Jang Heowoon grew up in a facility of the Church of the Luminous Unknown.
And he joined Daydream Inc. in order to save the fellow sect mbers he grew up with… the orphans of the facility whom he called ‘family’, who had beco subjects of those sa rituals.
‘……’
By this point, it beca clear how Lee Heowoon of the Cheerful Research Institute was connected.
‘Heowoon was the target of the ritual.’
Under the circumstance that the ‘Lover of Paradise’ is a real, existing person, an attempt may be made to usurp the narrative of that individual through the ritual process of imitating that person.
Thus, it is an act of following the doctrine of the Church of the Luminous Unknown, which seeks to beco a aningful existence in this world.
‘Is it that they raised soone in order to imitate Lee Heowoon of the Cheerful Research Institute, to steal that researcher’s role?’
Stories not written in the , details I did not know, reached through the words of those around .
The sensation of cold sweat running down my back felt like a hallucination…
[Ah, to imitate every twist of soone’s life, to fashion a role that would produce a story resembling theirs…]
[As if inheriting the spirit of industrial capitalism, they treat stories like machine parts, carving and processing them.]
[As though running them through the sa process could yield identical products!]
And one of those products now stood before us.
A replica fashioned after ‘Lee Heowoon’.
Kim Heowoon lowered his head.
“Pardon, um. Actually, it was a lie when I said I only ca here to introduce myself, sir.”
……
“I ca to make an earnest plea of you, Mr. Employee.”
He spoke with extre politeness.
An absurd request.
“Just as you took in Jang Heowoon, could you take all of us in as well?”
…!!
“We can tell. Because we are the sa ‘Heowoon’. …Isn’t Jang Heowoon happy now under your care, Mr. Employee?”
My head began to ache.
Reason for the request
“…There is nowhere else we can return to.”
His voice lowered.
“The facility we were in burned down, and as for the other Paradise of Love shelters… we cannot go there. ……We cannot live as we did before.”
There was no need to ask why.
‘The fire.’
That fire had also been part of the ritual imitating the narrative of the Cheerful Research Institute researcher….
And from that fire, surviving with the story of ‘having lived through a great fire at one’s facility’, Jang Heowoon was the finished product.
But this one… was among those culled and used as material in the process.
“Please, I implore you, grant us the sa na[1] that Jang Heowoon received.”
……
“Then, we too can exist as the sa person. Because that is how we were raised!”
His voice grew desperate.
“…Even the fact that Jang Heowoon entered first feels aningful, doesn’t it? As if, being the eldest, the firstborn, he received the surna ‘Jang’. Then we could continue…”
I raised my hand.
Kim Heowoon hastily bowed his head, adopting a posture as if expecting my hand to reach him… but.
From my hand, smoke rose.
Rejected
“…Pardon?”
Alternative choices
► Depart from Lee Heowoon’s life
► Live your own life
“Pardon? But… I…”
A faint chuckle slipped from Ho Yoowon beside the elevator, as though he’d just heard the most absurd of proposals.
And then.
“I’ve already received the Mimicry Sect’s authority, that’s why, well, what I did to enter this place… If it continues like this, I won’t be able to escape—”
“You beca unhappy, didn’t you?”
Slash.
Kim Heowoon was cut in two.
Before my eyes, his bisected body tilted, the upper half toppling to the floor with a wet splatter.
Blood spread.
Blood soaked the tips of my feet.
And thus, for the first ti, I was able to see Kim Heowoon’s face.
Because in dying, he was no longer human.
The dead face of a man in his twenties, bearing a sowhat dark and gentle impression, one quite resembling Jang Heowoon-ssi, was frozen, stained with expectation and despair….
“Now you’ll be happy forever. Congratulations.”
And then I realized.
Wish Tickets are personally omnipotent.
That is why, in the process of Jang Heowoon-ssi’s wish being fulfilled, instead of Go Yeongeun-ssi or Jang Heowoon-ssi themselves being transferred to another world, the fact that as many as seven people had simply co back alive made it clear.
This wish had been judged as one incapable of greatly affecting the world in the first place.
Because.
—They would soon die again.
“Hello?”
I lifted my head.
Drenched in Kim Heowoon’s blood, the one smiling so serenely was a delicate-looking adolescent girl.
This kid was even wearing a ragged, old-fashioned school uniform.
But with the ergency broadcast of the company beginning to blare, her true identity began to dawn on …
[Evacuation alert. High-risk intruder containnt failed. Evacuation alert. High-risk intruder containnt failed. Evacuation alert. High-risk intruder containnt failed…]
…So I thought.
‘Kim Heowoon said he entered by imitation.’
That he had received the Mimicry Sect’s authority.
But that wasn’t sothing one could obtain unless raised in the ritual facilities of the Church of the Luminous Unknown’s outer cults disguised as new religions….
Which ant only one thing.
He’d had help from soone.
“Uwaah, you look kind of cool.”
One who had likely swallowed dozens of fragnts of the Sacred Law scriptures, soone who had fanatically and willingly beco closer to a ghost story than a human.
A follower of Ireum-nim.
“Do you, by any chance, know Ireum-nim?”
A high-ranking mber of the Church of the Luminous Unknown stood before .
And from her words and actions, I could infer… a denomination of the church.
Not the Mimicry Sect. This was…
Happy Ending Sect
A sect within the Church of the Luminous Unknown that pursues the most altruistic values. To those whom Ireum-nim does not look upon, to those who have no chance of surviving the end, to those considered without aning in this world, the sect strives to bring the gift of a true happy ending.
And the path is simple. Death.
For the dead can never again fall into unhappiness.
“Even if you don’t know, that’s alright. Hm, fox and dragon, both so cool… let’s go together.”
The elevator we rode in…
…twisted.
“Let us all serve Ireum-nim together.”
Note/s:
[1] Don’t forget, Na = Ireum ↵
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