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Translated By Arcane Translations
Translator: Chaos
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The wall, with an unimaginable force, instantly enveloped my mind, blocking all external stimuli.
The pressure was so intense that I lost consciousness and collapsed face-first into the snow.
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“That’s the end.”
The Chairman spoke as the video ended.
“We don’t know what Han Tae-woo and Seo Ji-ah encountered inside that unknown cloud. Whatever it was, it even corroded the bodycam footage.”
The Chairman’s voice was subdued, almost melancholic.
“We sent other teams, but they couldn’t find any trace. We still don’t know what that poisonous gas was that incapacitated your team. We autopsied Han Tae-woo and Seo Ji-ah, but the results were the same. We couldn’t find anything similar to it among known toxic substances.”
The Chairman looked at me with a hint of expectation in his eyes and asked,
“Did the video trigger any new memories?”
But I couldn’t answer.
My Mental Barrier was vibrating violently, trying to block the shock from the video.
So… that was the truth behind the dream I kept having…
The strangely colored cloud I encountered in the sky.
The sky and ground flipping repeatedly.
The slowly falling meteor and me screaming at the sight of it.
It had all really happened.
And… the quest that appeared when I first met Han Min-ha…
‘Make Han Min-ha an S-Rank.’
It was exactly what Seo Ji-ah had said when she asked me to make a pledge.
The pledge they made right before they died…
The moment I saw Han Min-ha, who looked exactly like Seo Ji-ah, those words appeared as a quest…
Then… then what was I…?
I had believed I was possessed in a failed academy story.
I had no memories before the academy and could foresee the future to some extent.
No… that wasn’t it…
Looking back… I had never foreseen the future.
At most, I knew Yoo Hee-won would enroll and choose me as her advisor.
Come to think of it, I didn’t even know Yoo Hee-won’s name properly until the entrance ceremony.
I only knew there was an arrogant, rich heroine, and I only assumed Yoo Hee-won was her after Professor Jin Se-young mentioned her name that morning.
And as for her choosing me as her advisor…
It wasn’t that I knew she would choose me; it was more like a coincidence that my arbitrary assumption turned out to be correct…?
Most importantly…
The story of the web novel Han Tae-woo, Han Min-ha’s father, was writing was exactly the same as the story of the failed academy novel I believed I was possessed in…
Then could it be… that the lung disease I suffered from wasn’t a setting of the remake, but a real consequence of being exposed to the poison gas…?
Wait a minute…?
If my lungs were damaged by the poison gas, why couldn’t all the tests find anything wrong, and why did my cough miraculously stop after meeting Han Min-ha…?
If everything was real, there was no way my cough would stop for no reason…? That was medically impossible.
How could I explain this?
“Soo-hyun. Do you remember anything else?”
The Chairman asked again, and I looked up at him.
“No… I’m sorry, I don’t. Nothing besides what was in the video… But… Chairman.”
I paused to organize my thoughts.
The Chairman waited patiently.
“After that incident… what happened to me? I don’t remember anything.”
“You received inpatient treatment at an Administration hospital for quite a while. No, since you don’t remember, anything I say will only increase your suspicion. Wait a moment.”
The Chairman moved the mouse to a different folder.
There were several other video files stored there.
The only difference from the bodycam footage folder was that the thumbnails said “CONFIDENTIAL” instead of “TOP SECRET”.
“Actually, academy professors don’t have security clearance, so it’s illegal for you to even see this. Same goes for the previous videos. Do you understand what I’m saying?”
“I understand perfectly.”
“Good.”
The Chairman played a video.
On the laptop screen, I saw myself lying in a hospital bed with my left shoulder heavily bandaged.
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“How’s the pain in the surgical area?”
One of the several doctors standing next to the bed asked, and I slowly turned my gaze towards them.
“Who are you? And where am I?”
“This is an Administration hospital. You suffered a severe fracture in your left shoulder due to a fall and underwent surgery. You just regained consciousness.”
“A fall and surgery? Hmm…”
I woke up in a hospital bed, and doctors were crowding around me, saying I was seriously injured, had surgery, and had just woken up.
It was a situation where the when, where, how, what, who, and why were almost entirely omitted.
It should have been extremely disconcerting, but I didn’t feel any emotional distress.
Thanks to my strong Mental Barrier, which was firmly protecting my mind.
So, instead of being surprised or scared, I slowly raised my hand and touched my left shoulder.
The slightly damp feeling of bandages.
I saw an IV line connected to the back of my hand, which was touching the bandages.
It seemed I had indeed undergone surgery.
But it felt a bit stiff.
“How does it feel?”
“A bit stiff.”
“That’s normal with artificial joints. Think of it as a brand-new product, fresh out of the box. You’ll get used to it. Let’s take a look while we disinfect it.”
At the doctor’s words, the nurses unwrapped the bandages from my shoulder.
Once the bandages were removed, the stitched wound, dried with red antiseptic, was revealed.
While the nurses disinfected the area, the doctor examined the wound closely and said,
“No inflammation, it looks very good. Don’t worry about the scar. Once it’s healed, we can remove the stitches, and it’ll disappear without a trace.”
“Yes… Cough…!”
When I coughed, another doctor standing behind me frowned.
“You’re coughing?”
“Yes. Cough, cough…!”
“Hmm… That’s strange…”
The doctor turned to another doctor and whispered,
“The lung CT results weren’t this bad… were they…?”
