Caught inside a Maze

The individual beginning to feel anxious due to the suffocatingly taut psychological warfare was Seohan.

‘I must be losing my wits.’

Seohan blamed his past self for bringing Lee Dohun along strapped right across his back.

Just because a separate bomb was added on top of an existing bomb, could they perhaps counteract one another?

Far from it.

It merely completed a vastly greater bomb.

The one wound up ensnared in the blast radius would undoubtedly be himself.

He abruptly desired to travel straight back home to an intense degree.

“I suppose a solitary individual like myself was entirely deficient? You certainly seem to be dripping crumbs all over the place.”

“……Pardon?”

“Because I verified the articles. I failed to anticipate a separate individual would exist aside from that actor.”

In the midst of that, Jin Yeonoh babbled pure nonsense while sketching a bashful smile.

His narrowly slit eyes appeared as though he were thoroughly evaluating the opponent.

Faced with that explicit attitude, Seohan unconsciously wound up dropping his jaw entirely wide open.

His brain refused to comprehend the words delivered out of his mouth.

‘You…… originally failed to exist as this type of character.’

He felt a surging impulse to grab Jin Yeonoh by his collar and shout straight into his face.

At the very least, when interacting with separate individuals, he was a bastard who counterfeited being a kind person on the surface.

Why on earth, then, was he openly picking a fight with Lee Dohun, whom he was indubitably encountering for the very first time?

[Cheer up, User-nim ٩(๑•̀ㅂ•́)و!]

The system, which had remained silent throughout the entire ordeal, sent a cheer.

To think it could exist as something so thoroughly useless.

Seohan swallowed hard at the gradually turns savage atmosphere separating the two individuals.

‘Save me.’

Their suffocating psychological warfare marched continuously onward.

To such an extent that the reality that this location happened to be a deserted alleyway felt like a stroke of absolute heavenly luck.

Having already been swept up in two separate scandals, Seohan harbored zero desire to behold a sight where his photo was captured to circulate as an article once more.

If he were to be captured this time, it felt as though it would undoubtedly sport a title akin to ‘The Shocking Love Triangle of a Third-Generation Chaebol,’ which fueled his reluctance even greater.

Jin Yeonoh and Lee Dohun appeared to possess temperaments that failed to match to a terrible degree.

One scratched at the other with a casually smiling countenance, while the separate opponent did so with a face savage enough to cause one’s knees to tremble.

Seohan, who was wedged tightly between the two, was experiencing a flavor of death, yet the individual he registered as vastly more contemptible was Jin Yeonoh.

‘That bastard is genuinely.’

‘He is executing this while fully aware?’

The information power possessed by Jin Yeonoh, or rather, the background he carried across his back, was exceptionally brilliant.

The narrative shared when they encountered one another just the two of them remained vividly sharp within his memory even now.

Did it not amount to, – If you refrain from cooperating, I shall dig up exactly what you are concealing. –

Though it was a threat manufactured purely of words, his background, alongside an imagination-defying obsession glaring within his two eyes, transformed it into absolute reality.

Would that type of fellow exist while entirely oblivious to the presence of the man Baek Seohan had stored so carefully inside his house?

The probability of that being a ‘no’ was exceptionally high.

Even if he remained oblivious to the existence of the contract operating beneath the surface, it was glaringly obvious that Jin Yeonoh would begin digging into multiple elements from the exact flash he felt intrigued by Baek Seohan, or rather, himself.

Predicting the identity of Lee Dohun, who had abruptly manifested, would naturally be a simple matter for him.

Yet that type of fellow was sitting there pretending to be entirely oblivious.

While slowly scratching at his opponent.

If a path permitted it, he desired to strike him across the head at least once.

“Since the act of seeing him off is sufficient with this, it appears you may travel straight back now.”

“I am uncertain. It appears the party directly involved fails to contemplate it in that manner, though. Because I received a request to accompany him, I harbor zero intention of traveling back.”

The conversation continuously elongating forward was absolute madness in itself.

This applied to Jin Yeonoh, who treated the accompanying Lee Dohun as someone who merely stepped out to see him off, and it applied equally to Lee Dohun, who had falsified his memory during that brief gap to transform Seohan into a fellow who requested him to accompany him.

No, separate from that, why are you bastards causing me to be ensnared within the conversation.

Fearing the two portions of gazes directing straight toward this spot due to the remark, – It appears the party directly involved fails to contemplate it in that manner, though, – Seohan broke out into a cold sweat internally.

It felt precisely like a sensation where his opinion was being forcefully coerced.

“He states as much, so exactly what do you contemplate regarding this, Seohan-ssi?”

His apprehension wound up turning into reality.

The chilly glares and savage stares that had been directed toward one another now directed straight toward this side.

It was an explosive predicament where delivering an erroneous word felt as though his very life would fly straight away this instant.

Seohan, who blinked his lips for a brief moment, turned his head.

Let us simply bolt.

Seohan chose to ignore reality entirely.

Though it was a conclusion he handed down to himself purely to flee from the reality right before his eyes, Seohan failed to believe this method would function exceptionally well.

It was a context highly similar to what he had contemplated while directing toward the appointment location with Lee Dohun attached behind him a few minutes ago.

Regardless of how passionately he sprinted, he would simply be apprehended in a matter of seconds anyway.

Though he took his steps while mentally preparing to be apprehended to a certain degree, Seohan’s prediction missed the mark for this absolute single time.

“……I managed to shake them off?”

He had failed to be apprehended by Lee Dohun, nor had he been apprehended by Jin Yeonoh.

