PARADOX 2

To explain how this situation came to be, one must talk about the past.

That is, the story of the time before he returned to the past, when he was called by the number Baekgu instead of the name Yeo Hanseo.

His first memory was of a snow-white room that smelled of disinfectant.

The things that happened there… are nothing but things he doesn’t particularly want to recall.

Still, he was the luckiest case among the kids in the laboratory. Because he had awakened as an Esper. Thanks to that, he was able to escape that terrible place and feel something called freedom, if only for a short while.

The problem was that Baekgu was an existence no better than a lab rat that had lived its whole life trapped in a box. Since the only things he knew about the outside world were the bits and pieces of the researchers’ conversations he’d overheard, it wasn’t easy for him to live like a normal person in society without an identity or anything else.

It might have been different if he were smart. Having been nothing more than a test subject, Baekgu had never deeply planned anything for himself. Furthermore, at the time, he was so intoxicated by the fact that he had escaped the lab that he even overused his abilities like an idiot.

Then again, how could a lab rat who had never even received a proper basic education have known?

‘You, you have a good ability, don’t you?’

That such a crazy bastard existed in this world.

He found out later that the man was the leader of a pseudo-religious cult. By the time he realized it, he was already held by a leash and in a state where he couldn’t run away.

From that day on, Baekgu was worked like a slave by the bastard. Some of those days were so terrible that he’d rather have returned to the laboratory.

Days without dreams or hope passed, and passed, and passed, and then…

Suddenly, the cult leader died.

When the freedom he couldn’t obtain no matter what he did fell before his eyes, bewilderment came first, but he also felt a little bit happy. However, that soon turned into anger and frustration.

Because the world had ended.

The cause of the destruction was a Dungeon Break. It’s a phenomenon where monsters from inside a dungeon pour out into the world if the dungeon isn’t cleared in time; the cult leader’s death was also caused by a pack of monsters that had burst out like that.

And Baekgu was also scheduled to die soon for the same reason.

“Fuck.”

Curses came out as he looked at the temple filled with corpses. His left arm, bitten by a monster, also hurt terribly. Even if he were lucky enough to survive here, how long could he last? The world was already full of monsters, and all the Espers who could stop them were dead.

Since things had turned out this way, he wanted to spit on the cult leader’s corpse at least once before dying, but it was nowhere to be seen, perhaps having gone into the stomachs of the monsters. He wanted to kill the man himself, but to think it would end so hollowly like this without even getting revenge.

Now, the only thing he hoped for was to die a little less painfully. How good would it have been if the monster had bitten his head instead of his arm? As he grumbled like that, something flashed in Baekgu’s mind.

‘Wait, come to think of it, didn’t the cult leader have something like poison?’

Since the man did so many shady things, he was a pro at this sort of thing. And Baekgu knew where the leader kept such items. Perhaps because the man thought Baekgu wouldn’t be able to betray him, he hadn’t hidden anything from him.

Entering the secret room within the temple to avoid the monsters, sure enough, he saw the leader’s belongings piled up.

“Poison, where is the poison.”

It wasn’t easy trying to find something with only one arm.

Right then, the cry of a monster was heard from a distance. Could it be that it smelled his blood? It felt like the distance was gradually closing.

His heart grew urgent.

“Damn it, just where is… eh, this is…?”

The poison he was looking for was nowhere to be found, and something else caught his eye.

A book with a black leather cover.

“So this was here.”

The Book of Prophecy.

It was an item mixed in among the gifts the cult leader had received from his followers.

Hadn’t it been said that the things that would happen in the future were written inside?

However, the leader had never opened this book until the end.

It was because of the warning message scrawled crookedly on the cover with a red pen.

Book of ProphecyDo not read under any circumstances.

1. All prophecies will certainly happen.
2. The person who opens the Book of Prophecy will die after 3 minutes.
3. If someone reads the Book of Prophecy, everyone who has seen or touched the Book of Prophecy will die.

Baekgu thought this warning was ridiculous, but the cult leader took it seriously. Since he had already touched the book, he thought it would be troublesome if other people read it. That was the reason why this book ended up stuffed in a secret room known only to the leader.

Anyway, this wasn’t what Baekgu was looking for. He tossed the book aside and began searching for the poison again.

‘I’m going crazy. It should definitely be here.’

The monster’s cry was heard from nearby.

Would he really become monster food like this? It would have been one thing if he had been bitten to death from the start, but after having his arm bitten once, he got goosebumps at the fact that he had to go through that ordeal again.

At that moment, the book sprawled on the floor caught Baekgu’s eye again.

Wait, if this book is a real book of prophecy… if it really comes true, then there’s no need to look for poison separately, is there?

As if possessed, Baekgu picked up the book and opened it.

The contents inside were…

“It’s blank.”

He kept flipping the pages just in case, but they were all the same.

“Ha.”

It was absurd. No wonder, the cover itself looked like a total child’s toy. Since he was desperate, he ended up leaning on all sorts of things.

Anyway, if the cult leader had known this, what a funny face he would have made. Thinking it was a pity he couldn’t see that, Baekgu flipped through the pages rapidly.

“Hmm?”

