3
Natalie blinked repeatedly, trying to recover her flickering vision.
Someone was standing in front of her.
Tall, with a small head, broad shoulders, and long legs. The man wearing a toned-down navy classic suit looked like a model who had just stepped off the runway, thanks to his tall stature and slightly lean yet firm physique.
Age? Early thirties at most?
Under his straight forehead, his bloodshot eyes—as if he had been working overtime for three days—were shaded by thick eyelashes.
Natalie realized her hand was being held by this handsome stranger she had never seen before and jerked it away in surprise.
“Na… talie?”
The man looked at her with blank eyes and asked.
The wrinkle that appeared only on one eyebrow when he frowned and the habit of slightly biting one corner of his lips—these were unfamiliar yet somehow familiar habits.
But Natalie? Could this person possibly be McClain’s essence?
“Are you perhaps McClain?”
Just then, she realized her appearance had changed too.
Her once flawless white skin had become slightly tanned, and her flowing long hair had transformed into a sleek bob cut—perfectly suited for a professional working woman and versatile enough for various styles with minimal effort.
Her outfit had also changed: comfortable yet not too loose black slacks, a stretchy white shirt, a thin beige cardigan for indoor air conditioning, and black flat shoes.
This was the work attire she used to wear before her transmigration.
While examining herself with a bewildered expression, a sharp shout echoed through the empty space.
“Kang Seohyuk! Are you coming here or not?”
Startled, Natalie looked around frantically to see who was nearby, when the man facing her lost focus in his eyes. With a face that seemed entranced, he slowly turned his head and rose from his seat.
“H-hey, McClain! This is an illusion. Don’t get caught in it……”
Natalie tried to grab his hand again while chanting the mental barrier dispelling spell, but she couldn’t reach him.
Whoosh! The man moved away from her at high speed as he turned his body, though neither of them had taken a single step. It was as if some transcendental force was endlessly pulling and stretching the distance between them.
“McClain!”
Natalie called out desperately as she sprinted toward him.
No matter how much she called, he showed no intention of looking back. No matter how fast she ran, the distance between them wouldn’t close.
Before she knew it, their surroundings had changed to the living room of some mansion.
It looked like the home of some famous tycoon—the living room alone seemed larger than her entire pre-transmigration apartment. Long sofas faced each other on either side of an extended table, with a luxurious single-person sofa placed at one end like a throne.
A middle-aged man with a very cold and stubborn expression sat in the single sofa, while an equally cold and sensitive-looking middle-aged woman and a young man wearing glasses occupied the long sofa.
McClain’s essence, who had been walking with an expressionless face, had suddenly aged into a teenager wearing a school uniform and sat at the corner of the sofa with a miserable expression.
The middle-aged man, as if he’d been waiting, flung a piece of paper at the teenager’s face and began his harsh criticism.
“What do you think you’re going to accomplish with grades like these? Your mother has taken so much money for your education, and all you’ve produced is this pathetic performance? How many times have I told you that if you want to keep the Kang surname, you need to get into Seoul National University?”
The teenage McClain, thoroughly intimidated by the man’s shouting, fell to his knees on the floor.
“I’m sorry, Father. I had a nosebleed while marking the OMR sheet and had to hurriedly fill out a new answer sheet, which caused me to make mistakes……”
“Mistakes are part of your ability. How dare you make such excuses?”
But the father’s response was quite heartless.
Just as Natalie was thinking that even a diligent student would lose motivation to study after hearing such words from their parents, the middle-aged woman and the bespectacled young man on the sofa interjected with sneers.
“It’s fine, Sir. What can we expect when common blood is mixed in? Bringing such a child into our family and calling him your son was a mistake from the beginning.”
“That’s right, Father. From my medical studies, I’ve learned it’s truly impossible to change the power of inherited genes through acquired effort. How can you blame him when his condition is due to the dirty genes mixed in from his stepmother?”
Hmm? Am I watching some soap opera?
Common blood? Dirty genes? Surely this couldn’t all be real?
