# Chapter 51
The feeling of missing Taesung from before the regression was now strangely separating itself. He still missed him. But at the same time, he was curious about the current Taesung.
Of course, it was awkward given the many times he’d been hit and knocked down. Somehow, since having his neck strangled, he felt like he had no brakes, which was frightening. But… he was worried.
As his thoughts reached that point, his mind, which had been separating and distinguishing between the two, began to mix strangely. Lee Hwan didn’t understand his own feelings.
Yes, that thought was the problem.
‘I wonder if this situation happened similarly to Kang Taesung before the regression.’
That sympathy, that worry was the problem. Even he himself was still carrying scars, so having compassion for someone else felt complacent. Nevertheless, Lee Hwan couldn’t coldly cut away that thought.
Plop. A few drops of coffee fell onto the table. The gray newsprint absorbed the liquid, creating brown stains on a corner article.
[66% of Private Companies Reveal Worst Security Holes]
Glancing at the newspaper article, Lee Hwan bit his lip and tried to clear his cluttered mind. There was still much to do. The road ahead was long.
‘Let’s just deal with the urgent matters first.’
Having steeled his resolve, Lee Hwan downed the steaming coffee in one go, turned down the TV volume, and called somewhere. His closed lips became a bit stiff.
Ring ring. The dialing tone sounded, and soon a slightly hoarse baritone was heard from the other end.
“Yes, CEO. I received the sample well. Ah, yes. Yes. You must have been annoyed by my rushing, but lately I’ve been hurrying because of investment attraction.”
Lee Hwan’s voice was completely different from the atmosphere just moments ago—bright and cheerful. He continued with a long, friendly laugh while sending his greetings. However, his mood still seemed strange as he kept scratching the wet newspaper with his fingernails.
“Come on, as a businessman, I know the CEO. How could I have found you without knowing about your patent? Hahaha. Yes, of course.”
As the pleasantries dragged on, Lee Hwan, who was pretending to chat happily, briefly checked the time. The time to go to work was approaching. In other words, the time of reckoning.
“Haah… What? No, no.”
Lee Hwan unconsciously sighed but quickly corrected his attitude. While continuing the conversation with the person on the other end, he brought over a sports bag and opened it wide. Clothes and shoes were stuffed inside one after another.
“I’m sorry to say this to you, CEO, but honestly, even if you test our security with that, our product won’t be breached! That’s what I think. Well, we’ll know who wins when we try it. Haha.”
Glasses case, old black shoes, white coat… Every item had been prepared in advance over the past few days.
“Besides what I paid in cash that day, there’s no additional fee, right? That’s good. Yes, yes, I’ll contact you if there’s a problem. Yes, take care.”
When the call ended, Lee Hwan, as if he had never smiled, stuffed a few more miscellaneous items into the bag with a worried face. His deeply furrowed brow suggested he was about to let out a long sigh.
Indeed. At any other time, it might have been different, but now wasn’t the time to keep thinking about Taesung. He decided to postpone his worries about him for later.
Today, Lee Hwan planned to crawl underground.
He wanted to expose everything, but since that research facility seemed to always have someone staying there day and night, Lee Hwan intended to quickly infiltrate during lunch hour and look around for about 5 minutes before leaving.
Fortunately, thanks to various knowledge from the future, preparing for this wasn’t difficult. However, whether it was anticipation from gaining new information or worry about getting caught, something was poking at his heart, making him anxious. Moreover, since he wanted to take care of this along with visiting Dongha, his body was itching to get it done without waiting for him to be called.
‘Well, just sitting around worrying won’t solve anything.’
Lee Hwan shook his head to brush away all his concerns, shouldered his bag, and strode out of his home.
* * *
Building D officially had only one basement floor, but in reality, it was a building with a hidden underground level. To go down there, one had to pass through the first basement floor.
The elevator operated down to the first basement floor, but since it was already the first floor when entering the building, many people seemed to use the stairs. Of course, since not many people were heading to the first basement floor in the first place, the stairwell was usually empty.
‘The emptiness actually makes me feel more at ease.’
For the past few days, Lee Hwan had been walking around the building during lunch, observing as many researchers as possible. Pretending to drink coffee, he watched their behavior and examined their attire. Whenever someone headed toward the corridor with stairs, he paid special attention. While doing this, he had camped out in the open rest area on the first floor wearing his mask, to the point that Dongha had complained.
‘How many more times do I have to hear that I should take a lost child?’
That tone was so unpleasant that he had glared at him with blazing eyes.
Anyway, after spending several days gathering information, what he found out was that regardless of whether they were researchers or not, everyone came to work in ordinary clothes and just wore white coats over them.
He had expected them to always be wearing white clothes in a place that smelled like a dental clinic. It was a new realization that even people who had gone through master’s and doctoral programs before coming to Naru weren’t much different. Rarely, some people had different attire during commuting and lunch hours, but that was just a matter of dressing up outside and changing into comfortable clothes inside.
And among all these observations, what Lee Hwan focused on most were the people going down to the basement. Among them, someone with a height between the late 170cm and early 180cm range, with a body shape similar to Lee Hwan’s.
‘I’m going to switch places with a human, you bastards.’
If there were only researchers in Building D and he stood out just by sitting quietly, then pretending to be a researcher would do the trick. However, to fool the surveillance cameras, he needed to replace someone who was already there.
The time was again lunch hour. Lee Hwan fidgeted with the bag he had brought in the morning. Since field work was scheduled again from the next week, today was the only suitable time.
