Transmigrated as the Side Top used as an Emotional Trash Can - Chapter 79.2
When the ahjumma spotted us, her eyes widened and her expression brightened. Maybe she had been wandering the forest for a long time, because her voice was hoarse. She cleared her throat a few times, then spoke to us warmly.
“What are you students doing here?”
My body froze at the word ‘students.’
A sudden sense of reality pressed down over my entire body.
It was the Jangsanbeom.
When I turned around, Cha Gwonhyeok was gone.
I made eye contact with the white-furred monster and died again.
“Even the ahjumma was an illusion….”
Looking closely, the back of her head hadn’t been fully formed and was wavering indistinctly.
Self-reproach came before anger. My emotions receded, and only my sharpened reason filled my head as it tried to analyze the situation.
“I got too complacent.”
The mistaken assumption that the Jangsanbeom couldn’t use ventriloquism. The mistaken assumption that I understood Cha Gwonhyeok to some degree. The mistaken assumption that I was playing this game well enough without much trouble.
“What am I missing right now?”
The more information I gathered after coming here, the more tangled everything felt. One situation after another made it impossible to stay calm no matter how much I tried. Every time I revived, I gained new information, but I couldn’t tell how much of it was actually useful.
If I gathered information, there should at least be some part of it I could use, but all I was doing was accumulating information without being able to apply it to the situation. I couldn’t even see anywhere to apply it. At this rate, I wouldn’t get out even if I died hundreds of times.
“Am I gathering information in the wrong direction?”
Out of habit, I had only been thinking about ways to deal with the Jangsanbeom. I needed to stop observing the target and looking for its weaknesses.
“Trying to conquer it was the problem.”
The goal of this game was escape.
I needed to find the exit.
When I woke up again, I stood the bicycle up and observed my surroundings.
If the goal wasn’t to leave the forest but to escape, could there be some clearly defined exit?
“Baek Hanrim.”
Kim Jihwan’s voice came, but I ignored it. So it was Kim Jihwan at the starting point, and Cha Gwonhyeok near the water.
“Hey, over here, over here. Can’t you hear me?”
I can hear you, I’m just ignoring you. I finished a rough survey of the area and got on the bicycle.
“I’m sick of Kim Jihwan now, so come out as someone else.”
“What? Are you fucking crazy?”
Now it even swears.
It really does evolve with every loop. Without listening any further, I started riding.
I managed to casually ignore this Kim Jihwan and lose him. He probably wasn’t the real Kim Jihwan anyway, so I figured there was no reason to feel guilty.
As I rode along, I saw a guy running somewhere.
“Excuse me!”
He flinched when I called out to him, then ran even faster.
“I’m not the Jangsanbeom! I’m human!”
Ring- Ring-.
I rang the bicycle bell to prove I was human.
“Aagh! Stop that!”
But he only looked pained and sped up. It seemed like chasing him from behind would go on forever, so I overtook him with the bicycle and showed myself.
“See, I’m human, right?”
“…Go away. Turn back.”
“Before that, let me ask you something.”
He didn’t listen and only glared at the bicycle bell. He eventually even tried to punch it, so I stopped him. When my hand was about to touch him, he finally recoiled warily.
“No, use your words. Your words.”
“Th-This noisy thing…!”
“Sorry. I was in a hurry.”
After fuming for quite a while, the guy regained his composure and spoke.
“There’s a Jangsanbeom in this forest. Only one, but it’s so fast that it appears and disappears out of nowhere, so be careful.”
“I managed to lose it even on a bicycle, though?”
He sighed as though frustrated. Then he swung the fist he had been keeping clenched through the air. It was the same fist he had been clenching ever since he was running.
“That’s how the Jangsanbeoms here operate! They toy with you! For fun! They make us their playthings!”
A hollow laugh escaped me.
After being fooled over and over by elaborate, meticulous lies, I had finally gotten a feel for it. I needed to look at the circumstances, not the contents of what was being said.
“I see. But how old are you?”
“W-What?”
The man, flustered by my out-of-nowhere question, answered.
“I’m nineteen. Look, I’m wearing a school uniform!”
I examined his uniform and said.
“That’s a gakuran. People don’t wear those these days.”
(T/N: A Japanese-style black stand-collar school uniform. These were also worn by schoolboys back during the Japanese occupation of Korea.)
The man flinched and froze.
Then his face turned bright red.
It was the face of a person stained with agitation, embarrassment, and humiliation. It was so detailed that I probably would’ve been fooled no matter how cautious I was. So it really could use human emotions as easily as anything.
“I-I can wear whatever I want! What’s it got to do with you?!”
“It has plenty to do with me. But could you open your fist? Your fingers look like they’re wavering a little.”
I pointed at the fist he had kept clenched the entire time. The man hurriedly hid it behind his body.
“And first you said ‘one Jangsanbeom,’ then you said ‘Jangsanbeoms’…. Pick one. Singular or plural.”
“What the hell are you trying to do?”
I looked at the man, who seemed furious.
Then I reached for the bicycle bell. He had clearly looked distressed when I rang it earlier. He had even tried to punch it.
Ring- Ring-.
“Aagh!”
The man screamed in pain.
As I thought, the Jangsanbeom hated the sound of the bicycle bell. That explained why the Cha Gwonhyeok at the waterfall had screamed the first time.
“So this is your weakness?”
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