“Right? Why is he coughing? Did we miss something?”
“Well… it was a CT scan, not an X-ray, so it’s unlikely…”
The doctor who had quickly exchanged opinions with his colleague looked at me and said,
“Since you’ve just woken up, let’s run some tests again. There were no abnormalities when you first arrived, but something might have changed in the meantime.”
“Alright. Cough…! But…”
Looking at the several doctors observing me, I asked,
“How did I get here?”
“Ah, about that…”
The doctors exchanged awkward glances, and one of them answered,
“I’m sorry, but we don’t know. ‘They’ didn’t tell us anything.”
“‘They’… Cough! ‘They’?”
“Yes… Actually, it’s a bit difficult for us to talk about this…”
Just then, the door opened, and a middle-aged man in a suit entered.
“I heard you regained consciousness.”
The doctors stepped aside.
“He just woke up. We just finished disinfecting the surgical area.”
The man stared at me intently and then said,
“Thank you for your hard work. You may leave now. We need to talk privately.”
As soon as he finished speaking, the doctors, who had been struggling to answer my questions, quickly left the room with the nurses.
Left alone with the unfamiliar man, I stroked the clean bandages and stared at him.
“What’s your name?”
“It’s Kyo Soo-hyun. And… cough! Yours?”
The man approached the bed and sat in the chair next to it.
“How much do you remember?”
“I don’t understand. What do you mean ‘how much do I remember’?”
“Han Tae-woo, Seo Ji-ah. What happened back then?”
“Who are they? And more importantly, cough! Who are you to ask me such questions?”
“Hmm…”
The man was silent for a moment, then asked a different question,
“Who are you? Why are you here?”
“I believe I already told you my name, and I don’t know why I’m here. More importantly… cough…! I have an interview at the academy… cough! How can I…”
“An interview at the academy?”
“I have a professor appointment interview at Graford Academy… Cough, cough! Ugh…”
“Right… Professor… That’s right…”
The man muttered to himself again and fell silent.
I tried to ask him more, but a violent coughing fit prevented me from doing so.
If I coughed any harder, my stitches might burst.
But despite my physical condition, my mind was clear and sharp.
The Mental Barrier was truly amazing.
I was glad I had learned defense techniques.
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“We ran several thorough examinations on your lungs… but couldn’t find any significant abnormalities.”
The Chairman spoke as the video ended.
“After analyzing the bodycam footage, we concluded that you weren’t directly exposed to the poison gas and were able to escape quickly because of the fall, so your lungs weren’t damaged.”
“Then what was the reason for my cough all this time?”
“Guilt.”
“Excuse me?”
The Chairman leaned back on the sofa and looked at me.
“Guilt over the death of your teammates due to your mistake. A kind of excuse, so to speak. A physical manifestation of ‘it couldn’t be helped because I inhaled the poison gas’.”
So, I tricked myself into believing I had a lung disease because of guilt.
Then, the reason my cough stopped after meeting Han Min-ha was…
“You were given a chance to fulfill the pledge you made to your deceased teammates, wasn’t it, Soo-hyun?”
Because a path to alleviate my guilt had opened up.
I didn’t say anything and looked down at the green tea on the table.
“The same goes for your memory loss. Your Mental Barrier activated to protect you from the shock and resulting mental damage, blocking all memories related to Tae-woo and Ji-ah.”
That’s why my Mental Barrier wavered when I first heard Han Min-ha’s parents’ names.
And after that, I kept having those dreams while I was asleep, when my Mental Barrier weakened.
And when I saw Han Min-ha’s parents’ faces in the archives, cracks formed in my Mental Barrier, and the events of that day unfolded before my eyes.
So… my Mental Barrier was like a dam holding back the flood of my teammates’ deaths.
Every time there was a problem with the dam, a little water leaked out.
I, standing outside the dam, didn’t know what was behind it, and I tilted my head, wondering what kind of water was leaking out.
Everything was a defense mechanism to protect myself from the guilt and trauma of failing to protect my teammates.
The imaginary lung disease I developed by hypnotizing myself into believing I couldn’t be blamed.
The Mental Barrier that blocked all memories of Han Min-ha’s parents to prevent a mental breakdown.
And… the delusion of “possession” to fill in the gaps in my fragmented memories.
Even the story of Han Tae-woo’s web novel, which was used for the “possession,” residing in my subconscious.
The quest to make Han Min-ha, not Yoo Hee-won, the original heroine, an S-Rank.
The lung disease that wasn’t part of the original setting and the organization called Secreto, which I had never heard of.
I had complained that I couldn’t use my knowledge of the story until the end because I was possessed in a remake.
But that wasn’t true.
It wasn’t that I was possessed; it was that I ‘believed’ I was possessed.
“Weren’t you curious how a C-Rank hero became a professor at Graford Academy, which only accepts B-Ranks and above? It’s because I placed you there, Soo-hyun. I couldn’t just abandon a subordinate who had lost all his teammates and was devastated.”
The Chairman spoke to my silence.
“And it’s because of my recommendation that Han Min-ha, your teammate’s daughter, was able to enter the academy.”
I slowly nodded.
“Also… Hee-won choosing you as her advisor. I believed that the Soo-Hyun I knew would be someone I could trust with my daughter.”
So… everything finally made sense.
I see…
That’s how it was.
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