Chapter 35

The wall, unimaginable in its intensity, instantly enveloped my mind, cutting off all external stimuli.

How intense was the pressure of that wall that I lost consciousness and face-planted into the snowfield.

* * * * *

“This is the end.”

When the video ended, the Chairman of the Advisory Board spoke.

“We don’t know what Han Tae-woo and Seo Ji-a encountered in that mysterious cloud, nor what the cloud’s composition was, but it corroded the bodycam completely.”

The Chairman’s voice had deepened and sounded somewhat somber.

“We sent in other teams, but there was no trace to find. We don’t know what that toxic gas was that neutralized your team. After autopsy on Han Tae-woo and Seo Ji-a, the results were the same. We couldn’t find any substance among known toxins similar to that.”

He paused and looked at me with expectant eyes, asking:

“Does anything new come to mind after watching the video?”

But I couldn’t answer that.

The shock of watching the video had caused my mental barrier to vibrate intensely.

So, this… this was the entire story of the dream I’ve been having.

The strange colored cloud we encountered in the sky.

The dozens of times the sky and ground had flipped.

The meteor slowly descending and my cry out as I watched.

All of it had actually happened to me.

And… the quest that appeared when I first met Professor Han…

“Raise Han Min-ha to S-class.”

The exact words when Seo Ji-a had asked me to swear an oath.

It was the oath they made just before dying…

When I saw Han Min-ha, who looked exactly like Seo Ji-a, that declaration arose in my mind like a quest…

Then… if so… then what am I?

Until now, I had believed I was reincarnated into a failed academy novel.

Since I had no memories before the academy and could somewhat predict future events.

No… that wasn’t it…

Looking back, I hadn’t predicted the future.

At most, I knew that Yu Hye-won would enroll and that she would choose me as her academic advisor.

Thinking about it now, I didn’t even know her name properly until the day of the enrollment ceremony.

I just thought there would be some arrogant rich-girl protagonist, and only after Professor Jin explained about Yu Hye-won did I realize she was that protagonist.

And about her choosing me as her advisor…

It wasn’t something I had known beforehand. It was a lucky guess, wasn’t it?

The most important thing of all…

The story of the web novel written by Han Min-ha’s father, Han Tae-woo, matched exactly with the story of the failed academy novel I believed I had reincarnated into…

Then… what if my suffering from that lung disease wasn’t a remake but rather… because of the poison gas?

Hold on…

If my lungs were damaged by the gas, then why, after all the tests we did, did we find no abnormalities, and why did my cough miraculously stop after meeting Han Min-ha…?

If everything that happened was real, then surely there wouldn’t have been any reason for the cough to disappear… it’s medically impossible.

How do I even begin to explain this?

“Su-hyun, is there anything else you remember?”

When the chairman asked again, I looked up at him.

“No… sorry, nothing comes to mind. Just what was shown in the video… by the way, Chairman.”

I paused to organize my question.

The chairman waited silently.

“After that incident,… where was I and what did I do? I don’t remember anything.”

“You were admitted to a hospital under the management organization for quite a long time. But since you said you don’t remember, explaining might only make you more suspicious. Let me check something.”

The chairman picked up the mouse and moved to another folder.

There were several other video recordings stored there. The difference from the previous bodycam folder was only that the thumbnails said “CONFIDENTIAL” instead of “TOP SECRET.”

“In truth, it’s illegal for an academy professor to see confidential treatments like this. The previous ones were the same. Do you understand what I mean?”

“I do.”

“Good.”

The chairman played the video.

Appearing on the laptop screen was me lying in a hospital bed with a tightly wrapped bandage on my left shoulder.

* * * * *

“How is the pain at the surgery site?”

One of the doctors standing beside the bed asked, and I slowly turned my gaze.

“Who are you, and where am I?”

“This is a hospital under the management organization. You suffered a fall accident, resulting in a severe fracture of your left shoulder bone, and we’ve just operated on you. You’ve just regained consciousness.”

“Falling accident? Hmm…”

I woke up in a hospital bed, surrounded by doctors who told me I had a major injury, they operated on me, and I had just woken up.

With nearly everything skipped—when, where, how, who, and why —this was a highly perplexing situation.

Yet, I felt no particular emotional disturbance.

It seemed that the strong mental barrier in my mind was firmly defending it.

Thus, instead of panicking or feeling fear, I slowly raised my hand and touched my left shoulder.

A slightly damp sensation from the bandage.

I saw an IV needle stuck on the back of my hand.

Clearly, surgery was performed.

But something felt slightly off.

“Does it feel any different?”

“It feels a bit stiff.”

“It’s an artificial joint, so it will feel like that initially. Think of it as a brand-new item just out of its packaging, and you’ll get used to it soon. Let’s check while we disinfect.”

The nurses began unrolling the bandages from my shoulder.

Once the bandage was fully removed, the wound with dried red antiseptic became visible.

While the nurses were disinfecting, the doctor examined the wound closely and said,

“No inflammation present, and it’s healing nicely. Don’t worry about the scar; we can remove it with treatment once it heals completely.”

“Yes… cough…!”

When I coughed, another doctor standing behind raised an eyebrow.

“You’re coughing?”

“Yes. Cough… cough…!”

“Hmm… strange…”

The doctor turned to another doctor and whispered.

