# Chapter 193
‘This crazy bastard!’
I finally remembered. The figure who commanded Naru’s Awakened corps.
The way he’s frantically charging in now is exactly the same as back then. At that time, I was also pushed back by human wave tactics before receiving the Director’s attack.
Back then, Lee Hwan tried to lure him away to save Taesung and approached him with a bomb.
BOOM! After that, the memory cuts off.
‘Don’t fall asleep. Joo Lee Hwan, Lee Hwan.’
Taesung’s face, drenched in tears. The sound of his howling as if the world had collapsed. As memories surfaced as vividly as if they happened yesterday, Lee Hwan felt his heart being wrung with pain.
With his breath already cut off and his remaining life force fading, the desperate cries begging him not to leave echoed endlessly in his ears.
The death he experienced that way hurt some distant part of his mind more than his shattered body. Still, he believed Taesung wouldn’t make a bad choice because of the existence of the regression skill stone.
He believed Taesung would come to find him.
Perhaps that’s why he specifically asked him to come in those final moments. Because he didn’t want him to harbor futile thoughts. Because he wished for him to seek hope rather than despair, to cast off the completely broken situation and be together.
But now…
As he took his eyes off Taesung, tears rolled down his cheeks. He wasn’t crying. It seemed like the tears shed from the pain of being strangled earlier had remained.
It felt like he had been like this for several minutes as all kinds of thoughts flashed by like a panorama of his life, but not even a few seconds had passed since the shotgun was thrown at Taesung.
He regained his senses faster than expected. Lee Hwan’s eyes now left the memories of the past and turned to the burning and shattered laboratory around him.
The Director had somehow reached right in front of him.
‘Of all times, this is the last.’
Belatedly, Lee Hwan felt that he might have made the wrong choice.
‘This time, I truly have no intention of living longer than you.’
How foolish. Even after seeing those eyes that seemed to be falling into an abyss, he thought it would be alright because there was the regression skill stone. He told him to come find him. He died right in front of him.
Not knowing that he would repeat the same life eight times to find him.
What would happen to his world now, in a time that can no longer be rewound? As he realized this, a profound regret enveloped his body.
Crack!
The arm that deflected the incoming attack made a crushing sound. At the same time, a terrible pain surged through him, enough to jolt him fully awake.
He tried to block the attack with his other arm, but the fist lodged in his abdomen wrecked his internal organs.
As he raised his head, spewing blood, a loud noise erupted from where Taesung had been.
KABANG!
The sound of shotgun pellets embedding into the wall echoed, and time, which had been stretching endlessly, found its proper pace.
At the same moment, Lee Hwan saw the blade that had reached right before his eyes.
“Joo Lee Hwan!”
A voice piercing his ears.
He promised not to exceed six weeks of hospitalization, but it looked like he’d be having a forty-nine-day memorial service with one more week added.
* * *
As a child, Kang Dongha realized one crucial fact in the middle of a lesson. The essential element of human life wasn’t food, clothing, and shelter as taught in school. It was money.
Unless one finds a cave and lives like a primitive human, in modern society, there’s no clothing, food, or house that can’t be obtained with money.
Those without money often insisted that health, love, respect, and honor couldn’t be bought with money, but just looking at the Naru Hospital, it was filled with people who went to work every day without knowing they had cancer, only to receive a terminal diagnosis too late.
Compared to them, how healthy were the Naru bloodlines who received all kinds of treatments even for just a stiff shoulder?
Also, the ultimate goal of love was reproduction, so just by looking at his relatives who found spouses with money and passed on superior genes, he could immediately tell that was nonsense.
Respect? Honor? With just a bit of money, people all over the world would praise you until their mouths wore out. Kang Dongying even gained everyone’s favor both inside and outside school just because he didn’t go around bragging, even though that was something everyone did.
So Kang Dongha never complained about his given background for long. In a world where money is an essential element for survival, the position of a third-generation chaebol was an enormous merit.
‘So if they just let me live, I’ll live in a way that won’t bother them.’
Come to think of it, it was always his family that crossed the line. If he hadn’t thought that Kang Dongying might actually beat him to death, he would never have entertained the thought of eliminating his brother.
And if he hadn’t known the future where his family would use him as a shield and then kill him, he would have bowed his head and followed them forever.
[D-09 Security System Release]
[21 seconds]
[20 seconds]
[19 seconds]
Kang Dongha, who had been glancing at the CCTV screen, clenched his fist. Even though the security mode hadn’t changed yet, a group of Awakened ones had entered the research site entrance.
A group of dark-clothed men approaching this place at this time—there was no need to wonder who they were. They were surely Naru’s covert operatives.
Despite having no apparent connection to Naru on the surface, they were all referred to by Naru’s ranks or code names.
