# Chapter 47
Looking back, Kang Dongha had initially taken a risk by joining hands with Lee Hwan, and he had always feared him from time to time. Of course, from Lee Hwan’s perspective, it wasn’t because of his ability, but rather seemed closer to Dongha’s anxiety about things he couldn’t control.
In any case, at least that anxiety had been directed solely at Lee Hwan.
‘Besides, that bastard had a look of hitting the jackpot for a while.’
At first, Kang Dongha had the expression of someone embracing risk. After hearing about Lee Hwan’s information, his eyes looked like they were seeing bundles of cash. But somehow, at some point, that gradually changed.
Come to think of it, Dongha’s attitude toward Lee Hwan started to shift bit by bit after he moved to the research building. As if he had experienced something there.
“Why are you suddenly doing something so reckless? Did something happen?”
When Lee Hwan bent down to make eye contact and test him, what little color remained drained from Dongha’s already pale face. Perhaps because they were sitting in ruins, changes in expression he would normally have concealed were clearly visible. From that sight, Lee Hwan felt a strange certainty.
‘Maybe this bastard had a change of heart after taking on the research facility work…?’
What if Dongha had discovered something at the research facility? What if he’d stumbled upon something he couldn’t handle, but was in a situation where he couldn’t escape? A sharp intuition flashed through Lee Hwan’s mind.
Research Building D was already a suspicious structure. There was a secret laboratory underground, and the entire building was like a prison. If Semi-Awakening was the project going on there, abnormal experiments would likely be taking place around this time.
And Dongha was responsible for that place while having almost no ability to intervene. It was too heavy a price to pay just for his interest in Awakening.
‘Ah, damn it!’
It was impossible to take his eyes off this guy. Whenever he looked away for a moment or got distracted elsewhere, something always went terribly wrong.
“Experiments… experiments.”
As Lee Hwan muttered, his eyes shone with certainty.
When Lee Hwan was young, he often solved Sudoku puzzles. Back when his family was still around, the Sudoku puzzles in the morning newspaper became a fairly decent toy for Lee Hwan, who was forbidden from playing games.
Of course, given his age, it took him quite a while to solve even the easy Sudokus, and sometimes he would get completely stuck with no way to progress. At those times, Lee Hwan always used a makeshift solving method.
Randomly choosing one of two possibilities and trying it out in his head.
This would typically result in a 50 percent chance of being wrong and ruining all the numbers he’d already filled in, but strangely, the numbers Lee Hwan chose usually fit well. At first, Lee Hwan called it luck, but later assumed it was his subconscious making an educated guess.
Lee Hwan chose that makeshift solution method after a very long time.
Security at Research Building D had been strengthened, and something had probably happened related to the experiments. Dongha was terrified, and in a situation where he couldn’t do anything, he decided he couldn’t let Lee Hwan go.
Even though it would have been better to cut out uncontrollable risks, he chose to take the risk of angering Lee Hwan and tried to gain leverage to keep him around.
‘He’s the type who should run at the first sign of danger.’
Lee Hwan already knew that Dongha had a small-minded and petty character, but assuming Semi-Awakening experiments were happening and considering this bastard’s behavior, the puzzle pieces seemed to fit together one by one.
In the previous regression, Dongha was pointed out as the mastermind of everything, but looking back, this strict research facility was in Dongying’s grasp at that time. Even with Lee Hwan’s information and help, would all control suddenly have shifted to Dongha in this timeline?
“Why, did you see something strange? But you didn’t come here without knowing about that, right?”
Lee Hwan coaxed with a confident face, as if he knew all the horrors taking place here. Then Dongha, who had been in a daze until then, furrowed his brow and glared at him.
“It’s obvious what’s going on without having to say it. Kang Dongying isn’t in his right mind either.”
“You’re pretending to know too much this time.”
“You’re acting like this because of that experiment, aren’t you?”
Now he could take the silence as confirmation. So he acted even more calmly. He actually didn’t know a damn thing about the experiment, but he acted like he did.
“I don’t understand why you’re fidgeting. Did you think Semi-Awakening would come for free?”
Dongha’s eyes widened. When his lips trembled finely, Lee Hwan quietly smiled inside. All the pieces fit together, and the hypothesis became truth.
Crash! When he kicked away the broken desk, wood fragments scattered wildly around Dongha with a splintering sound.
“Being so scared, yet grabbing someone’s hand, and trying to gain an ability.”
“What…!”
“If you weren’t born with it, you should at least put in the effort, right? Kang Dongha. Did you think becoming an Awakened person comes free?”
Only after hearing those words did a red flush spread across his pale face. As if a sore spot had been hit, his clenched jaw hardened.
“You lecture me after awakening for free yourself.”
