# Chapter 134
## The Final Piece: Jade
Jade was forced to participate in the semi-awakening project just like before the regression. So if nothing unusual had happened, he would have died like before, perhaps even earlier than last time.
However, this time, a precarious lifeline was lowered before him.
T.D.F. The drug that Lee Hwan had smuggled out at the cost of all this chaos.
‘If I had known about all the entanglements, I would have gone down thoroughly prepared and wouldn’t have had to be chased…’
But since this was Lee Hwan’s first regression, he could only grasp the general situation after finding the causal fragments. So his choice that day was probably the only way to save Jade.
Well, if he considered all this trouble as the price for Jade’s life, it was somewhat understandable.
‘I don’t want to have regrets now anyway.’
Above all, this is what he wanted to do. It was the conclusion he’d reached after much deliberation. Even if he went back again, he would probably make the same choice.
Just as Lee Hwan was endlessly ruminating on future matters and thoughts about Jade…
Clunk.
Suddenly there was a sound from the door, and the doorknob turned sharply.
Lee Hwan jumped onto the bed in fright and hurriedly placed his hand on the window beside him. Then, as if out of habit, he took a defensive stance and glared at the door.
He planned to leap through the window if someone dangerous entered. As long as there weren’t people waiting outside, he could escape without much trouble.
However, if that happened, finding Taesung again would be a daunting task. Perhaps he should fire a gun in front of the motel so Taesung would know from afar that something bad had happened.
But contrary to Lee Hwan’s cascading worries, fortunately, the face visible through the door crack was Taesung’s.
Lee Hwan heaved a long sigh. Now he no longer needed to make an improvised bungee jump without a rope from a room whose floor number he couldn’t even remember.
He was about to take his hand off the window in relief when he saw another person following behind Taesung.
“…”
Lee Hwan was speechless for a moment when he faced the man.
Black sunglasses that someone once called the ghost of freedom. A hat pulled down over them. That familiar face, unchanged, was following Taesung in.
Lee Hwan murmured blankly with a disbelieving expression.
“…Jade?”
“It’s been a long time since I’ve seen such gaudy purple floral wallpaper.”
As if answering him, Jade blurted out a comment about the tacky wallpaper and interior. It was probably an attempt to break the awkward atmosphere, but Lee Hwan’s face remained dazed.
Even if he wasn’t a gentleman, how could he appear at such a precisely perfect moment? Even if Jade’s ability had actually been telepathy, it would have taken him longer to get here.
Lee Hwan stood still, perplexed, then suddenly realized.
“Ah.”
Perhaps Taesung had thought similarly to himself. That they needed one more person who could help in this situation…
‘Then I can understand why he appeared with such good timing.’
“How on earth did you know where we were…?”
Lee Hwan, desperately holding back the flood of joy, asked a question before even greeting him. If Jade had managed to track them down, there was no reason Naru couldn’t find them either.
Perhaps sensing his worry, Jade answered without his usual leisurely delay, unlike his normal self.
“From the moment he said he’d found a safe house, I could tell what this guy was up to. I visited that house beforehand and attached trackers to several weapons.”
Taking weapons and going far would mean something serious had happened. Jade added as he took off his hat and tossed it onto the bed.
“But then suddenly all the signals cut off at once. Like some kind of signal.”
Someone like Taesung would have easily discovered the trackers attached to each weapon. So if all the signals were cut simultaneously, it was definitely Taesung’s doing. It was a remarkably simple explanation.
“…You really communicate in all sorts of ways.”
Whatever the case, connecting with him like this was fortunate. Help was more desperately needed now than ever.
As Lee Hwan, tension released, slumped down on the bed, Taesung gestured to Jade to remove his hat.
“Huh…”
Jade, who had been standing with his arms crossed, gave a short, hollow laugh. His strange expression looked exactly like someone who had just witnessed something unseemly.
“Rest a bit more. While you can.”
Taesung ignored Jade’s reaction and spoke to Lee Hwan. Despite his cold tone, somehow his voice felt ticklish to Lee Hwan, who just scratched the back of his head.
It seemed that Lee Hwan wasn’t the only one who felt that way. Jade’s face, watching the scene, took on a strange light once more. Lee Hwan could guess what kind of look was in his eyes beneath those sunglasses without even seeing it.
“You should rest more. I’m fine.”
Taesung must still be feeling the effects of his injury too. Thankfully the wound wasn’t deep; otherwise, they really would have been in trouble.
Luckily, both of their wounds weren’t serious, and they were injured a day apart. So one could take care of the other.
Lee Hwan knew all too well from personal experience how troublesome the situation would become if both were injured simultaneously.
