# Chapter 171
WHAM!
A sharp impact sound that seemed like it belonged in an action movie echoed through the living room. Lee Hwan raised his head, feeling pain as if his hand was shattering.
Over Taesung’s face, contorted with pain, a question mark appeared.
‘……?’
They say S-class is beyond human category, but even non-human creatures feel excruciating pain when hit precisely in the stomach by a Hunter.
His well-defined face clouded with both endurance and bewilderment. His breathing stopped, and for a moment, his body staggered and leaned slightly over Lee Hwan.
Lee Hwan felt his heart beating uncomfortably as he tightly embraced the approaching Taesung.
Behind his back, arms wrapped around him in response, though they didn’t understand why.
* * *
“Friend?”
The end of the monotone voice trembled slightly.
Taesung quickly realized it was half sarcasm, half mockery.
“For now.”
At that answer, the eyebrow above the sunglasses twitched. Tense facial muscles…
As expected, he was clearly trying to hold back a laugh. Taesung flipped through the tablet PC screen with an irritated gesture.
Whenever he heard about the relationship with Lee Hwan, he always had the same reaction. It wasn’t something that happened just once or twice, but his reaction always made Taesung’s blood boil.
“If you’re already full of plans to mock me, why bother managing your expression?”
“For my dignity.”
Eventually, Taesung’s face crumpled completely. Jade glanced at him and took the tablet PC away.
“Give it back, it’ll break.”
These days, Taesung spent all his free time with Jade like this.
Right after regression, there had been a lot to handle. Since the Chairman’s eyes were on him, there were many new tasks to undertake. That’s why, at some point, whenever he regressed, he would immediately seek out Jade after bringing Lee Hwan home.
Jade always accepted Taesung’s crazy regression stories without much objection. Then he would help with his plans without delay. Once when asked why, he said something about how the project he experienced himself was already half like a fantasy.
Originally at this point, he was in poor physical condition due to the resumed experiments in the research building. Taesung had a private audience with the Chairman and elaborated a bit more about the experiments to obtain medication in advance to stabilize his symptoms.
T.D.F. It was a drug that Lee Hwan had discovered during the first regression he led. From the moment Taesung mentioned it, the Chairman began monitoring him more closely.
However, Taesung was more concerned about Lee Hwan than the old man’s vigilance. Basement of Building D, which even Jade apparently shuddered at. Whenever Taesung thought about Lee Hwan entering that place alone, searching for fragments of causality and medication, a part of his chest would always feel tight.
‘He still hasn’t been sleeping well lately…’
Thanks to his sacrifice back then, Jade was fortunately safe. This time too, even though it had only been a few days since taking the medication, the dark blood vessels around his eyes had already significantly subsided. Jade, who had been worried, was immediately deployed in Taesung’s operation.
To protect Lee Hwan and stop the monster wave.
Perhaps because he spent his entire youth on battlefields, Jade knew how to find the optimal survival route in a short time. Taesung had shared most of his regression stories only with him. It was because he had felt deeply from past experiences that he couldn’t solve this alone.
It was the right choice. Through numerous accumulated failures, Jade often pointed out better directions.
Only, he always asked the same thing with every regression, annoying Taesung.
‘……Friend, you say.’
‘……’
‘You.’
‘……’
‘Looking like that.’
‘……’
Afterwards, he deliberately emphasized calling Lee Hwan a ‘friend.’ It was his own kind of old-fashioned and unfunny humor.
“So, why haven’t you told your ‘friend’ yet?”
A suppressed sigh escaped from his lips at the question that hit the mark.
“It’s not just because of some jinx. Since when did you care about that kind of thing? If it were me, I’d explain everything and ask him to stay put.”
Well. When Taesung told Lee Hwan about the repeated regressions, he always tried to overcome the situation in his own way. And as a result, he got hurt or died.
At this point, it was almost in the realm of science rather than superstition. If you input the command ‘Tell about multiple regressions,’ Lee Hwan would attempt something dangerous according to a predetermined algorithm, and die with a high probability.
Besides, even in this final round, there was one more small and trivial reason why he didn’t tell Lee Hwan everything, as Jade had pointed out.
“…I’ve done some things in the past. Not good to recall.”
“What did you do? Whatever it was, you did it for his own good, right? It’s not like you strangled him or anything.”
“……”
“……”
“……”
“…What kind of bastard are you?”
Punching was the least of it. He had cracked his head, strangled his neck, burned his flesh, imprisoned him, and once even severed the tendon in one leg under the guise of an accident so he couldn’t walk for about a year.
He still vividly remembered Lee Hwan’s eyes when he realized it was intentional. Though he never told anyone, it was one of his recurring nightmare materials.
