Delusive Fate

#072

#4. Jung Yi-dam

“Where are you going?”

From beside me, no, below me, no, I’m not sure. Anyway, from where the corpse had been strewn. The cold body of Jung Yi-dam, the most precious and valuable person in this world, whom I had killed – I who wasn’t even worth counting as a speck of dust. The voice came from there.

It couldn’t be.

It’s an illusion. I just saw it clearly a moment ago. How ugly Jung Yi-dam had been lying there. The neck, turned bluish from being tightly strangled, the face tinged purple. What had I thought while looking at Jung Yi-dam, no, Jung Yi-dam’s corpse, slumped like that?

‘Like this, there’s not much difference between the scattered glass shards and Jung Yi-dam. Even the great protagonist is just a troublesome piece of meat when dead.’ I had mocked.

And meat can’t speak. It can’t ask where you’re going either.

So I must have misheard. Whether it stays there forever to become worm food, or somehow meets Ki Baek-woo when he returns from the raid to become the real Romeo and Juliet. Whatever happens, that’s all the current Jung Yi-dam can do. Not holding me back or anything like that.

It’s all auditory and tactile hallucinations. Or if not that, then paranoia. I’m originally an idiot whose mental faculties often waver. It’s only natural that I’d have delusions of a dead person coming back to life like a zombie and grabbing onto my ankle. So I should just ignore both the voice asking “Where are you going?” and the lukewarm sensation gripping my ankle, and be on my way.

I moved my legs that had been frozen stiff. My gaze stubbornly looked only forward. I’ll look down again only when I jump off the rooftop. It’s not that I’m afraid of Jung Yi-dam’s dead body or anything. Lee Han-sol, the man, just doesn’t want to bow his head to the world. Muttering this to myself endlessly, I half-extended my foot that was stinging from the glass shards embedded in it.

No, I tried to.

“Where are you going after killing someone, Han-sol?”

I felt the hand wrapped around my ankle tighten its grip strongly. So, just as I had strangled Jung Yi-dam’s neck, that hand was now squeezing my ankle. The feeling of being dragged down. Like a fish caught in a net, unable to move, I creakily turned my head. I hadn’t wanted to look. I absolutely didn’t want to see… but my gaze was drawn down as if bewitched.

“Why don’t you answer where you’re going? Act a bit more expensive.”

“You…”

“Why do you look so surprised?”

“You… I clearly…”

The white hand violently pulled at my ankle. “Ugh!” I staggered clumsily like an animal caught in a trap, and finally collapsed as if falling. Thump, I hit my backside hard on the ground. A gloomy, dull pain spread to the back of my head. But no matter how much or where it hurt, that wasn’t something to pay attention to.

“Fascinating? How does it feel seeing a dead person come back to life and move? Do I look like some kind of saint to you?”

I’m better, right? I resurrected in less than ten minutes, not three days. The voice continued, giggling.

“H-How…”

“If you want to worship me, go ahead. I’ll allow it.”

It would be an honor if Han-sol worshipped me… Saying that with a grin, the person. Just a minute ago, the congestion that had spread from his neck to his face had disappeared as if it was a lie, and he was looking at me with a clean appearance as if nothing had happened…

“Jung Yi-dam, you… why are you alive?”

The Jung Yi-dam I had killed was alive and moving. While firmly gripping one of my ankles.

***

There are very rare beings in this world. People who seem to have been chosen by God, so special.

They seem to possess all the luck and blessings a living being can have. Just the fact that they are born and exist is so noble that it moves those who see them and inspires countless inspirations. Their presence is unique and shines brilliantly.

As if they were the only protagonist of this world.

Jung Yi-dam had realized it from a very young age. If flowing time is an endless movie, and everyone alive is an actor assigned a certain role. Then he is their protagonist.

God had prepared everything for Jung Yi-dam. Everything that exists in the world, even if it’s something that moves and lives, even if it’s in the invisible realm of senses, was all prepared for Jung Yi-dam. The world doesn’t care even if their lives are consumed in some cruel way for Jung Yi-dam. Because what’s important is Jung Yi-dam, not those things or those people.

Jung Yi-dam had also been curious at least once.

‘Why am I special? It seems like all luck follows me. Everyone loves me, and even without asking for help, they all reach out to me. So I don’t know what hardship is. I don’t know what’s difficult. Then am I the king of the world? Is everyone except me my slave? How can I be this special? Only me.’

But even though Jung Yi-dam might be the standard of the world, he wasn’t an all-knowing sage. ‘Why does Jung Yi-dam receive the world’s protection?’ That question remained unsolved for a long time. However, that level of curiosity didn’t matter even if it was never resolved. Whether he knew the reason or not, the fact that Jung Yi-dam was the ‘chosen child’ by fate would never change. It was the truth.

Jung Yi-dam soon focused on something else, putting aside the trivial curiosity. Not the obvious story that only he was special and others except him were as common as sand on a beach, but something truly important.

‘The fact that I’m blessed isn’t important at all. What’s important is what this blessing is trying to give me. God chose me to give me that. I was the most suitable to hold that precious thing. I know what it is.’

Love.

Jung Yi-dam felt it. That he was a person who should love.

The destruction that appeared suddenly one day and destroyed the world. People all despaired in the face of an unknown disaster. They were equally unfortunate. The only one who didn’t know misfortune then was Jung Yi-dam. He had no sense of crisis.

Even when a strange monster that escaped from an abandoned gate opened its large mouth and chewed up the people who were with him. Even if they were his own parents.

