Was It Actually Able to Grow?
The college girl tilted her head slightly, looking puzzled as I stared straight at her and whistled without shame. My mind was still reeling from the shock of the ability disappearing, but I needed to handle the situation first.
“Ah, sorry. Your outfit looks so good on you, and you’re so pretty, I just… I didn’t even realize.”
I’d literally whistled at a woman like some lowlife from a movie or drama.
“Ah… um…” The college girl gave an awkward smile. Then, noticing my pale, frozen face, she actually looked worried instead.
“Ah, I didn’t mean to whistle. Did it bother you?”
“It didn’t bother me.”
The college girl smiled faintly. “You’ve never done that before when we’ve run into each other. I must look really pretty today.”
Her smooth response made me laugh awkwardly. “Haha…” I averted my eyes. She let out a small chuckle and pressed the elevator button.
“Do you work at a company?”
“Ah, yes.”
“Heading out somewhere?”
“Yeah…”
Normally I would have welcomed a conversation with such a beautiful woman. But right now, all I could think about was hypnosis. I wished she would just shut up. Yet she seemed to interpret my silence as shyness and kept chatting away with a bright smile. Well, she did think I’d been so enchanted by her that I’d whistled without thinking. Did she believe I was completely smitten?
“I never thought I’d actually meet someone who does that. Whistling at a woman? I’ve only seen it in movies and dramas.”
Then she suddenly lowered her voice and did a terrible impression of a third-rate thug. “Hey, miss. You’re cute. Got time? Stuff like that.” She giggled. It was kind of adorable.
While all this was happening, the elevator that had stopped briefly on the second floor finally arrived from the first. Yesterday it had shot up way too fast and made me anxious. Today it was moving like molasses.
Should I try whistling again right now? Should I test it again? But what about the headache if I use it consecutively? Since it failed, does that not count? Whatever, I don’t care.
I pretended to follow the flow of the conversation and whistled again.
Whiiik—.
Obey my words and actions.
I gave the mental command while speaking something completely different out loud. “Hey there, miss. That dress looks great. Where are you going all dressed up like that? …Something like that?”
My eyes held a faint spark of hope as I watched her. Please, work this time.
“Pfft! Oh my god, that’s hilarious. You’re really good at whistling for no reason, aren’t you?”
Another failure. What the hell is wrong with this thing? This is ridiculous, but… is it possible she’s a much stronger hypnotist and that’s why it doesn’t work on her? The way she laughs while looking at me is insanely attractive. The way she lightly taps my arm with that coy smile—is she flirting? Her hair sways when she laughs, carrying the scent of shampoo. Inside the elevator, a different perfume from yesterday filled the air. My sense of smell, hearing, and sight were all captivated. This is hypnosis. Fuck. If my hypnosis is level 1, then hers must be at least level 80, maybe even 90.
I left the building while entertaining that absurd thought.
“Now I have to call you a thug.”
The woman from next door said something ridiculous, waved, and walked off in the other direction.
Does that mean once you’ve hypnotized someone, you can’t do it again? Just in case, I asked my mind for a judgment. The answer came back negative. Then a new fact registered.
A week is required before hypnosis can be used again on a target who has already been hypnotized once.
…No. You’ve got to be fucking kidding me. Hypnosis-nim, isn’t this a bit much? Please, I’m begging you for a manual. Just give me a damn manual.
I didn’t dare curse at the hypnosis ability in case it had a personality or ego, so I held my tongue like a coward. Still, since it didn’t seem broken, I had to go test it somewhere. I already knew for certain that one person could be hypnotized for one hour. Now I needed to figure out the “cooldown”—how much time had to pass after canceling hypnosis before I could use it on someone else without getting a headache. My internal judge wouldn’t tell me that. I’d have to learn it the hard way, through trial and error.
But as I thought about practicing, one thing kept bothering me: memory loss. That was an incredibly important issue for me.
I was aiming far higher than that. With this ability, I was going to climb to the very top of society. I could control others however I wanted, and I was supposed to waste it just on sleeping with women? If I went straight to the president or a chaebol chairman and ordered them to obey me, they’d become my puppets. Sure, it would only last an hour. But if I went around using the ability everywhere?
Someone hears a whistle and suddenly blacks out, acting strangely. I don’t have dementia or memory problems, yet several hours of my memory are completely gone.
If stories like that started spreading?
Later, if I ever found myself in a desperate situation where I had to use hypnosis right in front of people, those fragmented traces could come back to bite me. I might be able to talk my way out of it in the moment. But doesn’t Sherlock Holmes say it? When you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth.
