Chapter 177: Choice
When I opened my eyes again amid the bright light, I found myself inside a maze.
There was no one around me.
The second trial was an individual challenge, after all.
I wasn’t used to the sudden silence.
There hadn’t been a single quiet day during the three years we spent in the Fragment’s trial.
The explosions from battles and the sounds of the others bickering with each other.
Suddenly, I found myself worrying about Park Siwoo and the others.
They’d be fine, right?
The first trial could somehow be cleared as long as you kept trying until you succeeded.
But the second trial was a little different.
It was a trial that forced you to reaffirm your sense of self and retrace the deeds of your past.
The process wouldn’t exactly be pleasant.
It would be even harder for those with past trauma, like Helena and Eunha.
Originally, challengers were supposed to undergo this trial after spending three years at the Academy, experiencing numerous incidents, growing not only in strength but also mentally, and ultimately establishing a complete sense of self.
But these guys were different, weren’t they?
I clicked my tongue.
Who was I to worry about anyone else right now?
I had enough problems of my own.
There was nothing I could do for them.
All I could do was trust that they would overcome it themselves.
I stared down the long passage of the maze.
Dense darkness hung at the end of the seemingly endless corridor.
Games and reality were different.
To be honest, I couldn’t predict exactly how the trial would test me.
In the game, it had merely been presented in a question-and-answer format for convenience.
The actual depiction of what the characters experienced had been somewhat different.
I slowly began walking down the corridor.
I’d find out once I experienced it myself.
After walking for a while, white mist began rising from the floor.
I continued forward without stopping.
The farther I went, the denser the mist in the corridor became.
Soon, the mist swallowed the entire passage, leaving me unable to see even an inch ahead.
Even so, I continued walking without stopping.
At some point, the mist gradually began to thin.
At the same time, the scenery changed.
I was no longer inside the maze.
The trial had begun.
“……This place.”
It was familiar.
Rows of trees stretched ahead alongside streetlights.
The faint glow emitted by the streetlights dimly illuminated the surroundings.
Dense darkness covered everything around me.
Memories of the past that I had buried deep inside began resurfacing.
This was my trauma.
Clang! Bang! Rumble!
Not far away, violent sounds of destruction rang out as though something was engaged in a fierce battle.
My heartbeat began pounding as loudly as the explosions.
I slowly moved forward.
This was obviously fake.
It was something that had already passed and been resolved.
And yet I couldn’t calm myself.
As I passed a massive tree, the scene from that time was reproduced exactly.
“You’re so small and weak!”
The Demon Kedlak’s enormous hand came crashing down toward Seo Da-hee.
She raised her shield and blocked it.
Seo Da-hee’s knees buckled violently.
Releasing her Mana, she knocked Kedlak’s hand away.
At the same time, Mana gathered at the tip of her lance.
It became a single beam of light and pierced into him.
“Gah!”
A groan burst from Kedlak after taking the attack head-on.
His body stiffened.
Seo Da-hee didn’t miss the opportunity and continued her barrage.
Her gaze turned toward me.
Her eyes seemed to be telling me to hurry up and get out of here.
Grit.
I realized what question the trial had given me.
【Choose the action you took in this situation.】
【Save Seo Da-hee. / Betray Seo Da-hee.】
If this were the game, a message like that would probably have appeared before my eyes.
But reality wasn’t a game.
In other words, the trial wanted me to reenact exactly what I had done back then.
A thin stream of blood trickled from my tightly clenched fist.
What a cruel trial.
In some ways, it tormented people even more than the first or third trials.
I remembered this section being nothing more than irritating and tedious in the game.
Now I understood why countless challengers of the Fragment had failed to escape the maze and wandered here endlessly.
Even if you knew the answer, how could anyone bring themselves to choose it?
“Haa…….”
How many more shitty questions like this would I have to endure?
I brushed back the hair covering my eyes.
It had to be done.
My turbulent emotions cooled.
One of my arms turned black with Demonic Energy.
I concealed my presence and approached slowly.
Seo Da-hee was still fighting the Demon Kedlak.
Kedlak’s relentless attacks pressured her.
Come to think of it, Seo Da-hee had been like that back then.
With the strength she possessed at the time, she couldn’t even defeat a single high-ranking Demon.
I could see her back.
My straightened hand was further reinforced with Demonic Energy.
Thrust!
Just as I had back then, my hand pierced through Seo Da-hee’s chest and crushed her heart.
Seo Da-hee’s head turned toward me at the same moment.
She stared at me as though she couldn’t comprehend what had just happened.
“Seongwoo, why did you……?”
My heart sank at the betrayal in her eyes.
But unlike back then, I didn’t avoid her gaze.
The real Seo Da-hee was alive.
This was nothing more than a moment from the past.
It wasn’t real.
Sssssss-.
Yoo Iseo before me dissolved into white smoke.
As the mist dispersed, I found myself standing in the maze corridor once again.
I had answered the first question correctly.
I stared at the hand that had stabbed Seo Da-hee.
The Demonic Energy and Seo Da-hee’s blood had disappeared, yet it still felt as though the sensation remained in my hand.
I clenched my fist.
I felt like shit.
“Fuck.”
My feet refused to move.
Especially because I could imagine what kind of scene would appear next.
Even so, I had to keep going.
We had already spent more than enough time on the first trial.
Once again, I began walking into the seemingly endless maze.
