VDN Ch 181

He went down to the first floor and headed towards the car parked by the side of the road. He roughly opened the passenger door. However, the person he was looking for was not there. He had escaped in the meantime.

“……!”

Chairman Seok, you son of a bitch…. As soon as he realized this, he turned and dashed down the empty street. He couldn’t have gotten far. A murderous glint shone in his piercing eyes.

As expected, soon after he spotted a figure ahead. It was Chairman Seok.

“Did you kill him? If you did, bury him right away in the mountains! The one nearby… yeah, right there! After making sure that bastard sees Seok Nam-woon’s body clearly with his own two eyes, gouge out his eyeballs and bury him next to Nam-woon as well…!”

Chairman Seok was frantically running with a cellphone pressed to his ear, though it was unclear where he had gotten it from. because his body was not in good condition, his speed was slow. Seo-oh slowed his pace and approached him from behind. Chairman Seok, busy talking on the phone, hadn’t noticed Seo-oh’s presence until then.

Seo-oh stretched out his hand.

Thud.

The cellphone fell to the ground, its screen shattering. Chairman Seok, looking down at the broken screen, raised his head with his wrinkled hands shaking.

“……”

Seo-oh stared at him with a blank expression. There were no emotions on his face. No anger, sadness, or despair could be read. His gaze was cold and lifeless. Faced with those dead eyes, Chairman Seok instinctively took a step back. An ominous atmosphere enveloped his feet.

Seo-oh continued to gaze at Chairman Seok and spoke.

“You killed Seok Nam-woon?”

Chairman Seok did not respond and instead turned and started running in a panic. He put down all his pride in the face of a life-threatening situation and ran with all his might.

“That doesn’t make any sense….”

He muttered while watching the old man running as fast as his legs could carry him. It was bullshit not worth listening to. Ah, right. He needed to catch that person and make him pay the price for lying. He would make him pay for his sins in exactly the same way he had described, then find Hyung.

Seo-oh, who had been standing there blankly, started walking again. Less than ten minutes later, a terrible cracking sound and screams spread across the dim road.

***

“Um, which way should I go….”

“To the right.”

Nam-woon answered the driver’s cautious question quickly. The car that had immediately turned to the right smoothly drove straight ahead. People only glanced at Nam-woon at the sudden situation.

They thought they were finally going to escape their confinement and go home, but suddenly Nam-woon made a fuss, saying he had some business around here and needed to get out of the car immediately. He even tried to open the door while the car was moving. Hae-geon stopped him, and they ended up going to an unknown place together.

It was very strange to see Nam-woon naturally giving directions as if he had been here before without even looking at his phone or map. However, the people were overwhelmed by his crazy attitude and couldn’t say anything and just watched him. Hae-geon also watched Nam-woon with a serious face.

“Did you get hit somewhere wrong earlier?”

Hae-geon gently rubbed the back of Nam-woon’s smooth and round head, which showed no signs of injury. Without bothering to fix his messy hair, Nam-woon acted like a human navigation system, giving directions. It seemed he had no time to look around.

In fact, Nam-woon’s vision had no room for the people around him, including Jin Hae-geon. He could only see the large blue arrow unfolding before his eyes.

[System Navigation Activated….]

[Final Destination: Kwon Seo-oh]

[Remaining Lottery Tickets: 0]

Immediately after the system warned him that the roles had been changed, Nam-woon used his remaining lottery ticket to receive directions to Kwon Seo-oh’s current location. He then wanted to get out of the car as soon as he saw the bright blue arrow that appeared in front of him. However, Hae-geon strongly dissuaded him.

“Where exactly are you planning to go?”

As Nam-woon continued to insist, Hae-geon reluctantly suggested that they take the car to his destination but he showed displeasure in his expression until the end. Nam-woon felt sorry for the men who dreamed of today, but he had to get out at the base of the mountain, judging that it would be much faster that way.

He shook his legs with an anxious expression. The reason why Seo-oh suddenly tried to bury Chairman Seok. He thought he knew the answer without thinking too deeply. He must have thought that he and Se-han were kidnapped under Chairman Seok’s orders.

Did he go to see Chairman Seok directly because of that? I hope he didn’t get hurt in the process.

Nam-woon had a hard time keeping his wits about him due to his crazy anxiety. I hope nothing happens. Kwon Seo-oh shouldn’t make a bad choice because of me. He thought that and roughly bit his lip. Not long after, he saw the arrows in the middle of the road suddenly turning onto the sidewalk. He hit the driver’s seat and shouted.

 “I’ll get off here!”

Nam-woon opened the door as soon as the car stopped. He hurriedly got out onto the road but felt something grabbing him from behind. The culprit was obvious. Nam-woon turned around and pushed Hae-geon, who was trying to get out with him and shouted, 

“Hae-geon, please take care of Se-han and the uncles!”

“You…!”

