PARADOX 41

Hanseo tossed and turned for a long while before falling asleep later than usual.

Fortunately, the dream continued regardless of the time he fell asleep.

When he opened his eyes again, Hanseo knew he was in a dream. It was because “Mom” was looking at him with a worried expression.

“Jinyoung, are you alright?”

Hanseo stared blankly at the middle-aged woman. Upon seeing her face, emotions he hadn’t felt in the previous dream—where he had been instantly immersed—now came flooding in. Feelings that could be named regret, guilt, and longing.

Perhaps Hanseo looked strange, staring at her like someone who had lost his soul without offering an answer, because a trace of anxiety flickered across the woman’s face.

“Jinyoung, why aren’t you answering? This won’t do. Let’s go to the hospital right now!”

Hanseo wiped a nosebleed with his sleeve and managed to open his mouth to speak.

“No, I’m fine. I was just startled.”

“Phew, my heart almost dropped.”

Letting out a sigh of relief, the woman glanced at the tightly closed front gate. In her hand, she held a bunch of limp green onions.

“Who on earth is that guy? Is he someone you know? Why did he do that to you?”

“I don’t know.”

Of course, the Hanseo of this time also knew that the man had come to catch him.

However, at this point, he thought the man was a subordinate of the Cult Leader, though he would soon learn otherwise.

Perhaps because fear still lingered, his body trembled slightly just by thinking about the man. Seeing this, the woman dropped the green onions as if throwing them down and reached out toward Hanseo.

“Jinyoung, it’s okay. Mom is here.”

It was a warm and cozy embrace.

Only then did he remember. That this woman was the first person to ever hug him in his life.

As the woman gently patted his back, miraculously, the trembling gradually subsided. After a moment of hesitation, Hanseo reached out and hugged the woman back in the same way.

The embrace of an ordinary woman—who was neither an Esper nor a Guide—felt strangely safe. He didn’t want to leave the cozy warmth wrapping around him.

Even though he knew this warmth didn’t actually belong to him.

Hanseo buried his face in the crook of the woman’s shoulder.

Dreams dreamt by mental-type Espers are usually lucid dreams. It is said that this is because their mental energy is so strong that it affects even their own dreams. Therefore, as the owner of the dream, Hanseo could shape this dream in any direction he desired. If he wanted, he could stay held in this embrace until he woke up.

But he shouldn’t do that. Since this dream was for the purpose of recalling memories of his past life, he had to remain uninvolved. Suppressing his greed, Hanseo took a step back and began to watch his past self, Baekgu.

The woman, who was patting Baekgu’s back, muttered.

“This won’t do. How can you live in such a scary world? We shouldn’t just be standing here; we should report this to the police immediately…”

“No!”

Baekgu snapped his head up and shouted like a thunderclap. Only after seeing the woman’s startled face did he manage his expression.

“Th-that is, there’s no need to call the police. Mom already chased him away.”

“But he might come looking for you again! Jinyoung, you’re young, so you don’t know how much evil people can do. Seeing as he’s a face I’ve never seen before, he’s definitely not from this neighborhood. He must have committed a crime somewhere and come all the way to this corner of the countryside. Wait, where did I put my cell phone…”

The person here who truly knew nothing was the woman. Because the man held in her arms was the very outsider and criminal she was talking about—the person the police would take away first if they came.

Baekgu watched the woman as she let go of him and began searching for her phone.

“Mom, look at me for a second.”

“Huh?”

The moment the woman turned around, Baekgu’s eyes turned red.

“‘Mom, you’ve never met that man. Right?'”

Only after Baekgu’s eyes returned to their original color did the woman blink slowly.

“Oh dear, what was I talking about?”

Baekgu used his foot to push the green onions that had fallen on the floor under the sofa and quickly replied.

“You said you’d make kimchi stew. When will it be done? I’m hungry.”

“Did I? Mom’s head has been all over the place lately. I’ll make it quickly, so our Jinyoung, just wait a little bit.”

“Mhm.”

The expression on Baekgu’s face slowly faded as he watched the woman head toward the kitchen, tilting her head in confusion. His gloomy gaze turned toward a small picture frame placed next to the TV stand. Baekgu stared at the image of the woman and a young man who resembled her smiling brightly, before turning the frame over so the photo couldn’t be seen.

Night fell. Baekgu, who had been pretending to sleep in his room, crept out when the woman had fallen asleep. With his whole body tensed, he cracked the front door open to check outside.

