# Chapter 12
“I was looking for a helper, and made a slip while checking things out.”
Originally, he should have been with me, and you should have been standing on the opposite side as the villain. Lee Hwan swallowed these last words together with the food he was chewing.
“Helper? Planning something again?”
“Someone’s help isn’t quite enough.”
“Good thing Kang Taesung has such a nasty personality.”
He kept saying things that ruined the taste of the meat. Lee Hwan gave him a look suggesting he should stop, then continued cutting his steak firmly. Seeing that look, Dongha glanced away and ordered a plate of risotto as well.
The steak was soft yet thick, maintaining its texture with every bite, and the risotto had a rich, savory cream sauce with just a hint of spiciness.
Was he a Westerner in a past life? Western food couldn’t possibly suit his taste this well. Lee Hwan filled his stomach enough to last three days with just water before pushing away his plate and sipping his cocktail.
“If you weren’t an Awakened person, or if you didn’t know the information… if you lacked just one of those things, you wouldn’t have had a good ending. Consider yourself lucky.”
Dongha’s words made the taste of the alcohol suddenly disappear. Lee Hwan twisted the corner of his mouth and asked about the remark that sounded like either a threat or a compliment.
“Why, would you have imprisoned me if I had no abilities?”
Dongha smiled too, but his eyes remained serious. Not quite a definite yes, but certainly not a denial either.
Lee Hwan thought he was truly a mood-killer and quickly sobered up his mind that had been about to get drunk.
“Unless you have truly enormous power, nothing beats abilities in today’s world. Even in your case, if you didn’t have abilities, would you even be properly talking with me?”
It was a skill of sorts to be consistently unpleasant. However, from Lee Hwan’s position, he couldn’t overturn everything just because he felt offended, and fortunately or unfortunately, Dongha felt the same way. Lee Hwan felt uncomfortable as it seemed to support the guy’s words.
“Don’t make that face. I’m not picking a fight.”
“It sounds like you are.”
“If I had to put it in words, it’s jealousy.”
At least that much sounded sincere.
What a funny bastard. Despite enjoying money and a comfortable life to his heart’s content, the reason Dongha was so fixated on abilities was surely his strong attachment to what he couldn’t have.
“Well, maybe someday they’ll even find a way to artificially induce Awakening if you wait long enough.”
When Lee Hwan shrugged and gave a casual answer,
“Humans aren’t like magic stone blades.”
Dongha dismissed the words as nonsense and finished his last sip of wine. When the topic of Awakening came up, Dongha, who had been managing his expressions well, looked quite downcast.
Lee Hwan clicked his tongue briefly, then suddenly remembered something from the past and asked.
“Naru researches that kind of thing, right?”
It was a comment thrown out to lighten the mood. For Lee Hwan, who knew the future, it was really just a throwaway remark. However, at those words, Dongha’s eyebrows twitched, and he clamped his mouth shut, pretending to drink wine.
Though the glass was tilted, his Adam’s apple didn’t move. Lee Hwan stared at it for a moment, then deliberately made him aware of his notice.
He pointed at his Adam’s apple with his index finger.
“Drinking air?”
“Damn it.”
Clack, Dongha’s glass was placed on the table. He still didn’t open his mouth but glared at Lee Hwan as if demanding an explanation.
After the regression, when the Monster Wave broke out and it gradually spread that it was Dongha’s doing, Naru had cut ties cleanly and brought out that very thing as both consolation and apology.
Half-Awakening.
From what he’d heard, until then, it had been a project only maintained as research within Naru. It involved specially processing monster byproducts and implanting them into the body. Those who underwent Half-Awakening had somewhat improved strength, endurance, and resistance, allowing them to withstand ordinary diseases and injuries.
Also, undergoing Half-Awakening awakened abilities with a low probability. Just hearing this, it seemed like there couldn’t be a better project in the world.
However, there was one single drawback that outweighed all these benefits and then some. Side effects.
Whether Half-Awakening succeeded or failed, the artificial core made from specially processed monster byproducts gradually broke down the body.
The enhanced body from Half-Awakening began to weaken after 5 years, causing internal rejection reactions, and usually resulted in death after about 10 years.
It was clearly introduced as a countermeasure against the Monster Wave, but somehow, Lee Hwan could almost see the Naru Group, at about 60 percent transparency, hatefully shouting:
‘You’re going to die anyway if you do nothing, so let’s at least put up a struggle!’
“How on earth do you know about that?”
“Did I know the other things because I was allowed to know them?”
Recalling the helplessness and anger from that time, Lee Hwan answered with irritation. It was absurd that the apocalypse had approached quickly not because of some villain genius scientist, meteor impact, environmental pollution, or global warming, but because of one mere human. Wasn’t humanity the one that had firmly passed down their genes by awakening here and there since the appearance of the first gate?
