# Chapter 21
“The main team will arrive soon,” reported the section leader in a respectful tone, who just yesterday had been giving me suspicious glances at the office. He surely couldn’t imagine that I might be a new recruit in his team.
Lee Hwan turned his head toward him, trying to suppress his awkwardness.
The mask still stained with blood. He could see the man quietly swallowing at the Halloween costume-like appearance.
The main team. That meant Naru higher-ups and attack team leaders would be rushing in. Having interfered with a gate that had nothing to do with them and caused an accident, it wouldn’t be good for either Kang Dongha or Lee Hwan.
Should I take this bastard and clear out?
However, amid everyone bleeding, Kang Dongha’s unscathed appearance might actually become a credit to Support Team 3.
Lee Hwan tore Dongha’s clothes and tightly wrapped them around his swollen ankle, then handed him over to the support team like tossing a sack.
“You can turn the VIP over to the main team.”
Lee Hwan quickly left the place, in case anyone saw him.
Or so he thought.
‘The main team, huh.’
Gloomy would be a good word to describe him. Lee Hwan had climbed a nearby tree and was looking down at the gate. It was just in case. If there were attack team leaders, he might be there.
Well, it wasn’t just because of that. He needed to gauge from the personnel arriving whether this incident would blow up or quietly die down. Also… he had a lot to think about.
Soon, a group of people gathered around the gate. Lee Hwan could spot a particularly noticeable figure among them.
Kang Taesung.
With his black hair swept up completely, Taesung briefly resembled how he looked before the regression. When entering gates, he would always tidy his hair to avoid anything getting in the way and wear a clean combat suit.
If Taesung had come, it meant they intended to inspect the gate themselves and cover it up. After all, it wouldn’t do Naru any good if this incident spread widely. And that was actually better for Lee Hwan too.
‘A masked hunter took care of it. Looks like Kang Dongha’s guard.’
Watching those who were probably saying something like that, Lee Hwan let out a sigh.
He couldn’t stand how pathetic he had been all this time. Although he always regretted his actions since the regression, how should he put it? Today’s feeling was particularly miserable.
In truth, while surrendering his entire body to the intense touch of the massage chair, Lee Hwan had been under the illusion that this bastard might actually be decent. That’s why he’d let his guard down. He thought there was no need to treat him badly when he hadn’t done anything wrong yet.
But now, knowing the full story of the accident, the feeling that Kang Dongha was indeed Kang Dongha sank deep into his heart.
*Pusuk-*
*Pa-ak!*
Those gunshots still seemed to echo in his ears. If the skill stone had been there today, things wouldn’t have resolved so well.
Blood might have flowed just like on that day before the regression. Perhaps he would have ambushed Lee Hwan first, the moment he discovered the red light of the skill stone.
Then this day would have become the starting point again, igniting the monster wave.
‘Thankfully, I prevented that beginning at least.’
Thanks to Lee Hwan’s regression, Kang Dongha hadn’t discovered the skill stone, and although several support team members were injured, no one had died.
Would the future now flow differently from before the regression?
Or would the C-17 gate accident coming earlier mean that other events would also circle around and hit from different directions, even sooner?
‘Haah…’
Even though he had seen it beforehand, the future was always unknowable. Perhaps knowing the pain that would come made it even harder to endure than before.
Feeling disheartened, Lee Hwan unconsciously turned his gaze toward the gate and thought for a moment that his eyes met Taesung’s. His slightly turned head was pointing toward the tree where he was.
The white mask was still on his face, which he had touched unconsciously.
Taesung didn’t rush at Lee Hwan, nor did he point fingers to draw attention. He just quietly watched him.
Thanks to this, Lee Hwan was able to face Taesung without conflict for the first time since the regression. Though they were too far apart to see expressions clearly, it was still a monumental moment of sorts.
An emotion that gripped his heart tightly. And strangely enough, a contrasting sense of relief.
Looking straight at his face seemed to temporarily dispel the feeling of exhaustion.
Lee Hwan stared motionlessly at Taesung, who was looking in his direction, as if enchanted, then suddenly lowered his body.
*Tat!*
Kicking off from the trunk, he jumped down to the ground and ran through the trees. The leaves rustled loudly, covering his tumultuous feelings.
Today, no one chased after Lee Hwan.
* * *
“I’m… a civilian, you know?”
“Again.”
“I’ll get you a new weapon custom-made.”
“More.”
“I’ll compensate you with money.”
The brazen face. But the cast on his left ankle suggested it was more than just a simple sprain.
Whether he was deliberately trying to look in pain or just preferred walking on his own legs, Kang Dongha appeared limping with a crutch under one arm.
