"I want my Hyung."

Their eyes locked and Ui-jae forced the corners of his mouth to smile awkwardly.

What? An unknown person? No one knows of his existence? Ui-jae thought back to the learning cartoons with masked caricatures of himself and the documentaries he'd seen one day. No one was as famous as me, you bastard....

"Someone who is good but belongs nowhere. And someone who is not known to the public. Better if no one knows about it."

"......."

"You're picky, aren't you?"

Sa-young walked silently, slowly circling around Ui-jae's side. It was like a snake slithering through the bushes.

"I was about to give up on finding the right person, but then you came along."

"......."

"Like fate."

"Are you a fatalist?"

"I never believed in that X stuff, but I guess I'll start believing now."

Meanwhile, Sa-young was standing right behind Ui-jae. He bent slightly at the waist.

"I did some research on you."

A black finger curled around Ui-jae's shoulder. The owner of the finger whispered quietly.

"The high school you attended was washed away by the rift, as was your home, and I can't find anything.... Your parents died the day of the rift, and you have no other relatives, so there's nothing to dig up. If you worked somewhere, you'd have a contract, but there's no contract, no bank records, and your cell phone was only activated a few months ago, and I can't find any records before that."

"......."

"You're not really related to the owner's grandmother or her nephew, are you? You're strangers."

Ui-jae was silent. Sa-young continued unperturbed.

"There was really nothing."

It's obvious. During his time as J, Ui-jae was J, not Cha Ui-jae. No wonder there was no trace of the 'Cha Ui-jae' Sa-young was looking for. He sighed heavily.

"Originally, I wanted to be a good scout and give you whatever you wanted, but..."

"....."

"Right now, it seems like this shop is the only thing on your mind."

The lazy voice leaned a little closer to his ear. Ui-jae held his breath for a moment.

"Do you want something?"

What do I want?

There is no one in this world who doesn't want something.

Even now, when he closes his eyes, he can still hear the desperate screams and cries. Hands clinging to his feet for dear life, the smell of blood in his nostrils, his head jerking up at unexpected moments. He can remember the gnarly sensation of digging through the corpse, trying to find every scrap of flesh and bone.

If he could, he'd pull out the bodies left in the crevices, abandoned as they were. He'd hide here as if he'd come back alive and run away, but he meant it. He wanted to send them back where they belonged. He wanted to fulfill the last duty of a survivor. The place was... so lonely. Too lonely.

But he knew it was impossible.

So all he could say was that he wanted nothing.

"Nothing."

"Really?"

When Ui-jae answered briefly, Sa-young blinked slowly and the corners of his mouth lifted slightly.

"Then let me show you one."

He pulled a tablet out of thin air and placed it in front of him. On the screen was a photo of a bespectacled, sensitive-looking man. Sa-young reached over his shoulder as if he wanted to wrap his arms around Ui-jae from behind and slowly turned the photo to the side. The man with gray hair pulled back in a long ponytail was wearing a doctor's coat.

"Do you recognize Nam Woo-jin? He's an A-rank."

He remembered seeing him when he looked up at Lee Sa-young.

Nam Woo-jin, the sixth-ranked librarian in the Republic of Korea. Head of the Seowon Guild. The only A-rank healer in the Republic of Korea. Before his awakening, he was an orthopedic surgeon at a university hospital, raising the question of whether his pre-awakening talents affected his awakening ability...

He nodded his head as if he had a vague memory of him, and Sa-young smiled.

"The owner's grandmother's leg, why doesn't she go to Nam Woo-jin for treatment?"

"What?"

"I heard she had a bad leg."

From the ability to float two centimeters in place to the ability to lift an entire building. Since the day of the rift, there have been as many different abilities as there have been Awakenings, but Awakenings with the ability to heal others have been very rare. During Cha Ui-jae's time, there was only one B-rank Awakened in the United States.

And the only A-rank healer in Korea was a person most people would never meet. Ui-jae laughed in disbelief.

"An A-class healer treating a commoner? Say something that makes sense."

"We have a cooperative relationship with the Seowon Guild, so I can ask them to heal a person, and he was an orthopedic surgeon before his awakening, so he can do general medicine."

"......."

"How about that?"

It was a terribly sweet deal. But Cha Ui-jae was not young enough to be intoxicated by the sweetness and not look around. All these deals and conditions were peripheral, not essential.

"Lee Sa-young."

"Yes, Hyung."

"Why are you doing this to me?"

"......."

Ui-jae turned his head to meet Sa-young's violet eyes, studying his face as if he were watching him. Instead of looking away, Ui-jae lifted the corner of his mouth and smiled.

