Chapter 35
「The President-elect strongly insisted on conglomerate reforms and stated, “Large companies should streamline down to at most five or six core firms by cleaning up the rest.”」
The Democrat President-elect didn’t have to be concerned since it would happen no matter what during this period. Not only Daehoo but also Daehyun and Ilsung had almost filed for bankruptcy during the IMF crisis. The conglomerates in lower rankings were already busy cutting out unnecessary businesses in their infrastructure.
I read all the domestic and original global newspapers including Forbes and private newsletters as soon as I entered the office. As I mentioned before, my interventions had led to changes in history.
Speculative forces around the world lost a lot of money during the Asian financial crisis, and most of them came into my hands.Korea's financial and real estate market opened to foreign countries half a year early.Jonathan had emerged in the financial world. The most worrisome part of the history I changed was the incident that happened at the end of last year. I shook the global stock market by pouring oil into the Hong Kong crisis and aggravated the disorder that had been called the second Black Monday.
Until now, my interventions had not impacted history that much. However, I never knew when and where an unexpected event would occur. I could lose money if I didn’t check the world’s trends regularly, and that was how the world of investment worked.
But, why? Did my homeroom teacher change into that woman? Why??I could not erase her face from my mind. freeweb(n)ovel.comf(r)eeweb(n)ovel
***
Even though my stats were low, I could follow or investigate someone without a problem.
My homeroom teacher’s name was Woo Yeon-Hee, and she was twenty-four years old. She was born in Seoul and was the oldest sister out of two brothers and two sisters. She lived in a studio on the third floor of a building near the school and didn’t have a housemate or boyfriend. Her family was middle-class financially, but she had fallen behind economically. Her favorite food was cake and she had no interest in decorating herself despite her beauty. She didn’t socialize much.
I learned this much information by going through her empty room which was more like a man’s domicile than a woman’s. There was no mirror or dressing table. The few cosmetics she had were neatly placed on her computer desk beside a photo she had taken with her father this year. Her room was clean without overdue bills, and there were no condom packages or pregnancy test kits in the trash can. She did not list any phone numbers of her friends in the notebook next to her phone and didn’t care much about her underwear as she bought a bundle pack of five that came from the supermarket.
I wanted to see her photo album the most, and I found them on the top corner of her dresser. The pictures were not placed in the album but piled up like garbage in a box. They were definitely not her memories as the pictures were of others.
The interesting thing was the setting of the pictures. Every picture seemed to be taken in secret, as the subject was blocked by obstacles or off focus.
According to the date on the picture, she had been taking pictures of her peers for years. There were a number of pictures, and it looked like she recorded some people steadily every year. She didn’t seem to be a pervert because the subjects were people’s faces, not a private part of their bodies. What she wanted to take seemed to be the expressions of people.
However, that was weird enough. What she did was disturbing. Was that why she was interested in me lately? Had I become the subject of her obsession?
I left the photo box in its original place and began to look for my photos that would be stored somewhere. My pictures were gathered in an envelope of photos from a photo service in her camera bag.
The photos were taken during the period when the system had defined it as my tutorial. She had taken pictures at my elementary school graduation ceremony which I had previously only seen through my parents’ photos. Even though my senses had become dull, I would have noticed a stranger’s gaze. In early 1997, my stats and growth were similar to a professional athlete’s.
I was staring straight at her in the picture but didn’t remember what happened afterward. I must have considered her to be insignificant since there were many people at the ceremony and would have thought her camera was pointing in my direction by coincidence.
However, her camera was taking a picture of me, and that was when she discovered me. There were no photos after graduation. She seemed to have noticed that I was sensitive and changed tactics by writing down my information in her notes on the envelope, including my name, my home address, and my current middle school name.
You couldn’t tell people just by their appearance, and there were more things about Woo Yeon-Hee other than her most innocuous look. Who would have thought that she was such a person? She didn’t even use her beauty as a weapon. It was more effective for her to pretend to have a coincidental meeting than sneaking a picture with a camera.
Suddenly, I felt sorry for my homeroom teacher because people like her didn't end up well. Her beauty had disguised her true self and made her look like an ordinary person, but when her beauty diminished and her mental health deteriorated with age, her identity would be discovered by the public.
I turned my attention to her one and only family photo. There were no other family members except her father standing awkwardly next to her. Her face was expressionless, unlike her smiles in school. Nevertheless, her action of placing this picture on the computer desk where she could see it spoke of her lonely future.
I decided to end my investigation there because I had reached the conclusion. I thought it was best for me to remain quiet until her target moved to someone else.
Then, I found an old prescription bag.
「Pyeonghwa Mental Health Clinic」
SSRI (selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor) drugs could be prescribed in various ways, especially for depression and anxiety. However, they were also used for schizophrenia and megalomania.
“No way…”
***
In the past, I had successfully infiltrated the Eight Virtues’ base and accessed their databases. Therefore, I could search my homeroom teacher’s studio and the local psychiatric clinic with only a flashlight and a metal skewer. It was like an F-class job.
Moreover, I didn’t have to hack the computer security system. At this point, the prescribing and dispensing of drugs had not been computerized, and medical records were kept in paper documents. Even if I had to infiltrate a large hospital, things would have been the same.
The flashlight lit on the patient record of Woo Yeon-Hee, born in 1975. My guess turned out to be true. She didn’t visit the clinic because of paranoia, and her treatment began during her middle school year.
「Diagnosis: Integration disorder」
「Chief concern: The patient is experiencing difficulties in relationships with her friends and family due to hallucinations and delusions.」
「Assessment:
* No family history. No auditory hallucinations.
* Her hallucinations appear unexpectedly in the form of Korean letters. (Patient states that hallucinations usually occur when she socializes, but not always.)
* Her hallucinations have much to do with concepts shown in video games.
* She states she doesn’t play video games, but there are many ways to approach it since electronic entertainment is emerging as popular culture.
* She states that her biggest hallucination is that she can feel the emotions of others.」
「Treatment:
First, placebos for integration disorder. No effects.
Second, medications for integration disorder. No effects.
Third, medication administration and individual counseling. No effects.
Fourth, medication administration and family counseling. No effects.
Fifth, SSRI intramuscular injection. Little effect.
Sixth, SSRI intramuscular injection. Some effects.
Seventh, SSRI intramuscular injection. Great effects.
Eighth, placebos for integration disorder. Great effects.」
During this period, integration disorder was another name for schizophrenia, and placebos were fake drugs used in such treatments. Her prescription record hadn’t changed since the eighth treatment. She had constantly received fake drugs but stopped a few years ago.
You silly girl. Why did you go to the hospital? Why did you tell your family?
I could see what she had gone through and the pain she had felt. According to her prescription record, she had been given useless shots and had lied to her family when she had been nearly hospitalized.
The injection wouldn’t have worked at all until the last minute because her hallucinations and delusions were real. Prescription drugs couldn’t help with that.
“This is how I meet a pre-Awakened person…”
Woo Yeon-Hee had the traits of a mental healer, which was one of the rarest types of Awakened. However, not all of the pre-Awakened were powerful as the Eight Evils and the Eight Virtues since many died from the burden before they could even develop their abilities.
That was perhaps why I had not heard of her name. In my past life, Woo Yeon-Hee would have either committed suicide or got killed in a dungeon.
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