# Chapter 41
Lee Hwan was quietly drinking tea in the researcher’s personal office located midway along the second-floor corridor. The white cup had the words “For Experiment” printed in gothic font, making him seriously question whether he should drink from it, but the researcher who was drinking red tea from the same type of cup didn’t seem concerned.
“This? Haha, don’t worry. It’s new. We often use paper cups labeled ‘For Urine Sample’ too, don’t we?”
Who uses such things? That example made Lee Hwan feel even more uncomfortable.
“Actually, my work schedule has been so tight lately that even when I’m exhausted and just want to rest, I feel self-conscious about it. Since you’re here, I’m pretending to serve you tea while taking a little break, so don’t mind me.”
As a fellow worker who understood that sentiment, Lee Hwan nodded vaguely and drank the slightly cooled tea. Meanwhile, the researcher was looking with curious eyes at the lower part of the mask that had been placed on the side table.
The conversation paused again, creating an awkward atmosphere. Lee Hwan cleared his throat and asked something he wasn’t even curious about.
“Aren’t you going to open that right away?”
“It’s going to be work anyway. Paperwork, you know, paperwork.”
From touching it, it seemed thick enough to contain five or six sheets of paper. If that was the case, it seemed more convenient to just email it as an attachment rather than physically carrying it back and forth.
It appeared this building was still using paper documents in the 21st century. Kang Dongha also had a desk piled high with papers. Though he was constantly looking at his tablet PC as well.
“Recently, there’s been a lot of research leaks, so important documents aren’t even uploaded to the company intranet. We only check paper documents internally and then immediately shred them.”
As if reading Lee Hwan’s thoughts, the researcher answered with uncanny accuracy. Lee Hwan nodded and pretended to be uninterested as he drank his tea again. And he thought.
Why would Kang Dongha be entrusted with documents they cherish so much? The look in their eyes wasn’t particularly trusting.
Having finished his tea without leaving any, Lee Hwan stared blankly at the cup before finally standing up. With Kang Dongha absent and having already been spotted by the researcher, making it awkward to wander around today, there seemed no point in wasting more time here.
However, the researcher didn’t seem to think so, quickly standing up and following behind him.
“Leaving already? Um, since you’re here, why don’t you take a look around the laboratory before you go?”
Lee Hwan didn’t understand why he was making such an offer, but he had no reason to refuse. After all, once he got home, he had nothing to do except recite prayers like a monk or abuse his body with a massage chair.
Though not underground, he was curious about the research in Building D. According to publicly available information, Building C, as he’d just been shown, housed many departments researching equipment.
He’d heard Building A was for electronic devices, while Building B focused on researching monster byproducts. Building D, under Building B, would handle the more detailed or specialized aspects.
However, the place he entered with expectations contained only microscopes and unidentifiable containers. The researcher’s inadequate guidance kept suggesting different places without proper explanations whenever Lee Hwan tried to leave.
By the time Lee Hwan finally escaped Building D after this nutritionless tour, 40 minutes had already passed.
‘Why keep talking about things I don’t understand anyway…’
With the sky now entirely covered in a bloody sunset, Lee Hwan grumbled as he turned around. The researcher had almost seemed like he was trying to detain Lee Hwan at the end. Lee Hwan understood wanting to slack off, but this was excessive wage theft.
* * *
The gate entry time was only communicated the next day. Fortunately, it was on the weekend this time. Lee Hwan lost track of time day by day as he earnestly prepared to receive the skill stone.
By the time Saturday morning arrived, he had thought about it so much that his excitement had slightly faded.
At some point, he worried that he had become too sensitive, but considering recent events, being relaxed would have been stranger.
On an exceptionally clear and clean Saturday afternoon, when the bus stopped in the area around the gate, Lee Hwan trudged along for quite some time toward his destination.
Finally, after entering a path where human presence was so rare that not even a shadow could be seen, an overgrown open space appeared in the distance.
This area, which had once been a populated neighborhood, was now so empty that it seemed excessive even for a zombie apocalypse—all buildings were crumbling to pieces.
The ground, which had originally been concrete, had accumulated soil carried by rainwater for years, making a crunching sound with each step.
It was a space left behind due to entangled circumstances between the landowner and the state. Only traces of the assault team’s passage remained like a trail, indicating that humans hadn’t completely abandoned the place.
Passing through here and climbing the mountain, one could see the gate at the middle. That area was well-paved, and despite the absence of human presence, it smelled of people.
It was just as Lee Hwan entered the base of the mountain.
Rustle.
Startled by a faint footstep, Lee Hwan turned his head with a swish. While wild animals usually roam such places, the sound was too subtle to be an animal. Animals don’t step on grass like that. Sure enough, there was a person leaning against a tree in the distance.
Despite the considerable distance, Lee Hwan could easily recognize that face. His forward steps gradually slowed until they came to a complete stop.
