Something about the Association? Betrayal?
He reopened the SNS account and scrolled down. The tone felt oddly familiar.
But this wasn’t Kim Nocha’s account. He’d already identified and monitored that one ages ago.
Shit. Looked like the Association’s axe had come swinging down on Kim Nocha too.
Getting pulled off a smoothly-running project would piss anyone off. Did they cut deeper than expected?
Cha Eui-sung tapped the back of his hand thoughtfully, then resumed messaging.
[The Association? Sigh. Nothing in this world comes easy, but they really take “grueling” to another level.]
[Right? Not just anyone can survive Association work.]
[Someone I know, like, super distant relative works there too, and even they say it’s brutal.]
[Wait, you know someone else there besides me..?]
[No, no, just something I overheard while out drinking with a friend. Something about work troubles and being excluded from a project…]
[Oh? You catch the name, by any chance?]
“So it’s a small circle.”
Judging by how the Association handled things—and the way this guy responded—fewer than five people had probably gotten the axe.
And he had a feeling Kim Nocha was one of them.
“Hm…”
“What is it?”
“Nothing, just thinking…”
Now that he thought about it, that bastard Kim Nocha had once bragged about something involving Oh Se-dan.
Totally drunk and puffed up, he’d gone on and on about landing some big gig…
“You know Oh Se-dan, right? Of course you do—he’s famous, one of our top people at the Association. I’m working on something huge with him right now. Like, major scale, real global-level stuff.”
“Shit…”
“What? What??”
“…”
“If you’re not gonna say anything, can you stop making those ominous little noises?”
Something felt off. It could just be a coincidence, nothing connected at all.
But then he remembered that talk about Oh Se-dan from the night before—and a prickling sense of dread hit him.
“Mr. Kim Jeong-baek.”
“Yeah?”
“Let’s say one day, out of nowhere, everything starts going sideways. Work’s not panning out, your results are tanking. What do you think?”
“Huh? Uh… just bad luck, I guess? Maybe it’s time to buy a lottery ticket?”
“And what if all the gigs you planned to land suddenly vanish, one after the other, without a trace?”
“Still feels like bad luck? Like maybe I was late? Maybe I wasn’t the only one gunning for it?”
“Right. That’s the normal reaction.”
But Oh Se-dan didn’t have that kind of laid-back brain.
How to put it…
He had conviction. That he was different. That he alone could do the work he did. Arrogance, really.
Not that he ever said it out loud. But Cha Eui-sung had worked right beneath the guy long enough to read that thought pattern like a book.
And Oh Se-dan had a knack for turning arrogance into opportunity, creating chances where none existed, and expanding his reach.
So if he was steadily progressing, doing his thing like always, then all of a sudden—
—if the world began to flow around him, like he wasn’t even there—
—if he kept missing out on chances by a hair’s breadth, left staring up at the ceiling time and again—
The Oh Se-dan that Cha Eui-sung knew…
He’d inevitably come to a conclusion that sounded like pure paranoia, but was eerily close to the truth.
[Someone out there is sabotaging me. Or the Association.]
“Hoo…”
That far, he’d already expected. Even Cha Eui-sung must’ve gone through a similar process at some point. If he tried putting himself in Oh Se-dan’s shoes for a moment, the guy would’ve gathered every single thing that had happened in recent weeks and singled out the ones that might’ve been tampered with. Then, he’d list them out and start searching for a common denominator—no matter how trivial.
Of course, he’d attach his own editorial paranoia to each instance, discarding or combining entries as needed. He might even set traps based on controlled variables— The simplest and cleanest method would be splitting the list of suspects and feeding each group different information. Cha Eui-sung had once uncovered a mole in Oh Se-dan’s camp using that very tactic.
“Shit.”
Cha Eui-sung cursed under his breath. The fingertips that had been idly tapping on the back of his hand now dug into the skin. Thinking back, Kim Nocha had been his only consistent source for intel on Association movements. Sure, the guy never leaked anything all that groundbreaking, but with someone like Oh Se-dan, even the smallest habits in a suspect’s daily life could become caltrops scattered across the path.
Still… this feels too fast.
What stood out—what bothered him—was that the assumption “someone is interfering” had emerged way too early. Cha Eui-sung, too, had to piece things together through good old-fashioned deduction. By the looks of it, Oh Se-dan didn’t even have enough data to suspect outside interference—unless he’d somehow connected the Taeju incident’s target vehicle and the collusion with the secret informant. And unless the man had suddenly regressed in time with an extra 60 IQ points tacked on… the pieces just shouldn’t have fallen into place that quickly.
Rustle.
Cha Eui-sung, still stewing over the missing link, looked up and saw Kim Jeong-baek tossing out some trash.
Trash…
Muttering that to himself, a light suddenly went on in Cha Eui-sung’s head. A catalyst. Yes, if there’d been a catalyst, it might’ve been possible. If something had strung all those fragmented events together—something that could glue scattered suspicions into one working theory.
