# Chapter 127
Thwack!
Taesung stomped his foot once firmly, successfully avoiding it with a quick reaction. However, at the same time, Lee Hwan’s eyes gleamed slightly.
“…!”
His carefully moving footsteps caught on thin air. Before Taesung could dodge, he staggered and steadied himself against the wall in an awkward posture. His hand landed with a thud on the wall right above where Lee Hwan was sitting.
A brief moment of confusion flashed across his cold face. He tried to move his foot again as if to escape, but its trajectory curved naturally, and his leg stretched in a strange direction.
He stood in an even more awkward posture than before and raised his eyebrows sharply.
“……”
Under Taesung’s sidelong gaze looking down at him, Lee Hwan openly raised the corners of his lips.
Perhaps due to the unexpected attack, Taesung’s expression was strangely distorted. Lee Hwan suddenly felt completely refreshed.
“…What are you doing?”
“Let’s have a talk.”
“Like this?”
From beneath Taesung’s darkening shadow, Lee Hwan looked straight at him, who was still making that strange expression.
“I don’t think dragging this out any longer will lead to good results.”
“Didn’t we already decide to go our separate ways? I don’t understand what more there is to talk about.”
It was definitely a stiff, hardened voice, but why it sounded so sulky was a mystery. Had Taesung ever been the type to sulk in the first place?
Thinking about that, his chest suddenly tingled for no apparent reason. Lee Hwan curled up his extended leg and looked up at him.
When their eyes met, surprisingly, Taesung quickly averted his gaze. Somehow, a very peculiar emotion could be felt.
Lee Hwan quietly waited for Taesung’s reaction. He just stared blankly at his face. Then, only after Taesung met his eyes again, did Lee Hwan smoothly erase the smile that had appeared on his face and bluntly spoke.
“I’ve waited this long, so just leaving isn’t very ethical. Don’t you think?”
“I never asked you to wait…”
“Consider that the price for leaving on your own, and since I’m tired, I’ll just say it straight.”
“……”
Despite cutting him off, Taesung was strangely quiet. Lee Hwan gazed at him with calm eyes.
“About earlier… it’s true that I didn’t trust you, but I was just that worried.”
It was his own way of apologizing first.
When there was no response, he poked Taesung’s leg with his toe, and Taesung sharply moved one foot away. This time his leg moved as he wanted, but Lee Hwan could feel that his gaze was wavering even more.
“And to be precise, it’s not that I don’t trust your skills or intentions, but rather Naru’s schemes, so there’s no need to feel offended.”
After straightening his leg and standing upright again, Taesung just silently looked down at Lee Hwan. Since he wasn’t making exasperating comments like before or showing signs of turning away again, it seemed at least half-successful.
Now he just needed to pull Taesung into the living room before he slipped back into his room.
“If it’s okay, let’s talk more. We don’t have much time left.”
Lee Hwan suggested with an almost forceful tone as he slowly stood up. His body rose smoothly between Taesung’s braced arms.
When he fully stood up and Taesung’s face came close, Lee Hwan flinched without realizing it.
‘Maybe I should have crawled out sideways before standing up.’
But that would have looked too undignified.
Ever since roughly acknowledging his feelings, he had been startling at trivial things. His heart thumped. And now to face him at such close proximity.
Lee Hwan instinctively tried to step back but met the wall with his back, and suppressed his tactlessly warming face with a deep breath.
He could feel Taesung examining him carefully. Enough to make the end of his neck tingle.
“…Let’s go.”
Fortunately, Taesung removed his arm first and turned toward the living room. Even then, seeing him thoroughly check his feet first, Lee Hwan sighed softly and followed him.
“I’ve already contacted the fan site administrator.”
When Taesung glanced back as if wondering when he had already done that, Lee Hwan turned his head and nodded toward the door, continuing to speak.
“I had nothing to do sitting over there.”
He probably understood the hint. Lee Hwan adjusted the neckline of his loose t-shirt that had slipped to one side and faced Taesung, who had just sat down on the sofa.
The fierce gaze had disappeared at some point, but he still wore a somewhat strange expression.
* * *
Title: wtf Aesung is in Seoul
Hadn’t seen him for a while and heard he was in the southern region, so I was wondering what he was doing
But he was just walking in Hangang Park with a hat pulled down lol
I was about to take a photo but we made eye contact so I ran tf away
Comments 41 ▼
[sungsung-jara] You should have just taken the picture
└ [choi-epic] What if he smacks your phone and breaks your joints, will you compensate?
└ [sungsung-jara] fair point
└ [taerang] lololololololol
└ [aejong] lolololololol
└ [ssaecom] If there wasn’t a Hunter law, half of you bastards would’ve already had a columbarium meetup
[hinki] Huh? When did he go? Aesung, come back to Ulsan
└ [mero-gui] ??: Unnie, we didn’t see anyone while walking, pull yourself together, woof woof
└ [hinki] Is this guy crazy? Reported
[ae-guma-tang] Honestly, Aesung just looks intimidating but doesn’t hit people or sue much… If it were me, I would’ve just taken the photo lol
└ [ssaecom] For real, that free-ro uncle who sticks around him is scarier than Aesung
└ [mirong] 222 That uncle will definitely take legal action
└ [choi-epic] But this time his expression was no joke… The atmosphere was like if you messed with him, you’d get a personal response from Aesung himself
└ [choi-epic] Besides, it wasn’t free-ro, but there was someone else so it was hard to just take pictures…
└ [ssaecom] Who? A woman?