He kept quiet because explaining everything would sound insane, but Jade seemed to guess even that. Taesung sighed and turned his gaze away.
“Seems like it’s not him you need to stop.”
“I couldn’t help it.”
“I know a good doctor who also does mental therapy.”
“There were circumstances.”
Now he was being treated like a complete mental patient. Certainly, compared to before, his mind was tattered as if slashed with a knife, but not to the point of collapse yet.
Above all, Taesung was too busy organizing the changes that had occurred in the 8th round and incorporating them into survival to think about unnecessary things.
* ▦X Bro▦▦ ▦ock▦ ▦▦ (▦▦ bro▦)
A major change occurred as the skill collapsed. First, the system no longer responded when he mentioned important events related to regression.
At first, it seemed like it was trying to respond by reading Taesung’s actions. However, as the letters describing the skill completely collapsed and occasionally became invisible even in the skill window, the system could no longer recognize the fact of regression.
In exchange for losing the opportunity to regress, he was freed from all constraints of causality.
‘Finally.’
That much was good. But when he realized that the variable that came with it was Lee Hwan’s memory, everything went dark.
Lee Hwan’s reaction had changed. Until the last round, Lee Hwan had more or less followed his plans as long as he wasn’t explicitly confined or restrained, but this time something was different from day one of the regression.
He became wary of Taesung and started moving on a different trajectory than before. He now displayed by default the reactions he previously only showed after several suspicious acts.
He must have recalled some memories from the past. Taesung realized with resignation that the memories his skill had been holding back were being released piece by piece.
In the end, he did reveal one regression, but what would have happened if the memories he recalled hadn’t stopped there?
“He’s been wandering outside lately. If you don’t make him understand properly, he’ll go meet Kang Dongha again.”
The remark hit so hard it hurt his solar plexus. Lee Hwan going to find Kang Dongha already was a first throughout all 8 rounds. In the very first regression that Lee Hwan led, he was with Kang Dongha from the beginning, but back then, without Taesung’s memories, he had no one else to rely on.
That meant that even now, Lee Hwan’s support system wasn’t that solid.
“…Keep an eye on him for a while.”
Finally closing his eyes to block his vision, the scene from a few days ago slowly passed through Taesung’s mind.
The night when he urgently went to the bar after realizing Lee Hwan had gone to meet Kang Dongha. His shirt was unbuttoned several buttons down, wide open. The smooth skin and bone contours visible in between were dangerously alluring.
His carefully groomed hair as if wanting to impress someone, and the white arms revealed below rolled-up sleeves. He was half lying on the passenger seat in such a state. With Kang Dongha glancing sideways, displaying that precarious appearance for him to see.
All that was visible was just a narrow car with the doors locked, Lee Hwan in that provocative state, and Kang Dongha who was alone with him…
In that moment, reason flew away and anger was ignited. While checking if there was any scent of supernatural ability being used somewhere, he almost bared his teeth without realizing it.
Looking at the white wrist that would leave red teeth marks if bitten deeply, Taesung realized he was more shaken than he thought. The heart that he believed had calmed down while sleeping holding Lee Hwan beat anxiously.
“To reduce risk, would it be better to eliminate Kang Dongha in advance?”
“The very choice of eliminating someone is a risk. The newspaper company case is already under investigation, so stay quiet and behave without doing anything conspicuous.”
“Kang Dongha ultimately only trusts himself. And the decisions he made were always interference or betrayal.”
“That’s why I’m telling you to explain the regression to him even more. Seems like he’ll keep looking for Kang Dongha until he understands.”
Honestly, in the last few regressions, he had dealt with him without much agitation. Because it was a natural step to take after regression, he could mechanically ruin him.
But now anger kept welling up. Thinking about Kang Dongha sitting next to Lee Hwan and acting indecently made his eyes roll in an instant.
“…I’ll have to.”
Taesung answered with slightly gritted teeth. But he had no intention of telling him right away. He didn’t want to argue with him anymore. The relationship that ran on parallel lines despite his efforts was giving him a headache.
These days, Lee Hwan didn’t come to him at night. Instead, he kept his distance as if he didn’t want Taesung sitting beside him. After watching carefully for a while and barely managing to press their bodies together, the sound of Lee Hwan’s anxious, urgent heartbeat felt like it was pushing Taesung away. His heart ached.
‘It seems he’s still in contact with Kang Dongha.’
At that thought, he felt his eyes rolling again.
‘I should deal with him after all…’
His determination hardened without Lee Hwan or Jade knowing.
Of course, just as Taesung had amended his plan that was close to self-destruction, his resolution to eliminate Kang Dongha didn’t proceed very smoothly either.
