Chapter 70

"...Um, no... That's not it, but then do I have to treat you coldly? Run away and ignore you like you did?"

"When did I do that?"

"You did."

Hoo. Tae-un put the drill down on the floor.

"Do as you wish. But go over there for now. I'm going to set up the door and open and close it now."

"Then just answer what I asked earlier. Since when did you like me?"

"I don't know. I haven't thought about it."

"Then think about it quickly."

"Jin Soram. Shouldn't you leave me alone to sort that out on my own?"

Tae-un gave a hollow laugh for the first time today. It was a laugh that seemed to say, yeah, this is Jin Soram. Seeing that, Soram couldn't immediately retort.

Soon, Tae-un stood up from his spot, lifting the door. With the strength of a 1st-grade, Soram only had to step back as he could lift it with one hand without needing help.

"Han Tae-un. So..."

Beep― Beep― Beep―

The two reflexively checked their wrist communicators. The one that was flashing was Tae-un's communicator. Tae-un put the door back down and pressed the communicator firmly.

"Leave it like this."

He moved his steps to his bedroom, pulling his t-shirt over his head. Even on weekends, he had to wear a tight suit when dispatched, so he was going to change clothes. Soram pouted his lips, looking at his curved bare back getting farther away.

A moment later, Tae-un, wearing the same black suit as on weekdays, found and put on his dress shoes from the shoe rack.

"Jin Soram."

Soram, who had been rummaging through the toolbox, raised his head. Tae-un had just stepped one foot into the corridor.

"It hasn't been long since I became aware of it, but the feelings probably started from the beginning."

"Huh?"

"I think I liked you from the first time I met you. Don't touch that and leave it as it is."

Tae-un pointed to the broken door with his finger and left the front door.

When he returned after completing the dispatch, the door frame that had been smooth was riddled with holes the size of a pinky nail. It was a trace of repeatedly nailing it wrong and pulling it out. If he had to guess, he roughly hammered it with a drill, and when the position was strange, he pulled it out with the hinge, and when it was strange again, he repeated pulling it out...

From here, it was no longer the realm of self-repair. This required calling a company to re-attach the molding.

"Huh."

As if hearing Tae-un clicking his tongue in disbelief, a message arrived.

Jin Soram: It wasn't on purpose

Soram's bedroom door was tightly closed at some point. Along with the disappearance of the pillow and blanket that had been in the living room.

* * *

Poof!

Green mucus splattered where the tip of the sword had slashed through. At the same time, the mutant whose breath had been cut off disappeared into black smoke.

A dungeon had occurred in the metropolitan area for the first time in a while. The grade was 3, and the location was a ditch with few people, with the rift hidden among the reeds that had grown around it, so it wasn't discovered early.

And the dispatched personnel was 1 person, Chief Hunter Jin Soram alone.

The form of the dungeon was the same as the siege dungeon that had previously occurred in Bukhansan. The mutants appeared wearing the form of predators around the river. Fortunately, the mutants couldn't climb up the deeply dug ravine, but unfortunately, a few mutants had drifted away with the current.

Swish―

The two planes that flew from Soram's palm rushed faster than the current and plunged into the mutants' bodies. The mutants all disappeared into black smoke without being able to leave the vicinity. In the meantime, Soram cut through the reeds and slashed the mutants guarding the front of the rift.

Kiiik...!

It was a battle in a wide open space without any obstacles for the first time in a while. Moreover, there were only rocks and grass around, so it wasn't a big problem even if they were a bit broken. As a result of having no restrictions at all in moving the weapons, Soram set a record of achieving complete elimination of mutants and rifts in a dungeon he was dispatched to alone in just 3 hours.

"15:40. Confirmed complete deletion of the rift."

Soram neatly folded the plane's wings and put them in his pocket. Having finished reporting, he jumped up from his spot and climbed up the ditch. There, the police controlling the scene asked Soram if the dungeon had already been resolved.

"Yes. It wasn't very dungeonized."

"Ah, that's really fortunate."

Although the biggest problem was that a few mutants had drifted down the river, it was safely concluded by sacrificing Soram's shoes, socks, and pants below the knees.

The police officer sent a contact to his superiors who would be waiting for the news with relief. Meanwhile, hearing a questionable squishing sound, he looked around. The source of the sound was Soram's water-soaked shoes. Having finished his work, Soram staggered towards the car parked over there. The police officer approached him to see him off.

"Oh my, you got wetter than I thought. You should hurry and go change. It must be uncomfortable."

"Ah, shoes. Yes."

"Is it okay for you to ride in the car like that?"

"There's no choice."

If it were the usual Soram, he would have made a few flirtatious remarks to the police officer showing goodwill, but today, he answered half-heartedly, lost in thought. The police officer, who misunderstood it as him being tired, gave a little more words of encouragement.