Say, for example, Oh Se-dan had somehow discovered in the dungeon’s discarded trash—trash that even Cha Eui-sung missed during the first clear—a hint that the reward had gone missing. From that moment on, he would’ve assumed a saboteur was at play and started collecting intel centered on that premise. Overlaying the data—even just roughly—he’d have begun to recognize the patterns beneath the surface. Patterns that felt… disturbingly familiar.
A chill. Every hair on Cha Eui-sung’s body stood on end. And with that came a thrill—a rush like ice scraping down the back of his neck. From here on, all he needed to do was observe how his opponent moved. Exactly like how he’d bled Oh Se-dan dry right after regression.
Cha Eui-sung clenched his jaw and allowed a slight curl to reach his lips. The expression on his face was hard to pin down—half smirk, half rage.
“Mr. Kim Jeong-baek.”
At the sound of his name, Kim Jeong-baek startled and spun around.
“Why do you look like that? You’ve been scary as hell since earlier.”
“I think… I’ve hit on something. But if I try to explain it while thinking rationally, it sounds half like a delusion.”
“And?”
“So tell me this: those records about Oh Se-dan— Even if there’s a connection now, is that kind of document normally something you’d just find lying around?”
“Uh… That’s kind of a gray area. Hard to say for sure…”
“Then, hypothetically—whatever that system uses to define ‘security,’ What if the other side deliberately lifted those restrictions?”
“……”
“……”
“……”
“……”
Yeah. This might’ve just gone completely to shit.
With a strange smile creeping up, Cha Eui-sung slid his phone back into his pocket.
“I’m gonna head out. See you at the sports day.”
“Why are you leaving all of a sudden? You just dropped a bomb and walked off?”
“I promised it wouldn’t bring any trouble your way, didn’t I?”
“Why the hell are you smiling like that? You look way too cheerful—it doesn’t suit you!”
Now that his theory had reached this point, digging any deeper would just be a waste of time. Oh Se-dan was going to catch on sooner or later anyway—and as it turned out, he’d caught on blazingly fast.
In that case, there was nothing more Cha Eui-sung could do to stop it. All he could hope for now was that Oh Se-dan wouldn’t connect Go Yeong-won’s crash and the Assemblyman to the shadow figure pulling strings in the background.
The anxiety that had eaten away at him earlier now felt almost laughable. A strange calm washed over him. He offered a clumsy goodbye and stepped out of Kim Jeong-baek’s home.
Jeong-baek’s name’s on the investigation firm too, so I’ll have to negotiate that.
On paper and in person, Moon Tae-young was just an ordinary schoolteacher. As long as he avoided or properly handled Go Yeong-won, he shouldn’t get dragged into this mess.
But then again… what about the mission to save the world? What about helping with revenge, filling the gauge? How was he supposed to juggle all that?
Cha Eui-sung clenched his fist so tightly it felt like it might crack. It was like taking a metal pipe to the skull— Suddenly, all the tangled worries and scattered plans condensed into something brutally simple.
Take care of the Oh Se-dan problem, and help with revenge.
That alone would be enough to fry his brain. There’d be no room left to worry about anything else. As insane as it sounded, even if the gauge stayed frozen for a few months, he’d be fine with it.
Moon Tae-young’s fate at the end of all this… wasn’t the priority. But if he had enough time to care— Then all the better.
***
—Pa-pa-pa! Pararara! Di-ri-ring~ Good. Mo~r-ning!
“Ugh, fuck…”
Sitting on the bed, Cha Eui-sung snatched up his phone irritably. It was his first time using the alarm since buying this new device, and the default ringtone was infuriatingly obnoxious. Especially that “pa-pa-pa” part—like a brass instrument fanfare—it reminded him of some smug little parade announcing something he didn’t ask for. This cursed audio file deserved to be deleted from his phone forever. Grumbling under his breath, Cha Eui-sung shook off the grogginess and stood up.
It felt like he’d only sat down for a moment, but morning had already arrived. He’d skipped dinner and holed himself up in the room all night turning over thoughts in his head— So that meant he’d been at it for a solid twelve hours. He had checked in with Moon Tae-young a few times, but he hadn’t realized how completely time had slipped away.
He stepped into the living room and slung the pre-prepared outfit over his arm. He’d gone for something as clean-cut and reserved as possible, trying to come off like a quiet, well-behaved guy. His hair was neatly styled, not a strand sticking up, and he’d left his usual swept-back fringe hanging down. When he threw on the modest coat he’d bought just for this occasion—he wasn’t sure about a formal family meeting, but he definitely looked like the kind of friend any parent would approve of.
A ridiculously good-looking guy was smiling sweetly back at him from the mirror next to the door. Yeah. Somehow, some way—this was finally it. The day of reckoning.
Cha Eui-sung slung a small bag over his shoulder and trudged out the door.
