Chapter 3

Psychopath (1)

“Wake up! Oh, come on, team leader!”

Someone was calling me desperately. Team Leader? It had been a long time since I had heard of such a thing that it took some time to recall the word’s meaning. It was a word that had been used until Earth’s civilization collapsed entirely.

“Wake up already!”

A light began to flicker over my closed eyelids. It felt like my body’s sensations had started to assert themselves little by little.

Wait, sensations?

Something felt weird. The texture felt unfamiliar as I tried to move my fingers. I seemed to be lying on a very soft mattress. But would such a thing still exist on Earth? No, above all, what was this power that I felt throughout my body?

“Oh, you don’t think I know you’re already up? Like I didn’t hear your breathing has changed? It isn’t something that will be solved by pretending to be asleep now! The guild leader told me to bring you right away!”

The sharp senses and the vitality that I had lost as I had gotten older…it had been a while since I felt this way. It was indeed a foreign sensation. I felt a sense of incongruity, as if I were wearing clothes that didn’t quite fit me.

“Oh. Byeong-ho… let’s be patient. You can’t get mad anymore. Now, calmly… don’t get carried away. If you want to give up, let’s think about these. This month’s rent…allowances for the kids…communication bills…also, utilities…health insurance…National Disaster Pension Insurance…Welfare Fund for the Aged…Special Defense Tax…Urban Reconstruction Fund…Community Stabilization Fund…”

The person who uttered the words like a mantra soon became impatient and started yelling.

“Wow, are you now waking up?! Your dad is calling you, and he is super pissed!”

The next moment…

Buzzz!

A pain that seemed to split through my head went through me, eliciting a pained moan.

“Kah!”

In this situation where all my senses felt unfamiliar, a pleasantly familiar message resonated in my head.

-There is a discrepancy between the memories preserved in the soul and the memories recorded in the biological brain!

-Forced tuning has been initiated by the system.

It was the system message that followed me from the moment I had awakened as a hunter. However, its content was confusing.

“Gaah!”

A moan burst from me. The voice that came out of my mouth wasn’t familiar to my own ears.

“Ahhhhhhhhh!”

It was a torment unlike any other.

“Oh, fuck, that’s a surprise. Why are you yelling and flailing around?!”

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The person who kept talking next to me had begun to curse in shock. Hot liquid overflowed from my nose and mouth, and I could barely open my eyes. A man was looking down at me with a distant expression; his two dark eyebrows seemed like caterpillars gathered in the middle. He began to mutter as if he was frustrated.

“Oh, damn it! It looks like something is wrong with you this time. You weren’t faking an illness..”

I began to struggle.

“Ahhh!”

The memories of someone other than me, Choi Seung-Hyun, were mixing out of order and melting into my head. Countless scenes flashed past me. However, before I could recognize each one, the memories ran away, and new memories flew in. As each raindrop’s shape couldn’t be recognized, each memory couldn’t be properly observed as the heavy rain of memories struck and trampled my skull.

“Ah, hello? Yes, I think you need to send someone soon…no, it’s real this time. He is vomiting blood from his nose and mouth, and it’s a mess. Is it self-inflicted? No, would you have the talent to bleed through your nose without lifting a hand? No matter how promising he might be, he’s just a person who hasn’t even awakened.”

As the man hurriedly made a phone call, messages from the system that he could not hear kept reverberating within me.

-The memory match between the soul and the body…is 0%!

-Confirmation of violent rejection between spirit and body. Mental collapse is imminent.

-To protect the user, the skill [The Successor’s Eyes (Rank: EX)] is activated. There is no mana consumption due to skill activation.

The pain that felt like it was about to tear up both my spirit and body began to subside gradually.

-The effect of the skill [The Successor’s Eyes (Rank: EX)] weakens the physical memory’s influence on the soul and slows the sync speed.

-The skill [The Successor’s Eyes (Rank: EX)] helps the soul’s memory take over the self instead of the biological brain.

Indeed, as the message said, a third person’s memory, not Choi Seung-Hyun, and the speed of the scenes approaching me slowed down gradually. Thanks to this, I was able to observe the memories and, finally, I realized whose memories they were. Fighting the pain, I raised my upper body up to a seated position.

“Alright!”

Thanks to the unique skill that let me remember what I saw once, I revived the contents I saw briefly in the past as a clear ‘memory of Choi Seung-Hyun.’ the contents of the document and much of the information I had just witnessed in the stranger’s memory coincided with mine. My body trembled as I clenched the bedsheets. I then shouted in a hoarse voice.

“This is Seo Jin-wook, this is Seo Jin-wook!”

The fragments of these memories that popped up in my head belonged to a man named Seo Jin-wook. The man on the phone looked at me with terror in his eyes. Then, he talked to the other person over the phone.

“···Did you hear that sudden self-introduction? ‘This is Seo Jin-wook,’ he says, not even ‘I am Seo Jin-wook.’ He does crazy things like that regularly, but this time is a little different. I’m telling you that the adult man who will be nineteen is destroying the grammar that even a five-year-old wouldn’t get wrong? Send the doctor in, quickly.”

I turned my gaze and looked at the large mirror on the wall. Instead of the older man Choi Seung-hyun’s face, a youthful young man stared back at me with a pale, bloody face. It matched with the photos I had seen in my memories. Seo Jin-wook. He was the successor of Seo Gyu-cheol, leader of the Celestial Dragon Guild, Korea’s first S-rank hunter. However, there was one problem here.

“Seo Jin-wook is…”

Seo Jin-wook was already dead, long before the collapse of the SSS-class dungeon.

*

The person on the other end of the phone seemed to be reluctant to send a doctor. A doctor came only after the man began to scream at his cell phone in a threatening manner. During the check-up, my stomach continued to feel nauseated, so I ran to the bathroom several times to vomit.