"Anyway, you worked hard. Um, haha. It would have been nice if we had made a judgment a little faster and blocked the waterway from the beginning."

"From the beginning?!"

Soram's eyes, which seemed to be lost in thought, flashed open.

"Yes, then it would have been easier for you to resolve it too, Chief..."

"No! What do you mean from the beginning! It's something that happened suddenly. There should be time to prepare, mentally. Give some hints too. So that people can respond!"

"Huh? ...Ah, I see, as expected, you have a broad consideration too..."

"...Anyway, it's fortunate that it was resolved well. Right? Wow, it turned out so well! You worked hard, I'll go first."

Soram smiled brightly and tapped his shoulders with both hands, then left. Although there was a gaze from behind saying, 'They said he's a lunatic who's only sane on the outside, is it really true...', there was no time to pay attention to it.

Arriving at the office, Soram sat blankly in his chair. Tae-un seemed to have gone on a dispatch, as he was nowhere to be seen.

His empty seat was neatly tucked in like the owner's personality, and the utensils were also arranged in order. There was a precise space left between the laptop and pencil case where a cell phone could have been placed.

'The feelings probably started from the beginning.'

Those words came to his mind again. Soram looked at the ceiling and sighed, still sitting.

"If you say it's from the beginning, what the fuck does that make me..."

It would have been better if something that had changed in this life had an unexpected effect on Han Tae-un's heart. Because that was a peculiarity of only this life.

But from the beginning meant that the same thing might have happened in every moment that brought about the repeated first meetings.

In the end, his thoughts shifted to the conclusion he thought was not the case. The reason he kept saving me and dying over the past three lives...

Was it really because he liked me...

Me, in that special... sense...

"..."

Come to think of it, he was always by my side even in situations where there was nothing to say if he left the team. I even pushed him away impulsively in the previous life, telling him not to come near me.

Tap, tap.

His feet that had been touching the floor moved on their own. After doing that for a while, he abruptly stopped and slumped over the desk. The strength drained from his hunched back as if the air had been let out.

"Why on earth... Could Han Tae-un be a pervert? I must have looked like a real crazy bastard back then."

'Don't stay around me and fuck off!'

'I'm the chief. If you don't want to follow my orders, go to another team.'

He recalled Tae-un, who had been looking at his words and actions at the time with an expressionless face. No matter how much he tried to guess, he couldn't figure out what was going on in that blunt head of his.

Instead, Soram himself immediately realized the identity of what was growing in size within him. It was guilt.

He wanted to escape from the churning and sleep as he had always done, but this time, far from making him sleepy, it only made his mind more alert. The welling up tapped sharply inside his throat.

"Ha..."

Soram covered his face with one hand.

Han Tae-un likes me.

Tae-un's revealed emotions and confession were startling and stimulated Soram's sense of debt, who had countless faults.

But on the other hand.

He felt some comfort in the fact that his life, in which he considered himself a failure, was regarded as an object to receive good feelings from someone.

Soram, who had been biting his lips, soon sighed and slid his body down onto the desk.

Enough, what kind of sentimental act is this? If you're not going to accept Han Tae-un's confession, what's the point of consoling yourself that there was someone who liked you?

After sorting out his thoughts like that, when he pulled the laptop over, an email that had just arrived was blinking. The sender was the research lab.

Subject: (Research) Regarding the re-measurement results of the abilities of Team 7's Team Leader Chief Jin Soram and Chief Han Tae-un

Content:

Hello, Chief Jin Soram.

This is Yoo Chae-eun, the head of the Awakening Ability Measurement and Analysis Department, Building A.

I am attaching the analysis results of the two's ability measurements taken on the 4th.

In addition, I am informing you that content related to the analysis of the 1st-grade dungeon in Bukhansan has been uploaded to the Rift Phenomenon Management Headquarters account.

http://moaitube.com/watch?v=gwgiR1P8L

Thank you.

Soram opened the attached analysis file results. Since it wasn't his own ability anyway, he displayed Tae-un's results on the screen first.

There were scores written there that were difficult to see as skills of someone who hadn't even been awakened for half a year.

At this rate, in a few years, he would become a hunter who was unrivaled even among 1st-grades. Even now, it was just that the person was blunt, but his learning speed and sense were good, so the slightly rough techniques that still remained would gradually improve. Soram recalled the future he had experienced.

"How did Han Tae-un use his ability around the age of 28..."

After that, Soram remained silent in the same posture for a long time.

Fuck, I should have paid some attention to Han Tae-un instead of pretending to ignore him.

Soram didn't give up and tried to scrape together even a little bit of Tae-un's appearance that he had just passed by before. The overall impression was similar to now. Powerful attacks focused on power. Also, the long sword he used as his main weapon. Other than that, he couldn't remember any information that might be helpful.

Come to think of it, did he realize on his own that his ability was attraction and repulsion in his previous life, or did he not know?