Chapter 143: The Owner of the Empty World

“Why so quiet?
Don’t tell me you really don’t know who I am?”

It’s not that I don’t know the answer.

I’ve already more or less guessed who he is.

I just can’t bring myself to accept it because I can’t believe it.

And with Jaeyul standing right in front of me, I have to be careful about opening my mouth recklessly.

But I can’t stay silent forever.

I need to say it before an attack comes raining down on either Jaeyul or me.

“Seon… Jaeyul.”

“Huh?
That’s technically right, but… anyone can tell that just by looking, can’t they?
That’s not the answer I wanted.
Feels like you’re playing word games, and I don’t like that.”

Piiing.

With a sharp sound slicing through the air, a small mass of light shot toward Jaeyul.

“No!”

I shouted desperately, but my torn voice had no power at all.

“Ugh….”

The light bomb flew so fast it was barely visible and grazed Jaeyul’s thigh as it passed.

It’s not exactly fortunate, but at least it wasn’t an attack that blew a hole through his leg.

“Stop messing around and give me the right answer, yeah?
I’ll give you one more chance.”

He did it on purpose.

Just to remind us that he could kill Jaeyul and me at any time.

There’s no helping it.

Right now, Jaeyul’s safety matters more than anything else.

And buying time in case reinforcements arrive is important too.

Carefully, I spoke the identity I’d guessed for the fake.

“…X.”

“Wow, you even figured that out?
Honestly, you seemed so dense that I thought you wouldn’t know.”

His attitude confirmed it.

This was the ‘X’ I knew.

So this was the source of that strange discomfort I’d felt the whole time.

Someone completely different from Jaeyul, yet somehow familiar.

If it was Seon Jaeyul—X—whom I’d fought face-to-face for years, it made sense.

Still, even after learning his identity, nothing made sense.

How did he even end up here?

Did he, like me, return to the past…?

Jaeyul, standing a few steps away, looked like he was wondering what kind of conversation we were having.

“Alright.
You got it right, so now it’s your turn.
Ask anything.
Hurry.
I’m all ready to answer.”

Before Jaeyul could ask anything, I spoke first.

“Why are you doing this?”

It’s suffocating.

With Jaeyul listening, I can’t ask outright.

“Why ask such a vague question?
Trying to end the game with just one question?
What you really want to know is why I crossed over to this world, right?”

My heart sank.

Every time X opened his mouth, my heart dropped into the abyss.

He was casually revealing secrets I’d desperately tried to hide from Jaeyul.

“Oh, what?
You didn’t even tell this cute kid?
Oops, my bad.
Forget it, forget it.
Erase this from your head.
Jin Sehyun isn’t actually from this world!”

This time, I was truly shocked.

Not only did he deliberately say it so Jaeyul would hear, but the content itself was unbelievable.

I’m not from this world…?

So it wasn’t just time regression?

A secret about my return that even I didn’t know spilled out, drawing my attention completely.

I couldn’t even read the room.

But strangely enough, Jaeyul seemed calmer than expected.

I thought he was completely in the dark.

Had he vaguely suspected it already?

How could he be so composed?

“What the hell.
That reaction’s boring.
Do I look that annoying to other people?
Haa… the question was bad, but I should still answer.”

X looked disappointed by Jaeyul’s flat reaction.

Seeing him express such ridiculous dissatisfaction made it clear.

He really was a ghost from my forgotten past.

The day I died by X’s hand resurfaced in my mind.

A nightmare.

“My purpose for coming here…
The Earth you lived on, Jin Sehyun, doesn’t have a single human left.
You could call it the end.”

I don’t fully understand what he means, but it sounds like after my death, the world was destroyed by X’s hands.

“That was the original contract.
All humans die, and I become the owner of a world with nothing left.
After finishing everything and standing there alone… I got kind of bored.
So I forced my way into this world.
That’s the perfect answer, don’t you think?”

From the way he keeps saying the Earth you lived on and this world, it sounds like there are multiple worlds.

Or multiple Earths.

Honestly, I don’t even understand half of what he’s saying.

I want to know the details, but that can wait.

So in the end, the reason is simple.

He was bored.

