#075
I hardened my face at the suggestion to take both of them into the dungeon.
“No.”
I wanted to create a team to be independent, but having both of them with me would defeat the purpose. When I firmly refused, Hyun Dowoon said to me:
“Then, at least go together for about ten times. If you can clear them alone without any mental instability during that time, I’ll acknowledge it.”
In other words, if I didn’t change my mind now, he would do everything to prevent the team creation.
I pouted my lips and then nodded. Although it didn’t seem likely that an incident would suddenly occur without a triggering event, I understood their concern since depression can indeed worsen without any warning signs.
“Alright. But please recommend someone else.”
If it became widely known that two S-rank Espers were accompanying me just after my team was formed, it was obvious that there would be gossip.
Wanting to be clear about this, I spoke distinctly, and Hyun Dowoon and Shin Haejun nodded. I wasn’t sure what kind of person they would recommend, but it was better than having the two of them follow me in and spread rumors.
‘No matter how much they control the media, word of mouth spreads.’
It was wise not to create situations that could lead to gossip in the first place.
The two seemed to want to explore the dungeon intimately with me, but when I firmly stated my opinion, they finally agreed to follow it.
“Now, shall we discuss for a moment why the dungeon exit portal isn’t appearing and how we can make it appear?”
“What can we possibly discuss when we have no clues?”
Shin Haejun responded sharply to Hyun Dowoon’s words. For a moment, Hyun Dowoon’s and my eyes met. Then I realized he was suggesting we try to find clues based on the memory of being trapped inside the entrance portal. It was a secret we couldn’t talk about in front of Shin Haejun yet.
‘If I ask him to step out for a moment… will he get angry?’
I looked at Shin Haejun with a complicated expression. After venting earlier, I felt a bit better… but I still didn’t know how to face Shin Haejun, who had chosen Kim Sehyun.
The word ‘breakup’ briefly crossed my mind, but I wanted to think about it after we got out of the dungeon. It was a difficult environment to calmly sort out my feelings right now.
“Hm? Someone…”
“Huh? What’s that sound?”
Suddenly, both of them made puzzled expressions as if they had heard a sound from outside.
“I think we need to go out for a moment?”
“It seems something has happened.”
Hyun Dowoon and Shin Haejun said, looking at me. What happened outside?
We opened the door with puzzled expressions and went out to the courtyard. There, Kim Sehyun was standing and calling everyone.
***
Kim Sehyun, who had been forced into the room by the combined efforts of Lee Jaeha, Shin Haejun, and Hyun Dowoon, immediately kicked the sofa in the living room with an expressionless face.
‘This can’t be happening.’
He wasn’t someone who should be treated like this. He thought he had finally become the protagonist!
Kim Sehyun remembered when the world had completely turned upside down. One day, suddenly, the world stopped. And then, he started hearing strange voices.
This won’t do. This needs to be scrapped.
It would be better to… change the protagonist again.
After hearing a woman’s voice full of worry intermittently, the life of 23-year-old Kim Sehyun was completely overturned.
When he opened his eyes, he had returned to being five years old. It wasn’t something an ordinary human would experience. But for some reason, Kim Sehyun didn’t realize this fact at first.
He realized that he had regressed for some reason, and that the world before and after the regression was completely different, when he met ‘Lee Jaeha’.
After seeing Lee Jaeha who entered the orphanage where he was, Kim Sehyun slowly realized that he had regressed.
‘Huh? This feels familiar…’
At first, that was the extent of his impression. Just a child who somehow felt familiar. Based on this familiarity, Kim Sehyun became friends with Lee Jaeha.
Lee Jaeha was a bright, kind, and cheerful child like sunshine. He had enough reasons to be loved to the point where he would look like the protagonist wherever he was.
But strangely enough, people didn’t particularly like Lee Jaeha. Even young children didn’t like Lee Jaeha. It was truly a strange thing. Kim Sehyun felt that it was really ‘strange’.
Of course, people didn’t particularly like Kim Sehyun either. So Kim Sehyun and Lee Jaeha clung to each other.
‘Huh? Huh?’
When content about dungeons and awakened ones appeared on TV, Kim Sehyun felt it was really strange, as much as when he saw Lee Jaeha.
A world where monsters appear, it was truly a strange thing. Surely in the world he used to live in, things like monsters or dungeons never happened-
When he thought that far, a realization suddenly struck Kim Sehyun’s mind. That he had regressed, and that the world before and after the regression had changed so much.
He also realized why he found it strange that Lee Jaeha wasn’t loved. He clearly knew the Lee Jaeha from before the regression. The image of Lee Jaeha loved by everyone.
Before the regression, Lee Jaeha was a lovely and beautiful person with pretty eye smiles. Even as a child, Lee Jaeha was cute and radiant, but when grown up, he truly caught everyone’s eye like a fully bloomed flower. While Kim Sehyun was gloomy and unnoticeable to anyone, Lee Jaeha had a charm that instinctively attracted people.
