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The moment the Cintamani, Yong Jegun’s main body, scattered and lost its shape…
For a very short time, Yong Jegun’s body and soul remained in this world.
The soul usually disperses immediately or heads to the cycle of reincarnation.
However, perhaps because of the many lingering feelings he still had in this land, or perhaps there were still students who called his name…
Or maybe because he still had a wish that hadn’t been fulfilled, Yong Jegun remained for a while.
“Professor? Why are you suddenly stop—”
“Professor Yong Jegun…! Your body is…”
“I’ll use a recovery item! Wait a minute!”
The students that Yong Jegun saved began to call his name.
Students took out the scarce recovery items they had left and tried to use them on Yong Jegun, but it was futile.
He wanted to tell the students to run away, but the only thing that he could do was stay put.
Like the already scattered Cintamani, Yong Jegun’s body was also about to disappear.
Yong Jegun looked to where he wanted the students to run away.
However, there seemed to be no safe space left in Eungwang High.
The snow made it almost impossible to walk.
“Let’s take Professor Yong Jegun to the Jiikhoe!”
“Yeah, that’s the closest residential area to here…”
A freshman student shook his head when he heard the suggestion.
It was a student wearing high-degree glasses, Park Seunghyun.
He had already been injured before Yong Jegun was rescued.
He was attacked by a student, not an enemy.
“…We can’t go to the Jiikhoe. We need to head to where the student association is.”
“What? What is that…”
“This is an item given to me by the Jiikhoe chairman… It turned black.”
Park Seunghyun showed an SR — rank consumable item Messageless Pigeon.
It was an item that delivers energy waves to a pre-set destination, but it turned black like an unusable card.
It meant that the destination it was supposed to go to was gone, which means that the chairman of the Jiikhoe died.
“Uh… heuk…”
Tears dripped from Park Seunghyun’s eyes as he gave out the black card.
He tried to calmly convey the situation, but he couldn’t stop his tears from falling in the end.
Sung Siwan, the chairman of the Jiikhoe, was known for being a nosy guy.
He must’ve helped Park Seunghyun in some way when he was being bullied by other students.
Sung Siwan gave him that item card to call him if anything happened to him.
Park Seunghyun never got to use that card.
‘…Sung Gukeon’s younger cousin, Sung Siwan died.’
Yong Jegun speculated that the Jiikhoe was wiped out.
The number of students in the organization has decreased considerably this year.
Led by Joo Soohyuk and Ahn Dain’s charisma, most of the freshmen joined either the student association or the student council.
Other than that, many students resigned from the Jiikhoe because they didn’t like how Choi Pyeondeuk ran things.
There was a rumor that there was no one to serve as the chairman after Sung Siwan.
Jiikhoe had a small population, and no one was as good as Sung Siwan.
In that situation, eliminating Sung Siwan was equivalent to destroying the Jiikhoe.
Yong Jegun looked up at the sky.
‘…That’s.’
Something very familiar came into Yong Jegun’s eyes as he stared at the snowflakes falling from the sky.
At the last moment of Yong Jegun’s life, he realized what the sense of incompatibility in the sky outside the boundary meant.
It was hard to see because of the snowflakes, but he felt like he saw it clearly.
‘Five colors…!’
Five-colored clouds began to carefully collect the small pieces of the Cintamani which melted into the air.
The five colors continued to appear and disappear to swallow the remnants of the Cintamani.
The panic-stricken children didn’t sense them at all, but Yong Jegun saw them.
The remains of the Cintamani gradually disappeared into the clouds handled by the Dragon King’s SHamans.
‘…I can’t think straight.’
If he could think better, perhaps he would’ve deciphered what this meant.
Yong Jegun’s consciousness couldn’t hold out.
His main body was swallowed by the five-colored clouds, and his body was completely destroyed.
The fact that he remained conscious for that long was a miracle.
Yong Jegun’s end was near.
***
Hwang Jiho sees PMH this way.
— This is my hypothesis. The game PMH is an elaborate simulation program based on this world and also a passageway to here.
— The game may be a simulation of the future of this world without the star of dawn.
Hwang Jiho hypothesized that PMh is a kind of simulation that shows the future of this world in the form of a video game.
I thought he had a point.
If his hypothesis was true, then we could guess what the Replay function was.
Replay may be kind of a playback feature that shows the history of how I played PMH from the point of view of the character that I chose.
Using the playback function seemed to be able to play what the character experienced, which couldn’t be seen from the game user’s point of view when playing the game.
‘The replay starts from the tutorial level, and it includes information that I don’t know.’
In this way, the function is simply showing the character the record of the game.
How can the character think simply when the worst future of this world is shown as a realistic nightmare?
‘Is Yong Jegun okay…’
The night deepened and Yong Jegun’s eyes didn’t open.
