Chapter 75
Chapter 75
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Translator: Ryuma
Chapter: 75
Chapter Title: Like the Sea Returning to the Sky
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‘Why on earth…?’
Haon trembled before the recurring nightmare. Today’s was a little different.
“Aaaah!”
“Gyaah!”
The people crossing the bridge, fleeing from the terror attack, weren’t the ones Haon had failed to save.
“Help me! Please help me!”
“Mommy!”
They were children. Kids she thought she’d seen in Old Town District 2.
‘This wasn't it. These kids are alive!’
As she brandished her phone and deployed a mana shield as destined, Haon felt as if she were suffocating, even in a dream.
‘No. Please. Don’t. Those kids are alive!’
Her inner pleas were useless.
Boom! Ruumble—.
The children screamed as they plummeted with the horrific explosion.
Her face a mask of terror matching the children’s, Haon stared down at the collapsed bridge.
The flyers a little girl had handed her fluttered down into the abyss.
‘…I couldn’t do anything again.’
Still, this was the last nightmare of the night. She had somehow endured it again today.
‘Am I really enduring it?’
Haon’s shoulders quivered as she held back a sob.
In the repeating dream, she had tried a new way to save people out of habit, but just like always, she had only moved as she was fated to.
Was there even a way to save people in this dream? Was it ever possible to save the people who crossed the bridge that day?
‘Isn’t it all pointless?’
Tears streamed down her face with the thought. This was irreversible.
No matter what she did, she couldn’t save them, and the number on the back of her hand would never be erased.
‘Those kids, too…’
The children from the other districts would just fall into darkness like the people she couldn't save.
Haon collapsed in front of the bridge and sobbed. A sense of powerlessness gnawed at her entire being.
Why did people, why did children, have to suffer such a fate?
The people who ran across the bridge, the children who were dozing off on their way home after working late into the night—they were right before her eyes, yet she was the only one left.
‘I’m sorry…’
As she endlessly muttered an apology to no one in particular, the nightmare crumbled like a sandcastle, accompanied by the sensation of a hand stroking her cheek.
* * *
In a daze, Haon slowly blinked her eyes open.
Her eyelashes were damp with tears, and her vision was blurry.
‘I think something touched my cheek.’
She wanted to touch her cheek to check, but her body was so drained of strength that she couldn’t even lift a finger and just lay there.
The longer she took the sleeping pills Solmae brought her, the longer the groggy period after waking up lasted.
As she sniffled, oblivious to how much time had passed, she heard a rustling sound from somewhere.
‘Huh? Is someone here?’
Startled, Haon felt herself waking up faster than usual and began to stir.
She rubbed her eyes and looked ahead, just as a round object popped out. Ttiyong.
[Mechanic! I have arrived!]
Haon stared blankly as Ttiyong transformed into the shape of a mechanical hamster before her eyes widened in realization.
‘It’s Ttiyong? That means…!’
As Haon struggled to sit up, she spotted Juyeol, who had been coming from the kitchen with a glass of water and had frozen in place.
“…It’s Juyeol.”
She reached a hand out to him as if mesmerized, then promptly tumbled off the sofa with a thud.
Unable to control her sluggish body, she lay sprawled on the floor as a dull pain slowly spread through her.
“…Ouch.”
“You’re really something else.”
Haon stared blankly up at Juyeol as his firm hands helped her up.
“Blue. This isn’t a dream, right?”
[Did you sleep well, Haon? A most welcome guest has been waiting for you!]
It really was Juyeol.
“Juyeol!”
Haon instinctively wrapped her arms around his waist. She clasped her hands together as if to ensure he could never escape.
“What took you so long? I’ve been waiting.”
“Hey, wait.”
Juyeol stiffened and hesitantly pulled Haon away. As her eyebrows drooped in disappointment, he added as if it were no big deal.
“Just back off for a second so I can think.”
“What does that have to do with thinking…?”
He then sat on the opposite sofa and shook a bottle of sleeping pills.
“First, this. How long have you been taking it?”
“A while? Do you know what it is? They said it wasn't commonly used.”
As Haon tilted her head and replied, Juyeol clicked his tongue in disapproval.
“I saw them mixing this when I asked the Headquarters’ doctor for the strongest sleeping pills, but they wouldn’t give it to me in the end. Said it was too potent and the side effects were too strong.”
