Alex now stood at the front of the line, his eyes trying to look behind the two guards.

  He strained his neck to see whether he would catch a glimpse of the maniacal woman, but there was nothing.

  Only the filthy clothes of survivors huddled together.

  "Please place your palm here and then stretch out your phone," the nurse smiled, unbothered with his rude behavior.

  Alex responded by placing a palm on the metal rectangle with the shape of a palm carved on it.

  He felt a light heat flash across his palm as the tablet glowed blue.

  "What's the purpose of this?" Alex said, removing his hand and placing a thumb in his mouth.

  A tiny needle retracted from the place where his thumb was, still coated in his blood.

  "Don't worry, the needles are changed for each person.

  As for the reason, well, we are a hospital and our primary duty is to take care of people.

  So your blood has to be registered for easy monitoring," the nurse explained without any pretense.

  "So you have the record of everyone here, staff included?" Alex raised an eyebrow.

  "If you hand out your phone, then I can continue the explanation," the nurse stretched out a hand as a polite gesture.

  Alex patted his pocket, skipped the knife, and handed him the phone he had found on this body.

  The nurse placed the phone with its back to that of the tablet and pressed a button at its side.

  After a second, the phone made a ding and was returned to its owner.

  Alex pressed the new icon bouncing around in one position.

  A cute chibi version of him appeared along with various information related to health.

  Like blood pressure, heartbeat rate, stamina level.

  "Is it adjusted real-time?" Alex asked curiously, watching his heartbeat fluctuate.

  "A chip was also placed in your blood that connects with your phone," the nurse responded.

  Alex once again glanced at the thumb with the tiny needle prick showing.

  He still marveled at just how advanced this world was compared to his home.

  Such a tiny dot could send nanobots into his blood.

  Then the question is, just how small are those bots?

  "Do you know of a staff named Seo Rina?" Alex put his thumb away and got to business.

  On his phone, the figure for heartbeat and blood pressure increased.

  It was obvious that Alex was in an excited state, but his face was expressionless.

  He had honed his fury from being explosive to calm, lurking beneath the surface—

  Just to explode with an even bigger bomb.

  "I'm sorry, but I don't think we have a staff member with that name," the nurse apologized.

  "Check again," this time Alex's tone was heavier.

  "I don't think we do. Can you please excuse us, as you're blocking the line," the nurse said, earning approval from those at the back as they started to murmur.

  Alex looked at them with a chilling smile, and they wisely shut up.

  The nurse pursed her lips in distress, and the guards that stood beside her were already beginning to frown.

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  Alex, who was about to cause a fight, looked the calmest, but only he knew that the inner madness he kept chained up was ramming at the cage he built.

  The sign was the tight grasp of his palm on the knife handle and the edges of his eyes turning red.

  "There you are, buddy, come on I've been waiting for you," an excited voice suddenly appeared as an arm was slung over Alex's shoulder.

  Alex, who was stunned, eventually ended up being dragged inside.

  Snapping out of the absurd thought that he might actually have met a long-lost friend.

  He turned to the dark man beside him who was smiling boldly and patting his chest.

  "That was close, almost got into trouble there and peed my pants," he said.

  "Who are you?" Alex had finished shifting through the meager relics of this body's past life in his head and found no sign of this person.

  In fact, the original owner of this body didn't seem to have friends and had a decadent aura of a depressed young man.

  Even if he did have some sort of connection with the person in front of him, he certainly wasn't bothered enough to feign a friendship.

  Alex was his own person with his own ideas.

  Plus he was dealing with enough shit in life to care about how to act.

  Alex studied the dark-skinned man dressed in normal clothes and low cut.

  He looked young, and his entire aura radiated a sunny energy which Alex found that he disliked intensely.

  His brown eyes twinkled as he looked at Alex.

  "Oh right, I haven't introduced myself yet. My name is Paul," the dark-skinned man stretched out a hand.

  Alex glanced at his palm, making no move to reciprocate.

  "You shake hands like this," Paul reached out to grab Alex's palm.

  Alex slapped his hand away and glared at him.

  "Not quite right but close enough," Paul rubbed his palm and smiled.

  "Why did you stop me?" Alex didn't want to bother with this idiot.

  So he asked the important question while looking at Paul with a sharp glint.

  His hand was fixed on the knife, ready to pull it out if Paul revealed anything suspicious.

  "You looked like you wanted to kill someone," Paul said, glancing at the nurse who was unbothered about the minor incident.

  "Yes, and how is that any of your business?" Alex looked at him like he was stupid.

  "Killing is wrong, especially misguided souls like theirs," Paul looked back at the nurse with pity.

  "What do you mean by misguided souls?" Alex glossed over the first part.

  "They have been led astray by evil," Paul frowned.

  "What do you know?" Alex inched closer to Paul.

  "I don't know anything!" Paul immediately raised his hands in a defensive posture.

  "Then how do you explain knowing about that evil entity?" Alex felt increasingly suspicious about this person.

  He appeared randomly and knows about the evil entity.

  Is he a player too?

  Trapped in this world—but if so, then where exactly has he been?

  Why haven't we ever crossed paths before now?

  Thinking in the other direction, an NPC knowing about the evil entity is an anomaly that feels equally dangerous.

