By Zephyria 
“No, wait a minute! Director Woo. Wait. I’ll make a new offer.”
His head was throbbing madly and burning.
It was burning so hot that he couldn’t bear the extreme headache. It felt like his skull was about to break.
“Take my hand. If I become the chairman of Gyeongjeong…… it’s as good as Director Woo becoming the chairman. I don’t care if I’m a puppet, so how about Director Woo playing the role of a behind-the-scenes power? I, I’ll persuade all the old fogeys in the back room.”
The Woo Tae-hwon he had forgotten was slowly opening his eyes and waking up.
The self he didn’t know.
The monster that had disappeared far into the distance and sunk to the bottom of the abyss was slowly stretching and rising.
“Your tongue is very long.”
Tae-hwon frowned deeply and stared at him. His head was a mess. Fragmented memories were surfacing, adding to the confusion. He couldn’t tell who he was talking to now.
“U, Director Woo……!”
“Your skill at seducing people is still terrible.”
Who could it be? The man who was saying these words.
“What reception, I told you to stop poking me, why did you keep bothering me? Thanks to the second young master’s tricks, I had a hard time.”
Which Woo Tae-hwon could it be?
“Yem……sick.”
Crackle.
It’s breaking. It’s breaking. It’s breaking.
The hourglass that had been stopped in his head shattered with a crash, and instead of sand grains, the memories that had been densely trapped were poured out. Rushing. It flows down. Pouring in all directions. Down. Up. To the left and right…….
“……Ugh.”
He couldn’t bear it anymore.
His head was a mess as if a hole had been blown in his brain. His vision was blurred, making it difficult to distinguish even an inch ahead. The blood in his whole body was boiling hot and his breathing was rough. The greatly agitated emotions were also rushing in like a tsunami.
‘Quickly.’
He couldn’t waste any more time.
‘Hurry!’
He had to kill Kwon Hyeon-oh right now. Before his thoughts collapsed beyond repair.
Anyway, there was no friendly chat to share with him. This was the end. Tae-hwon closed his mouth tightly and raised his arm. He reversed the sword and swung it with all his might.
Swish!
The sensation of being deeply cut was transmitted through his palm.
The tip of the sword, aimed at the chest where the major organs were distributed, reached its target. It was exactly the heart.
But. Reaching it was not enough. Because there was an obstacle blocking it.
“Ukeok!”
Han-seon, why.
Kwon Hyeon-oh used Han-seon, who was crouching under the sofa, as a meat shield. The blade’s trajectory curved at Han-seon’s shoulder, and Kwon Hyeon-oh, who was narrowly stabbed in the upper chest, forcibly pushed the groaning Han-seon toward Tae-hwon and immediately turned to run away.
His running steps were not just hurried but desperate.
“Hee… hee!”
Kwon Hyeon-oh, with blood dripping from his ears and chest, stumbled gracelessly, grabbing and shaking the broken iron bars. The gate creaked, making a loud metallic noise. It seemed a joint was broken somewhere, as the iron gate wouldn’t open. It was twisted and stuck.
Tae-hwon looked down at Han-seon, who had been stabbed by the knife he had wielded.
He was groaning and weeping in terrible pain.
Blood was dripping from his already horribly festering skin, and from his lips, only a hissing breath escaped, barely distinguishable as a human voice.
If he pulled out the embedded knife as it was, the bleeding would be severe.
This was Han-seon, who had sold out Kwon Rae-i.
But he was also Han-seon, who had saved Woo Tae-hwon’s life.
Tae-hwon released the knife handle he was holding. He carefully laid Han-seon down on the rug on the floor and, straightening up, ran toward the iron gate at the entrance.
Now, his head felt like it was being crumpled up. It felt like this was what it would be like to grab his brain and knead it into a ball like dough. Dizzy, painful, and suffocating. With each step, his head rang sharply.
Random memories surfaced, flashed by, and mixed together. His vision spun, and his sight became dizzying.
‘Ah!’
Still, Tae-hwon stubbornly took difficult steps. Reaching the entrance, he grabbed the iron bars and punched Kwon Hyeon-oh in the face.
‘Aaaah!’
Thwack!
