I Became the Drug-Addicted Childhood Friend

Translator: Elisia

Editor/Proofreader: SemiPickle

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Modifying the memory was a success.

According to the Saintess, it was a part of the treatment.

It wasn’t perfect, so without repeated corrections, the memory would eventually return.

Taking advantage of Han Si-Hoo’s collapse, the Saintess cleaned the house.

By cleaning, it merely meant hiding the drug boxes.

She pondered what to say when Si-Hoo woke up.

She also thought about where and how to proceed with the next treatment.

It would probably take about 30 minutes before he woke up again.

If he were an ordinary person, he would have been down for hours.

Awakeners with strong mental fortitude tended to recover faster.

“Ugh…”

“Oh? You’re awake.”

Not 30 minutes but five.

He regained consciousness too quickly.

Right after treatment, the memories would be mixed up, leaving the person confused.

Most of the time, they wouldn’t even remember what they were doing.

“What is this…?”

He questioned why he was inside the Saintess’s house.

“This, this is my house. Don’t you remember? You suddenly collapsed.”

The Saintess immediately began lying.

She was merely following her habit.

The Saintess was not particularly kind-hearted.

Then, was Han Si-Hoo inherently a good person?

Was he naturally righteous?

The Saintess assumed that was the case, as if it were obvious.

“Why am I at your house?”

He sat up.

“Didn’t we have plans to meet?”

It was true that they had agreed to meet.

“[Purification]… It’s not working.”

Han Si-Hoo used a skill on himself.

He instinctively felt that something was wrong.

“We were going to discuss the data we obtained last time we went together. Don’t you remember?”

Han Si-Hoo thought about it.

If the Saintess were to take an intelligence test, how low would her score be?

“[Physical Recovery].”

To be precise, it was Physical Recovery VI.

Since he appeared to be in a state of exhaustion, he used it on her.

The Saintess also looked a bit worn out.

He decided to figure out the reason for that.

“Explain properly. There’s no reason for me to be at your house. Even if we had plans…”

Han Si-Hoo glanced at the clock.

They were far from the appointed time.

It was still the time he should have been at school.

“It’s way too early. Explain what happened.”

Han Si-Hoo checked his Status Window.

There were no unusual conditions applied to him.

Collapsing suddenly like this was impossible.

He wasn’t that weak.

“Well, uh, it’s just like I said earlier…”

“Is that so?”

“Yes.”

Then, there was only one solution.

He needed to resort to physical means.

“That can’t be true.”

“Huh?”

It couldn’t be true.

He couldn’t accept her vague answer.

“You can self-heal, so it’s fine, right?”

“What, what are you talking about?”

Whack.

He threw a punch.

The Saintess was hiding something.

It wasn’t normal for him to have collapsed at her house.

“Wait—”

“What?”

“Ugh, why are you hitting me?”

“Because you’re not telling the truth.”

He was more violent than before.

The Saintess wondered if she should have just left Si-Hoo alone and run away.

She hadn’t expected him to wake up so quickly.

Nor had she anticipated him to start throwing punches immediately.

Nothing was going as she had expected.

“Seo-Ah, you came because of the photo of Seo-Ah, didn’t you?”

“Photo?”

“Yes, this.”

The Saintess handed him the photo she had.

She had meddled a lot with Seo-Ah’s memories.

Han Si-Hoo wouldn’t have any reason to overreact.

“…Ah, are you working with the doctor too?”

“What?”

Thud.

Han Si-Hoo cornered the Saintess against the wall.

Then, he rolled up her sleeve.

Injection marks remained on the Saintess’s arm.

“I knew it. It’s because of the drugs, right? The doctor made you do it.”

“D-doctor?”

“Come to think of it, the doctor seemed to have connections with the government. Isn’t that your area of expertise? If you’re using the drugs, you’d know something about it.”

The Saintess racked her brain.

“Drugs? Uh, that… Are you talking about the doctor I know? The one who’s a drug dealer…”

“The person dressed in black. The one who gave Seo-Ah the drugs—that’s them.”

“Ah, oh, that person’s famous. They’re dead.”

“…What?”

“They were scattering drugs everywhere, so the government dealt with them. I don’t know much beyond that.”

“Then where did you get this photo?”

“Well, you found it and showed it to me, didn’t you?”

Han Si-Hoo was momentarily at a loss for words.

There seemed to be some truth in the Saintess’s confident response.

His last memory had been at school.

Up until going to school, nothing unusual had happened.

The bookstore?

Did he stop by a bookstore?

Why?

His memory was tangled.

He didn’t remember retrieving the photo.

No, he thought he had seen something.

Was it a photo?

Why would he show a photo to the Saintess?

What was clear was that the Saintess was hiding the truth.

Even a non-Awakener could tell from how obvious she was.

The Saintess wasn’t particularly good at lying.

“Why are you so fixated on Seo-Ah? Were you close with her?”

He couldn’t figure out the intent behind the question.

Close with Seo-Ah?

“How do you know Seo-Ah’s name?”

“Huh? S-Seo-Ah’s name… You told me.”

“When?”

“Well, uh, when was it…”

Frustrating.

“Explain properly—”

Thud.

Han Si-Hoo grabbed both of the Saintess’s shoulders and pushed her against the wall.

“Clearly—”

Bang.

He shoved her into the wall again, forcefully.

“Explain.”

Crash.

He punched the wall.

Debris fell from the wall’s surface.

The Saintess was terrified.

“Th-that’s… well.”

“So, what was it you said earlier?”

She had asked why I was so fixated on Seo-Ah.

“Did you think I was that close to Seo-Ah?”

