The Hunter’s Gonna Lay Low - Chap 196
A long silence passed.
Lee Sa-young stared blankly at the hand extended toward him. A hand hardened with calluses. A hand that had once melted from poison but had no signs of recovery. The dry lips asked,
“Can you do it?”
The answer came immediately.
“I will.”
“…”
“I’ve already failed twice. But I… I believe there’s something to learn from failure.”
“…”
“I’m sure you don’t want your efforts to be in vain either, right?”
“…”
“So help me.”
Lee Sa-young didn’t answer. But I could guess what he was thinking.
This is a person who clung to the world for a third chance. He wouldn’t want to waste this opportunity he barely got. Silent, Lee Sa-young tilted his head. He didn’t seem to intend to grab the hand, so Cha Eui-jae awkwardly withdrew it.
“Answer just one thing for me.”
“What?”
“In that world, why do you think he was in pain?”
“…”
“He never gave me an answer. Not even at the moment of death…”
The reason he was so sick in the second world. Cha Eui-jae’s mind turned. Hong Ye-seong had said it before. That in the first world, Cha Eui-jae was so powerful that even after using the clock, it didn’t break.
Strangely, Cha Eui-jae felt like he knew the answer. No, he knew it. As if someone had imprinted the knowledge into his mind, a fact he didn’t know surfaced. He opened his mouth without realizing it.
“When I rewound time in the first world, I became the axis.”
“…”
“A person who becomes the axis is bound by limitations until the previous world is completely annihilated. Their lifespan keeps getting eaten away until the world is destroyed. That was the clock’s penalty.”
“…”
“Still, because of my power, I held on longer… but I would die as soon as we returned. From the rebound.”
…Was that it?
“Aha…”
Lee Sa-young let out a low hum and lowered his head. He folded his arms and murmured.
“So that’s what Hong Ye-seong meant when he said he fixed it…”
Hmm, I guess so?
Cha Eui-jae recalled the scattered fragments that suddenly surfaced. Memories— some his own and some not— were mixed up and jumbled. Lee Sa-young looked like he was about to say something, so Cha Eui-jae hurriedly raised a hand to stop him.
“Hey, hey! Hold on, be quiet for a second.”
Normally, if someone became the axis of the world—
“…”
There should be some sort of clue, right? Cha Eui-jae quickly began sorting through his memories. Unfortunately, most of them seemed trivial, cluttered memories that could be discarded.
Thoughts about dinner menus, how cute the street cats were, the memory of enjoying the music playing in the convenience store, the nagging from Jung Bin, and the scolding from Honeybee…
‘Damn it. My memory’s only good for useless things. The important stuff won’t come to mind.’
Frustrated, Cha Eui-jae ruffled his hair. Whose memories were these, anyway? But he soon adjusted his mindset. Maybe there was no point in distinguishing whose memories they were.
‘They’re all…’
They’re all Cha Eui-jae’s memories.
Oddly enough, the song he’d never heard before matched his taste, and so did the yawning cat crouched on the roadside railing. Why were these memories only surfacing now?
The fragments floating on the surface blurred like breaking waves. And before long, they disappeared, as if they had never surfaced at all.
During this, Lee Sa-young, who had been silent, suddenly lifted his head and looked into the empty air. Cha Eui-jae, still messing with his hair, followed suit. A thin, black crack had appeared in the air. Lee Sa-young, expressionless, lightly tapped his cheek with his fingers.
“I was wondering when you’d show up.”
“Huh?”
At that moment, the small crack tore open like the jaws of a snake. Cha Eui-jae instinctively took a step back and assumed a fighting stance. Soon, a black blade thrust out from the tear. The edge gleamed strangely. He recognized it instantly. Cha Eui-jae straightened his posture and scowled.
“…A fang?”
It was the Basilisk’s Fang. The one he had stabbed into his own chest.
In the next moment, a hand gripping the hilt of the sword shot out. A red hand, veins bulging. Cha Eui-jae’s eyes widened.
‘Isn’t that Sa-young?’
As if to confirm his thoughts, a cold voice echoed through the air.
“I never said I’d wait for you.”
A pair of black combat boots and long legs ripped through the crack, and a coat fluttered. Soon, a pale face appeared above the tear.
Sa-young, who had torn through the crack and stood in the air, lightly landed on the ground. White dust rose. He skillfully swung the sword, shaking off the blood and black goo stuck to it. The tip of the straight blade pointed directly at Lee Sa-young’s throat from a distance.
“Time’s up.”
What is this?
“What’s going on?”
Cha Eui-jae looked back and forth between the two Lee Sa-youngs in disbelief. From the sound of it, the two had some sort of contract or agreement. Cha Eui-jae, however, knew nothing about it.
Lee Sa-young raised both hands and shrugged as he stared at Sa-young.
“You’re impatient.”
