🔊 TTS Settings
Chapter 5
Lee Cheoeum.
When she introduced her name, the usual responses were as follows:
“So, is your English name ‘First Lee’?”
That was correct. Even her email address was standardized as Firstlee111.
“Ah, so you must be the eldest daughter!”
That was true as well. She had a younger brother.
“That’s such a unique name.”
She agreed. In her whole life, she had never met another person with the same name.
As for her own feelings about it, they were dry and plain.
“It was given to me, so I just live with it.”
The irony that she had lived a life far from being “first,” “number one,” or “the priority” never bothered her much. Not enough to dislike her name, at least.
But right now…
“Miss Lee Cheoeum, huuuhhh—”
“……”
“P-please help meee—”
For the first time in her life, she felt actual resentment toward her name.
A crazy man had just smashed through a window and was now crying out “Lee Cheoeum” at the top of his lungs. With such a distinctive name, how could there possibly be two of her in the same school?
“……”
“……”
Everyone—from the professor standing at a distance to the students frozen mid-flight—turned their eyes on her, each gaze silently accusing: “That’s your name, isn’t it?”
…If only her name had been something common like “Kim Seoyeon,” she could have pretended it was someone else and run.
Suppressing the urge to curse, Cheoeum tilted her head in defeat.
“……Follow me outside.”
* * *
Behind the Humanities building at Gaon University.
Cheoeum didn’t stop until she had reached a deserted spot.
“What is this about?”
The man who had followed her—Hayan—coughed as though his throat were clogged, then finally managed to speak.
“…First of all, I truly apologize for coming to you like this. I have no excuse.”
“Yes. You really shouldn’t have.”
“……”
Hayan’s head sank even lower.
As rude as this intrusion was, there was no use wasting time laying blame after the fact.
“Why did you come to me?”
Cheoeum asked bluntly, cutting straight to the point.
“Did you receive the disaster alert earlier?”
Cheoeum nodded.
[Apostle Management Agency Disaster Response Dept.: S-class Outflow near Gwanghwamun. Citizens within 10km radius must evacuate according to guidance.]
The sirens had blared in the middle of her lecture, throwing the campus into chaos. Luckily, Gaon University had been just outside the evacuation zone, so she had only checked and dismissed it.
“My sister—she’s being controlled by the psychic calamity that came out of that outflow.”
So that was why this man was here.
“No matter how much I call to her, Hayang won’t wake up. She’s attacking people. At this rate, the other apostles will kill her on sight.”
Hayan shuddered as he rubbed his arms.
“I know I have no shame. I know I have no right to ask you this.”
“……”
“But the only solution I could think of was you. You’re the only psychic-type apostle I know. You helped me with my status abnormality before, so…”
(Helped, meaning she’d slapped a buff on him, not treated anything. But fine.)
Instead of correcting him, Cheoeum asked something else.
“Why do you think I’m a psychic apostle?”
She had never once admitted to being an apostle.
Hayan sniffled.
“Because you’re a terrible counselor—so terrible you can’t even have a proper conversation.”
“……”
“How could it make sense that I suddenly got over trauma and started sleeping fine thanks to that kind of counseling?”
“…Did you come here to pick a fight?”
“B-but still, talking to you somehow calms me down! So I thought, you must be a psychic apostle!”
He hastily tried to cover his slip, while Cheoeum stroked her chin.
She had expected some clients would figure it out. After all, she hadn’t exactly tried to hide it. Hayan surely wasn’t the only one who’d guessed.
Being exposed as an apostle wasn’t a problem.
“‘You might be a psychic apostle.’ That’s all it is, isn’t it.”
Her gaze at him was flat, indifferent.
“As you seem to know already, I have zero reason to help you. And even if I were psychic-type, there’s no guarantee my powers could do anything here.”
“……”
“Putting all that aside—do you realize what you’re asking? You want me to step into an S-class outflow?”
It was no different from telling her to go die.
Hayan trembled as though stabbed with an icicle.
Forcing an apostle to participate in a trial three grades higher than their own was considered murder under international law. Hayan, who lived in that world, couldn’t not know this.
“I—I’m sorry.”
“I’m not asking to hear empty apologies.”
Cheoeum lowered her eyes, idly fiddling with the suspender strap over her shoulder.
