Chapter 336

What I experienced today was definitely a little more confusing than the memory I had experienced the day before. The memory flowed a little more slowly, but it penetrated somewhere even clearer and deeper.

'Does it gradually intensify as time passes?'

It was the ideal form of a trauma Dungeon.

At that moment, everything was swept away, and a familiar landscape came into view. The more I assimilated with it, the more I forgot that this was merely an illusion appearing before my eyes for a moment.

As I witnessed Kwon Taehan's death, I instinctively realized it.

'Is this the first time?'

Built upon the countless deleted zeroth runs, this was the first run Kwon Taehan remembered.

The moment I confirmed Kwon Taehan's corpse and rose to my feet, it felt as though my mind were being torn apart. This was different from pain. It felt as though part of my mind were being invaded.

'It's Im Haekyung.'

Perhaps because I had experienced it several times before, I could tell instinctively.

"Was now the right time?"

For a moment, reality, which I had forgotten while focusing on the scene before my eyes, came back to me. Im Haekyung had said they would come rescue me at the appropriate time, but was that now?

"You came."

Even if it was not, it did not matter. The moment I became aware of Im Haekyung, the Dungeon that had felt exactly like reality was soon covered by waves and disappeared. As though I had been thrown back into true reality, a part of my consciousness was cut off.

I followed Im Haekyung and was dragged back up onto land. After wiping my face and opening my eyes, I saw Im Haekyung already standing on the ground, quietly looking down at me.

"The water still hasn't receded."

The day before, the moment I regained consciousness, it had been broad daylight with the sun blazing down.

Im Haekyung answered my words calmly.

"Because it was interrupted midway. Because I intervened."

"Did you see everything?"

"Probably from the middle."

"Then before that?"

Im Haekyung, who had closed their mouth for a moment, answered briefly.

"Thinking."

What the hell had they been thinking about?

Instead of climbing onto land, I only hooked my arms over the edge and looked up at Im Haekyung.

"You think an awful lot."

"Was it trauma?"

"What was?"

"The past. Or Mr. Taehan too."

"Can the two be separated?"

At my words, Im Haekyung carefully considered something, then slowly sat down in front of me. When I moved back one or two steps to meet their gaze at the lowered height, Im Haekyung quietly called me.

"Mr. Jehyun."

"Yes."

"Where were you?"

What kind of question was this?

"In the sea?"

"No, not something like that."

"I don't know what exactly you're asking."

"I saw Mr. Taehan die. And... if that was a genuine, undistorted memory remaining within you, Mr. Taehan should have died, but he's alive now."

I had expected them to ask this, but it was strange that it led to the question of 'where' I had been.

'They already seem certain.'

I stared at Im Haekyung, then lightly tapped their knee.

"Do you have a theory?"

"The fact that you're asking me that in return... must mean a physical reaction appears. Then I can be certain of my theory."

"Smart."

Im Haekyung grabbed my chin and lifted it, then slowly swept their thumb from beneath my nose to below my lips.

"Will you confirm whether my theory is correct?"

"Say it first."

"Mr. Taehan doesn't like you very much, but... he worries about you, pays attention to you, and thinks about you enough to even ask me to let him go to Australia."

"Yes."

"You two must have been close. I don't know how close. About as close as Mr. Yehyun or Mr. Seowon?"

"Well, I don't really know either. We must have been closer than that."

Im Haekyung released my chin and asked as though puzzled.

"Why don't you know?"

"Keep going."

"Because there's an error in your memories? And that's why you... came to ask me for help. To have Mental Domination used on you."

"......."

"But Mr. Taehan was dead.... And it was also a Dungeon I'd never seen before. At first, I thought the information about that Dungeon had disappeared."

Im Haekyung stopped speaking for a moment and let out a small sigh.

"Ah."

"......."

"Was it not the past?"

I admired them inwardly. To think they could arrive at the answer this quickly and accurately.

"Not the past... Did it show something that, from the present point in time, happens in the future? But how could that act as trauma for you?"

"......."

"A loop?"

"......."

"It keeps repeating, you know the reason, and Mr. Taehan doesn't? Is that why you were angry? Because you're sick and tired of having to repeat all of this?"

Even though I had experienced it myself, I still thought it was absurd, yet they had identified it in an instant.

"Don't you think that sounds ridiculous?"

"No."

The answer came firmly. Perhaps because their certainty had accumulated all this time, they seemed able to accept a small variation without difficulty.

When I nodded, Im Haekyung stared at me, then moved a little closer and sat down. I watched their toes sink into the water before belatedly raising my gaze.

We silently met each other's eyes, and when I twitched one eyebrow, their hand lifted my chin again.

"Of all the answers I can think of... it's the one closest to the correct answer. I still don't have enough information to estimate the other possibilities."

"I know."

"Am I right?"

Im Haekyung slowly examined my face. Since they had already confirmed answers through my physical reactions before, they were probably trying to take the easy way again this time.

I glanced at the warning window wavering before my eyes, then turned my head and removed their hand.

