"Captain Mir...?"
Mir was looking down at me, her brow furrowed.
"You’re in the infirmary. Are you conscious?"
"Haa... ha..."
My breath came out ragged.
The trembling in my hands wouldn’t stop.
My heart was pounding like crazy.
My vision swam.
I still couldn’t get it out of my eyes.
Yuri’s blood.
Carmen’s voice.
And even that final ■■■.
"Calm down."
Mir’s voice reached me quietly.
"This is reality."
Only then did my mind clear a little.
Steadying my uneven breathing, I looked around.
A faint smell of disinfectant.
A white ceiling.
Coldly glowing fluorescent lights.
And the familiar interior of the infirmary.
I’d come here a few times while on duty.
But I never thought I’d be lying here as a patient.
"This is..."
The moment I tried to sit up—
Mir immediately pressed down on my shoulder.
"Move slowly. You were unconscious for over twelve hours."
"Ugh..."
"All your injuries have been treated, but your mental state is pretty bad."
Ah... They used a K Corp ampule...
"Both you and Yuri have been treated."
Mir said, leaning back in her chair.
"You’re only lying down now so we can monitor you and let you settle down."
"Well... I should’ve gotten there sooner in the first place."
Her scarlet eyes darkened for a moment.
"I didn’t think that Command Team bastard would go that far."
That was when—
"Um..."
When I turned my head, I saw Yuri sitting propped up against the bed beside mine.
All of Yuri’s external injuries had been treated as well.
Though her complexion looked a little drained.
"You’re awake."
"Yuri."
Yuri hesitated briefly before speaking.
"I’m sorry."
"For what?"
"Your sleep talking."
Yuri averted her gaze.
"I heard it..."
She heard it... Well, I did have a seizure like that...
Yuri fidgeted with her fingers.
"At first, I thought you were just having a nightmare."
"But then you suddenly kept talking about sin, and atonement... things like that."
Yuri continued cautiously.
"Later, you couldn’t even breathe properly."
"..."
"It didn’t seem like something I could handle alone, so I called the captain."
I couldn’t bring myself to speak.
The moment I did,
I felt like everyone would see me as a different person. Like they would point at me and call me a murderer, just as they had in the past.
The voice I’d heard in my dream burrowed into my ears again.
[It really is your fault, Mr. Han.]
My fingertips began trembling again.
Mir watched me for a while, then spoke briefly.
"So?"
"What happened?"
She added quietly.
"I’m asking as your captain."
"..."
"Because I’m worried about you."
My throat tightened shut.
For a long time, I couldn’t say anything.
Then.
I barely managed to move my lips.
"I..."
My voice cracked.
"I committed an unforgivable sin."
Yuri’s expression stiffened.
Mir listened without a word.
"It was my mistake."
"So I tried to atone for it."
I clenched my hands tight.
"So no one would become like me."
"So no one would lose someone precious to them."
"..."
"That’s why, even after I came here, I tried to help people."
"I tried to save them."
"I thought that was my own way of atoning for it."
My breath fell heavily.
"But..."
"After what happened this time, I don’t know anymore."
I slowly lowered my head.
"Whether I was really acting for other people."
"Or..."
My fingertips tightened.
"Whether I was just struggling desperately to ease my own petty guilt."
The air in the infirmary sank heavily.
"It feels like hypocrisy... I’m going crazy with disgust for myself."
Silence lingered for a moment.
Then I continued with difficulty.
"Did you know? I knew."
"About what was going to happen in the future."
Yuri’s eyes wavered.
"Not everything exactly."
"But at least who would die."
"And who would survive."
My throat felt like it was burning up.
Reason told me to stop right now.
Saying this was madness. It meant losing every advantage I had as a transmigrator.
If I said this, I would never be able to return to how things were before.
Still... I have to say it...
"Yuri, too..."
I slowly lowered my gaze.
"I knew you weren’t going to die."
In an instant, the infirmary’s atmosphere sank.
"So I let my guard down."
"I selfishly believed you would be okay."
"I decided you wouldn’t die."
"I pushed myself for no reason, and because of that..."
My fingertips tightened.
"In the end... in the end, I nearly got you killed."
"If the captain hadn’t arrived in time, you definitely would have died."
Yuri quietly drew in a breath.
I stared down at my trembling hands.
"That’s what it said in my dream. A being that called itself a god."
"..."
"It said I was an impurity that twists fate."
A bitter laugh escaped me.
"I didn’t think it was wrong."
"I meddled with things that should have played out as they were meant to."
"I manipulated people because I knew things."
"Mr. Han..."
"And then I ended up getting someone hurt again."
My breath caught in my throat.
"And in the dream..."
My voice shook faintly.
"You were there too, Captain."
Mir’s eyes narrowed.
"...Me?"
"Yes."
I slowly bowed my head.
"Looking at me..."
"You said I failed to protect them again..."
"..."
"You said I’d keep doing this until everyone around me was dead."
The infirmary fell quiet.
"Deputy Captain Doyoon, too."
"Senior Nova, too."
"Yuri was there too."
Yuri flinched.
I tightly clenched my trembling hands.
"They all looked at me."
My throat choked up.
"They said I was ruining everything."
"But you know what?"
My breath caught.
"I couldn’t refute it."
"Because it all felt true."
With that, I fell silent.
A moment later.
Thud.
Something struck my forehead.
"Ah..."
When I raised my head, Mir was frowning, having thrown an empty wet-wipe container at me.
"You’re thinking some seriously useless shit."
