I stepped out into the corridor and got into the elevator again.
This time I needed to go down, not to the top floor. I pressed my index finger to the fingerprint scanner beside the elevator buttons, then hit the button for the third floor.
The third floor, where the youngest brother Lee Seowon lived, boasted the highest security.
Even in this central building that no one could wander into at will, only a tiny number of fingerprints had been registered to access it.
Only the brothers including me, Representative Seo, and a couple of servants had permission to enter the third floor.
Ding, the elevator stopped and the doors opened with a chime. I took Cha Sahyeon’s hand and stepped out into the corridor.
At the end of the dimly lit hallway the gentle lights made the place slightly dark. I opened the single thick door there and warm air carrying the scent of water brushed my cheek.
A wide indoor ✪ Nоvеlіgһt ✪ (Official version) garden unfolded.
A transparent glass dome roof filled the ceiling, and beyond it a deep blue sky spread out. Of course it was a fake sky and sunlight produced by items, but it looked unbelievably real.
Delicate golden patterns were carved into the arches, and the structures placed throughout revealed the care poured into this space.
As Cha Sahyeon and I walked along the path, butterflies of all kinds beat their wings and fluttered through the shafts of sunlight.
Even Cha Sahyeon, who hardly ever showed any expression, looked around in wonder at how painstakingly the garden was decorated.
I cut across a flowerbed overflowing with blooms and moved to the innermost part of the garden. By a small pond, a figure sitting on a large window frame came into view.
Roses and ivy that had grown around the ornament hung gently, and scattered petals on the ground lay like small ripples.
Amid the faint scent of water-soaked flowers, the sound of a fountain pen being set down reached my ears.
“Hyung.”
A composed, soft voice, as if he had known I would visit.
I clicked my tongue, released Cha Sahyeon’s hand, and stepped closer.
“Lee Seowon.”
Cotton-candy soft, pale pink hair. Pink irises the same color as his hair looked up at me from white skin.
“Long time, hyung. Roughly... two years, right?”
Lee Seowon smiled faintly.
I let out a short sigh and knelt on one knee in front of him, lowering myself a bit below his level.
“You never listen, do you. I told you not to use your skill.”
Lee Seowon’s skill was tremendous, but it was equally dangerous.
He stole glimpses of the future and wrote down the clues. How much life force was consumed depended on how much of the future he revealed to others.
It was what people commonly call a precognition ability—betting his health and life on it.
Seeing Lee Seowon, I could painfully feel what Chronos meant by the “price.”
Even witnessing it cost a toll, and sharing it with others piled the toll on further. That price was always life force.
“You saw everything that happened at the Association this time, right? You were the one watching me this whole time?”
“Yeah.”
“Did you do it because you wanted to?”
The worst part was that Lee Seowon’s skill sometimes activated without his will.
So he spent most of his time asleep.
This garden—so meticulously and unnaturally beautiful it made the eyes doubt them—was in fact a large sickroom designed to replenish a little of the life force Lee Seowon spent.
Representative Seo and the brothers didn’t come to this garden unless it was serious. They didn’t want to wake Seowon and risk his skill triggering.
They only set foot here if Seowon himself called. Like now.
Understanding the meaning behind my question, Seowon nodded with a smiling face.
“Don’t worry. I did it because I wanted to.”
“That’s what makes it more worrying.”
I felt the muscles around my brow clench on their own.
“Even if we accept that Mook Jeongho caused the commotion at the Association, why were you spying on me? Why use your skill to see my future? Using up energy you’d saved for two years.”
Lee Seowon listened calmly, closed his eyes slowly, and opened them again. For a moment, under his long lashes, a golden flash passed through his eyes.
“...Because it’s necessary.”
He lifted his head slightly and looked past me. I followed his gaze.
There stood Cha Sahyeon, expressionless, gazing straight at me with green eyes and wearing a choker.
Only then did it hit me belatedly.
‘Lee Seowon has never once questioned Cha Sahyeon’s existence.’
Come to think of it, he had told Mook Jeongho that Cha Sahyeon was safe and could be brought into the district.
Representative Seo gave the order, but it was clear who had advised him to tell Mook Jeongho to do so.