“The lung CT results didn’t show that level, did they?”

“That’s true? Why is he coughing? Did we miss something?”

“Hmm… with a CT scan and not just an X-ray, it can’t be…”

After quickly exchanging opinions, the doctor looked at me and said,

“You just regained consciousness, so let’s run some tests again. There was no abnormality detected when you first arrived but, who knows what might have happened since then.”

“Yes, cough…! But…”

I asked the several doctors looking at me.

“How did I end up here?”

“Ah, that…”

One doctor exchanged awkward glances with others and finally answered,

“We apologize, but we don’t know ourselves. They didn’t share any information…”

“They… cough! Who?”

“Yes… actually, it’s somewhat difficult for us to even share these details with you.”

At that moment, the door to the ward opened and a middle-aged man dressed in a suit walked in.

“I heard you’ve regained consciousness.”

The doctors saw the man and stepped aside.

“Just came to. We were just finishing up disinfecting the surgery site.”

The man looked me straight in the eyes, then said,

“Great job, everyone. Let’s wrap up for now. I have something to discuss with him alone.”

The doctors who had been troubled by my questions left the ward immediately with the nurses.

Alone in the ward with the man I didn’t recognize, I smoothed out the freshly replaced bandage and looked him straight in the eyes.

“Who might you be?”

“I’m Professor Hyun. And you? cough!”

The man came closer, sitting on the chair beside the bed.

“How much do you remember?”

“I don’t understand what you’re getting at. What exactly do you mean?”

“Han Tae-woo, Seo Ji-a. What happened back then?”

“Who’s that? And who in the world are you? cough!”

“Hmm…”

The man was silent for a moment before changing the question.

“Who are you? Why are you here?”

“I’ve already mentioned my name, and as for why I’m here, I’m not entirely sure. Rather… cough! I have an academy interview to attend… cough! How can I like this…”

“An academy interview?”

“At the Graford Academy, for the job of professor… cough, cough! Urk…”

“Right… a professor… I see…”

The man mumbled something to himself and then closed his mouth.

I wanted to ask him more but was unable to due to the violent fits of coughing.

If I cough much more, the surgery site might burst open.

But, apart from my body, my mind was extremely clear and cold-blooded.

The mental barrier is indeed remarkable.

I trained well with my defense techniques.

* * * * *

“Your lungs… despite multiple detailed examinations, no significant abnormalities were found.”

When the video ended, the chairman of the advisory board spoke.

“After thoroughly analyzing the bodycam, we judged that you didn’t enter the direct range of the toxic gas. You were able to escape quickly due to the fall, which is why your lungs weren’t damaged.”

“If that’s the case, then why did I have that cough all this time?”

“Remorse.”

“Excuse me?”

The chairman leaned back on the sofa and looked at me.

“Because you felt guilty about your team members dying due to your mistakes. It’s like an excuse of sorts, emphasizing bodily that it was unavoidable since you inhaled the gas.”

So, the cough was a self-deception caused by remorse, making me believe I had a lung disease that didn’t even exist.

Then the reason the cough stopped after meeting Han Min-ha…

“Isn’t it because, Su-hyun, you got the chance to fulfill the oath you made but couldn’t keep because those team members you failed to protect have now passed?”

So, it’s because a path to erase the remorse had opened up.

I remained silent, looking down at the green tea on the table.

“Just as your lack of past memory stems from the same reason. Your mental barrier activated to shield you from the shock you received and the potential mental damage, blocking all memories related to Tae-woo and Ji-a.”

That’s why my mental barrier wavered the first time I heard the names of Han Min-ha’s parents.

Since then, during the weak state of sleep, I had that dream.

When I first saw the faces of Han Min-ha’s parents in the document storage, a crack appeared in my mental barrier, and those past events unfolded before my eyes.

So, the mental barrier is like a dam holding back the waters of the team members’ death.

Every time the dam has an issue, water leaks out.

And I, on the outside of the dam, didn’t know what lay beyond it, only wondering what this leaking water was every time it seeped out.

All those things were actions to protect me from the remorse of not being able to protect my team members and from the mental shock.

The fictitious lung disease I acquired through self-hypnosis to believe that I had no choice.

The mental barrier that completely blocked the memories of Han Min-ha’s parents to prevent mental breakdown.

And… the delusion of ‘reincarnation’ to fill the gap of the severed memories.

Even the story of Han Tae-woo’s web novel that entered my subconscious as part of this ‘reincarnation.’

The quest to raise Han Min-ha, who isn’t the original heroine Yu Hye-won, to S-class.

The presence of a lung disease and the mysterious organization Sikrito, things that weren’t in the original setting.

I complained about not being able to use the knowledge until the end of the remake because I supposedly reincarnated.

But the reality was different.

It’s because I believed I had reincarnated, not that I actually did.

“Weren’t you curious about how a C-class hero could become a professor at Graford Academy, which requires B-class and above? I placed you there, Su-hyun. I couldn’t just leave a subordinate who lost their entire team and was miserable.”

The chairman spoke to me as I remained silent.

“And Han Min-ha’s admission to the academy was also due to my recommendation.”

I nodded slowly.

“And… Hye-won’s choice of you as her advisor. I thought if it was Professor Hyun who knows me, he would be someone I could trust my daughter with.”

Yes… Now everything fits together.

I see.

That’s how it was.