VDN Ch 148

However, the villain in the novel had exactly the same name as his Hyung, Seok Nam-woon. At first, Ju-ham frowned, but soon he was so absorbed in the novel that he finished it in one day to see the ending.

– And Hyung ended up… getting buried alive. To be honest, I hated seeing Hyung as the villain, and the ending was really annoying! So, I decided to change the story. You know I like doing that kind of thing.

Ju-ham was in the playwriting department. It was a department that was slightly different from writing novels, but he was not entirely unfamiliar with the field. In addition, he thought that ‘Prison Without Shackles’ was a format that was particularly short in narrative and had a lot of dialogue, so he thought it would be worth trying. He started working on it from that day.

But what the hell? When he checked the next day, the paper that contained the original text of the ‘Prison Without Shackles’ did not have the revisions he had made.

– I was really surprised. I thought something was wrong, so I kept revising it and revising it from that day on. But it kept reverting to the original content, again and again….

After about a dozen tries, Ju-ham finally gave up on revising the story. Instead, he decided to create his own version of ‘Prison Without Shackles’.

– I thought I shouldn’t mess with the base story, so I left it as it was and just added my own settings. I did it half just for fun and half experimentally to see how much I could change. I figured if it didn’t work, it would just get erased. So, I added little details about Hyung’s character and organized the main character settings. Strangely, this was possible and the things I added remained as they were.

Ju-ham was almost completely absorbed in that work. Thinking back on it now, he couldn’t even figure out why he was so obsessed. After skipping school and writing like a madman for a while, Ju-ham only came to his senses when he received a call from his school threatening him with expulsion. And he decided to discard the original. It was understandable because Nam-woon in the novel was an irredeemable villain with a bad ending and the novel itself was unusual.

On his way home from work that evening, Ju-ham threw the paper in the trash can, but….

The next day, when he came to work, the same piece of paper was on the table. It was the ‘Prison without Shackles’!

It was creepy. From then on, Ju-ham tried every possible way to throw away the novel. He soaked the paper in water, tore it up, and threw it away somewhere far away. But every time, the novel came back to him as if nothing had happened. It’s like the story of a doll that, no matter how many times it’s thrown away, always comes back to the same place.

– I almost pee my pants. I was so scared. But then, one day, when I checked, the paper was completely gone?

Then he lowered his voice and whispered.

– When I think about it… it was around the time you started acting weird.

Ju-ham remembered that day. The day when Nam-woon suddenly turned into a crazy lunatic.

– You were asleep on the table in the store when I woke you up. You suddenly jumped awake and started patting yourself all over. Then you grabbed me by the collar and demanded to know where you were and who I was. You started yelling, swearing, throwing stuff…. Ugh, it was total chaos.

“…Have you seen me mumble to myself while waving my fingers around and staring into space?”

At Nam-woon’s question, Ju-ham met his eyes and shouted.

– Yes, I did! I thought you’d really lost it mentally, Hyung.

Hearing those words, Nam Woon realized something. It’s the same reaction he had when he first came to this world. And clearly, there was a system on the other side too. What the hell is going on?

While Nam-woon was lost in confusion, Ju-ham continued his story.

– But after a few weeks, you seemed to get better and better. And then, after about a month? Hyung suddenly got excited, talking about being “it” being in ‘power-saving mode’ or something like that and you told me to go buy some wine so we could drink together, celebrating this rare occasion. I thought maybe you wanted to create a nice atmosphere, so I just grabbed a bottle from the supermarket. So while we were having a drink together, Hyung started saying weird things because he was drunk.

“Wh-What did I say?”

Ju-ham’s expression grew serious, and he spoke in a low, serious voice, as though he were sharing a deep confession.

– You said that a month ago, you got beaten up so badly by your father that you fell into a coma. You went to confront him after he gave that bastard a car as a gift, you were so furious you couldn’t hold back. Even though you were unconscious and couldn’t move or open your eyes, you said you were strangely aware. So you kept lying there in bed. Begging to live in a world without your father, without anyone to hurt you. You said you didn’t want to feel pain or get beaten anymore.

“……”

– You wanted to live in a place where there were people who would truly like and care about you.

Ju-ham paused for a moment. Only a quiet silence remained between them. Nam-woon felt that Ju-ham was thinking the same thing as him.

Nam-woon had never been in a coma, and his father had passed away at a young age. In other words, there was no longer a violent father who could hurt him.

– But if that wasn’t strange enough, do you know what Hyung said at the end?

