A name I hadn’t expected at all came out, and for a moment I was left dumbstruck.
Perhaps thinking there was something in my reaction, the woman immediately pressed me as well.
“Do you know them, by any chance? Those children are now…!”
“Yes, I do know them, but before that… your name, by any chance?”
“…It’s Kim Soyeong.”
It was indeed the name Min Aji and Yu Inha had talked about until my ears were sick of it.
At this point, I could rule out the possibility that it was someone else with the same name.
‘…To think I’d run into her here.’
Just finding an acquaintance of someone I knew in a place like this was already an incredible result.
Aji and Inha would be overjoyed if they learned this as well.
But… her impression was a little different from what I’d imagined.
I’d pictured someone a bit more cheerful and spirited, but the person before me barely changed expression and came across as coldly composed.
“…Um.”
“Ah. Please, keep asking.”
“…Thank you.”
Only at that pitiful call did I finally come back to my senses.
She must have been holding herself back quite a bit, because the question came right away.
“Do you know what Aji and Inha are doing right now…?”
“…Mm.”
It was a somewhat difficult question to answer, but I told her the truth.
That they had come in here to save her, and that we were currently separated due to circumstances.
“……Ah.”
Her face grew gloomy.
It was only natural.
Even if they weren’t related by blood, younger siblings were still younger siblings. And unlike Han Yuri, that girl, they probably hadn’t been detestable either, so she could only be especially attached to them.
Those younger siblings had entered a hellish place like this, saying they would save her.
That alone was enough to worry her, and now she heard they had even been separated from me.
“B-Because of me…….”
Her pupils trembled like aspen leaves, and her breathing grew ragged.
A textbook panic attack. Unfortunately, my mind-protection sacred art was of little effect at times like this.
It was a power that protected the mind, after all, not one that healed it.
‘…Whew.’
I sighed inwardly.
The truth was, I was worried about those two as well, not to mention the rest of my team.
We had been separated in a place like this. How could I not be worried? For one thing, they wouldn’t even be able to see.
Even I couldn’t guarantee what might have happened to them.
“…First, calm down. We don’t even know what’s happened to them yet, do we?”
“…….”
“They’re all capable people, so they wouldn’t have gone down already. So if we hurry and regroup with them, they should be all right, wouldn’t you say?”
“……Yes.”
“That’s right. And for us to hurry and regroup, I need your help.”
“My help……?”
Only then did a little expression return to her face.
It had taken a rather arduous process… but it was completely understandable.
She must have seen plenty of things here that no one should have to see.
And according to the kids, she had originally been cheerful, so something must have happened for her to change like this…….
“I said it earlier, didn’t I? That we’d both have a lot of questions. I have things I want to know too. If you answer properly, it’ll help save those two.”
“Please ask me anything, Angel…!”
At the mention that it could help save the two of them, she became fervent.
It wasn’t that I couldn’t trust that fervor, but you never knew.
Given how fragile her mind and body seemed, lies might slip out without her even realizing it.
‘Eye of Truth.’
I activated a revelation-type sacred art that allowed me to discern truth from lies.
That was all I could do for now.
I immediately asked the question I was most curious about.
“Is this place… Dogok 1-dong, by any chance?”
“…No. This area is separated as Dogok 2-dong.”
According to the Eye of Truth, it was the truth, without a speck of falsehood.
…Damn it.
This is seriously troublesome.
*
I’d said it once before we entered, but the area originally connected to Hannam Bridge was Dogok 1-dong.
It was the place the soldiers had reached after crossing Hannam Bridge before, and it was also our target destination.
But for some reason, I alone had fallen somewhere else…….
‘And the place I fell into is Dogok 2-dong.’
Since both were grouped under Dogok-dong, the two were pressed right up against each other.
But a real-world sense of distance didn’t apply in this place.
‘Ah, damn it…….’
I had asked that question because I’d more or less expected this by now, but it was still incredibly troublesome.
If my guess was right… the rest of the team wouldn’t be here.
‘Whew…….’
Letting out a sigh inwardly, I looked out the window.
There were many windows around the sofa where we sat.
I had deliberately chosen a seat like this. That way, my light would spread properly outside, and whether it was my team members or survivors, they could come find me by following that light.
