Heart Fish (3)
Without worrying about her expression, the man continued.
“Probably, there are no cases for number 1 and number 2 yet.”
Then he mumbled in a small voice.
“It’s too early to lay eggs.”
“What eggs?”
“Anyway, there won’t be any information about numbers 1 and 2 right now. But number 3 is different. Isn’t there a lot on the internet? Witnesses of those with superpowers.”
She also agreed. People were talking about that a lot these days.
“Even if authenticity is uncertain, don’t separate or exclude it. All you need to do is organize everything and give it to me. The important thing is that it started yesterday. I don’t need the cases before that.”
Lee Seo-rin’s eyes sparkled. Why did he need this information? Maybe there was a clue to reveal the man’s identity. In fact, she even thought that he might be involved in the Channel outbreaks around the world. Right now, the world had become accustomed to the bizarre, unusual ability and the aliens to some extent. Still, now this man had been showing up since a few years before the Channel crisis.
“Is there any chance people with unusual abilities suddenly appeared from last year? Does this have anything to do with you?”
“It’s not because of me. I don’t have the ability to do that.”
She couldn’t shake the suspicion. Just as her body changed after taking the medicine that this man gave her, she wondered if he was involved in those who suddenly gained superpowers. What if there was a reason they couldn’t refuse, such as an incurable disease like herself? Could it be that all those with superpowers signed a contract with their lives as collateral? The man waved his hands.
“I see what you’re guessing; you’re full of delusions. It’s not like that anyway.”
“I don’t mean to argue. I’m just curious. Have you signed a contract with those people with superpowers…those who were called wizards? Is their power the price of the contract?”
She asked, being careful not to sharpen her tone. But instead of answering, the man laughed. Listening to his laughter, Lee Seo-rin felt something different from before.
As always, his tone of the speech was a bit lighter, gentle, and he never frowned, let alone becoming angry. He was smiling even now. However, she thought that there was something cool in the man’s eyes as he regarded her. She knew the line to back down. Instead of sticking to the end of the story, they went back to the real matter.
“…How do I deliver the investigation? E-mail?”
So far, Lee Seo-rin had never contacted him first, and she didn’t know how to do so. The man in front of her always bizarrely contacted her first in ways that she could never imagine.
“Of course not. All you have to do is print out all of your research and bring it to the place I tell you. It doesn’t matter if you deliver them yourself, Ms. Lee Seo-rin.”
The man gave her an address, and after confirming that she had memorized it completely, he got up from his seat.
“Then I’d better get going. I’m sorry I interrupted your good time.”
Then he looked around.
“No. The good time is over anyway. If I go out…everything will collapse. I’d rather reduce the confusion.”
“…What are you talking about?”
“It’s sudden, but don’t you think it’s unexpected? How does that Hollywood actor speak Korean so well?”
Lee Seo-rin froze for a moment. Did Jonathan Powell just…speak Korean? The middle-aged man continued, pointing his finger at the business card in her hand.
“The number, read it.”
Lee Seo-Lin did what the man told her without knowing.
“010…”
It was weird. She obviously could see the numbers but couldn’t read them. A strange phenomenon that could be seen but not recognized. The man said with a smile.
“Unconsciously rejected. It must feel awkward. Now, it’s time to wake up… Lee Seo-rin.”
And the world collapsed.
***
“Kyaaaahhh!!”
Lying in her bed, Lee Seo-rin woke up and flailed her limbs. In her sleep, she forgot to control her strength. And…
-Thump!
-Thump!
Unfortunately, the power of her struggling limbs was beyond the realm of the average adult woman. The wooden bedhead hit by the back of her hand was dented and cracked.
“Ahh! It’s hurt!”
She screamed and clenched her fists. Then she fell to the bedroom floor and rolled. After a few laps, she jumped up and checked what she just did. Her face turned pale.
‘…It’s driving me crazy. There’s a crack in the wall?’
The impact of her fist, and precisely not the clenched fist, but the back of her hand affected not only the bed head but also the wall beyond it. Small cracks were forming, and cement crumbs were falling. A situation in which an ordinary person’s hand could have cracked a bone. She looked at the back of her hand. The pain disappeared quickly, though it was slightly scraped.
