The Hunter's Gonna Lay Low-Chapter 198

How long had they stayed like that? The warmth filling Uijae's arms was starting to feel like his own, something he was getting used to. Suddenly, there was a weight that dropped onto his shoulder. Uijae turned his head, catching the scent of blood mixed with something sweet. It was Sayoung.

“What the—what’s wrong?”

“Ah...”

“Sayoung?”

“I can’t hold on anymore...”

Sayoung mumbled, sounding as if he were complaining, and with that, his full weight fell onto Uijae. The arms that had been wrapped around his waist slowly released their grip.

“What’s going on?”

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Uijae heard the steady breathing of someone who had fallen into a deep sleep. With an expression of disbelief, he cradled Sayoung’s waist to keep him upright.

"Wait, is he actually asleep right now?"

“Hmm... looks like he finally ran out of energy.”

The other Sayoung murmured as he straightened up. Uijae shifted Sayoung in his arms, holding him more securely. The curious violet eyes of the other Sayoung scanned both of them before he tilted his head slightly.

“They were still fighting over control... me and him.”

“What?” Uijae’s eyes widened. "You were still fighting over territory this whole time?"

“Still?” The other Sayoung hid his mouth behind his fist, a faint smile playing at the corners of his lips.

“This is us getting along... relatively speaking.”

“What kind of messed-up standard is that for ‘getting along’?” Uijae muttered in frustration, his irritation growing as he glanced at the now slumbering Sayoung. But then, an idea came to him. This was his chance. The other Sayoung knew more about the second world than anyone else. Uijae quickly seized the opportunity.

“By the way, do you know anything about Prometheus?”

Sayoung’s violet eyes blinked, a bit puzzled.

“Prometheus?”

“Yeah, it's this group whose goal is to awaken human powers, not through the system, but through their own strength. Have you heard of them?”

“Well, that sounds grandiose...”

The other Sayoung gazed into the distance, as if deep in thought, before shaking his head.

“No, I’ve never heard of them. The name doesn’t ring a bell, nor do I recall any such group with that goal.”

“Are you sure? You didn’t go through any experiments or anything? You just awakened normally?”

“Experiments?”

The other Sayoung shook his head again.

“No way. What I went through was treatment. A detox, to be precise.”

“...”

“And after that, I awakened. That’s it.”

Cha Uijae had saved Sayoung in the first world, the second world, and the third world—that much was an undeniable fact. But everything after that had been a little different each time. And this current world was the most divergent yet. The biggest differences were likely...

‘The West Sea Rift...’

And Cha Uijae’s absence.

Uijae hesitated before asking another question.

“Do you know anything about the erosion dungeons? The ones that start transforming into a destroyed world?”

“I’m not familiar with ❀ Nоvеlігht ❀ (Don’t copy, read here) the term, but I can imagine. Even if we blocked most of the cracks, there were bound to be a few we couldn’t stop.”

“...”

“Our worlds share the same origin. Originally, this world was supposed to merge and disappear.”

Sayoung flicked his fingers in the air, and a black mass appeared. The dark blob slowly began to turn white from the edges, like ink fading into water. Just before the black was entirely bleached out, Sayoung sliced his finger through the air. The mass split into two—one white, one black.

“But it didn’t happen. The clock wasn’t fully intact, thanks to some incompetent craftsman.”

Uijae thought of Hong Yeseong, the eccentric who waved his arms dramatically and called Uijae ‘friend~.’ He also remembered the chicken version of Hong Yeseong flapping its wings, indignant.

‘He said that he’d restored as much as he could.’

Uijae had a gut feeling that Hong Yeseong was right. For all his quirks, his skills were undeniable. Uijae glanced at the other Sayoung. Was it his long solitude or his lack of social skills? The way Sayoung saw people seemed oddly warped...

The other Sayoung lowered his hand.

“Watch carefully.”

The two masses of light and dark hovered in the air, slowly drifting toward each other. Before long, they began to merge, as if drawn together by an invisible force. The closer they got, the more the center turned gray.

“...”

Uijae’s hair fell in front of his eyes, brushing against his forehead. He ran his fingers through it, noticing the color.

Gray.

He found himself absently fingering his hair as the two masses continued to fuse, becoming one sticky, blended entity. The other Sayoung spoke, his tone flat and detached.

“When two origins are the same, they naturally pull toward each other. It’s a basic instinct... a fundamental desire.”

His violet gaze drifted toward the sleeping Sayoung in Uijae’s arms.

“Just as the part of me in this world... crossed over to yours by borrowing another self.”

“...”