"Why do you have to strip a person down to their bare bones to examine them, find a weakness and hit them, and then dangle a carrot in front of them?"

"......."

"If I refuse you here, it will be known all over town that I'm an Awakened."

"......."

"What do you really want?"

"What...?"

Sa-young swept his cold, unsmiling eyes over Ui-jae's face. The answer came out rather quickly for someone who had been twisting and turning all this time.

"I considered that possibility."

"......."

"But simply threatening you is not the way to go..."

"......."

"I decided you weren't the kind of person it would work on."

"Good judgment, then."

"Thanks for the compliment. Anyway, to answer your question."

There was a short silence. Sa-young asked in a low voice.

"The guy you hit with the ladle, do you remember?"

Of course he remembers. When Ui-jae nodded, Sa-young rubbed his index finger across the screen of the tablet and spoke.

"A few years ago, a suspicious drug started making the rounds."

"....."

"Of course, normal drugs or narcotics don't have much effect on the Awakened, but that drug........ had some strange reactions."

"Like what?"

"Increased aggression, addiction. And..."

A long finger brought up another photo on the screen. A grotesquely twisted body, with jet-black spikes protruding from every inch of it, like a dried-up tree... and something that had once been human. It looked like something he'd seen before.

"Body mutations."

Suddenly, he remembered Lee Sa-young's words from the day they first met.

Sorry. This bastard doesn't know anything. His brain is fried.

The man Lee Sa-young was beating was a drug addict, and the creature in the photo was more monster than human. As he studied the unnaturally twisted body in the photo, he muttered.

"Just one pill and this is what happens?"

"That's what bothers me."

As if in response, Sa-young mumbled and turned off the tablet screen.

"Anyway, I'm looking for the people who spray these drugs."

"......."

"Me and my guildmates have already sold our faces too far... If we dig a little deeper, we'll get our tails cut off."

The Pado Guild was a small group, but each of its hunters was famous. Their small numbers meant that their every move was bound to be noticed. A fatal handicap when the target of your pursuit or reconnaissance was an Awakened.

"You can't just throw anybody in there, they're either going to kill you or they're going to be crawling around on the same stuff."

Someone who's good but doesn't belong anywhere. And someone who's not in the public eye. Better if nobody knows about it.

If you're going after someone who's naturally stealthy, you have to be stealthy as well. Also, the opponent is an Awakened with increased aggression, so someone with the skills to fight an Awakened and win must step forward.

As for Cha Ui-jae, there was a good reason for Lee Sa-young's demands, and he was the one who fit the bill. But...

"But why?"

"Huh?"

"Why are you looking for her?"

Why on earth would Lee Sa-young want to find her?

For the Awakened? No. To protect Korea, no. To protect the general population, no.

From what he's seen so far, he's not the kind of person who would go after them for a cause. Even though they'd only known each other for a short time, he could tell instinctively.

He's a man driven solely by his own standards. No amount of pride in being number one in South Korea, no amount of accountability, and no amount of special laws for awakened people with the primary goal of protecting the public would motivate him.

"......"

After a moment of silence, he raised his index finger to his lips.

"More than that is a secret."

"Hey."

"I'll tell you when Hyung is ready to accept the deal."

"......."

"By the way, the drug story is confidential, so don't tell anyone or Jung-bin will come here again."

You bastard, didn't you just handcuff me because I told you a secret? Ui-jae's expression turned cold. On the other hand, a smile returned to Sa-young's face.

He put the tablet back into his inventory and lightly patted the shoulder of the man who had been so close to him earlier. He laughed out loud, unperturbed by the slap. He stood up and waved his hand in annoyance.

"Go quickly. I have to close."

"Yes."

Lee Sa-young put on his gas mask. He suddenly held out his hand. What, are you saying let's shake hands? Looking at him with suspicious eyes, the fingertips of the black gloves were flicked.

"Cell phone."

"Why?"

"Take my number."

"I don't need it."

"My number is expensive."

"I'll sell your number to the tomato market."

"Then you'll see me a lot."

Sa-young laughed at my non-threatening threats. Still, he didn't want to take his hand back, so Ui-jae finally handed over his phone. He figured that even if he refused the deal, he should have a last resort, just in case.

Sa-young quickly punched in the number and left the store without a second thought. Alone, Ui-jae turned on his contacts application.

His contacts originally only had two numbers saved. His grandmother's and Ha-eun's home phone number and Ha-eun's cell phone number, because there was no need to save any other numbers.

But now it was different. A new name was added under his only contact.

[Sa-young]