There was no one. It seemed the man had gone.

“Phew.”

Baekgu let out a sigh mixed with anxiety and relief.

When he was captured by the Cult Leader, Baekgu had seen quite a few Espers. But there were only two people he felt fear toward the moment he saw them: the Cult Leader and that man today.

When looking at them, he felt a chilling sensation from head to toe, as if a liter of his blood had been drained. Without a doubt, both were higher-ranked Espers than him. That was why his ability hadn’t worked.

Baekgu muttered as he closed the front door.

“Don’t ever come back. If you do, I won’t stay…”

The moment he spat out those empty, blustering words, the front door swung open with great force, and something invisible dragged him outside and began to strangle him.

“Kh-ugh!”

Baekgu tried to struggle, but he couldn’t attack an opponent he could neither see nor touch. After squirming helplessly, he eventually lost consciousness.

The place he regained consciousness was a dingy, old motel room. Baekgu was lying on a hard floor piled with junk.

“You’re awake.”

A cool, low voice drifted down from above his head. Since it was a voice that was hard to forget, he could guess the owner without even looking.

“If you use your ability, I will kill you.”

The man threatened him without a single weapon. Then again, for someone like him, snapping Baekgu’s neck with his bare hands wouldn’t be difficult.

“…Cough, it doesn’t even work on you anyway.”

He spat it out in a fit of irritation and then immediately regretted it, wondering if he shouldn’t have said anything. But it didn’t matter, since the man would have found out eventually. Above all, there was a reason Baekgu could be so defiant.

“You’re not going to kill me, are you? If the Cult Leader wants to use me, I’ll have to be alive first.”

It was a fact he hadn’t realized in the morning because he was paralyzed with fear. If the Cult Leader had sent this man, there was no way he would kill him recklessly. He needed his ability.

“You’ve been saying things I can’t understand for a while now. Who is this Cult Leader?”

The man’s response was more chilling than his threat to kill.

“…The Cult Leader didn’t send you?”

“I don’t believe in religion.”

Baekgu slowly pushed himself up. His spine was so chilled that it was impossible to stay lying down.

If he were the Cult Leader’s subordinate, there was no way he would say things denying religion. This man was a completely different breed of lunatic, one who truly had nothing to do with the Cult Leader.

If he hadn’t been sent by the Cult Leader, then he had no reason to keep him alive.

Is this the end of my life? I thought the crazies were only in the research center, but there are too many outside too. Baekgu scooted his butt back bit by bit until his back hit the wall.

“Are you going to kill me?”

“If I kill you, will the brainwashing be undone?”

“No! It won’t!”

Actually, Baekgu didn’t really know. It hadn’t been long since he became an Esper, and he was in a state where he didn’t know exactly what his ability was.

“So don’t kill me. I’ll do whatever you tell me to.”

But one thing was certain: Baekgu still wanted to live. If he didn’t, he wouldn’t have gone through all that trouble to escape from the research center.

He felt the man’s gaze. Baekgu kept avoiding it before being forced to turn his head and meet it. The eyes behind the glasses were cold and dispassionate. Baekgu could feel that the man loathed him.

“That woman you called Mom.”

Baekgu’s shoulders flinched.

“Undo the brainwashing you put on her. If you put it on others too, undo all of those as well.”

“…”

Why was it? Baekgu couldn’t readily answer that he would.

Undoing the ability wasn’t a difficult task. He just had to make eye contact exactly as he did when casting it and say that it was all a lie.

And yet, he didn’t want to do that simple thing. Even though he knew the man would harm him if he didn’t follow orders.

Because…

The man spoke slowly toward the silent Baekgu.

“She seemed to think you were her son. Was it fun playing with parents who lost their child?”

“It’s not like that!”

“…”

“I… it wasn’t like that…”

Baekgu clamped his mouth shut before blurting out.

“Anyway, I wasn’t trying to do anything bad. I just needed a place to stay.”

“You could have obtained that through legitimate means.”

“Because I didn’t have any money…”

Whether that sounded like an excuse, the man replied coldly as if there were no need to hear more.

“I don’t care what your intentions were. It is illegal to not report to the Center once you have awakened as an Esper.”

“I didn’t know I had to report.”

“I didn’t mean any harm, I didn’t know… those are all common excuses made by guys like you. Did you live tucked away in the mountains your whole life?”

It wasn’t a mountain; it was an island. The research center was located on an uninhabited island where no one lived.

‘If you lived there too, you wouldn’t know anything either, just like me.’