Why would the Saintess ask such a question?

“Why? If we weren’t close, would it be fine if she just disappeared? Is it normal to abandon a friend just because they start using drugs? Is it okay for a friend to be treated like trash just because they’ve changed?”

The Saintess had manipulated my memories under the guise of treatment.

Apparently, once wasn’t enough.

She had twisted my memories to distance me as much as possible from Seo-Ah, but the outcome wasn’t what she expected.

Her attempt to make Seo-Ah seem irredeemable had failed.

She tried to paint Seo-Ah as nothing but a burden, someone who didn’t appreciate anything.

That’s how she tampered with my memories.

“…When she was little, she was abandoned in the slums without knowing anything, with no parents, no relatives, no one.”

He spoke about the past.

“We grew up in a place like that. It wouldn’t have been strange if her personality turned twisted, if she lacked manners, or if she lost her mind. Do you think I became her friend because she was some kind of amazing person?”

The Saintess realized she had made a grave mistake in her judgment.

Treatment? No, it had only made things worse.

She thought multiple treatments would be necessary.

But this wasn’t a problem that could be fixed by repeating treatments.

“Even if someone’s not normal, even if they’re lacking, even if they’re not ordinary, even if they don’t know basic things, even if they learn slowly…”

I had spent more time with Seo-Ah than anyone else.

Maybe even more than most families do.

Despite tampering with my memories so much, this was my reaction.

Her attempt to separate Seo-Ah from me had ended in failure.

Would it have been different if the Saintess had been more thorough?

“I liked seeing Seo-Ah’s big smile. I didn’t care if she treated me casually. Even if she hated me.”

“…I… I’m sorry…”

The Saintess apologized.

“I was lucky to have lived in an environment where Seo-Ah existed.”

The slums, by nature, are a lawless place.

A place where nothing matters.

“I wanted to be her hero. Or at least to pretend to be.”

Everyone wants to be someone admirable.

I wanted to look good to Seo-Ah.

I pretended to be mature around her.

I wanted to be someone she thought was cool.

Someone who could keep her safe.

“Even if she used drugs, even if she hated me, she’s still my childhood friend.”

Even if I tried to blame Seo-Ah for this situation, in the end, I could only realize that it was my own immaturity.

Did I ever become Seo-Ah’s hero?

A hero who stops villains?

No.

“I think I’m done pretending to be a champion of justice.”

Soon, the Saintess would tell the truth.

***

Han Si-Hoo ran and kept running.

The address was written in the text message the Saintess had shown him.

To that place.

Could he reach it by running?

Yes.

Somehow.

***

Before he started running, Han Si-Hoo discovered a new talent.

Finding out the truth didn’t require some extraordinary skill.

It had taken 25 minutes for the Saintess to spill everything.

Of those, 20 minutes were spent on her hesitantly recounting the facts.

The use of violence.

It wasn’t much of a concern, as the Saintess could heal herself.

He learned that the Saintess had met Seo-Ah before.

That Seo-Ah had been locked up in a lab for some reason.

That the doctor had died before the Saintess met Seo-Ah.

That the Saintess had manipulated his memories under the pretext of treatment.

That the altered memories would return over time.

He learned everything.

He reviewed all the text records.

The anonymous photos and videos that had been sent.

One thing was clear: Yoo Seo-Ah had been treated like a monster.

Han Si-Hoo couldn’t keep watching the videos.

Even if it weren’t Seo-Ah in them, he would’ve found them hard to watch.

“I… I was there too.”

The Saintess spoke with her head buried in her knees.

“I just wanted to escape… When Seo-Ah went inside for a moment, I ran away…”

“Yeah.”

“I wasn’t this stupid originally… It was because of the experiments…”

She lamented, but Han Si-Hoo didn’t care.

He called the number stored in the Saintess’s phone.

He hoped someone would answer.

“The number you dialed is not in service.”

But it wasn’t.

Only one option remained.

To run to the address where the Saintess had been summoned.

***

So he kept running.

And running.

He used his recovery skill, converting all his magic power into stamina.

Would taking a taxi have been faster than running?

The destination was outside the city anyway.

A dangerous area where monsters could appear at any time.

Using a vehicle would’ve required a tedious process.

Was Seo-Ah alive?

If she were alive, then what?

If the videos were real, even he wouldn’t have stayed sane in her situation.

Who was holding Seo-Ah?

An enemy?

What was the purpose of summoning the Saintess for treatment?

If someone was holding her, he thought it would be the doctor.

But it wasn’t.

According to the Saintess, the doctor had died long ago.

That’s why, no matter how much Han Si-Hoo searched for revenge, he couldn’t find him.

If not the doctor, then who?

He would find out.

The road disappeared, and the mountain emerged.

Still, he kept running.

Branches brushed against his cheeks.

“[Slash].”

Drawing his sword, he used a skill.

The cascading light cut down the obstructive trees.

He took the shortest route.

To the destination.

Was blindly running the wisest choice?

Should he have called for allies?

People he could trust?

But there was no time.

Even just running felt like there wasn’t enough time.

Faster!

More!

More!

He shouted inwardly, dozens, hundreds of times.

The thought that Seo-Ah was probably already dead.

The reasonable assumption that even if she were alive, she wouldn’t be normal.

The conclusion that it wouldn’t be surprising if she had become someone’s plaything.

Shut up.

He bitterly regretted everything.

Whether it was the malicious memories the Saintess implanted or anything else, it all didn’t matter.

He hated everything.

The destination grew closer.

He ran until the sun set.

Until the stars were vividly visible.

The air was cold.

His breaths were rough.

In the distance, faint lights flickered.