I was very tempted to jump into the river as well following Haein to hard reset, but I knew there was no point doing it without a clear and deliberate plan about what I would do differently and an understanding of how that might influence the course of events. If anything, resetting now and rashly approaching Haein again would just result in her getting nom-nom-ed by the Hell Beast again.
Does that actually matter though?
In 40 days it will appear anyway. And eventually, everyone will die, including the poor girl from Busan. Not only that, billions of people have died thousands of times over while I have been repeating my 40-day cycle.
Why do I even give a fuck about a horrible girl who has been giving me one-star review every October 1st?
Yet, I felt pain in my heart when I recalled the images of Haein being violently devoured although I've already seen countless people go through that before.
Just because we had a single 'date'?
Man, I really am hopeless…
For the next full week, I did nothing but waste my time in a way that I was most comfortable with - playing games that I'd already played for tens of thousands of hours, searching for obscure manga and doujin that I did not get to see yet, scouring through Webnovel to find hidden gems, and mostly, just lying in my bed being a lazy ass.
There was a short news report about Haein's suicide, but it was quickly buried and forgotten in the sea of other useless news on the Internet.
After I had wasted enough time (if that was even possible) and it did not look like I would come up with any great idea for the next few cycles, I decided that I should just come up with something basic and give it a go. Of course, it meant Haein would die a horrible death yet again, but by this time I had convinced myself I shouldn't give her special consideration. Maybe all I needed was mind-numbing boredom till I reached the point of 'I couldn't care less'.
I waited for the ruthless reviewer at the ramen restaurant but I did not sit at the same spot. Instead, I went early and sat at a table where I could see Haein in her usual seat and she'd have her back facing my direction. After patiently waiting until the right moment, I quickly got up carrying the half-empty bowl of Ramen that I had been saving for this moment. I got up to bring it to the counter and as I did, I comedy-tripped myself, and my bowl of ramen - as I have practiced many times at home- landed on her hands knocking off the phone so she could not give me a one-star review.
"Aoa!"
The assaulted girl let out a scream and people turned to look at the commotion. Seeing that luck was on my side and her phone dropped to the ground, I literally jumped over to her side and landed precisely on the poor phone lying on the ground. I could feel the satisfying crack of her phone.
"Are you ok?! I'm so sorry"
I quickly apologized to Haein while rubbing my sole on the phone screen with all my weight pressing down on it to make sure it was thoroughly broken and unusable.
"My-, my phone!"
"Oops", I spoke in my well-practiced 'It was a genuine mistake' tone.
"Oops?! What are you going to do about it!"
Right. This version of Haein is different yet again.
"I'm terribly sorry"
I picked up the phone and examined it, confirming that it was completely kaput.
"Could I buy you a new phone to make up for it?"
"Re…really?"
"Yes, we are in Yongsan Mall after all. They have lots of phone shops on the second floor. I will get a new one for you straight away"
The innocent victim thought about it for a second, still looking pissed off, but objectively there was nothing else she could do except take my offer"
":Sigh: Fine. I guess that's the only way"
"I'm truly sorry. But we can go now and you can pick ANY phone you want"
"Any?", there was a twinkle in her eyes and a not so well hidden smile rising at the corner of her lips.
"Yes, any"
Needless to say, I also paid for her ramen. It's not like I had a lot, but considering that I didn't need to worry about balancing the books money didn't really matter to me.
A few minutes later we were at the phone shop and she was actually somewhat excited about the prospect of getting the latest uPhone 16 which was an upgrade to her uPhone 13 and would be good to go straight away using the uCloud backup.
After all the transfer was done she even thanked me and we parted our ways. I was happy to see her walk away humming in a good mood. She put the phone to use straight away and had her eyes fixed on the screen and fingers tapping furiously as she walked off.
Maybe posting on Delaygram about her new phone?
Then I had a sudden bad feeling, an ominous gut feeling that told me things would not be over so quickly.
I pulled out my phone to check my Webnovel app and it was as I feared. She left me a one-star review again.
You just got a new phone and this is the first thing you do?!
I ran after her and tapped on her shoulder.
"Why would you do that?!"
Startled, she turned around and an immediate confusion was written all over her face.
"What do you mean?"
"Why do you always leave such a bad review for my book?"
"Bad review?"
"YES"
"Oh-, how did you?!"
Eh-. It was a bit hard to explain, I realized. I couldn't use the excuse that I accidentally glanced at her phone this time, and it would have been way too far-fetched for anyone to believe that I made a connection between me receiving a review just now and the reviewer being her.
"I just had a hunch"
The girl looked somewhat frightened. She must be thinking I was a freaky psychic or something.
"Listen, that is not relevant actually. What I want to know for sure is… OK, let me start over. I am Toobs, an author on Webnovel. You wrote a horrible one-star review for my book. I just want to, sincerely, find out what was so bad about my book. I would be grateful if you could explain it to me. It would help me improve as an author"
"You know what? You are creepy and I don't give a damn"
Yup. This version of Haein was definitely sassy.
"Please. If you could provide me some feedback, it would help me SO much"
"I already said what I think about your book on the review. It's one star for everything. Writing, plot, characters, setting. Oh, on second thought, fine, I was a bit unfair about the stability of updates. You do seem to update daily"
Well, I haven't updated for a few years actually because there was no point in doing so.
"Could you provide more details?"
"Why would I waste my time doing that?"
"I will treat you to something. There is a… very nice dessert cafe on the top floor here"
The glutton gave it a consideration and took the bait.
"Fine. But I'll warn you - I can eat a lot"
I know…
"Thank you. I will treat you to anything you want"