Unlike Jeokho, who died right at the beginning of the First Christmas scenario, Yong Jegun deals with enemies and rescues students within Eungwang High.
The time inside Eungwang High was distorted too.
As Yong Jegun was a playable character, he experiences various situations depending on where he moved during the replay and the number of students he saved.
I chose the replay where Yong Jegun reached the boundary of Eungwang High.
In other words, I chose the one where he survived the longest.
He will wander in a much longer nightmare than Jeokho.
‘…Should I have just chosen the shortest one instead?’
I thought so while looking at Yong Jegun’s sleeping eyes.
Wouldn’t he have suffered a little less if the replay was short?
Wouldn’t that make his misery a little bearable?
But I changed my mind soon.
‘No, there’s a higher possibility of getting information from the longest replay. That’s better than putting him through a nightmare for no reason.’
When I played the game, I managed to make him wander a wide range of the map to rescue students, so he likely got information from them.
He may have found something near the boundary too.
Seeing Yong Jegun sleeping with a lost expression, I unconsciously built some excuses around my action.
“Don’t worry. It seems like Yong Jegun will wake up soon. Yong Jegun is alright.”
Hwang Jiho attempted to reassure the people in the room, but I wasn’t relieved at all.
I know that Yong Jegun’s body would be fine.
The problem is when he wakes up.
We saw how disturbed Jeokho was when he woke up from this nightmare.
He was confused enough to attack Hwang Jiho, and he hugged his son with tears in his eyes as soon as he woke up.
Maybe something similar will happen this time.
Though I’m sure the old man would be fine even if he gets attacked.
“Yong Jegun’s eyes are moving.”
At Baekho-gun’s words, Yong Jegun’s complexion began to change, and the energy waves around him began to be distorted.
It happened before with the others, but seeing Yong Jegun like this, I can’t help but be worried.
I even hesitated if I should forcefully wake up him.
‘…He’s taking longer to open his eyes than Kim Shinrok and Jeokho.’
Maybe it’s because they experienced death just before they woke up, but that moment is when their condition is at its worst.
It’s only a temporary phenomenon, and they would return to normal once they completely wake up.
Yong Jegun had a long deterioration in his condition before he opened his eyes.
“I think he’s waking up now.”
Fortunately, Yong Jegun’s energy waves began to return to normal.
Seeing that Hwang Jiho, who was checking his energy waves, wasn’t saying anything, there seemed to be nothing wrong.
While we were all nervous, Yong Jegun woke up from the nightmare and opened his eyes.
Fwaaa…!
As soon as he opened his eyes, Yong Jegun’s long hair quickly turned cyan.
He stared into the air with unfocused eyes, confused.
Perhaps surprised to see the ceiling of the tigers’ mansion and not a snowy sky.
Yong Jegun began to look around.
“…!”
The first one his eyes landed on was Baekho-gun who was looking down at him.
Yong Jegun’s face, which recognized Baekho-gun, was noticeably pale.
He rushed out of his seat, perplexed.
‘…Why is Yong Jegun surprised to see Baekho-gun?’
Yong Jegun raised his hand and prepared to launch energy waves as he looked at Baekho-gun.
Jade light gathered on his palm and slowly took shape.
Wooong…!
The jade color soon took a spherical shape.
It was his main body, the Cintamani, that appeared in Yong Jegun’s hand.
The Cintamani had the same color as Yong Jegun’s eyes and hair and emitted a brilliant light.
Everyone in the room seemed to have lost their words at the power and brilliance of the Cintamani.
‘That’s Yong Jegun’s main body, the Cintamani that fulfills wishes…!’
I was impressed by the power of the Dragon King’s beloved dragon, his most cherished Cintamani, my playable character, and our class’ assistant homeroom teacher.
Perhaps I wasn’t the only one who admired it, but Hwang Jiho also stared at the stone with an interested face.
“Seeing him like that, there seems to be no problem with his energy waves.”
Yong Jegun, who held the Cintamani tightly in his hand, tried to open his mouth but suddenly stopped.
He stared intensely at the stone.
No, he wasn’t looking at the stone per se.
He was staring at someone who was reflected on the Cintamani.
“…”
Yong Jegun turned around very slowly and saw the figure reflected on the stone.
Behind him was Kim Shinrok, who came into the annex with Jeokho during the replay.
Kim Shinrok seemed to have contemplated whether to come here or not, but Jeokho must’ve persuaded him in the end.
Considering that he almost didn’t want to come, Kim Shinrok looked very worried about Yong Jegun throughout the night.
He kept warming up tea for Yong Jegun, waiting for him to wake up.
“…Here.”
Kim Shinrok held out a teacup toward Yong Jegun who was breathing heavily.
Yong Jegun’s eyes turned toward Kim Shinrok and he took the cup of Longjing tea, his hands shaking a little.
Holding the cup of Longjing tea, he looked like he was experiencing a miracle.
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