Chapter 164
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Translator: 8uhl
Chapter: 164
Chapter Title: Past (10), The Season When the Rose Withers (3)
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This anger is mine.
Chairman Go Geoncheol glared at the pill bottles clutched in his hand. Psychotropic medications. The head physician had diagnosed the tyrant with severe impulse control disorder. Brain function was already damaged, making recovery difficult with conventional methods. Symptomatic situational staging, surgical procedures, and medication would all need to be combined for treatment.
“Ridiculous.”
The chairman hurled the pill bottles into the trash can. One by one, deliberately, as if etching a vow. He couldn’t rely on such means. The chairman thought. Head physician? That guy was just another contracted outsider in the end. No more letting anyone dictate his mind. No more letting anyone toy with his heart.
This anger is mine. Eradicating it is my role alone. It must be my fight. The thorny path to reclaim everything lost. I am my own master. I am the master of myself. Even if I fail, that failure will be mine. I won’t live a meaningless life as someone who isn’t me.
Who the hell has the right to judge me by what standard?
Who dares call me insane?
The “normal” they speak of is just a generalization of the piggish masses, isn’t it?
I am the only standard. Only I can evaluate my life. It is my sole role to assign value to myself, to people, to this world, to all creation.
The tyrant knew enough. He knew that mental illness diagnoses were based on the error margins of societal averages. It was unacceptable. The tyrant was human. Humans couldn’t be measured by the standards of pigs.
One mistake was enough.
It was enough to have willingly become one woman’s slave.
Go Geoncheol snorted at the doctor’s mention of virtual reality as a medium for situational staging.
If it wasn’t real, it had no meaning. Flailing in an insubstantial illusion was the worst existence. An insubstantial illusion. Insignificant emotions. His entire life in this flesh had been swayed by a love he believed in—what was that if not another illusion? How could he step into yet another one?
What a laughable world.
The real is rare, buried and vanishing amid countless fakes. That’s why the world is made of fakes. Fakes are louder, noisier, flashier than the real. The real tyrant had nearly vanished among them. He had mistaken them for real. Naive days. Ignorance was a sin he hadn’t known, lost in daydreams, flitting like a butterfly through fleeting, fragrant delusions. Until his wings—his hope—were torn by the razor spiderwebs, reality, the weight of truth.
Billions of beasts mimicking humans.
Wretches who betray reality for worthless illusions. No matter how flashy or stimulating, illusions are just illusions. A world that vanishes when the power is cut. Fiction where someone with capital wields absolute control. Thus, all beasts reduce to capital. It’s opportunity cost. Money provides every chance, every possibility for humans.
Ah, life must be economical. That is the only fierce way to exist. The tyrant growled low.
The boiling emotion was anger.
Better to fail than entrust fate to others. He had vowed that was life, but the chairman was a tyrant. He couldn’t tolerate failure. Failure would be defeat. That woman’s ultimate victory. Even though she no longer existed in this world, Go Geoncheol—who had killed her yet felt no triumph. After all, this anger, the stone rolling in his chest, was her ghost.
The tyrant murmured.
“I will reclaim myself.”
Anger was a rightful emotion. His emotion. Escaping it was no different from declaring defeat. The same as shouting to this false world that he had lost. Ha! How could he?
His daughter asked her father.
“I don’t understand what you mean. How long do I have to stay here?”
“Until I tell you to go.”
Go Ayoung looked at her father with sunken eyes. It was endurance suppressing many emotions. The tyrant didn’t like it. She had never gone mad with anger. If she had unleashed it, she might have been a bit more lovable...
‘Love?’
The chairman felt nausea. Love that thing? How could he even think that?
Just like that woman. So similar.
Not just the face that was disgustingly beautiful because it resembled her. From minute expressions, habits, tastes, speech, voice—he felt the half of her genes inherited from that woman. He couldn’t believe he had once loved that thing. No, what he couldn’t believe was the reality of that emotion. He couldn’t separate the affection for the child from the affection for the fruit of that woman.
Yet Go Geoncheol knew he had to love Go Ayoung in the end.
Because that was one victory he must seize.
‘That thing is half of that woman, and half of me, Go Geoncheol.’