After wiping out all of humanity on one Earth, he probably plans to destroy this world too.

To him, it’s just a game.

It’s terrifying.

Could our Jaeyul win if he fought this thing…?

I can’t be sure.

He’s eaten plenty of Petra and gained real combat experience, but X wiped out all of humanity, including special agents.

His experience is on a completely different level.

“My turn, right?
Since it came up, I should ask this.
If I’m Seon Jaeyul known as X, then who is Jin Sehyun?”

“Stop it!
Quit spouting nonsense and just say what you want!”

I struggled, forgetting there was a light bomb floating beside my head.

I couldn’t shake off X’s tight grip around my neck, but I hated that question that much.

“You should stay still.
If you struggle like that, you keep hurting cute little me.”

Another light bomb shot out, grazing Jaeyul’s arm deeply this time.

Seeing blood flow from Jaeyul snapped my scattered mind back into place.

I stopped struggling and bit my lip.

It’s not like I’m hiding some grand secret, but talking about returning through time, or vaguely knowing the future, feels dangerous.

What if it leads to the truth that I knew Jaeyul would become X?

“I think I can answer that.”

Jaeyul’s voice came out of nowhere.

It sounded calm, but I could tell how furious he was.

How could he possibly know who I am…?

I tried to stop him, afraid he’d get hurt again, but I was too late.

“Hmm… it’s hard to find the right words, but… a time traveler, maybe?”

How… how does Jaeyul know that?

Did he guess based on what X said earlier?

“Oh!
Looks like Jin Sehyun didn’t tell you himself, but you figured it out anyway?
Nice intuition.
Still, time traveler isn’t enough.
You need to be more specific.”

“More precisely, he lived far longer than he does now, then for some reason came back to the past, to this time.
With all his memories intact.”

No.

There’s no way he could know that much just from X’s hints.

Did Jaeyul really know everything about me all along?

“You really are like me—pretty smart.
You’re closer to the right answer than I expected.
That’s right.
Jin Sehyun was a pretty powerful esper in the previous world.
The only one who could really play with me.
Anyway, he nearly died by my hand, and barely managed to make it back to this past version of the world.”

Strangely enough… I feel a bit relieved.

Living with such a heavy secret wasn’t easy.

Letting go of that burden feels freeing.

I just hope Jaeyul isn’t shaken by this.

“And the one who sent the dying Jin Sehyun to this world was me.”

“…What?
You sent me… here?
T-that’s impossible!”

Something must be wrong with my ears.

I’d always wondered how I’d returned to the past.

I assumed some immensely powerful being had revived me.

It’s not something a human could ever do.

And X of all people?

It’s insane.

We’d spent years trying to kill each other, aiming for each other’s hearts.

And now he says he saved me and sent me here?

“That’s right.
It makes no sense.
I just… did it out of boredom.
A whim.
Just a whim!”

X talks a lot of nonsense and pointless jokes, but he isn’t the type to lie.

When he said he’d kill someone, they died.

When he said he’d let them live, they survived—barely.

That’s why, absurd as it sounds, I can’t help thinking it might be true.

“Shut up already.
Who asked about your feelings?
It’s my turn to ask now, right?”

Jaeyul seemed to have completely shaken off his tension.

His voice toward X was still filled with anger, but there was a calm confidence to it.

X grumbled about rude kids and needing to be beaten into shape, but Jaeyul ignored him and continued.

I’m curious too about what Jaeyul’s question will be.

“I understand your story to some extent.
But there are too many missing pieces for it to make sense.”

“Or maybe your brain’s just made of rock.
Unlike me, you might’ve been born stupid.”

You son of a—!

How dare he call Jaeyul stupid?

Do you know how well our Jaeyul did in school?!

A guy who plays with monsters and has no friends has a lot of nerve.

Contrary to my worry, Jaeyul looked completely unfazed.

Maybe thanks to all the childish arguments he’d had with Song Jihan.

“So what’s the question?”

“What exactly is ‘Seon Jaeyul’?”

Even in this situation, my curiosity flared.

The secret of X that I’d always wondered about.

How did someone named Seon Jaeyul become the worst villain, X?

Every sense I have focuses on him.

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