Clack—
Moon Tae-young opened the window. A rush of cold air swept in, cooling his overheated body.
The stale, lingering odor that had been wafting through the house began to dissipate little by little. Pressing his palm to his forehead, he worked to calm the ache throbbing in his lower half.
“Ugh…”
A faint groan echoed from the bedroom. He paused and listened. The weak moan that had continued for a moment quickly faded into the shallow, wheezy breaths of someone mumbling in their sleep.
He hadn’t expected to use the fever patch he’d bought on a whim so soon. Gritting his teeth, Moon Tae-young stared out into the pitch-black night for a long time.
It had been ages since error messages had popped up like that.
He’d long since learned to recognize that peculiar sensation trailing down the crown of his head—whenever someone approached the dungeon, that was the sign. But having the System interface actually appear because of it? That was a first.
It couldn’t fully access the systems of this planet. The messages he received from it—unofficial, broken, barely coherent—jittered and disintegrated mid-sentence. Just seeing them made it obvious: this entity wasn’t compatible with the System.
Everything it offered was crude. The idea that this thing was tied to his Regression felt almost absurd.
But still, it wouldn’t issue a warning without reason.
The ominous sensation washed over him like a catastrophe, freezing his body in place.
He knew he shouldn’t have done it—but Moon Tae-young skipped school.
A hastily thrown-together 25-minute video was the only thing keeping the wild bunch of kids occupied.
Sprinting from the classroom, evading the eyes of other staff and students, one person kept surfacing in his mind.
A man with slightly shaggy brown hair that rustled whenever the wind blew.
A man who kept his mouth shut, stoic and unreadable—until he saw him. Then, just faintly, the corners of his mouth would twitch, betraying some flicker of recognition.
A man who never once said he was glad to see him except in jest, and who seemed to carry as many burdens as Moon Tae-young himself. Always sick. Always hiding something.
…Why had Cha Eui-sung come to mind in that moment?
Why was it that even when he closed his eyes, the man’s image would linger beneath his lids?
Maybe he’d sensed something strange in him all along… but had turned a blind eye to it.
Huff… huff…
His bad premonitions always had a knack for coming true—always the exact opposite of what he wished for.
In that lonely, silent place, a young man sat collapsed, trembling like a leaf.
Moon Tae-young had layered on skill effects just in case. In the end, he didn’t even need them. Even if he’d burst through the trees making a racket, the man wouldn’t have noticed.
No traces, no clues of what he’d seen or what had happened. But Cha Eui-sung’s pale face, twisted in fear as he gasped for air, told enough of the story.
He was sitting right in front of the dungeon gate.
The lukewarm air gradually turned cold. Moon Tae-young exhaled slowly, his expression unreadable as he stared into the darkness.
He fundamentally distrusted everyone. Naturally, Cha Eui-sung had fallen into that category as well. He’d been on alert from the very first moment they met.
From the beginning, the man had felt… off. From the look in his eyes to the odd vibe surrounding him, Moon Tae-young had sensed—instinctively—that this person would upend his life.
His appearance, his personality, his background, the casual words he tossed out, the situations he ended up in—there wasn’t a single aspect that didn’t pique Moon Tae-young’s curiosity.
And those eyes. Clear, penetrating, like they could read right through someone. That unsettling awareness, that uncanny intuition.
It felt too precise. As if he’d appeared in his life tailor-made.
Suspicious, yes. But Moon Tae-young had forced himself to think positively.
He didn’t believe in fate—but he did believe in the possibility of a relationship that felt fated.
His parents had been like that, once.
Like two halves of a broken pottery shard that fit together perfectly—like something drawn by hand.
Maybe that fleeting memory of a daydream long since melted away was what had tripped him up.
“If you ever find yourself needing revenge for something… I’ll help you. No matter what.”
He recalled those unwavering eyes. And the fleeting glint of something cruel that flashed across them in that single instant.
Surely the man hadn’t known his circumstances.
But it hadn’t sounded like a throwaway line either.
And then—
The very next morning, Moon Tae-young had found Cha Eui-sung in front of the dungeon.
His tousled brown hair was a mess, and he looked like he’d just seen something he never should’ve. Terrified.
That was the moment.
That unmistakable certainty—too vivid to ignore—confirmed the paranoia he’d dismissed for so long.
Cha Eui-sung, for whatever reason, knows about the “Plan.”
“Revenge… huh.”
Was it really a coincidence that word had slipped out?
Moon Tae-young had long harbored suspicions that Cha Eui-sung might possess a mind-reading skill.
But after countless tests—accounting for every possible variable and anomaly—it became clear: he had no such talent. No ability to read minds or peer into someone’s heart. Just an extraordinary capacity for association and deduction.
He didn’t empathize or read others’ emotions per se, but he could predict them with uncanny precision. Like a seasoned detective or veteran agent.
So where had Moon Tae-young left a trace? What clue had he dropped, unknowingly, for Cha Eui-sung to follow and arrive at that conclusion?
Setting aside the sense of danger, it felt like a waste to let such a gift go unused. Maybe it was just his professional instincts talking.
“Ugh…”
A groan drifted out from the bedroom again. Moon Tae-young’s gaze shifted, his earlier excitement now subdued.
