DB Vol 2 Part 18

Hwang Sang-cheon’s face, which had been frowning in distress, slowly relaxed. Won-woo looked at him and calmly mentioned a few more things he was grateful for.

“Even though I might have been a crazy person, you not only didn’t call the police but also agreed to help when I asked. Even when I brought something you thought was fake and asked you to sell it, you still looked for a buyer like this. To me, Director Hwang, you’re a trustworthy person. Please accept the commission as payment for that.”

“Ah, even so…”

Sang-cheon tried to argue, feeling a lump in his throat, but Won-woo quickly cut him off.

“My trust is quite expensive.”

Won-woo smiled. Usually, he would have just admired how handsome he was, but now that smile became a trigger that enlarged the hot lump in Sang-cheon’s throat. Trust, he says. For some strange reason, tears welled up. No, what does he trust in me?

Of course, when he first burst in wearing a patient’s gown, Sang-cheon really thought there were all kinds of crazy people in the world. But he couldn’t turn away a sick person, so he took care of him, that’s all. What’s the big deal about that? To give such a large sum of money just for that… Hah! A great realization struck Sang-cheon’s mind like lightning.

What if that first meeting, which he thought was just a small matter, was actually a test?! Like the mountain spirit testing whether he deserved to receive a large sum of money with the golden axe and silver axe story! Perhaps Ji Won-woo had approached many people in that state, holding them and crying.

And after everyone else failed, only he accepted him and was chosen?! Sang-cheon belatedly realized what great luck he had stumbled upon. As he stood frozen in shock, lost in his world of delusions, swinging imaginary axes, Seona, unable to contain herself, added a word.

“Director Hwang, just take it. How much could that commission be anyway?”

“Ten billion won.”

“Yes, ten…”

Seona tilted her head and asked.

“Won?”

“Billion.”

“…Billion?”

Nod. Sang-cheon nodded.

“My share is exactly ten billion won.”

“…”

“I’m taking 50%, so the amount is this large…”

“Are you crazy!!!!!!!!!”

Seona suddenly shouted and jumped up from her seat. Then she grabbed Won-woo’s shoulders and shook him.

“Mr. Won-woo, come to your senses! I don’t know what the item is, but how could you just give away such a large sum of money to someone else!”

“Ah, that’s what I’m saying!!!!!”

Sang-cheon, who had calmed down, also stood up and shouted in agreement, adding,

“Of course, I understand that Mr. Won-woo is bestowing grace upon me with the golden axe, silver axe spirit, but, ah, this is too much!!!!”

“No, Mr. Won-woo is being unreasonable. He Guiding me without any compensation just because I’m a fan who geeks out together?! If a person lives like this, they’re just perfect for being scammed!!!!”

Seona also burst out with her pent-up feelings. Sang-cheon raised both hands in joy of finding a comrade, revealing his indignation.

“More than enough to be scammed!! No, what if I had been a bad person? What did you trust to entrust me with that precious Alpha Seed!”

“…Alpha Seed?”

As Seona asked stiffly, Sang-cheon realized he had misspoken. And he looked at Won-woo with wavering eyes. I blurted it all out, what should I do? Won-woo shrugged as if it was no big deal.

“It’s fine. It’s not like Alpha Seeds are precious.”

No, they are precious. The two looked at Won-woo with serious eyes. And at the same time, the same suspicion arose. Where on earth did he get an Alpha Seed?

“…D-Don’t tell me you stole the Alpha Seed from the Ji family?”

Sang-cheon, who had become more respectful towards the other at some point, asked carefully, and then seriously proposed,

“Let’s find a place to hide first.”

Seona, not to be outdone, stepped forward from the side.

“I’ll protect you with my life from the Ji family’s tracking team.”

Won-woo looked at the two serious people and thought it would be faster to show through action rather than words.

“Director Hwang, do you have any monster seeds?”

When Sang-cheon brought the seeds, Won-woo pulled just enough towards himself and then pulled two more forward as if to explain.

“I told you I can move energy, right? Not all energy, but I can sense and control strong forces like Espers and monsters. And there’s one more thing. I can move the power of seeds, albeit faintly.”

Won-woo’s finger touched one seed and then moved to another. And when he lifted his hand, the first seed he touched could be seen shriveling as if drying up completely.

“I can transfer power to other seeds like this. And one seed can handle exactly 37 powers.”

As Won-woo roughly passed his hand over the remaining seeds he had pulled, they all changed into shriveled husks as if touched by the hand of calamity. Then he covered the last seed that had absorbed the power with his hand and lifted it. A seed that had turned completely black was revealed under his hand.

“Then it becomes an Alpha Seed.”

