Chapter 343: 42. Transition

The moment I stepped out of the Gate, intense hunger and drowsiness rushed over me. Maybe the inside of the Dungeon had created a temporary awakened state, because I could feel fatigue suddenly weighing down both my mind and body.

"It didn't close."

At that moment, Im Haekyung's voice sounded no different from usual. At those words, I turned around and saw the Gate still open.

"We didn't even meet the Dungeon Boss."

"You know where it is, right?"

Of course I had known from the beginning. There was no way a nonfunctioning lighthouse would be standing all by itself for no reason. When I nodded, only then did Im Haekyung turn around.

"Are you sleepy?"

"Yes."

"You were fine until just now."

"I suddenly got tired after coming out."

When I got into the car and checked the time, exactly two days had passed. There was a slight discrepancy in time, but at this level, it was close enough to say that time had flowed almost identically.

"It takes two hours to get there."

"If I drive now, it'll probably be a double suicide. Unless the Guild Master is going to drive."

"What about switching halfway?"

"Can I sleep until then?"

"Do whatever you want."

I scrubbed my face roughly with my hands and reclined the seat. When I closed my eyes, I felt the car begin to move.

I opened my eyes at the faintly irritating vibration of the car body and saw that the car was already speeding down the road. I raised my seat again and belatedly checked the time.

"Why didn't you wake me up."

I had thought they would suggest switching after about an hour, but much more time had passed than expected.

"We're almost there anyway."

"You're right. We'll arrive in twenty minutes."

"Did you sleep well?"

"Well enough."

I opened the window slightly and roughly straightened my clothes. Once the drowsiness had cleared, what happened in the Dungeon came back to me. Still slightly dazed, I looked out the car window and asked.

"Was Guild Master Song the trauma?"

"Mm."

"Or was it just that period?"

"It's difficult to separate them. You don't separate things neatly either, Jehyun."

"I thought you were in fifth grade."

"I grew a little late. I was especially small back then."

"Your social skills were also pretty rotten compared to now...."

"I don't want to hear that from you, Jehyun."

After saying that, Im Haekyung was quiet for a moment before beginning to explain calmly.

"I thought about it again too. Was the experience of being rejected the trigger? But that did not bother me very much. Then was it because it became certain that no one would understand me?"

"You're saying that based on Guild Master Song, right?"

"Right. Guild Master Song and I were... quite close during that time."

"Don't you still like her now?"

"It's different from back then."

Im Haekyung gave a brief laugh and tapped the steering wheel.

Well, the situation had changed. Every thought of the brat who had been spouting nonsense had turned out to be correct, that brat had awakened as an S-rank and created the number one guild in the country, and the relationship between the siblings, which had been fairly good despite a few stumbles, had completely fallen apart.

"If I had been able to grieve more violently when something happened to Guild Master Song, it might have been similar."

"Well, looking at the outcome, she woke up, so nothing ever happened to her, did it?"

"You predicted that Guild Master Song would die."

"My predictions are often wrong. Unlike yours, Guild Master."

At those words, Im Haekyung's gaze lingered briefly before quickly disappearing.

"I didn't particularly want to show you my childhood, Jehyun."

"Because you were such a brat?"

"Did you think that?"

"No."

"You treated me terribly. Pushing someone off a rooftop...."

"That's the best way to wake up from a dream."

Anyway, that kind of illusion was ultimately similar to a dream. If someone died in a situation they believed was reality and their consciousness continued afterward, they would naturally feel something was wrong. Even if Im Haekyung had not realized it there, I had been perfectly willing to throw them off the rooftop.

"A dream...."

Im Haekyung, who had been murmuring softly at my words, let out a small laugh.

"You thought that was a dream?"

"It wasn't reality."

"Mm, right.... If you look at it that way, they are similar."

Then what, did they see it differently?

"Well, since it was an illusion, it was different from a dream. It made you think that way even while conscious."

"That isn't what I meant, Jehyun. I...."

"Then?"

Im Haekyung glanced sideways at me. Since the sun had not risen yet, the road was dark all around, and it did not feel very different from the inside of the Dungeon we had been in just moments ago. Or maybe it only felt similar because it was just the two of us in this space.

"Without your intervention, Jehyun, it would have simply been a recreation of a memory. But halfway through, you... intervened in my memory."

"It wasn't one hundred percent my will. You were the one who found me, Guild Master."

"The Dungeon probably intended to make me mistakenly believe I had overcome the trauma in some other way. For example, by creating... an opportunity that would make Guild Master Song directly believe what I said."

I thought I understood what they meant. It had thrown me a potion that could save Kwon Taehan too.

It probably intended to make someone believe they had changed the past that way, and even if they became able to distinguish reality from illusion, to make them choose the latter.

