* * *

She couldn’t do anything with her paralyzed body, but her mind was crystal clear.

Even though it would take only a few seconds to reach the ground from the 46th floor, it felt terribly long.

As she fell, the world entered her vision slowly, as if in slow motion.

Dad, this isn’t right.

This can’t be happening.

This is too cruel.

The cold wind raked her chest until it stung.

Help me.

Save me—anyone, please.

That was when it happened.

Suddenly, she couldn’t feel the wind.

As if her body and mind had split apart, she couldn’t even hear a sound.

Her vision was the same, and her falling body was the same, but in the strange dissonance her body seemed to float.

Then, before her eyes, jumbled letters tangled together appeared.

They mixed at random, and then a single sentence formed.

Will you intervene in fate?

What is this? What does that mean?

Choose.

Choose what?

Will you intervene in fate?
YES or NO

In front of Eunjo’s eyes, the road where cars were passing by was vivid.

This is the end. Since it’s the end, there’s no need to hesitate. So she shouted at the top of her lungs.

“YES!”

Then the whole world was covered in white.

* * *

At MK Investment, a meeting was being held regarding an investment in CX Soft.

Lee Wongyu, the founder of CX Soft, had been the mentor of Park Jooheon, the CEO of MK Investment, so as recently as eight years ago they had seen each other fairly often.

But after a certain incident, their relationship grew distant, and it had been a long time since they cut off contact—enough that you could call it a clean break.

A year ago—meaning after Lee Wongyu’s death—CX Soft had been plagued with problems both internally and externally. Then, a month ago, they requested an investment from MK Investment to help them recover.

And today, they intended to make a final decision.

Jooheon’s expression as he listened to an explanation of CX Soft’s financial structure, as always, showed no particular emotion.

No matter how well he knew someone personally, he never let personal feelings interfere with work, and he calmly reviewed the documents more than anyone.

Just then, the meeting room door opened and Gyuo—Jooheon’s secretary and friend—came in with an urgent look.

“CEO Park.”

Then he leaned in close and spoke as if whispering.

“I think you need to see the news. About CX’s heir, Ms. Lee Eunjo. I mean, your… that Eunjo noona.”

After a brief pause, Gyuo held out a tablet to Jooheon.

“She killed herself.”

Lee Eunjo committed suicide?

A faint change crossed Jooheon’s face, which had been expressionless until now.

A slight crease formed between his handsome brows, and the pupils in his eyes narrowed darkly.

Watching Jooheon’s face closely, Gyuo turned on the meeting room TV with the remote.

When he flipped to a news channel, the red words ‘Breaking News’ appeared, and news of Lee Eunjo’s death was delivered.

– ……As the only daughter of Chairman Lee Wongyu, she is reported to have died early this morning after falling from her home. Ms. Lee Eunjo, who had long suffered from depression and panic disorder, was 34 and the wife of Vice Chairman Kang Jinwoo of CX Soft. The couple had no children, and…….

Jooheon snatched the remote from Gyuo’s hand and turned off the TV. Then he rose from his seat and said coldly,

“We’ll put the CX investment on hold for now.”

With that one sentence, the meeting was over.

With a hardened face, Jooheon immediately left the meeting room to confirm Eunjo’s death.

* * *

Will you intervene in fate?

In an urgent situation, Eunjo shouted “YES!” at the unknown words that appeared, and then sank deep into the water.

Not shattered to pieces after hitting the ground, but water?

She couldn’t even have time to be puzzled by this bizarre phenomenon before her breath was cut off.

‘This is real water?’

Instinctively flailing her arms, Eunjo swam desperately, trying to get out of the water.

In a moment of life and death, she thought she’d escaped dying from a fall—only to have drowning waiting for her instead.

At that moment, words appeared again.

Just sit up. It’s a bathtub.

What? A bathtub?

With a jolt of awareness, Eunjo carefully lifted her body.

Then she could breathe.

“Puh—cough, cough.”

Reflexively spitting out the water that had seeped into her throat and nose, she looked around.

