Uhyon once again saw the same dream he had the night before. The same events, the same ending point, and then—darkness swallowed everything, leaving him trapped in a pitch-black void. Slowly, he opened his eyes. His body craved more sleep, and he longed to close his eyes again, but around him there was nothing but thick, suffocating darkness.
In such a state, even his mind could not rest. Uhyon wished he had some sleeping pills, but he both had school lessons ahead and no such medicine in the house—he had never needed them before.
Dazed, he stood up and walked into the bathroom, splashing his face with icy water. On the first wash, his hand brushed against his scar, and at once a sharp jolt of clarity struck him. Strangely enough, what cold water couldn't do, pain accomplished instantly.
The next two times he washed his face more carefully. Then he walked into the kitchen, picked up the green apple he had bought yesterday, and started eating. Still, he couldn't shake off his frustration at failing to see the dream clearly this time.
Suddenly, a thought sparked in his mind. Looking back, he realized that far too many strange things had been happening to him. Then, he began to wonder:
"If I combine all these mysterious events, maybe I'll find the truth. But if too many pile up, I won't be able to remember them all."
He stepped into his study room and grabbed the old notebook he hadn't used for a while. Normally, he used it for scribbles and drafts, so he tore out the messy first pages before sitting down with a pen.
He wrote at the top:
List of Strange Things
1. The scar, its growth
2. The unknown savior
3. Sudden changes in emotions
4. Monsters' fear of me
"Poison… should I write something about poison? Teleportation, maybe?"
When no further ideas came, Uhyon simply wrote down:
5. Poison's teleportation
"Oh, right, there was also this…"
6. The mysterious annihilating light
7. The Innocent Sinner
8. Possession of the Hunters' system
9. Strange dreams
Finally, he realized he had forgotten the oldest and perhaps most important one:
10. Two weeks of continuous sleep
He put the pen down and thought.
"How are they connected?"
He began dividing them into groups.
Group 1: The scar, Sudden changes in emotions, Strange dreams, and Two weeks of continuous sleep.Group 2: Monsters' fear, Poison's teleportation, and the mysterious annihilating light.Group 3: The Innocent Sinner and Possession of the Hunters' system.
Uhyon raised his eyebrows. The first group was strongly interconnected, with three of them still ongoing. But that wasn't the main point.
Two of the three groups were related to Hunters and magic. They stood out much more compared to the rest. For a sixteen-year-old boy, this was beyond strange.
"What, am I going to awaken some kind of magical power soon?" he thought.
But the real issue was different. He didn't know where to place the "The unknown savior." There was nothing he could connect it to. The only thing he knew was the surveillance footage shown by Mr. Feng.
"Is he good? Or evil? Strong? Magical? Why did he help me? What does he want from me?" These questions consumed his thoughts. Yet, Uhyon assumed he was good—after all, he had saved him.
"Whatever the case, he's gone now anyway."
His stomach growled with hunger, but Uhyon ignored it. He still had schoolwork undone. The homework wasn't much, but he had to do it now—he knew that if he delayed it, procrastination would defeat him.
Procrastination—it wasn't simply laziness. It was when someone says, "I'll do it later," while fooling themselves endlessly, pushing tasks further and further. The worst part was that many people wasted entire years delaying even the simplest things.
"If you don't fight procrastination, you'll live with it forever, never accomplishing anything—like you live for eternity or immortal."
A strange resistance stirred within him after this thought. He didn't know why, but it felt unusual. Normally, he accepted facts without question, but this time something within him refused.
Even stranger, it didn't feel like this resistance belonged to him. It was as though another personality had awakened inside, one completely opposite to his own.
After thinking for a long while, Uhyon added another line to his "List of Strange Things":
11. Opposing Personality
But since it was unclear, he corrected it slightly:
11. Opposing Personality?
Satisfied, he glanced at the clock. It read 05:17.
"Damn it. I still haven't done my homework."
Hurriedly, Uhyon grabbed his school bag and began working on the assignments from the previous day.
In South Korea, students usually completed their homework on the same day. Uhyon was no exception. He started from mathematics and worked his way through to Magical Biology.
Despite the increasing difficulty of the math problems, he solved them with ease—but it was unbearably boring. To him, mathematics was nothing more than the "art of calculation," while others revered it as the "queen of sciences."
In truth, What mattered in life were its methods of calculation and algorithms — at worst, complex formulas. Physics and astronomy were exceptions—they used the "art of calculation" to understand the world.
Additionally, Uhyon believed that mathematics wasn't something that truly existed; it was only a concept humans invented to make life easier. Physics, however, was real—it was nature itself. This idea was a bit flawed, but it was undeniable that physics studied reality.
Finishing the tedious math, he moved on to Magical Biology. He wrote summaries, took notes, and read the information. Yesterday, he hadn't believed his teacher's words, but the textbook convinced him: monsters had no intestines, kidneys, or reproductive organs.
The book even cited scientific studies and experiments, which Uhyon easily accessed by scanning the references. As he scrolled through a report on his phone, an image caught his eye—an humanoid monster, laid bare without any coverings.
Though many might call it indecent or disturbing, it was nothing of the sort. There was nothing sexual about it—it simply showed smooth skin without reproductive features.
The next image revealed a dissection. Though grotesque at first glance, there was a strange order to it. Instead of intestines, there was an enlarged stomach and additional muscles—muscles humans didn't have.
"Hm. A design for better movement. An 'evolution' of sorts."
For some reason, the word evolution made Uhyon uneasy. As he wondered why, it clicked:
Again? Less than an hour had gone by, and another opposition to his own thoughts rose up. Could this be another manifestation of that condition — DID (Dissociative Identity Disorder)?
The resistance whispered a barely audible "no," so weak that the motives he tried to name broke apart into scattered pieces in his mind. Still, Uhyon dug into the question and at last unearthed a clear answer.
"Hey idiot, without reproductive organs, they can't even reproduce."
The simplicity of the answer made him feel foolish for wasting seconds pondering. Of course—that was why. While kids his age obsessed over sports and martial arts, he spent his time buried in studies, completely detached from others. In short, a "nerd."
He thought about how unimpressive he seemed compared to others, then smirked slightly. He had read too many books, novels, and webnovels.
"If I were the main character of a webnovel—or even just a side character—that novel would probably be the dullest one ever written. Or maybe I'd just be unbearably boring for everyone else."
Even as his eyes scanned the images of monster organs, his mind was lost in such thoughts. But then, a spark lit in his mind, pulling his focus back to the creatures.