Chapter 254 - Chapter 254 (1/2)

Side Story 11

5. Your daily routine (6)

"That image of a monster, can I have it as a souvenir?"

A few hours ago.

As a souvenir for his reunion with Woo Jin-Cheol, Jin-Woo wanted the sketch of Beru the detective had drawn up on the spot.

'Well, it does kind of resemble Beru, so I want it because of that....'

Of course, a certain someone hiding in his shadow didn't think the same as his liege, though.

[Oh, my kinggggg!! I beg thee not to fall for that shoddy and crude doodling of a plebeian!!]

Beru desperately pleaded with his liege that he was nowhere near that ugly in the sketch, but Jin-Woo simply let that whining enter one ear and go out the other.

In the meantime, Woo Jin-Cheol stared at his own drawing for a bit as if to let go of all his lingering attachments.

Soon, though...

Riiip...

….He cleanly tore the page off the memo pad. Woo Jin-Cheol extended his hand holding the drawing to Jin-Woo.

"Here."

"Thank you."

Jin-Woo gladly accepted the sketch.

And during that process, the detective's hand briefly touched the tip of Jin-Woo's finger.

It was surely nothing important in the grand scheme of things. However, massive events that left their mark in history books sometimes began with seemingly insignificant little things.

Woo Jin-Cheol turned around and hurriedly descended the staircase.

'I knew it, this whole thing was a dumb mistake.'

Regret was rapidly filling him up.

Because he got too hyped up from the prospect of finding a clue, he ended up doing something that he'd be unable to explain even to the youngest detective in the squad with a straight face.

The sense of embarrassment and regret rushed in like the incoming tides, now that this was all he had to show for his efforts.

'Stairs always feel so d*mn long only on days like today, don't they?'

Detective Woo Jin-Cheol bitterly muttered to himself as he climbed down the staircase, but then, his steps had to come to an abrupt halt.

'Mm....?'

He suddenly heard a voice from somewhere, that was why.

- Association President. Do you trust me?

'…..??'

Woo Jin-Cheol froze up when a chill-inducing feeling crept up on his spine and he quickly scanned up and down where he was. He saw not one person coming down from the stairs or climbing up from below.

Classes were still ongoing, so the steps of the school were quite literally, quiet and still.

Woo Jin-Cheol tilted his head this way and that, before he tried to climb down the remaining few steps to the ground floor only to hear another voice again.

- Yes, of course, I trust you.

This time, it was his own voice.

'W-what the heck is this?!'

A person with an easily-scared personality would squat down or start screaming from fear by now. However, Woo Jin-Cheol wasn't one. He simply remained calm while he scanned his surroundings once more, before pulling out a memo pad and a pen as a sombre expression formed on his face.

'I'm suddenly hearing auditory hallucinations. Could it be that the sense of loss I feel or the ant monster I witnessed were evidence of something wrong with my brain?'

The end of a brief observation was signed off with a question mark scribbled on with his pen.

Woo Jin-Cheol felt rather weirded out now. He stuffed the memo pad inside his inner pocket and hurriedly descended the rest of the steps. And with a speed far quicker than that, he escaped from the school building.

But then….

….Yet another auditory hallucination rocked the inside of his head.

- In that case, I hope you will believe everything I'm about to show you.

"Euhk!!"

Woo Jin-Cheol gritted his teeth and covered both of his ears.

The voice he had never heard before and his own words that he never uttered before as well, began making a mess out of his mind. An intense bout of confusion crashed into him like an unstoppable tide.

"W-what the hell is this?!"

And then, out of all those voices swirling in his head, there was this one phrase that kept ringing so clearly in his head.

- Seong Jin-Woo Hunter-nim.

- Hunter-nim.

- In that case, what should we…. No, what should I do to help you, Hunter-nim?

- Hunter-nim!

- Seong Jin-Woo Hunter-nim!!

A name that didn't want to leave his head alone. The name of Hunter Seong Jin-Woo.

'If it's Seong Jin-Woo, then…. Isn't that the name of the student I just met?'

He heard that patients suffering from mental disorders often came up with crazy stories that featured people from their lives. Could such a thing be happening inside his head now?

Woo Jin-Cheol walked forward as his body swayed unsteadily. He kept frowning in pain as a migraine viciously pounded away at his temples.

Even then, even if the inside of his head had become so complicated and messy to the point that he didn't know how to unravel all the tangled thoughts in there – every time he recalled the name 'Seong Jin-Woo Hunter-nim', it felt like the big hole in his heart was slowly filling back up for some weird reason.

Woo Jin-Cheol crashed down on a park bench and began murmuring repeatedly the name that continued to swim inside his mind.

'Hunter Seong Jin-Woo, Hunter Seong Jin-Woo, Hunter Seong Jin-Woo...

That name holds the clue.

I definitely know that name, Seong Jin-Woo.

I must remember it.

I must drag it out into the open.

I must find all the memories of him, and the reason why those memories are erased from my mind.'

"Euh-euhk!!"

While still under an extreme case of a migraine, Woo Jin-Cheol fought hard to recall his memories and eventually, a certain scene popped up in his head.

"Association President. Do you trust me?"

"Yes, of course, I trust you."

"In that case, I hope you will believe everything I'm about to show you."

"Excuse me?"

The tip of a finger belonging to someone approached his forehead. The moment it touched his skin, darkness dyed his view for a short while but during that time, a countless number of images flashed past his eyes.

Those were the memories that connected the past, the present, and the future. And they contained the stories of Gates, monsters, Hunters, Rulers, and Sovereigns.

"This, this can't be…. Just how can such a thing be....?"

Woo Jin-Cheol couldn't finish what he wanted to say, and Jin-Woo, now the Shadow Sovereign, replied with a lonesome expression.

"Well, a higher being's memories aren't affected by the flow of time, you see."

Indeed, a Sovereign's memories easily transcended the boundaries of time itself.

"Pant, pant...."

Woo Jin-Cheol panted heavily and with great difficulty after emerging from the flashback of the 'past'. For a short moment in time that no longer existed, his consciousness was connected to Jin-Woo, who was a higher existence.

And it happened then; memories sealed tightly away somewhere within his soul had been unlocked through yet another contact with Jin-Woo, and were brought back up to the territory of his consciousness.

"Oh, my god...."

The sense of emptiness that felt as if there was a hole in the corner of his heart slowly filled back up, and warm tears began trickling down from Woo Jin-Cheol's eyes.

He then remembered the question he asked Jin-Woo after learning of what the latter was planning to do.

- Seong Hunter-nim…. Are you planning to fight these things? All by yourself?

The answer to that question, it was right in front of his eyes now.

A young man whose name was unknown, walking past the park bench while listening to music through a pair of earphones; a pair of lovers brushing past him while whispering their undying love to each other….

An old man out to walk his dog, and people loosening their muscles near the exercise equipment in the park….

In this world, in this place, there were no Gates. No monsters. No battles.

Woo Jin-Cheol now bore witness to the miracle that man had created through his hands, this incredible peace, and thicker, hotter tears began flooding out from his eyes.

"Seong Hunter-nim, you... did it."

Woo Jin-Cheol recalled the screams of so many people meeting their ends at the monsters and continued to weep for a long, long time.

'….No, hang on. I, I shouldn't be doing this.'

The veteran detective's rough, calloused hands busily moved about to wipe away the tears.

Even if the entire world had forgotten about the truth, Woo Jin-Cheol had to go and tell Seong Jin-Woo that at least there was one person who knew the latter had battled for the sake of the world itself.