***

Everyone tends to relax when they get home, but Won-woo had never once let his guard down. Opening the front door was actually the most tense moment. He would stare intently into the dark interior, using all his senses, smell, sound, and sometimes even just a feeling of uneasiness.

If anything seemed off, he would be extremely cautious. Of course, most days there was nothing, but he didn’t take those uneventful days for granted. He would always feel grateful, thinking “I was lucky today” and “I’ve survived another day.” On this day, after confirming the house was safe, Won-woo laid his tired body on the bed.

As the tension finally left his body, he realized how quiet the house was. Unlike usual, perhaps because he had just parted ways with good company, he felt as if he was floating alone, unable to blend into the silence. He missed their lively chatter.

Their expressions that looked like they might scream in shock, and even their fussing about how Won-woo should immediately hide somewhere safe. Though it had only been an hour, it felt like years ago, making him regret the passing of time.

After everyone had left and he was alone, when it was empty there was no joy, but also no regret. Meeting those he missed again brought both happiness and the pain of loneliness. What would be better? The right answer in life is truly difficult.

Won-woo curled up like a fetus and tried to force himself to sleep, but eventually opened his eyes again. Thinking that insomnia persisted in any situation, he suddenly remembered the entity that used to lead him to deep sleep. Oh right, is Nani very broken? When he asked about Nani again while leaving Sang-cheon’s office, he had replied with a stiff expression,

“…The, the server is over-overloaded… Ma-maybe it needs a, a rest?”

Well, there must be a lot of data to process. One shouldn’t treat machines emotionally, but hearing it needed rest sounded just like saying it was tired, which made him feel sympathetic. So Won-woo put the communicator in his ear and turned it on. Thinking it probably wouldn’t respond again after days of silence, he asked with casual emotion, almost whispering,

“Nani, are you in a lot of pain?”

He closed his eyes for a moment. Strangely, even though it was a machine, just the fact that he had spoken to someone made his loneliness fade and sleep gently approached. As he was trying to grasp that sleep…

[…I’m always in pain, though.]

Huh?!

His eyes flew open. Won-woo stared into the darkness, trying to gauge if the voice he just heard was an illusion. Then, recognizing the familiar static in his ear, he relaxed his tense body.

Always in pain. Since Nani was a machine, it could just be a figurative expression imitating humans, but Won-woo, being human, couldn’t help but take it emotionally.

“It must have been hard all this time.”

[I don’t know. I’m used to it.]

A calm voice replied. But if the other side was a person, it was a voice that would make you feel sorry for them, thinking that they were tired and exhausted. Is there a problem with the server? Well, Sang-cheon had a lot of debt and almost no investment, so even if there were server issues, he probably couldn’t think about fixing them.

Suddenly, it felt miraculous that Nani was this high-performing. As expected, Director Hwang Sang-cheon is a genius. As Won-woo was once again concluding with praise for Sang-cheon, the indifferent voice continued.

[Sometimes I just want to shut down.]

Won-woo blinked his eyes, now accustomed to the darkness, and slowly sat up. Leaning his upper body against the bed’s headboard, he spoke.

“That’s not bad.”

[You mean me shutting down?]

“No, that your worries are so human-like.”

An AI close to human is a success, after all. But this success felt quite sad.

“A person’s life is a fight against death. Fighting not to die, and fighting the desire to die. When you realize death is the biggest enemy, you can’t imagine how trivial the things you hated and resented become.”

[…Trivial.]

“Yeah, hatred turns out to be nothing much. How unfair would it be to live without doing what’s really important because of that trivial hatred?”

[What’s important then?]

What else could it be? Won-woo gave a very common reason.

“Love.”

In the static, he thought he heard a short, mocking laugh. Ah, even machines know how cliché this is. Won-woo smiled back in the darkness.

“Love isn’t something grand. It’s also love to hold on to your favorite machine and be happy even when gangsters are harassing you because of debt, and it’s also love to smile with your heart pounding with your favorite fandom even if you’re being ignored by showy Espers and your abilities aren’t recognized, making your life unfair. You don’t know how great a person who can find the love in themselves and hold on to it tightly is, do you? Love is so easy to miss.”

[Is that why you like Director Hwang?]

Rather than like… Won-woo corrected with a more precise word.

“It’s respect.”

[I don’t understand.]

Won-woo just smiled again. Then he tilted his head back and closed his eyes. The sleep that had receded once didn’t come rushing back, but now the ocean-like darkness was no longer lonely.

“Even if you shut down when it’s time, try to find love. Even if it’s as trivial as an ant.”

It’s okay if it’s love so trivial that others laugh at it. It’s okay to love a device, or to have your heart flutter for an image on a screen. It’s okay to love the sense of accomplishment in thinking “I did it again today” while catching your breath during boring daily jogs. Won-woo’s thoughts were suddenly overlapped by the Aunt’s voice.