“It’s something like that. I tried to cut off as many connections as I could... but there were still some threads. Especially dungeons and rifts, they act like cracks—easy to form.”

Sayoung swept back his hair, and Uijae couldn’t help but notice that the tips of his blackened fingers had started to turn translucent. His heart sank.

‘Is he fading?’

Before Uijae could say anything, the other Sayoung cut him off, as if reading his mind. His voice was nonchalant.

“I never planned to stay long anyway. When that other version of me rushed in, I got... a bit mischievous, I suppose.”

Mischievous? Mischievous!?

One more prank from this guy, and someone could’ve died! Uijae’s mind filled with the memory of Sayoung clinging to him, tears streaming down his face. He hesitated before making a choking gesture with his hand, asking:

“...That choking thing too?”

“Oh, you’re still thinking about that?” The other Sayoung's lips twitched into something resembling a smile, though it didn’t quite reach his eyes.

“When I choked you, it made me feel like I was in a real body... so I couldn’t help myself.”

“...”

“And besides, I wanted to mess with you a little. Watching you freak out was kind of refreshing.”

“What am I, fresh meat to you? Refreshing?”

“The version of you I remember was... bedridden most of the time.”

Uijae grumbled, looking away. He hadn’t expected to be blindsided like this. But he couldn’t help mumbling under his breath.

“Why’d you have to mess with me? Don’t you have any gratitude for the guy who saved you...”

“Well, you left me behind, didn’t you?”

The unexpected response pierced sharply. Uijae quickly concluded that talking with this version of Sayoung for too long would only end in frustration. He would never win. How could anyone argue with someone who threw guilt about the dead around like that? Not that the sleeping Sayoung would have been any easier to beat in an argument.

The other Sayoung tapped his cheek lightly, mumbling to himself.

“I never expected this to happen... Me having a consciousness of my own. Things got a bit out of hand.”

“Why?”

“The plan was for me to merge with the other me’s body. Ideally, I wouldn’t even realize it had happened. But... something went wrong, so we didn’t fully merge.”

On the day Cha Uijae had pierced the whale, Sayoung had collapsed. Hong Yeseong had mentioned...

“Hong Yeseong said your soul was too large to merge completely. If you forced it, your body wouldn’t survive.”

“Hmm, that hack got that right, at least.”

Sayoung shrugged, casually insulting Hong Yeseong as if it were second nature.

“Thanks to that, we’re having this conversation now.”

“...”

Was it coincidence? Or fate? The kind that felt inevitable once the pieces fell into place. Uijae stared into the other Sayoung’s violet eyes. In their reflective depths, he saw himself. But the version of himself that Sayoung had loved wasn’t quite the same. This Cha Uijae wasn’t the one who had been weakened, keeping his pain hidden, and still saving others...

The Cha Uijae that Lee Sayoung had loved.

Uijae tightened his grip around the sleeping Sayoung.

“Lee Sayoung.”

“...”

The violet eyes blinked. Once again, words that were his, yet not entirely his own, flowed from Uijae’s lips.

“I’m sorry. I think I placed too heavy a burden on you.”

“...”

“But... everything you did, it wasn’t for nothing.”

The violet eyes widened slightly. Uijae slowly opened his eyes, a soft smile tugging at the corners of his mouth. His voice felt layered, as if it were echoing.

“Look, here we are, standing together.”

“...”

“Thank you.”

For a moment, a faint spark of light flickered in the void of those violet eyes. Slowly, Sayoung bowed his head. Finally, his black hair bobbed in a nod. Uijae let out a small sigh of relief. The other version of Sayoung was already gone, his presence fading like it had never existed.

Instead, Uijae reached out and began tousling the Sayoung he held

, whose head was at just the right height for him to mess with his hair. The broad shoulders under his hands flinched.

How long had he been ruffling his hair? Sayoung eventually straightened up, his messy locks sticking out in every direction. It looked ridiculous, but it made Uijae smile. Sayoung ran a blackened hand through his hair, trying to smooth it down.

“...The end. It comes when it hears the call.”

“...”

Uijae’s eyes widened. What was he talking about now? Out of nowhere, Sayoung had begun speaking about the end.

Sayoung tilted his head slightly.

“Why the surprise? Isn’t that why you came here?”

“Well, yeah, but... you’re telling me now?”

“Just listen.”

Sayoung whipped off his black coat and spun it around in the air. Immediately, dark walls enclosed them in shadow. In the blackness, he raised a single black finger to his lips.

“The more you think about it, the more you talk about it, the more you bring it up... the sooner it’ll arrive.”

His ominous voice lingered in the air.

“You’d better be careful. After all, you can’t stop people’s thoughts and words.”