A Heroine Who Can Never Be Abandoned

133 – Dongmin Lee (68)

Dongmin Lee (68)

Park Seong-gang felt his body touch the floor.

His vision jerked across the ceiling, and then his head hit the floor hard.

I don’t think the pain was that great.

There was a loud beep in the ears.

As I was concentrating on it, the area where I was supposed to have been shot soon became hot and tingling, as if it had been set on fire.

“No-!!”

Screams were heard from the top of the stairs.

Park Seong-gang realized that it was Lee Dong-min.

“Was my story interesting?”

Haerin Kang said.

She approached Seonggang Park with slow steps.

Time seems to have stopped.

The sense of space is gradually disappearing.

The ceiling of the underground torture chamber, the gloomy walls, the creepy torture and murder tools are like a flat painting.

Park Seong-gang blankly thought that the part in the brain that controls time and space and the ego had been destroyed.

He blinked quietly.

He waited for his death to come.

… However, there was no bankruptcy declaration.

I heard Haerin Kang’s voice instead.

“Go upstairs.”

The woman who fired the gun obeyed the order.

Now there were only two people in the underground torture chamber.

A woman with reddened pupils, slightly raised eyes, and thick raven-colored hair wet with rain, looking like a pretty girl, and a dying man.

Park Seong-gang felt more and more strange that he did not die even though he was shot in the head.

It was as if an invisible string was holding the ankles of his rising soul and would not let go.

Kang Hae Lin took her laptop and sat down beside Park Seong Kang, who was lying on the floor, bleeding from her.

“My ass is cold, can you excuse me?”

With a smile on her lips, she sat down with her butt between Park Seong-gang’s pants and his lower stomach.

Crying.

Something like blood came up from Seonggang Park’s mouth.

“Oh, my God…”

An exclamation burst from Kang Haerin’s mouth.

Seonggang Park, unable to move his head, couldn’t even see all the actions and reactions with his own eyes.

Little by little, the color, no, the intelligent part that distinguishes the name of the color was also turning off.

From above, Lee Dong-min’s screams continued, but there was nothing like him running down.

I heard someone arguing with me.

“Can you see it?”

Strong Lin showed her laptop screen.

Park Seong-gang struggled to read it.

#

[…

“… Haa…”

Seonggang Park raised his head and blinked his eyes repeatedly.

In the underground torture chamber, there was a yellowish light above, but perhaps because of the color, it was blinding.

Maybe I was too focused on watching it.

It was when he was about to read the following.

“Isn’t it fun?”

Strong Rin came down her stairs behind her.

(…)

Bang-!

The bullet went through Park Seong-gang’s head.

Then another shot landed on the abdomen as well.

(…)

Park Seong-kang felt more and more strange that he did not die even though he was shot in the head.

Kang Hae Lin took her laptop and sat down beside Park Seong Kang, who was lying on the floor, bleeding from her.

“My ass is cold, can you excuse me?”

(…)

“Can you see it?”

Strong Lin showed her laptop screen.

Park Seong-gang struggled to read it.]

#

“………”

Park Seong-gang didn’t even have the strength to open his mouth anymore.

He closed his eyes and woke up a few seconds later.

It was still a reality, neither heaven nor hell.

He checked what he had seen.

The oxygen-deprived brain moved stiffly like an unoiled cogwheel, but it was still working by squeezing the bloodstream somewhere.

What was written in the notebook was the current situation Park Seong-gang was in, where he was passed out in an underground torture chamber after being shot consecutively by Kang Hae-rin’s ‘subordinate’.

However, it is too specific.

The sentence itself is not dense, but it seems to have copied this scene from somewhere like a play or movie.

Haerin Kang said.

“Not very specific, is it?”

Her impression was different from Park Seong-gang’s.

Unlike Park Seong-gang, who was surprised enough to feel that he had ‘copied’ reality, she said calmly.

