HACKED 49

Hot steam filled the bathroom. The mirror on the wall also clouded over with mist, turning blurry. Perhaps because I had been standing for so long under the water in such a humid place, I felt as if my very mind was becoming hazy.

I walked out, water dripping from my entire body. On the cabinet at the entrance, there were towels, bath towels, and even robes. I grabbed whichever towel my hand caught first.

Overall, the bathroom showed signs of being almost unused. The facility itself looked new, but dust had settled everywhere. After I came in and turned on the shower, the very first thing I did wasn’t washing my body, but washing away the dust on the walls and floors.

At least the towels and robes were fine, probably because they were kept inside the cabinet. If they hadn’t been, I might have had to miserably hand-wash a towel myself.

‘Not a single grain of rice to eat, the only place to rest is a lounge with a few sofas, naturally no hobby items, and the bathroom is just gathering dust. The basics of food, clothing, and shelter aren’t being met. This is why everyone’s mental state is hitting rock bottom.’

Then again, I should be grateful there’s even a bathroom. I should be thankful that I didn’t face the misfortune of having to collect rainwater to wash.

I wiped the moisture off my hair and body with a towel and threw on a robe. Even though I thought I’d dried myself, water droplets kept falling from my hair, so I walked out with the towel just draped loosely over my head.

The moment I stepped out, Hwarang and San Gun looked toward me simultaneously. However, there was something that caught my eye even before them.

It was a set of clothes placed neatly folded in a corner of the room. It was the clothing I had been wearing until I went in to wash. Even from a distance, I could see they were entirely covered in blood. It felt like if I wrung them out, blood would pour down in a stream.

To think all of that blood came from one person. Even though I witnessed it with my own eyes, it was hard to believe. It might actually feel more realistic to say I had been carrying a bucket full of red paint and dropped it, causing it to splash.

“Myeong. Are you okay.”

San Gun reached out and pressed down on the top of my head right through the towel. The edge of the towel slid down, covering my eyes. The blood-stained clothes were no longer visible.

“What’s there to not be okay about. It’s not like my head was the one that flew off.”

“Look at you.”

He let out a hollow laugh as if he found me absurd.

“You don’t look okay, though? A guy who just came out from washing should have some color in his face, but instead, you’re pale as a ghost. Hey, look at our master. Doesn’t he look like a corpse fresh out of a grave?”

San Gun addressed Hwarang while pointing at me.

‘A corpse fresh out of a grave? Of all the metaphors…’

It made me feel terrible in a novel way. Hwarang narrowed his eyes, examining me, and then nodded seriously.

“Hmm. Honestly, a bit.”

My mood soured even further. Who exactly was pointing fingers at whom? Was this something to be said by a guy whose face was so pale it looked the color of chalk, or a guy who still hadn’t healed from his injuries and had bandages wrapped tightly around his limbs?

“What are you agreeing for? Conscientiously, you shouldn’t be the one agreeing. Compared to you, my complexion is practically rosy.”

“Rose? A withered white rose?”

“Still… wouldn’t it be at least a pink rose.”

“That’s way over the line. Mister Boss, do you live without looking in a mirror? Apologize to the pink roses.”

“I’m sorry. I’m just sorry for everything.”

I didn’t want to continue this useless and childish bickering any longer. I shook my head to throw off San Gun’s touch and flopped down anywhere.

San Gun naturally put his arm around my shoulder, leaning his body weight against me. Naturally, I lacked the bulk and strength compared to him, so it was extremely burdensome.

“Move. Elder.”

“I’m injured… let me lean a bit.”

“The injury is in your leg, so why are you leaning your upper body? I don’t want to.”

“I think you don’t know because you haven’t had a leg cut off, but if you’re missing a leg, you can’t find your center of gravity, so it’s hard just to sit. So just for a bit… Child, Myeong. Is someone going to eat you? Relax a bit. Why are you so stiff?”

“Because I’m a corpse fresh out of a grave. Rigor mortis has set in.”

“Our Myeong’s pettiness is killer.”

“Is it once or twice that I’ve made loser remarks?”

While San Gun, who was actually leaning on me, had no particular reaction, Hwarang, sitting opposite us, suddenly got irritable.

“I told you to stop saying things like that, Mister Boss? I told you last time too. There’s a demand for it in weird places!”

“Ah, I’m seriously going crazy. How can there not be a single normal person here?”