It was rare for Cha Eui-sung to fall asleep here. Even as he wiped the sweat from the man’s forehead, he’d trembled intermittently.
Whatever he’d been through, if that thing was involved, it couldn’t have been anything light.
And then there was the way he’d suddenly tried to run off, spouting nonsense excuses. That had been enough to chill Moon Tae-young’s head back to clarity.
……
The call had ended with a quiet click, and the calm he’d maintained shattered.
Even the faint voice he’d overheard—he couldn’t explain it, but it had made his skin crawl.
Cha Eui-sung wasn’t the type to go out often. So why the hell had he been talking to someone outside, in the middle of the night?
He tried calling him again—twice—but Cha Eui-sung never picked up.
The steady stream of replies he’d always given suddenly stopped cold that night.
Yeah… there was no doubt. He’d seen something related to Moon Tae-young.
That brilliant mind—far beyond what could be called average—had dragged a distant catastrophe right up to the present.
Accepting that, Moon Tae-young had half-resigned himself to the end of their connection.
But he hadn’t expected the runaway man to be crouching outside his house in the dead of night.
With that utterly lost look on his face.
He keeps dragging me into this…
Cha Eui-sung was far from innocent.
Sometimes he’d smile innocently like he didn’t know any better—but that wasn’t naivety. It was guile.
And he didn’t hesitate when it came to action, either.
No matter how long he’d agonized over a decision, once made, he carried it out decisively.
In short, if he had a reason to ignore someone’s call, he was the type who could easily smash his phone without a second thought.
“I saw what I needed to. That’s enough.”
And yet—when Moon Tae-young saw that faint smile on his worn-out face, he felt something that went beyond suspicion.
A quiet rush of satisfaction.
That this was where Cha Eui-sung had ended up after wandering all day—his side.
It was a strange feeling.
Was it really okay to feel possessive over someone?
Someone this dangerous—especially when it came to the Plan?
Tap, tap, tap…
Every time his finger brushed against the broken phone, an immoral impulse crept further into his mind.
He wanted to know.
Cha Eui-sung’s secrets. The veiled life he kept so carefully hidden.
But this… this wasn’t good.
Tearing his eyes from the cracked screen, Moon Tae-young pulled up the System interface.
Whether it was a curse or a blessing, a more urgent issue swept away the temptation.
[Special] ! !! (??)
—Converts a worthless world into ░░.
An ability far too grand and absurd for any human to wield.
“It” seemed less like something designed to balance this world and more like an invader—a force that tore through regulation and control.
Its goal was clear: the destruction of the world.
The blatant hunger glinting in its description said it all.
Staring at it, Moon Tae-young slowly looked down at his hand.
Somehow, it felt like Cha Eui-sung’s warmth still lingered in his palm.
Just touching his cheek had been enough for the man’s warm body to lean into him…
Moon Tae-young had no intention of being swayed by something as low-grade and chaotic as this gunshot-level destruction.
But if Cha Eui-sung really believed he’d Returned for revenge…
Then once it was over, he’d have no purpose left.
No plan for what came next. No idea how he was supposed to live.
The final memory from before his Regression was a prison sentence—empty of hope, devoid of will.
And yet—
“I want to live…”
Lately, whenever he looked at his skills, that bloody night would resurface.
The night someone tried to save someone else and took a deep stab wound to the side.
That night, Cha Eui-sung had been drugged, limbs slack, and even as his consciousness slipped away, he kept trying to crawl outside.
When Moon Tae-young grabbed his leg to stop him, the man jolted like he’d been electrocuted. Fought.
Over and over, he’d mumbled:
“Save me. I want to live. I want to live.”
That limp, desperate whisper still echoed in Moon Tae-young’s mind.
Could his vengeance—which he’d long since deemed impossible—have something to do with that night?
“……”
Bzzz—
Damn it.
Going in circles, Moon Tae-young finally gave in to the temptation.
He pulled a bundle of cords from the bottom drawer of his desk and connected the broken phone to his monitor with practiced ease.
Blink.
The security system appeared on the monitor instead of the screen. The touch function was shot, but everything else still worked.
Without a word, Moon Tae-young hooked it up to his PC and ran the unlock program.
Good thing it was an older model.
Before long, the security broke, and after a sequence of tasks, he had full access to the phone’s data.
But the moment he tried to open the internal files—
“…!”
Crackle!
A flood of windows popped up in an instant and vanished, then the PC crashed.
He tried restarting it, but the OS wouldn’t boot.
“Seriously?”
No wonder the man had just left the phone lying around and fallen asleep.
Maybe he never had a judgement lapse to begin with.
Moon Tae-young let out a helpless laugh and pressed his hand to his forehead.
That one unexpected counterblow made him chuckle in disbelief.
It felt like Cha Eui-sung—shivering in his sleep—was grabbing him by the collar and yelling: Who the hell do you think you are, pitying me?
…He really was a provocative person in every sense.
Moon Tae-young didn’t particularly enjoy this situation, but it was impossible to deny that it fascinated him.
Ignoring the heat that had begun to creep along his spine, he closed his eyes and drew in a long, steady breath.