If such people were heading to Building D, it meant his activities had been exposed. Moreover, they had already come this far leading Awakened ones, so although he didn’t know how it happened, they might have received a notification in advance.
‘There’s… something I don’t know.’
Things were starting to go wrong. Dongha’s gaze, shaking with anxiety and impatience, now scanned the release message with only 3 seconds remaining.
- 1.
Whirr!
It was too late to stop now.
The security release notification arrived on the device he was wearing. Right on cue, the Awakened ones who had entered the research site scattered in all directions, circling toward Building D. Of course, with Beolmae and the Management Bureau inside Naru, it would have been burdensome for them to rush in recklessly all together.
Fortunately, Kang Taesung, who had been nearby, jumped into Building D first. The CCTV was capturing him as he ran through the basement and got onto the elevator.
Then.
Thud, thud, thud!
Heavy footsteps were heard from afar. Someone remaining on the upper floor was approaching. Dongha quickly turned his head.
Damn it. Surely none of the research institute executives had an empty schedule at this time today. Could there have been an Awakened one from Kang Dongying’s side?
Should he hide, or should he run? Either way, the fact that he was here would be discovered. If so, he should at least reduce suspicion to plan his next move.
There was no time for lengthy deliberation. After a moment’s consideration, Dongha suddenly cut off power to all of Building D. With a click, the world was buried in quiet darkness.
The footsteps in the corridor momentarily stopped. A faint voice of confusion could also be heard, which fortunately meant they couldn’t see.
A non-Awakened.
“Whew.”
It seemed that Kang Dongying hadn’t planted an Awakened one in advance knowing about the operation. That was somewhat fortunate. Perhaps some executive had received a notification, just like him, just now.
Dongha struggled to calm his frantically racing heart and restored power. Then, as the lights flickered back on, he entered a lockdown command into the system.
Waaaaaang—!
A loud siren sound reverberated through the building, and then the door flung open.
“What on earth is going on here! What are you doing right now!”
The one who appeared shouting was the Deputy Director of the research institute. Dongha, who had been wearing a stern expression, deliberately distorted it to pretend to be terrified, and instead interrogated him.
“That’s what I should be asking. Where have you been and what were you doing? Shouldn’t you have come as soon as the release notification appeared!”
“I came directly from my office as soon as I received it, just now! I was running!”
“It’s been over 2 minutes since the notification came, and you say you came immediately?”
“What? I just—!”
Only then did he realize that notifications might arrive earlier to certain individuals, and his expression contorted. Dongha didn’t know if that was true or not, but if the other person was mistakenly assuming so, there was no need to correct him.
Did he think he wasn’t trusted in an important matter? It didn’t really matter, but fortunately, suspicion gradually disappeared from the Deputy Director’s face. He seemed reassured that Dongha was the one who had switched the security to lockdown, given the circumstances.
“First, explain what happened!”
“It seems someone released the security system and went down below.”
“Who on earth—!”
“If I knew that, would I have cut the power? For now, I’ve urgently switched security to lockdown, but… hmm… doesn’t this make it difficult for our personnel to enter from below as well?”
“Well, um… some people can still do it, but…”
The Deputy Director muttered. Perhaps panicking at the unexpected situation, information he normally wouldn’t even hint at in front of others came out stutteringly.
If he knew information that even Dongha didn’t, it meant the Deputy Director was among those “some people.”
“Who can do it? Shouldn’t you go down and help, Deputy Director?”
“All I can do is just provide a key, so why would I… There’s someone more suitable going there!”
The Deputy Director, closely examining the CCTV, quickly excused himself. His fingertip pointed to the image of Awakened ones swarming in front of the basement elevator.
Dongha’s eyes flashed sharply.
By ‘key,’ did he mean an ID card? Or was there a separate key card that could open closed doors even during a lockdown?
Since he specifically said “provide,” it probably wasn’t referring to an analog key.
At least he had heard about the necessary preparation. The Deputy Director had even implied that he could open the basement doors anytime but didn’t want to. This meant that with that ‘key,’ one could open the path without much difficulty.
As the Deputy Director glanced at his inner pocket and turned his eyes back to the CCTV, Dongha quietly observed him and didn’t miss the opportunity to grip his mobile phone.
Then he struck it hard against the other’s head.
Whack!
As he struck the crown of his head with the corner of the phone, the Deputy Director’s eyes rolled back, turning completely white. He had hit with such force that there was a small crack in the screen.
The collapsing body, the flowing blood—the thought that he might have killed him crossed his mind, but escaping this situation was more important right now.
Dongha, with his hands turned white, dropped the phone and hurriedly searched through the Deputy Director’s pockets.
And eureka. From the inner pocket that he had been constantly glancing at, a cylindrical key about the size of a finger joint emerged.