White mist slowly crept upward.
I continued answering the questions the trial threw at me.
Every single one of them was shitty, but none shocked me as much as the first.
From trivial moments in my past to the consequences of the choices I had made.
All sorts of illusions flickered before my eyes.
The young Demons I had spared when infiltrating the Daeho Guild.
They had failed to escape their Fate.
Consumed by Demonic Energy, they attacked the Association members who had turned them into what they were and were eventually subjugated.
I also saw Park Min-seo, who had been sacrificed for a Demon Descent.
Even the Heavenly Demon appeared.
The trial became increasingly insidious.
It tempted me as though I could change the things I regretted from the past.
It even distorted my memories in an attempt to make me remain here.
But I didn’t fall for it.
No matter who appeared before me, I didn’t stop.
Eventually, the white mist subsided.
I paused briefly to catch my breath.
I could feel that the trial was finally approaching its end.
Soon.
If so, there was no reason to rest here.
I wanted to escape this place as quickly as possible.
I hastened my steps once more.
White mist began rising again.
Throb.
At that moment, I felt an unfamiliar pain in my chest.
It felt as though someone were searing my chest with fire.
A faint groan escaped me from the horrific pain.
In the end, I had no choice but to stop walking.
My body wouldn’t obey me.
I reached out, trying to brace myself against the wall.
But along with a dizzying sensation in my head, my sense of balance disappeared, and I collapsed onto the floor.
“What the hell is…….”
I could no longer maintain consciousness.
Beep- Beep-.
A steady electronic tone reached my ears.
“Sir! Sir!”
“Ugh…….”
Through my hazy consciousness, the strangely unfamiliar form of address bothered me.
Sir.
It was something I hadn’t heard even once since possessing a character in <Become a Hero>.
At that moment, my eyes were forcibly opened, accompanied by an unpleasant sensation against my eyelids.
A bright beam of light struck my pupils.
Startled, I screamed immediately.
“Gah!”
“Your pupil response is normal, and fortunately, you’ve regained consciousness. Sir, can you understand me?”
A man wearing a white coat over blue surgical scrubs waved his finger while staring at me.
My head seemed to turn cold in an instant.
This was a sight I could never forget.
The complicated machines surrounding the bed, along with the tubes and IV lines connected to my body.
A white room that looked like it could drive someone insane.
A hand as thin and dry as a dead branch entered my sight.
A wrist so thin that it was impossible to imagine it belonging to Yoo Seongwoo.
And yet, at the same time, this appearance was painfully familiar.
“What the hell…….”
The doctor sighed and spoke to me.
“You suddenly went into cardiac arrest. If the nurse hadn’t administered emergency treatment so quickly, things could have become very serious.”
I began piecing together the situation.
I had been undergoing the Fragment’s trial, and after suddenly experiencing excruciating pain, I opened my eyes to find myself back in the body from my previous life.
So what exactly had happened?
It was obvious.
This was the Fragment’s trial.
But how?
I knew the Fragment could project the past.
But my previous life?
Was something like that even possible?
A trial that was nothing more than content within the game world had recreated a world that existed outside of it.
To be honest, the current situation was so bewildering that I didn’t even know how to process it.
I raised my trembling hand and repeatedly opened and closed it.
My emaciated body felt like it would shatter from the slightest touch.
The tremendous strength that had filled my entire body just moments ago was completely gone.
This question was especially shitty.
It really felt as though I had returned to that time.
Forget Mana—I couldn’t even feel any strength in my body.
For a moment, I nearly found myself wondering whether my life at the Academy had actually been nothing more than a dream.
I sank into thought.
So what answer did the trial want from me this time?
Until now, the trial had asked me a single question through countless moments I had regretted.
Would I blind myself and choose a more pleasant illusion?
Or would I accept my past and move forward?
If so, why had the trial sent me back to this particular moment?
At that moment, the doctor who had continued talking beside me called out again.
“Please try to refrain from gaming as much as possible. Playing a little would be one thing, but once you start playing, you keep going for hours at a time, don’t you?
With your current physical condition, excessive gaming will only make your health worse.”
The moment I heard those words, something clicked in my mind.
Could it be?
Was that what this trial wanted to hear from me?
I forced my powerless body to move and pulled out the laptop stored beneath the bed.
Seeing this, the doctor shouted angrily.
“Sir! Are you even listening to me?”
“I’m not, so please be quiet for a second. There’s something I need to check.”
I pressed the power button, and the familiar startup sound of the laptop rang out.
The laptop turned on, and the familiar desktop greeted me.
And there, sitting among the icons, was the familiar game.
“As I thought.”
In one corner of the desktop was <Become a Hero>.
At the same time, I realized exactly what regret the trial had pulled from within me.
The choice I had made back then—
The choice to possess the Final Boss.
I immediately moved the mouse cursor and launched <Become a Hero>.
The game’s launch screen appeared along with its familiar background music.
When I pressed the Start Game button, the screen turned black before the playable character selection screen appeared.
Park Siwoo, Dan Chun-woo, Eunha, and a Hidden Playable Character concealed entirely in black.
When I clicked the mysterious Hidden Playable Character, another message window appeared.
It was a familiar message.
【If you select this character, the decision can never be reversed.】
【Do you still wish to play this character?】
【Y/N】
A hollow laugh escaped me.
Compared to every question I had faced until now, this was the easiest one to answer.