“If I write it concretely, there is a high possibility that it will come true, but I didn’t feel the need to go that far. At least in this scene. Do not misunderstand. Because my writing skills aren’t everything. Had I put my mind to it, I could have made you feel more excruciating pain, but now that I think about it, I think I did well.”

“………”

“No matter how much I do, I don’t want to explain every detail of how I feel. If it was a laptop, I would have edited and showed it much more clearly, but if it was, it would have been many times more difficult for you.”

“… What, son…”

Park Seong-gang struggled to open his mouth.

I didn’t understand Kang Hae-rin’s words.

“What… say…”

“You want me to explain it all?”

Haerin Kang said.

“I can’t do that. Even when I read a mystery novel, I tend to read the answers quickly. I guess I’m the type who values why done it more than how done it. So, I’d like to ask you to re-read the novel, but that would be hard. Because there will be a lot of it.”

Strong Rin corrected her posture and sat down.

As her butt pressed against Sung Kang’s lower belly and near her pubic bone, her detective coughed up blood again.

“I’m so sorry, what should I do?”

She clicked her tongue.

“Obviously, it wasn’t that terrible when I was writing the scenario, but maybe it’s because I didn’t imagine it in detail. Writers who write masterpieces are so amazing. It’s like a psycho. It means that when you draw a scene where someone dies, or when you draw a scene where you die, you experience the pain one by one. Isn’t it?”

“………”

“Looking at it, I feel a little sorry. Back then, you were a bit annoyed with the bugs, too. I thought I should do this.”

“Ha ha ha…”

Kang Haerin stood up.

“I can’t help it because it has already been entered. Do you remember the sentence that was written when you opened the notebook?”

“………”

“I decided to be the main character in my novel.”

“………”

“I wonder why you don’t die?”

“……”

“You didn’t read it properly. You showed me.”

She put her laptop on the operating table, sat halfway up her hips, and typed her keyboard.

“If it’s a laptop that can manipulate people’s perceptions, it would be possible to increase the number of people, right?”

“…In, expression…?”

“Look at what I am wearing.”

Haerin Kang got up and turned around.

What she was wearing was black jeans and a light yellow shiny blouse.

“…Dami?”

“Why am I wearing Lee Da-mi’s clothes?”

“…Why, g…?”

“Because I had to be Lee Da-mi. And?”

Haerin Kang said.

“You are a detective who is slow to keep pace.”

“………”

“Because we needed a more elaborate secret to fool ourselves. Because I am a sensitive person. I saw it on my laptop too. Baby, he matched my voice well. Do you know Park Se-young? I could make out the man’s voice. You don’t know how embarrassed I was when I found out about it too late.”

Kang Hae-rin looked very happy, which is something she has never shown except when acting in 『Journal』 To ‘pretend to be an ordinary person’.

At least among the images of Kang Hae-rin that Seong-gang Park actually met, he was so unfamiliar that it was suspicious that he was manic.

She’s wearing a mask or acting.

She gave that impression.

“Because I am this kind of person.”

Haerin Kang said.

“I have a talent for dressing up as someone, mimicking my voice, and things like that, but it’s risky to venture out with it, and above all… Even the stupidest detectives won’t be puzzled by someone who sticks around. I will. In particular, the criminal detective seems to have liked Mr. Lee Idami quite a bit… No matter how simple a person is, a change in the person he or she likes is bound to be noticed, so there was no need to take the risk.”

“… You…”

“What?”

With Kang Hae-rin squatting down, she put her ear close to her, as if to hear the dying voice of Seong-gang Park.

“… What, for, do… How…”

Tadat, tadat.

I heard typing in my ears.

Park Seong-gang thought for a moment that Kang Hae-rin was typing on a laptop, but she was within sight.

… Then the laptop alone?

The burgundy red laptop was writing letters on its own, even though no one had typed it out of sight.

It led to a monotonous rhythm.

Come to think of it, it was still working.

She wondered why she didn’t hear it, and the underground torture chamber kept ringing like background music.

