Ding.
The elevator doors opened.
When Sang-hyeok stepped onto the floor containing the hotel restaurant, a host approached him.
“You’re Mr. Kim Sang-hyeok, correct? Your companion arrived before you.”
The host turned.
Yoon Chae-rin, who had been sitting beside the lounge window, rose from her seat.
A beige jacket and neatly tied long hair.
Other than the small ornaments on her ears, she wore no accessories that stood out.
Even so, the gazes around her naturally followed.
Even the host walking ahead slowed by half a step after glancing at Yoon Chae-rin.
Yoon Chae-rin was, by anyone’s standards, a beautiful woman.
Sang-hyeok had no intention of denying that either.
Before his regression, he had not even been able to look directly at her face.
Whenever she smiled and called his name, not only his face but even his earlobes turned red, and if she stepped even a little closer, he would subtly avert his gaze.
Yet whenever she asked him something, his desire to look good in front of her made him reveal even personal matters she had never asked about.
It had been the same after he was classified as a Conditional Awakened.
That he was searching for his Manifestation Condition.
That he had failed another test.
And that someday, no matter what, he would definitely become a player.
Yoon Chae-rin knew that all she had to do was smile a little and ask, and Sang-hyeok would tell her anything.
“You’re here?”
Yoon Chae-rin smiled faintly.
The old Sang-hyeok would have been slow to answer even because of that one smile.
“Yeah.”
Sang-hyeok answered briefly.
Yoon Chae-rin studied his calm face, so different from before, for a moment before following the host deeper inside.
The two entered the private room the host opened for them and sat facing one another across the table.
After placing a menu in front of each of them, the employee quietly left.
Click.
Once the door closed, the clatter of dishes and piano music from the outer hall became faint.
Yoon Chae-rin opened the menu.
“Like I said last time, let’s talk about us over lunch today.”
“Sure.”
“There isn’t anything you can’t eat, is there?”
“You choose, Chae-rin.”
“You’re the same as before.”
The smile on Yoon Chae-rin’s lips deepened slightly.
“When I picked something for you, you always ate it without saying anything.”
“I did.”
Sang-hyeok lifted his water glass and took a sip.
Yoon Chae-rin waited for him to continue, but even after setting down the glass, Sang-hyeok said nothing.
After a short silence, she lowered her gaze to the menu.
She chose the food and pressed the call button.
After the employee took their order and left, Yoon Chae-rin looked at Sang-hyeok again.
“You look much better.”
“Do I?”
“Yes. I was a little surprised at the verification site too.”
Yoon Chae-rin looked directly into Sang-hyeok’s eyes.
There was a warmth in her voice that she had never normally shown when speaking to him.
“You looked very different from the Sang-hyeok I knew.”
“I stopped drinking.”
“I don’t think that was all.”
She neatly folded both hands on the table.
As she leaned forward, the distance between them narrowed.
It had been like this before as well.
Whenever Yoon Chae-rin asked him something, she would come close and smile like this.
Faced with that smile, Sang-hyeok would avoid her gaze and still end up giving her the answer she wanted.
“Are you helping with Ilseong’s work these days?”
“Only when there’s something I need to help with.”
“Was that why you were in the technical area at the verification site?”
“There was something I could help with.”
“I didn’t know you were interested in equipment, Sang-hyeok.”
Yoon Chae-rin did not press him.
She lifted her water glass as though waiting for Sang-hyeok to add more on his own.
But Sang-hyeok offered no further explanation.
A short silence followed.
Yoon Chae-rin put down her glass.
“By any chance.”
Her voice became a little softer.
“Did you find your Manifestation Condition?”
Rumors that Sang-hyeok had recently awakened were already spreading little by little.
If he denied even that now, it would only deepen suspicion.
What he needed to hide was the true nature of his trait and the fact that he was the private player who had achieved the Impossible Achievements.
“I did.”
Yoon Chae-rin’s eyes widened slightly.
“Really?”
“Yeah. I awakened.”
“Congratulations.”
A bright smile spread across her face.
It was the expression Sang-hyeok before his regression had wanted to see so many times.
Now, however, he felt nothing.
Sang-hyeok still remembered the look in Yoon Chae-rin’s eyes the last time she had looked at him after Ilseong collapsed.
There was no reason anymore to attach another meaning to that smile.
“What trait is it?”
The expected question came.
“I don’t intend to tell you.”
Yoon Chae-rin’s smile stopped ever so slightly.
“Not even me?”
She smiled again as she added,
“We’re engaged, aren’t we?”
Sang-hyeok’s gaze dropped to her left hand.