"But because you... intervened like that, an error appeared in the memory."

"......."

"It makes me mistake it for reality, as though you suddenly came to me back then and proved what I said."

There was a faint laugh mixed into Im Haekyung's words. I glanced at them and answered as though it were no big deal.

"Then can't you just live believing that? No one else was involved, and you're the only one who remembers it, Guild Master."

"But it isn't real."

"Do you consider that important?"

"I'm a mental-type Hunter."

They nodded and added an explanation.

"What the actual situation was... is not really important. In the end, everything changes according to each person's preferences inside their own memories. It is similar to objective information not existing. Even if multiple individual subjectivities can gather and claim objectivity, true objectivity is... especially when it comes to memories, close to an illusion."

"......."

"And I'm someone who can interfere with that individual's 'subjectivity.' Erasing memories, blocking some of them, intervening in another person's mind...."

It was an ability close to cheating. It was only because it was not a physically visible Skill, but the very fact that someone who could seize and shake another person's consciousness could openly walk around the streets made no sense.

'Though even that happened under Im Haekyung's control.'

They had actually marketed their own ability as weaker than it was. That was probably why people still argued about Im Haekyung's ability in the comments.

"In that sense... I do not simply interfere with memories. I also change situations. If I changed the memories of every member of an unhappy family and made them believe their past had been extremely happy... then it truly was. Because the past, which only they could remember, would already have changed into a happy one."

"......."

Was this about themself? Or merely an example?

I nodded while making a rough guess. Im Haekyung checked my reaction and continued.

"If reality has changed, then at least I need to know. That way, I can hold on to it when there is an error. In that sense, being unable to apply my Skill to myself is... also only natural."

After saying that much, they fell silent again. I calmly recalled what Im Haekyung had said. If memories were changed, was it no different from changing what had actually happened?

'It could be.'

Even in my case, I had prevented my mind from collapsing by roughly dismissing the memories of dying nearly a thousand times.

I leaned my head against the car window and quietly looked toward Im Haekyung.

"Why are you looking at me like that?"

"I'm going to think a little too, following your example, Guild Master."

"......."

"I understand what you're worried about, but from my side, I still don't really find it convincing."

Im Haekyung narrowed their eyes slightly and nodded, indicating that I should continue.

"Would it be a problem if you just roughly accepted it and moved on?"

"I'm keeping every possibility open."

"Then let only the two of us know. You and me, Guild Master."

"Only the two of us already know."

"I mean, let's have only the two of us think of it that way. It seems amusing to think that I intervened when you were young, Guild Master."

How did such a fucking tiny brat have so many thoughts? Still, maybe because they thought so much and were so smart, the time it took them to reach a conclusion was absurdly short.

I recalled Im Haekyung from that time again and snorted.

"Why are you laughing this time?"

"No reason."

"......."

Im Haekyung closed their mouth again. Before long, a familiar landscape came into view. After parking in the garage of the house with practiced ease, they spoke quietly just before getting out of the car.

"I still don't want to think of it that way."

"Why?"

"Then it feels too much like...."

"Like what?"

"Like I was only waiting for you, Jehyun. I spent my entire life waiting for the destruction because I wanted my words to be proven... and it feels a little like you were the one who proved them."

"......."

"It doesn't feel good."

I belatedly got out of the car after Im Haekyung. Maybe because I had gone in and out of their house so many times, the route up from the basement felt familiar.

Neither of us said anything while waiting for the elevator. It did not matter, since Im Haekyung probably had not expected an answer anyway.

"......."

"......."

Leaning at an angle against one wall of the elevator, I quietly watched the numbers indicating the floors rise one by one.

The elevator stopped with the familiar announcement sound.

"If someone had gotten on, would you have erased that person's memory too?"

"Why would I erase it. ...Because of the strange rumor you spread, Jehyun?"

"If you erased it, would that also become something that never happened?"

"For it to become something that never happened, I would have to erase your memory first, Jehyun."

"Aha."

Im Haekyung entered the password, opened the door, and looked back at me. I grabbed the top of the door with one hand and gestured with my chin for them to go inside.

"Go in first."

"......."

The moment the door closed, Im Haekyung quietly stared at me and asked.

"Are we going to do it?"

"Do what."

"Sex."

"Ah, you're asking whether we're going to skip stage one and go from stage two all the way to the end?"

"Do you just want to leave?"

I briefly cast my gaze into the house, then cupped Im Haekyung's chin and lightly kissed them. When I slightly drew my lips away, I saw their familiar eyes. Their lips moved briefly as though they had something to say. At exactly the right moment, before a voice could emerge from their parted lips, I slipped inside them with practiced ease.