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Chapter 90
“I was waiting.”
When he heard those words, Sunghyun felt his heart drop.
“Want me to guess what you’re going to say?”
He wasn’t guilty of anything, but it felt like he was, like he did something wrong to his lifelong savior. Like… he was too late.
“No, I will say it. I apologize for being late.”
Hyukjin shrugged and smiled, then patted Sunghyun on the shoulder. “Not at all.”
Hyukjin didn’t think Sunghyun was late at all. In fact, he thought it was rather fast. He had always known what Sunghyun’s disposition and personality were like. The lad didn’t need to feel like he did something wrong or feel guilty just because he didn’t say it right away.
“It’s not like you have an obligation to tell me.” Hyukjin fully discerned Sunghyun’s feelings, almost like a mind reader. “You have no obligation to tell me what you got there. If you were to feel any obligation, it would be because I’m your benefactor.”
Hyukjin had given him the incredible artifact that was the ‘Venti Body Tome’ and even lent him the ‘Wind Shoes +1’. He protected him from the ‘Bigmouth Lizard’ and the Ghost’s attack. To Jo Sunghyun, Hyukjin was most definitely his benefactor.
“But it’s okay. You can repay the debt you owe me at your own discretion. You’re not obligated to share and tell me everything.”
“...”
“It’s good to differentiate the cards in your hand from favors you owe. Because it’s not like you’re repaying a favor by revealing every card in your hand.”
Sunghyun nodded. “...Okay. Thank you for the lesson.”
In his mind, he was wondering, ‘Just how old is this hyung?’
He thought Hyukjin was 20, but he seemed at least ten years older in mental maturity. Sunghyun didn’t think there were many proper adults out there in the world, but he got the feeling that he was facing a ‘real adult’ when talking to Kim Hyukjin.
* * *
“I want to tell you. I think that will make me feel most at ease.”
I also nodded. There was no need to refuse when Sunghyun wanted to say it.
“As you know, when I destroyed the Clear Crystal, it felt like that crystal was being absorbed into my body.”
“I know.”
I’d seen it myself, which was why I was curious about it.
“There was a notice saying the Clear Crystal’s energy melted into my life, and if I satisfied a certain condition, I could activate the ‘Wind Temple’.”
“Wind Temple?”
I already knew where the ‘Wind Temple’ would activate—in the ‘Hill of Wind’ dungeon that would spawn on Geoje Island in Gyeongnam, quite a distance away from Seoul. Only, I didn’t know the particulars about the dungeon.
‘It was known as a dungeon that the Typhoon Jo Sunghyun cleared on his own…’
Was that ‘Wind Temple’ the same as the ‘Wind Temple’ being discussed now? I couldn’t be sure, and that was because Sunghyun and I cleared the ‘Tomb of the Great Orc Warrior’, a place that hadn’t existed in the past. The Clear Crystal of that flash gate had given Sunghyun this opportunity.
‘When did the past Sunghyun get this opportunity?’
Back then, the Herdsman of Las Vegas wouldn’t have proposed a gamble, and there hadn’t been a ‘Bluelight Candle’ then, either. The process was a little different, so it might have been that Sunghyun was originally supposed to have gotten this ‘opportunity’ later. I didn’t know when the past Sunghyun got this opportunity, but the general flow of events seemed to be going in a similar direction as the past. It was just that the timing was different.
Sunghyun continued. “I don’t know any details yet either.”
I glanced sideways at Senia. It looked like she was still streaming.
‘Should I throw out some bait?’
Appealing hints that could put Guardians on pins and needles were called ‘bait’, aka ‘foreshadowing’. Some Players and Streamers were skilled at using such bait to fire up the Guardians.
‘Even if you only make good on seven out of ten baits thrown, it’ll be a jackpot.’
That was a publicly known fact. If none of your baits became relevant, you would be cussed out, but there was no need to make good on every single one you threw. The Guardians would go crazy even if only seven out of ten hit the mark.
“By any chance, if you get a condition for a dungeon you have to clear alone… Let me know. I think I’ll be able to give you some advice.”
Sunghyun’s eyes quivered.
State: Very Shocked
My Eye of Perception, a skill capable of seeing various representative emotions, showed that Sunghyun was only feeling ‘Very Shocked’ right now. It meant he was just that surprised.
“Hyung.”
“What?”
Sunghyun pulled up his sleeves and showed me his arms.
“I have goosebumps right now.”
“How come?”
“I heard a notice just now. A notice saying that I’ve just satisfied one of the Clear Crystal’s conditions.”
Even I was flabbergasted.
‘Out of nowhere?’
Just what kind of condition did he satisfy?
“Apparently, this energy is embedded and fused into my body. So it’s linked to my cognitive system.”
So basically—
“As soon as I thought of the keywords ‘dungeon you have to clear alone’... the condition was satisfied. Those keywords were the condition, hyung.”
“...Is that so?”
I acted unperturbed, but I was just as shocked. I just casually said a sentence, and that in itself became a hint. Was it really okay for something like that to happen?
“You only said one thing… How is this possible?”
“...”
That was exactly what I wanted to know. I was surprised, too, but I kept feigning calmness.
“It must be because you have a sovereign class, hyung.”
No, I didn’t think my class had much to do with this.
Sunghyun looked very excited, which was unusual for the usually quiet boy. He was talking faster. “New information was unlocked. It looks like an item called ‘Fox Tail’ is the key.”
“...”
Fox Tail. It was an item I had already possessed before. Back in the dungeon the Giant of the Sunset crafted with all his power to raise his all-time favorite Player Choi Sung-gu, I used the Fox Tail in the Valley of Fire.