‘Somehow…I think I’m gradually surpassing people’s physical abilities.’
Of course, there was something to be speculated as to the cause. The magical potion that the “devil-like man” gave her once a month. She knew that her own terminal cancer was cured completely and that her body gradually changed after that. She had never experienced another cold, her muscles had increased abnormally, and she was never fatigued at all. She had no choice but to continue to depend on the man’s words that her cancer would recur if she didn’t consistently drink the potion. It was clear that there were unexpected symptoms other than cancer suppression.
There was no peculiarity even after having a physical examination. If she were careful, it wouldn’t interfere with her daily life.
‘It’s not that important now.’
Lee Seo-rin opened the hotel safe. The contract she brought all the way here. She looked over the contents in a hurry.
‘He’s driving me crazy. It wasn’t just a nightmare…’
The contents they just talked about in her dreams were added as an Appendix.
‘…Was his ability even upgraded? Now he comes into other people’s dreams? Did he also renew the contract in my dreams?’
Lee Seo-rin felt anger and fear at the same time. She gritted her teeth and muttered without realizing it.
“What the hell…is it?”
She soon shook her head and cleared up her thoughts. This wasn’t the time to be doing this now. He clearly told her to report once a day. That meant she had to start preparing for tomorrow. Lee Seo-rin wasn’t a docile person, but she wasn’t stupid either. The other person was a supernatural being of an unknown identity. It was impossible to refuse or act against a magical contract whose principle cannot be rejected or violated.
If there was a way to revive herself, which wasn’t promising with modern medicine, there must be a way to retake her life. She picked up her cell phone and made a call somewhere. After a short time, the call is connected.
“Hello?”
When the contract was signed, Lee Seo-rin had her way. She protested in her dream, but she actually knew herself.
“…Yes, Dad. Bangkok now. No, it’s not hot at all…don’t worry…yes. Yeah.”
The call continued for a while, and then she brought up the main point.
“But can I ask you a favor?”
Even though he was the director of a university hospital, the experience of having to look helplessly at his dying daughter remained as trauma to her father. In the end, he couldn’t refuse his daughter’s request. Lee Seo-rin guessed. He wouldn’t believe her ridiculous excuses, saying that she was asked by the ward coverage documentary program’s PD. Her father agreed to pretend to be tricked.
“…Yes, it’s not an accident, and it’s a patient who didn’t have a disease but suddenly came in a coma…thank you. Dad.”
In the case of patients brought to a hospital other than her father’s, it would be unreasonable to ask for detailed personal information. In that case, she asked him only to ask if there was such a patient. Once she knew the location, there would be a way to find out the new information by a different route.
“Whew…”
She hung up the phone and sighed. This was clearly illegal. But…soon, she clenched her teeth. So what? She had to live. She had lived on a shoestring. Whether it was the devil or anything that brought her back to life, she had to survive to wonder what it really was.
Whenever she renewed the contract, she made a habitual protest. A counter-question of ‘how I can do it.’ It was more of a self-admonition to persuade the unconscious. She was wondering if that would increase the likelihood of being judged as “something she couldn’t do with her abilities.” In fact, when the contract judged that it was impossible, the devil gave up and lowered the difficulty of the request or sometimes canceled it.
But…it ended the judgment as possible today, and as long as the contents were written, she was prepared to do anything.
‘I can’t do that thing again.’
She didn’t want to fall back into despair, while her hair fell, her stomach was swollen, and her organs were slowly losing their function. When she struggled with illness, she lay in bed all day long and couldn’t lift a finger. But now, there were specific ways to avoid death. There was also the freedom to move about.
She made another phone call right away. Over the phone, she could hear the voice of a reporter she knew. She carried on the phone with a cheerful voice.
“…Yes, Mr. Seo. You know, there are people in your company who run around the police station and people who monitor the internet and social media, right? Yeah, the local news team? Internet news team? Yes, something like that… Yes, please check through that side. Just e-mail me right away. It would be better if there were a little awkward content to report. Yeah, something like a name or address. You’re going to go on-site coverage, right? Yes, I’ll take care of you, so you don’t feel bad…yes, will you please?”