Of course, Lee Hwan didn’t help him. He considered it the last remaining piece of his humanity that he didn’t trip him.
Why leave the electric wheelchair and insist on this? Your grandfather manages court visits just fine in a wheelchair even when nothing’s wrong with him.
The parade of excuses and persuasion that started from that moment was a performance too painful to watch without tears. It was also irritating how he kept pretending his cast-wrapped leg was hurting when it couldn’t possibly be.
So eventually, Lee Hwan sat silently without responding, lost in thought. He wanted to let his anger simmer a bit longer, and besides, he was too mentally exhausted to choose his words carefully.
Lee Hwan had barely slept for two days straight after the gate incident.
More precisely, he couldn’t get any deep sleep. He would sleep for two or three hours, then wake up with a heated body, catching his breath, not knowing what he had dreamed about, and then fall asleep again from exhaustion.
For one thing, he had been analyzing that system message.
[You have found a fragment of causality.]
What the hell did that mean? Lee Hwan really wanted to grab the system by the collar if it had a physical form.
He barely understood causality itself. Why were there fragments of it too?
Was causality breaking into pieces? Or had it already shattered?
Or did it mean that traces of events already reversed and disappeared remained scattered, and with luck, he could obtain them to learn why the world had collapsed?
If so, that would be welcome news. He needed more information to avoid repeating past mistakes.
Moreover, the recent crisis situation had awakened his adrenaline. Lee Hwan re-experienced the feeling from right before the regression. The moment when his pupils dilated, his heart pounded, and he became sensitive to all stimuli.
And finally, there had been a change in his skill.
That fact seemed to grip and shake his mind more than anything else.
* EX Broken Clockwork (0 times)
– Regresses to a time point desired by the user.
– Allows for dual regression by designating a target.
– ! Operates using the target’s memories as components.
☞ □□□ □□□ □□ □ is returned.
– ! □□□□ □□ □□□ □□□□.
The newly revealed parts were things he already knew or had guessed. That he and Taesung had regressed together, and that Taesung’s memories had disappeared.
However, the encouraging part was the censored explanation that followed.
The skill “operates using the target’s memories as components.” And those memories, under certain conditions…
‘Is returned.’
Lee Hwan suddenly felt dizzy and his legs weakened. It was fortunate he was sitting in a café on Kang Dongha’s card, having just demolished two plates of strawberry yogurt cream cake and black cherry dark chocolate cake. If he had been on the street, he would have collapsed with a splash.
His mind had started floating since then. *Slurp*. Lee Hwan licked his lips, downed his Americano in one shot, and stupidly scanned the skill again.
He hadn’t seen it wrong. It clearly said “is returned.”
This meant that Taesung’s lost memories were being held somewhere without loss, and if Lee Hwan struggled and worked harder to achieve those unknown conditions, they would be unlocked and returned like a game reward.
Lee Hwan almost unconsciously burst into tears. He felt his eyeballs getting hot, so he wiped them with his hand and realized his eyes were moist.
The condition might be incredibly cruel, and he might not be able to do anything about it, but just knowing that the memories weren’t simply gone somewhere made him feel a knot in his stomach dissolve.
Lee Hwan wiped away his pooled tears with café tissues and went ahead and ordered three more slices each of banana chocolate mousse cake and salted caramel cheese cream cake.
He needed a bit of self-celebration. And he needed mental preparation. Because what would happen next would not be easy for him either.
There was no end to delving into details. Was the exclamation mark attached to the skill description a sign that there were additional explanations below?
If so, could more information be added later?
But with him already unable to sleep, thinking any harder would make his head explode like the stone club that had detonated at the previous gate. Lee Hwan didn’t add any more comments and simply buried that information within himself for now.
Believing that it would gradually be solved as he turned it over in his mind over time.
Two days passed like that, and today.
Seeing Lee Hwan’s more haggard appearance, Kang Dongha seemed to think it was because his injuries hadn’t healed.
“Unless you’re getting special tests, no one can tell you’re an Awakened person. I’ll tell our hospital, so why don’t you stop by?”
“What are you trying to say with all this gentle behavior?”
For someone who had just bolted, Kang Dongha was the type who would normally just hand over some money to settle things. Pretending to care about someone else’s health didn’t suit his character or conscience.
“What do you want this time?”
When Lee Hwan asked pointedly, Kang Dongha pretended his ankle hurt again, but seeing Lee Hwan’s coldly hardened expression, he shook his head and reverted to his usual shameless face.
“I think Kang Taesung saw you.”
“…”
“And while we’re at it, I wanted to make a suggestion.”
He’d just heard something he didn’t really want to know. Why did this guy always veer off in unexpected directions?
Lee Hwan wished he could put a cast on his own eardrums.
