Chapter 101
When I opened my eyes, I saw a familiar sight.
My hell, filled with nightmare memories I could never forget, even in death.
The subway station near my apartment.
That's the place.
"..."
I couldn't figure out what had happened to me.
Was this reality?
What the hell happened?
The last thing I saw was a new ending appearing, stating that I had gone missing. Then it said the next loop would begin.
After that... What happened after that...?
My memories of it vanished rapidly, as if evaporating. It felt as though the memory condensed into a tiny crystal inside my head, then was swept away by the wind in an instant.
I stood there blankly and muttered the status window.
——————————
[●Status Window]
Name : Kim Geunhong
Title : The One Who Activated the Reality Re-Recognition Device
Age : 24
.
.
Loop : 3
Number of Deaths : 20(-1)
[●List of Deaths by Loop]
[●Collected Endings]
[●Functions]
[●Solved List]
[●Owned Abilities]
[●Point Shop]
[●Mailbox]
[●Inventory]
[...]
——————————
"The loop... has advanced."
The third loop.
The loop had advanced.
I hadn't regressed; I had moved on to the next loop. Why had the loop advanced instead of me regressing?
"Jemtree... why...?"
Why had Jemtree done that to me...?
And what was that strange flute sound coming from those headphones?
No.
More than that.
The sense of betrayal.
The betrayal seeping into my chest spread through my entire body and made my head spin. My stomach churned, and my vision warped.
"Why!"
I trusted you!
How could you do that to me!
"Aaaaaaaagh!"
All I could do was scream. Jemtree always made coffee for me. A good senior, always kind to a junior...!
But Jemtree betrayed me!
Just as I was consumed by that sense of betrayal.
"Come over here."
A familiar voice pierced my ear.
Sekriem.
The vampire's voice.
"Ah."
The familiar sensation of my body being overtaken by hypnosis.
The moment I felt this sensation, everything became clear.
That's right.
After moving to the next loop, I had returned to the moment I first encountered the vampire in the subway.
What was this "disappearance," anyway, that an ending had appeared and moved me to the next loop? Jemtree's betrayal wasn't ordinary. Jemtree hadn't simply killed me; I had been eliminated by an even more extraordinary method.
If there was a reason... then surely Jemtree's final words were a hint.
I had gotten close to the truth of the Administration Bureau. Because of that, Jemtree, who had received a special order from the Bureau's upper echelons, eliminated me. By some method beyond imagination, going beyond simply killing me.
Then what happened to Jaaldi and Spangdal?
Were they both eliminated too?
ㅡDrip.
Tears trickled down.
The loop advancing meant...
that all my connections with everyone I'd met so far had been reset.
Spangdal and Jaaldi were no longer people I knew.
That's what regression and loops were like.
In the end, I couldn't share this pain with anyone...
"I know you're there."
Guided by the vampire's voice, I walked on.
ㅡStep, step.
The subway was quiet in the dead of night.
The only sound echoing was my footsteps on the tiled floor.
Countless memories brushed past me.
More specifically... you could call them memories from the second loop.
At the same time, I also revisited the memories of the first loop that I'd acquired in the second.
Sekriem... so in the end, we'd meet again like this.
"Hello?"
Behind the shutter.
A woman in red, with long blond hair hanging down, beckoned to me. Her figure was beautiful, and her voice was sweet.
Her plaintive appearance from when she'd reached out and asked me to join her overlapped with this one.
"You see, I'm trapped in here. Could you open this for me?"
Sekriem held out a key.
Now I knew.
If I obediently opened the door here, Sekriem would bite me and turn me into a ghoul. Then I'd eventually become a vampire, earn her recognition, destroy the world, and ascend as a Vampire Angel.
And the loop would advance,
just as it had now, after the Administration Bureau betrayed me.
But at this moment.
What if I persuaded Sekriem? What if I revealed a few truths and guided her where I wanted, forming a kind of alliance?
Could I uncover this vast secret while working with Sekriem? Could I learn the truth about my abilities?
"Here, take this key. You can use it to open the door."
I looked at the key resting on her white hand.
I reached out.
"Come on... come to me..."
But.
Even so.
I hate vampires.
"Toh!"
I thrust a finger at Sekriem, unleashing the faith inside me. The materialized divine power, refined into the form of liquefied garlic, shot out and covered the evil red demon.
"Kyaaaaaaaagh!"
ㅡSssssizzle!
Sekriem screamed as her face melted. Her pained expression overlapped with the one from before, but that... was merely a thing of the past.
"How dare you, how daaaare you!"
The disfigured vampire writhed.
I glared at her to the very end and—
ㅡFlick.
pointed at her again.
"W-wait—"
"Toh!"
"Just you wait!"
Before the second burst of faith could shoot out, the vampire vanished into black smoke.
And so I was left alone in the subway.
Empty.
In that silent space.
"Aaaah... I'm fucking lonely."
What was I supposed to do now?
Everything felt hollow.
Regression.