However, since it was a very dangerous place that couldn’t be handled carelessly, Lee Hwan had thoroughly examined Building D multiple times.
When he had inspected the stairs previously, there didn’t seem to be any CCTV. Of course, as soon as he left the stairwell, all his actions would be recorded by cameras, but the important thing was that there was a narrow blind spot.
‘Well, it seems like someone deliberately removed the CCTV from the stairs.’
At noon, when researchers disappeared for meals, the building would probably be empty. This meant that if someone who entered the stairwell from the first-floor corridor changed into Lee Hwan at the first basement floor, it wouldn’t be easy to notice unless a face was captured by CCTV.
However, despite being a simple condition, finding the right person unexpectedly took quite some time. There was almost no one among the underground researchers who even remotely matched the criteria. Moreover, the person he finally found seemed to work on alternate days with night shifts, making their routine inconsistent and giving him a headache trying to figure out their working hours.
‘Did researchers originally do night shift rotations? So annoying.’
The researcher he had barely chosen based on minimal conditions had bushy black hair, a hunched posture, and appeared to have no muscle at all.
Fortunately, his hair wasn’t balding. How would one even disguise themselves as bald? Compared to that, body shape wouldn’t be noticeable once covered with a white coat over clothes, and posture could be mimicked by just hunching his spine like him.
The black pants he wore every day looked comfortable but weren’t made of particularly expensive fabric, suggesting they were bulk-purchased home shopping clothes. He didn’t seem sociable as he always moved alone, and appeared to return earlier than anyone else after meals, with a cup of coffee in hand.
He was a decent target, found with some care.
‘He should be coming soon…’
The printed menu showed bulgogi for the day. Naru, where all meat side dishes were delicious. However, Lee Hwan felt like he’d lost his appetite.
As soon as his office colleagues got up in a group, he picked up his bag and quietly followed behind, then split off midway and headed to a different site. As usual, he passed through the research building wearing a mask, then took it off in the bathroom on the first floor of Building D.
Originally, he had planned to destroy his white mask and wear any other mask. However, it was uncomfortable to attract attention with a sudden image change, and the ones sold outside had poor fit, so this time he got another new one from Dongha, who had threatened him not to mess around or he’d die.
The satisfied look on Dongha’s face as he handed over the new one was irritating. He seemed to have prepared extras from the beginning, as if he knew something like this would happen.
Lee Hwan wiped the slight sweat from his forehead, put on the wig, changed into the clothes he had prepared, and wore the white coat over them. Coming out like that, he looked exactly like a researcher, and for the first time since entering the building, no one was paying attention to him.
‘This feels strange.’
Although no one suspected him, the back of his neck had been tingling since earlier, with his instincts sounding an alarm. It didn’t seem like he was tense, but his heart was beating fast.
Lee Hwan could easily realize. That damn intuition had visited him again. His animal-like sense. Or big data. When he had this feeling, even if it was hard to prove scientifically, there was definitely something waiting for him. Lee Hwan forcibly buried the strange feeling by pressing his index finger with his thumb.
After waiting for about 30 minutes like that, a familiar visual was walking into the corridor with the stairwell.
‘…Target.’
Spotting the researcher, Lee Hwan naturally turned his body. Pretending to have no interest in that direction, he tapped his phone and then followed right behind the passing target. The researcher headed towards the stairs, walking slowly without any thought of looking around.
Click, thud!
The stairwell door closed with a heavy sound. Lee Hwan and the researcher went down the stairs in a single file, like riding an escalator. As expected, he was the type who didn’t care about others, continuing to stare at his phone even with someone right behind him. The iced coffee in the slightly tilted plastic cup sloshed with each step.
‘Now, this will sting a bit.’
Whack!
Suddenly, Lee Hwan’s hand struck the back of the researcher’s head. With a sound like being hit by a baseball bat, the researcher’s body collapsed weakly to the floor.
“Huh!”
Lee Hwan first caught the falling coffee, then lifted the falling body and walked down to the first basement floor landing.
‘Did I control my strength properly…? Hmm. He’s still breathing.’
Though he felt uncomfortable hitting a civilian, he had no guilty conscience. According to Lee Hwan’s expectations, the researchers going down there were mostly deserving of even worse. The scene of Dongha being terrified about the research-related work still came to mind.
‘Cowardly bastard.’
It upset him to think that his anger seemed less frightening than whatever that was.
Splash. Lee Hwan spilled a little water he had brought on the floor and placed the researcher’s foot on it. Then when he leaned the body he was holding backward, the water splashed forward, creating the appearance as if someone had slipped.
Only then did Lee Hwan place the unconscious researcher on the floor. The awkwardly collapsed posture looked just like a flyer on the ground of a busy district on Saturday evening.
Lee Hwan searched through his belongings, pulled out an ID card, and then flipped the researcher’s eyelid.
‘His eyeballs haven’t rolled back yet.’
A small, uniquely shaped camera came out of Lee Hwan’s coat pocket. He used it to flash a couple of times to constrict the relaxed pupils, and took several pictures of the researcher’s eyes.
‘Done.’
Only then did a sigh escape. He was done with this person now. Lee Hwan swung and threw away the coffee the researcher had been drinking.
Splash! The cold coffee poured abundantly over the researcher’s body.
‘That’ll be refreshing.’
As he twisted the doorknob to open it, Lee Hwan muttered to himself. It was fortunate that summer was approaching.