After snapping back in anger, Dongha finally seemed to come to his senses. Seeing his expression become complicated as his anger subsided just as quickly as it had risen, it seemed like he was belatedly thinking things through.
To Dongha, Lee Hwan was someone who already knew his secrets without needing to be told. Someone who wouldn’t be suppressed by him, but could rather suppress him instead. Yet someone who could be mutually beneficial in this hellish chaos if they cooperated well.
Such a person was clearly now only himself.
Lee Hwan kindly waited for Dongha to hopefully realize that.
“You didn’t need to pull this stupid stunt. I would have helped you if it benefited me. That’s the kind of relationship we have.”
So please, please give me a heads-up before causing trouble. Please. I can’t handle it.
Despite his cold face, Lee Hwan was practically begging inside as he left the room without looking back.
* * *
Bang!
A loud noise that could have been either a door closing or something breaking echoed. Lee Hwan hoped the door had been completely destroyed.
He wanted to beat Dongha half to death. And for a moment, he almost did. Not just out of anger, but out of fear. He was afraid of Dongha constantly trying to dig up his secrets, of the misfortunes surrounding him, of the future that kept going wrong.
But what was even more unbearable was the destruction that would come again if he made even one misstep. So instead of suppressing Dongha, Lee Hwan reestablished their crumbling relationship and left.
“…What is this? Am I really cursed?”
Lee Hwan muttered weakly. His head felt like it was about to explode.
As soon as he left Research Building D, the tension that had been built up since meeting Taesung suddenly drained away. At the same time, exhaustion set in, and from then on, Lee Hwan’s side began throbbing unbearably.
“Haah…”
There was no need to lift his clothes to check. Blood was already starting to show through at his side.
The patch Taesung had given him was almost used up. Getting another one wouldn’t be difficult now, but somehow his mood became gloomy as the traces of that day gradually disappeared.
Lee Hwan hurriedly left Naru and entered the city. Then he just ran. He ran aimlessly despite the severe pain. With each step taking him further from the problematic space, his mind became more at ease. It even seemed a little easier to endure the pain by moving rather than staying still.
This was something unimaginable in the past. When he had been properly affiliated with Naru, the company’s power had seemed like a fence, never a trap.
When he arrived home and examined his side, it was red and wet. As expected, the wound wasn’t healing but kept opening wider. Lee Hwan didn’t understand why this was happening, as far as he knew, the plant monster’s poison didn’t have this effect. At most, it should only cause paralysis or allergies.
After roughly wiping away the blood and attaching a patch, an even greater pain washed over him. Whether from the pain or confusion, Lee Hwan shed a few tears he’d been holding back.
Only after swallowing strong painkillers made for Hunters did his feverishly hot head cool down and the pain in his side stop. Lee Hwan flopped onto the bed and stared blankly at the ceiling.
Thinking about it again, putting on a show of bravado in front of Dongha at the end was quite a good choice. Thanks to that, he was able to confirm that there were strange experiments related to Semi-Awakening, and could see how desperate that bastard was.
Even though Dongha thought Lee Hwan didn’t know what was happening in Research Building D, he still tried to break the bond between him and Taesung. He was trying to hold onto Lee Hwan, who was just a straw to grasp at, out of fear.
‘Still, I have class, so maybe I’m not just a straw… More like a bundle of reeds?’
Probably the Dongha from the past had been in the same situation, but back then he didn’t even have a straw to grasp. He must have hung on just for the skill stone. If only I awaken, if only I awaken. The Dongha in the visions he saw while searching for pieces of causality certainly seemed more than capable of that.
In the end, he self-destructed, and somehow the world was screwed.
And now, the world after regression.
Thanks to Lee Hwan’s return, this time Dongha doesn’t even have a skill stone to rely on. This trick he pulled seemed to stem from that. Unlike the past, with nothing to hold onto, Lee Hwan appeared in his life instead of a skill stone.
Not a man of Dongying’s, not a watchman for anyone, but an Awakened person who shared a tremendous secret. And to make matters worse, Taesung was sniffing around. Dongha’s sense of crisis was understandable.
‘…Wonder if I can subtly dig deeper into the experiment story from now on.’
Honestly, personally, it felt like he had experienced a profound tragedy. The pain in his drowsy neck made it worse. Nevertheless, looking at the overall picture, the situation wasn’t as bad as expected.
It was ridiculous. That’s why Lee Hwan felt more angry and irritated.
‘So now… with Kang Taesung I’m on bad terms even as Kim Jeongshik, and with Kang Dongha I’ve become familiar enough to exchange greetings as Joo Lee Hwan?’
A lamentation naturally flowed from Lee Hwan’s weakened lips. Having briefly soared high only to plummet to the ground in an instant, his situation felt particularly miserable and uncomfortable.