“I’m asking why you’re being so irrational.”
Confronted by her cold tone, Hayan swallowed hard.
He should have reasoned, rationally persuaded.
But instead…
“…Because I’m too desperate.”
The words escaped him in a small, shame-filled voice.
“If Hayang is gone, then I’m really alone. I know—since the world fell apart, stories like mine are everywhere, practically littering the ground…”
And yet every tragedy, no matter how common, was unbearably raw to the one living it.
Hayan bit back the urge to pour out all his sob story—that he had lost his parents during the third Great Catastrophe, that his high-ranked sister had carried him ever since, that he couldn’t imagine surviving this pale, colorless life without her.
‘I mustn’t let emotions rule me. I’ve ruined everything that way before.’
“…Shame and guilt are the cheapest things I have to offer her. So I had to try everything, even this. I’m sorry.”
His voice shook as he confessed.
“……”
Silence followed.
Cheoeum’s face was expressionless to the point of being inhuman, her eyes sliding past him rather than truly meeting his.
Only she could see it: loose pages of the Toledot fluttering in the air around him.
[A new response has been recorded in the Counseling Log.]
‘Perfect. Just what I needed.’
A dull ache throbbed in her head.
What was the Counseling Log?
Exactly what the name implied—a system that analyzed and recorded the inner world of her clients.
Cheoeum was required to collect deep responses from twelve apostles, each evaluated along five dreary categories:
-
Response Type
-
Avoidance Theme
-
Cognitive Distortion
-
Sustaining Factor
-
Inhibiting Mechanism
What happened if she didn’t complete it?
‘Everything goes to hell.’
Not just for her personally—the side effects spread far and wide.
That was why she had risked her student status to conduct unofficial counseling sessions in the first place.
Thanks to her half-hearted counseling, her reputation had quietly grown among apostles, letting her gather enough clients.
But honestly?
‘I hate doing it.’
Yes, she hadn’t exactly put her heart into it.
Because filling out that damned log was no easy feat.
In this ruined world of calamities, apostles dragged around all manner of mental scars. To pry their true vulnerabilities out of them?
‘As if.’
If anything, it was a miracle she wasn’t already dead for trying.
So instead, she had just treated status conditions here and there—earning enough for her graduate tuition—while leaving the log mostly blank.
Hayan had been no different. Registered, but not really progressing.
‘Though… this guy was unusual.’
She recalled their very first session.
“Ah, um… my relationships were smooth because I always did what people asked. I thought that would make them like me, but later I found out they just called me a pushover behind my back. My sister scolded me a lot for it. But even so, I can’t stop.”
[Client Hayan’s “Response Type” has been identified as “Defensive Compliance.”]
“It’s… not easy to talk about. But I’m sure you know what I mean, Counselor. The helplessness in the face of a catastrophe—it’s absolutely unbearable.”
[Client Hayan’s “Avoidance Theme” has been identified as “Personal Helplessness.”]
From the very first session, she had nailed down two categories.
Sure, she had pressured him with interrogation-level questioning, but still—the fact that it worked was absurd.
‘If all clients were this easy, my log would’ve been finished ages ago.’
And then there had been that…
“Oh, I didn’t realize you needed the last digits of my social security number for this. Let me just—1…”
“Stop. That’s enough. Verified.”
Yes, Hayan was practically an auto-responder, a rare find among apostles—innocent, guileless, and impossibly easy to draw out.
That someone like him had survived in this brutal world was a miracle in itself.
[Response Rate: 2/5]
[Initial Counseling has commenced.]
[Emotional State Access granted.]
[Level 1 Counseling Effect can be applied.]
Thanks to him, she had advanced to initial counseling in just one day, even granting him Sleep.
But the remaining three categories had stubbornly refused to budge, so she had left him there.
And yet—
[Client Hayan’s “Sustaining Factor” has been identified as “The Safety of His Sister.”]
Who could have expected this moment to unlock another?
Three categories complete.
[Response Rate: 3/5]
[Intermediate Counseling has commenced.]
That meant—
[Cognitive Structure Analysis unlocked.]
From now on, she could hear his thoughts directly.
And they came pouring in at once:
[Please help me. Please…!]
The raw desperation spilled over, seeping even into Cheoeum’s parched, withered heart.
“…This is insane.”
