Disciple of The Three Kings [EN]: Chapter 148

The Three Kings’ Disciple (149)

148

A guest came to see Ro-woon.

“You really must have nothing better to do.”

Even at Ro-woon’s joking words, the other person’s face didn’t change.

“Why is that guy Cheong-gwi [a nickname, possibly meaning ‘blue ghost’] always following me around?”

The guest, Lee Shin-woo, was looking at Ro-woon with a calm face.

A cold, detached face, unlike his usual self.

“What are you doing?”

Those were Lee Shin-woo’s first words to Ro-woon.

“What?”

At Ro-woon’s reply, as if he knew nothing, a crack appeared on Lee Shin-woo’s face for the first time.

Anger was rising within his cold expression.

“Dank!”

Lee Shin-woo shouted.

“Ro-woon!”

He called out his brother’s past name. However, what Lee Shin-woo was shouting about now was not the Ro-woon in front of him, not his past, but the protagonist of the story that started in Gyeonggi-do, the new Dank.

“Why are you letting it go?”

Lee Shin-woo approached roughly and stood in front of Ro-woon.

“You know who the opponent is, right?”

The new Dank and Ro-woon. Their actions were eerily identical to the past.

A detailed narrative that couldn’t be thought of as simply imitating Dank’s past. It was clear.

“It must be one of those bastards.”

It included things that only those who had seen Dank and Ro-woon up close would know.

“Why are you acting like this, unlike you?”

“I thought you would move.”

Lee Shin-woo spoke without even answering Ro-woon’s question.

“So I left it alone. The target you should unleash your anger on wasn’t me, but you.”

“……”

Ro-woon stared up at Lee Shin-woo.

“I thought that if they were to be killed, it shouldn’t be me, but you.”

So he left it alone.

Dank and Ro-woon. At first, people thought they were just someone impersonating him, but gradually, they were starting to believe that the new ones were real.

Above all, the face of the newly appeared Ro-woon looked very similar to the Ro-woon of the past.

With the Silver Reversal Technique [a technique to change one’s appearance], which could change one’s appearance at will, and plastic surgery due to advanced medicine, making one’s appearance similar was not a problem at all.

However, the new Ro-woon’s face was different from his past face. As if there was a reason for the change in his appearance. That gave people even more trust.

“Move before it’s too late.”

“Kill Ro-woon?”

A faint smile spread across Ro-woon’s lips.

“Why are you like that? You left Ro-woon in that state in the past too.”

“You bastard!”

Lee Shin-woo finally couldn’t hold back and grabbed Ro-woon by the collar, lifting him up.

Swoosh.

Small movements were felt from all directions. The shadows meant to protect Ro-woon were about to move at Lee Shin-woo’s sudden action.

It was something that had never been reported to Ro-woon before. However, as if he knew everything, Ro-woon looked somewhere.

“To say that now….”

The movements that were about to happen all disappeared.

Lee Shin-woo, who was holding Ro-woon by the collar, made a strange expression and then released his grip.

“If you don’t move, I will.”

Lee Shin-woo said as he turned around and walked out without hesitation, as if he had finished his business.

“Otherwise….”

A voice mixed with all sorts of emotions.

“You and I will have to face each other.”

Dank, Ro-woon. To protect the new ones, the current Lee Shin-woo had to move.

Thud.

The door closed. Lee Shin-woo was gone.

“……”

It wasn’t that he didn’t know why Lee Shin-woo was saying such things. In the past, Dank had become the center of many people’s attention, even without actively participating in the resistance.

With his unyielding passion, he was seen as a beacon of hope for players who were steeped in defeat.

Then Ro-woon disappeared.

“The embers that barely survived….”

The players and people lost their center and hope. In the many incidents that followed, people’s sense of defeat only deepened, and some even became afraid that they could end up like Ro-woon, who was trapped in the Mount Hua labor camp.

Now, people were naturally accepting the rule of Silver. In the midst of this, Dank and Ro-woon reappeared. As their activities gradually increased, people were seeing hope again.

In such a situation, if Ro-woon were to die.

“Does that mean they’ll disappear again?”

People would have to lose hope once more. As a member of the resistance, Lee Shin-woo would never tolerate that.

“What does that have to do with me?”

Ro-woon leaned back on the sofa. He sat like that for a long time.

***

“I believed in you.”

A hand reached out. He shook it without avoiding it.

“I’m a fan!”

People passing by recognized him.

“Are you really… that Dank? That Ro-woon?”

People with expressions of disbelief.

Smirk.

Ro-woon just smiled and shook their hands or greeted them. Even so, his steps were confidently moving forward.

“Waaah-!”

Small cheers could be heard. Ro-woon stood in front of the gate.

Small voices were caught by his developed hearing.

“But doesn’t he seem a lot different from before?”

“What do you mean?”

“I don’t know, he feels kind of arrogant?”

The voices were directed at Ro-woon.

“He feels cold.”

“What nonsense are you talking about?”

At the words that seemed to belittle Ro-woon, the person listening cursed harshly.

“You crazy bastard. If you went through something like that, it’s natural for a person to change.”

Ro-woon, who had been imprisoned in the Mount Hua corpse disposal site for the crime of murdering his comrades. The hardships he must have endured were unimaginable.

“Look.”

He said, pointing at Ro-woon.