The loop.
They both felt like nothing more than some meaningless, fleeting illusion.
Was this going to repeat forever?
If I broke the repetition, how?
ㅡStep, step.
I slowly climbed the stairs.
When I went outside, the air was cold.
Back then, I had run all the way home like a madman and spent the day in a frenzy. But I didn't think I needed to do that today.
I looked up at the sky.
"..."
The bright moon illuminated the darkness.
For some reason, I felt as though the moon was watching me.
* * *
It had been a long time since I'd come back to my studio apartment.
There was no need to turn this place into a space of madness. The injured vampire wouldn't be able to pursue me for a while.
I thought of my parents too, but by the time the vampire recovered, I wouldn't be able to go see them. I might be able to call, though.
ㅡWhoosh.
After washing with cold water, I lay down on the bed.
My thoughts were tangled.
The rising betrayal made me feel suffocated, while a near-nihilistic emptiness filled what remained. The negative emotions kept amplifying without end. I even found myself thinking that I didn't care about regression or anything else anymore.
Would I never be able to see Spangdal again?
To see her, I'd have to take the same route and enter the Administration Bureau again. I might be able to uncover something in the process. Things like the Reality Re-Recognition Device, for example.
Of course, now that I knew Jemtree was a lackey of the Administration Bureau's upper echelons, I might be able to do something more with Jaaldi.
But... no.
Even if I went back in, there was no guarantee I'd reach that information. And what if something went wrong again and the loop advanced?
Goosebumps rose all over my body.
It wouldn't be good for the number of regressions to increase.
It would be even worse if the number of loops increased.
If the upper echelons learned that I was approaching the truth of the Administration Bureau, the loop would advance. I wasn't confident enough to walk this trap route again.
Or I could simply pretend not to know, reveal nothing, and live as an Administration Bureau agent.
But... what meaning would that have?
"Sigh."
What should I do now?
I'd lost my sense of direction.
I was no longer Agent Grrong. I was just a college student named Kim Geunhong... Wait. What? Something was strange.
I immediately opened the status window and checked the name.
[Kim Geunhong]
It said Kim Geunhong.
Not Grrong!
"What the hell!"
When had the name in the status window changed? What's more, I hadn't even noticed that my name had changed...!
"This is fucking crazy!"
Had entering the Administration Bureau caused the status window to change, without me realizing it?
What the hell was going on!
How could something like this happen?
"What the hell is the Administration Bureau...!"
Overwhelming confusion swallowed my mind. Were Grrong of the Administration Bureau and I, Kim Geunhong, separate beings? No. That couldn't be. I remembered everything I'd done as Grrong.
I didn't have my agent badge, but I was confident I could work as an agent if they told me to right now.
There really was something going on with the Administration Bureau.
Thoughts about it began to boil up, but—
soon cooled again.
Either way... hadn't I already known it was a suspicious organization? This was merely one more thing to add to the list. Something like the status window's name changing was nothing compared to the betrayal I'd suffered.
I thought about what I should do from here on.
Darkness, nothing but darkness.
My eyes closed in the void.
In my dream, I was walking through some maze-like space. I don't know whether it was a symbol of longing, but Jaaldi was beside me. Could it mean a past I could no longer return to?
* * *
Morning.
For the first time in a while, I called my parents.
-Hey, Red Sun. What's up, kid?
-I just called because I wanted to hear Dad's voice.
-You fucking voice-phishing scammer!!!
-It's really me, geez.
-How much are you getting paid to pull this shit! Huh, you little bastard! So how much do you need!
-Send me just 50,000 won...
-What am I supposed to do with 50,000 won, you punk! I'm hanging up!
Dad hung up.
A deposit notification came right away.
I thought he'd send more after saying what he was supposed to do with 50,000 won, but only 30,000 came through. That's the kind of person my dad is.
"Phew."
Hearing his voice made me feel a little better.
The only thing I needed to be careful of right now was the vampire. Whatever else happened, that bitch would come looking for me eventually. I didn't think she could track my phone or anything, so I'd set that aside. I just had to make sure she didn't come to my parents' house.
I was a little worried about the fake Administration Bureau too... but if I didn't let on that I knew anything, they wouldn't come after me, would they?
If I didn't write posts about the Sejeonggae or try to investigate it, they wouldn't come after me. That's the kind of group they were. So I didn't really need to worry about that.
The vampire was the problem, as always.
That crazy bitch would cling to me like a leech. In the end, I'd have to live on the run. Come to think of it, you could say I decided to join the Administration Bureau because the vampire was pursuing me.
We've got quite a deep connection, in many ways.
"Life on the run, huh."
In the previous loop...
After deciding to go on the run, I eventually found a suitable job and became a security guard at Cheongak Mary Hospital.
I didn't want to go back there.
Should I just go somewhere else?
"...Yeah."
I'd found one thing to do.
I did want to skip the hospital, but I couldn't do that.
The medicine I got there.
I'd need it to stop the giant incident.