“I’ll make you some delicious taiyaki later!”

Without waiting for a response, he quickly moved away and discovered the bundle of documents in his hand. He had been so focused on Seo-oh that he had taken the important documents with him. Nam-woon ran fast, clutching the papers tightly.

As he ran, barely able to breathe, he saw the entrance to the mountain right in front of him. Nam-woon climbed the steep mountain path in one breath, which left him gasping for air. The smell of blood lingered in his dry nose and throat from the cold wind. However, he couldn’t stop his feet.

Kwon Seo-oh, please…. He muttered as if praying and moved his feet following the arrow.

Before he knew it, Nam-woon had become a four-legged animal, crawling up the mountain. Haah, haah… As he groaned in pain, the direction of the arrows suddenly changed. It didn’t point forward anymore, but instead, it veered sideways and dropped sharply.

When he lowered his head to follow, he saw a large figure halfway down the hill.

“……!”

A familiar silhouette, it must be Seo-oh!

Nam-woon jumped up and immediately took a step to descend. But there was a problem. There was no safe way down the steep slope. Why had the system guided him here in such a hurry? Something must be wrong. Just as he thought that, a loud sound rang out.

Ding!

[Would you like to recalculate the route?]

“Damn it…”

Recalculate the route? There was no time for that. In the end, Nam-woon slowly lowered his body and crouched down so that his butt was barely touching the floor. He slowly pushed his feet forward, and his body began to sink down little by little.

“Ugh!”

In an instant, the soles of his shoes slipped and the dirt fell down. He could see Seo-oh dragging something in the distance. Nam-woon swallowed his saliva, tightly tucked the wad of paper under his armpits, and inched his legs forward while supporting the ground with both hands. He moved cautiously, but his foot slipped on a small rock, and his body plummeted downward.

“No!”

Nam-woon quickly descended along the dirt with a short scream, as if he was sliding down a slide. Countless pebbles and stones hit his buttocks. He didn’t know if it was an illusion or real, but he smelled a pungent smell of blood enter his nose. He landed in a large hole in the middle of the dirt.

“Ugh…”

Nam-woon, who had been forced to fall flat on his back into the pit, couldn’t get up for a while. Only after the pain subsided to a manageable level was he able to think straight. He abruptly opened his eyes wide and lifted his upper body. Then, he came face-to-face with pitch-black pupils staring directly at him.

“……”

The surroundings were eerily silent. Seo-oh, who had spotted him half-buried in the ground with only his face sticking out, tilted his head to the side. His doll-like, lifeless black eyes with a faint hint of curiosity began to appear in them.

Nam-woon, whose lungs felt shredded from the hike, had a lot to say, but he could only catch his breath instead. After panting heavily for a while, he finally managed to speak.

“Hah… Seo-oh… no.”

Seo-oh was still standing frozen in place. He looked at Nam-woon, who had fallen out of the sky, with an expression of doubt. After a moment, he dropped whatever he had been holding and slowly stepped forward. Stopping in front of the pit, he bent down and asked cautiously.

“…Hyung?”

“Hah… Seo-oh… you… can’t…”

Nam-woon shook his head, speaking between heavy breaths. Then he hugged Seo-oh tightly. He pulled Seo-oh’s large body, which he was desperately clinging to, into his arms and barely managed to utter the words he had been repeating over and over. No, Seo-oh, if you do that, you’ll get arrested. You won’t get a job and Se-han will cry.

Seo-oh, who had been quietly listening to the ramblings, stared blankly at the face in front of him. Then a soft voice reached his ear again.

“…Is it really, Hyung?”

“Yes, it is!”

“…This is strange.”

It was a tone that seemed as if he still couldn’t believe that Nam-woon had appeared in front of him. 

 Nam-woon, who had somewhat regained his breathing by then, raised his voice.

“What’s strange about it! More importantly, you! Look at yourself right now…”

“Are you really Nam-woon Hyung?”

“I said yes!”

Seo-oh suddenly raised his hand at the quick answer. Unlike usual, his hand was very cold. His entire palm was red and blotchy from all the hard work he had done. There were even places where it was cut and bleeding.

Seo-oh, who had been caressing Nam-woon’s cheek with his dry palm, carefully raised his hand to his forehead this time. His fingertips traced from the round forehead, along the long eye corners, the straight nose bridge, and the soft lips, finally gently touching the end of his chin. That somewhat pitiful touch made his heart tingle.

Nam-woon looked over every corner of Seo-oh’s face with a relieved expression. His heart ached seeing the face that seemed to have suffered greatly in just one day. As he unconsciously let out a long sigh, Seo-oh, who had suddenly leaned his body close, pressed his nose to the exposed ear.

After sniffing as if smelling for a moment, he buried his nose near the area below the ear and nape of the neck while breathing roughly. He breathed in so aggressively that his prominent nose bridge was pressed flat.

His movements were more like those of an animal than a human.