* * *
“What the hell’s wrong with that guy…?”
Came the puzzled voice of Ji Myunghoon up ahead.
He and Jung Wonwoo had only temporarily joined this team for this mission, so they weren’t used to this kind of unhinged atmosphere.
HHwi Sara answered curtly on Jaewon’s behalf.
“Leave it. Joo Youngha probably did something insane again.”
Damn right he did—I’m losing my mind!
“I swear, I should just beat him to death…!”
Even morally or physically, killing the world’s only EX-class esper wasn’t an option.
There were limits to expressing rage without killing someone.
In the end, all he could do was beat on his back.
“You little shit! You’re—what, gonna pull another stunt again?!”
Whack!
It had been a while since he smacked that back, and it was solid…
His hand stung, but he still managed to get in a few more hits.
“Ow.”
Youngha replied clearly in a voice that sounded completely unhurt.
That smug tone made Jaewon’s hand lash out again with renewed energy.
Smack, smack!
The sharp slapping sounds echoed through the quiet, white dungeon.
“Jaewon, let it go just this once,”
Said Hwi Sara’s cousin, Hwi Saul, unable to just watch anymore—but his voice had no tension in it.
Jung Wonwoo even started talking nonsense.
“I don’t know what’s going on, but you two should resolve this with a calm conversa—”
“Hey! He’s gonna kill him at this rate!”
Hwi Sara shouted from the front, but she was still busy tapping away at her tablet.
She must’ve been eager to wrap things up and go home.
You’re the ones about to get caught up in this!
Jaewon wanted to yell back.
But they didn’t know.
They had no idea what Joo Youngha had just tried to do.
“This bastard, this damn bastard!”
“Wait—hold on, Jaewon—”
Youngha spoke with a blank face, but Jaewon clearly saw the corners of his mouth twitch upward.
Despite being pummeled, this damn bastard’s skin wasn’t even flushed.
He hadn’t even tried to block with those raised hands.
That made Jaewon even angrier.
He clenched his fist and punched Youngha in the solar plexus.
Still, the guy barely reacted.
“Wow.”
That’s it?
That’s it?!
Facing the fuming Jaewon, Youngha tilted his head—
“Aha… hahahaha, Jaewon.”
—and burst into laughter.
“…You’re laughing? You bastard…!”
Physical fighting was Jaewon’s specialty.
On top of that, he had 15 more years of experience than the already-dead Joo Youngha.
If he got serious, he could land a proper hit.
Even against an EX-class esper, at least one hit.
But the punch he threw toward his face was caught mid-air, his wrist seized before it could even land.
“Ugh!”
A strong pull threw Jaewon off balance.
‘Was he always this strong?’
Joo Youngha’s pale, smooth face suddenly came close.
Strong arms wrapped tightly around him.
“Let go, you bastard!”
But Youngha just grinned as he held on.
His arms tangled around Jaewon with full weight, pinning him completely.
“Phew… hah… hahaha.”
“You crazy bastard, Joo Youngha!”
Their teammates, cold as ever, ignored the chaos and resumed some sort of strategy meeting.
‘Guys, I’m your team leader, you know…!’
Both he and Joo Youngha were being completely disregarded.
Well, Youngha was always treated as an extra anyway.
It was easier not to deal with him at all.
“Haha… haah…”
Now he was laughing so hard, he was out of breath.
Jaewon gaped in disbelief.
Had he ever seen this guy genuinely this happy?
Because of his puppy-dog face, it was hard to tell—but in truth, he rarely showed his emotions.
And now, he was beaming?
Now?
Jaewon was stunned—and furious.
Is this a joke to you? You just…
You almost killed all of us, didn’t you?
“Don’t laugh. Because of you, I…!”
Why should I still get tension headaches even after dying?
If I’m dead, at least let me pass on in peace…!
“Alright, alright. I’m sorry. I give up.”
Ji Myunghoon mumbled an obviously half-hearted apology as he buried his face in Seo Jaewon’s shoulder.
A chill ran down Jaewon’s spine.
“Jaewon… did you know? Right now, you…”
He couldn’t catch the rest of the sentence.
Out of nowhere, Ji Myunghoon grabbed his hand.
Long, cold fingers wriggled and laced together with his.
What the hell?
Let go!
That’s what he meant to say.
But…
A voice, lower and more languid than before, thick with something strange and wet, brushed against his ear.
“It’s wide open.”
At the same time, a wave of dizziness hit him like a punch.
