Chapter 231
Translator: RaidenTL
Chapter 231
The body held in my arms was very small.
At ten years old, Seo Ho-jin had been slight of build and youthful-looking, often mistaken for being two or three years younger than he actually was.
I could feel his warm body heat wherever our skin met.
"Seo Ho-jin..."
"...Ugh."
Eyes so large they seemed to take up half his face turned toward me.
He looked exactly like the ten-year-old Seo Ho-jin in my memories.
However, at this point in time, Seo Ho-jin should have been twenty-three. He should have been roughly the same size as me.
This meant it was highly likely some kind of trick by the System.
As I stared, frozen stiff, the child fidgeted with his fingers, looking troubled.
"Idiot."
Looking down, I saw the young Seo Ho-jin let out a long, resigned sigh.
"Put me down first."
I carefully lowered him until his feet touched the ground, then gripped his shoulders while remaining on my knees. The boy wearing the mask of a young Seo Ho-jin lightly brushed my hands away.
Even though I found this suspicious, I couldn't find the words to speak. As I struggled to choose what to say, he spoke first.
"I'm the guide of this place."
"What?"
"This is your subconscious, Hyung. I've taken the form that was most deeply engraved in the depths of your memories."
"...You're the Seo Ho-jin from my memories?"
I looked at him with narrowed eyes.
"...Think whatever you want."
He added dismissively, as if to say, 'Would you even believe me if I told you?' and started walking.
"Seo Ho-jin... no."
I quickly followed after him and asked, "Why do you look like you're ten, of all things?"
"Because that was the period when your guilt and sense of responsibility were at their deepest."
"...Aren't you a bit too well-spoken for a ten-year-old? Ho-jin wasn't like that."
The boy claiming to be Seo Ho-jin didn't answer. He simply quickened his pace.
I followed close behind and asked, "But why did you run away?"
"...I didn't intend to lead you while facing you like this. I just wanted to help from the shadows."
"Why? You said you're the guide."
"Because seeing me directly might have been a shock to you."
He wasn't wrong.
The moment I saw his face, the first things that came to mind were negative thoughts—fearing that something bad might have happened to my actual brother. I was still feeling that way now.
My mind was a mess. Glancing at my expression, the boy turned his head away primly.
"I know what you're worried about, but nothing has happened to the real Seo Ho-jin, so fix your face."
It seemed this brat really was a manifestation of Seo Ho-jin from my subconscious.
If he wasn't, there was no way the real, dim-witted Ho-jin could read my inner thoughts so clearly.
"Just trust me and follow. I'll help you get out of here alive."
"..."
I stared at him for a moment, then reached out and pinched his cheek. I felt the soft, warm texture unique to a child's skin against my fingers.
"Wh-what are you—"
I pulled and stretched it.
"Aack! That hurts!!"
He turned serious and slapped the back of my hand with his weak strength. Feeling a slight lingering regret that I couldn't touch him more, I let go.
"...You're warm."
"What are you even saying?!"
The way the corners of his eyes flared up was exactly like how Ho-jin used to look when he squawked as a kid.
He glared at me, then abruptly turned and headed up the stairs.
"I don't even know why you came here in the first place."
"What do you mean?"
"I mean the way you just tamely handed your body over to Min Ji-heon. What if that guy was tricking you?"
Since this was my subconscious, it seemed he shared all my memories.
As we reached the top of the stairs, I could see people working inside the buildings through the windows of the unnaturally clustered structures.
"It's not that I trusted Min Ji-heon."
Seo Ho-jin, who was walking a step ahead, looked back.
I simply didn't have a choice.
When you think you're standing at death's door, you'll grab onto even a rotten rope.
‘Of course, that wasn't the only reason.’
I thought Min Ji-heon was the most suitable person to help me find clues about my physical condition or my missing memories. And when he said, "Unknown things are tightly tangled together, and that's why this chaos is happening," I judged that it made sense.
That was why I hadn't particularly fought back.
I didn't want to lay out all these complicated inner reasons to the kid in front of me.
Part of me was still suspicious, and even if it was just his appearance, he was wearing the face of 'Seo Ho-jin.'
"...Hmm, maybe this form wasn't the best. There are too many restrictions."
However, as if he knew everything, the boy shook his head and let out a deep sigh.
Then he waved his hand. At that, the buildings began to shift like waves, returning to their original positions. A vibration pulsed at a steady rhythm.
After causing a sight that was still hard to believe, the boy pouted and turned toward me, meeting my eyes directly.
"Anyway, Hyung, you can't stay here long. Can't you hear the sound ringing right now?"
"Sound?"
"A thumping sound, like a heartbeat."
As he spoke, he snapped his fingers. The walls began to crack, and the ceiling split in half, unfolding. A dry, cold wind brushed against my cheeks.
"Hold on tight."
"Come here!"
The floor we were standing on surged upward. Fearing he might fall, I snatched his small, delicate hand.
The little guy's eyes widened, and then he smiled slightly.
"The sound you've been hearing since earlier is your actual heartbeat—"
Before I knew it, we had risen high into the sky.
He raised his free hand and pointed somewhere. There, a bright red heart was positioned, moving rhythmically.
"—and that is your heart."
I felt like I'd seen everything there was to see now.
The vivid, blood-colored mass, nearly the size of two trucks, was pulsing weakly.
"It's still beating for now, but the longer you stay here, the slower your heart rate will become. You have to get out quickly."