“I was too complacent.”

Haerin Kang said.

“Do you know why I tried to kill you?”

Park Seong-gang was blinded.

“As a parting gift, I will read it to you.”

Kang Hae-rin’s eyes shone.

She now stood below the angle of view where Park could see her directly, but the pupil turned to her right to the laptop screen on her operating table.

Her lips parted.

“…One bug goes away. Kang Hae-rin thought that if this task was this easy, she should have solved it this way long ago. But it’s not like she didn’t. Actually, she didn’t. Who would have known there would be a laptop with such good features? Moreover, writing a novel in which she herself is the main character was a change of thinking like Columbus’s egg. She conceded. “I was too complacent.” Kang Haerin said honestly. “Do you know why I tried to kill you?” Park Seong-gang was blinded. Park Seong-gang was a person with ‘awareness’ of bugs and novels. Their presence will randomly disrupt the laptop’s abilities. So killing him was inevitable. For the completion of a perfectly plausible and logical world. Starting with Park Seong-gang, many things will change.”

Stronger Rin stopped her.

“It’s too naked. The lines before I read them, I just thought about them, but they are written here. Would I have wished for something like this? But it’s nice to have a tool that relays my thoughts without having to choose my words. It’s good for self-objectification.”

The laptop kept making keyboard sounds.

Park Seong-gang heard it only with his ears.

If his guess is correct, and if Kang Hae-rin’s hint is correct, this situation is being ‘relayed’.

I wanted to say something like a dog, but it didn’t work.

He has come up.

“… Dog…”

“Yes?”

Kang Hae-rin jumped over his slowly cooling body with his legs and stood in front of the laptop on the operating table.

Then I heard the sound of a keyboard, this time with a slightly different rhythm than I’ve heard before.

I felt my vitality gradually return.

Of course it must be an illusion.

I was shot in the stomach and head.

I still don’t understand the meaning of Kang Hae-rin’s words, but I could tell that it wasn’t a normal situation.

Is it like explosive power right before death?

Remembering that he sometimes heard a sound from above, Park Seong-gang gathered all his energy and raised his voice.

“…Did you kill Idami?”

It wasn’t as loud as I thought it would be, but it was a clear, unquivering tone for a dying person.

Funny enough, I was satisfied that this was the most resolute voice a detective on the verge of dying could make.

“Pooh-up.”

However, Haerin Kang just laughed.

When she came back across the body of the dying Park Seong-gang, she was holding her laptop back in her hand, and at that moment, Seong-gang Park saw her as ‘Ida-mi’.

However, the field of vision returned to normal.

It’s not Lee Da-mi, it’s Kang Hae-rin.

Is it an illusion that I saw because I was dying?

“………”

“I just thought it was Idami, right?”

The tone has changed.

However, Kang Hae-rin’s face is clearly distinguishable.

She mimics one of her organs.

… But what about the hallucination?

“Poor detective.”

Kang Haerin’s voice lowered.

“In the original, you were originally destined to die to me… But in the novel that became reality, you are in a similar situation. That we are just characters in someone’s novel…”

Strong Rin opened her notebook and held it in front of her eyes.

Park Seong-gang was able to read the contents.

[…

I felt my vitality gradually return.

Of course it must be an illusion.

I was shot in the stomach and head.

I still don’t understand the meaning of Kang Hae-rin’s words, but I could tell that it wasn’t a normal situation.

Is it like explosive power right before death?

Remembering that he sometimes heard a sound from above, Park Seong-gang gathered all his energy and raised his voice.

“…Did you kill Idami?”

It wasn’t as loud as I thought it would be, but it was a clear, unquivering tone for a dying person.

Funny enough, I was satisfied that this was the most resolute voice a detective on the verge of dying could make.

“Poor detective.”

…]

Haerin Kang stopped laughing.

“… What would I have thought when I found out that the person I loved had been made fun of like this?”

“……”