Chapter 156

There’s no way a single warning can reform a person.

While journalists act in the name of the right to know, many do so out of a sense of mission, but there are just as many who do it simply to make a living.

The paparazzo Erica faced was one of the latter. Unlike a journalism student at some school, this woman worked as a reporter to survive, so Erica’s amateurish threats carried no weight.

Even though this woman, who had broken bones multiple times while covering supernatural ability users, felt a brief flicker of fear from Erica’s naive threat—since she had never killed anyone—it didn’t last.

Despite Erica’s warning, the woman, undeterred, continued to diligently transfer the photos she had taken to her computer, intending to write a threatening letter. But when she couldn’t find the photos she thought she had taken no matter where she looked, she alternated between checking her camera and her phone.

And nowhere in either device could she find even a trace of the pictures she had been proud of taking.

Had she been hacked in that short span of time? Or could one of the two people she encountered be a supernatural ability user related to data manipulation? Could the photos have been swapped somehow?

In a world with supernatural ability users, continuing to think with regular logic would only lead to incorrect conclusions. As the woman wandered around her room, biting her nails, she suddenly perked up.

“Could it be…?”

A sudden insight flashed through her mind.

There was a similar incident in this city before. Even though she had made multiple impressive appearances, in the modern era where anyone could use a phone to take photos, there was a woman who only went by the name “Eun-gwang”, whose face and identity were never revealed. Whenever Eun-gwang appeared, all the photos taken of her somehow got erased.

Of course, the likelihood that this situation was related to Eun-gwang was extremely low. After all, Eun-gwang-related stories would sell much better than idol tabloids, so the thought crossing her mind could merely be wishful thinking.

“I should ask someone to review all the dashcam footage from the roads I passed on my way here.”

But the journalist’s instinct within her—or maybe it was just her own greed—insisted that it had some connection to Eun-gwang. The woman had forgotten her earlier anxiety and grinned brightly.

If the girl who had threatened her earlier was indeed tied to Eun-gwang, trying to fabricate a trivial idol-related story would pale in comparison to the money she could earn from this new lead.

A new seed of an incident sprouted from the person Erica had casually passed by. Was it due to Erica’s carelessness, or because she never treated the people around her, especially the “extras,” as actual humans, failing to foresee such developments?

Neither Erica nor anyone else knew yet whether the seeds of the incident sprouting from Erica were events related to a protagonist-like story or to her role as a heroine. Erica herself was also unaware.

However, she would soon find out. The seed planted today would sprout rather hastily, blooming even before all the preparations were made.

The system might have deceived me.

Erica spent the entire evening last night thinking about this possibility and finally found an answer just before sleeping. She couldn’t deny the system’s utility. And to a certain degree, it had been on her side.

Then why had the system gone out of its way to hide the fact that she could have been suffering from memory loss?

It must be to make her perform some sort of “purpose” it possessed.

She asked before sleeping:

“If my previous self had fallen in love with someone, what penalty would I receive?”

In this world, where the main storyline required her active pursuit, apart from this incident, she had never had a decrease in grades.

If the memory loss her past self suffered was a penalty, then it must have been due to crossing the single warning the system had given her: not to be “conquered.”

Stories from others suggest that she was in a romantic relationship with the Student Council President and attempted self-harm, so it’s logical to assume the previous Erica was conquered.

By whom? It’s obvious—it must be the Student Council President.

She assumed the penalty for being conquered was memory loss.

[Supernatural abilities can be granted separately. Upon achieving the True Ending and returning, it is natural to return to your original body. The system does not directly interfere with the user’s memory.]

However, the system gave a different answer.

Returning to the original world as Erica, continuing to live there after achieving the True Ending, was in itself the result of having received a penalty. The memory loss, while unintended, was merely utilized.

Erica found this answer plausible.

If the person she had decided to love despite giving up on leaving this world had betrayed her and chosen someone else as a lover, it would be natural to feel betrayed. Although other prerequisites were required for that.

To prevent Erica from detecting the betrayal by the Student Council President,

The “secret” handed over by Kim Ha-neul needed to have been enough to block information that would cause her betrayal, not just a fake romance between the Student Council President and Kim Ha-neul.

If her system provided her with the same level of information, that wouldn’t happen.

It was a system where the more one invested emotionally, the more information it provided.

Given the Student Council President’s story, even the Erica from before the memory loss seemed to possess the system. Therefore, it would be uncharacteristic of her to fail to obtain information, get blindsided by the Student Council President’s fake romance, and even attempt self-harm.

The weaker supernatural ability compared to before and the system that appeared to be more capable of gathering information indicated that the woman presumed to be her previous self might have experienced what she genuinely perceived as betrayal.

“Inna hasn’t been in contact, right?”

“Ha, I thought you’d already figured it out.”

While pondering the system’s intent and why her previous self might have acted that way over the weekend, Erica arrived at school and encountered the ongoing aftermath of the previous weekend’s events.

A conflict with Inna.

A girl affiliated with Inna’s clique glanced at Erica, seemingly aware of why Inna wasn’t present, but from Erica’s perspective, Inna’s actions were baffling—she hadn’t even considered skipping school.

“I suspect something, so if she continues not showing up, I’ll go visit her after school on my own.”

My previous self.

To understand the self she had forgotten,

It would be more appropriate to ask Inna instead of the Student Council President, who would only end up betraying her efforts to gather information.

‘I’m not worried about her.’

The girl who had been deliberately thinking of something else to forget her breakup with Inna had no choice but to confront the predetermined matter of Inna.

If she avoided it again this time, then the protagonist would inevitably get involved.

Attempting to avoid the protagonist’s piercing gaze that seemed to understand her predicament, Erica pressed her face into her desk.