# Chapter 164
## The White Bowtie
SLAP!
A sound so loud it was hard to believe it was just a slap echoed throughout the office. Lee Hwan momentarily couldn’t gather his thoughts due to his flashing vision and muffled hearing.
Taking advantage of this moment, a cold hand grabbed his chin and turned it. Since his lip had split and was bleeding, a long finger traced it and deliberately smeared it across his cheek.
‘I know you deliberately messed things up. I’ve let it slide a few times.’
SLAP!
With a strike so strong it could almost make a cracking sound, this time his head turned to the opposite side. Holding the face that was quickly becoming covered in blood, Kang Dongying flicked his red cheek a few times with his index finger.
‘You need to keep it moderate for me to see it as cute. No matter how much I care for you.’
At the edge of his vision, Lee Hwan could see Kang Dongha’s terrified face. Lee Hwan touched his seemingly rattling molars with his tongue a few times before turning his eyes back to stare at Kang Dongying.
‘Did you think that idiot would help you until the end? Because you hate me?’
A sneer appeared on that smooth face. It was directed at both Lee Hwan and his own brother.
‘Even though he’s an untrustworthy bastard, they say blood doesn’t lie, and he’s perceptive. He’s the kind of guy who’s devilishly good at finding ways to save himself.’
BAM! His body was forcefully pushed back, skidding across the floor until it hit the wall. Lee Hwan wiped away the dripping blood and obediently got up.
He wasn’t normally the type to give multiple chances. Still, he seemed willing to let it slide this time, so if this was for the final moment, Lee Hwan had to wait submissively.
‘Do well. That bastard will keep watching you till the end.’
As he spoke, Kang Dongying turned his head, and at the end of his gaze, Kang Dongha was quickly nodding.
* * *
When Lee Hwan opened his eyes, he was sitting on the ground. His legs seemed to have given out due to the memory that had suddenly surfaced like a daydream.
In the memory that confronted him like a hallucination, Lee Hwan had burrowed deep into the center of Kang Dongying’s plan. He gradually eliminated personnel who could be replaced, and whether he liked it or not, he had become an indispensable limb for the time being.
Kang Dongying had planned to dispose of his subordinates when the time came anyway. Knowing this, Lee Hwan could act more boldly. By gambling with his life, he could reach Kang Dongying’s plan—the semi-awakening.
“Excuse me, are you alright?”
“Looks like he’s coming to.”
Several pedestrians had gathered around since he suddenly lost consciousness while walking. Lee Hwan quickly got up, waving his hands as if to say he was fine.
“Do you need an ambulance?”
“No, I’m fine.”
He quickly walked away from the scene, throwing thank you’s in all directions.
It had been a week since he heard about the regression. Like someone catching up on postponed work, Lee Hwan was recalling fragmented memories.
Sometimes the content was so random or shocking that his throat would burn and his head would ache. Occasionally, he even avoided Taesung’s gaze. Each time, Taesung would look at him as if he understood, making Lee Hwan inexplicably annoyed.
No, he could just properly tell him what he was hiding. Whatever he was worried about, it was frustratingly evasive behavior.
Anyway, the memories were steadily emerging as dreams, illusions, faithfully appearing—enough for Lee Hwan to gradually notice their outline, even without Taesung telling him.
‘Where the hell did this crazy bastard get restraints from? Making bars on doors with gate-mined alloy—I’ve never seen anything like that in my life.’
Taesung laughing and chatting with him. Taesung doing hunter activities with him like before. Then suddenly Taesung choking him. Taesung confining him somewhere and not letting him out. Himself walking among mutated monsters. Kang Dongha pushing down on his chest and talking to him. Kang Dongying promising him wealth. Himself facing death surrounded by monsters…
All sorts of memories surfaced chaotically within a short period, making his mind confused. Sometimes he had to close his eyes for a long while to suppress his turbulent emotions. Partly because there were quite a few unpleasant memories, but also because the timeline he’d carefully constructed kept getting disrupted whenever he recalled something new.
‘This doesn’t add up. Are some of these fake?’
According to what he’d recalled so far, he had been scouted by Kang Dongying and had been hospitalized with serious injuries. So did that mean he eventually died after becoming paralyzed while working with him?
But if that were the case, where did the memory of facing death surrounded by monsters come from? How could he have run to a gate when he couldn’t even walk? His arms seemed fine, so had he somehow acquired over-technology prosthetics?
It was also quite strange how Taesung, who had been laughing and chatting with him, suddenly choked and confined him. Judging by Taesung’s still youthful face, it didn’t seem like much time had passed since the regression.
Could there really have been so many instances of their relationship being good then bad, unfamiliar then close, all within just a few years?
Inferring from all this information, Lee Hwan had died or been injured multiple times yet quickly recovered, while Taesung alternated between welcoming and antagonizing him like someone with dissociative disorder. Kang Dongying suddenly appeared and took him in when he was with Taesung, and Kang Dongha, who had been mocking him one moment, was suddenly dead from an accident the next.