“Where is this?”

An unfamiliar space spread out before her eyes.

“…This isn’t my house.”

This wasn’t the bathroom of her home, the 46th-floor penthouse at Troyple.

A cramped space, old tiles, a bathtub stained with water mold, a faucet with a chipped corner, a flickering incandescent light…

“Why am I in a place like this.”

Eunjo pushed herself up from the tub, only to slump back down again. Dizziness hit her so hard she could barely steady herself.

Lukewarm water sloshed and soaked her body.

Lowering her gaze, Eunjo was startled again.

“What? These clothes…?”

Staring at the clothes wavering in the water as if she were drifting, Eunjo, flustered, squeezed her eyes shut and opened them again.

A flashy, flower-patterned dress in childish colors.

She didn’t remember wearing anything like this. No—she didn’t even remember buying anything like it.

And to get into a bathtub with clothes on—she really didn’t seem to be in her right mind.

At the same time, she thought that not being in her right mind was the only normal thing.

“Of course I’m not in my right mind. After what happened to me—if I were fine, how would I even be human?”

Gripping the edge of the tub, she managed to stand, staggering as she climbed out.

Maybe because she was still dressed, her body felt as heavy as waterlogged cotton.

Barely making it to the mirror, she wiped the fogged glass with her hand.

Then a sharp cry tore from her lips.

“W-what is this?”

She couldn’t believe it. The person staring back at her in the mirror wasn’t her.

“Who are you?”

Goosebumps rose all over her body as if she were watching a horror movie.

“Who are you, I said.”

Eunjo’s voice, as she lifted her hand to touch her face, trembled thinly with fear.

It wasn’t her.

It wasn’t Lee Eunjo’s face.

Much younger, with far more striking features—and even hair dyed yellow.

Her fingertips trembled as she traced her face.

“Who are you! You!”

Then words appeared again.

Na Eunjo, age 28. Current occupation: model.

“What…?”

Thirty seconds before Ms. Lee Eunjo’s death, before rigor mortis set in, we moved Ms. Lee Eunjo into this body.

“…What are you even saying?”

She couldn’t understand any of it.

Is all of this a dream?

Was what Kang Jinwoo injected some kind of drug?

Eunjo slapped her own cheek hard. Since she felt pain, it didn’t seem like a dream.

“…Wait, can you feel pain in dreams too?”

Then the writing appeared again.

Generally, in dreams, you do not feel pain.

Then something suddenly occurred to her.

Instead of asking whose body this was, she needed to ask what these words that kept appearing before her eyes actually were.

“You… what are you?”

If this body belonged to Na Eunjo, a 28-year-old model, then what were you?

I am a guide.

“A guide?”

As if typing a text message or a DM, three dots spun in a circle. Then an answer appeared.

Yes—something like the NAVI that Chairman Lee Wongyu used.

What is that supposed to mean…?

“My father’s secretarial system, NAVI? You… are you NAVI, by any chance?”

Similar, but different. Still, if you wish to call me NAVI, you may.

It was a game company, but in truth, CX Soft’s core technologies were security and hacking.

With that technology, Wongyu had developed a simple form of personal secretary conversational chatbot. That was NAVI.

It was still in an experimental stage, and Wongyu was testing it in daily life.

But after Wongyu died, she thought development had stopped.

“So you’re a guide who helps me… intervene in fate? A kind of… auxiliary system?”

Yes, that is correct. From now on, Ms. Lee Eunjo can live as the person Na Eunjo and directly intervene in fate.

“Then what about me? My original body?”

After a brief pause, the chat window appeared again.

Ms. Lee Eunjo’s body was completely destroyed when it struck the asphalt.

If it had been conveyed by voice, she might have let it slide past her, but words delivered as text weighed heavily on her chest.

Fine hairs rose along her spine.

Falling from the 46th floor, it likely wasn’t wrong.

Of course, only on the assumption that this wasn’t a dream.

Eunjo clenched her fist tight.

“I need to verify first whether what you’re saying is true.”