B1 - Prison (1)

I stared blankly up at her as Han Gyeong-ah spoke in a mocking tone.

“Have you done any reflecting? Though someone like you probably doesn’t even have a sense of guilt.”

I’d heard those exact words before. What the hell was going on?
And then there was that message just now…

Tutorial…?
I couldn’t make heads or tails of it.
Meanwhile, Han Gyeong-ah looked at my face and tilted her head.

“Is it really that surprising that I came to see you?”
“…A little.”
“Looks like you had some kind of change of heart overnight.”

I felt a sense of déjà vu. More accurately, the past was repeating itself.

“I think we’ve been caught up in a large-scale terrorist attack.”

Why she’d bothered coming to see me, what had happened after I was taken out, who might be behind the current situation, how a rescue team would be coming soon…
It felt like reading a recap of the previous episode. Everything was exactly the same as before, down to the last word.

Suddenly, I remembered an urban legend I’d vaguely heard before.
Something about a diver trapped underwater losing his mind, imagining he’d been rescued as he slowly died…
Was that what was happening to me?
But if this was a hallucination, it felt far too real.

“W-why are you staring at me like that?”
“No reason… It’s just nice seeing you again after so long.”
“It’s only been one day.”

Han Gyeong-ah gave me a suspicious look. Even that felt incredibly good to see after so long.

“Instead of wasting time talking nonsense, take this.”

I opened the bag she handed me and found a piece of hard bread inside.
Exactly the same as before. Rock-hard and tasting like shit.
Normally, even eating it would’ve been torture. But the instant I saw it, a savage hunger surged through me.

‘Food… It’s food.’

I wasn’t physically hungry, but my mind screamed that I was starving.
I wolfed down the bread as though my life depended on it.
I ate it so quickly I didn’t even have time to judge the taste.
As I wiped the bits and crumbs from around my mouth, Han Gyeong-ah glanced at me in fascination.

“…Is it good?”
“Yeah. It’s fucking amazing.”
“There’s no way…”

Anyway,
Now that I’d filled my stomach, my head felt completely clear. I began going over my situation one piece at a time.

‘…I died.’

And then I returned to the past.
This wasn’t a dream, a delusion, my life flashing before my eyes, or some hallucination.
It was unmistakably real.

“Gyeong-ah, can you see this?”
“What?”
“This thing right here.”

I pointed at the message floating in front of me.
She stared intently at where I was pointing, then tilted her head.

“I don’t see anything.”
“I was just messing with you.”
“You think this is the time for jokes?”

Apparently, I was the only one who could see the message.
And its contents were anything but ordinary.

The implication was obvious. This game wanted something from me.
Not from the character ‘Kim Yohan,’ but from me, the person inside him.
Could it have something to do with how I’d ended up inside the game? There had to be a clue at the end that would tell me how to return to reality.
For now, escaping B1 was the most urgent priority. Unfortunately, I’d already run into an obstacle right out of the gate.

“From now until the rescue team arrives, I’m going to keep watch over you.”

Because of this little liar.
There wasn’t an ounce of truth in her confident declaration.

“Liar.”
“I’m not lying.”
“Then you’ll come down tomorrow and watch me just like today?”
“Of course. So don’t even think about trying anything funny.”

Oh, listen to her.
She sounded completely certain.

“And the day after that?”
“Yes. Even if you beg, I’m not going easy on you.”
“And the day after that?”
“…”
“And the day after that?”

Han Gyeong-ah glared daggers at me under the relentless barrage of questions.
For reference, this was the morning after Chapter 1 ended.
Kim Yohan hadn’t even been imprisoned for a full day yet, and now the bastard was suddenly pestering her like this.
To anyone watching, it would’ve been an utterly pathetic sight.

“What’s the point of these questions?”
“You never know. Maybe you’ll abandon me.”
“Why? Are you afraid I’ll leave you here to starve to death?”

She got that right.
Did she regress with me or something?

She’d probably said it without much thought, but for me, it hit differently.
Two days from now, she would suddenly disappear.
I didn’t know why. That was the only fact I had.
And because of it, I would suffer from hunger until I eventually starved to death.
A pathetic end befitting a Third-Rate Villain.
Han Gyeong-ah shrugged as if the very idea were regrettable.

“Don’t worry about that. I may hate you, but I know how to separate my personal feelings from my duty.”

Then why didn’t you come?
The urge to demand an explanation rose all the way to my throat. Still, she didn’t sound like she was lying.
Han Gyeong-ah had an exceptionally strong sense of justice. The game had made that clear.
I could still remember the scenes where she sacrificed herself for others.
Could someone like that lie shamelessly to my face?
I didn’t think so.
It wasn’t a question of whether she would or wouldn’t. She simply couldn’t. Even if she tried, I’d notice immediately.

‘She’s a terrible actor.’

There had even been an episode like that in Chapter 1. If I remembered right, she’d tried to lure Kim Yohan somewhere with a lie and failed.
I vividly remembered her panicking with, ‘How did he know?!’ after he saw through her instantly.
In other words, what she was saying now was completely sincere.

So why didn’t she come?
She would come again tomorrow, then vanish without a trace. Starting two days from now, she would never set foot underground again.
A thought suddenly flashed through my mind.

‘…Because something happened beyond her control?’

What if she hadn’t chosen not to come down, but had been unable to?
What if something had prevented her from coming to see me…?
That would resolve the contradiction. But it raised a new question.
What had happened on Floor 1 while I was imprisoned?