Thwack!
Thwack!
He could no longer discern what expression Kwon Hyeon-oh was making.
He was only swinging his fist with murderous intent.
As much as he had been brutally beaten. Perhaps even more so.
He punched. He punched. He punched.
Tae-hwon, until the last moment of collapsing, grabbed Kwon Hyeon-oh and swung his fist. He intended to break and shatter his jaw. So that he could never get out alive. Even if he lived, he wouldn’t be able to escape this place, unconscious…
Then, at some point, the ceiling turned black. He couldn’t endure it any longer.
“Ah, ah! Aagh! Ah…!”
With Kwon Hyeon-oh’s fading screams, Tae-hwon’s consciousness also snapped off.
* * *
It was a dark wasteland.
An endlessly stretched barren land. The cracked earth was split like a spider web beneath his feet. The trees were withered and dead, and the wind did not breathe. It was silent. Tae-hwon stood alone in the empty space, and with each breath he took, a cloud of dust rose. There was no sound. The silence pressed down on his ears.
An unconsciousness too unreal to be reality.
But suddenly, from the endlessly vast darkness, the sound of water was heard. Water began to rush in beyond the dust clouds. It was pouring down from all directions like a waterfall.
The shallow stream of water that had slowly risen from his ankles gradually intensified, eventually turning into a huge wave.
“What is this?”
He muttered, but his voice was swallowed by the water and not heard. As the water rose, a strange smell spread. A thick, fishy, and sticky smell, like the scent of old iron. He gasped and reflected his face in the water. The water was no longer clear. It was a deeply stained red color, blood.
Before he could avoid it, Tae-hwon was swept away by the blood. Cold and heavy, the water pressed down on his entire body. He thrashed, but the water continued to rise. He couldn’t breathe. He opened his mouth to breathe, but instead of air, red water flowed into his lungs.
“Ugh, heuk!”
It was red.
Even in the deep darkness, a vivid crimson color filled the water. Something floated up in it. There was something wriggling in the water.
Faces.
Faces screaming in pain surged up and disappeared between the waves.
Han-seon and Kwon Hyeon-oh, Kwon Sang-oh, and Chairman.
Chairman Kwon Jung-il…
Tae-hwon, falling into the abyss with the red waves, widened his eyes. Then, the last face floated on the waves. He made eye contact with black eyes.
It was Woo Tae-hwon, himself.
“Ugh!”
The memories that surfaced in his head sparked and tore apart.
He saw the moments when he ran, stained his hands with blood, and finally sighed and slumped down.
Gleaming blades and thunderous Gunfire.
And the air growing cold in the stench of blood.
‘Stop it.’
The wind grew stronger, and water, earth, and blood created a huge vortex.
‘I don’t want to remember.’
Heaven and earth were turned upside down, and everything seemed to be recreated.
Something was broken, and something else was created.
‘Stop, stop it, please!’
Tae-hwon cried out silently. He didn’t want to return to his former self. He didn’t want to regain any memories. He couldn’t possibly do that.
Of course, thanks to the awakening of his thirty-year-old self, he was able to wield a knife and express murderous intent. Thanks to that, he survived. If the forgotten self had not surfaced, he would never have been able to defeat Kwon Hyeon-oh. But even so, he wanted to stop.
Because if he returned, he felt like he could no longer live as Woo Tae-hwon himself.
Because the cozy moment he had barely reached with Kwon Rae-i would be shattered into pieces.
The thirty-year-old Woo Tae-hwon would never accept Kwon Rae-i. He was strong alone, ruthless and cruel, and a man who sought his own safety by harming others.
He was the man who killed Chairman Kwon, who had taken him in, betrayed the organization he had vowed to be buried in, and even abandoned the young master he thought was his salvation with his own hands.
How could Woo Tae-hwon possibly accept such a person?
Tae-hwon covered his head with both hands and tried to push away the memories. He didn’t want to know any more. The blood swallowed his eyes, consumed his body, and he refused to the end, even as he fell endlessly. He felt like he was forgetting something very important, but it didn’t matter what it was.
If only for one day.
He wanted to exist as Woo Tae-hwon, the twenty-year-old.