Chapter 3 : Friends
Chapter 3: Friends
Baek Woohyun surveyed his surroundings with murky, clouded eyes.
Standing alone among the busily passing people, he felt solitary. Like a lone island floating adrift in the vast ocean.
He felt this way all the more because he knew the gulf that existed between them and himself.
The horrific torture at the research facility, the ten years rolling across battlefields, and the experience of ultimately reaching transcendence had created a thick wall between him and them that couldn’t be crossed.
“……”
Probably, he would need a long time to naturally blend in among them.
A very long time, perhaps close to a lifetime.
The frightening part was that even after such long patience, he might not be able to become one of them.
Just as a carnivore that had once tasted blood couldn’t return to being the herbivore it was before, he too might find it impossible to return to his former ordinary self.
Because that was the price he had to pay to survive in that world.
Think about it.
How many things must have happened for an ordinary college student to become accustomed to killing as an assassin?
Just considering the sense of distance between the two words ‘college student’ and ‘assassin’ alone was tremendous.
Moreover, it wasn’t even a normal situation—it had happened in another world where supernatural abilities existed, so returning would be several times more difficult.
Originally, a line is easy to cross but hard to turn back from.
‘When will the blood on these hands wash away?’
Baek Woohyun looked down at his hands.
Those hands, which were clearly clean, looked to him as if they were covered in sticky blood.
The blood that had stained him from killing so many people beneath the excuse of survival and cries for revenge had dyed deep into his soul, not his body, and persistently dripped down.
Still, even in the reality he’d returned to.
“Why are you spacing out like that?”
“……Ah.”
When Baek Woohyun, waking from his reverie, turned around, he saw a woman with a somewhat familiar face.
It was Jeong Nayeon, the female friend he was seeing for the first time in ten years.
In her casual outfit of a box tee, jeans, and cap, she was looking at him with her usual mischievous smile.
“It’s nothing.”
“For nothing, you were completely zoned out though? No, more than that, what’s with your face?”
Jeong Nayeon approached with her mouth open in apparent surprise.
She fussed over him, touching both of his cheeks as she spoke.
“Look how gaunt your face is. The area under your eyes looks dead and black too? And you completely forgot our plans—did something happen today?”
“What would happen? Nothing happened.”
At most, he’d suffered through hell in another world and returned?
Baek Woohyun smiled bitterly, denying Jeong Nayeon’s question about whether he hadn’t slept.
It wasn’t a lie—he really had slept well.
The problem was that fatigue remained because the specters had shrieked in his dreams.
“Well, if you say so, I guess that’s how it is…”
When Baek Woohyun showed signs of not wanting to talk about this topic anymore, Jeong Nayeon shrugged.
She couldn’t keep saying things when he stubbornly denied that he was fine.
“Alright. But if something happens, tell me. Let’s go eat for now.”
“Okay.”
The two moved to Dwaejimadang, the pork belly restaurant that was their meeting place. It was a shop he vaguely recognized as ‘a place they went often.’
After taking a seat, Jeong Nayeon, who had ordered two servings of pork belly, naturally asked Baek Woohyun.
“Will you drink too?”
“No, I’m not in the mood for that today.”
Baek Woohyun shook his head.
Of course, unlike his excuse, the reason he wasn’t drinking wasn’t simply due to his mood.
Rather, it was more because he didn’t know what he might do when drunk.
It might be different if it were when he had superhuman power in the other world.
Right now, he was in the body of an ordinary, normal college student.
If his self-control weakened with alcohol, he didn’t know what he might do without realizing it.
In the worst case, since there was even a possibility of harming other people, he planned not to touch a single drop of alcohol for the time being.
Never, until he was truly certain it was okay.
“That’s unusual. You were always singing about wanting to drink.”
“Did I do that?”
“You did. Don’t you remember when we went on that trip? You mixed soju and beer at an 8-to-2 ratio and drank it.”
“……I don’t remember.”
“Well, everyone was wasted then. Thanks to that, we couldn’t do anything the next day and just stayed at the accommodation.”
Jeong Nayeon patted Baek Woohyun’s shoulder and laughed.
But unfortunately, he couldn’t respond in kind.
For him, it was something from more than ten years ago, so it didn’t come to mind properly.
‘Something like that happened’—that was all the memory he had, so he just silently nodded.
After that, the two continued chatting about trivial things while grilling meat. As befitted people who got along well, the conversation never stopped.
From college life to what they’d done during vacation, the topics were endless.
In the middle of this, Jeong Nayeon spoke as if she’d just remembered.
“Ah, right. Why haven’t you said anything about trying it out?”
“Trying what out?”
“What else, obviously Reverse Planet. You said you’d at least try up to the tutorial before.”
“……!”
Baek Woohyun’s eyes widened.
Come to think of it, that was right.
The reason he, who had only enjoyed Colosseum, started Reverse Planet was because of Jeong Nayeon’s recommendation.
Since she had so persistently recommended he try it, he’d decided to just give it a taste—
And had ended up crossing over to that world just like that.
‘Right, that’s how it was.’
Strictly speaking, one could say that Baek Woohyun had fallen into that world because of Jeong Nayeon’s recommendation.
If not for her persistent recommendations that continued over several months, he probably wouldn’t have started Reverse Planet.
