Chapter 355: 31. A Midsummer Night’s Dream

I stared at Hyun Dowoon running for his life with every ounce of strength he had, feeling completely dumbfounded.

My head knew I had to help him, but I was so stunned that my body wouldn’t move.

Meeting him at such a ridiculous timing was one thing, but what really grated on my eyes was his appearance.

‘His hair is long too?’

Just like me, Hyun Dowoon had his long hair roughly twisted up and tied into a single bundle, and he was sprinting like his life depended on it. His clothes were similar to mine too.

Not his usual casual clothes—some fluttering, Eastern-looking outfit. At least he still had his glasses on properly, but with how he looked right now, the glasses felt weirdly out of place.

Kreeek?

The bird perched on my shoulder, watching along with me, let out a small cry and tilted its head, like it was asking, ‘Aren’t you going to save him?’

“I have to....”

I answered with a heavy sigh.

Right then, Hyun Dowoon’s foot caught on a tree root sticking up slightly from the ground, and he went down. Of course he did.

“Now!”

“Kill him!”

The burly men chasing him charged in enthusiastically, like they’d been waiting for that.

With another sigh, I lightly tapped the bird’s body. Without needing any explanation, it shot up into the air and dove straight at the men.

“Huh—w-what is that?”

“A crow—ugh!”

The shadow bird was a bit bigger than a normal crow, and when it committed to blocking them, the men stopped and flailed around.

In that opening, I burst out, pulled my sheathed sword free, and swung it like a club.

“Gaaah! My shin!”

“Ghk—!”

Shins, forehead, stomach, ass—men got struck all over and started dropping one by one.

Hyun Dowoon, who’d been squeezing his eyes shut and bracing for pain, heard the screams and cautiously cracked an eye open. Pathetic didn’t even begin to cover it.

“W-what... wait, you—Cha Seohu?”

I stood in front of him where he’d collapsed and looked down. Hyun Dowoon, stammering with a blank, stupid expression, finally recognized me.

Looks like, just like me, he’d buffered for a moment from the suddenly long hair and unfamiliar clothes.

‘At least his memory’s fine.’

In a place where all kinds of insane things happened, I’d been assuming worst-case scenarios too. If his memory was intact, things would go fast.

I crooked one corner of my mouth.

“Yeah. You and I need to talk.”

Without hesitation, I grabbed Hyun Dowoon by the collar and hauled him up. Above my head, the shadow bird cried out sharply as it circled, then dropped back down onto my shoulder.

***

Since the men I’d knocked out might wake up, we moved locations first.

Wandering through the forest, we found a small stream. I dumped Hyun Dowoon near some grass like I was throwing him, then walked to the water.

As I washed my hands in the cold water, my face faintly reflected back at me. Long blond hair glittering under moonlight. Still, unlike what I’d feared, my face looked normal.

‘I seriously can’t tell what the hell is going on.’

With Hyun Dowoon here, it was definitely the inside of the unidentified rift.

I shook the water off my wet hands and turned back to Hyun Dowoon. He coughed a few times, then pushed his crooked glasses back into place.

“So.”

I walked over and dropped down in front of him. Crossing my arms, I asked,

“Let’s hear it. From the beginning.”

“Huh?”

“Why were you at Circle Guild? Why were you there and got swept up in the rift for no reason?”

“Hey, that’s—!”

Hyun Dowoon shouted first with a heated expression, then swallowed his anger like he was forcing it down, took a rough breath, and spoke.

“You think I went there for no reason? Even when I use my skill, I can’t detect your location, and when I call you, it says you’re overseas and the call gets cut. And the bastard Kwon Seoyul, who was supposedly on guard duty for you, doesn’t answer either—so what the hell was I supposed to do?”

“What? Overseas?”

I rolled my eyes for a moment.

Overseas. I hadn’t gone overseas—

‘Ah. Don’t tell me...’

Spiderweb’s headquarters. I hadn’t realized it at the time, but was that place actually overseas?

“Wait. Why were you suddenly looking for me? What he ordered me to do was different. I was the one who had to find you. Your contact got cut off, so I got ordered to look for you.”

“That’s...”

Hyun Dowoon hesitated, then let out a complicated sigh. After rubbing his face with dry hands, he stared at me for a moment, then finally told me.

“You were collecting info on those cult bastards, right? Recently I... got my hands on some important data.”

“What? Important data?”

My eyes widened on reflex at the unexpected news. I hurriedly pressed him.

“Important data—what is it? From where? How?”

“More precisely, I got a USB that’s ‘assumed to be important data.’ The place was some old church in the middle of nowhere in Gangwon Province.”

“...Gangwon Province? An old church?”

My voice sharpened as I repeated it. Even without me saying it, Hyun Dowoon would’ve known what suspicion I was feeling.

