Chapter 306
Sa-young opened the tightly closed bedroom door. The room, devoid of any light, felt as though time itself had stopped. Lying on the bed without a single wrinkle in the sheets, hands clasped together, was Cha Uijae.
There was no sign of life, but his appearance resembled that of a living person. Well, except for the bandages wrapped around his head and his pale complexion. The preservation stone placed beside Uijae's head glimmered. Sa-young smiled faintly.
"Been doing well?"
No answer came. There was no movement in his hands or chest. He had grown accustomed to one-sided conversations like this. Sa-young stared down at the face with closed eyes and let out a small sigh.
He wanted to see the living, moving Uijae. Not this lifeless, doll-like version of him. Sa-young reached out a hand toward him but withdrew it before touching him. The moment he touched him, he would be reminded of death again.
The dead were cold.
‘...I won’t be able to do this twice.’
Sa-young sat by the bed, resting his head against it. He didn’t dare lie next to him. This distance felt appropriate—close enough to stay near, yet far enough to avoid confronting his death.
Sa-young closed his eyes.
In the still room, only one person’s breathing could be heard.
***
As Nam Woo-jin had said, the broken mask lay quietly next to the notebook. Uijae gently ran his fingers over the cracked section of the mask. The top left side was broken off, and there were small scratches and cracks scattered across the rest of it. If tapped, it would shatter along the cracks. It was no longer usable.
‘I’ll have to find Hong Yesung again…’
Uijae sighed deeply. There was so much to do, yet not a single thing was simple.
‘I’ll be busy with J-related matters too.’
If you are reading this translation anywhere other than Novelight.net or SilkRoadTL, it has been stolen.
Without the mask, his range of movement was greatly limited. Next time, he’d have to avoid being hit on the head. Protecting the mask while taking hits. Uijae made a new resolution and opened the notebook. He had just looked at it recently, but a lot had been written in the meantime.
‘Time definitely flows differently here.’
Uijae quickly skimmed through the new entries. Most of them were about compound ratios and experimental records that Uijae couldn’t decipher. Failure, failure, failure, small success, failure...
And the last entry read:
[Jeong Bin is dead.]
"……."
The image of the scene shown by Gaeul flashed in his mind. Lee Sa-young, hiding in a dark room, Honeybee shouting at him. The story about Jeong Bin and Matthew dying.
So it had come to this. His mouth felt bitter. Was Lee Sa-young still hiding in his room like that? He hoped not. Uijae sighed quietly and turned to the last page. He froze when he saw it.
[Jeong Bin, killed while stopping a mutated team member. Check if there are any signs of mutation around Jeong Bin.]
[Take care.]
[Don’t overdo it.]
[I miss you.]
Uijae read the neat handwriting over and over again before finally processing it.
The gap between the sentences was too big, wasn’t it?
‘This is eerie.’
How could these words come right after blocking a monster’s attack with his head? Whether it was Mackerel or Nam Woo-jin, someone needed to make sure Lee Sa-young kept his mouth shut before coming back.
Uijae scratched his cheek awkwardly, repeating the last sentence in his mind. I miss you. It was a clear response. The answer to Uijae’s carefully written feelings. His message had been received. Something inside him fluttered. Without realizing it, Uijae began to fidget with his fingers.
‘By the way…’
According to this information, Jeong Bin’s death could still be prevented. Just like how he had stopped the whiteout in the seafood market. Lee Sa-young must have sent this to help him.
‘...I should be able to do it.’
No, he had no choice but to do it. Uijae reached for the pencil holder and found a new set of sharpened pencils.
“……”
...Did I break so many that they had to prepare these new ones? Nam Woo-jin wouldn’t have sharpened them himself. It was probably his assistant who carefully prepared them.
‘...Sorry about that.’
Uijae carefully picked one up. He couldn’t bring himself to break it while trying to write properly, so he ended up scribbling as usual.
[I'll check.]
[Take care of yourself.]
He hesitated and added another line.
[Don’t just stay in the room, get out and walk around.]
...Was this too much nagging? Uijae rubbed his temple with the back of the pencil before setting it down. After all, he didn’t have an eraser to fix it. And this level of nagging was fine. After all, he was the senior here. He took one last look at Sa-young’s handwriting, then closed the notebook and placed it on the desk before leaving the room.
‘First, I’ll get the mask repaired by Hong Yesung, advise Mackerel to move the seafood market temporarily, visit the Pado Guild research team to discuss how to open the dungeon, check on Jeong Bin’s team members…’
Uijae counted off the tasks on his fingers as he walked. Just then, hurried footsteps echoed. He quickly hid behind the corner of the wall.