The boy snapped his fingers again, and the raised floor began to descend slowly. After landing us safely on a rooftop, the building regained its original shape.
I followed him as he opened the rooftop door and headed downstairs.
"...The heartbeat is too weak."
"You probably know why. You have an idea."
Did it mean it was because I hadn't listened to the System?
I remembered the messages that had been popping up haphazardly right before I crossed over into this subconscious world.
The characters had been broken and hard to read, but they seemed to be related to quest failures or loans.
"Well, yeah. The 'Shining Star' incident probably played a part too. A massive error occurred when the penalty and the quest success collided. And more than anything..."
"..."
"You were suspected."
[Character 'Seong Ji-won' suspects the Player.]
Hearing him list the reasons one by one, it was all too clear.
‘I really did a number on myself.’
Every single one of those incidents had deviated from the System Window's intentions.
"It takes a lot of power to maintain the world you're in right now. But because you created a bunch of errors, the power had to be diverted to handle them, and that burden fell directly on you. That's why you're in pain."
"..."
Just from a few times?
I thought the System was quite incompetent. My mind was already busy calculating how I should act in the future to go against the System, or if I could handle everything while staying within its parameters.
"...Min Ji-heon told me to find what he's suppressing."
"That really annoying bastard..."
"Did you just swear?"
"......No?"
The young Seo Ho-jin brazenly turned his head away. I was so dumbfounded I considered giving him a noogie, but instead, I just squeezed the hand I'd been holding since earlier a little tighter.
He moved toward a street that was becoming increasingly crowded with people.
"PD Seo, where are you going in such a hurry?"
"Pardon?"
"Ah, PD-nim! Hello!"
At that moment, people I recognized began to greet me.
Even though they should have been interested in the young child next to me, they all acted as if he were invisible.
"Why isn't anyone talking to you?"
"Because I'm invisible. The Seo Ho-jin of the subconscious world cannot be seen by the people at the broadcasting station."
"Why?"
"Because you didn't want the people at work to know about me, Hyung."
The corner of my mouth twitched slightly.
"Ah! Here it is."
A large digital billboard that I'd never seen before was installed in the lobby of the broadcasting station.
The screen, which had been flickering with noise, soon displayed a video.
The first scene showed kids dancing.
Soon the screen shifted, showing me standing behind the camera with my arms crossed and my brow furrowed.
It was an expression I often wore when I wasn't satisfied.
The scene changed again. A man was handing a shopping bag to me while I was smoking in the smoking area.
[Yes, hahaha, this is just a holiday gift... please take good care of our trainees.]
[Hmm.]
With a cigarette in my mouth, I took the shopping bag and turned it upside down, shaking it out onto the floor.
Banknotes fluttered down. A few individual bills scattered in all directions.
[What do you think you're doing?!]
[Oh, you said it was a holiday gift. I was curious, so I opened it.]
I neatly folded the shopping bag and pressed it back into the man's hand.
[Make sure you pick them up... carefully.]
[You—you think you'll be safe after doing this?]
[Oh, of course. I've always been safe.]
It was something that had actually happened.
When you're a PD, there's no shortage of people who come looking for you, asking to be put on a show or to have their screen time increased.
Even though I always responded firmly, and even though rumors were rampant that brown-nosing didn't work on me, people never seemed to tire of trying at least once.
The little guy watching the video next to me narrowed his eyes and muttered.
"It's nothing new, but your personality is really..."
"..."
Even if he was a being from my subconscious, showing him this side of me was a bit embarrassing.
Just then, the System Window, which had only been visible to me until now, appeared on the screen.
Ding!
[A portion of your memory is being unlocked.]
[I'm Song Ji-on, I look forward to working with you!]
Then, a face that looked to be in her late teens appeared.
A low-ranking trainee, Song Ji-on.
Her agency was a small-to-medium enterprise, and if I recall correctly, they were incompetent but full of greed, putting immense pressure on their trainees.
[PD-nim, I really... what should I do?]
She couldn't even let out a sob and just let her tears fall.
Even though I hadn't done anything extra for Song Ji-on, rumors had circulated that her agency had bribed me to manipulate the results.
[Why are you staying with an agency like that?]
Setting aside her skills, the situation was pitiful.
It seemed better to use Devil's Editing to make her look like a trainee the PD hated just to evoke sympathy.
[...I know, right? I don't know what to do either.]
Her downcast gaze was steeped in gloom.
[For now, pull yourself together and think about things from different angles.]
At the time, while I was spouting advice, my mind was busy crunching numbers.
I was calculating what would be the best outcome for both her and me.
—But trainees like her were a dime a dozen.
"I've seen enough."
I turned my body and asked, "Why are you showing me this? It feels like a waste of time."
The boy uncrossed his arms, mirroring my posture, and spoke.
"Because this is the turning point."
"Turning point?"
"Look."
As soon as he spoke, the scene on the billboard changed. The boy looked up and met my eyes directly.
"This is probably where things started to go wrong."
"...?"
An ominous feeling began to crawl up my spine.
On the screen, I could see myself rummaging through a pack of cigarettes in front of the smoking room.
[PD-nim!]
In that instant, a sharp voice rang out.
At that time, I had been extremely sensitive for various reasons. I roughly brushed back my hair and met the owner of the voice with a sneer on my lips.
The screen moved slowly to reveal the person.
[Oh.]
It was the person who had spat a curse at me the day before I came to this world—
[What brings you here?]
—the trainee who had ranked 4th on the survival program.