Chapter 5
Lee Cheo-eum.
Whenever she introduced herself with this name, the reactions she received were as follows:
“So your English name is First Lee?”
Correct. Even her email address was standardized as “Firstlee111.”
“Oh, so you must be the eldest daughter!”
That was also correct. She had one younger brother.
“That’s a unique name.”
She agreed. In her entire life, she had never met anyone with the same name.
Her personal impression of her name was rather dry:
“I just live with what I was given.”
Unlike her name, her life had been far from first, foremost, or number one—an irony she found somewhat amusing, though not enough to dislike it.
“Lee Cheo-eum… huff…!”
“……”
“P-please… help… sob!”
For the first time in her life, Lee Cheo-eum was beginning to doubt her own name.
A madman had smashed through a window and was shouting her name at the top of his lungs. In a single school, could there really be two people with such an unusual name?
“……”
“……”
From the professor standing far away to the students who had stopped mid-escape, everyone looked at Cheo-eum with the same expression: “That’s your name, isn’t it?”
Ah…
If her name were something like “Kim Seoyeon,” she could have pretended it wasn’t her and slipped away.
Suppressing a curse, Cheo-eum nodded.
“…Follow me.”
* * *
Behind the Humanities Building of Gaon University.
Only after reaching a secluded area did Cheo-eum stop walking.
“What is it?”
White, who had followed her, coughed as though something was caught in his throat before finally speaking.
“…First of all, I sincerely apologize for coming like this. I have no excuse.”
“Yes. You should.”
“……”
White lowered his head even further.
It was an incredibly rude intrusion, but there was no point in blaming what had already happened.
“So why did you come?”
Cheo-eum got straight to the point.
“Did you receive the disaster alert just now?”
She nodded.
[Disaster Response Division, Apostles Management Bureau: An S-rank reflux has occurred near Gwanghwamun. Citizens within a 10 km radius are advised to evacuate following guidance.]
A siren had gone off during class, causing quite a commotion. Gaon University was just barely outside the evacuation zone, so she had only checked the notice and dismissed it.
“My younger sibling… is being controlled by a mental-type disaster that came out of that reflux.”
So this man had business related to that incident.
“Hayan… no matter how much I call, they won’t come to their senses. They’re attacking people. At this rate, they might be killed by other apostles.”
White trembled as he rubbed his arms.
“I know this is shameless. I also know this isn’t something I should be asking of you.”
“……”
“But the only solution I could think of was you, Cheo-eum. You’re the only mental-type apostle I know, and you even treated my condition…”
“I didn’t treat it. I just applied a buff.”
Instead of correcting him, Cheo-eum asked another question.
“Why do you think I’m a mental-type apostle?”
She had never once claimed to be one.
White sniffed.
“Because your counseling is so bad it’s practically impossible to have a conversation.”
“……”
“And yet somehow, after that kind of counseling, I was able to overcome my trauma and sleep. Does that even make sense?”
“Did you come here to argue with me?”
“B-but even so, talking to you makes me feel at ease! So I thought you must have some kind of mental-type ability!”
White hurriedly tried to justify himself.
Cheo-eum stroked her chin.
She had anticipated that others would eventually realize she was an apostle through her informal counseling sessions. She hadn’t even tried to hide it, so it wouldn’t be strange if others had noticed.
The fact that her identity had been exposed wasn’t the issue.
“So you think I might be a mental-type apostle. That’s all, isn’t it?”
Cheo-eum looked at White flatly.
“As you probably already know, first, I have no reason to help you. And second, if my ability only affects the mind, it may not be helpful at all.”
“……”
“And even setting all that aside, you’re asking me to intervene in an S-rank reflux? That’s basically the same as telling me to go die.”
You understand that, right?
White trembled violently, as if struck by an ice-cold blade.
Intervening in a trial three ranks higher than oneself was considered a serious crime equivalent to homicide under international law. As someone involved in the apostle world, White could not have been unaware of this.
“I’m… I’m sorry.”
“I didn’t ask for empty apologies.”
Cheo-eum lowered her gaze and fiddled with the suspenders resting on her shoulders.
“What I’m asking is: why are you acting so irrationally?”
At the cold question, White swallowed.