An engagement ring rested on her slender finger.
Following his gaze, Yoon Chae-rin also looked down at the ring.
Her finger slowly stroked its smooth surface.
“Thinking about it, I suppose I’ve been very indifferent.”
“Suddenly?”
“Even after our families arranged the engagement, we hardly ever met properly.”
She paused as if choosing her words.
“I almost never contacted you first, and I never really tried to find out how you were doing.”
“That’s true.”
“We barely spent any time getting to know each other either.”
Her voice softened another degree.
“What if we gradually spend more time together from now on?”
“Spend more time together?”
“Have meals sometimes. Talk about what each of us is doing.”
She looked at Sang-hyeok and smiled faintly.
“I want to properly learn what kind of person you are too, Sang-hyeok.”
Instead of answering, Sang-hyeok quietly looked at her smile.
Her intention had been obvious from the moment she brought it up.
She had just confirmed that he had awakened and probed whether he had been involved in repairing Ilseong’s equipment.
“To do that, I’d like you to open up a little too, Sang-hyeok.”
“You want me to open up?”
“Yes. We should start by reducing the things we hide from each other.”
They were words he could never even have imagined before his regression.
Sang-hyeok asked,
“Even before you knew I awakened.”
Yoon Chae-rin’s finger stopped on the engagement ring.
“Did you want to know me better then too?”
The smile on her lips froze for an instant.
Yoon Chae-rin looked silently at Sang-hyeok before slowly restoring her faint smile.
“Isn’t it more important to get to know each other from now on than to ask how things were in the past?”
“You’re avoiding the answer.”
“You can’t divide a person’s feelings so neatly into before and after.”
“What I asked was simple.”
Sang-hyeok looked into her eyes.
“Were you interested in me even before I awakened?”
Yoon Chae-rin’s hand moved from the engagement ring to her water glass.
“Back then, you wouldn’t let anyone get close to you, Sang-hyeok.”
“Did you ever try to come close, Chae-rin?”
Her fingers stiffened around the glass.
Sang-hyeok did not press her for an answer.
Looking back, he could count on one hand the number of times Yoon Chae-rin had contacted him first.
Even when he repeatedly failed manifestation tests, drowned himself in alcohol, and shut himself inside his room, she had never once come to see him.
“That was my fault.”
Yoon Chae-rin was the first to break the silence.
“That’s why I’m saying I’ll try from now on.”
“Because I changed?”
“If you’ve changed, then our relationship can change too.”
“But I’m the only one who changed.”
Yoon Chae-rin’s lips closed briefly.
“I can change too.”
The Sang-hyeok before his regression would have been shaken by that sentence alone.
He would have taken her words at face value, believing she too would work for their relationship and that the two of them still had a chance.
But the current Sang-hyeok already knew how this relationship ended.
He also clearly remembered whose side Yoon Chae-rin had stood on after Ilseong collapsed.
“There’s no need.”
Sang-hyeok looked down at his left hand.
An engagement ring matching Yoon Chae-rin’s was on his finger.
He pushed it off with his thumb.
Tap.
The ring landed between them.
“I have no intention of continuing this relationship.”
Yoon Chae-rin’s gaze slowly rose from the ring to Sang-hyeok.
“Sang-hyeok.”
“Let’s break off the engagement.”
The smile disappeared from her face.
The hand wrapped around her water glass tightened.
“Are you serious right now?”
“Yeah.”
“I came here today because I wanted us to start properly getting to know one another.”
“I know.”
“And even knowing that, you still want to end it?”
“Even if you say you’ll try now, Chae-rin, my mind won’t change.”
Yoon Chae-rin could not answer immediately.
She studied his face for a long while, as though trying to determine whether Sang-hyeok was testing her.
But his expression did not waver in the slightest.
Only then did she set down her glass.
“Why?”
“I don’t want to continue this relationship anymore.”
“That’s all?”
“If I don’t intend to marry you, do I need another reason?”
Yoon Chae-rin pressed her lips together for a moment.
“Had you already decided before coming here today?”
“Yeah.”
“So you came from the beginning intending to tell me the engagement was over.”
“That’s right.”
Her expression hardened at the short answer.
“This isn’t only a matter between the two of us. Both families agreed on this engagement.”
“But we’re the ones getting married. If I have no intention of marrying you, the engagement has to end.”
“What are you planning to tell our families?”
“We can say we mutually agreed because of personality differences.”
“I haven’t agreed to that.”
Sang-hyeok pushed the ring toward her.
“Then I suppose we’ll have to tell them the real reason.”