The games he usually enjoyed were types like Colosseum or Psychic Wars, not Reverse Planet.
Therefore, it wouldn’t be an exaggeration to say she was the starting point of everything…
“……”
Realizing that fact, malice slowly pooled in Baek Woohyun’s chest.
Sticky, thick malice—what could otherwise be called resentment.
The creeping emotion wanted to jump out at the person right before his eyes immediately.
As if he needed someone to blame for the hell of the past ten years.
However.
“I did try it.”
“Really?! How was it?!”
Baek Woohyun didn’t vomit the pitch-black filth rising inside him at Jeong Nayeon.
Because he knew.
He knew that the ten years of hell he’d experienced was absolutely not Jeong Nayeon’s fault.
How could she have known that starting the game would make him fall into the Reverse Planet world when she recommended it to him?
They were both simply unlucky. It was a situation where he could only say that.
“I saw up to character creation and the intro.”
“What, then you haven’t really tried it!”
Baek Woohyun shrugged.
No matter what Jeong Nayeon said, it couldn’t be helped.
Not doing anything after that wasn’t particularly his will.
He had planned to at least finish the tutorial as he’d promised her.
It was just that he’d entered that world at the same time the intro trailer ended, so he couldn’t continue after that.
“If you just try up to the tutorial, your mind will change!”
“I wonder.”
“Ah, don’t be like that and let’s play together~ Okay? Let’s play together~”
Baek Woohyun pushed away Jeong Nayeon, who was subtly clinging to him, with an impassive expression.
“I’m busy for the time being, so I can’t.”
“Don’t lie. You’re not busy!”
“I’m busy.”
“Huu— fine. Then until when are you busy?”
“Don’t know,” Baek Woohyun answered briefly and picked up a piece of meat to put in Jeong Nayeon’s mouth.
It was an action meant to tell her to shut up.
Watching her chew the meat without being able to say anything more, his expression sank gloomily.
Jeong Nayeon didn’t know what she was saying. She was essentially telling him to return to hell right now.
And to the very hell he’d barely escaped after ten years at that.
Rest assured, anyone who would commit such an act would either be a lunatic who’d half-lost their mind or a wreck addicted to hell.
‘……Which one am I?’
Baek Woohyun, who leaned back against his chair, smiled bitterly.
He thought that perhaps he might be both.
To survive in a game that had become reality, an ordinary person had to become anything.
Otherwise, why would he feel that ‘this isn’t where I should be’ in the reality he’d barely returned to?
“Tsk— that’s too much! You said you’d appear on my broadcast if Reverse Planet was fun!”
Jeong Nayeon, who had swallowed the meat, pouted her lips.
Baek Woohyun chuckled at her complaining tone, but soon understood the content and asked back.
“…Broadcast?”
“You forgot this too? Woohyun, you remember that I do personal broadcasts, right?”
“Did I?”
Thinking carefully, there was a memory that vaguely came to mind.
Though he wasn’t certain since it was from the distant past, she’d been doing personal broadcasts quite seriously, not just as a simple hobby.
A story about how several acquaintances besides Baek Woohyun had appeared on Jeong Nayeon’s broadcasts also came to mind afterward.
“Pay some attention to what your noona does!”
“Who’s noona?”
At Baek Woohyun’s disgusted reaction, Jeong Nayeon laughed heartily.
She was quite a cheerful woman.
“Anyway! You promised to regularly appear on my broadcast once you started Reverse Planet! So you at least have to give it a taste!”
“Hmm—”
Baek Woohyun tilted his head.
It was because he wondered whether his past self was someone who made promises so easily.
No matter how much he’d changed, ultimately the foundation should be the same.
Moreover, just before it was just appearing on a broadcast once, but now it had become regular appearances.
“I said that? Really?”
“No— I mean, that’s just saying it like that, well— it might not have been all the way to regular appearances—”
Jeong Nayeon grumbled and avoided his gaze.
Even in her thinking, regular appearances were a stretch.
But that was only for a moment.
Clinging to Baek Woohyun again, she poked at his sides.
“Let’s play together~ Okay? Let’s play togetherrr~”
Baek Woohyun looked at Jeong Nayeon whining and acting spoiled with murky eyes. He had nothing particular to say to her, who was acting like a child.
However, she seemed to take his gaze a bit differently. With an awkward expression, she picked up a piece of meat to eat and avoided his gaze once more.
“…Isn’t it a bit too fierce to stare like that just because I acted cute once?”
“Not particularly.”
“What do you mean not! Just from your eyes, I could totally see what you were thinking!”
“Is that so? Hmm— I’m not really sure.”
“Shamelessly making excuses…”
Suddenly, a faint smile spread across Baek Woohyun’s lips.
Having a silly conversation with Jeong Nayeon, he finally felt the reality of having returned from that place.
It was a sensation he could never have felt if he’d just sat blankly alone in his room.
‘I’m glad I didn’t cancel the plans.’
“Are you happy teasing me? Huh? I’m asking if you’re happy!”
Even while chattering, whispers of ‘this isn’t where I should be’ still echoed in one corner of his mind, but Baek Woohyun deliberately ignored it.
If the reality he’d barely returned to wasn’t where he should be, then where on earth should he be?
Right now, right here, this place was his reality.
Here, not that hell.
……And so time passed.