“Fuck…ing hell…”
The curse tumbled out from between his teeth.
In a situation like this, anyone who didn’t swear wasn’t human—they were a saint.
Actually, even a saint might have cursed.
He wondered how people could be so cruel, even if this was a “dark” novel (pipyemul).
But then, he realized that there were plenty of bad people in the world he came from, too.
People who committed murder for profit or pleasure without a shred of emotion.
His mind raced with all sorts of thoughts, mostly to distract himself from the grim reality.
Haeyong tried his best to keep his eyes closed.
He felt like if he opened them, the darkness would be waiting to swallow him whole.
“Haa…”
But he couldn’t stay like this forever.
When he finally opened his eyes, the same darkness he had first seen was waiting for him.
It was a darkness without a single ray of light, yet he could still make out the shapes of objects.
In other words, even after “sleeping,” he was still Kang Haeyong, not Jang Haeyong.
The hours of agony he’d spent with a hole in his stomach had already forced him to accept reality, but he couldn’t help holding onto a sliver of hope.
As he pushed himself up, he realized he had been lying on the bare floor without so much as a blanket, still wearing his tattered uniform.
Come to think of it—whether it was just now or earlier, he wasn’t sure—he had been lying on the cold floor the first time he woke up, too.
He gnashed his teeth.
He could see that the hole in his stomach had already healed and closed up, but the fact that they had just tossed aside someone who had bled that much…
He didn’t know whether to be grateful they hadn’t abandoned him inside the Gate or to be furious at their insanity.
“I can’t live like this.”
Living in a room that looked like a storage closet?
Sure, he could handle that. It wasn’t much different from his semi-basement studio apartment.
There was no light, but he could see well enough.
What Haeyong couldn’t stand was being tormented.
Bullying was unacceptable, regardless of the reason.
Even if Kang Haeyong had done something wrong—which he hadn’t.
In the novel, Kang Haeyong had done nothing but stay out of the way.
In Haeyong’s opinion, Kang Haeyong’s ability was powerful enough to dominate the world.
Sure, he had to be a “parasite” on others’ abilities, but it wasn’t like the person he touched lost their power.
Haeyong clenched his jaw. He began to recall what he needed to do to escape this hellhole.
His friends used to say he was infinitely soft to those who treated him well, but a total madman to those who didn’t.
It was time to be a madman.
Sitting on the floor, the first thing Haeyong did was try to turn on the lights.
‘Even if the sun doesn’t reach here, I should at least have a light… throwing someone into a dark room without even a lamp is basically praying for them to go insane.’
The only silver lining was that the room wasn’t tiny.
If it had been a cramped cell, he really might have lost it.
At least for now, he was sane. He was going to get out of this disgusting den.
He finally agreed with his friend’s saying that humans need to see light to live.
Finding the light switch wasn’t hard.
Click.
He flipped the switch, but nothing changed.
It wasn’t that he chose not to turn on the light; it was that he couldn’t.
Whether the bulb was burnt out, never replaced, or if the light had been disabled from the start, Haeyong had no way of knowing.
“Shit…”
He usually tried to control his temper and avoid swearing, but this was too much.
Unable to turn on the ceiling light, Haeyong opened the bathroom door instead and flipped that switch.
Thankfully, the bathroom light worked.
As a faint yellow glow spilled out, his heart calmed slightly—though he was far from peaceful.
“Whew… let’s stay calm. First, I need to…”
“Hng…! Mnh!”
Just as he sat down on the floor to organize his thoughts, a strange sound drifted in from somewhere.
“Ah, ahh…!”
“Fuck, relax already. Stop squeezing so hard.”
“Haah…!”
For a moment, Haeyong wondered if he had actually heard that.
Once he became aware of it, the strange sounds grew louder.
It wasn’t just one person.
As the sounds became clearer, Haeyong’s face contorted.
Even without experience, there was no way he didn’t know what that sound was.
It was definitely the sound of that.
As Haeyong’s sensitive nerves prickled, he began to sense their presence.
Excluding himself, there were six people in the house.
Four were in the living room, and two were sensed elsewhere.
Those lunatics were doing it all together.
“Ah… should I just die?”
He felt a sense of hopelessness.
He wondered if dying would be better than living in this “Animal Kingdom.”
He didn’t know how Jang Haeyong had become Kang Haeyong, but maybe if he died, he would return to his original self.
He didn’t think he could survive as a human being in this den of beasts.
“No…! Why should I die? If anyone’s going to die, it should be them. Get a grip, Jang Haeyong.”
Haeyong, who had been fading into despair at the sounds of the groans and intercourse, slapped his forehead hard with his palm to snap himself out of it.
It wasn’t even certain that he’d return if he died.
Jang Haeyong hadn’t died to become Kang Haeyong in the first place.
If that had been the case, there might be a chance, but it wasn’t.
Furthermore, having his stomach pierced was painful enough; he couldn’t bring himself to inflict that, or something worse, on himself.
Any way he died would be painful.
Plus, he doubted he could easily kill this body—the body of the superhuman Kang Haeyong—with the knowledge of the ordinary Jang Haeyong.
In every way, living was better.
Quickly regaining his composure, Haeyong decided he didn’t want to hear those sounds anymore.
Their sexual activity didn’t sound “erotic” like a porn film; it sounded violent.
Moreover, Haeyong knew exactly how they were having sex—or rather, “guiding”—because it was in the novel.
In this world, guiding is beautifully packaged as an act that saves the Espers who save the world, but these people used guiding as a tool for violence.
“Ugh…”
He had only read about it, but now that he had seen their faces, it made his skin crawl even more.
As Haeyong thought about how much he hated hearing it, his senses shut down.
He could no longer hear the violent sounds, the pained groans, or sense their presence.
It would have been better if he hadn’t sensed them at all from the start, but an Esper’s heightened senses were inconvenient in many ways.
Still, now that it was quiet, he felt he could breathe.
He decided to be as careful as possible so he wouldn’t accidentally open his senses again.
With his ears “closed” and senses blocked, Haeyong surveyed the room. He couldn’t tell how much time had passed, but he hadn’t been able to look around properly the first time.
On his right wrist was a “Gear,” which all superhumans supposedly had.
It was so light he hadn’t even noticed it was there.
When he tapped the Gear, the screen flickered on.
[Wavelength: 124%]
“Oh… this must be the wavelength level,” Haeyong muttered softly.
Living alone had made him talk to himself a lot, and he realized he’d have to be careful about that now.
After all, if he could hear them, the citizens of the “Animal Kingdom” out there could likely hear his monologues too.
They might not care since they didn’t treat Kang Haeyong like a human, but it was better to be cautious.
For today, they’d be too busy filming their “Animal Kingdom” episode to notice him.
He had to be careful from now on.
His wavelength was quite high, even though he shouldn’t have been able to use his abilities except at the very beginning.