“What reason?”
Sang-hyeok looked directly at Yoon Chae-rin.
“Kang Tae-oh.”
Yoon Chae-rin, who had been lightly biting her lower lip, froze.
After looking at Sang-hyeok for a moment, she composed her expression.
“Why is Director Kang’s name coming up here?”
“I’m talking about what kind of relationship you and he have.”
“He’s only my superior in the same department.”
“Is that really all?”
“Nothing more and nothing less.”
“Then you can say that in front of the elders of both families too, right?”
“Are you suspecting something between Director Kang and me?”
“Then let’s call Kang Tae-oh too. If necessary, we can have both legal teams attend.”
The last of Yoon Chae-rin’s composure disappeared.
“Sang-hyeok, do you know what you’re saying?”
“I do.”
“If you connect Director Kang and me without evidence, both families will be put in an awkward position. Ilseong and Taeseong could both be dragged into rumors.”
“We can find out whether there’s evidence by checking the messages the two of you exchanged.”
Yoon Chae-rin could not immediately refute him.
She studied Sang-hyeok’s face as though trying to determine how much he knew, but he told her nothing more.
“What would you gain by making this so big?”
“Nothing. I want to end it quietly too.”
“Then what are you suggesting?”
“Publicly, we say we mutually agreed to separate because of personality differences.”
Sang-hyeok continued calmly.
“But separately, we sign a confidential agreement. It states that responsibility for ending the engagement lies with you and that compensation will be paid accordingly. Only the legal representatives of both families need to see it.”
“That means I’d be admitting fault.”
“That’s right.”
“Why should I sign an agreement like that?”
“If you don’t want to, we can tell both families everything.”
Sang-hyeok leaned back in his chair.
“If you and Kang Tae-oh really have nothing between you, then there’s nothing to hide.”
Yoon Chae-rin slowly straightened the crooked edge of her napkin as she steadied her breathing.
When she spoke again, her voice had become calm.
“So how much do you want?”
That was the end of her explanation regarding Kang Tae-oh.
The moment she asked for a price, her choice became clear.
She intended to cover the matter quietly.
“I don’t need money.”
Yoon Chae-rin’s eyebrow lifted slightly at the unexpected answer.
“Then what do you want?”
“<Spirit Vein Ring>.”
The fingers pressing down on the napkin stopped.
“Where did you hear that name?”
“Where I heard it isn’t important.”
“The fact that Taeseong owns it has never been made public.”
“But it is in your warehouse, isn’t it?”
Yoon Chae-rin’s eyes narrowed.
“That’s a cursed artifact. It drains all the mana from whoever wears it. Taeseong tried to remove the curse several times and failed every time.”
“I know.”
“And you’re asking for it even though you know?”
“Yeah.”
“Are you planning to wear it yourself?”
“Once it’s mine, what I do with it is my business.”
“If the curse can’t be removed, the Hero Grade label means nothing. Right now it’s a failed item no one can use.”
“Then Taeseong shouldn’t mind giving it up.”
Sang-hyeok looked into her eyes.
“Hand over the <Spirit Vein Ring>, and this ends here.”
Yoon Chae-rin did not answer immediately.
If she handed over a single cursed artifact sealed in a warehouse, she could prevent her relationship with Kang Tae-oh from being revealed to both families.
It was not a bad offer for her either.
“It belongs to Taeseong. I can’t make that decision at my level.”
“I know.”
Sang-hyeok looked toward her mobile phone.
“Ask Kang Tae-oh.”
Her expression hardened again.
“Why Director Kang?”
“You’re going to report what happened here to him anyway.”
Yoon Chae-rin stared at Sang-hyeok for a while.
“You want me to contact him right now?”
“Yeah.”
In the end, she picked up her mobile phone and rose from her seat.
“I’ll check with the company and come back.”
Until the end, she did not say she was going to contact Kang Tae-oh.
Sang-hyeok did not bother pointing it out.
The door quietly closed after Yoon Chae-rin left.
Sang-hyeok looked at the engagement ring lying in front of her seat.
Before his regression, Yoon Chae-rin had been the one to return her ring first.
Sang-hyeok had left empty-handed without even properly asking for a reason.
This time, Sang-hyeok had put down his ring first.
And when he left this room, he intended to take ownership of a Hero Grade artifact with him as well.
Not long afterward, the door opened.
Yoon Chae-rin placed her mobile phone face down on the table and sat.
“Approval was given to hand over the <Spirit Vein Ring>.”
None of the softness from the beginning remained in her voice.
“But there are conditions.”