“Hah, hah…”
It was Minjun, the researcher he had met last time. One of the medical team treating Lee Sa-young, now working under Nam Woo-jin’s direct supervision. He had mentioned conducting a new drug experiment, so why was he here? Uijae peered out from behind the corner, eyeing Minjun. He looked pale, covered in cold sweat, his hands trembling.
‘...Something’s off.’
Was he sick? Uijae didn’t have his mask on, so he couldn’t approach him. Just then, Minjun’s phone buzzed. With trembling hands, he picked it up and started talking while running off in the opposite direction.
“…What are you doing calling now? We’re in the middle of an experiment! You can’t keep leaving under false pretenses... you know the trouble we’ll get into if we’re caught…”
His voice faded into the distance, and no response came back. Minjun’s presence soon disappeared completely.
Uijae stared suspiciously at the now-empty hallway. His instincts were warning him—there was something strange going on…
But pursuing him now wasn’t possible. Repairing the mask was his priority. He pushed aside the discomfort and made his way toward the other hallway.
***
Chirp, chirp, chirp. The loud cries of birds filled the air. Uijae stared blankly at the wide grassy field. The rooster was walking around, bobbing its head, with six chick-like birds following behind it. They weren’t ceramic, but real, soft-feathered chicks.
‘…Are those monster chicks?’
Though they were a bit... big for regular chicks.
With their yellow, fluffy feathers and chirping cries, they seemed like babies, but their size was larger than the rooster’s. They were clearly monster chicks. Uijae started digging through his mental monster database…
The heat from the kiln poured out from the backyard. Hong Yesung, fanning the kiln with a huge fan, muttered.
"I can't believe you broke the mask I worked so hard on. What did you even do? Did you get into a fistfight with a monster or something? It shouldn’t have broken so easily!"
He had been hit by a lion’s paw, so a fistfight wasn’t far off. Uijae quickly changed the subject.
“What’s with those chicks? Are they…?”
"Huh? Ah, I made some friends for the rooster."
“Friends? Looks like the rooster is the leader.”
“Well, I made some followers for it. Listen, I became friends with a guy from Jirisan who gave me six eggs. They were huge, ostrich-sized eggs.”
“Uh-huh.”
"So I was gonna boil them, but suddenly the rooster slapped me across the face!"
“Oh?”
"Then it just took the eggs and left without even acknowledging me. And a little while later… voila! These little chicks hatched. They’re adorable, aren’t they?"
“…They’re not monsters?"
"Huh? Idiot, how could they be monsters? They’re just chicks. Yellow, cute, fluffy, with wings, walking on two legs, following the rooster like a leader."
There were a lot of things to argue with, but Uijae decided not to press further.
‘We could debate this for days...’
He chose to just think of them as big chicks. Even if they were monsters, at least the rooster seemed to have things under control.
Uijae checked his phone. He had a message from Mackerel.
"Once the new location is confirmed, I’ll let you know, hyung~^^ Thanks so much for today. If you have any problems with your head, please see a doctor~^^ And tell them Mackerel will cover the treatment costs*^^*"
The Noryangjin seafood market had been decided to temporarily relocate. They had stopped the dungeon break, but the dungeon entrance itself had disappeared, making it impossible to eliminate the source. The risk of whiteout returning was still there. Mackerel and his brother had debated for a while before finally making the decision.
‘Guess we don’t have a choice. Oh, but setting up from scratch will take forever.’
‘Yeah… we have enough magic stones to make a new one.’
‘Good. This time, let’s look for somewhere farther from the dungeon. Where could be good…’
‘Right, we need to find a place for the merchants too…’
‘So, for now! I’m taking a break from information gathering. It’s too much to ask of you, hyung~ I hope you understand!’
It was a good outcome. It was a bit of a shame not to be able to get the Mackerel brothers’ help, but that couldn’t be helped. Uijae lay down on the veranda. Just then, his phone rang. It was an unknown number.
‘I don’t recognize many numbers like this.’
Who could it be? Uijae pressed the call button with a suspicious look on his face, intending to just hear the voice and hang up. A sly voice greeted him from the other end.
―Ah, ah~ Is this J’s phone?
“……”
―I just wanted to talk for a bit~ Is it okay to talk now?
Uijae frowned slightly. He definitely recognized that voice.
―Oh, I forgot to introduce myself~ My name is Gyugyu.
A smiling face appeared in his mind. Gyugyu was grinning.
―Well… nothing big, really. I just wanted to work on something with J, so I thought I’d reach out.