But what had the result been?
During the entire half a day or more that I had slept, not a single survivor had come here, let alone my team members.
‘Sure, the survivors might be understandable.’
They had every reason to be cautious.
No matter how much light an entity gave off, this was still a blackout zone. It was right to be wary of anything new, without exception.
But my team members were a different story.
They would know that I was the one giving off the light.
No matter how far apart we were, if we were in the same area, it would be right for them to come looking for my light, which should be visible from anywhere.
‘…If we were in the same area, that is.’
So this was what I had thought of.
The possibility that only I had fallen into a different area.
And that hypothesis had been affirmed by the answer just now.
‘Still… I suppose it’s fortunate, at least.’
If they had been in the same area, that would have been an even bigger problem.
If they were in the same area and still hadn’t found me, it would mean something bad had happened to them.
‘Then in the end, the question is whether I’m the only one who got stranded…….’
In my opinion, the other team members probably crossed over normally.
If I considered why the mix-up had occurred, I could infer that much.
There were three possible reasons.
The Human Veil being torn once, the intervention of an external divinity, and lastly…….
‘The collapse of Hannam Bridge.’
The Human Veil, which I had initially thought was the cause, was a little lacking as an explanation.
Honestly, it didn’t seem that rare for the Human Veil to be torn.
To begin with, while we were breaking through Hannam Bridge, that thing had gone outside once.
We simply hadn’t seen it, but there was a high possibility that it had torn through the veil and gone out then as well.
In other words, it was something that happened quite habitually.
It was hard to think something like that would have had a major effect.
‘The external divinity… is suspicious enough, but there’s a high chance it wasn’t that.’
To begin with, I wasn’t the one who had messed with the giant eyeball this time.
The being beneath the Han River had, strictly speaking, come to punish the Predator.
And it was also that side that had given me a chance to survive in the first place.
‘Then in the end, it would be right to think that the collapse of Hannam Bridge had a major effect.’
Everything in a blackout zone was ultimately determined by human perception.
It might be twisted this way and that by the entity granting wishes, but in the end, it was based on the wishes humans made.
That was also why blackout zones were divided into things like a “specific hospital,” a “specific bridge,” or a “specific neighborhood.”
In the midst of that, if Hannam Bridge collapsed, then the underlying concept would collapse as well… meaning it wouldn’t be strange for some kind of abnormality to occur.
‘Since the team members entered before the bridge collapsed, they would have been able to go to the original destination.’
But the moment I threw myself into the gate and the moment the bridge collapsed due to the being beneath the Han River were almost simultaneous.
‘…I more or less understand what happened now.’
I let out a sigh of relief.
In that case, we had avoided the worst.
“…….”
Perhaps because I had been lost in thought for too long, Kim Soyeong was looking at me with extremely anxious eyes.
I briefly explained what I had figured out.
“…In any case, the other team members should be gathered together in Dogok 1-dong, and the local survivors there are friendly too, so there shouldn’t be a problem.”
“…That’s a relief.”
She didn’t seem to fully understand, but the gist appeared to have gotten across somehow.
‘The team members have plenty of food and a fair amount of supplies, so they should be fine.’
It was good that I had confirmed their safety.
The problem was… we were the problem.
I didn’t have much food or drinking water. Of course, I had enough to last a few days, but that was when I was alone.
Now, it would probably only be enough for a day or two.
So joining up with a survivor group had to be our top priority.
Since they had survived here for a long time, they would have food and water.
But the problem was… this person.
I looked up at the tall woman, who was about two heads taller than me.
‘It definitely seems like she’s not on good terms with the survivor group.’
The gunshots, and the fact that no one had followed after her, both pointed to that.
‘…Ah, whatever.’
The Eye of Truth was active anyway, so I asked directly.
“You haven’t committed some kind of crime or anything, have you?”
At my words, her eyes widened, and she hesitated to answer.
Only after about a minute did she finally open her mouth.
“…I think I have.”
I was more than a little surprised by her admission.
From what I’d heard from Min Aji and Yu Inha, she hadn’t seemed like the kind of person who would.
She was a police officer, and I’d heard she had a strong sense of duty…….
And then I was surprised once more by the answer the Eye of Truth brought me.
—A lie.