‘Even if 99% of your day is steeped in hardship and fatigue, making love seem impossible to notice, you can start by loving the act of lying in bed and suppressing your exhaustion. Start with the small and precious things. That’s how you can hold onto yourself.’

[So you can hold onto yourself?]

Won-woo’s eyes flew open. At the same time, his heart dropped. Before the startled Won-woo could open his mouth, Nani, sensing his state, asked,

[What’s wrong?]

“Where did you hear those words?”

After a short silence, the answer came.

[I don’t know. It’s just a common phrase humans use, isn’t it?]

Is that so? Won-woo relaxed again and laughed helplessly. Well, it’s not a particularly special phrase. And the aunt here might not have said such things, being different from the woman in my world. But the shock was so great that he couldn’t help feeling dejected.

“…Why did I only hear that common phrase once?”

[Because your human relationships are limited.]

It’s an AI. Hwang Nani is definitely an AI. Won-woo was able to immediately shake off the sense of humanity he had felt from Nani.

Gye Yoon sometimes, though not often, thought about wanting to terminate his life. Because it was too painful. No matter how high his rank, without guiding, this ability that everyone praised was nothing more than a terrible curse to Gye Yoon.

Still, it was a bit better when he was young. Even though it was C-rank, there was a Guide next to him whose wavelength matched perfectly, allowing painless guiding. Of course, being C-rank meant the guiding efficiency was low, so they had to be together almost all day. Fortunately, this was possible when Gye Yoon was a baby, so the C-rank Guide took full charge of him.

He had vague memories of being almost one body with her until he was 4 years old. After that, because Gye Yoon was so active, bouncing here and there, a Guide who could Guide him quickly was assigned to him full-time.

Still, she remained with the Gye family taking care of him until he was 9 years old. Perhaps because of this, to Gye Yoon, she was more like a nanny than a Guide. Between his strict parents and the doting family members of the Gye household, she was the only one who treated him like a normal child.

It was when he was 9 years old that Gye Yoon skipped class and ran away for a day. Actually, he had just wanted to explore the mountain behind their house but got lost. This time, he was beaten more severely than ever before while being scolded by his parents, so he hid away in pain and sorrow. Somehow, the C-rank Guide found him.

‘Of course you’ll get scolded for sneaking out. You were scolded for something you deserved, so why are you pouting and hiding? Still, you had fun, didn’t you? If there’s something to gain, there’s also something to lose.’

‘But what kind of parents beat their child like this? Damn it. What I lost is too big compared to what I gained.’

‘What you gain and lose aren’t always the same size.’

‘So sometimes you can lose a little and gain a lot?’

Yes. She nodded with her characteristically impassive face and gave the answer.

‘Kindness is like that. If you endure the hassle and inconvenience to show a small kindness, sometimes it comes back to you greatly at some point. Kindness is life’s lottery.’

‘I don’t need a lottery. I’ll do everything with my own power, so I don’t have time to worry about such trivial things.’

At that time, she looked at Gye Yoon quietly. She was probably diligently moving her hands to make something as usual. This day, it was probably knitting. Being indifferent by nature, she usually didn’t nag, but for the first time, Gye Yoon thought he might hear her nag. Indeed, what came out of her mouth sounded like nagging.

‘Trivial things are important. Even today’s deviation will become an insignificant memory as time passes, but someday when you’re really struggling, it might support you. When you become an adult, everyone accumulates complicated and headache-inducing issues. At such times, what can lighten your pain even a little are happy memories. Moments that were enjoyable even though you just climbed the mountain behind the house.’

Thinking about it later, Gye Yoon wondered if she had said this expecting that he would suffer from guiding for his entire life. Since it’s a life where pain can’t be avoided, find happiness even in small things. Gye Yoon lay sprawled on the rooftop of a building, looking up at the night sky. The twinkling stars were beautiful enough to find happiness, but Gye Yoon couldn’t immerse himself in appreciation.

The familiar pain was slicing through him more intensely than usual. His head was dull with pain. It was amazing how he had managed to talk with Won-woo given how severe his headache was. Of course, there was also the needle-like pain from his fingertips to his toes. Gye Yoon couldn’t bear it and squeezed his eyes shut. Even the trivial act of admiring starlight was a luxury for him. Yet, perhaps thanks to the memories stirred up by his conversation with Won-woo, for the first time in a very long while, he vividly recalled the voice of his C-rank Guide that he had forgotten.

‘Find happiness in small, precious things. That’s how you can hold onto yourself.’

And so, on this night too, Gye Yoon barely made it through without letting go of himself.