Seohan, who had turned multiple times into the dizzyingly elongating alleyways, displayed a thoroughly blank face.

Though he halted his steps midway through, the reality that zero individuals were pursuing him endured identical to before.

Since he hadn’t sprinted for an excessively long window, it should be a sufficient amount of time to overtake him.

Arriving at this point, a justifiable suspicion began to surface.

Did they perhaps refrain from pursuing him in the first place?

Contemplating in that manner caused an unutterable sense of shame to crawl straight up his spine.

Seohan, who lifted his hand to cover his face for a moment, took a deep breath.

To think he had sprinted so passionately while trapped under the illusion that he was being pursued when zero individuals were even following him.

A wave of reality hit him belatedly.

Standing silently in his spot for a brief moment, he organized his thoughts.

Once his mood was salvaged to a certain degree, a brilliant method to trample through this situation occurred to him separate from his embarrassment.

‘……Can I not simply travel straight back home?’

It wasn’t as though he had violated his appointment with Jin Yeonoh, who requested a meeting.

Because he had verified his face for the time being.

Since Lee Dohun had followed him entirely at his own whim, he would undoubtedly salvage the situation appropriately on his own.

‘Return safely, Lee Dohun.’

Seohan, who turned his back without a shred of hesitation, shifted his steps lightly.

Though he had inadvertently dumped the main bottom of a high-intensity angsty novel right in front of the main top, he refrained from paying it any mind.

Evaluating how they continuously attacked one another utilizing words, he would undoubtedly return safely without a single glitch.

Relying on the microscopic shred of conscience remaining deep inside him, he left a brief cheer wishing for him to return with his limbs entirely intact.

His mood naturally soared.

Was it perhaps because the schedule destined to drain his energy to the absolute absolute peak had clean-cut vanished? He was on the literal verge of humming unconsciously.

First, let us return home, swap out of these clothes…… and following that, let us sprawl straight across the bed.

He, who had hesitated zero bit to postpone establishing an appointment to encounter Ji Eunhyuk, turned thoroughly joyful while imagining multiple elements inside his head.

Because his desire to rest was doubled in urgency due to being tormented between those two individuals until just a moment ago.

However, his wish fractured into absolute pieces before much time could elapse.

“……This defies all logic.”

Multiple minutes had elapsed since he shifted his steps with a mind firmly set on returning home.

Seohan was still entirely unable to break out of the alleyways.

He had certainly refrained from entering deeply.

Since he roughly retained a memory of where he had entered from, he assumed that walking a few blocks and exiting toward that direction would permit him to escape swiftly.

The glitch must be the point that he was still treading water in the exact identical spot despite moving precisely as he had calculated in advance.

Endlessly elongating residential homes, towering walls, elongated alleyways.

It was literally akin to a maze tangled together like a spiderweb.

Blankly surveying his surroundings, Seohan belatedly registered a single streak of foreign disharmony.

‘Is this…… accurate?’

He had moved a considerable amount.

He had walked for a duration that easily amounted to multiple minutes.

Despite that, the conclusion of the alleyway failed to manifest within sight.

Seohan, who hurriedly pulled out his phone, activated the road map.

A red dot informed him of his real-time position.

Right.

Traveling while monitoring the map would undoubtedly be slightly superior.

He had contemplated exactly so, right up until the red dot, which failed to shift its position despite him walking for roughly a solid minute, betrayed his expectations completely.

Only then did goosebumps break out across his entire body.

This wasn’t a simple matter of losing his way.

“System.”

However, his hesitation was brief.

The voice immediately invoking the system was conversely sunk into a calm, subsided state.

It was an occurrence entirely flooded with unreality.

A random individual might perhaps lose their wits from despairing over this absurd situation.

They might perhaps flail about while falling into pure chaos.

But Seohan was separate.

The situation where he wound up possessed inside another person’s body following a single experience of death, the system window visible right before his eyes, and the mad situation where his body was repeatedly plundered under the guise of a defect had forged him into this shape.

Because it had been a long window of time since he began living within a world saturated with unreality, after all.

Seohan, who thought self-mockingly, summoned the minimap from within the blue surfacing system window.

[Would you like to activate the minimap by sacrificing a synchronization rate of 0.2% (Title, ‘Scandal Master’ applied)?]

Seohan twisted the corners of his mouth without delivering a single word.

Setting aside the reality that a synchronization rate of 0.2% was a terrible waste, the item floating next to it under the guise of a title application scratched at his nerves subtly.

“Right. I shall sacrifice it.”

Naturally, even if his mood was fouled, zero options existed for him to execute.

Though the declined synchronization rate was a terrible waste that caused his chest to tighten with sorrow, this method would undoubtedly be the absolute best to break out of here this instant.

The synchronization rate that had rested at 40.7% rapidly dwindled down to 40.5%.

The cheerful notification sound ringing out with a ding! felt entirely spiteful for zero reason.

A minimap surfaced immediately across the lower portion of his vision.

Seohan let out a low lament at the intricately tangled alleyways.

He had contemplated that it resembled a maze, but it was a literal maze.

An absolute conclusion failed to manifest within the alleyways reflected across the minimap.

To think he had been roaming across this type of space, zero wonder he was unable to exit and merely wandered about.

He, who clicked his tongue silently, lifted his hand to manipulate the minimap.

“Discover a path leading outside.”

Tapping against it alongside a brief command triggered an immediate reaction.

A blue path elongated straight forward from the front of the green circle resting in the absolute center.