A high-pitched alarm began to wail.
It felt like the ground was collapsing beneath him, like he was being sucked down somewhere.
He tried to reach out and grab onto something—anything—but his body wouldn’t move.
It was even more terrifying than his first death.
And after that… everything was a mess.
It happened because Seo Jaewon suddenly collapsed during an exploration in a newly formed dungeon.
There had been no combat, no environmental hazards—nothing that could explain it.
To make matters worse, his vital-monitoring watch started blaring, and he didn’t respond to Jung Wonwoo’s emergency guiding.
In the end, they had no choice but to evacuate the dungeon immediately.
Of course, all of this was news to Seo Jaewon later.
At the time, he was unconscious and carried out on Ji Myunghoon’s back.
‘Ji Myunghoon… carried someone?’
That was the first shock when he woke up.
Even back when they were trainees, he had never seen that guy do something like that.
Ji Myunghoon always kept a detached, indifferent attitude, as if nothing in the world mattered to him.
It made Jaewon wonder—was this what happened when someone was born with overwhelming power?
People often mistook it for calm or composure, but it wasn’t that simple.
Jaewon, who had spent the most time observing him, knew better.
If he had to name what he saw in those distant, vacant eyes, it was probably boredom.
To Seo Jaewon—who was maybe the closest thing Ji Myunghoon had to a friend—he would occasionally show hints of more human behavior.
But even that wasn’t normal emotional warmth.
More like a faint echo of something lesser.
He didn’t even pretend to care during missions.
He’d just stand off to the side, watching blankly no matter what the team did.
Teamwork? Forget it.
If someone got hurt, he didn’t even look concerned—he barely showed interest.
Thirty percent of his popularity came from the fact he was classified as EX-rank.
Another thirty came from the Dungeon Management Bureau’s smart decision to keep his personality out of the media.
The remaining forty? Purely his face.
It had been Seo Jaewon’s job to coax, scold, or outright push this pretty, motionless scarecrow into doing anything at all.
So, of course, he assumed Ji Myunghoon would act like it was a hassle and push the responsibility onto someone else if Jaewon got hurt.
“I swear, you’re going to burn a hole in me. Stop staring already…”
Jaewon muttered with a sigh.
From the moment he opened his eyes, Ji Myunghoon had been sitting at his bedside, watching him.
He looked nothing like someone who’d just come out of a mission.
Wasn’t he supposed to be drenched in sweat and dust?
His hair was a soft brown, like tea mixed with milk, fluttering gently even though there was no wind.
It gleamed with a silky sheen, and his skin looked dewy and smooth.
When their eyes met, Ji Myunghoon’s curved gently.
“Why? I want to keep looking.”
“…”
Jaewon shut his mouth at the ridiculous reply.
He didn’t have the energy to explain basic social decency—that staring at someone like that was uncomfortable.
‘Still…’
What was that bizarre sensation?
Exhaustion or not, these were feelings one could only experience while alive.
Which meant… that dreadful feeling when he blacked out wasn’t a brush with death or some life-flashing-before-his-eyes moment.
‘…Did I come back to the past?’
Rationally, it sounded ridiculous.
But every nerve in his body screamed this wasn’t a dream.
This moment, and his life before—both felt too vivid.
Trying to explain it away seemed more absurd than accepting it.
That’s why the truth hit him so coldly.
He had gone back to the past—and this past was a reality different in many ways from the one he knew.
Ji Myunghoon hadn’t killed anyone.
And Jaewon himself was perfectly fine.
Everything was so different, it left him dazed.
The emotion he felt most strongly was… absurdity.
‘Should I have smacked him on the back back then?’
Was that really all it would’ve taken to stop Ji Myunghoon from going off the rails?
Of course not.
…But what if it was?
Then the past fifteen years—his whole life up to now—would’ve been for nothing.
A wave of self-loathing hit him.
Meanwhile, Ji Myunghoon had been eyeing Jaewon’s hand like a hawk.
Every chance he got, he tried to grab it again.
“Cut it out.”
He pulled his hand away with a frown.
Ji Myunghoon tilted his head slightly, long lashes fluttering. Annoying…
But he reached out again, this time tugging gently at Jaewon’s wrist.
His fingers brushed the spot where Jaewon’s pulse beat.
The unfamiliar sensation made the hairs on Jaewon’s arm stand on end.
“…Huh?”
Wait, wait a second—
‘Seo Jaewon, is time travel really your biggest problem right now?!’
What are you going to do about this?!
* * *
