The modification of memories was a success.
According to the Saintess, it was part of the treatment.
It’s not all-powerful, though; if the modifications continue, without them, the memories will eventually return.
While Shihu was unconscious, the Saintess took the opportunity to clean the house.
It wasn’t much of a cleaning, just hiding the medicine box.
Shihu thinks about what to say when he wakes up.
He wonders where and how the next treatment will take place.
It’ll probably take about 30 minutes before he wakes up again.
If he were an ordinary /N_o_v_e_l_i_g_h_t/ person, it might take hours for him to get up.
Awakened individuals with strong mental strength tend to recover faster.
"Ugh..."
"Huh? You’re awake."
Not 30 minutes, but 5 minutes.
He recovered too quickly.
After a treatment, memories tend to get muddled, and people usually feel confused about what they were doing.
"What is this...?"
He wonders why he’s in the Saintess’s house.
"This... this is my house. Don’t you remember? You suddenly collapsed."
The Saintess immediately begins her lie.
It’s just a habit.
She wasn’t exactly a kind-hearted person.
Then, was Shihu always the good guy?
Was he always so righteous?
The Saintess assumed he was, of course.
"Why am I in your house?"
He sits up.
"We had an appointment, remember?"
It’s true they were supposed to meet.
"[Purification]... It’s not working."
Shihu tries to use a skill on himself.
He instinctively feels something is wrong.
"I came to discuss the materials we got from the place we went to last time. Don’t you remember?"
Shihu wonders what kind of score the Saintess would get if she took an intelligence test.
"[Stamina Recovery]"
More precisely, Stamina Recovery VI.
He was exhausted, so he uses it.
The Saintess looks a bit tired as well.
He plans to figure out why soon.
"Explain properly. There’s no reason for me to come to your house. You said we had an appointment, but..."
Shihu checks his watch.
They’re far off from the scheduled time.
It’s still time for school.
"This is too early. What happened? Explain it to me."
Shihu checks his status window.
There’s no abnormal status.
It’s impossible to suddenly collapse.
He’s not that weak.
"Well, it’s just like I said earlier..."
"Really?"
"Yeah."
If that’s the case, there’s only one option.
To use physical force.
"That can’t be."
"Huh?"
It can’t be.
I can’t accept that answer.
"You can self-heal, so you’re fine, right?"
"What, what are you talking about?"
*Thud.*
Shihu throws a punch.
The Saintess is hiding something.
It’s not normal for him to be collapsed in her house.
"Wait—"
"Why?"
"Ugh, why are you hitting me?"
"Because you’re not telling me the truth."
Shihu is even more violent than before.
The Saintess wonders if she should have just let him go and escaped.
It was unexpected for him to wake up so quickly, and for him to use his fists right away was also unexpected.
Nothing is going according to plan.
"Seo Ah. You came because of the photo with Seo Ah, right?"
"Photo?"
"Yeah, this one."
He hands her the photo the Saintess had.
It’s stirred up a lot of memories of Seo Ah.
There’s no reason for Shihu to react so strongly.
"...Ah, are you in cahoots with the doctor?"
"Huh?"
*Thud.*
Shihu pushes the Saintess against the wall.
He rolls up her sleeves.
There are needle marks on the Saintess’s arm.
"Right. Was it the drugs? The doctor told you to do it."
"Doctor?"
"Now that I think about it, the doctor seemed to have connections with the government. You’re familiar with that area, aren’t you? You should know if they’re using drugs."
The Saintess recalls.
"Drugs? Um, the doctor, you mean the one I know? The drug dealer..."
"Black clothes. The one who gave drugs to Seo Ah."
"Ah, ah, that person is famous. He’s dead."
"...What?"
"He was spreading drugs everywhere, so the government dealt with him. I don’t know more than that."
"Then, where did you get this photo?"
"You found it and showed it to me, right?"
Shihu is momentarily at a loss for words.
There seems to be some truth in the Saintess’s confident words.
The last memory cuts off at the school.
It seemed like nothing happened until he was on his way to school.
A bookstore?
Did he stop by a bookstore?
Why?
Memory confusion.
He doesn’t remember finding the photo.
No, maybe he saw something.
Was it a photo?
Why did he show it to the Saintess?
What’s clear is that the Saintess is hiding the truth.
Even someone who isn’t Awakened can tell.
The Saintess isn’t good at lying.
"Why, why are you so obsessed with Seo Ah? Were you close?"
Shihu doesn’t understand why she’s asking.
Were they close?
"How do you know Seo Ah’s name?"
"Huh? You told me her name."
"When?"
"Uh, when did I?"
Frustrating.
"Clearly—"
*Thud.*
He grabs the Saintess’s shoulders and shoves her against the wall.
"Explain—"
*Thud.*
He slams her again against the wall, like he’s smashing it.
"Do it."
*Bang.*
He punches the wall.
Chunks of the wall fall off.
The Saintess is terrified.
"Th-That..."
"Yeah, what did you say earlier?"
He asked why she was obsessed with Seo Ah.
"Did I say I was close to Seo Ah?"
Why did the Saintess ask this question?