Nonsense. It was like a movie made by a director on drugs. This absurd result was because he had overlooked one thing.
‘Taesung could be genuinely deceiving me.’
Lee Hwan sighed deeply. Sadly, if several things Taesung said weren’t true—if from the beginning it hadn’t been just one regression—everything would be sufficiently explained.
Taesung had gone through multiple regressions that Lee Hwan couldn’t remember to get here.
‘I’d rather be delusional.’
What an absurd and cruel conclusion. Himself dying and returning multiple times, and Taesung watching it all and trying everything he could.
But if that wasn’t the case, there was no other explanation. And it was certainly the kind of story Taesung would hide. Lee Hwan had already witnessed multiple scenes of Taesung confining him and acting forcefully.
‘Let go of me, you bastard!’
When Taesung grabbed his wrist and pushed him against the wall, the Lee Hwan in his memory had unhesitatingly designated a space to lower its density and gravity, then struck him in the face so hard that it almost dislocated his fist. The subsequent groaning and forced joint reduction was exactly the kind of mistake he would make, making it impossible to dismiss as a fabricated memory.
‘Shit. That’s definitely not how gravity should be used.’
Still, he didn’t want to just blindly follow Taesung’s plan. Every memory that surfaced was a disaster. If there was some problem with Taesung’s approach, what if he followed it and died a violent death again?
‘One of your skills is Amplification.’
‘…You know it well.’
‘That skill’s penalty is a pheromone that stimulates monsters. Looking at it positively, it means you can hunt from where you stand without having to search for each weak monster…’
‘To be honest, you mean it’s perfect for getting beaten to death?’
Only after Taesung’s warning did he understand why he had a memory of dying surrounded by monsters. It was like a sentence. A declaration that he couldn’t roam gates all day like before.
He was so upset when he realized that the fresh fruit scent he had thought was Taesung’s car freshener or fabric softener was actually a pheromone. The scent didn’t even suit Taesung, yet he had been stupidly burying his nose in his clothes and sniffing because it seemed like Taesung’s trace.
Anyway, because of that, he no longer had to support him in combat inside gates, so all that remained was to personally find the cause of the monster waves.
Knowing Taesung would vehemently oppose, he didn’t say a word about it. He simply found his own path based on the memories he recalled himself.
‘Memories involving Kang Dongying and Kang Dongha were particularly frequent.’
Taesung rarely appeared in memories featuring them. This meant Taesung and they were on completely different paths. Considering that Kang Dongha had been identified as the cause of monster waves, it seemed the evil group destroying this world was on their side.
However…
‘That guy was mostly scared.’
In his memories, Kang Dongha was often terrified under pressure from Kang Dongying and higher-ups. He didn’t look anything like the root of all evil.
“Hmm.”
Lee Hwan made a significant sound as he walked into Taesung’s house. He knew this kind of development well. Like when embezzlement suddenly occurs at a company, and just when you think it’s the owner’s family, an unknown department head suddenly appears, takes the blame, and walks into prison.
‘If there’s already a designated successor, and if Kang Dongha really isn’t as useful as rumors say…’
Kang Dongha was the perfect person to be designated as a scapegoat. Although it was just speculation, recalling his memories of Kang Dongying, that family was more than capable of such things.
‘A member of the Kang family, knowing Kang Dongying’s plan, and likely having worked for Kang Dongying before the regression.’
Lee Hwan suddenly realized that he was an exceptionally suitable person for sabotage. If they considered Kang Dongying and Naru as their enemies, there was certainly no one better.
The problem was that he had no reason to side with them…
That night, as Lee Hwan was staring at the ceiling while listening to the ticking of the clock, he heard rustling sounds from Taesung’s room again. Though he now casually entered his room as if it were routine, surprisingly, Taesung was sleeping soundly on the bed.
‘Now I’m hearing things.’
But instead of feeling relieved and turning back, Lee Hwan silently sat down beside Taesung. He leaned his head against Taesung’s body and lay down at an angle.
Taesung, as if sleep-talking, extended his arm and wrapped it around him. From that moment, the ticking of the clock could no longer be heard. Despite having been grumpy with him all along, Lee Hwan buried his head in Taesung’s embrace and barely managed to fall asleep.
* * *
The loudly blaring sirens. The laboratory flashing with red light. The one breathing heavily, covered in blood, was clearly Kang Dongha.
“Cough, haa… If a hunter far from Naru finds this record, I hope they find — and use it. If you look for me at ‘Tommy Tree’ bar and say ‘white bowtie’…”
Muttering something to the object he was holding, he evenly sprayed an unknown liquid on his body and operated a machine.
Beep-! Beep-!
Along with a warning sound that gave chills just from hearing it, a familiar mutated monster leaped out in front of him. It twitched its nose a few times, then turned its gaze toward Kang Dongha and…
BOOM-!
With a thunderous noise, Lee Hwan woke up from his sleep.