Logically, he should persuade her rationally here—but…
“…Because I’m desperate.”
The words slipped out in a voice so small it seemed to shrink inward, carrying a desperation no one particularly wanted to hear.
“If Hayan isn’t around, I’ll truly be alone. Since the world changed, stories like mine are common enough to trip over, but…”
No matter how common, every tragedy is deeply personal to the one experiencing it.
White had lost his parents during the third great catastrophe, and since then, he had relied heavily on his younger sister, an A-rank apostle. Without her, he didn’t have the confidence to endure this colorless, monochrome existence alone.
He suppressed the urge to cling to her while pouring out his story.
I must not act emotionally.
That was what had ruined everything for him in the past.
“…My sense of shame and guilt are the cheapest things I can offer for her. So I had to try everything I could. I’m sorry.”
White finally confessed with a trembling voice.
“……”
Silence followed.
Cheo-eum’s expression remained eerily inorganic as her gaze drifted slightly past White.
…Only visible to her, fragments of the Toledot fluttered around him.
[New response recorded in counseling log.]
This is insane.
Cheo-eum felt a faint headache.
What was the counseling log?
As the name suggested, it was a system that analyzed and recorded the inner state of the counseled individual.
Cheo-eum had been conducting deep interactions and counseling sessions with twelve apostles…
▸ Response Type
▸ Avoidance Topics
▸ Cognitive Distortions
▸ Supporting Factors
▸ Restraint Mechanisms
She had to answer these five categories just by looking at them.
What happens if she doesn’t fill it out?
She’s doomed.
Not just for her personally, but on a far broader, uncontrollable scale of consequences.
This is the very reason I’ve been conducting unofficial counseling while violating university rules as an undergraduate.
Fortunately, her improvised counseling had spread by word of mouth among apostles, allowing her to gather counselees… but—
Honestly, I don’t want to do this.
Yeah. So she hadn’t been putting in much effort.
Filling out the counseling log was not easy.
In a world devastated by great catastrophes, extracting genuine inner thoughts from apostles who were already burdened with various mental issues while fighting monsters?
Yeah right.
They might try to kill her just for probing their weaknesses.
For now, I’ve got time.
So she postponed the log work and focused only on relieving their conditions to earn tuition for graduate school.
White was no different.
Even though he was registered as a counselee, he hadn’t intended to seriously engage—until now.
This man is… quite unusual.
Cheo-eum recalled their first session.
…
“I see… my relationships were smooth because I used to comply with whatever others asked. I thought that would make people like me, but I later found out they were calling me a pushover behind my back. My younger sister scolded me a lot. Still, it’s not easy to change.”
[Counselee “White” — Response Type: Defensive Acceptance]
“…Talking about it isn’t easy. You understand, right? The helplessness in the face of a great catastrophe… it’s truly, truly awful.”
[Counselee “White” — Avoidance Topic: Self-helplessness]
With White… she had filled out two categories in the very first session.
She had pushed with the intensity of an interrogation to initiate early counseling, but it had worked—which was absurd. Under normal difficulty, she would have completed the log long ago.
“Ah, I didn’t realize I needed the last digits of my national ID number for counseling. Wait, I’ll tell you—1…”
“Stop. That’s enough. I’ve verified it.”
The reason she could proceed so quickly was because White was a rare case—someone who responded like a pure, automatic answering machine.
It was remarkable that such a person had survived in this harsh world—and even more remarkable that he had been registered as a counselee.
[Response Rate: 2/5]
[Entering Initial Counseling]
[Emotional state access enabled]
[Level 1 counseling effect available]
Thanks to that, she had entered initial counseling on the first day and applied a temporary stabilizing effect… but—
The remaining three categories weren’t easy to fill.
So she had left it at that.
[Counselee “White” — Supporting Factor: “Sibling’s safety”]
And suddenly, that missing category had been filled.
Three categories have been completed.
Which meant…
[Response Rate: 3/5]
[Entering Mid-Term Counseling]
She had entered mid-term counseling.
[Thought structure analysis available]
At this stage, she could read the counselee’s thoughts.
Within the automatically activated analysis, White’s thoughts flowed in.
[Please… help me…]
His overflowing desperation reached even Cheo-eum’s dry, desolate mind.
…This is insane.