“You can’t sleep either? It does have some side effects… but I felt like I had to sleep, so I kept taking it.”
“Some?”
His eyebrow twitched upward.
Even now, Haon was bumping into things every time she moved. The side effects of the pills left her dazed, her sense of distance completely skewed.
As Haon sat on the sofa with an embarrassed look, Juyeol spoke in a tone of disbelief.
“And with all that, you didn't even think to change the access codes?”
“But then it would feel like we really weren’t friends anymore.”
The childish and unfamiliar choice of words, ‘not friends anymore,’ made him look dumbfounded. He had thought their relationship was already broken, but apparently, Haon didn't.
‘Right. That must be why you suddenly clung to me, saying you’d help.’
Juyeol couldn’t help but sigh, feeling like he was being swept up in Haon’s pace even now.
But whether he scolded her or sighed, Haon was happy.
She was having a proper conversation with him for the first time in a while, and it seemed like he was worried about her in his own way. And it was all happening in her penthouse.
“You came because you need my help, right?”
“…There’s something we need to talk about first.”
Juyeol’s expression hardened, and Haon sat up straighter.
“I opened the USB.”
“…!”
“Actually, I opened it a while ago.”
“Ah…”
So he saw it but couldn’t believe it. Haon’s heart sank, and she nodded.
She had expected this might happen, but having it confirmed made a corner of her chest ache.
‘I was the one who said if you couldn’t trust me, to at least trust my skills…’
An icy silence followed. The only sound was the occasional rolling of Ttiyong.
Time passed with neither of them speaking, until the screech of tires echoed from outside.
Juyeol broke the silence, muttering a curse under his breath.
“I can’t take this anymore. Being like this with you is really…”
He trailed off, looking up at the ceiling with a complicated expression before his gaze dropped to meet Haon’s.
“Explain.”
“Huh?”
“How you came up with the number 56.”
“…”
Haon took a short, sharp breath. It felt like screams were echoing in her ears.
But this felt different from when she had shown him the number on her hand.
The certainty that no one would believe her was beginning to crack. Hadn’t she resolved to clear up the misunderstanding, no matter what? This might be her chance.
He had come all the way to her penthouse and was sitting in front of her. Perhaps…
“I came from another dimension.”
As Haon finally managed to speak, she felt as if she had returned to the moment they first met.
“There, I fought a war against terrorists for two years. A great many people died and were injured.”
The plea for him to believe she was from another dimension was the same, but the situation was a little different now.
“I killed about five terrorists, and the rest…”
The time they had spent together was different, and the fact that he had come to hear her out first was also different.
Haon clasped her cold hands tightly.
“They’re the people I couldn’t save.”
Juyeol’s eyes narrowed at her hopelessly trembling voice.
Haon fidgeted as she continued.
“I-If I had been a little quicker, maybe I could have saved them. So, to say they died because of me… isn’t wrong.”
“…”
Another long silence fell before he spoke.
“Is there any other evidence besides what’s on the USB?”
“…!”
Haon’s eyes, which she hadn’t realized were closed, snapped open.
Juyeol’s expression was completely different from when he had threatened her for spouting nonsense about other dimensions.
“Y-Yes! I’ll show you. On my phone—”
“Not something like that.”
“Huh? Then what…?”
“Give me something that can’t be fabricated. Information you couldn’t find even if you hacked Hero Headquarters and tortured a Chaser.”
“…”
“Something that would leave me no choice but to believe you.”
Something that would leave him no choice.
He had really come all this way with the intention of trying to believe her. Her heart pounded in her chest.
What should she say? After a moment of thought, Haon put down her phone and spoke calmly.
“In the world I lived in, ‘Juyeol’ was the son of the orphanage director.”
There were overlapping parts between her and ‘Eun Haon.’ Some were downright chilling.
“The director was very good to me. She was incredibly kind and like a parent to me.”
So, there must be similar parts between him and ‘Juyeol.’
“The director would often take me and the other orphanage kids to the sea, but she always chose rainy days.”
She continued, desperately hoping this was one of them.
“When I asked why, she said she liked watching the sea in the rain. And the reason was.”
Haon’s and Juyeol’s eyes met, and their mouths opened at the same time.
“Because it looks like the sea is returning to the sky.”
“Because it looks like the sea is returning… to the sky…”
Clank.
Juyeol shot to his feet, pushing the sofa back.