└ [hinki] Damn, was he not visible because he’s dating?
└ [choi-epic] No no, couldn’t see the face but judging from the height and build, even if I did a backflip while looking, it was definitely a man
└ [ssaecom] Phew, I almost had to go to the police station^^
⤷ View more comments (23)
“Will this really work?”
Taesung examined the laptop screen with a dubious expression. Beneath the post were candid comments that he wished Taesung hadn’t seen.
“The administrator says all posts made through their secondary accounts will come up in portal site searches. Around evening, there will be a sighting in Bucheon, and tomorrow, another one is scheduled to appear from Cheonan.”
Well, Naru wouldn’t go back to Seoul based on just one post like this, but it could at least create a small confusion in their pursuit.
In the meantime, he could only hope to scoop up Taesung under his arm and slip through the gaps.
“Then we just need to refine the plan to meet Praxis.”
“I’m against that plan you mentioned earlier.”
“Do you think you can shake off Naru and finish the job without bait?”
“Do you know how many surveillance cameras are at the harbor? If you’re cornered there, are you planning to jump into the water?”
After saying that, Lee Hwan sighed and stopped talking. Again, he had raised his voice without realizing it. If Taesung, whom he had coaxed out with difficulty, went back in, what would he do?
“I know you’re capable. But it’s not just one or two people following, and the feeling is really not good.”
Even a lion backs down against a pack of hyenas. And with Naru, he couldn’t even guess how much force they would use to attack him.
Moreover, imagining Taesung cornered and jumping into the sea, he remembered Taesung’s eyes dissolving underwater during the shipwreck.
“I can’t explain why the feeling is bad, but think of it as big data sent by instinct—it’s better to follow it. You know this too. You’re an Awakened one as well.”
Hunters who frequently engaged in battle were particularly sensitive to feelings. It was quite common for stories like ‘I had a bad feeling so I dodged instead of countering the incoming attack, and by divine luck I survived when a monster rushing from behind got hit instead.’
“I don’t plan to keep them occupied for long. I just want to lure them until Praxis receives the item and gets away.”
Given that Naru had already attacked even Taesung, it wouldn’t be surprising if they massacred someone like Praxis.
It was strange that despite knowing this, such strong opposition welled up inside him. That made it all the more difficult to just let it go.
“15 minutes.”
Lee Hwan barely managed to say as he suppressed the anxiety that kept rising.
“10 minutes before the contact, 5 minutes after handing over the item. You must get away after exactly 15 minutes.”
To be honest, he didn’t want to send him. But he couldn’t deny Taesung’s assertion that safe handling was impossible without a diversion.
“I will.”
Lee Hwan finally included Taesung’s decoy in the plan and sighed deeply. If only he were a stubborn, unreasonable person, he could at least attack him in his sleep, tie him up tightly, and throw him aside. But the frustrating thing was that everything he said made sense.
* * *
Several more sleepless nights passed. Lee Hwan pondered escape routes during the drowsy daytime hours, and during the quiet nights, he thought about the pieces of causality.
More precisely, he imagined what would happen when all those pieces came together to complete causality.
If the feeling he had in Research Building D that day was correct, his journey was nearing its end. Since the memories contained in the pieces of causality reflected up to just before regression, the next piece he would obtain would probably conclude it.
How would Taesung’s memories return? Would all memories surface at once when causality was completed? Or would they be found gradually, piece by piece?
Either way, just thinking about it made his heart flutter. It felt like dry spirits being moistened with sweet water.
When his memories returned, what should he say first? Should he curse him with words like ‘you bastard’? Should he reproach him severely? Or maybe just smiling and accepting it, then taking revenge slowly wouldn’t be bad either.
Like making him fetch water and run errands for snacks.
* EX Broken Clockwork (0 uses)
– Allows regression to a point desired by the user.
– User designates a target for dual regression.
– ! Operates using the target’s memories as components.
→ Returned after completing the missing causality.
– ! Transferred through the user’s death.
‘The remaining number of uses is still 0…’
The fact that the number of available uses was specified separately might not be for accumulating multiple uses, but simply to indicate that it could be reused.
Typically, once a clockwork is wound, it moves in one direction until its power is exhausted. So, although it was just speculation, when this broken clockwork watch stopped after completing all causality, perhaps an opportunity to wind it again would come.
However, even if the number of uses were filled, he had no intention of rewinding it and returning once more as a lonely regressor. He just hoped that this situation would work out as well as possible.
Lee Hwan desperately wished that this damn skill, this system, would be on his side just this once.
And so, the day he had been waiting for in tension dawned.