Walking on the sticky road wet with blood of unknown origin, Jung Yi-dam predicted. These things cannot harm me. Because this strange phenomenon is also created by the world, and what that world cherishes most is me.

‘Even if everyone dies, I alone will not die. Because everything in the world protects me, even those strange monsters might be decorations for me. Whatever happens, I will safely become an adult. And when that time comes, God will finally use me for my intended purpose.’

When that time comes, fate will lead me to the predetermined place.

‘With love.’

To a place overflowing with love. The most beautiful, great, and perfect emotion that humans can possess…!

Jung Yi-dam, immersed in sweet dreams, waited only for love. The fundamental and ultimate blessing that he, the most precious in the world, would finally have. The reason he exists, and this world exists.

‘Love!’

Jung Yi-dam’s destiny is ‘to love’. He recognized his duty instinctively, with razor-sharp clarity. Why love isn’t important. The key is that Jung Yi-dam was born for it, and this is an undeniable absolute fact.

Anyway, for that reason, Jung Yi-dam lived waiting only for his destined partner. He wanted to grow up quickly, meet the person he would love, conquer them to create perfect affection. He wanted to be happy with them forever.

‘Wait a minute, conquer? Do I need to use such an expression for my destined partner?’

It’s too planned and calculated. Just like playing a game. Love shouldn’t be treated like that.

‘But it can’t be helped.’

Because this was inside a romance simulation game called where Jung Yi-dam was the protagonist.

***

That day was when Jung Yi-dam forgot his birthday.

In mid-March when magnolia buds poke out their heads, and the noble Jung Yi-dam was born. That day, which Jung Yi-dam had considered his birthday until now, was demoted to a trivial day when just a physical body was created, from that moment.

‘Ah, I’ve just been born now. Today is the day when I, my heart, my soul, my mind truly came into being.’

Jung Yi-dam was immersed in dreamy admiration in a conference room that could easily accommodate fifty people. He realized that his self before today was just an immature bird trapped in an egg. As he broke out of the egg, the tender bird’s heart beat fiercely. He felt like he might cry a little.

Jung Yi-dam, who was dizzy with excitement and tension at that time, was barely breathing shallowly. The center director standing next to him was introducing him instead. Four pairs of eyes were watching them standing side by side at the front of the conference room.

“As you all know from the news, this is Healer Jung Yi-dam who recently awakened as an S-class healing hunter.”

He’s been living in C district until now and came to A district with this awakening. We were planning to bring him here a bit earlier, but because the government was late in approving highway passage… Ahem. And we couldn’t put such a precious person on a public bus, of course. Uh, also… Anyway, I ask for your generous understanding about the schedule being a bit delayed, our hunter-nims.

At twenty-one years old. Jung Yi-dam, who was reborn as the one and only S-class healing hunter under the protection of God and the world, sensed it at the moment of awakening. The golden energy of awakening spreading inside him. This sensation as if gold-plated parts were newly forming inside his body would finally lead him to the path of destiny. As if the long, unskippable prologue that unfolded before the game started had ended, and finally the [Do you want to proceed with the tutorial?] selection window had appeared.

Jung Yi-dam willingly stepped into the ecstatic fate he had longed for. The time ahead would be the progression of the ‘main story’ that the world had built for him. Main story. Although he couldn’t know yet what events and conflicts lurked within it, at least one thing was certain. It would repeat without stopping.

Until the world called system collapses.

‘But that won’t happen.’

Because… I can feel it. This golden energy inside me. It’s perfectly structured like mathematics, and feels like an absolute energy that can’t possibly be refused. It wasn’t just a simple healing ability.

‘Perhaps… this is part of this world. I just feel it. A part of the system has entered me. No, it might have been there from the beginning. It just didn’t move because it wasn’t time…’

This is like the Holy Spirit descending on the body of a beloved believer of God. This energy will lead Jung Yi-dam with a power of a different dimension from now on. It will force him to move according to the already determined fate. It will make Jung Yi-dam fall in love, and this is a schematic providence that can never be refused. Jung Yi-dam is the protagonist, and the protagonist and the system are closely connected as if they are one, and such a system is the world itself.

As long as Jung Yi-dam doesn’t become a trivial existence scattered on the street, it was a law that wouldn’t change. Love and be loved and love. He will be infinitely joyful in the endless continuation of love. If this repetition stops, it would only mean the end of the world. But such a thing will never happen. Because as long as Jung Yi-dam doesn’t die, this place will be eternal.

Because a protagonist is a special existence that survives even when everyone else dies.

So Jung Yi-dam was trembling at that moment. When he saw the four men wastefully filling the large space in the center’s conference room. When his eyes flickered as if an input value had appeared, saying ‘It’s those people’, and information about their personal details that no one had told him flowed into his mind. Jung Yi-dam could tell at once. That they were the destined partners who must achieve perfect love with him.

“Ahem, then before we discuss more details, let me introduce the hunters here to our healer… These are the four S-class hunters in our country. Yes, anyway, you’re expected to be formed into a raid team together for the most part from now on. The person on the far left is…”

Choi Tae-hyuk, Im Geon-woo, Ji Woo-won…. Jung Yi-dam slowly looked over them, whom he could recognize without the center director’s introduction. He met eyes with them one by one, in order. He felt the red thread of fate connecting them. And lastly.

“Finally, the person on the far right has been active since his teens, and his name is…”

Ki Baek-woo. Their eyes met. It was the first moment Jung Yi-dam and Ki Baek-woo’s gazes connected.