"Why are you acting like you're anxious?"

"......."

"Is where my memories came from really that important? In truth, isn't it not much of a concern for you, Guild Master?"

"It's important."

"Why?"

At my words, Im Haekyung frowned as though frustrated.

"I hate having things left that I don't know. Once I'm certain, I want it acknowledged as the correct answer."

"You must have lived just fine until now without ever being certain you had the correct answer."

"I had it confirmed once, and now you're telling me to leave it unresolved again from now on?"

Their tone came out cold and displeased.

"Mr. Jehyun, I...."

"......."

"I need to know about you. Even though you need me, keep crossing the line, and do everything possible to threaten my position, I've endured all of it."

Im Haekyung pressed their lips together for a moment, then gripped my shoulder firmly. I could not feel pain right now, but coincidentally, it was where the scar was.

After briefly turning my gaze toward their hand, I leisurely returned my eyes to their face, and Im Haekyung spoke clearly.

"I let you get away with it."

Well, that was true. I had not expected them to tolerate me to this extent.

They had also faithfully done everything I told them to do.

When I said nothing, they remained silent for a moment, then their brow gradually twisted as though they had realized something.

"Did you do it deliberately?"

"Deliberately?"

Were they asking whether I had deliberately acted like a fucking asshole to test Im Haekyung? Of course not. I had simply thought that even if I acted like this much of a fucking asshole, they would let it slide.

"Guild Master, you've never not let me get away with anything. You're talking as though I tested you...."

"......."

"You're being strange?"

Was that not only natural?

From beginning to end, they had possessed a kind of faith in me and, with the interest that followed it, had continually tried to negotiate with me. I had reinforced the certainty behind the question they had held since the very beginning, so even if I got on their nerves, they could not cut me off all at once.

Was that not also why I was trying to use Im Haekyung to see the past despite suffering the pain from the penalty several times?

Both Im Haekyung and I needed that kind of definite answer.

The past shown by the trauma Dungeon did not hold much meaning. The past involving Kwon Taehan or my parents, or the thick emotions created by relationships I had continuously maintained up to the present... would, in truth, eventually be forgotten as time passed.

I understood that it had tried to stimulate intense moments, but unfortunately, none of them were trauma.

So no matter how many times I checked the past, it could not directly affect me. Whether it was about my parents, relationships from the past before I came here, or even Kwon Taehan, it was all the same. Every obsession I had spread outward with me at the center. I could not place another person at that center. That was the plain truth.

"Nothing you saw, Guild Master, was my trauma. They were intense memories, though."

"......."

"I do have attachments too. Not toward my mother or father.... In any case, neither of them is particularly necessary to me now. They can't affect me either."

"......."

"Kwon Taehan? I need him. I'm attached to him too. There are probably even more parts I'm not aware of, right?"

I looked up at them from an angle and observed their expression. The expression that had been twisted with a strange displeasure until just now had already returned to normal.

When I placed my hand near their thigh, Im Haekyung gazed at me quietly without even pretending to flinch.

"But are you asking whether it's trauma?"

"......."

"No."

When I answered briefly, Im Haekyung placed their hand over the back of mine. A question without any particular rise or fall followed.

"Answer the other thing too."

"What thing?"

"I made a guess earlier."

That all of this was trapped in a loop? They had already reasoned it out almost perfectly, to the point that there was hardly anything I needed to tell them.

Even so, Im Haekyung was the type who liked evidence they could see with their own eyes. I turned my hand over, grabbed their wrist, and pulled Im Haekyung into the water in an instant. Meeting their gaze head-on as they came willingly without any real resistance, I slowly raised the corners of my mouth.

"When it comes to things like that, Guild Master's thoughts...."

"......."

"Well, they've never been wrong."

The gaze meeting mine subtly lowered.

"You keep trying to see blood."

"......."

And after confirming what they wanted to see, they slowly rubbed their thumb near my lips.

"It hurts more than you'd think."

"It really does."

Im Haekyung quietly muttered, stared closely at the blood on their hand, then washed it in the water. When the eyes that had been lowered because of that rose again, we once more spent a moment silently meeting each other's gaze.

At last, Im Haekyung opened their mouth.

"Mr. Jehyun, I...."

"Yes."

"I can replace every means you need, but it would be troublesome if you truly thought of me as a substitute."

It was a cold warning.

"I admit it. To me, you're the only one...."

"......."

"And I'm the only one you've shown something like this to."

The next words came almost as a whisper.

"Do you understand what I mean?"

Understand.... Was this even something that had to be understood?

When I smiled as though narrowing my eyes, my body was suddenly pulled forward. The next moment, just as I had expected, our lips touched. The instant their lips met mine, a salty taste spread across my tongue. Was it because of the seawater? Or the blood?

'Both, probably.'

I did not know whether they had kissed me as a warning or were repeating a similar situation from before, but for me, it was neither.

I moved Im Haekyung's hand away and made them wrap it around my neck, then supported the back of their neck with my hand and properly pushed into their lips.