Something was written on the last page of the book, which had been empty all along. It wasn’t long, but since he was on the slower side when it came to reading, it took some time to read to the end.

To you who have read this page.

You have lived a life more miserable and unhappy than anyone else.

I will give such a person like you a chance.

If you fail, you will meet a gruesome death, but if you succeed, you will surely become happy.

You only need to accomplish one single thing.

Condition for Success: Save Gu Jeyi

Then, good luck.

P.S.: I recommend plugging your nose.

After reading it all, a hollow laugh came out.

“It’s a complete sham. Save Gu Jeyi? How am I supposed to save someone who’s already dead—”

Crunch.

“…Kuh.”

A terrible pain was felt.

However, until all his senses disappeared, the thing that tormented Baekgu the most wasn’t the pain, but the monster’s terrible bad breath.

He’d have to take back the words saying it was a sham book.

‘I should have plugged my nose…’

Soon, the world turned completely dark.

❖ ❖ ❖

“Gasp!”

Baekgu hurriedly breathed in and sat up.

Thump, thump, thump.

His heart beat as if it would explode, and his whole body was damp, soaked in a cold sweat.

He fumbled over his body with trembling hands. It was perfectly fine without a single damaged spot.

Could it be, was it all a dream?

No, there’s no way. There’s no way that vivid pain of being eaten by a monster was a dream.

He had certainly died. But how was he alive?

“Where is this now?”

Only then did Baekgu take in the surrounding scenery.

A clear sky and trees with lush greenery.

A flock of pigeons pecking at the ground.

And even a little girl pointing her finger at him.

“Mom, look, someone is lying over there!”

“Shh, don’t look.”

The mother and daughter whispered and quickly passed Baekgu.

So, this place right now is…

“A park?”

He should certainly have been in the temple.

What was even stranger was that this park felt familiar for some reason. Even the snack bag placed under the bench where he had been lying felt familiar to his eyes.

“Oh, this!”

No, it wasn’t just a feeling.

Baekgu hurriedly picked up the green snack bag. As soon as he opened the bag, a strange, indescribable smell—sweet yet salty yet sour—poked his nose.

As expected, it was Melon Potato Chips.

It was the only snack with a terrible taste that he, who usually ate anything as long as it wasn’t rotten, couldn’t swallow. Naturally, it was discontinued soon after.

But that should have been years ago?

The only time Baekgu ate this snack was once, not long after he had escaped from the lab. Perhaps someone had forgotten and left it; inside a black bag on a park bench, there were a few snacks and a drink. These terrible potato chips were what he ate then.

Baekgu recalled the past when he had lived as a homeless person in the park for a while because he didn’t know where to go.

That park also looked exactly like this.

“…No way.”

Baekgu hurriedly looked around. Just then, he saw a man wearing running clothes running toward him.

Baekgu ran toward him.

“Excuse me.”

“Huff, yes?”

“What year is it right now?”

“…”

The man hesitated, then quickly ran away in the opposite direction.

‘He could have at least given me an answer.’

Inevitably, Baekgu decided to find another target.

‘Come to think of it, I’ve been hearing some kind of broadcast sound since a while ago.’

Following the sound, he saw an elderly man sitting in the park pavilion. The sound Baekgu heard was coming from the news the man had played on his phone.

Baekgu craned his neck and looked at the elderly man’s phone.

And then he froze.

—The Seonhong Station Gate, which had been a problem, was successfully conquered single-handedly by Esper Gu Jeyi at 4 AM on the 8th…

The face of a man wearing black techwear appeared on the screen. Objectively, he was a remarkably handsome man. However, as soon as Baekgu saw that face, he felt goosebumps all over his body.

Because that man…

Gu Jeyi had died 3 years ago.

“How…”

But the Gu Jeyi on the screen was vividly alive and moving. He even seemed to look younger than in his memory.

He thought it might be an illusion, but it wasn’t. A profile popped up beneath the image of Gu Jeyi, who was giving a briefing.

He’s 21 years old?

Gu Jeyi died at the age of 23. Hadn’t everyone felt sorry, saying it was such a young age?

“Ha…”

An absurd chuckle broke out. At that sound, the elderly man, realizing that a stranger was looking at his phone from behind, got startled and avoided the spot.

Baekgu plopped down into the empty seat the old man had left.

‘What is this.’

At this point, he had no choice but to admit it. That he had returned to the past of 5 years ago.

“…”

Once he admitted it, his mind became calm.

The cause was clear. It was because of ‘The Book of Prophecy,’ that strange book.

It was written in that book that it would give him a chance. A gruesome death if he failed, and happiness if he succeeded. He’d wondered what on earth that meant, but it was a chance to ‘live again.’

His heart began to beat fast in a different sense than when he had first woken up.

He can live again. From the very beginning.

The current him knows which choices in the past were wrong. So, he can live a free life without being caught by the cult leader, without being dragged around like a slave…

‘Wait.’

At that moment, another sentence written in the Book of Prophecy came to Baekgu’s mind.

I will give such a person like you a chance.

If you fail, you will meet a gruesome death, but if you succeed, you will surely become happy.

You only need to accomplish one single thing.

Condition for Success: Save Gu Jeyi

He has to save Gu Jeyi?

Me?

ME?!