WHOFA 8
by soapa“There have always been rumors floating around that an alien is imprisoned in the fifth basement level of the Awakened Safety Department, but they say it is real this time. I heard that not only the director and the chief but also the minister and the vice minister rushed to the agency at dawn yesterday. The deputy chief has been hiding away and has not shown his face even until this hour today. On top of that, even Mr. Gam Yigeon, a former agent of the Awakened Safety Department, was called in, which must mean something happened in the agency’s basement.”
“……”
“If the Vice-Guild Master could give us some good information, it would be a great help to the growth of our guild. Give me a hint. You know something about the Hate Phenomenon, don’t you?”
There was nothing he could say for now.
Instead, to change the subject and to solve a question he had, he brought up something else.
“Is Cherry doing well?”
“Why are you suddenly asking about my dog?”
“……”
“Of course, she is doing well. This morning, she was being so cute, lying down at the entrance, telling her unnie not to leave. Do you want to see a video?”
Shimjin took out her phone and showed him a video of a brown-furred dog acting cute. It did not end there; she swiped sideways, making him admire the photos, and at the end, a white-furred dog appeared. It was a dog he had not seen before.
“Yigeon?”
“Ah, a pup I brought home from the shelter yesterday. Unlike Cherry, he is gentle and timid. I named him Pickle, hoping he grows up to have a sharp personality.”
“…Did you originally plan to adopt?”
“No. Not at all, but when I saw him trembling in a corner, I felt so bad for him. They said he was scheduled to be euthanized the next day, so I brought him home. Isn’t he cute?”
“……”
“Now that I have another mouth to feed, I have to work hard to earn money. You know something about the Awakened Safety Department’s Hate Phenomenon, right? Is it good information? Huh? Does it seem like it could make some money?”
Gam Yigeon could not hear Shimjin’s words.
The worst-case scenario was unfolding before his eyes.
The Awakened Safety Department let Seo Hwa out of the interrogation room three days after the outbreak of the Hate Phenomenon. The Gwangju dungeon, the sea dungeon, Canada’s first Grade 5 dungeon, and Team Leader Gu’s pregnancy, all the predictions had become reality. Having proven himself, the Awakened Safety Department decided to trust him. The prophecy of ‘world destruction in three years’ was too heavy a burden to spend time being suspicious.
“I thought I was going to die from wanting to wash up. Do you have a shower towel? My skin is sensitive, so I would like a soft one.”
Gam Yigeon, without a word, shoved Seo Hwa into the shower, and slam, closed the door.
“If you want to come in, you can.”
Seo Hwa shouted playfully at the closed door. There was no response.
He quietly checked for any presence, and when Gam Yigeon was far enough away, he turned on the shower.
Shwaaaa— After creating a moderate amount of noise, he took off his clothes.
When he took off the combat suit that had felt grimy from blood and dust, a lean, firm body was revealed. His body was covered in scars. There were also festering wounds that had not been properly treated after fierce battles.
When he unwrapped the bandage on his left wrist, bruised black and blue skin was visible. As befitting a Class S body, the bleeding had already stopped. Seo Hwa rotated his wrist this way and that. It was a little stiff. In fact, it was not just his arm. His whole body was screaming, demanding treatment and rest.
He would not be moving his body for a few days anyway, so it would recover quickly.
Seo Hwa held the dirty bandage in his hand.
‘Is your wound okay.’
‘Let me treat it for you.’
There is one thing that always repeats itself before the destruction. At the last moment, Gam Yigeon always takes care of Seo Hwa’s injuries. From the second iteration onwards, despite being affected by the ostracism of the timeline, he always bandaged his wounds with a pained face at the very end.
At first, his mind was too preoccupied with the reality before him and his future plans to notice, but as the iterations repeated, he could see the unconcealable pain seeping into Gam Yigeon’s purple eyes. He also remembered that the hands that wrapped the bandages trembled slightly. The expression that looked as if he himself was in more pain was also vivid.
How could he notice another’s wound when facing his own death?
How could he take care of another’s wound when the destruction countdown was displayed on the system window?
That is love?
I do not believe it.
Seo Hwa ended up not being able to throw away the crumpled bandage and put it in his inventory.
“Ugh…”
When the shower stream touched him, all sorts of places stung and felt hot. It was because of the unhealed wounds. Seo Hwa gritted his teeth and quickly washed himself.
A moment later, he found a clean gown in his inventory, put it on, and came out of the shower. In the lounge right in front of him, Gam Yigeon stood, a large presence with a serious face.
“Why are you standing there like you are being punished? You could have sat and waited.”
Seo Hwa entered the lounge, vigorously drying his hair with a towel. Sitting on a wheeled chair, he asked the Gam Yigeon reflected in the mirror.
