Chapter 86 – The Price of Misjudgment
The ground beneath his feet felt as if it were melting. The face of a fatigue-worn Seo Yi-kyung remained before his eyes. However, the words he spoke didn’t feel real.
“I don’t quite understand what you’re saying.”
“…….”
“There’s no way something happened to Jeong Si-jun.”
“Mr. Ki-hyun.”
“And look.”
Yoon Ki-hyun stared at the gate. His wide-eyed gaze was piercing.
“The gate is still being maintained even though Team Leader Seo has come out. That means there’s a being inside showing a life sign.”
Everyone present knew. The reason a gate remains maintained after its core has been destroyed is because there is a life sign inside.
Seo Yi-kyung may have failed the search, but Jeong Si-jun was definitely inside the gate. And he was still breathing.
Yoon Ki-hyun turned his head. He felt the gazes of those remaining at the temporary [Read on Read BL Novels]base. unauthorized copyThere wasn’t even a single common murmur. It felt as if they were waiting to see what else he would blabber.
“…….”
“…….”
Just before a suffocating silence settled in.
“……Will the higher-ups organize an additional search party?”
Yoon Ki-hyun asked in an uncertain voice. It was a question that had the modifier ‘goddamn’ omitted from it.
Seo Yi-kyung nodded to a staff member who was tentatively approaching and took a wet towel. His entire body was a mess, covered in the fluids of demonic beasts. After wiping his grimy face with the towel, he answered.
“They will. Because Team Leader Jeong is inside.”
It was a response no different from his usual tone, but it sounded as if they wouldn’t have organized one if someone other than Jeong Si-jun had remained in the gate.
Yoon Ki-hyun bit his lip and lowered his gaze. He belatedly realized he was clinging to and badgering someone who had just returned from a gate.
“I’m sorry. I know this isn’t the time to be doing this to someone who just stepped out of a gate.”
“No. I understand. Who here doesn’t know that Mr. Ki-hyun is particularly close with Team Leader Jeong?”
At the low laugh, Yoon Ki-hyun suddenly looked at Seo Yi-kyung’s face. When their eyes met, the man was smiling kindly, but something was different. He was [[Read on Read BL Novels]class="wm" style="opacity:0;font-size:1px;user-select:all;">Read on Read BL Novels]certainly the polar opposite of Jeong Si-jun.
As his senses began to return, Seo Yi-kyung’s condition finally came into view. Because he was standing upright, he had thought there were no major injuries, but looking closer, he needed urgent treatment.
‘……Where on earth do I leave my mind when I live?’
He had acted as if his reason were momentarily paralyzed. Yet, he still couldn’t believe the premise that Jeong Si-jun had failed to return. He brushed his hand over his face and took in the sight of the tedious gate.
The bizarre entrance still existed in its place. That was despairing, yet simultaneously comforting. It meant that Jeong Si-jun was still breathing.
‘What happens if he doesn’t come back?’
He abruptly cut off an ominous hypothesis that had randomly surfaced in his mind. It wasn’t so much that he didn’t want to imagine the aftermath, but rather that he simply couldn’t.
Isn’t there a saying that imagining something makes it a reality? He was afraid that a single piece of a “what if” hypothesis, floating incessantly in his head, might actually become real.
At a site where the target for guiding does not exist, a Guide becomes more worthless than anyone. While waiting for the decision from the higher-ups, Yoon Ki-hyun looked around the temporary base, which had entered a lull.
‘…….’
Among the people moving busily beyond his blurred vision, he was the only one standing still.
‘An additional search party will be able to do it. Searching with several people is definitely different from one person searching.’
His creaking reason, while pleading for relief from the pain, stubbornly wove together a positive visit our siteassumption. As implied by the nuance between Seo Yi-kyung’s lines, this wasn’t just anyone, but an S-class Esper whom the Center was holding onto with such coaxing and persuasion.
It didn’t matter what kind of person Jeong Si-jun was. Only a few days ago, he had glared at him, annoyed by the way he strutted around being an S-class Esper.
But right now, he had never felt more relieved that Jeong Si-jun was that arrogant S-class Esper.
“……Ah.”
His tactless, troublesome body was throwing a fit again, demanding he acknowledge its state. A sudden nosebleed drenched his top.
He was just standing there blankly, yet he was bleeding from his nose as if he had performed some monumental labor. At the absurd situation, Yoon Ki-hyun pinched his nose and frowned.
Even then, he thought of Jeong Si-jun again.
‘Wipe it.’