“Even after going through something like that, he’s like that. If it were me, I would have become a crazy killer and killed everyone I came across.”

“R-really?”

“You’ll get stoned to death.”

As if he hadn’t heard the voices, Ro-woon threw himself into the gate with his companions.

“Have a safe trip!”

People cheered as if they were watching a hero’s departure. The world of Ro-woon and Dank had completely changed.

At the same time, Ro-woon’s face, which had been full of smiles and peace, had also changed.

Whack.

A roughly distorted face.

“You trashy bastards.”

Words poured out towards the people he had just been holding hands with and greeting.

“Shit.”

As if his hand had been tainted by something, he rubbed it roughly on his clothes.

“I feel like crap.”

Ro-woon took a rough step, completely different from outside the gate.

* * *

A hotel in Gyeonggi-do.

“Hoo.”

Ro-woon came out of the bathroom with only a towel around his waist, as if he felt refreshed. He roughly shook his head and sat down, looking out the window.

‘Ro-woon! Ro-woon!’

‘Dank!’

The people cheering for him. Their strange passion.

“That bastard must have felt like this every day?”

Ro-woon was smiling as he swirled a wine glass.

“Just what.”

But the moment the smile disappeared from his face.

Clang!

The wine glass shattered, sending shards flying everywhere.

“What was so great about that bastard.”

Ro-woon’s face was roughly distorted. It was as if something was wriggling inside him.

‘Ro-woon, Ro-woon.’

It was like that in the past too. Everyone was struggling and moving forward, but the only one people cheered for was that bastard.

-We’re not a resistance group.

His voice was still clear.

-But there’s no need not to do what we can do.

Hearing that pretentious voice made him want to throw up.

“Ro-woon….”

That name had followed him since childhood.

‘You’re Ro-woon’s friend, right?’

From the same orphanage. What was different between him and that guy that people’s attention was only on Ro-woon?

No one even paid attention to him, who was around him.

Ro-woon’s friend. Ro-woon’s colleague.

“Shit.”

That was what they called him.

That was why.

-Why!

The colleagues who had betrayed Ro-woon for their own reasons. Among them, only he was smiling.

Recalling the faces that were shouting for a reason made him feel refreshed, like he had just washed his body.

Thump.

The scars on his exposed upper body. These were also what the past Ro-woon had. He hated Ro-woon so much, but now that he had become Ro-woon, he felt a strange excitement, like a contradiction.

Click.

At that moment, the door opened and someone came in.

“Kim Jong-soo.”

At the name he heard, Ro-woon’s face distorted once again.

“You shouldn’t use that name.”

Ro-woon warned, holding back once. The other person flinched at the cold warning. But the other person soon continued.

“They say you’re doing well. They said to keep going like this. To become Ro-woon perfectly.”

It was then.

Bang!

The other person’s body hit the wall, making a loud noise. The hotel wall cracked and broke.

“Kuh!”

The other person groaned as if they were suffocating because their neck was being grabbed.

“Seo Ha-neul, don’t tell me what to do.”

Ro-woon said to the other person with burning eyes.

“I’m already doing well on my own.”

Ro-woon put more strength into the hand that was grabbing their neck.

“Come to think of it….”

The person in front of him.

“Was your reason for betrayal unrequited love?”

“Sh-shut… up….”

Seo Ha-neul. She was also a member of Dank in the past.

“How disgusting was the expression you made after betraying Ro-woon. Why did you feel guilty after doing it all together?”

“Sh-shut… up…!”

“You’ll break what you can’t have. It’s like something out of a third-rate drama….”

Bang!

Seo Ha-neul, who had been embedded in the wall, pushed Ro-woon’s body away.

“Yeah. That’s Seo Ha-neul.”

Ro-woon spoke like a madman at the sight of her eyes, which were full of venom.

“You trashy bastard.”

Seo Ha-neul spat out the words. Only then did Ro-woon smile and spread his hands.

“How is it? It’s the Ro-woon you liked so much. If it’s now….”

Slap!

She approached and slapped Ro-woon on the cheek.

“Don’t do anything foolish. They’re watching us. You don’t want to fall back into that mess, do you?”

“……”

“If you’re going to die, die alone. I don’t want to go back to that hell.”

Seo Ha-neul turned around and headed for the door, as if she had finished speaking.

“Mind your own business.”

A cold tone that was unbelievable for a colleague who had once shared everything.

Leaving behind the disappeared Seo Ha-neul, Ro-woon leaned back on the sofa again.

“Shit.”

The good mood was ruined again.

“Why….”

He thought that if that bastard disappeared, everything would go his way. That what he had would become his. If not, that guy would feel the same way he did.

But.

-Ro-woon is dead.

How should he explain the feeling he had when he heard of that guy’s death? What was the pain he felt deep in his heart? Why was his stomach, which should have felt relieved.

“I really feel like crap.”

Why was he so frustrated?

He brought another glass to replace the broken one and poured wine.

“Dank… Ro-woon….”

Now, all of that would be burned away with disgrace. Everything about Ro-woon would be erased. And at the same time, the human being named Kim Jong-soo would also be erased.

“No. He’s already been erased.”

Clink.

The blood-red wine swayed in the glass.

And then.

“How is it?”

At the voice he heard, Kim Jong-soo’s body stiffened.

“How does it feel to be acting like me?”

Slowly, Ro-woon, no, Kim Jong-soo’s head turned.