“Blargh!”

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The doctor, who had endured the process patiently, left an ambiguous diagnosis that even I could have made up. Then, only two were left in the room. It was me, and the one who had been with me from the beginning, which the doctor called Secretary Kim. He was trying to take me to Seo Jin-wook’s father as soon as possible. Before anything else, I thought I had to stop such an attempt.

“So, Secretary Kim, do you understand, since you heard the conversation I had with the doctor?”

Secretary Kim’s expression distorted.

“Well, huh, temporary memory loss due to a concussion?”

There seemed to be such an effect from vomiting several times.

“Yes, as you said, my memories are jumbled up. It would be a little too difficult to see my father right away.”

I replied as I stared at the man with an indescribable expression.

“Secretary Kim Byeong-ho? That’s your name, right?”

“That’s right.”

Secretary Kim frowned while fiddling with the crude ring on his index finger. Looking at the mana pattern, it was seemed to be a pretty useful artifact. He then spoke in a suspicious tone.

“Well, this is awkward. You calling me Secretary Kim…and calling me by my full name.”

I searched the memories of Seo Jin-wook, the original owner of the body, but it was still a jumbled up mess, so it wasn’t easy to draw out the desired ones. It would take more time from now on to organize the memories.

“Then, how did I used to address you?”

Secretary Kim didn’t change his reluctant expression, and without hiding it, he began listing uncomfortable and inferior profanities with his mouth. Most of the words were a wordplay using his name, ‘Byeong’ and ‘Ho.’ As I tried to gather my soul, stopping it from leaving my body, I stopped him before he could fold all ten fingers.

“Oh, that’s it. That’s enough.”

“Dumbass, Idiotic Bastard, Crazy Pumpkin Head…oh, should I stop?”

“Yes.”

I sighed a little. Listening to the phone call, Seo Jin-wook would soon be having his 19th birthday. Seo Jin-wook’s birth year, as confirmed from the old documents, was 2019. That meant that, during this moment, as he and I were talking, it was the year 2038.

‘2038.’

‘I’m going crazy.’

As Choi Seung-Hyun, I had summarized all of Seo Jin-wook’s biography as I remembered it. Unfortunately, he was a person in the past that was out of my interests, and the data I encountered was neither detailed nor abundant. Therefore, all I knew about Seo Jin-wook’s life were only a few big events. Before his 19th birthday, he was in charge of the 6th exploration support team leader of the Celestial Dragon Guild.

‘He was a team leader without even awakening as a hunter.’

However, I didn’t exactly know what kind of situation Seo Jin-wook was in. For example, how was his relationship with his father and guild leader looking right now? Was the position of 6th exploration support team leader a display of his father’s favor for being the eldest son, or a test, or a punishment? Moreover, although the document commented that it was an unconfirmed rumor, a strange evaluation of Seo Jin-wook was added.

It wasn’t very clear. The memories left in Seo Jin-wook’s brain weren’t yet properly organized, so I wasn’t sure how to deal with the current situation.

‘I need more information.’

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I then looked at Secretary Kim.

“Are you busy now?”

“Yes, I am busy. As you know, the guild leader is not fond of waiting. We have to run soon.”

“Well, can’t you make an excuse to delay? You just heard the doctor. I have memory loss due to a concussion.”

“It wasn’t a definite diagnosis; he suspects it.”

The doctor went out to report it. The report must have already been delivered to the guild leader. He said that I to lie down due to the shock to my head.

“Concussion, what happened?”

Secretary Kim replied like a sigh after glancing about, with eyes that said it was hard to believe he couldn’t really remember.

“There was an ungentlemanly dispute between team leader Seo Jin-wook and Exploration 2 team leader. Of course, there’s a reason why it’s called ungentlemanly, and it was added that you started it…”

He reached out his finger to point at me.

“You’re saying I provoked him? The Exploration 2 team leader…”

Celestial Dragon Guild. Exploration 2 team leader. Naturally, the name came to mind. It wasn’t dependent on pure human memory but a function of the skill.

“Park Chang-hee?”

“Yeah. You remember that.”

If it was the hunter Park Chang-hee, he was an A-class hunter who survived for a long time and had made a name for himself. On the other hand, Seo Jin-wook had gained his position as the Support team leader thanks to his position as the guild leader’s son, but he was a non-awakened person who had not yet qualified as a Hunter. However, apparently, I had been in a fight.

“If it was a dispute, how? Why?”

“In the meeting, Team Leader Seo spoke to Team Leader Park to lower his eyes because you didn’t like how he stared at you…or so I heard?”

“…”

At the moment, I was dizzy, as if I were going to faint again. My stomach was swirling in nausea.

“Our team leader Seo, who was angry when the team leader Park Chang-hee ignored those words…”

“Did I curse at him?”

“No, you didn’t swear.”

“I’m glad I didn’t.”

“Listen until the end. According to witnesses, you, Team Leader Seo, kicked your seat away and stood up. Riding on that momentum, you jumped onto the giant rectangular table in the executive’s conference room, kicked away the documents and nameplates, and sprinted. After that, you gave a flying kick to the Team Leader Park Chang-hee, seated at the far end…no, you tried to kick him. They said.”

Non-Awakened against an A-Class Hunter…with a flying kick? I buried my face in both hands.

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“I’m glad I survived.”

I once again recalled the worrisome phrase describing Seo Jin-wook, written on the papers I read during Choi Seung-hyun’s days.

-Rumored to be suffering from a severe borderline personality disorder, impulsive control disorder, delusional disorder, and schizophrenia. Still, it wasn’t confirmed until the time of his death.