This parade of childish dialogue would cause drama forums to explode!
Unable to endure even the family insults, teenage McClain shouted with wide eyes.
“Brother!”
“How dare this bastard raise his voice!”
Slap! However, teenage McClain crumpled helplessly from the middle-aged man’s blow.
Natalie rushed over to help him up, but her hands passed through his body like a ghost, unable to grasp him.
The middle-aged man approached with a vicious face, grabbed the fallen teenage McClain by the collar, and began beating him again.
“You bastard! Still! Haven’t! Learned! Your! Lesson!”
Slap, slap, slap!
The sound of palm against cheek continued harshly, and the teenage McClain’s body swayed violently from side to side as his collar was gripped.
“Hey! Stop it! What kind of father are you! Let go of him right now!”
As Natalie struggled to remove the middle-aged man’s arm, unable to bear watching any longer—
“I told you not to contact me anymore!”
A woman’s sharp voice was heard, and the scene before her eyes began to distort again.
The grand living room, the middle-aged man and woman, and the cold bespectacled man all disappeared instantly.
McClain’s essence, who had rapidly aged to his mid-twenties, began moving away quickly again. Natalie started running once more to follow him.
When she finally caught up, the man was sitting in a coffee shop. Across from him sat a woman with a haughty and sophisticated impression.
“How can you suddenly say you want to break up? You should at least tell me why.”
His voice, though trying to sound calm, revealed confusion and bewilderment.
However, the woman’s voice answering his question was very cold.
“How can I date someone who tells lies?”
“Lies? I’ve never lied to you.”
“Aren’t you the illegitimate son of the Daesin Group?”
The man’s face, which had been feigning serenity, cracked at the woman’s fierce question.
“What?”
“You’re the child the chairman had outside his marriage, so you won’t inherit much of the fortune, right?”
“What’s that all about!”
“Why didn’t you tell me? If you loved me, you should have been honest.”
“What does that matter? Did you approach me for my background rather than for who I am?”
“That background is all part of you. What your father does, how much your wealth is—it’s all you. How can I trust and be with you when you hid something so important?”
Listening from the side, Natalie was truly appalled.
Could this man possibly be a drama actor? What kind of drama consists of such continuous melodramatic plots?
As she shook her head in disbelief, the man stood up with a devastated face and smiled.
Though his lips were curved upward, his face looked as if he were crying.
“Ha–. I see. Right. Love? There’s no such thing……”
The man’s soliloquy was so pitiful that Natalie unconsciously reached out to him.
Even knowing she couldn’t touch him, even knowing he couldn’t see her, she wanted to comfort him somehow.
The moment her outstretched hand touched the man’s arm, she accidentally made eye contact with him as he turned his head.
His pupils seemed to dilate slightly. With the feeling that he might be seeing her, Natalie quickly muttered the mental barrier dispelling spell.
Then the scenery surrounding them began to distort rapidly once again.
Fortunately, Natalie’s mental barrier-dispelling spell seemed to work. The two quickly returned to the original scenery, to their original forms as Natalie and McClain.
McClain, who had been staring into space with unfocused eyes, realized he had returned to normal and hurriedly examined Natalie.
“Are you alright, Miss Pereira?”
Natalie gazed at McClain, who had returned to his original protagonist appearance.
His face, which she had previously thought merely handsome in a way fitting the fantasy setting, somehow looked sorrowful and pitiful today.
When she didn’t respond, McClain urgently grabbed her arm and shook it.
“Miss Pereira? Are you perhaps still not awake from the illusion……”
Just as McClain had experienced a nightmare, she too had almost begun a nightmare with flashing headlights, loud noises, and pouring water. The memory of that accident which had taken away all her loved ones in an instant, leaving her with the guilt of being the sole survivor, ultimately turning her into a workaholic who knew nothing but work.
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Ravingcrow1118
Sad thing is, people like that exist everywhere in the world. I was just watching a YouTube video about some crimes committed in Korea and why the culprits got away unharmed. Money is crazy motivators.