Chapter 248

Clean up later. 

First, he needed proper confirmation. Sa-yoon shoved the fragments of information floating like buoys in his mind to one side and immediately ran to find the fourth fragment, to get proof. He ripped his hand free from Geon-joo’s grasp and ran like a madman. A shocked Han Geon-joo gave chase, but he was no match for a half-crazed Sa-yoon running at full power.

Even if they were both S-Class, the gap created by years of experience was not so easily closed.

“Hyung!”

He didn’t even glance back at the call. No, it would be more correct to say he didn’t hear anything at all. The distance between them widened rapidly. A cluster of light appeared before him. He reached out his hand, and the memory began to play.

The memory shown by the fourth fragment was of his second life, after the regression. The boy, having returned to his middle school days, is horrified when he sees the system window. As if he is seeing it for the first time. It was just as he’d expected. After regressing, the memories of the previous life were erased.

His stomach immediately twisted. In books and games, the world was full of people who regressed and knew the future, so why was it that he was granted the miracle of regression but not the memories? He must have repeated this life who knows how many times, so why now, of all times, was it showing him these forgotten memories, calling them Shards of Truth?

Whatever the case, one thing was certain. The System was a fucking psychopath. It was undoubtedly enjoying the confusion and bewilderment he was experiencing right now.

Everything else was a blur. Amidst the swirling questions, Sa-yoon stared at the boy with hostile eyes. The boy’s life, even after regressing, was identical to his first. His parents died, the soldier died, and the boy, too, grew into a young man and died. It was inevitable. Everything had flowed exactly as it had in the first life; his responses and the System’s directives were no different.

If you forget everything, then in the end, nothing changes.

It wasn’t even his life anymore, but a sense of futility seeped into him. Just then, the fragment, which he thought would end after showing the second life, began to play again. The third life. Sa-yoon died again. A death identical to his second in every single detail.

The fourth life. The fifth. The sixth. Sa-yoon’s eyes trembled as he observed the repeated deaths. He had died many times, but this was the first time he had watched someone with his own face die so closely, so many times. He was suddenly reminded of Han Geon-joo’s plea for him not to die in front of him. The crease in his brow deepened in an instant.

Did you see something like this?

A question he had never once considered now bloomed in his mind.

What kind of expression did I have on my face all those times I died? Was it that kind of expression?

So devoid of regret. With eyes that seemed to have given up on everything.

Like a doll…

Sa-yoon held his breath and watched as the black eyes, which held no more emotion than if they were staring at an inanimate object, closed. The regression began again.

The seventh life.

From this point, as if the System had realized something, the development of the scene began to change.

The System, which had first taught the orphaned boy how to survive alone in the back alleys like a mother teaching her young to survive in the wild, now shoved the dazed boy straight into a Gate without any preamble. It created a Gate right in front of him and urged him to enter.

When the bewildered boy did nothing, the System threatened to break his arm if he didn’t go in. The frightened boy, on the verge of tears but not knowing what else to do, entered the Gate. Even though it was only an E-rank Gate, he came out after struggling for half a year. After that, he began to refuse all of the System’s commands.

It was ridiculous for him to say it, but the boy’s attitude was exactly that of someone who was sulking. It wasn’t that strange. After the boy had lost his parents and the soldier, the System had, in one way or another, become his conversation partner. He had found an unconscious comfort in its presence.

To feel betrayed by such an existence—it was no wonder the naive sixteen-year-old had fallen into despair.

And then the boy died. Unlike his previous six lives, in his seventh, he died before even reaching adulthood. He had been ignoring the System’s words when a crazy homeless man ran up from behind and stabbed him to death. The boy closed his eyes as he watched the old man cry, begging him to follow his own son to the afterlife. The eyes that had held the most varied emotions of all his seven deaths vanished just like that.

The regression began again.

The eighth life.

The System no longer ‘spoke’ to the boy. It only began to issue ‘commands.’

As if there was no communication between them at all.

There was no conversation, only unilateral directives. The boy never sulked at the System, never felt disappointed. You don’t sulk at an object. Unlike before, the boy began to live his life and follow the directives with nothing to rely on but his own weak and insignificant body.

That was the end of the fourth fragment. When he opened his eyes, Han Geon-joo, who should have been far behind him, was now holding him in his arms.

He held his breath for a moment, then, just as it became desperate, he exhaled slowly. The feeling of suffocation told him he had returned to reality. As that realization set in, his mind began to spin violently.

Let’s sort this out.

He had been the one to accept the System when it first descended, and he had been the one to wish to go back to the beginning. Because of that wish, he had been dying and starting over with the System for who knows how many times. And all of it without any memory.