Thus, whether Go Geoncheol’s feelings for Go Ayoung were love or hate was a war between the tyrant and the source of all evil—that woman. A desperate struggle. Hate meant her victory. Love meant the tyrant’s inevitable return. Seeing his ex-wife in Go Ayoung was an illusion crushing reality. Illusion. Vain obsession, specter, torment, regret, self-loathing daring to dominate existence...
“Why? Why do you get so furious every time you look at me? What’s the reason...”
“Shut up! Shut up! Shut up! Shut up! Don’t interrupt my thoughts!”
Go Geoncheol roared.
“Why? Why? Why do you keep asking why? Because you’re my property, you fucking bitch! Because you’re my child! Your life! Your existence! Everything you think is yours! You think any of that could exist without my permission? You exist by my permission! Your face, your body, every strand of your hair! It’s my decision! I permitted you! You’re here because of my permission!”
“...You’re right. But half of it is Mother’s permission too.”
“Youuuu!”
The chairman flushed violently.
“How dare you! In front of me! Mention that woman!”
“I’m just stating facts.”
The daughter watched her rampaging father. A liquor bottle was nearby. She braced for it to fly. It was his habit. But no. He gripped it, panting, almost threw it, almost drank, ground his teeth in hesitation, then tossed it into the trash. What did this change mean? To Go Ayoung, it was just a temporary measure to escape the immediate reality. She had long abandoned trying to empathize with her father’s inner world.
‘She couldn’t endure it.’
She was human. Humans have limits. Once, she had tried to understand her father. Tried to comfort him. But when every attempt and pity ended in frustration, the daughter shed tears and gave up love. The deeper the love, the deeper the wounds.
Empathy is a bladeless knife. Empathize with sorrow, and you sorrow. Empathize with pain, and you hurt. When rejected, only the one who offered their heart cries.
The daughter bowed her head.
The father glared at the discarded bottle.
The escapist reality in the glass bottle shimmered alluringly from the trash can.
He had to rage fiercely. If the torment made him flee reality, it was a momentary defeat for the tyrant. He allowed no weakness in himself. Yes, it was a matter of permission. All values in this world stemmed from his own judgment, meaningless without relation to him.
Now glaring at his daughter again. Swallowing hot rage. Anger itself was proof of defeat. He endured. He had to endure. Trembling, the chairman overcame dozens of hurdles before opening his mouth.
“You can go today.”
“...”
“I’ll call you again. Be more careful next time.”
The daughter rose silently. She bowed deeply, as courtesy, not sincerity.
Watching her slender back as she left, the tyrant reminded himself.
He had to love that thing.
His mind knew it well enough. That day, in the snowy yard, the lonely, frightened child bore no blame. He should embrace the cold, fear, tears of the child trembling, clutching the hem of a father who shouldn’t have come. That child was still freezing alone.
Yet every time he saw her face, his stomach churned.
What a fucking, goddamn mess.
The chairman now raged at himself.
No, all anger’s ultimate target had long been his own anger. Each moment of rage just felt new and unfamiliar. Fate escaped his hands, soul beyond control, this heart hardened like a stone, bubbling, boiling, rumbling.
There’s fulfillment in blaming someone.
Anger lived on its own. Alive, endlessly seeking scapegoats. Reasons were plentiful. Reasons arise when you attach them. Loving someone needs no reason. Hating someone needs none. Anger was such an emotion. The only nourishment for hatred’s growth was hatred itself.
‘I need the real, the true. Something real to nail into this worthless reality.’
The chairman slammed his head on the table. A sound—not a groan, not a sob—writhed below his throat.
Self-loathing devoured time.
Beep-
The line to the secretary’s office lit up. The chairman preferred analog. So the light was really there, the phone a tangible object. No room for virtual in his reality. He couldn’t tolerate that infinitely light falsehood.
Even if it was all just perception. Because the tyrant himself assigned it value.
“What is it.”
Pressing the button, a subdued voice replied.
[Kang Youngil Special Secretary is here. Shall I send him in?]
“At this hour?”
The chairman checked the time. While writhing in torment, it had passed midnight.
But that one was one of the rare real ones. Filthy, but real trash beat fake humans. He knew what truly held value and discarded flimsy hypocrisies like morals and conscience for it.
“Send him in.”
The tyrant granted audience.
