[Snap out of it!]
“…!”
Someone yelled at Raon in a strangely familiar voice. Raon frowned.
The irritable tone made a flash of anger rise up in him, but he soon felt confused.
The voice felt too much like déjà vu.
[Snap out of it, Min Raon!]
“You… who are you?”
He even knew my original name.
It was a name that could not possibly be known in this world unless it was Apophis claiming to be a fellow possessor.
‘Wait, Apophis? Possessor?’
However, when I tried to think deeply, a sudden, extreme headache flared up.
I didn’t know why, but recalling specific words made my head feel like it would shatter.
Raon involuntarily groaned and hunched his body.
Then the irritable voice grew louder.
[Damn it, you pathetic bastard! Are you going to snap out of it or not?]
“Who are you calling… ugh, pathetic…”
[Who else is here besides you, huh!]
“Ugh.”
The chattering voice occupied my head.
But thanks to that, as I stopped thinking about other things, the headache gradually subsided.
Only then did Raon realize why the annoying voice sounded familiar.
‘The voice is the same as mine.’
To be exact, it wasn’t his voice.
It was the voice of ‘this body’ I was using.
The moment I realized that, my mind suddenly cleared.
Raon raised his head sharply and realized that the surroundings were very dark.
Tense, Raon swallowed hard and carefully asked.
“You, by any chance, are you Han Raon?”
[….]
The owner of the voice didn’t reply.
But that was enough.
Raon let out a long sigh.
“Phew, what on earth is this…”
It was too vivid to be a dream.
But at the same time, it was a situation that I could only think of as a crazy dream.
The real Han Raon, that is.
Isn’t that the original owner of this body?
But talking to such a person was simply unbelievable.
[Hey, are you awake? Don’t make my blood boil, just get it together.]
“Ha.”
This rude and ill-mannered way of speaking, it was definitely Han Raon.
Raon gave an empty, self-mocking laugh.
“Why on earth are you… no, tell me what’s going on. Weren’t you dead?”
[F*ck, who said I was dead.]
“Then you’ve been inside this body all along?”
[Yeah.]
“Ha, this is driving me crazy.”
I had been sharing a body with the real Han Raon all this time.
It seemed like it wasn’t possession, but a lease.
Raon’s face crumpled as he became increasingly dumbfounded.
[Hey, do you think I woke up because I wanted to? Huh? Shouldn’t you have done well so that this wouldn’t happen?]
“Why are you getting angry from the start?”
[Does it look like I wouldn’t be angry?]
“No…”
I had forgotten because of the System’s absence, and I hadn’t acted as the real Han Raon, but the real Han Raon’s temper was still no joke.
Listening to his voice, which was scolding and getting angry for unbelievable reasons, made my chest increasingly tight.
There was a reason why the people around the real Han Raon were terrified of him.
[If you had been a moment later, your entire personality would have been extinguished! After all the trouble I went through to help you, f*ck.]
“What? You helped me?”
[Do you think I’d just stay put when I was sleeping soundly and was forcibly dragged out? Huh?]
“Uh…”
[In any case, all those psychic Espers are equally unlucky! Those sons of b*tches!]
Vile curses continued to echo in Raon’s head.
Perhaps because I had lived in Han Raon’s body for several years, it felt totally unfamiliar to hear curses in a voice that felt like my own.
Raon suppressed the discomfort and opened his mouth again.
“Didn’t you, um, want to wake up?”
[Huh, why would I?]
“Well, this body is originally yours…”
[Don’t want it. Why would I go through that kind of hardship again?]
“Is that so…”
As expected, this was the selfish Han Raon who didn’t care what happened to others.
Still, I thought he would be angry that a stranger was using his body without permission.
But it seemed that the trauma of dying after all the hardships in the Irregular Gate was a bigger issue.
Well, honestly, his death was close to serving him right, though.
“Then, is it okay if I continue to live in your body? You don’t need the body back?”
[Do whatever the hell you want with it. But if this kind of thing happens again, I won’t let you off easy.]
“O-okay.”
Raon just nodded at the words, which were beyond cool and borderline terrifying.
It seemed he was deeply annoyed at being suddenly woken up while sleeping soundly.
‘Come to think of it, I was attacked by K’s psychic ability.’
