bombed, several men in black suits stood in formation.
The man standing in the center asked in disbelief,
“Everyone······ died here?”
“Yes, that’s correct.”
The sole survivor of the site bowed his head and answered.
Oh Sang-chul, Master of the Incheon Union guild.
Sang-chul stared quietly at the survivor before asking,
“What’s your level?”
“I’m one level below Big Bro Jingu. I’m level 44.”
“······Level 44. Hmm.”
It was quite high.
But it wasn’t high enough to pull off something like this.
The intruder had killed Kim Jin-gu, the person in charge here, along with all the elite guards in their 40s protecting him.
“Do you know how many people die just to raise one level 44?”
“A-a lot, right? You gave me more than a few guys to devour. Haha······.”
“Right? Then why aren’t you paying for the meal you ate?”
“······Pardon?”
Grab!
Oh Sang-chul’s massive hand seized the level 44 by the back of his neck.
“K-khhk······!”
Cracklecracklecrackle······!
Scarlet lightning coiled around him as the level 44 awakened couldn’t do anything.
“No matter how I look at it, fuck. The fact that you’re alive here pisses me the hell off.”
“Ugh, s-someone had to report back······.”
“That’s just an excuse. The organization raised you all the way to level 44. Wasn’t Jin-gu your direct superior? What if you had risked your life to save your big bro? Huh? Then maybe he would’ve lived, right?”
Cracklecracklecracklecrack!
Red lightning raged as all the organization members trembled.
“Why the fuck did you crawl back here without a single scratch and act all fine while giving your report, you bastard!”
Oh Sang-chul’s eyes flashed wildly.
BAAAAAANG!
“!”
The level 44 man exploded like a balloon.
Torn into hundreds of pieces, not even his corpse was recognizable.
Only the sticky, hot blood and twitching organs on the floor proved that a person had once been there.
[LEVEL UP!]
Lv.80 → Lv.81
“Now you’re finally working for the organization. You fucking bastard. Hey.”
“Yes!”
When Oh Sang-chul waved his hand, a subordinate brought over a large towel.
Oh Sang-chul wiped the blood off himself, threw the towel aside, and asked his subordinates,
“Alright. Starting today, our organization is hostile toward Kang Hae-il. Make a plan to kill him… no, kill that bastard’s entire team. And secure the identities of every single one of those research lab rats who ran off to Seoul. Where they’re staying, how they’re living—everything.”
“Yes!”
With a thunderous shout, everyone bowed their heads.
“And······ Lee Jaseong.”
“Yes!”
The person called stepped forward immediately.
“I heard the report. You know the porter?”
“Yes! That’s correct! Hyung-nim!”
Oh Sang-chul nodded and dismissed the others.
“How do you know him?”
“We were in the same orphanage!”
“Orphanage?”
At the word orphanage, Oh Sang-chul’s gaze finally turned to Lee Jaseong.
“You’ve been through a lot. Light me up.”
“Yes!”
Oh Sang-chul put a cigarette in his mouth and jerked his chin.
Jaseong politely lit it with a lighter.
Click.
“Haa. So were you pretty close?”
“He used to listen to everything I said when we were kids, but we haven’t been in touch much since we became adults.”
“In your opinion, could that porter pull off something like this?”
What Oh Sang-chul pointed at while exhaling smoke was the ruined hospital building.
“Ah······ no. Leaving aside the fact that he’s F-rank, he doesn’t have the guts for something like this. Ever since he was little, he had the temperament of a weak scholar. At least he studied hard and managed to get into an S-rank university despite being from an orphanage.”
“So the rumor was true.”
“Yes.”
“That’s one impressive bastard.”
For some reason, the existence of that porter bothered Oh Sang-chul.
An orphanage kid who got into Korea’s top university.
And now he was sticking right next to Korea’s strongest awakened······.
‘He’s no ordinary guy.’
However, Oh Sang-chul was extremely cautious when he took action.
It was never too late to ask someone who actually knew the person before making a judgment.
“So you’re saying Kang Hae-il caused this, and that Grozya monster went on a rampage and it ended up like this?”
“That seems to be the case. There have been previous incidents where monsters appeared during gate experiments. I suspect the accident was quite severe. The government’s investigation team also concluded that the traces of the hospital’s destruction were all caused by a monster.”
Huu.
Oh Sang-chul exhaled smoke and nodded.
‘A monster, huh······.’
At the moment, that was the only explanation that made sense.
“Jaseong-ah.”
“Yes, hyung-nim.”
“Right now, there are too many eyes from the government around Kang Hae-il.”
“Yes.”
“No matter how messed up the world has become, we still need to avoid an all-out war with the government for now.”
“That’s right.”
“But you know the porter. So there must be something we can do, right? You get what I’m saying?”
Lee Jaseong’s eyes filled with surprise.
He was being given an important mission.
‘Moon Junil, you pushover bastard! Even after growing up, you’re still giving without holding back!’
Jaseong answered energetically.
“······Yes! Just leave it to me!”