  "I was revealed all these things by a spirit that dwells inside me," Paul said earnestly.

  Alex raised the kitchen knife to his neck.

  "I advise you to think carefully before you speak," Alex squinted at him.

  "Brother, calm down, violence is never the answer," Paul said weakly, his legs trembling.

  "Then just answer me correctly and we can forget this ever happened," Alex smiled kindly, but the knife pressed harder.

  "Impossible," Paul blurted out.

  "Why not?" Alex asked.

  "Ah—because my spirit is telling me that you need help," Paul said, trying to push the knife away, but his finger was sliced and he gave up after that.

  "Really, why me?"

  Is it because the so-called spirit within him is also an enemy of the evil entity?

  Does it want to use Paul as a medium to initiate contact with me?

  Alex felt increasingly doubtful with this conjecture as he stared at the man with a fawning smile on his face, nervously poking the knife—

  Only to pull his sliced finger back.

  Is this so-called spirit really someone I can work with because it sent this idiot?

  "Simply because I love you," Paul smiled while patting his shoulder.

  Alex went blank for a moment before drawing back the knife and slashing it down in one swift arc.

  Paul jumped and dodged out of the way, missing by an inch.

  Then he rolled away and started rambling about how Alex misunderstood him.

  "Then tell me what you really meant by that joke," Alex smiled while lunging with the knife again.

  Paul rolled away once again and began to explain.

  "I actually meant that the Lord I serve loves all human beings, including you, and I was a part of His plan to help you. So by extension, I have compassion for you," Paul pressed his hands together in a gesture of prayer.

  "Oh, so you're a fanatic," Alex looked at Paul meaningfully, then kept the knife back.

  "Brother, you don't have to insult me that much," Paul pouted and walked over to Alex.

  "And I'm not a fanatic. It's not time yet for me to explain it to you," Paul sighed as he looked at the gloomy young man.

  He wanted to complain why the Lord sent him someone so troublesome.

  "I didn't say anything insulting, did I?"—meaning that Paul only thought so because it was true.

  "Brother, you're a really hard person to like, you know that right?" Paul said earnestly.

  "You were the one who came onto me," Alex rolled his eyes.

  "The way you said it made you feel shy," Paul actually let out a 'hehe' at the end and bowed his head shyly.

  Then his vision turned black and he passed out.

  Alex drew back the fist he had just released and glared at the man passed out on the ground.

  He silently hoped never to meet this lunatic again and hurried away.

  After a while, Paul woke up groggily and found that he was the only person around.

  He scrambled up from the ground, uttering prayers as he hurried over to the dormitory.

  The dormitory was basically a ward turned into a living space.

  The mattress was laid on the ground instead of the metal bed, and each person was handed a pillow.

  Paul hummed a tune as he carried a pillow according to the room designated to him, as directed by the health app on his phone.

  The same app that he got after registering at the door.

  Paul placed his bag containing his possessions on the bed and turned to greet his neighbor beside him.

  "Hey neighb—" Paul choked back the greeting as he stared at the equally bewildered Alex.

  "Brother, it seems like we are really meant to be," Paul exclaimed while trying to pat Alex.

  Alex groaned in frustration and slapped his hand away.

  "You must have had a bad day, right?" Paul rubbed his hand.

  "Yeah, especially after seeing you again. It just got a whole lot worse," Alex grumbled.

  "Do you know what I do when I'm sad or angry? I pray to the Lord to make the person who causes me that frustration become a tolerable person," Paul advised earnestly.

  "Then can I pray to make you go away?" Alex retorted.

  "Where would I go to?" Paul scratched the back of his head.

  "Come closer and I'll show you," Alex smiled kindly.

  Paul leaned in curiously, then moved back at the last second because he thought he saw the light flash in his eyes.

  But then Paul realized that he was far away from the window and the light rays were blocked by another survivor at the other end of the room.

  He turned stiffly to the kitchen knife embedded in his mattress.

  "Tsk. Lucky," Alex clicked his tongue, then kept the knife back in his possession.

  "My bed!!

  I'll fight you—no, I can't because I should be showing compassion.

  You know what, I'm going to sleep."

  Paul was indignant at first and ignored the fact that he had almost been killed.

  Instead focusing on his bed.

  But then realized that it wasn't in his faith to fight, but he was also angry because he was a human being after all.

  So he turned his back to Alex and lay down while plucking at the hole in his mattress.

  He murmured words while feeling aggrieved, once again asking the Lord why he was sent to this annoying man to help him.

  Alex felt satisfied with Paul's defeat and decided to be gracious enough only to rebuke him once.

  "You're too noisy," Alex kicked the man beside him.

  "I'm praying," was all he replied, then he increased his volume slightly.

  Alex felt his hands itching once again but decided to forget it.

  He had gone through as many places as possible and still hadn't seen Seo Rina.

  Resulting in no progress at all today—only to be met with Paul once again.

  Alex felt drowsy and slept quite smoothly for the first time.

  Usually it would be him having nightmares of his previous lives or even dreams about home that were ordinary.

  Yet those dreams of home caused him the most heartache.

  Today was a rare peaceful night for him.

  Paul glared at the sleeping man beside him and carefully kicked him back lightly.

  Then he rolled far away and slept with a content smile on his face.