Now, recalling specific words no longer made my head hurt.
So, the events that happened right before I lost consciousness came back one by one.
K, who had broken down my mental strength with a suspicious item, seemed to have intended to manipulate my memories and turn me into a puppet.
In doing so, he inevitably had to touch my deep memories and inner self, and it seems he even touched the real Han Raon in his unconscious state.
And the awakened Han Raon unintentionally helped me.
This was truly unimaginable.
“Anyway, thank you for helping me, Han Raon.”
[Stop with the cringey talk and how about you quickly clean up that mess?]
“What? That? Clean up?”
I was slowly getting used to the real Han Raon’s way of speaking, but this time I didn’t understand what he meant.
As Raon looked puzzled, the real Han Raon flared up again and shouted.
[Ah, forget it! Just get up! Hurry!]
“No, what the, ugh…!”
As soon as the real Han Raon abruptly yelled, Raon felt his body being pushed somewhere.
In reality, this place would be his inner world deep in his mind, so his body wouldn’t actually be moving.
But Raon felt like he was being chased out.
“Hukk!”
Raon suddenly opened his eyes in reality.
His body was completely drenched.
It felt like he had been dipped and pulled out of a huge water tank.
“What is this…”
I was clearly supposed to have just lost consciousness and then woken up.
I had felt like I was floating in water in the inner world, but could it be that I thought that because my body was actually wet?
Even my clothes were completely soaked, making my body heavy.
Raon was confused and looked down at the hem of his shirt, from which water was profusely dripping, then raised his head blankly.
“…!”
Then, he saw the mess inside the warehouse.
The surroundings were completely drenched, as if a typhoon had hit, and the floor was soaked.
The contents of the warehouse were all jumbled up, having been swept away by water.
As Raon looked at them, he sensed a presence and turned his head.
And he instantly held his breath.
“Cough, cough…”
A large man was choking someone.
Unlike the man, who was completely black, the clothes of the person being choked were pure white.
I immediately recognized who he was.
It was K.
The goat mask he had been wearing was lying on the floor, barely visible as a trace in the distance, trampled under the black man’s foot.
Raon held his breath, watching K, who looked like he was about to pass out.
Although he was the one who used a psychic ability on me to turn me into a puppet, seeing him being ravaged like that instantly filled me with fear.
“…?”
But soon, Raon felt confused.
The man choking K looked somewhat familiar.
Since he was facing away from Raon’s view, it took a moment to recognize him, but he looked very much like Siwoo from behind.
“Ah.”
Only then did Raon realize that the surroundings being wet was also due to Siwoo’s ability.
The fear he had felt just moments before significantly lessened.
“Siwoo.”
“…!”
Siwoo’s large body flinched when he heard Raon’s voice.
And he immediately slammed K to the floor and quickly turned around.
“Hyung!”
“Haa.”
Seeing Siwoo’s usual appearance, Raon breathed a sigh of relief.
His back looked so fierce that I was a little scared.
But he was indeed the Siwoo I knew.
“Hyung, are you okay? Huh?”
“Yeah, I’m fine.”
“Do you know who I am?”
“Of course, I do.”
“Phew.”
“…?”
Asking if I was okay was normal, but the latter question was not.
I couldn’t understand why he was asking that.
When Raon looked puzzled, Siwoo contorted his face and said.
“You didn’t recognize me earlier, Hyung.”
“What?”
“So I was dealing with that bastard…”
A dangerous light flashed in Siwoo’s eyes as he fiercely glared at the unconscious K.
Looking again, other Named members were also sprawled around K.
Did Siwoo alone really take on all of Apophis’s Named members, including K?
I never imagined he could reduce them to this state so quickly.
‘Wait, two people are missing?’
However, upon closer inspection, I realized that two Named members were missing.
It was when Raon narrowed his eyes and scanned the surroundings.
“Is everything over now?”
“…!”
A quiet voice echoed through the area.
A man who suddenly appeared out of thin air looked around and clicked his tongue.
Raon barely recognized him.
“Team Leader Jeongwon, is that you?”
“Haha, well now. You certainly turned this place upside down in a spectacular fashion.”
Jeongwon let out an awkward laugh and approached.
Raon stared at him blankly.
