The Obsessive Maniac Is Trying To Confine Me - Chapter 206
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This chapter was translated by Lunox Team. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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Episode 206
Sian asking if I woke up calmly was absurd.
However, after dealing with so many crazy bastards at once, I was too tired to argue.
I lay down on the bed with the feeling of wanting to give up on everything.
Then Sian fiddled with my ankle. Click, the shackle that had been restraining my ankle came off.
“Aren’t you going to ask why I put shackles on your ankle?”
“Why did you put them on?”
“It seems like you’re willing to ask.”
“….”
What am I supposed to do?
“Actually, it’s meaningless. I just tried it.”
“…Just?”
“Yes, just.”
Why didn’t I realize it sooner?
This guy has lost his mind too.
‘At least he’s taking them off.’
After dealing with so many troublemakers, I had to be grateful even for this kind of crazy behavior.
“How much time has passed?”
“Huh?”
“How much time has passed here while I was over there? 3 years? 5 years?”
“About a year has passed.”
It wasn’t as much as I thought.
Still.
“Then I must have been fired from the company.”
Sian smiled warmly and comforted me.
“You can start over, senior.”
“…Start over.”
Unlike Sian who spoke in a positive tone, I just felt overwhelmed.
‘Still, it’s better than being in that world.’
This place is my reality and this place is my world.
“Aren’t you hungry, senior?”
“…I do feel a bit peckish.”
“Wait. I’ll prepare a meal.”
“….”
I was still awkward since I hadn’t adapted to the current situation, but Sian acted naturally without showing any such signs.
While Sian was preparing, I looked around the room.
I remembered when I died to Roji and came to this place.
Back then, I was forcibly returned to that world because I hadn’t killed the Transcendent.
As I looked around, a familiar picture frame caught my eye.
I slowly got up from my seat and approached the frame.
Inside the frame was a photo of Sian and me taken together.
‘When was this taken?’
It was so long ago that I couldn’t remember well.
I stared at the frame for a while, then lost interest and went to sit on the bed.
Shortly after, Sian approached with a small table, apparently having finished preparing the food.
A spoon and chopsticks were placed side by side.
It had been so long since I’d seen these utensils that they seemed fascinating.
I picked up the now-awkward chopsticks.
‘So these… were used like this, right?’
After moving them a few times, I quickly adapted.
‘Wait a minute.’
Suddenly I felt something was strange.
“…If a year has passed in Korea, that means I was lying down for a year too, right?”
“Is there a problem?”
Normally, if you lie down for a year, don’t your muscles atrophy?
But why are my movements so natural?
“What’s wrong, senior?”
“…It’s nothing.”
Did Sian take good care of my body during that time?
My medical knowledge was shallow, so I couldn’t tell what was strange.
Sian and I focused on eating without much conversation.
He seemed to realize that I wasn’t in the mood for small talk.
My first day back in Korea passed strangely peacefully.
While I was in that other world, I had made a long list of things I wanted to do when I returned to Korea, but now I couldn’t remember any of it.
“Sleep well, senior.”
“…Thank you.”
“Don’t mention it. Let’s have a proper conversation when you wake up tomorrow.”
“Okay.”
* * *
Right after I woke up and finished eating, Sian brought out a box from one corner of the room.
“These are your belongings, senior.”
“My belongings?”
“The lease on your old place expired, so I brought your stuff.”
Ah. Come to think of it, a year has passed….
‘So now I have no job and no home…?’
I don’t even have any saved money. I spent it all on Mother’s surgery.
“How about staying here for a while?”
Sian made a good suggestion as if he’d been waiting. Of course, I had no choice.
Where could I go without a penny to my name?
So I decided to stay with Sian for the time being.
With the important issue resolved, I turned my attention to the box Sian had given me.
Things I used a very long time ago.
Did I really have these things? My memory is hazy.
I touched various items with curiosity.
“This is the phone you used to use, senior.”
While I was touching various things, Sian took out a phone from the box and handed it to me.
“I never thought I’d see this again.”
When I returned to Korea, I felt overwhelmed about what to do next, but this actually seemed like a decent start.
“Try using it.”
“Alright.”
I pressed the button on the side to turn on the phone. But this….
“What was the password…?”
“….”
“….”
As if we were lagging, we stared blankly at the lock screen.
“Do you remember anything?”
“Hmm….”
I tried entering various patterns. I attempted several of the most common patterns like ‘ㄱ’, ‘ㄴ’, ‘ㄷ’, ‘ㅁ’, ‘ㄹ’, but they all failed.
After failing 5 times like that, a message appeared saying I could try again after 30 seconds.
“Now that I think about it, I think you used to use complex passwords, senior.”
“Do you know my password?”
“Of course I don’t know it. But I remember the patterns I glimpsed before seemed complicated.”
“…I don’t remember.”
After 30 seconds passed, I tried several more times, but…
“It’s locked.”
“…Right.”
Now I couldn’t even attempt it anymore.
Sian comforted me saying it was okay and kindly offered a solution.
“Today’s a holiday, so let’s go to the center together on Monday.”
“Yeah. That sounds good.”
Reluctantly, I put the phone down.
“And here’s the radio your mother gave you as a gift.”
Sian handed me the radio.
Seeing the old radio made my mood sink coldly.
“Thanks.”
I couldn’t hold the radio for long and set it down on the floor.
In the morning, I spent time going through my belongings. When afternoon came, Sian asked me carefully.
“Senior, do you have time right now?”
I had nothing to do, so how could I not have time?
…I don’t even have a job anymore.
“Want to go out with me for a bit?”
“Sure.”
It seemed like it would be nice to see what Korea was like after so long.
I went outside with Sian.
When we headed to the parking lot, there was an expensive car.
The scene of Sian seating me in the passenger seat and fastening my seatbelt felt very strange.
‘Awkward.’
Maybe because I’d lived in that other world for too long, I couldn’t adapt at all.
Sian drove with me in the car. Did he want to go for a drive?
The scenery outside the window was incomparably more unfamiliar than anything so far.
High-rise buildings and loudly honking horns…
“Where are we going?”
It seems like we’re going quite far.
“…You’ll know when we get there.”
He didn’t give me a clear answer. I wondered why, but since I wasn’t particularly curious, I didn’t ask twice.
As Sian said, I soon learned the reason.
I stood with Sian in front of an urn.
“This is…”
I felt like I knew without needing to hear an answer.
Mother from This Place.
“You took good care of… things.”
Thank goodness.
When I heard the news that Mother had died, I often had dreams of Mother’s corpse being abandoned on the ground.
But seeing the urn, I could realize that it was nothing more than a nightmare.
Still, if only…
It would have been nice if she were still alive.
We can’t see each other again now.
“Thank you, Sian.”
“…It was nothing.”
“Thank you.”
“…Yes.”
Strangely, Sian’s voice sounded unclear.
I thought he was feeling awkward and struggling because he didn’t know how to handle this situation.
After a long while like that, we left the columbarium.
Crack-
But at that moment, a small crack appeared in the air like a cracked LCD screen.
‘What is that?’
Thinking I might have seen wrong, I closed and opened my eyes, but it was still there.
The gap in the small crack gradually widened, then soon swallowed me.
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This chapter was translated by Lunox Team. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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