I don’t believe it.
A story this convenient?
No way.
I had to doubt it. Again and again.
It’s coming. Any second now.
I could feel it.
The hallucination was about to break.
Because it had been over a day since I last used anything.
I braced myself.
I would not be disappointed.
I refused to be disappointed.
The figure in front of wavered.
Like a screen full of static, distorting.
As I inhaled, cold sweat dripped down my back.
"Heh."
I smiled.
At Shihu.
Or at the hallucination.
"I know it’s not real."
I reached out.
Shihu flickered.
Overlapped.
Sothing shattered.
And then, I was alone again.
Or maybe not.
If I kept using, I could see this hallucination again.
Again and again, as many tis as I wanted.
"No."
Shihu spoke.
Or maybe I had just whispered to myself.
Shihu pulled into a hug.
I felt warmth.
But it was probably just my own body heat.
"This is a hallucination..."
The symptoms had gotten worse.
That was the only explanation.
Even with my vision completely distorted, I was still seeing things.
Everything was blurry.
Ah, maybe it was just the tears in my eyes.
A brief silence.
Then, Shihu spoke.
"—A long ti ago."
A long ti ago?
"I promised I’d protect you."
He never did that.
Shihu never said that to .
...Did he?
Maybe he did.
Maybe more tis than I could count.
"I couldn’t say it to your face back then. But I swore it to myself. Hundreds of tis."
"......"
"...It was my responsibility. One I couldn’t abandon. Even if it was the only way to stay myself."
Shihu lifted into his arms.
Strange.
A hallucination could do this?
My vision spun.
The moon hung above .
Then, he sat down on a bench.
And sat beside .
A satisfying illusion.
Or a dream.
If we could just stay like this, in silence, living an ordinary life—
That would be enough.
That would be perfect.
"You died."
But I had to say it.
It felt wrong to say it so directly.
Shihu was dead.
"There was blood all over the swing. Your sword was left behind. I ran there right away, but you were gone. You died."
So the Shihu in front of —
Was nothing but my delusion.
It made sense.
Of course he had wanted to protect .
We had been childhood friends.
We only had each other.
Of course he would have wanted to protect .
"...You ca right away?"
"Huh?"
"Back then, when I saw you at the swing, I thought it was just another hallucination..."
"...Oh."
Shihu must have been just as lost as I was.
It made sense.
When we spoke back then, my words had been censored.
Filtered.
If I had been his hallucination, then it was no wonder that mont had felt so unreal.
"But anyway, I’m telling you again. I didn’t kill myself. I didn’t give up on everything."
Was that true?
Was this real?
"I survived."
Shihu said.
"And I ca back to save you. This ti, I won’t fail."
Save who?
Who was he talking about?
***
This was the mont when Hansihoo made up his mind to go back.
On the swing at the playground.
[Retry]
Seo Ah’s hallucination disappeared.
She said she would wait at ho.
The real Seo Ah was at a temporary shelter.
Using.
She stayed there because she knew if she didn’t, she wouldn’t be able to control herself.
So she ran away.
Hansihoo sat on the swing.
Back then, they used to play here.
The playground was falling apart now.
Compared to before, the only real difference was the slide, rusted and broken beyond repair.
Hansihoo had nothing left.
He couldn’t save Seo Ah.
The only thing left was to [Start Over].
"Get it together."
He clenched the blade in his hand.
Pain surged through him.
The blood was hot.
"Focus."
His vision blurred as the blood dripped down.
If he gave up, he would truly be left with nothing.
He had to endure.
He had to rember the promise he had made to himself.
"Focus."
He couldn’t break.
This was a battle of will.
Even in a place where anyone would want to give up, he had to find hope.
Even if blood poured from his hands, he had to stand firm.
"Stay awake."
He wanted this desperately.
But he didn’t just want to go back.
The skill—[Restart].
It would grant what he wished for.
All of his skills had been shaped by his desires.
But [Retrying]—
Trying to rewrite his life from the beginning—
That was cheating.
Even in the skill description, it was written: The price is to give up everything.
Hansihoo couldn’t go down that path.
He wouldn’t run back to the past.
"The Doctor."
Instinctively, Hansihoo realized how much the Doctor resembled him.
No, he had felt it for a long ti.
He just hadn’t wanted to admit it.
The way he thought.
His obsession with saving Awakened.
The drugs.
It was absurd, but…
What if the Doctor was just himself, from another past?
If that was true—
Then the Doctor had saved no one.
He had simply crossed over into another world and played the role of an invader.
"...So that’s how it is."
He wouldn’t take the easy way out.
What he wanted was happiness.
But for so reason, happiness always ca with a price.
And the price was always steep.
People expected him to beco a hero.
He would tell them to shove it.