My head was spinning from the nonsense being poured out incessantly from both sides. I relaxed my upright torso and slumped down. San Gun smirked and, as if he had been waiting, quickly caught and embraced my upper body.

San Gun, perhaps finding the texture of the bathrobe I was wearing interesting, began to lightly scratch near my shoulder with his fingernails. He was like a cat that had found a scratcher. Although he was far too large for a cat. I didn’t have the energy to say anything, so I just let him be.

“The hot water comes out really well here.”

“It’s all thanks to you.”

“Why is the hot water thanks to m… Ah. This must be part of the power system too.”

“That’s why everyone washes themselves squeaky clean before coming before you.”

“Uh… now that you mention it, that’s true.”

The Incarnations would be covered in blood from battle, disappear for a moment, and then reappear looking neat. I didn’t know how many sets of civilian clothes they each had, but they sometimes changed into comfortable outfits like T-shirts or sweatpants. I had never really thought deeply about it.

“Do Incarnations have to wash regularly too? I mean, of course, it would feel psychologically uncomfortable if you didn’t, but it’s not like you’d get sick from not washing for a bit…”

“Why do you think? It’s all to look good for you.”

“……”

Dumbfounded by the unexpected words, I looked back and forth between San Gun and Hwarang. Both had composed expressions without a hint of joking. It didn’t seem like something said just to tease me. Hwarang shrugged his shoulders.

“Is that all? We can show ‘signs of not being human’ as much as we want. That’s how we’ve been when it was just us. But now, everyone is trying their best to ‘look like a human.’ The intervals of blinking, the timing of breathing and speaking, even every other minor detail.”

“Just why go that far.”

“We’re matching the Mister Boss. Because we thought it would be good if you felt familiar with us.”

“……”

“Shall I give you another example? Take the twins. They understand each other’s intent even without speaking. Because they were originally created as a pair. But why do they chatter endlessly in front of the Mister Boss?”

Occasionally, I had felt a strange sense of cognitive dissonance from the twins. Like when it was deathly silent until I opened the door to the room they were in, but as soon as the door opened, I could hear the sounds of them giggling and chatting. At those times, I just thought… it was because of the influence of their ‘physical properties.’

I suddenly imagined it. The sight of the children standing tall in one spot like inanimate objects until I opened the door, and then the moment I entered, changing their expressions completely as if nothing had happened to chatter innocently.

It hit me anew. These Incarnations surrounding me were not human. Thinking that every single move of theirs, which I had overlooked without much thought, might have all been fabricated made me feel chilled. Even if it originated from a place of goodwill toward me.

While scratching from my shoulder down to the area below my collarbone with his fingernails, San Gun added indifferently.

“So we don’t really know. We understand it with our heads to some extent, but we can’t empathize. That Compiler earlier, too… He was a useless, trashy guy anyway, so why are you so shocked that such a human died?”

“Isn’t it natural? He was a person. The first truly living person I met since coming here. Such a person’s head exploded and he died right in front of me…”

The answer popped out immediately without going through my head. It was such an emotional and unstable tone that even I was startled by my own words.

“Even though that man tried to kill you?”

“I know. I know he was a cunning, evil, stupid, and even cowardly human. But… even so, a person died. In such a horrific way. How can you be so indifferent?”

“Is it not that you’re shocked because you thought you could finally return to the place you were originally from this time, but you failed?”

“…What did you say?”

My voice trembled miserably. My breathing was becoming ragged. Even as I recognized it, I couldn’t control myself.

Since I was being held like a stuffed toy by San Gun, the only thing visible in my field of vision was his profile. He showed no particular change in expression. He just continued to mutter lowly to himself, still playing with my robe with his fingertips.

“Are humans originally this full of pity? Or is our Myeong just soft-hearted.”

“I don’t know if I’m… soft-hearted. But wouldn’t it be difficult for anyone to be okay in this situation?”

“Is that so? Then Myeong, let me ask one more thing.”

San Gun slowly turned his head toward me. Our eyes met at a very close distance, not even half a span apart. His bright yellow pupils, close to yellowish-green, were extremely narrowed from the artificial lighting shining down from the ceiling.

A human voice was clearly speaking in a human language, but why was it? The growl of a beast seemed to overlap like an auditory hallucination.

“That bastard who said he liked you… did you accept him because you were soft-hearted too?”