Chapter 62

[Synergy Apartments Emergency Notice]

Early in the morning, notifications kept arriving on the residents' exclusive app.

[Due to emergency repairs on the walking path, noise is expected for about a week. We kindly ask for your understanding.]

Curious about what was happening, Seo-un opened the app and found a mountain of complaint posts from residents. Among them, Seo-un watched several videos taken from different angles and covered her forehead.

“What the hell….”

The videos showed none other than Cha-haya and Eom-ji-geun wreaking havoc on the apartment's fountain and walking path.

└ 302: I saw it in real-time. Eom-ji-geun suddenly poured water from the fountain on Cha-haya. (Is the water quality of the fountain properly managed?) Cha-haya held back at first, but then Eom-ji-geun created a huge circular pool and trapped Cha-haya, so Cha-haya started to retaliate.

└ 2101: What did our private security company do?

└ 302: Watch the video; the fight lasted less than two minutes. What could the security company have done in that situation?

└ 1902: Eom-ji-geun is a resident, but how did Cha-haya get in?

└ 3102: The leader of the Tachun guild lives in our apartment. Cha-haya must have been a visitor.

└ 501: I'm sorry, but... If this incident causes the apartment value to drop, what will we do?

The usually quiet residents' bulletin board was in chaos due to yesterday's events. Seo-un then entered the Tachun guild messenger room, where she had turned off the notification settings.

Although it was a new room created by Kang-san when they first moved from Narak to Seoul, Seo-un rarely opened it. It was hard to keep up with their endless chatter, and a phone call was much more convenient for any business.

[Han Don-hee: Haha, Cha-haya and Eom-ji-geun had a fight!]

[Kang-san: What? When? I'm fishing right now, so I'm a bit late on the news.]

[Han Don-hee: Video]

[Kang-san: Oh, as expected of Cha-haya. Did Eom-ji-geun just lose?]

[Han Don-hee: Eom-ji-geun let him win, you idiot. Shut up and start the drama.]

[Yu-chan: Wow? Eom-ji-geun said he wants to join our guild, and I was going to recommend him. What do we do now?]

[Han Don-hee: What do we do? We have to kick out Cha-haya and accept Eom-ji-geun.]

[Yu-chan: o_ob]

Seo-un's read count decreased by one, but two others still showed as unread. One was in Narak, which was expected, and the other was Cha-haya.

Seo-un had almost stayed up all night, but she had no idea such an incident had occurred. She couldn't sleep due to the guy talking about self-pleasure, so she immediately plugged in her earphones and started filling her folder with deleted hit songs.

Even with noise cancellation on to focus on sleep, it didn't help much. She ended up putting her earphones in the charger and tossing and turning. She dozed off and woke up when someone opened the door.

Thinking it was only Cha-haya who could enter, she pretended to be asleep. She still felt embarrassed and worried he might make some nonsense, so she just closed her eyes.

She wondered if he had mistaken the room in a drunken state. She waited for him to sober up and leave, but there was no sign of movement for a long time. She could feel him lingering near the bed, but there was no sound of him leaving.

“I'm going crazy.”

Seo-un raised her hand and slapped her lips loudly.

Was it just a hallucination?

She might have had a strange dream because of the guy's weird talk. Yes, that must be it. It made more sense that way.

After a while, Seo-un gathered the courage to get out of bed. She peeked into the living room but didn't see Cha-haya.

Thinking he might be in the guest room, she tiptoed like a thief in her own home. The guest room door was open, but Cha-haya wasn't there. The shoes in the entrance were all hers.

It must have been a dream.

Cha-haya fought with Eom-ji-geun and went home, and I just had a dream...

Seo-un clutched her hair.

The sensation was too vivid. It felt like a sudden impact that made everything stop for a moment. Her skin was tingling from the shock.

Until now, the only physical contact she had ever had was a cheek kiss, but this was on the lips... and it was with Cha-haya.

Every time she recalled his breath and the soft touch, she doubted if it was just a vivid dream. But she wasn't that kind of person.

Here's a hypothesis:

1. Cha-haya, who was drunk, fought with Eom-ji-geun.

2. He came home and mistook me for his ex-girlfriend and kissed me.

3. When he sobered up, he realized he had kissed me and fled.

It seemed like a plausible scenario.

But would Cha-haya really run away if it was a mistake? He would probably laugh and say something like, "I accidentally kissed Seo-un's lips."

So, the most plausible hypothesis is that I'm a delusional person, and it was a realistic dream created by my imagination.

<To protect the Earth's inner core.>

...Inner core?

Is there a mutant that can destroy it?

<The 'Elephant Mole Rat Cha Seo-un' who can dig all the way to the Earth's inner core! It's all real.>

This time, confusion came out of her mouth before anger.

“...Why?”

The messenger couldn't know the reason, but she clung to this hope. But what if the messenger was lying?

<By abandoning the 'Master of Escape,' did I become the 'Master of Suspicion'?>

Then why?

The questions spread like ripples. It would be better to ask directly. Seo-un hurriedly found her phone and wrote a message to Cha-haya.

[Why did you kiss me? Were you drunk?]

She wrote it casually, but it was hard to press the send button.

[Hey, when did you leave?]

She deleted and rewrote it but couldn't send it.

[You crazy guy, you fought with Eom-ji-geun yesterday, right?]

In the end, she only sent a message about the practical issue, excluding the personal part.

***

Seo-un had to attend the apartment residents' meeting almost forcibly. As the owner, she couldn't be absent from an incident caused by a visitor, Cha-haya.

Sitting in the lounge accessible only to residents, Seo-un clung to her phone.

Cha-haya had not responded at all. Seo-un couldn't send any more messages or make calls after the last one.

“Not only a problem child, but also the worst. I'm sorry.”

Eom-ji-geun, who entered just before the meeting started, bowed repeatedly, apologizing.

“Yes, since those who were busy couldn't attend, we will proceed with the current number of people and report later.”

The resident representative, sitting at the head of the round table, raised his voice.

Although it was called a residents' meeting, only three people were present: Seo-un, Eom-ji-geun, and the representative.

“I, as the representative of the prestigious Synergy Apartments, will be straightforward. Last night, our residents were threatened. Fortunately, there were no casualties, but some residents are suffering from psychological shock. I would like to discuss how to address this.”

The representative, who seemed reluctant to take the lead, looked pale.

“Don't worry about that. I will cover all the repair costs, and I will provide any other compensation as well.”

Why is Eom-ji-geun offering to pay for everything? Seo-un found it odd that he wasn't blaming Cha-haya.

“And... Resident Cha Seo-un.”

The representative hesitated for a moment before calling Seo-un.

“Yes.”

“We plan to ban Cha-haya from entering our apartment complex. What do you think about this?”

Seo-un finally understood why only the representative was present.

If I, a Manseong, start ranting, the representative might break out in cold sweat. She hadn't realized that she might be a threat to them due to her lost combat abilities.

“Resident representative. I apologize for saying this, but yesterday's incident was entirely my fault. Cha-haya was just responding to my attack.”

Eom-ji-geun bowed again, taking all the blame. The representative looked a bit more relaxed when looking at Eom-ji-geun compared to Seo-un.

“To be honest, we all felt safe living in Synergy Apartments because of you and Eom-ji-geun. We didn't have to worry about mutants appearing in our complex.”

Synergy Apartments had experienced two Level 2 mutants: a cricket in the underground parking lot and a frog in the pond. Both were dealt with by Seo-un, not Eom-ji-geun, but he didn't make a fuss about it.

“But after yesterday's incident, the residents are expressing serious fear.”

The representative, who was most afraid of the two Manseongs, looked the most terrified.