“Gyeong-ah, how’s Floor 1?”
“Nothing unusual.”
“Any suspicious objects or clues?”
“Not yet. Maybe we’ll find something if we keep searching.”

Han Gyeong-ah answered while giving me a suspicious look.

“Why are you suddenly asking about that?”
“Something’s bothering me.”
“You’re the one bothering me the most.”

I casually ignored the baseless slander and gathered what information I could.
Eventually, I reached a conclusion.

‘If my guess is right…’

Something major was going to happen soon on Floor 1, where everyone else was.
Something serious enough to threaten her safety.
Maybe I was jumping to conclusions, but I needed to warn her as best I could.
If things continued as before, starvation was my guaranteed fate.
I was struggling to do whatever I could to survive.

‘The problem is how I’m supposed to tell her.’

I was stumped from the start.
Would Han Gyeong-ah even listen to me?
For the record, her trust in me was rock bottom. If I had to put a number on it, we’d already blown past zero and into the negatives.
Kim Yohan’s brilliant achievements were really paying dividends now.

‘What the hell do I do?’

All kinds of excuses raced through my mind, but not one of them was usable. I was just beginning to lament my pitiful lack of imagination when,

“Excuse me. You’re hiding something from me right now, aren’t you?”

…How did she know?
She’d hit the nail on the head out of nowhere.
Was she psychic?

“What am I hiding?”
“I can tell just by looking at you. Stop playing dumb and tell me.”

Her sharp intuition had kicked in again. She’d immediately seen through the subtle change in me.

‘That’s almost scary…’

“I don’t know. Even if I told you, you wouldn’t believe me.”
“So you admit you’re hiding something from me?”

Han Gyeong-ah immediately went on guard.
Given that I’d been committing every kind of evil imaginable until yesterday, she probably assumed I had some secret scheme.

“Tell me the truth.”
“I’m telling you, you won’t believe me.”
“That’s for me to decide.”

We bickered back and forth for quite a while. When we got nowhere, she resorted to drastic measures.

Click-
She pulled something long and sleek from inside her uniform.
…A handgun.

“You’d better tell me willingly.”

Was she planning to force it out of me through violence?
From the fact that she hadn’t chambered a round, it didn’t look like she actually intended to fire.
Still, the threat was more than effective enough.
My shoulders instinctively shrank when she pointed the barrel at me.

“I’d really prefer it if you put that down before asking questions…”

I nervously edged to the side. Seeing me cower so pathetically, Han Gyeong-ah snickered.

“Why? Are you scared?”
“Yeah. You seem like the type who’d shoot me by accident and then panic.”
“…”

Click.

“Wait, I’m kidding. That just slipped out…”
“Say one more stupid thing and I really will shoot you.”

That scared me a little.
Despite what she said, she wouldn’t actually shoot me.

…Probably.

There was only so long I could keep denying everything after being cornered like this. I finally gave up and threw both hands up in surrender.

“Fine. I’ll tell you.”
“See how much nicer it is when you cooperate?”

She could decide what to make of it herself.
Since things had come this far, I put on the most impressive tone I could manage.

“Something big is going to happen on Floor 1 soon.”

A cold silence followed.

“Is that so?”
“Yeah.”
“Your evidence?”
“None.”
“…”

Han Gyeong-ah pressed her lips shut.
Her expression said she didn’t even know where to begin tearing that apart.

“And you expect me to believe that?”
“See? I told you. You weren’t going to believe me anyway.”
“Because it makes no logical sense!”

I’d gone to all the trouble of warning her, and now she had the nerve to yell at me.

“What’s your basis for saying that? You must have some reason for thinking it.”
“I had a nightmare yesterday.”

A horrible nightmare that lasted for days on end.

“…That’s it?”
“Yeah.”

Everything I’d said was one hundred percent sincere, but apparently sincerity alone wasn’t enough to persuade someone.

“Forget it. I’m the idiot for believing you might have something useful to say…”

She shook her head.
Was my evidence that weak? I’d thought it sounded fairly convincing.

“Gyeong-ah, I’m serious. I’m warning you to be careful.”
“What warning? There’s nothing credible about it. And there’s no way you’d willingly help me.”

She calmly listed nothing but facts. Kim Yohan was a piece of shit.
He’d never even been to Floor 1.
Anything a guy like that rambled about as a ‘warning’ would sound like nonsense.
How was she supposed to believe a bastard with a personality that rotten?
Fine. Change of plans. I’d approach this another way.
I skipped the long-winded excuses and lowered my voice for effect.

“Exactly. That’s why I’m warning you.”
“What?”
“It’d be a pain in the ass for me if something happened to you.”

Who else would bring me breakfast?
I left that unnecessary detail unsaid. What I’d already said was enough.
Enough to make sure she couldn’t simply dismiss my warning.

“Say that again.”
“Hmm. What did I say again? I can’t remember…”

The conversation petered out there. I deliberately brought it to an end.
My possession and my true identity were top-secret information. If I said too much, I might expose myself.
It was best to stop at a simple warning like this.
Whether she’d actually take it as a warning was another question.
And so the day passed.
As we idled the time away, Han Gyeong-ah’s wristwatch eventually began to beep.
It was time to say goodbye.

“What are you doing? Aren’t you leaving?”
“I was going to without you telling me.”

Grumbling, Han Gyeong-ah gathered her things and prepared to leave.
She still hadn’t lowered her guard around me.
Apparently, what I’d said earlier was still bothering her.
The rest was up to her.
Our fate would depend on what she decided.
Either we’d reach the same ending as before, or the story would take a new turn.

“See you tomorrow.”

There was no way to know until I saw what happened for myself.