Nam-woon stared at Ju-ham without any response or movement. Ju-ham’s quiet voice flowed in his ears.

– I never thought such a world could actually exist, but it does.

“…!”

After speaking, Ju-ham shivered, as though feeling a chill run down his spine. Nam-woon opened his mouth and said nothing. Ju-ham glanced at Nam-woon and quickly narrowed the distance between them and the screen.

– Is it really you, Seok Nam-woon?

“……”

– You’re the real Nam-woon Hyung I know, right?

Nam-woon looked at Ju-ham with trembling eyes. Ju-ham, who knew the answer by looking at his shunned expression, covered his mouth with one hand, muttering, “This is so freaky…”

That was when there was a sudden “Ding!” sound, and red letters appeared on the screen.

[10:00]

– Hey? What’s that?

Ju-ham’s puzzled voice came through the screen, wondering if the same number had appeared on Nam-woon’s monitor. Suddenly, the number began to change.

[09:57]

[09:56]

– Hyung, this looks like a timer.

Ju-ham said in confusion. Nam-woon also widened his eyes in surprise at the unexpected situation, but the system struck first.

[There are 9 minutes and 50 seconds left in this meeting. There is a way to extend the timer. Would you like to extend the meeting?

▶ Yes]

A time limit of all times, how annoying…! Nam-woon gritted his teeth and immediately pressed the ‘Yes’ button repeatedly. He couldn’t afford to miss this precious chance to talk to Ju-ham. Fortunately, the red numbers on the screen disappeared without a trace. Immediately afterwards, Ju-ham’s puzzled question followed.

– What was that just now? Did it appear on your screen too, Hyung?

Nam-woon, who was more immune to the system’s sudden actions than Jooham, answered annoyed.

“Don’t worry about it. Just ignore it. We’ve extended the time for now.”

Then he quickly summarized the situation that Ju-ham had mentioned earlier.

“So… That guy gets to go to the world he wants, and I’m forced to come here? Do you think that makes any sense? What did I do to deserve this?”

Ju-ham, who had been staring at the monitor, paused for a moment at Nam-woon’s question and became lost in thought. After a while, he nodded his head and opened his mouth.

– Hyung, you know that plenty of surreal things happen in the world. Just look at what you’re experiencing right now. There are tons of unbelievable stories out there—parallel universes, other dimensions, possessions, and all that. But are all those things just figments of people’s imaginations? Some of the things could have actually taken place in reality. Possibly.

“…Then are you saying Kwon Seo-oh and Jin Hae-geon exist in our world too?”

– Well… I’d say the odds are fifty-fifty, but I think the chances that they don’t exist are higher. The villain version of Nam-woon Hyung, wished for a place without people who hurt him. In a way, they were the people who unintentionally made his life miserable. It’s a little different from the traditional idea of parallel worlds, it might mean they don’t exist here.

Nam-woon made a disturbed expression at Ju-ham’s words. Come to think of it, Nam-woon never met the uncle he knew or Lee Ju-ham here. If the Seok Nam-woon, who had crossed over to his world, was the same, then Kwon Seo-oh and Jin Hae-geon were more likely not there.

To think there was another existence like mine.

While Nam-woon was still dazed by the strange reality, Ju-ham spoke to him again.

– Hyung, is there anything you’ve really wanted or wished for? Something a little more serious besides the fox-like wife or rabbit-like children.

“Wish?”

Nam-woon asked, raising his eyebrows. Ju-ham nodded.

– You know how in movies and dramas, soul-swapping happens quite often? There’s usually some trigger or reason behind it. Since you and the other Nam-woon couldn’t actually meet, it probably wasn’t a physical cause. But I was wondering if there was some mental trigger for this strange phenomenon.

I’m not entirely sure what it means, but it seems to mean that there is a cause for this kind of strange incident. Nam-woon thought deeply for a moment and then spoke quietly in a small voice.

“I…. I often thought it would be nice to have someone by my side….”

Nam-woon had always lived with loneliness. When he was very young, he was abused by his father and couldn’t feel the warm embrace of people. Even after that, the uncle who became his guardian was rarely at home, so he was always alone. On the outside, he always acted indifferently, like he didn’t care about such trivial feelings, but in fact, deep inside of Nam-woon, he was always battling a terrible loneliness.

So naturally, he began to dream of a different life. A life where he wasn’t lonely, a life where he was precious to someone…a desperate wish that even someone as insignificant and worthless as himself might be loved by at least one person.

Wait, that sounds…similar to what I just heard.

Nam-woon’s face turned pale as he realized this.