After taking all these actions, the exhausted Lee Seo-rin fell on the couch. Then she gritted her teeth.
“Telling me many things, but in the end, he is asking for at least a hundred bucks more than the last time. This rotten guy.”
That green bubble thing was a kind of superpower, after all. Unless it was unusual, he could share the content of the coverage. She would give him as much money as he wanted so that the effect would be more significant. Then she came up with a question. The story of superpowers had been continuously flowing since last year. But why was he looking for a case that had been witnessed since yesterday? What happened yesterday? In deep thought, Lee Seo-rin couldn’t fall asleep again that night.
***
“…This is the end for today.”
Kim Kyung-hwan nodded at my words.
“Yes!”
Now I was in his dream. As soon as I entered, the sight I saw was a small room with a bed. For Kim Kyung-hwan, he had no time to imagine other households. Hence, I broke in when he was dreaming 19+. It wasn’t something that happened once or twice, so I proceeded to class after organizing the scene skillfully. If I changed the background of his dreams, I would consume a lot of mana, so I made only two chairs and sat face to face.
No, he was like that. When I tried to intervene in this guy’s dream, he dreamed those things at least one out of three dreams. Although he was the same age as me, he was really healthy. Indeed he was. Kim Kyung-hwan was also confused and embarrassed at first, but these days he wasn’t even ashamed. Perhaps the shame is fading because the appearance he saw was very different from humans.
Ah, he was pretty disappointed, too. “Ah, what is it. It was a dream, too! That’s right!”
Hmm, why did I feel sorry to say this for some reason? But I thought that it would get paid for. I threw my eyes to his hand.
“If you wake up in the morning, you will have another Mana charge.”
“Wow, it’s been a while!”
The guy looked at the back of his hand with joy. There was a complex magic circle that only he and I could see. The shape itself was a meaningless picture I made by roughly listing the diagrams of the stars, the moon, the solar schematics, and other pointless things. I saw that he liked that from his dreams — it was a design to increase his immersion.
“Did you understand everything you learned today?”
“Yeah! Sure. It’s so easy if you explain it, Eraser. But why are the frogs explaining so complicatedly…”
“As I already told you, there are so many useless formulas in their teaching.”
If you look at the magic taught to these guys while saying it’s second-class magic or third-class magic, the level was terrible. Moreover, the formula was unkind and crude from a human standpoint.
“What is the reaction of the Kaifu these days? You have learned almost all of the 3rd class magic.”
“The frogs are turned upside down every day. This is ridiculous.”
Kim Kyung-hwan began to pour out words as if they were a topic he had been waiting for.
“Even the frog in that world called an Archmage hadn’t mastered magic at this speed? Oh yeah. It’s crappy.”
“The rumors must have spread among trainees.”
“Absolutely! Now, I don’t have anything to do with them, and we don’t have to take classes together. Because I now take all my classes as private one-on-one lessons with the frogs. They should be at my level to do the class together.”
“What is the reaction of the human instructors?”
“They are so busy taking care of me. Ah…and maybe next week we’ll have dinner with high-ranking officials in the government. It’s not fun to eat with those old people. I hate to go, but I can’t help it, well.”
Saying that he doesn’t want to go was a lie. When he came back from the unofficial occasion, he was busy talking about how impressive the government’s high-ranking officials treat him and how many things were promised this time.
When I thought about it, I felt like this. When I was born again, I wanted to live like Kim Kyung-hwan. I wasn’t kidding. He didn’t seem to have any concerns about living. Everything was peaceful.
“Although I request, you should never speak of my existence. You shouldn’t look ridiculous as it is a contract made in a dream. Watch out for the penalty.”
“Of course, why would I?! I know that much.”
That guy shrugged.
“You are a race from another world that our government hasn’t yet contacted. What if they notice that I was communicating with you like this every day? Of course, I will be in trouble, too. No matter how important a resource I am.”
Then he looked at me and said.
“…But, Eraser. It’s a random question.”
“Well?”
As if nothing was wrong, he suddenly thought of it and tried to talk to me as if asking a question, but I felt the feeling of being careful.
“The human that you chose…am I really the only one?”