"...Then what was I supposed to do?! A precious colleague nearly died because of me. I’m repeating the same thing all over again!!"
"Hey, first of all, that me in your dream... that wasn’t me."
"How could I ever say something like that?"
Mir leaned forward.
Her scarlet eyes fixed squarely on me.
"Those thoughts."
She let out a short breath.
"I still have them too."
For a moment, the infirmary went completely silent.
"You too, Captain?"
Mir said nothing for a while.
Her gaze slowly dropped.
She was smiling as usual, but the mood around her was heavy.
She wore that mask to hide her sadness...
"A long time ago... before I joined the company..."
She murmured quietly.
"I got people killed once."
My breath stopped.
Yuri, too, stared at Mir with a stiff expression.
"More precisely."
Mir gave a snort of laughter.
"Because of my recklessness."
"Because of my bad judgment."
"Because of my laziness."
Her scarlet eyes wavered faintly.
"My colleagues died."
I couldn’t say anything.
Mir stared at the ceiling with a calm expression.
"Back then, I thought I was special..."
"They called me some kind of rising star among Fixers..."
"I thought I could handle it."
"I thought things would somehow work out."
She gave a quiet laugh.
It was a bitter laugh.
"And the result?"
"It ended with not just a few corpses, but hundreds of them."
"..."
"I completely broke after that."
Mir slowly closed her eyes.
"Drank myself stupid."
"Picked fights."
"Went around looking for places to die."
"I just lived however I could."
"So even the colleagues I had left gave up on me..."
Yuri quietly swallowed.
"Then I drifted into Lobotomy Corporation, and I met new people."
Mir opened her eyes again.
"But you know what? Once I came here, it was funny—there were tons of people even more broken than me."
She gave a faint snort.
Then she continued speaking slowly.
"But listen..."
"That guilt."
She tapped her own chest with a finger.
"It doesn’t go away. If it’s like that even for me, what about you? You’ve lived far less than I have..."
"It stays the same even as time passes."
"It suddenly comes back to you when you’re doing fine."
"All of a sudden, you can’t breathe."
"Even now, my dead colleagues still appear in my dreams sometimes..."
The air in the infirmary sank heavily.
Mir turned her gaze away and laughed quietly.
"It remains like a scar for your whole life. And it keeps digging into you."
"So I still don’t know either."
She slowly looked at me.
"Whether I’m working here because I want to save at least the people I still have..."
"Or whether I’m just..."
Her scarlet eyes wavered ever so slightly.
"Alive because I can’t die, a puppet of my guilt."
I couldn’t breathe.
Mir watched me, then gave a faint laugh.
"But... is the reason really that important?"
"In the end, someone survived, didn’t they?"
Leaning back in her chair, Mir murmured,
"Guilt isn’t something that disappears."
"You just..."
She closed her eyes.
"Live while carrying it with you."
The infirmary fell silent.
As I sat in silence, turning those words over in my mind,
a cautious voice came from beside me.
"Mr. Han..."
When I turned, Yuri was letting out a small breath.
"You and I joined the company at the same time, remember?"
Yuri smiled faintly.
"We’ve been together since our first training."
"We worked in the field together."
"We’ve been through a lot together, too."
"So I know."
Yuri looked at me.
"You aren’t someone who calculates the cost before you save people."
My breath stopped for a moment.
"Yuri..."
"Honestly, the problem is that you’re far too reckless."
Yuri let out a laugh laced with a sigh.
"But at least you’re not a hypocrite."
I couldn’t say anything.
Yuri looked at me and smiled softly.
"So... don’t try to carry everything alone."
Something in one corner of my chest throbbed strangely.
Silence stretched on for a while.
Then.
I slowly opened my mouth.
"I want to become stronger."
Mir’s eyebrow twitched upward.
"Out of nowhere?"
"This incident made me realize it."
I slowly looked down at my hands.
They were still trembling faintly.
"I’m... too weak."
"If something like this happens again..."
"I don’t think I’ll be able to protect anyone next time."
The nightmare was over.
Yet somehow, Carmen’s voice still lingered in my ears.
I slowly raised my head.
"Please help me... You’re strong, Captain. I heard you used to be a famous Fixer..."
Scarlet eyes stared back at me.
Then.
Yuri’s voice came from beside me.
"I’ll do it too."
"What?"
Yuri snorted.
"I couldn’t do anything this time, either."
"And honestly."
Yuri shrugged.
"If I leave you alone, I feel like you’ll do something dangerous again."
"I can’t deny that."
"See?"
Yuri smiled.
Mir looked back and forth between us, then let out a long sigh.
"Ugh."
"Are you two suddenly having some kind of awakening event?"
Still, the corners of her mouth had lifted a little.
"Fine..."
Mir slowly stood from her seat.
"But brace yourselves."
Her scarlet eyes looked down at us both.
"Once training starts..."
Mir grinned faintly.
"It’s going to be fucking brutal."
"I’m suddenly scared."
"Too late to run away now, got it?"
Mir smiled.
And just for that moment,
the air in the infirmary grew a little lighter.
"Oh, right, Captain. Earlier you said you’ve lived much longer than us, right? So how old are you now?"
"...Twenty-three. No, twenty-four, since my birthday already passed..."
"What? There’s barely any difference. Yuri and I were nineteen when we first introduced ourselves... So you called yourself our life senior over just four years?"
"Shut... the hell up... Keep it up and tomorrow’s training is going to get a lot harder."
"Yes, yes. Then one last question—what year is it this year?"
"All of a sudden? What... is this about the future? Well, you joined after your tenth anniversary in the year 979, so..."
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