He wasn’t a hero.
But if this was Seo Ah’s wish—
If she believed in him—
Then he had no choice but to do it.
[Restart]
"I..."
This wasn’t starting over.
Life wasn’t a ga.
"I won’t give up."
Even if all of his plans failed, he wouldn’t break.
Even if the pressure crushed his bones and tore his flesh, he wouldn’t stop.
Even if his insides lted, he would endure.
Even if his vision blurred, he would keep his eyes on the road ahead.
Even if his legs gave out, he would run.
And before he knew it—
He would reach his destination.
At the very least, he would live a life he wasn’t ashad of.
This wasn’t so comfortable [Restart].
If he had already started sothing, he would see it through to the end.
And if he had to finish it, he would do it perfectly.
His sword glowed.
Blood dripped from his hand.
He wondered what had gone wrong.
He questioned how things had beco so twisted.
"...Sohow."
His head was still spinning.
The pain had cleared his thoughts, but only to a limit.
But he couldn’t stop here.
Not just refusing to give up—
That wasn’t enough.
He needed a way.
The overuse of drugs had pushed everyone toward destruction.
Hansihoo could feel himself becoming a monster.
Even if he kept moving forward, there were no answers like this.
But he wouldn’t give up.
Because hope—
Hope grew as much as you desired it.
If he believed it was possible, then it would beco possible.
It had to.
"Again."
His determination flared.
The answer was simple.
Instead of pressing [Restart]—
He pressed [Continue].
***
Because of that, this ti—
the Doctor never appeared in the story.
Shihu and Seo Ah, though far from ordinary, spent their days in happiness.
The story began at the point where Seo Ah first took the drug.
The problem started when the so-called "Doctor" arrived, drenched in deception.
She had gone to a shelter, thinking she had caught a bad cold.
But in this version of the story, the shelter hadn’t been destroyed.
It was still operating as usual.
"Oh, Seo Ah, it’s you."
A doctor appeared.
But this ti, he was a real doctor—licensed and legitimate.
Soone who had helped Seo Ah and Shihu for a long ti.
"I ca because of a cold," Seo Ah said, coughing lightly.
"I see, I see."
"Thank you."
She was given proper cold dicine.
Not a mind-twisting drug.
Just a simple pill.
And yet, the difference it made in a life was imasurable.
"Oh? What’s this?"
Seo Ah pulled a slip of paper from the dicine bag.
It looked like a coupon.
"It’s a al ticket for a pretty decent restaurant. You can go with Shihu."
"Wow..."
She could have questioned where a shelter got the money to hand out expensive al tickets,
but Seo Ah didn’t think that far.
The ticket had a simple ssage: Stay strong.
Feeling the warmth of soone’s kindness, Seo Ah ran ho, eager to show Shihu the al ticket.
It was a small thing.
But even small things could bring happiness.
Yet the person who left that ticket no longer existed in this world.
Hansihoo, having traveled back to the past, finally understood why the Doctor had lost his mind.
He had gone too far back.
He had abandoned everything to return to the past,
only to arrive at a ti when the Awakened had just begun to appear.
A ti when the gates had first opened,
when monsters had spilled out and slaughtered people.
A ti when Seo Ah and Shihu, after losing their parents, had barely managed to find each other.
Hansihoo rewrote this cruel world.
For six months after his return,
he tracked down the source of the drug that had consud their lives.
And after another six months,
he finally secured the cure.
There were no obstructions in this tiline.
No wars had drained the world of resources yet.
He could change things.
Now, it was ti to return.
If he had beco the Doctor,
he would have never made it back.
But Hansihoo had promised.
He had vowed to return.
And now that he had found the cure—
It was ti to go back.
Before he left,
he left sothing for the younger Seo Ah and Shihu.
He left funds for the shelter,
asking them to ensure that if Seo Ah ever ca alone,
she would at least have a warm al waiting for her.
That was enough.
A good al at a decent restaurant.
A happy mory.
The rest,
he would leave to this world’s Shihu and Seo Ah.
There would be struggles.
There would be hardships.
They would be poor and lacking in many things.
But it would be enough for happiness.
"I ca back."
Hansihoo returned to his original world.
Unlike the Doctor, who had abandoned his world,
Hansihoo had co back.
And now—
It was ti to finish what he had started.
"And I ca to save you. This ti, I won’t fail."
Seo Ah had endured with hope.
That fragile thread of belief had ignited the spark of sothing greater.
A fireworks display to announce a happy ending.
They sat on the bench in silence.
Seo Ah swung her legs back and forth,
waiting for the hallucination to fade.
The night air was cold.
She shouldn’t have been able to feel warmth.
And yet, she did.
Shihu did not disappear.
The stars reflected on the river were beautiful.
The sky was clear.
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