“You’re the one who broke the agreement first…”
A murderous aura surged from Sa-young. Lee Sa-young cracked his knuckles. At this rate, the two would probably end up in a serious fight. Damn it, and there’s no time to waste. Cha Eui-jae hurriedly intervened between the two.
“Would you explain it in a way I can understand? What’s going on?”
He looked at Lee Sa-young, then turned to Sa-young and flinched.
Sa-young’s expression was no different from the last time Cha Eui-jae saw him. Gloomy, and the face of someone familiar with loss. His eyes were cast in a dark shadow. His gaze was fixed behind Cha Eui-jae. Cha Eui-jae followed that gaze and turned around. Where Sa-young’s eyes were directed was…
“…”
The figure of Lee Sa-young holding Cha Eui-jae.
Ah, damn it. Cha Eui-jae bit his tongue. Come to think of it, Sa-young’s hands were soaked in blood. There were a few drops of blood splattered on his face too.
Cha Eui-jae had stabbed himself in the chest with the Basilisk’s fang.
And now, Sa-young was holding the Basilisk’s Fang, with blood-soaked hands.
“…”
“Ah.”
Sa-young, following Cha Eui-jae’s gaze, let out a short sigh. He waved his red-stained hand slightly and curled his lips into a smile.
“Someone kindly informed me… that to cross over here, I just needed to use this sword.”
“…”
A grinding noise came from someone’s teeth.
“Thanks to that, I had a rather unpleasant experience… so, thanks for that.”
“Don’t mention it.”
Lee Sa-young replied indifferently. Cha Eui-jae glanced at Sa-young’s face. His pitch-black, lifeless eyes were fixated on the dead Cha Eui-jae. Damn it. Cha Eui-jae stepped to the side to block his view and asked,
“Are you… okay?”
“What do you mean?”
The tone was oddly short, but a guilty man couldn’t nitpick. Cha Eui-jae cautiously glanced at Sa-young.
“Well, you know… that.”
“Hmm… I don’t understand what you’re talking about…”
A bright smile appeared on his face. At the same time, alarms blared in Cha Eui-jae’s head.
“I’m certainly doing better than the person who stabbed himself. I just pulled out the sword. Isn’t that right?”
“No, I’m really fine. Look at this. Want to check?”
“No need.”
A curt reply!
Cha Eui-jae gaped in disbelief. Sa-young tugged Cha Eui-jae to stand behind him protectively. Lee Sa-young watched them with an indifferent gaze. Sa-young chuckled mockingly.
“By the way… you held out for so long. But you failed in the end, huh?”
Lee Sa-young replied coldly.
“You knew I’d fail. So did I.”
“Haha… That’s why I told you. Don’t even try. You’ll fail anyway.”
“Well… Cha Eui-jae had a different opinion. He said it was worth trying, even if we failed.”
Sparks flew. The two Lee Sa-youngs were back to arguing.
Ah, seriously. Cha Eui-jae sighed briefly, then took a deep breath. And…
“HEY! You idiots, would you explain properly?!”
He yelled at them with all the force he could muster from his gut.
***
After a moment, the two Lee Sa-youngs sat a short distance apart, each taking a seat on a piece of the crumbled ruins.
Lee Sa-young sat with his arms crossed and an expressionless face, while Sa-young rested his chin on his hand, looking sulky. Between them, Cha Eui-jae busily paced back and forth. He kept muttering under his breath, moving here and there, before suddenly blurting out in frustration;
“Hey… what’s your problem, you two?”
After getting the explanation, Cha Eui-jae pieced together the context of how Sa-young had pulled out the Basilisk’s Fang lodged in his body and torn through space to make his intrusion.
Apparently, Sa-young had been dealing with Lee Sa-young messing with his body ever since he woke up three months ago. A sense that his body wasn’t entirely his own. A feeling like part of him had been stolen. Cha Eui-jae felt a surge of irritation again.
‘If that was the case, you should’ve told me!’
In any case, Sa-young, who hated losing control more than anything, had obsessively stayed near Cha Eui-jae. For some reason, whenever he was close to Cha Eui-jae, the unwanted guest— Lee Sa-young— lost his power. Cha Eui-jae suddenly recalled how strangely touchy Sa-young had been ever since Lee Sa-young woke up.
‘…’
Cha Eui-jae cleared his throat. Ahem, best not to dwell on it.
While barely maintaining that precarious balance, Cha Eui-jae bolted.
For a whole week!
During that week without Cha Eui-jae, Sa-young had no choice but to engage in multiple conversations with the uninvited Lee Sa-young. And Lee Sa-young had persistently whispered: The end cannot be stopped. It is a formless disaster that will come. We have already failed twice. But there is a way to save Cha Eui-jae. You, too, want to save him, don’t you? Give me a chance to persuade him.
At this point, Cha Eui-jae flared up again.
“You believed that?”
Sa-young, who had been resting his chin in his hand sulkily, twisted his lips.
“Do you think I did? Nonsense.”
