I survived. For the reason that I needed to be alive to take revenge on Seol Rok-jin someday.
Seol Rok-jin didn’t lie to me. Seol Rok-jin really cherished me quite a bit. At first, I could barely see his face once every few days, but then he started visiting me whenever he had time, and even removed the identification tag hanging around my neck.
As I stroked my empty neck, Seol Rok-jin made an unfunny joke asking, ‘If your neck feels empty, should I put another collar on you?’
The feeling of throwing off the collar that had constricted me all my life wasn’t as refreshing as I thought. Perhaps because of my situation of being tied to another master.
Seol Rok-jin also moved my accommodation to a different place. Though I moved from the basement that reminded me of an underground prison to a fairly decent two-room apartment, my depression only deepened.
Because I wasn’t allowed to go outside this room. I was just a prisoner trapped in a slightly more luxurious prison.
Though everything had improved incomparably from before, there were days when being alive became unbearably painful.
‘Didn’t I end up surviving by clinging to the guy who killed Jeong Ho-san?’
On days when such thoughts came, I forgot even to eat and holed up in a corner. Each time, Seol Rok-jin clicked his tongue looking at me.
“How are you going to take revenge on me if you’re depressingly cooped up like this?”
“If you want to help me that much, why don’t you fall out the window and die right now? That would make me feel really good.”
At my words, Seol Rok-jin laughed as if pleased.
“Just joking.”
It wasn’t a joke at all.
If he died, I could close my eyes in peace too. The problem is that Seol Rok-jin has no intention of obediently dying for me.
After that day, I rushed at Seol Rok-jin several times.
But there was no way to kill Seol Rok-jin who was accompanied by bodyguards and armed with artifacts. Far from killing him, I couldn’t even inflict a proper wound once.
Each time, Seol Rok-jin clicked his tongue at me.
“I told you to take revenge on me, not to jump in to commit suicide.”
I can’t kill Seol Rok-jin with such one-dimensional methods. But it’s not like I can find other methods. I was just trapped in this room anyway.
I became truly curious. Why on earth did Seol Rok-jin save me? There’s nothing good about taking in a subordinate who’s sharpening his blade of revenge against him.
I still hated Seol Rok-jin and wanted to kill him, but as time passed, my head gradually cooled.
And my cooled reason shouted that this whole situation made no sense.
Yes, it made no sense.
“Why on earth are you doing this to me?”
As I asked leaning crookedly against the wall, Seol Rok-jin just smirked.
“If you’re going to be polite, be polite, if you’re going to speak casually, speak casually. What’s with that ill-fitting way of speaking?”
“Why don’t you just answer?”
Because your ability doesn’t work on me? You kept me alive just for such a reason? Not only keeping me alive, but even assigning separate personnel to watch me and help me live like this?
It’s a situation I absolutely can’t understand.
So I needed a reason.
The reason why this guy, who’s like my enemy, is deliberately keeping me alive.
I asked Seol Rok-jin for the reason several times, but Seol Rok-jin didn’t give a proper answer.
“Rather than worrying about such things now, you should think about how to become an important person to me. That’s how you can stab me in the back and take revenge someday, right?”
Looking at his curved eyes, I realized. That attempting to fundamentally understand this guy is futile.
That I should just understand him as a psychopath, hedonist or such who doesn’t conform to any common sense.
That he just sees me as a toy, that is.
His saying I’m special probably means I’m that special of a toy. To a guy for whom everything goes his way, I seem to be quite a new toy.
There was no need to play along with his bad taste.
Yeah, keep your guard down like that. Someday I’ll bite your neck hard.
That day, Seol Rok-jin dragged me to some building. Seol Rok-jin, who went down to the basement of the building, didn’t answer at all when I asked where this was.
‘Has he gotten bored of playing with me? Well, with no reaction or anything, it’s bound to get boring. So is he thinking of killing me now?’
But well, there’s nothing I can do. I quietly closed my mouth and followed him. Thinking it’s rather refreshing that it’s turned out like this.
The place Seol Rok-jin and I arrived at was a room that looked like an interrogation room. On the other side of a transparent glass, a man was sitting tied to a chair.
Though I wasn’t dragged to a laboratory as I worried, my body stiffened with tension at the ominous atmosphere of the room.
“What’s with that person?”
Though we should be clearly visible through the glass, the man showed no sign of knowing we were here.
Is it a one-way mirror or something?
Why on earth did he bring me here?
“I thought you should at least earn your keep.”
“Earn my keep?”
“I told you, I’ll cherish you in my own way. But shouldn’t you do something for me in return?”
At those words, I clenched my fist. How dare he try to lure me with such words. Whatever he’s planning to make me do, I should just refuse unconditionally.
At my rebellious gaze, Seol Rok-jin said:
“If you don’t want to, don’t.”
“Ha, of course I don’t…”
“If you’re thinking of staying trapped there for life.”
At those words, I narrowed my eyes.
“Are you saying if I do as you say here, you’ll let me out of that house?”
“Yes. But promise me. Since you’re doing it anyway, that you’ll do it sincerely until results come out.”
At Seol Rok-jin’s words, I nodded. Whatever it is, I was dying after being locked up for nearly a month.
I absolutely had to get outside, if only to find a way to kill this bastard right away.
“Then what do I have to do?”
At my question, Seol Rok-jin pointed at the man tied up in the room and said:
“It’s simple. Deceive that with your talent.”
That? I knew he was someone who didn’t treat people as people, but that was a really nasty way to refer to someone.