"Why? Is it fine for a friend to disappear if the relationship isn’t good? Is it normal to abandon a friend just because they’re using drugs? Is it okay for them to suffer because they’ve become trash?"
The Saintess manipulated memories under the guise of healing.
Maybe it wasn’t enough with just one round.
She tried to twist Shihu’s memories so that Seo Ah would seem like a burden to him.
That she was an ungrateful presence.
She tampered with the memories like that.
"...When I was a child, I didn’t know anything. I was abandoned in a slum. I had no parents, no relatives."
It’s a story from the past.
"We grew up in a place like that, so it’s not surprising if our personalities were twisted or if we lacked manners. Do you think Seo Ah was such a great person that I became her friend?"
The Saintess realizes her mistake.
Healing? No, it only made things worse.
She thought multiple rounds of healing would help, but this wasn’t something that could be solved with that.
"It’s fine if you’re below normal. It’s okay if you’re lacking somewhere, not ordinary, if you don’t have common sense, if you learn slowly..."
Shihu had been with Seo Ah for longer than expected.
Perhaps even more than with his own family.
After all the tampering with the memories, this was the reaction.
Her attempt to separate him from Seo Ah had failed.
Would things have turned out differently if the Saintess had been more careful?
"I liked seeing Seo Ah smile. It didn’t matter to me if she didn’t think much of me. Even if she hated me."
"...Sorry..."
The Saintess apologizes.
"I was lucky to live in an environment where Seo Ah existed."
Originally, slums are places where laws and order aren’t established.
It doesn’t matter what you do.
"I wanted to be Seo Ah’s hero. I just wanted to at least pretend to be one."
Everyone wants to be someone admirable.
She wanted to appear impressive to Seo Ah.
Pretending to be an adult by her side.
To be someone Seo Ah would look up to.
To be the one who keeps her safe.
"Even if Seo Ah hated me, she was still my childhood friend."
Even if she tries to blame this situation on Seo Ah, she realizes it’s her own immaturity.
In the end, was she Seo Ah’s hero?
A hero fighting villains?
No.
"Maybe I’ll stop pretending to be a noble hero now."
The Saintess will soon tell the truth.
---
### **Shihu keeps running.**
The message the Saintess showed him had an address.
He runs toward it.
Is it a distance he can cover?
Yes.
He will find a way.
---
### **Before he starts running.**
Shihu discovers a new talent.
Figuring out the truth doesn’t require extraordinary skill.
The Saintess talked for 25 minutes, but 20 of those minutes were spent on her stammering out the truth.
Using violence.
The Saintess was comfortable because she could self-heal.
He learns more about the Saintess’s past.
That she had met Seo Ah.
That Seo Ah was locked up in a lab for some reason.
The doctor, who the Saintess knew, had died before Seo Ah even met him.
That the Saintess had manipulated memories under the guise of healing.
That tampered memories will return over time.
He hears everything.
He reviews the text messages.
Photos and videos sent by an anonymous source.
What’s clear is that Seo Ah was treated like a monster.
Shihu couldn’t continue watching the videos.
Even if it wasn’t Seo Ah, he would have hated watching it.
"I was there too..."
The Saintess buries her face in her knees as she speaks.
"I just wanted to run away from there... When Seo Ah went in, I ran off..."
"Yeah."
"I wasn’t always this foolish... It was because of the experiment..."
The Saintess laments, but Shihu doesn’t care.
He calls the number saved in the Saintess’s phone.
He hopes someone picks up.
- The number you dialed is no longer in service.
But the number doesn’t exist.
There’s only one option left.
Run to the address the Saintess gave him.
---
### **He keeps running.**
Using his Stamina Recovery skill, he turns all his mana into stamina.
Is it faster to take a taxi, or is running faster?
In the end, the destination is outside the city.
A dangerous zone where monsters could appear at any moment.
Using a vehicle requires tedious procedures.
Is Seo Ah still alive?
If she is, what should he do?
If what he saw in the video is real, even Shihu wouldn’t have been able to stay sane in that situation.
Who’s holding Seo Ah?
Is it an enemy?
What’s the Saintess’s real purpose in trying to heal him?
If it’s someone holding her, Shihu thought it would be the doctor.
But no.
According to the Saintess, the doctor had been dead for a while.
That’s why Shihu couldn’t find him, even as he sought revenge.
If not the doctor, then who?
He will find out.
The road disappears, and the mountain appears.
He keeps running.
The branches brush against his face.
"[Cleansing Strike]"
He draws his sword and uses the skill.
A beam of light cuts through the obstructing trees.
He’s going straight.
To the destination.
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Is running blindly the wise choice?
Should he be calling for backup?
Trustworthy people.
But there’s no time.
Even running isn’t fast enough.
Faster!
Faster!
Faster!
He shouts this over and over in his mind.
He believes Seo Ah is already dead.
Even if she’s alive, she’s not in her right mind.
It wouldn’t be surprising if she was someone’s plaything.
Shut up.
He regrets everything deeply.
All of it.
Whether the memories the Saintess planted were malicious or not.
Everything is hateful.
The destination is getting closer.
He ran until the sun set.
The stars are clear now.
The air is cold.
His breathing is heavy.
In the distance, faint lights are visible.