The loyal son of a bitch entered. His expressionless face was the mask of a panting, tongue-lolling dog.
“From your look, seems you’ve finished the job?”
To the chairman’s question, the ex-intelligence special secretary answered at attention.
“Of course. Those bastards will never trouble you again.”
The hound revealed restrained pride in his work.
The dead prey was a pair. A couple who didn’t love each other. Gamblers who toyed with their child for money. Incompetent themselves, they leeched their child dry, sucked to the bone, blew all assets on obvious scams, and still dared blackmail the tyrant using illegal deals.
‘That bastard’s an idiot too. Idiot, idiot, fucking moron! A thousand deaths too good for those ignorant fucks! Ignorance is sin! Ignorance is crime!’
The fool who pledged even his afterlife as collateral on one word that his sibling was ill.
Thinking of him made the tyrant’s gut burn.
How could he waste like that?
How could he be so uneconomical?
The child in question—whether true or not—thought it didn’t matter, that a dead life could end anytime, didn’t want to linger as endless resentment on her sister’s life in limbo.
Even knowing the truth, the chairman would still rage.
“Why come in person?”
The chairman growled.
“What, want praise?”
The hunting dog wasn’t wounded by the barbed sarcasm.
“I heard you need stimulating experiences.”
“And?”
“Only that couple blackmailed you. The remaining kids knew nothing. Even so, I thought wiping them all out was safer, but I figured I should check one thing first.”
“What?”
“The daughter of the dead couple... Han Ga-eul, was it? She seems pretty good.”
“Looks are just skin.”
“I know. You’re not that type. Didn’t you turn down Miss Park Gahee?”
“Park Gahee? Who’s that?”
“You don’t remember? You called for her pretty often until recently.”
The tyrant barely recalled. The cheeky woman who asked him to call her name next time. Right, that was her name. No spark. Just a doll from a past time. Not fake, but not real either—an awkward bitch.
“I paid her price. That ended it.”
“Nothing special, then.”
“It wasn’t. So.”
The chairman reset the conversation.
“What about this Han Ga-eul bitch?”
“She cut ties with her parents long ago. Or rather, they ditched her when the money came. Since then, she’s been struggling to support her two younger siblings. Her income’s been shit, so no real help yet.”
“So?”
“If you bed her, wouldn’t it be intensely stimulating?”
The hound wore a cold smile.
“Incest in body, but strangers by law. Your relationship with her. Plus, she has lingering attachment to you—to your body, precisely. Those eyes, that situation... Worth a thrill, no?”
“...”
“How many hyenas target you? Couldn’t say this over comms, so I came late. Secretary’s office said you were still up. Sorry if I disturbed.”
Hmm. The tyrant leaned back, interlocking fingers. Tapping. Flicking fingers mirrored his wavering heart. Repulsive, yet appealing.
“Bring her once. I’ll decide after seeing her face.”
At the chairman’s permission, the special secretary smiled.
“That girl’s lucky.”
Or she’d be dead.
But the chairman held little expectation.
It wasn’t long ago he delusionally thought changing bodies would change life. What use now for ties bound to the body’s past?
The discarded bottle tempted more.
A vicious lure.
============================ Author's Note ============================
#What's that name again
Been pretty depressed lately, so for a change of pace, I went to see Makoto Shinkai's new hit film that's all the rage.
The director's signature vibe of shoving love down the shitter has faded a lot, but it was still a good movie. Fun. Enjoyed it.
No movie theater disturbances like everyone warned about... that thing...
But still a bit disappointing.
Thought it'd fulfill my innocence...
Had high hopes when the comet came...
#Q&A
Q. Kushihiru-nim: @Author, from the progress so far, this game feels like a innocence-packed fun ride devoid of dreams and hope... You said the clear condition is judging humanity's extinction chance at 0%, but nothing on vaccine research for the virus(?), right? Was it mentioned somewhere?
A. Plague immunity as acquirable tech was briefly mentioned. Even without that, assume vaccine research is obviously underway on a common-sense level.
Q. Lewd Demon F-nim: When's the paperback with all that innocence come out? This masterpiece belongs on the fairy tale shelf.
A. As I said, no exact date even for me. It'll come when it does. Honestly, not expecting much from paperback... Thought of it as fan service when signing the deal.