Anyway, deceive that? Seeing as he said to use my talent, he must mean to lie.
“What kind of lie do you want me to tell?”
“Hmm, well.”
Seol Rok-jin stroked his chin, tilted his head and said:
“I hadn’t thought about that.”
“…You hadn’t thought about it?”
At my resentful gaze, Seol Rok-jin shrugged his shoulders and said:
“You’re very comfortable and happy here right now?”
Tell someone tied up with their limbs bound in a room so white it’s scary just to look at, ‘You’re very comfortable’? To someone trembling like an aspen leaf even now?
I sighed and said:
“It’s impossible.”
“Without even trying?”
“I know without trying.”
My lies are different from Seol Rok-jin’s ability. It was impossible to ‘lie’ to someone already so terrified like that.
“My ability isn’t all-powerful like yours. In that state, no lie will work.”
Whether it’s lies or whatever, it’s only possible with someone who words get through to. You can’t even properly start talking to someone who’s not a subject you can communicate with in the first place.
“Hmm, I see. So the setup itself was wrong from the start.”
Saying that and nodding his head, Seol Rok-jin’s pupils turned yellow. At the same time, the man standing behind me entered the room.
“Wait, what are you trying to do?”
It was when I shouted out of an inexplicable anxiety. The bodyguard who pulled out his gun shot the man tied to the chair right in the head.
“Huh.”
I swallowed at the blood splattering before my eyes. What just happened?
Did, did they kill someone?
Seol Rok-jin calmly continued speaking.
“Next time, I’ll prepare a bit more carefully.”
“What, what kind of crazy act is this!”
“You said it yourself. That it was impossible.”
“Why, why did you kill that person!”
“Ah, because this way you’ll probably try a bit harder next time?”
Seol Rok-jin tapped my cheek and said:
“So from now on, don’t immediately give up saying you don’t want to do it, okay?”
* * *
The next day, I pleaded almost begging to Seol Rok-jin who was dragging me to the usual building.
“I, I can’t do it.”
Unlike Seol Rok-jin who can completely brainwash someone just by having them in his sight, my ability is just pathetic.
It’s just lying! Lies only work when the situation fits well. Building rapport with that person is important, and the situation is important too. Even lies that would work won’t work in such a bleak interrogation room.
Moreover, in a situation where someone’s life depends on my actions, I wasn’t confident I could tell a proper lie either.
At my words, Seol Rok-jin said:
“You said with your own mouth that you’d try sincerely until results came out since you were doing it anyway.”
“At that time, I didn’t know someone would die because of me!”
“Then there’s no choice. I’ll just have to get rid of all the people I prepared.”
“Wait, people you prepared?”
How many more are there?
Moreover, if I say I don’t want to do it, is he thinking of killing all those people? No, it’s not just a thought, he’ll really do it.
“I excitedly prepared a lot since you said you’d try hard, but it’s a shame.”
Seol Rok-jin who said that was smiling while watching my reaction.
This son of a bitch.
“W-wait!”
I grabbed Seol Rok-jin’s arm. Though it gave me goosebumps, I had no choice to stop Seol Rok-jin who was about to do something right away.
“I’ll try.”
I desperately said to Seol Rok-jin.
“I’ll try, so…”
I bit my lip.
I don’t want innocent people to die because of me.
Absolutely, absolutely not.
But how?
Can I really deceive someone else with my lies?
Seol Rok-jin, who examined my face, slowly opened his mouth.
“How many times have you used your ability?”
Seol Rok-jin tapped his neck.
“You probably couldn’t use your ability freely while wearing a dog collar.”
All awakeners had to wear identification tags mandatorily. At the academy, you could take off the collar in certain situations, but even in the academy I rarely used my ability.
After graduating, I never used my ability even once.
Why?
Because I hated my ability terribly.
I had tried to use the magic power flowing in my body in other ways, but I couldn’t think of honing my ability of lying.
It wouldn’t work on monsters who can’t communicate anyway, and it seemed ridiculous to open my mouth in front of enemies saying I’d try lying.
“Can you really not do it? Or have you not even tried?”
I couldn’t give any answer to Seol Rok-jin’s words.
“Are you running away again saying you can’t do it without even trying hard?”
I didn’t want to say I was running away, at least not to Seol Rok-jin.
I stood in the room that had been cleaned up as if nothing had happened. I gritted my teeth looking at the man staring at me with an oblivious face.
I thought of Seol Rok-jin who would be watching me from beyond the shiny mirror.
“You, you…”
I tried with all my might, but my lie didn’t work.
The man who had already noticed the situation and was trembling looking at me couldn’t focus on my words at all.
I desperately tried to talk to the man, but it was a failure.
And the price for that failure was the same as yesterday. I moved my lips looking at the blood stain splattered on the wall.
“Why on earth…”
Seol Rok-jin said to me:
“People tend to be more efficient with a bit of pressure.”
You’re killing people just for that? I rubbed my face.
“Why don’t you just kill me? Haven’t you had enough fun by now?”
I had already lost hope. How could a weakling like me take revenge on Seol Rok-jin? When I can’t even handle my one talent properly.
If he was trying to make me despair, he succeeded.
“Fun?”
Seol Rok-jin lifted my chin and said looking into my eyes:
“I’m trying to help you.”
“You’re trying to help me?”
“You’re just wasting your precious talent.”
Precious talent. Is mere lying to deceive others precious?
“I think what you need is to become a bit more desperate.”
And the next day, Seol Rok-jin really made me desperate.