Of course, no sane person would immediately suspect superpowers just because someone lost an hour of memory or started acting weird. Still, unless I created a perfect environment to protect myself, it was best to stay hidden as much as possible.
In the Middle Ages—or even in modern times—it might have been easy to rise using hypnotized puppets. But in modern society, limited hypnosis required effort.
That was why one of the targets I’d considered was the homeless. No consequences. No one in society listens to their voices. Even if they posted on SNS or communities with their smartphones:
There was almost zero chance of that. And even if they did post it, the comments would just be things like “Stop drinking so much,” “Homeless people use SNS now? Damn, the world’s gotten nice,” and the content would only linger vaguely in people’s minds.
When I searched, the places with the most homeless people were apparently Seoul Station, Yeongdeungpo Station, and Yongsan Station. I’d heard many times that there were lots of homeless at Seoul Station, but I hadn’t known about the others. From where I lived, Yeongdeungpo Station was the closest. It was April, so it wouldn’t be as cold as winter. They should be there. I was excited.
Should I take the bus? No. I had plenty of time, so I’d just walk. It would take about twenty minutes. It was the weekend anyway, and walking around for work was basically my daily life. My job could get physically demanding, so I needed to exercise whenever I had the chance. Come to think of it, I hadn’t gone to the gym lately because I’d been busy (lazy). Maybe I should do some boxing for the first time in a while?
While walking and thinking about all sorts of things, I heard children laughing somewhere. Kyahahaha—!
Now that I thought about it, there was a fairly large apartment complex nearby. There was a kindergarten and elementary school too, right? I was about to pass by without thinking much of it when—
Huh? Wait a second.
I stopped walking. I stared at the children playing on the playground attached to the apartment complex. I wasn’t sure exactly how old they were, but they looked like kindergarteners to lower elementary school age at most. Around five to eight years old?
Now that I thought about it… At this age, even if kids said something completely ridiculous, their parents wouldn’t easily believe them. They couldn’t speak coherently either. So if I hypnotized them to play hide-and-seek for an hour or something, when the hypnosis ended and an hour of memory vanished, kids this age wouldn’t have a good sense of time anyway. And even if they told their parents, it wouldn’t be believable because they couldn’t explain it properly. It would just be another day of “The kid’s tired from playing and talking nonsense,” or “She’s being extra fussy today.” Even if a child suddenly cried in fear, adults would just think, Well, kids are like that. They were playing fine and then started crying out of nowhere.
Since they were playing anyway, it wouldn’t matter if they played under hypnosis, right?
An unexpectedly perfect hunting ground had been right next to my house.
I casually scanned the surroundings as naturally as possible. Parents chatting on benches were a little distance away, and the children were running around near the slide and seesaw. I pretended to walk along the path beside the playground and whistled. Then I threw a command at the youngest-looking child.
Hypnosis command: Keep playing here for one hour. If your parents or friends tell you to stop, throw a tantrum and insist on playing more.
The hypnosis activated. I felt one command being executed in my mind—that unique sensation. The thrilling feeling that another person was in the palm of my hand. Even if that person was currently a snot-nosed brat.
Whew. Good. The hypnosis ability was working fine.
I watched the children running and jumping for a few minutes like any other adult keeping an eye on kids, then moved on. A healthy young man lingering near children might draw suspicious looks.
One hour. I checked my wristwatch. It was currently 8:32. That meant the hypnosis would end at 9:32. At that time… No. Instead of coming back exactly one hour later, I should return about five minutes early. I needed to observe how the target reacted when the hypnosis ended naturally after one hour, and whether it was the same as when I consciously canceled it.
Lucky me. The thing I stumbled upon by chance turned out to be the perfect practice subject for hypnosis.
I hadn’t eaten breakfast before leaving, so I was hungry. I’d grab something quick while I had time.
After eating kimbap at a kimbap shop, the timing felt awkward. Forty minutes left. Not enough time to do anything substantial. Maybe I’d just wander around the neighborhood. Who knows, I might spot another unexpected practice target like the little kids.
But ever since earlier, I’d been feeling a strange sensation that kept nagging at me. It wasn’t exactly unpleasant… It just kept drawing my attention. It was a completely new feeling. And it was related to hypnosis. What was it?
The first time I felt this sensation was when I hypnotized the child. But as time passed, it felt like something was… filling up? I focused on that sensation. Just to be sure, I asked for a judgment.
I sucked in a sharp breath. My heart started pounding like crazy.
That’s right. This was proficiency. Or rather, the feeling of experience points filling up.
No way. Was this actually able to grow?
Fuck! For real?