The two wrong choices he had made at the very beginning had snowballed into his present. Over the repeated lives, the System had learned how to handle him, and it was now pushing him to become an S-rank in the shortest time possible.

And what does it want me to do after I become an S-rank?

He narrowed his eyes and searched his memory. What had he done in this life after becoming S-rank? He’d been through so much he couldn’t remember. If he considered only what the System had ordered, it was establishing the Night Rats, destroying Scorpion, and killing high-ranking Awakened. Was there anything else?

For what purpose is the System raising me as a villain and making me do these things?

It was going to the trouble of observing him through countless repeated lives, staking everything on raising him. He couldn’t fathom the reason. Sa-yoon touched his lips, feeling the heat rise in his head from his racing thoughts, and sighed.

Amidst the confusion, the one thing he realized with crystal clarity was that it had all been his choice.

Accepting the System, and choosing this godforsaken life.

The questions that remained were why it was returning his memories now, of all times, and why in this life he had become an immortal who revived upon death instead of returning to the beginning. If what he had learned so far was any indication, the answers to those questions would also be in the Shards of Truth. His eyes pierced the darkness. He had to find the fifth fragment. Sa-yoon, moving unnaturally like a puppet on a string, tried to stand, but collapsed before he could take two steps.

“Ah.”

He made a small sound and stared at the floor. He could see his own legs, pathetically sprawled out. He had lost all his strength. His consciousness flickered in and out. His vision blinked on and off, like a dying lightbulb. As he stared blankly with unfocused eyes, a hand grabbed his arm.

Or maybe it had been there from the start.

The hand holding his arm tried to pull him to his feet. Sa-yoon didn’t get up. It wasn’t a choice; his legs simply wouldn’t move. His body felt as heavy as if it were made of lead, and his head was heavy too. He had felt something similar once before, and he instinctively covered his nose. He hadn’t inhaled any strange drugs, so why was his mind so foggy? Was this another one of the System’s tricks?

He sat there, sprawled on the ground, and stared into the darkness. His arm kept being pulled upwards. I don’t have time for this. He had to find the fifth fragment and resolve his questions. What he had to do was clear, but his will was not.

Do I really need to know?

The question broke the surface of his mind, and his lips parted.

“Kwon Sa-yoon!”

“…”

His ears, which had been muffled and dull as if filled with water, suddenly cleared, and the voice stabbed through. Ah. The sound pierced straight into his consciousness, and he lifted his head. He saw a pale Han Geon-joo. He was always fair-skinned, but now he was so white he looked strange, as if his face had been coated in chalk dust. He tried to ask him if he was sick, but no answer came.

“I called you so many times, why didn’t you answer?”

Coincidentally, Geon-joo voiced the same thought.

Why is he saying what I was going to say?

Sa-yoon scowled in confusion, then turned his head as a pain shot through his shoulder. His shoulder was being pulled up high. His gaze slowly followed his skin upwards and saw his own right arm, held fast by Geon-joo. He stared at the point of contact. With someone holding him, the sense that this place was reality, not the world of the fragments, grew stronger.

Was it because he had been going back and forth between reality and a virtual space? Or was it because his blurred memories had returned? He wasn’t sure which, but he knew that his mind was not in a sane state. Sa-yoon reached out a hand. He was better off when Geon-joo was near, so he figured he would get his help to stand up and stick close to him until his head cleared. He didn’t like it, but it was the only way he would be able to see the fifth fragment.

Maybe I’m just exhausted. Should I drink a potion?

As his thoughts continued to drift, Sa-yoon tried to grab Geon-joo’s arm. Two hands holding on would be better than one. The sense of reality would be doubled. It was a simple, hopeful calculation.

“…I’m scared.”

The words were spoken much more quietly than before. And yet, that one phrase rang in his mind more intensely than a thousand others, and his hand froze. He saw Han Geon-joo’s deathly pale face. Only then did Sa-yoon notice that his hand was trembling.

Han Geon-joo was trembling.

Did he tremble often?

Before he could even search his memory, his red lips moved once more.

“I’m scared… Can’t you just, tell me something? Why you’re like this, what in the world you saw. How I’m supposed to help you… Can’t you at least tell me something like that?”

…Every time you faint and wake up, you get a little stranger, and it makes me anxious.

His added words were faint, but one thing was clear.

Han Geon-joo was trembling. He had said he was scared, his voice shaking. Sa-yoon unconsciously lowered the hand he had been about to reach out and slowly closed and opened his eyes. After blinking a few times, his vision cleared. What he had to do also became clear.

I have to get you out of here.