A bad premonition rose in me. I quickly grabbed Seowon’s wrist and demanded,
“How far did you see?”
The question came out reflexively and then reason rushed back.
“No. Wait. Don’t answer.”
A chilling shiver crawled up my spine.
If Lee Seowon had seen something connected to Cha Sahyeon—or a future entangled with the Catastrophe—then the moment he spoke it aloud a massive amount of life force would leak out. Perhaps just seeing it had already shaved decades off his life.
‘You saw it because it was necessary?’
He claimed he’d seen it of his own will, not because his skill activated against him.
“Why? Why would you do that? This isn’t your fight. I—”
“Hyung.”
Seowon cut off my flustered interrogation with a calm expression.
“I’ve been waiting for the day you’d come. For today.”
“What?”
“Don’t worry. I can endure. That’s why I slept as much as possible for two years.”
The strength went out of my grip on his hand on its own.
Seowon’s pale hand, freed, rose and lightly rested on my shoulder. He whispered in a low voice.
“Hyung. This is the last chance. There won’t be a next.”
“You...”
What did he mean he could endure? Since when had he known this situation? Why would he burn his life to help me?
There were so many questions I wanted to press him on, but my throat tightened and no words came.
Seowon waited quietly while I twisted my face and fell silent.
“......”
It was an unexpected hand offered by an unexpected person.
To have the Catastrophe Cha Sahyeon beside me and chase after those cultists. To stop the scheduled catastrophe.
All of that was the mission the System had given me, and even without the System it was my vow to accomplish in this life.
I had accepted that the S-ranks—the “leads” the System assigned—were inevitable, but I thought the people of C-281 district had nothing to do with it.
But...
‘Somewhere along the line, something began to go wrong.’
Representative Seo and the brothers had become repeatedly entangled in this incident, contrary to my plan.
Whose intention was that? Or was the C-281 district itself connected to this incident from the start?
If so... where did it begin? Was it tied to things I hadn’t noticed before my regression?
The speculation I had avoided became reality before my eyes.
In the end I asked Seowon in a low voice.
“You want me to ask you—out loud, with my own mouth—to tell me a future whose backlash I don’t even know how big?”
“You can’t die right now, hyung.”
Seowon’s eyes shone clearer than ever.
“And the people around you can’t either.”
It felt like a cold awl piercing my heart.
The people around me—did he mean the leads?
“...Are you ready, hyung?”
I couldn’t answer easily and looked up at Seowon. I didn’t want to admit it, but there was only one path.
“Okay.”
Nothing had been resolved.
Seowon could only tell me a sliver, and considering his life I couldn’t press him recklessly.
Nodding quietly, Seowon picked up his fountain pen.
“After I use the skill I’ll pass out, so I’ll warn you ahead of time. Tonight, move exactly as you intended. Tonight—make sure it’s tonight.”
No sooner had he finished speaking than he closed his eyes.
His face quickly drained of color. Cold sweat beaded on his white brow, and the hand holding the fountain pen rose.
Like a puppet pulled by invisible strings, his hand moved.
The pen traced words in the air. Wherever the nib passed, a golden line was drawn.
Those lines connected and the letters formed.
“Receive the shining fragment from the collaborator in the darkness.”
“On the night when the moon is perfectly full the path will open.”
“If six footsteps do not gather, that path will lead to death.”
And finally an address pointing to a specific place.
The golden script etched in the air slowly moved. It clung to the clean sheet of paper on the windowsill where Seowon sat and turned into ordinary handwriting.
“Cough...!”
As the skill ended, Seowon coughed harshly. Blood seeped through the hand that covered his mouth and his upper body went limp.
“Lee Seowon!”
I hurried up and supported his staggering body.
Seowon breathed roughly in my arms and closed his eyes. His corpse-pale face was drenched in cold sweat.
“...Hyung.”
“Shut up.”
I ground my teeth and pressed the call button nearby. But Seowon didn’t stop speaking.
Holding my clothing with trembling fingers as if to make me listen properly, he moved his colorless lips.
“You have to be careful.”
“You brat.”
“That person...”
Seowon forced his eyelids up and looked straight at me, speaking clearly.
“Ryu, Sunghyun... that person. Be careful, hyung.”

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