Kim Sehyun was a part-time worker at the same cafe where Lee Jaeha worked. Although they worked at the same cafe, their working hours and days were slightly different, so they didn’t overlap much. With that charm, Lee Jaeha got entangled with chaebol (wealthy business people). A perfect handsome chaebol coming to the cafe and dating – it sounds like a novel, but it really happened.
‘But dungeons? Awakened ones?’
He could only blankly wonder why the world had changed so much and what had happened to him.
Until then, Kim Sehyun didn’t know what would happen to him. Although he realized he had regressed, Kim Sehyun was still just an orphan, and only Lee Jaeha, another orphan, was by his side.
The orphanage wasn’t a very good place for the two children to live. The teachers were lethargic and indifferent to the children, and the children always felt life was tough. Kim Sehyun thought his life was still difficult even though he had regressed.
There was no advantage to being a regressor. Even if he wanted to make money through lottery, stocks, or anything, he couldn’t remember anything useful, and he was too young to properly earn money. The age of independence was approaching soon, but it was difficult to know what to do.
Such a life changed when he manifested as a guide at the age of twenty by chance.
I must have regressed for this. With such expectations, Kim Sehyun went to the Awakened Management Center and received an F-rank assessment. Moreover, he was an F-rank with even lower guiding power than the average F-rank.
An F-rank awakened one was not much different from an ordinary person in the awakened world. Kim Sehyun desperately wanted to become a higher rank. To think he had regressed only to end up in the same situation as before. He didn’t want to live such a miserable life.
‘Those people…!’
After becoming an awakened one, as he became more interested, he learned about the existence of Hyun Dowoon and Shin Haejun. Before the regression, they were men entangled with Lee Jaeha, but after the regression, there was no connection. However, the two who were chaebol before were still chaebol even after the regression, and they were active as S-rank Espers.
As soon as he saw the two men who were once Lee Jaeha’s lovers, Kim Sehyun wanted to catch their eye somehow.
Anyway, Lee Jaeha was an ordinary person, and Kim Sehyun was an awakened one. Lee Jaeha liked Kim Sehyun as a friend, but to Kim Sehyun, Lee Jaeha was an ordinary person who reminded him of his past self who only gloomily admired great people.
While thinking about wanting to have the two men, Kim Sehyun admitted for the first time that he disliked Lee Jaeha. He even thought it would have been better if Lee Jaeha hadn’t existed when he regressed.
‘I’ve been feeling strangely feverish lately. My head is hot.’
Contrary to Kim Sehyun’s wishes, nothing happened to him and Lee Jaeha until they were twenty-one. Then one day, Lee Jaeha started complaining about suffering from a heat coming from inside.
Kim Sehyun instinctively realized that Lee Jaeha was about to manifest.
He didn’t want that. He didn’t want to see Lee Jaeha become an awakened one. As he was thinking this…
It’s better for the protagonist to be S-rank after all. It seems more dramatic to rank up from F-rank.
Suddenly, he heard the voice he had forgotten. After hearing the voice that seemed to echo inside his brain, Kim Sehyun saw Lee Jaeha manifesting in a room where they were alone.
Guiding power was overflowing from Lee Jaeha’s entire body. It was even fuller power than the A-rank guide he had briefly passed by at the Awakened Management Center before.
‘Is Lee Jaeha the protagonist again, not me? Why did you make me regress if this was going to happen!’
In a state of despair, Kim Sehyun shouted with a voice full of anger. And with the sole intention of wanting to stop Lee Jaeha from manifesting, he approached and strangled him. It was an action taken because he knew that one doesn’t remember anything at the moment of manifestation.
And surprisingly, at the moment of strangling, the power inside Lee Jaeha’s body entered Kim Sehyun’s body.
He realized very naturally that he had stolen Lee Jaeha’s power and become S-rank. And what remained in his mind was not guilt for stealing his friend’s power… but the thought that he was the protagonist of this world.
The words ‘The protagonist is an S-rank who ranked up from F-rank’ remained strongly in his mind.
‘That power was mine to begin with anyway.’
Kim Sehyun didn’t feel sorry for Lee Jaeha at all. It was just that the power he was supposed to receive had briefly stayed with Lee Jaeha, like an accident.
Now, he was the only one who would have a shining time.
As he thought, Lee Jaeha became F-rank, and he rose to S-rank. Kim Sehyun, who suddenly became an S-rank with tremendous guiding power, received attention from all over. There was nothing he was afraid of.
Except for the fact that he couldn’t properly use his power without Lee Jaeha by his side, and only the power from when he was F-rank moved.
‘Lee Jaeha must stay by my side forever.’
Until he found a way to use his power fully without Lee Jaeha, he could never let Lee Jaeha go.
Of course, Lee Jaeha, who considered Kim Sehyun his only friend, stayed by his side with just a simple request from Kim Sehyun to be together.
Now it’s time for the protagonists to meet.
At least until he was chosen as Shin Haejun’s pair guide along with this voice, Lee Jaeha was Kim Sehyun’s faithful friend.
Author: Hyacinthus B
Hyacinthus