Well-proportioned broad shoulders. Towering height. A solid body casually leaning against a tree and a well-defined profile under black hair. Even if seen while flying on a jet, it was unmistakably Taesung.
‘Why… here?’
Lee Hwan felt bewildered but somehow pleased, momentarily forgetting the situation and brightening up. Though he knew there was no reason for him to appear here, he also knew that the only person Taesung could be waiting for like that was himself.
However, when Taesung turned his head, that pleasure instantly transformed into anxiety and confusion.
His expression was neither smiling nor frowning, just blank. Only his wide-open eyes were overflowing with killing intent.
“!”
Everything happened in an instant. Taesung detached himself from the tree and strode toward Lee Hwan. Before Lee Hwan could even open his mouth to speak, a heavy fist struck his left cheek.
“Ugh-!”
Lee Hwan tumbled about half a turn on the gentle mountain path and fell flat. There was no time to counter or react. A high-pitched ringing sounded in his ears, and his vision blurred. Lightning-like pain shook his facial bones, momentarily stunning his mind.
Through his fallen position, Lee Hwan could see feet slowly walking toward him. Sneakers with some dirt on them under jeans. Feeling nauseous from his shaking vision, Lee Hwan thought.
What is this…? Taesung, whom I wasn’t even expecting, appears in a place I never imagined and suddenly hits me? I was on my way to the gate…
His thoughts didn’t go any further. His head was still dizzy.
“I knew you’d come here. It was worth monitoring each gate you skipped.”
A voice cold enough to form frost penetrated his ears. Lee Hwan raised his head with a dumb expression, but his body wouldn’t move properly, so he could only see the upper body.
Moreover, the voice was so chilling that he couldn’t bring himself to look at the face. His heart beat with an uneasy sound.
Before asking why he was hit, there was something he needed to do. Lee Hwan dazedly felt his face. The lower part of his mask had flown off somewhere without a trace, and the rest was half-turned to the side, barely hanging on.
Hastily turning the mask back over his face, his palms came away covered in blood just from that action.
Next was checking for injuries. When receiving such a strong impact, sometimes you can’t even feel the proper pain for a moment. Thanks to that, his entire face felt numb, so Lee Hwan couldn’t even determine how and where he was injured.
For a moment, forgetting that Taesung was right in front of him, he slowly touched his nose. It wasn’t broken, but blood was dripping profusely.
“…Was I that laughable to you? Enough to repay kindness with betrayal?”
The words spat out during this time made his heart sink with a thud. Even as Lee Hwan’s consciousness was flying away, he instinctively checked his teeth with his tongue while struggling to get up. Trying to restart his frozen brain, he barely managed to speak.
“What, kugh… do you mean?”
After spitting out blood-mixed saliva and asking back, Lee Hwan’s body was suddenly pulled upward. Taesung was grabbing him by the collar. His neck was choked by the collar, and his limp body staggered, barely touching the ground.
But immediately after, his back hit a thick tree trunk with a thud. Lee Hwan, suspended about half a palm’s width in the air, coughed and sputtered convulsively. With each shake, droplets of blood splattered forward.
“You wrote a good report.”
Still incomprehensible talk. Even his voice was calm. But Lee Hwan easily realized that the eyes scanning him were still deranged.
“As a similar case subject, time and cost reduction in drug response? Symptoms are clear and there’s almost no resistance, making it suitable for control experiments?”
He still had no idea what was going on. But he barely understood that Taesung was talking about experiments. Lee Hwan tried to assess the situation with a vacant expression, supporting himself with his trembling legs.
“Your skills at extracting and selling information are top-notch. How laughable my offer must have been to you.”
“No, that’s not—kugh.”
Even without fully understanding what was happening, Lee Hwan urgently denied those words. His split lip stung, making his body flinch involuntarily.
He’d never thought such things. Until recently, until this afternoon… no, until he started climbing this mountain path, Lee Hwan had been fairly happy. Because of that offer. Because of Taesung’s words. How could he convey this?
Lee Hwan struggled, putting strength into his legs, but nothing improved. Instead, the grip on his collar tightened, and suddenly he saw stars.
SMACK! With a mind-shaking sound, Lee Hwan’s head snapped to the side.
“Ah, ugh…!”
After being hit on the side of his head with a fist, the world spun around him. Lee Hwan was thrown to the ground without even making a proper sound.
However, he managed to regain his senses enough to grab his mask. Though it seemed like a blow struck in anger, somehow Taesung was holding back. That was the only reason he hadn’t passed out from such a brutal hit.
Lee Hwan, bleeding from either his nose or mouth, hurriedly grabbed his mask and turned his body. But soon, pain like his joints being wrenched overwhelmed him, and his body lay flat on the ground.
“AAAAH!”