‘To be honest, I thought we’d just keep getting injured endlessly at this rate… but then Jade suddenly joined us.’
Moreover, Jade knew more about Naru than either Lee Hwan or Taesung. It was as if a high-quality resource that hadn’t existed before the regression had suddenly descended with a sigh to help them.
If there was one concern, it would be Jade’s health condition…
‘Even the last time I saw him, he didn’t look very well.’
He had appeared quite exhausted then due to the experiments he was forced to undergo. He looked quite robust now, but if they weren’t careful, they might end up as three patients groaning and moving together.
“Are you feeling alright?”
Jade didn’t answer Lee Hwan’s question. He was just exchanging glances with Taesung. That’s how it appeared. Even though everything was hidden behind the sunglasses, Lee Hwan could feel the silent conversation passing between them.
After seeming to contemplate something for a moment, Jade suddenly lowered the sunglasses he was wearing. Then he stared at Lee Hwan with upturned eyes from beneath them.
“How do I look?”
“!”
At the question, Lee Hwan’s heart sank heavily.
Around the jade-colored eyes he hadn’t seen in a while, the black blood vessels had noticeably subsided. Lee Hwan knew exactly what that meant.
“T.D.F…”
No wonder he looked healthier than before.
He had used that drug. His rampaging cells would gradually stabilize, and he would be able to extend his terminal life a little longer.
The moment he realized this, a strange sensation suddenly seemed to pierce from the crown of his head downward. A feeling of something clicking into place enveloped his body. Lee Hwan felt the hair on the back of his head stand on end.
It was a familiar sensation. That feeling that had been guiding him all along as he wandered searching for causal fragments.
Lee Hwan instinctively realized that the final causal fragment was entangled with Jade.
“Have you… completely recovered?”
“No, not yet. But if I don’t receive any more experimental drugs, I should gradually get better.”
If Jade survived safely, the future would change quite significantly. The change he should have brought about was likely the final key that causality wanted.
Lee Hwan felt that the strange sensation gradually traveling through his blood vessels was just like the System’s whisper.
“Before leaving, I roughly assessed Naru’s movements. We don’t have time to lounge around, so let’s rest for now and leave before it’s too late.”
Jade dumped food and drinks on the floor in a heap. It looked like he had swept through a convenience store, with about a dozen or more instant food items.
Lee Hwan hesitated for a moment, then got off the bed and plopped down on the floor. Taesung silently gathered the plastic-wrapped food next to him and pushed it towards Lee Hwan.
“Listen while you eat.”
“You said rest.”
“Listen while you rest.”
Starting with this banter-like exchange between Taesung and Jade, a calm voice, like listening to a radio, began to fill the not-so-spacious motel room.
* * *
Rain was falling steadily, wetting the window. The previously bone-dry air was now laden with moisture.
This would make walking on mountain paths quite dangerous, and Taesung would consume more energy when using his ability. But it would also conceal sounds and erase traces during mountain travel, so it wasn’t entirely bad.
While the rain pattered against the window, Lee Hwan was lost in thought, mulling over the story Jade had told him.
His serious, hardened face had turned pale, looking almost cold.
“It’s been only two days, so perhaps they’re just delayed for safety reasons?”
“If they were concerned about safety, they should have left earlier. Before Naru surrounded the airport.”
The news that the Praxis representative still hadn’t been able to leave the country was quite shocking. Apparently, they had been hindered once or twice on the way to the airport.
Taesung had gone through all that trouble at the harbor to prevent this, but things hadn’t gone according to plan.
“From what I’ve dug up, Praxis is also a target. But since they can’t locate them, they’re simply monitoring all ship and air routes.”
“Hmm… I wonder how they were discovered? I heard they had never been active in Korea before.”
“Who knows. Naru might have been following all suspicious people to observe their reactions, or they might have used methods we couldn’t even imagine. We’re talking about Naru, right? How many strange things do you think they’ve done under the surface to grow that big?”
Probably an enormous amount. So many that they couldn’t even compare to simply bribing people or using illegal services.
The fact that they had trained and kept so many unregistered Awakened people, whom the government was trying to catch and punish on sight, was already an ominous sign.
“At least that water bird has a team to help, so before long, someone will arrive to take the item instead of him. Someone whose personal information hasn’t been compromised. That’s my prediction anyway.”
“Then what we need to do is…”
As Lee Hwan turned his head to look at Taesung, he, who had been listening silently to the conversation all along, let out a long sigh and answered instead of Jade.
“Contact the hiding water bird’s number again, and escape together until he successfully meets the replacement person.”
‘Damn it.’
Lee Hwan kept his mouth shut tight. This was the moment when their goal, which had been simply escaping and surviving, suddenly transformed into an extremely hard difficulty level.