“Did you really become my dedicated person? Did the guild master allow it?”
The Awakened Safety Department had decided to trust Seo Hwa, but that did not mean they could let him roam around freely.
Someone had to be assigned for surveillance and protection, and Gam Yigeon was chosen as that overseer.
A person with the mental strength to suppress the violent hatred that surged when he was near.
A Class S Awakened who possessed both a powerful attack skill and a mental-type skill.
There were no other candidates besides Gam Yigeon. Just like in the previous iterations.
“I like you, Mr. Gam Yigeon. I cannot trust other people. Especially in a timeline with such strong hatred, I feel like they will keep trying to kill me. But I can trust our Mr. Gam Yigeon’s self-control and patience.”
“……”
“But to take away the only Class S in the guild, Ms. Shimjin managed to agree to such a deal. The Awakened Safety Department must have promised to give the Danbaek Guild a lot, a lot of favors…”
Seo Hwa, who had been speaking, paused and then turned to look at Gam Yigeon.
“Don’t tell me you told Ms. Shimjin that the world is going to end?”
“…I have shared the fact that a regressor who claims the world will end has appeared with the heads of the major hunter organizations.”
“Ah… so that is why she cooperated. Ms. Shimjin must have been very surprised.”
Seo Hwa went back to looking in the mirror and drying his hair.
From Seo Hwa’s expression, Gam Yigeon detected a very small amount of worry. It was a worry for the mental shock Shimjin must have felt.
When one pronounces a name of someone they do not know or have rarely called, they are bound to feel a certain awkwardness. That unfamiliar sensation is also transmitted to the listener, but Seo Hwa’s ‘Ms. Shimjin’ had no such awkwardness. Rather, it contained an intimate affection and trust… and now, he was even worrying about the mental shock she would receive.
“Hunter Seo Hwa.”
“Hmm?”
“In the previous iteration, were you the master of Danbaek?”
Seo Hwa’s hand stopped. Their eyes met through the mirror. Seo Hwa put down the towel and spun the chair around to face him.
“You are really quick on the uptake.”
A bitter smile appeared on his white face.
“That is right. In the first iteration, I was the Danbaek Guild’s master, and instead of a vice-guild master, I had two assistants. One was you, Mr. Gam Yigeon, and the other was Ms. Shimjin. I was wondering about it, but it seems you only have a vice-guild master instead of assistants now?”
“You became a guild master at a young age.”
“Well, since it was the guild I made, age did not matter.”
At the words that he himself had made the Danbaek Guild, Gam Yigeon’s eyebrows twitched. Seo Hwa pointed to his own hair with his finger.
“Look. What color is my hair?”
“……”
“It is white, right. And the ‘Danbaek’ in Danbaek Guild, what does it mean?”
“……”
“Righteous Dan 端, White Baek 白. I named it with this meaning because my hair is white. Come to think of it, it is a strange thing. Since I made the Danbaek Guild, it is right that in a world where I do not exist, a guild named Danbaek should not exist either… but Danbaek has always been Danbaek.”
Seo Hwa’s question was reasonable.
As an answer to this question, Gam Yigeon had one clue that he had not revealed to Seo Hwa.
‘Guild Master Shimjin-nim. I have no intention of joining your guild.’
‘Why on earth not? I told you I would meet your conditions. What is it that you dislike so much?’
‘The guild’s name.’
‘What is wrong with CherryStrawberryLemon.’
‘……’
‘Alright. To recruit Agent Gam Yigeon, I will have to change the guild name. What style do you like?’
‘Danbaek.’
‘Huh?’
‘Righteous Dan, White Baek. If you name it ‘Danbaek,’ I will join.’
Years ago, when he received a scouting offer from Shimjin, Gam Yigeon had suggested the word that had been lingering in his mind as the guild name. At that time, Shimjin had a peculiar expression mixed with surprise and wonder.
‘Danbaek… Danbaek. How strange. There was a word that kept lingering in my head recently. It was shrouded in fog, so I could not recall what exact word it was, but I felt like I had to think of it, like I had to remember it, and I kept having this frustrating feeling. Now that I hear it from Agent Gam, I think that word was Danbaek. This is really strange…’
And so, the CherryStrawberryLemon Guild became the Danbaek Guild, and Gam Yigeon quit being an agent and joined the Danbaek Guild.
According to Seo Hwa’s words, it meant that he and Shimjin had memories from the future timeline, or to be precise, from the previous timelines, remaining in the back of their subconscious.
‘If that is the case, then that sense of loss too…’
The unknown sense of loss that had tormented him since he was very young.
The clue to it had now, however faintly, been revealed.