However, understanding Lee Hwan’s attitude as ‘I already know everything, so don’t try to test me,’ Dongha fortunately continued without much resistance.
“It exists, sure. But as you know, that’s… closer to a mutation than an Awakening, right? I’m only in my twenties—why should I die just to use some abilities?”
Mutation, huh? Was it?
Originally, what Lee Hwan knew was the somewhat completed Half-Awakening from 7 years in the future, not the current state that hadn’t even undergone clinical trials. Moreover, true to its name “Half-Awakening,” people before his regression thought of it as a sort of forced awakening with a time limit.
But closer to a mutation? A mutation of what exactly?
“If you wait, I’m sure something will develop. Isn’t that what you’re aiming for?”
Unable to keep pretending he didn’t know, Lee Hwan threw in some guesswork. Hmm, a sound suggesting he was still skeptical came out, but Dongha nevertheless seemed deeply lost in thought. Lee Hwan, feeling he had successfully navigated the crisis, was inwardly sighing with relief when he suddenly gained an insight.
At the time, Naru had packaged the project as some kind of dream of life extension to face the apocalyptic age, but people said it was an attempt to artificially create Awakened persons. In fact, they did produce low-level hunters with a low probability.
If Naru hadn’t stopped the research. And if they had seen further possibilities in it. Perhaps Dongha would have aimed for Awakening.
Of course, looking at Dongha now, he wanted abilities but didn’t seem desperate enough to destroy the world for Awakening.
But what if some event made Dongha desperate? What if he came to truly crave abilities?
He had money, drive, shadiness, and ambition. Unless he was willing to risk his life, Dongha would have definitely done anything for Awakening.
Lee Hwan suddenly felt as though he had caught a subtle thread.
* * *
They say there is order even in chaos. Day by day, though things were spinning wildly, Lee Hwan felt a certain progress.
However, what still hung on his legs like a heavy anchor was his unresolved relationship with Taesung.
He wanted to get back the person from the past but knew he couldn’t, and while he knew it was best to avoid him for now, he still had lingering attachments.
Perhaps the “obsession” that Dongha pointed out looked like this. Strictly speaking, Dongha and Taesung were closer to competitors divided by teams than blood relatives, and their relationship would grow even cooler when Dongha later transferred to the department related to Awakened persons.
In the midst of all this, Lee Hwan kept circling around Taesung like a fanboy, causing trouble, so maybe Dongha couldn’t easily trust him.
Time passed unfairly quickly, and only one day of the weekend remained. Lee Hwan, lying on his bed organizing his confused thoughts, felt intense hunger.
The previous day’s steak had long since dissolved in the superior digestive abilities of an Awakened person, and because he hadn’t gone grocery shopping even once since his regression, not even a single package of ramen remained in the house.
If he had known that was the last cup ramen yesterday, he would have sent it off more respectfully.
Should he buy ramen? Or since there was rice, should he cook it and sprinkle some salt on it? After much deliberation, Lee Hwan unexpectedly decided to indulge himself. Although payday wasn’t on the 1st, meaning he had to wait two more weeks until the deposit, he wanted rice noodle soup.
Cravings usually came out of nowhere and irritatingly nagged at one’s nerves. The taste of rice noodle soup appeared so vividly in Lee Hwan’s mind.
The steaming hot meat broth, the soft and chewy rice noodles that wrapped around the mouth, or the tender meat toppings and the crisp bean sprouts slightly cooked in the broth.
‘…Let’s go.’
He was still hazy about the prices at that time, but unless gold dust was sprinkled on it, it shouldn’t be a price that would leave his mouth hanging open. He could raid the company cafeteria for lunch on the remaining days.
Unlike the rainy spring, the weather had always been clear since his regression. However, today the sky was particularly gray.
Glancing back at his cramped single room, Lee Hwan closed the door with a thud and left the house.
Looking for a place with cheap rent, he had ended up in a ghost town that emptied out during the day. Such neighborhoods were usually avoided as unlucky places where many people had died during the Gate creation. Of course, being in Seoul, the housing prices weren’t entirely cheap, but thanks to that, Lee Hwan had been able to settle here since his hungry early career days.
Could he add extra toppings? Eating tender meat soaked in the warm broth on top of white noodles might improve his seaweed-like dampened mood.
Lee Hwan licked his lips and tapped his sneakers to adjust them properly before taking big steps. He rounded the corner past the neighboring house and exited the alley.
That’s when it happened.
Whoosh-.
“I was about to break into any house if you didn’t come out, but this is good timing.”
A voice that shouldn’t be heard in such a shabby place rang out, and a familiar face appeared before Lee Hwan.
