# Chapter 97
Like a black, rotting, crumpled monster, he clings messily to Dohyuk’s shoulder.
“Actually, I was worried about you, hyung. I don’t know if you’re aware, but since the jungle dungeon, my physical condition has been somewhat… unstable.”
Lee Seoyeon, who had been caressing Junseo’s voice with her fingers, tore her mouth open in a grin. Her dark red eyes, dotted with blood, locked with Dohyuk’s.
‘How long did Esper Choi Dohyuk-nim think he could avoid being found out?’
Nausea rose again. Just as Dohyuk’s lips parted slightly, Junseo’s voice continued.
“I thought we might find out the cause, so I suggested getting a proper examination while we were at it. At headquarters… the care seems much more lacking than I expected.”
‘Do you know what you look like right now?’
Dohyuk could only flee from the flickering afterimage like flames. It was a reflexive action.
***
“Where’s Dohyuk-ssi?”
When Junwoo muttered that he thought Junseo would bring him along since he’d followed, Junseo merely tilted his head sideways. His pitch-black hair scattered across his forehead, creating a strange shadow. His indifferent face, which made his previous startled small animal-like expression seem colorless, stared at Junwoo. Seeing that face, Junwoo hid a faint smile. Here was someone who, despite making all the gestures of wielding control, was helplessly being controlled.
Junseo’s mood, as Junwoo had predicted, was considerably low. Even though he was the one who had pushed away Dohyuk’s hand, the sight of Dohyuk trembling like a lost child was so pitiful that he didn’t even want to respond to the trivial fact that Junwoo had simply directed him to where the cat was staying.
“What good would knowing do? Can’t you do something about that form of address?”
“Junseo. If I don’t call Dohyuk-ssi ‘Dohyuk-ssi,’ what should I call him? He’s not Hong Gildong.”
When Junwoo clicked his tongue, Junseo retorted, “Just don’t call him anything.” Junwoo lightly shook his head, finding it fascinating to see his brother being so stubborn when he hadn’t been this stubborn even as a child. Despite having witnessed the completely frozen situation just before, his tone was elegant as if he hadn’t seen anything.
“Why such a dejected expression? You expected from the beginning that he wouldn’t readily agree to the examination. The examination request wasn’t really to conduct an examination, but to get certainty based on Dohyuk-ssi’s answer.”
There was a separate reason why Junseo had deliberately touched Dohyuk and urged him to get an examination. It was to find out whether Dohyuk had noticed the change in his physical condition. The result became more certain thanks to Dohyuk’s reaction of hastily avoiding the place.
“Expecting and actually seeing are different things.”
“Well, for someone who just had his hand rejected, his expression was quite something, Junseo. I was surprised since he made an expression your father didn’t even make when he lost the election. Your father would be disappointed if he knew.”
“What does this have to do with losing an election? It was your father’s fault for not anticipating that the Daehan Open Party would expose allegations of election expense kickbacks. There was even evidence that the Joguk Newspaper and the Daehan Open Party representative had met. He should have prepared in advance. And wasn’t his response late too? If he had released a rebuttal article and exposed allegations of opinion manipulation in the presidential election comments, he could have buried something like kickback allegations.”
Junseo’s tone was extremely indifferent as he responded to his brother’s playful voice, which seemed to be trying to change the atmosphere.
“You’re saying they should have clashed head-on? They both would have ended up like dogs fallen into mud.”
“The public knows anyway. That there’s no perfection in politics. They always just choose the lesser evil. It’s also father’s fault for not fighting when he should have and missing the timing to lay down his cards. Still, it’s fortunate that after living complacently, he lost an election once and found his sense again.”
He explains his father, who swallowed a bitter defeat, without any lingering attachment, like someone casually playing chess. Junwoo, who had been quietly looking at Junseo, burst into soft laughter.
“…Wow, suddenly I want to be filial to father. I feel sympathy. I understand why people say there’s no gain in raising sons.”
At those words, Junseo snorted and raised the corner of his mouth in mockery.
“You’re a son too.”
“That’s right. He doesn’t gain anything from me either.”
“That’s true.”
Junwoo noticed that Junseo was half-immersed in other thoughts. And that those thoughts probably weren’t good ones. Junwoo, still unfamiliar with the sight of his brother deeply infatuated with an Esper, stroked his own chin.
“You still look unhappy.”
“Because I’m having bad thoughts.”
The first thing Junseo had suspected about Dohyuk’s abnormal behavior—loyally following the headquarters’ orders no matter how unreasonable—was whether headquarters was holding some weakness of Dohyuk’s. This was because Dohyuk didn’t seem to have any sense of calling that could be attributed to general loyalty or patriotism. Dohyuk was always composed. He seemed similar to a machine that outputs exactly what’s input, or like someone forcibly imitating such a machine.