‘Fox Tail was the clear item?’ From that, I could infer something significant. ‘When the serial murders happened near Mt. Inwang in the past…’
In the past, the government covered up those grotesque murders, and in the end, the man arrested as the suspect for the serial murders even committed suicide. This time, I successfully hunted the ‘Six-Tailed Fox’, which prevented the serial murders from ever happening.
This time, I hunted it. But what about in the past?
‘I think… Sunghyun must have killed it.’
When that occurred to me, it felt like the somewhat hazy pieces of the past became more clear.
‘The past Sunghyun didn’t publicize the unlock conditions for the Wind Temple.’
It was a dungeon he cleared alone, so there hadn’t been much reason for him to reveal the unlock conditions. However, Jo Sunghyun valued ‘impartiality’ and ‘justice’. When it came to information that he didn’t necessarily have to publicize, but could, he would choose nine times out of ten to publicize it on the off chance it might help others even a little bit.
‘The Fox Tail he got back then, and the Six-Tailed Fox that dropped it.’
He wasn’t able to reveal his acquisition of the Fox Tail from the Six-Tailed Fox… because the government had covered up the very existence of the ‘Six-Tailed Fox’. It was possible that the Jo Sunghyun of that time realized that the true culprit of the serial murders going on at the time was the Six-Tailed Fox.
‘If he did… he must have felt an incredible amount of guilt.’
With his personality, he must have felt stuck between a rock and a hard place, with a heavy sense of guilt weighing down on him. He must have really wanted to reveal the truth about the wrongly accused man’s unfair death. No wonder he hardly ever mentioned the ‘Wind Temple’.
‘If I hadn’t regressed and more time passed…’
If the Typhoon grew stronger, and his desire to reveal the truth grew, would he have exposed the truth? Would he have told the world that the government and police back then fabricated the incident and unfairly robbed a person of his precious life?
‘He might have, yes.’
I didn’t know, but from what I had seen of Jo Sunghyun, I thought it was very possible. But there was a Korean saying like this: You can sound water ten fathoms deep, but the human heart is unfathomable.
‘It didn’t happen in this life, and it won’t happen in the future, either.’
In this timeline, Sunghyun would be able to Play with a slightly less burdened heart. He had no idea, but I had inadvertently freed him of one of his lifelong sources of guilt.
I smiled broadly.
‘Is it… too grandiose to say that I’m correcting the past?’
It might be. I was just lucky.
“Fox Tail is dropped by a spirit-type monster called Six-Tailed Fox. Its level is in the late 20s.”
It wasn’t a commonly appearing monster at this point in time. But later, the day would come when he would find a Six-Tailed Fox. It wouldn’t be that hard.
“As long as you watch out for its Doppelganger technique and talent in running away, it shouldn’t be all that difficult to hunt.”
“Have you already killed one before?”
“Yeah. Near Mt. Inwang.”
Come to think of it, I also inadvertently saved Yeonseo’s mom at that time.
‘I saved Yeonseo’s mom and also helped Sunghyun.’
It felt like my return to the past was having a good influence on the people around me.
“But it probably won’t appear near Mt. Inwang again.”
“Why not?”
“It’s an extremely shrewd monster, so it won’t appear where another of its kind showed up before, much less a place where one was killed.”
“...Thank you for the information.” After thanking me, Sunghyun made up his mind. “I want to become a person like you who can share that kind of information to others.”
“...That so?”
That reminded me—the ‘Typhoon Jo Sunghyun’ and the ‘Great Explorer Jackson’ were known to be pretty close friends.
“I’ve really felt and learned a lot from you.”
It was a little embarrassing, but I simply nodded, knowing that his feelings were sincere.
“I will work hard to become someone like you, hyung.”
Inside the taxi, Sunhwa went from dozing on her feet to dozing in the car. She was snoozing with her head on my shoulder, and I was amazed she could sleep so deeply even inside a lurching car. She was so fully out of it that she probably wouldn’t even notice if someone carried her off.
‘It does feel like the pieces of the past are a bit weird.’
The covering up of the Mt. Inwang serial murders, the existence of Sungshin’s Team Leader Kim Kangchul, and Jo Sunghyun, who hadn’t been able to tell the truth.
‘Something off.’
It was just my feeling. I couldn’t put a finger on what exactly it was, but it felt like there was a big mistake in my understanding of something in the past.
‘Though I have the feeling… that I’ll find out more as my Playing progresses.’
By this point, I trusted my ‘gut’, my ‘intuition’. There was definitely something in the past, something I wasn’t getting.
“We’re here.”
We made it back home. The taxi stopped at the entrance to the complex, not going all the way into the parking lot.
“I’m sleepy, oppa.”
Sunhwa seemed as sleepy as ever. She was clutching the hem of my clothes as she trailed behind me like a zombie, unable to keep her eyes open.
“You’re walking like a zombie.”
“I’m not a zombie. Yaaaaawn.”
Yawning widely, Sunhwa mumbled something like, “Zombies look scary. I don’t look scary” while trudging behind me.
‘Huh…?’
I instantly got a feeling that something was weird. I focused my mind, then stopped in place, turning around to put my hands on Sunhwa’s shoulders. I peered into her eyes. She was still half-awake, unable to open her eyes fully.
‘No matter how tired she is…’
From my experience of Playing so far, this level of odd behavior should have been obvious. But I didn’t notice it, and Eye of Perception didn’t catch it, either. If I was right, I was under the influence of ‘that’.
But at least I knew now. Thankfully, I noticed it relatively quickly. Staring into Sunhwa’s eyes, I asked,
“Who are you?”
At that moment, Sunhwa’s body started to tremble uncontrollably, convulsing bizarrely.
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