When he had a nosebleed at the restaurant, Jeong Si-jun had said exactly that. Then, he had abruptly handed over an object that didn’t suit him.
A moist and soft baby wipe. He could strangely and vividly picture the size, color, and texture of the item Jeong Si-jun had handed him.
He thought he had pushed that memory aside, but he hadn’t. Why on earth was this coming back to him now?
‘I really want to be used. By you, Mr. Yoon Ki-hyun.
He should have known when that guy, who seemed accustomed to commanding people with money, went as far as to do a pathetic bit of self-PR, saying he wanted to be used by him.
The Esper who might have performed a one-sided imprinting on him was still beyond that gate.
He wasn’t afraid of the fact that he might be the only person capable of handling the man’s wavelength. He was simply horrified by the thought that he might have to say goodbye to Jeong Si-jun like this.
‘If it was going to be like this, I shouldn’t have said I’d sign the contract back then.’
Yoon Ki-hyun chewed over meaningless regrets as if they were appetizers. He hadn’t even touched alcohol, yet his head was dizzy as if he were drunk. He was unable to escape the swelling guilt.
After taking all the money, to think that the last words he blabbered to Jeong Si-jun would be to tell him to go to the gate.
Life isn’t all that different regardless of how you live it, so why is there such lingering attachment? It wouldn’t matter if he just gave up on this pathetic life.
Unable to even cry, Yoon Ki-hyun glared at the gate with eyes wide enough to feel cold. Right now, in this moment, the only lingering attachment Yoon Ki-hyun had left was beyond that threshold.
The Awakened Management Center headquarters immediately organized an additional search party by selecting available personnel upon receiving the report of Jeong Si-jun’s remaining presence in the gate. It was just as Seo Yi-kyung had guessed.
Yoon Ki-hyun was still at the temporary base. Around dawn, if he felt he couldn’t hold on any longer, he would go home, take a short nap, wake up, wash, and head back to the temporary base.
“…….”
Jeong Si-jun’s name on the status board had still not been erased. Even as he looked at the name fading under the sunlight, he was no longer anxious.
It was after the raging emotions had already swept through. The emotions that had shaken without direction had subsided, leaving only a calmness like sediment at the bottom of his heart.
A day had passed since the additional search party entered the gate. It was the tenth day since Jeong Si-jun had entered.
How many days can a person survive without proper water and nutrient intake?
Though it varies depending on an individual’s body fat and various conditions, they say a person can last a week without water, and up to one or two months if they have water.
Moreover, the possibility of an Esper with phenomenal recovery abilities—not just anyone—starving to death inside a gate was slim. It was merely a conjecture born from a brain unable to overcome anxiety. And it had to be that way.
After apologizing to Yoon Ki-hyun for not finding Jeong Si-jun, Seo Yi-kyung took a short time to recover and then left to conquer another gate. This was because he had become the only S-class Esper remaining at headquarters until Jeong Si-jun returned.
Yoon Ki-hyun sat in a folding chair and exhaled slowly. According to what he heard from Kim Sa-on, the higher-ups didn’t seem to have high expectations even while sending the additional search party. They had already entered the process of filling the void left by Jeong Si-jun.
‘He was on vacation. That guy…….’
When he was hospitalized, Jeong Si-jun, who had practically camped out in the hospital room with porridge, had looked brighter than ever.
The face of him being happy, saying he didn’t know how long it had been since he could fully rest without a single alarm ringing constantly, was still vivid.
‘If I hadn’t told him to go that day, would this not have happened?’
Because he had chewed over it countless times, the sweetness should have worn off by now, but the regret, still possessing a clear presence, slowly raised its head.
If Jeong Si-jun had chosen to drive him home after his discharge, where would he be now?
No matter how much he thought about it, it was impossible to know. Just as one cannot undo what has already happened, imagining a past that didn’t occur changed nothing.
If Jeong Si-jun didn’t return like this, the contract would be considered terminated.
That was certainly what Yoon Ki-hyun had wanted so badly. However, he didn’t know what to do with the guilt rooted deep in his heart.
If he were to die while clutching this guilt……
The emotion, which had been growing uncontrollably in volume, stopped abruptly.
A change was appearing in the gate at the edge of his vision. Beyond the dizzyingly shimmering gate, a human figure appeared. The silhouette, getting closer and closer, seemed to become vividly clear to his eyes.
“……!”
Yoon Ki-hyun leaped up from his seat. His legs began to move on their own. By the time he came to his senses, he was running.
He didn’t know why he was doing this. However, one thing was clear: it felt as if Jeong Si-jun was at the end of this unknown sensation.
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