If so, what weakness did headquarters hold? It was unlikely that someone was being held hostage, as Dohyuk was an orphan from a facility and had no one he could consider family. The only two people he was close enough to interact with privately were Park Seungmin and Jung Seah. But after Junseo spent quite a long time observing, he found no suspicious people involved with those two.
Judging that there was nothing more to gain, Junseo newly focused on information leaked by Jaesik. The name Jaesik had sold to Junseo was Dr. Choi Jongwook.
‘Dr. Choi Jongwook told me to kill Esper Choi Dohyuk. He said to isolate him in the dungeon and disguise it as an accidental death.’
‘Why try to kill a precious A-class Esper? What was the purpose?’
‘I’m not sure about that. The goal was just to kill Esper Choi Dohyuk before he went berserk. The first priority was to kill him disguised as an accidental death and bring the body to the laboratory, and the second priority was to kill the berserk Esper Choi Dohyuk and then destroy the body. If Esper Choi Dohyuk had gone berserk, the body should be completely destroyed…’
That was all Jaesik knew. Then who had instigated Dr. Choi Jongwook?
The most important thing for a researcher is research funding. The CY Foundation, which had provided more than 3.5 billion won annually in research funds exclusively to Dr. Choi Jongwook’s research team for more than five years. The chairman of that foundation, Kang Chayun, was the cousin of Esper Director Kang Chakwon.
Having easily linked the Esper Director and Dr. Choi Jongwook in his mind, Junseo slightly lowered his eyelids as if to hide his subdued gaze.
“I have something to ask.”
“Hmm, sure. I’m always scared when my brother has this expression. Like you’re about to strip someone down to the bone.”
Dohyuk’s past, erased so cleanly it was awkward. Dohyuk’s strong wariness about examinations.
And security far too strict for an A-class Esper.
After combining all these circumstances to form an inference, Junseo raised an ambiguous question.
“Has headquarters ever been interested in human experimentation?”
There had been a brief period when human experimentation was rampant after what was considered the chaotic period of the First Upheaval. It had gone as far as human experimentation while conducting countless studies and experiments on abilities, which had been an unknown domain.
Of course, it was now a story from the distant past. After suffering severely from continued research failures, side effects, and lengthy class action lawsuits by victims, currently not only human experimentation but even animal experimentation was conducted under strict management by the Animal Experimentation Ethics Committee.
But Junseo already knew well how ugly people could become under the shadows.
“That’s a frightening thing to say.”
Despite Junwoo’s glib response, Junseo’s eyes, not smiling at all, urged a precise answer. Junwoo had no regrets even though Junseo seemed to have little affection even for his own flesh and blood. Pretending to be deeply hurt nonetheless, Junwoo picked up the cup on his table. As soon as his long fingers touched it, the condensation on the mug’s surface flowed down helplessly.
As Junwoo moistened his lips with the cold coffee, he responded. His eyes were still narrowed in a smile.
“I almost did joint research with Dr. Jeong.”
The introduction circled a bit far from Junseo’s question. But Junseo didn’t reveal an impatient expression, just slightly tilting his head with his usual composed face.
“Joint research?”
“I once presented a few hypotheses about the effects of nuclear energy on normal animals. He seemed to find it interesting, but ultimately the joint research fell through. To summarize roughly, our values didn’t align. The animals I had in mind were very different from the animals Dr. Jeong had in mind.”
“The effects of nuclear energy on normal animals?”
A gentle voice questioned, following Junwoo’s words. Eventually, Junseo raised the corner of his mouth faintly and added.
“Indeed. It must have been serious enough for human experimentation to have targeted me.”
“What?”
“There was an accident where my Guide defensive gear suddenly broke in the dungeon. They said a solid defensive gear made of byproducts ‘accidentally’ broke. Looking back now, even the wooden doll I received as bait in the dungeon is suspicious, but headquarters has already collected all of it, so I can’t investigate separately.”
Junseo had come out of the Underground Nation and questioned Jaesik. But Jaesik only protested his innocence, saying he hadn’t heard anything about Junseo’s defensive gear. He claimed that in this Underground Nation mission, he had only received orders to keep Dohyuk and Junseo as far apart as possible and to leave Dohyuk alone. There were two hypotheses. Either the danger to Junseo was confidential information that couldn’t be shared even with Jaesik, who was a pawn, or headquarters had noticed that Junseo was using Jaesik.
