You Didn't Tell Me the Start of My Transmigration Was a Gate

Chapter 37 Part 1: Memories

“It’s been over 20 years since I’ve been in charge of this Hunter test… And I’ve never had to deal with a bunch of brats like you before!”

A first-generation Hunter, a living legend, a man who would go down in Hunter history. He’s the head of the Hunter Test? Why did I never hear about him before?

“My ‘eyes’ are planted throughout the dungeons used for testing, so I can see inside and score them with great accuracy. There’s nothing fairer than having one person score them. No one else sees as accurately as I do! I wonder if they’re all going senile. A bunch of them both had two eyeballs but I only had one, eh, eh, eh.”

He spun the wheeled chair around and around in a circle. I get goosebumps. All these monitors, I can’t keep track of a lot of them at a glance, and they’re all managed by one person. He would even organize and evaluate the information coming out of each one of them? What a monster.

“I’ll tell you what, the Queen Ant’s chamber that you fell into. It’s out of my line of sight, and that’s where the problem lies. Who knew there was a mechanism that would led you directly to its chamber, huh? I had no idea, no one did!”

“Mr. Chairman.”

“Huh? Uh, yeah. That’s not the point.”

The man standing next to him took notice, and Choi Seok-chul pulled out something from his pocket.

“What is this?”

“A contract.”

It was indeed a contract.

“You guys are in trouble. We can’t just pass a test that we can’t evaluate… but we can’t let someone who deserves to pass fail through our negligence.”

He smirked and spoke confidently.

“I’ll read your memories, there’s hardly anything I can’t hear and see.”

This is absurd. Reading memories? Is that possible? I stared at him dumbfounded. “That’s what the contract says. It’s difficult for me to read only the perfectly written parts, so even if I read memories outside of the test, I will never reveal them. And you agree to provide your memories for the test. What do you think? It’s the best I can offer. If you don’t like it, you can take the compensation and try again in the second half of the year.” He concluded.

“I apologize that our negligence has complicated things. If you wish to make other arrangements, I will be as accommodating as possible.”

I thought about it carefully. Hmmm. As far as the contract goes, it doesn’t matter if it reads my memories. But there’s something that bothers me. ‘Can my pre-regression memories be read?’

That’s the question. Can Choi Seok-chul read the contents before the regression? If my memories are not engraved on my body, but on my soul, can he trust them? Does Choi Seok-chul read things of the body or things of the soul, or does he simply read the chemistry of the brain?

‘But it doesn’t hurt to be read.’

He is a great human resource. If he can read the risks that could happen in the future and cooperate with me, it can’t be any better.

“I’m good.”

“Me too.”

We both nodded in affirmation. Unlike me, Yun-Woo looked terribly reluctant.

“Then why don’t you come over here first?”

He called out to Yun-Woo. He pointed to a very off-putting-looking machine. It looked like something you’d see in a dentist’s office, with a hemispherical hat-like thing on top of it, and a bunch of wires that looked very ominous. Sitting in that chair with that on my head would be worthy of a horror movie.

“Don’t worry,” he said, “Just look at it! It’s perfectly safe!”

It wasn’t a very believable statement. Lee Yun-Woo ended up sitting in the chair and placing a hat on his head that covered his face to the tip of his nose. The atmosphere suddenly felt like we’re 30 years into the future. Choi Seok-Chul then turned to the machine across from him, a similarly shaped device on his head, was now lit up.

“Is it.. working?”

“Yep. Of course.”

I asked the man next to me, and he replied nonchalantly. From the looks of it, they were both just sitting there. Soon afterward, Yun-Woo began to twitch, move, and shake. Like he was having a seizure.

“Don’t worry. It’s a normal reaction.”

Before I could ask, the man hit the player first. Choi Seok-chul was the first to take off the machine. As he put his sunglasses back on from where he’d left them, his crooked grin which seemed to be a trademark of his, tugged at the corners of his mouth.

“That was an interesting sight, the queen ant. It was like I was being in the field for the first time in a long time. Very…. Very, quite nostalgic, yes.”

He said as if he was looking into the distance. Soon after, Lee Yun-Woo pulled out from the machine. He was gasping for air, he seemed to be breathing less than normal.

“…It’s harmless to the human body, right?”

“Yes. Sure.”

The man’s words were soulless.

“Hah..Hah… Just now, that’s…”

“Aah. No big deal. The memory is, so to speak… Yeah, it’s vaguely abstract, so I’d say it’s closer to the physical than you’d think.”

Choi Seok-chul looked at the cold sweating Lee Yun-woo with familiarity. Apparently, there were so many people who had suffered the same fate in those machines. “What I want to see is a little bit of a rewind, because all memories are organic and interconnected. They intertwine to form each person’s self, but there’s also a kind of ‘gravity’ to memories, if I do say so myself.”