Hyun Dowoon hesitated, then like he was giving up, he rubbed the back of his neck and said,

“Ha... don’t look at me like that. I went because I got an order too. He told me to go.”

“......”

“Of course, I don’t know how he knows either. It’s not like I’m in a position to ask.”

Scratching at his forehead, Hyun Dowoon continued.

“Originally, he told me not to get close to the church and to approach it through the system, but nothing came up. But if he went so far as to send me out personally, that means it was something pretty important. And you were looking for info on those cult bastards too, so... I went in myself. That’s where I found the USB.”

“This crazy bastard.”

A hollow laugh escaped me.

I knew exactly how dangerous a church used by those cult bastards could be.

The place I’d discovered with Eun Woojeong, and the place where Cha Sahyeon awakened—both had been churches those cult bastards used.

Even if a church looked old and empty on the outside, you never knew when those cult bastards might show up.

And Hyun Dowoon—who wasn’t even a dealer—had snuck in alone and come back out.

That wasn’t something you could even call “lucky.”

‘Either they let him go on purpose... or they found out late and made a move to clean it up.’

Suddenly, a possibility occurred to me.

Just in case, I asked,

“Then after you got out of there, did you go straight to Circle Guild?”

“I sent my report to the district. While I was messing with the program and infiltrating directly, I couldn’t contact you, so that’s probably when the order went down to you. I sent the report, and he asked if you still hadn’t met me yet.”

Based on Hyun Dowoon’s explanation, the sequence went like this.

While Hyun Dowoon was looting the church, his contact got cut for a bit, and Director Seo—who’d sent him into a dangerous °• N 𝑜 v 𝑒 l i g h t •° area—ordered me and Kwon Seoyul to check on him.

After leaving the district, we moved to Yesung Guild and then suddenly got sent to Spiderweb’s overseas headquarters. While we were handling things there, Hyun Dowoon got the USB, escaped safely, and reported back to Director Seo.

After receiving that report, Director Seo asked about me and Kwon Seoyul instead. Hyun Dowoon confirmed through his skill that I wasn’t in Seoul, and that was why he went to Circle Guild.

“Then where the hell else would you go? Should I just storm into Yesung Guild and tell them to call the guildmaster for me? Circle Guild was the only place that made sense!”

...Compared to Yesung Guild, sure.

It was smaller, and since Hyun Dowoon had met them before, Ryu Sunghyun and Song Jiwoon at least treated him like a guest.

Hyun Dowoon asked Ryu Sunghyun where I was, and Ryu Sunghyun answered that even he hadn’t been able to reach me for two days since leaving the district.

“So what could I do if he didn’t know? It was too late to go back to the district, so I asked to stay until daylight. When I told them I was scared because I had important data from the cult bastards you were looking for, they accepted it without a fight.”

Hyun Dowoon spoke brazenly and confidently, then shrugged.

That infuriating look made me want to smack him in the head, but I held it in. I just felt sorry for Ryu Sunghyun and Song Jiwoon.

“So you waited like that, and got swept up in the rift. That’s what happened?”

“Yeah. I was waiting, got sleepy, and was about to take a nap, and then the window suddenly shattered and that thing appeared.”

The window shattered?

‘Is that connected to the rift appearing?’

What if the window didn’t break because of the impact of the rift forming, but because someone outside shattered it in order to “install” the rift inside the office?

‘...It’s possible. We still haven’t confirmed how these unidentified rifts form.’

I pressed my throbbing forehead.

In the end, to sum it up, it was highly likely that the cult bastards who were chasing that USB Hyun Dowoon had taken had created the rift.

Ryu Sunghyun and Song Jiwoon were just too nice, and they got dragged in along with the bomb.

“Ah, seriously. You fucking piece of shit.”

Once I got that far, I couldn’t hold it in anymore, and I flicked Hyun Dowoon’s forehead.

Thunk!

Even though I controlled my strength in an S-rank body, his forehead turned red instantly with a crisp sound.

“Ah, fuck! What the hell is your problem?!”

“Should I pat your head and tell you ‘good job’ instead? Why are you running around getting into trouble when it doesn’t even suit you? Are you Kwon Seoyul or something?”

“You’re seriously being brutal!”

Leaving Hyun Dowoon fuming, I stood up.

I’d figured out the situation, so now we had to move again.

“Whatever. That USB you said you found—do you still have it? Is it okay?”

“Annoying bastard.”

Grumbling as he rubbed his forehead, Hyun Dowoon pulled the USB out of his inventory and tossed it to me.

A small black USB flew through the air. I caught it easily and looked down at it.

It was basically the cause of this rift incident.

I really hoped it would be worth the risks Hyun Dowoon and we had taken.

I stashed the USB safely in my inventory, then slid my sword back onto my waist.

“Let’s go.”