Episode 3
Episode 1: My World (3)
Today had been another ordinary day. Yeonghun looked at his reflection in the company bathroom mirror after lunch.
A body that easily weighed over a hundred kilograms, combined with his tall height, made him look like a bear. His face had filled out, giving him a gentle impression.
Yeonghun sighed.
A body that had been slender just ten years ago had changed because of corporate life.
He had occasionally signed up at a gym to exercise, but he had never lasted more than a few days.
[Link Start]
A hallucination rang in Yeonghun's ears. Then, a strange sensation began. It felt as if he were watching himself.
The reflection in the mirror was looking at him with the lean physique he had possessed ten years ago.
He rubbed his eyes with his hand. When he looked in the mirror again, his original face appeared. He let out a sigh of relief.
These hallucinations, accompanied by illusions, had occurred occasionally for several years now.
Once every few days, sometimes brief, sometimes lasting nearly half a day.
He had asked people around him and even gone to the hospital, but each time he was treated like a weirdo, so he had stopped asking.
Since this sensation didn't cause problems in his daily life, he had given up and was simply living with it.
But the situation had changed recently.
He startled awake at the sight of a person passing by beside him. It was time to get back to work.
Yeonghun left the bathroom and headed toward the office. Single-story buildings that looked decades old came into view.
This was a small factory located in an industrial complex in Gunpo, with fewer than forty employees. He entered the single-story office before him.
People were working in the small office, which had about six desks. Yeonghun quickly sat down at his seat.
“If you've eaten, you should come straight back to the office. It's been over an hour!”
“I'm sorry.”
Yeonghun apologized to the department head, who was talking while reading a newspaper.
But Yeonghun inwardly scoffed at him.
He was a man close to sixty who sat in the department head position solely because he was a relative of the owner, completely lacking in competence. He was a parasite in the office.
Yeonghun found it absurd that such a man was enforcing office discipline.
Yeonghun sat down and looked around.
Kim Ju-im, who was supposed to be looking at the accounting, was chatting with someone on the computer, and Section Chief Park on the opposite side was still asleep. It was the aftermath of drinking himself into a stupor for business yesterday.
It was a sight he had grown used to over two years.
“Deputy Gang, let's go make a delivery!”
Section Chief Jang shouted at Yeonghun as he came in after finishing his meal.
Yeonghun let out a small sigh and got up from his seat.
It seemed he would have to go along for a delivery again today.
Yeonghun and Section Chief Jang went outside.
Outside, car parts neatly loaded in boxes were visible. Yeonghun drove the forklift and moved the boxes one by one onto the large truck.
Section Chief Jang stood atop the truck and received the boxes, loading them into the cargo bed.
Yeonghun sighed at his own skilled forklift driving. The only thing that had improved since coming to this company was his forklift operating skills.
A moment later, a single luxury mid-size sedan pulled up beside them.
The car stopped, and a man with salt-and-pepper hair got out of the driver's seat. It was the owner.
Then a young woman got out of the passenger seat.
She was a woman with a pretty face and a slender figure. Her long straight hair swayed in the wind. But stubbornness was visible on her face.
She was the owner's eldest daughter, who attended university.
After receiving greetings from Yeonghun and Section Chief Jang, the owner went into his office.
The daughter ignored Yeonghun and Section Chief Jang and followed the owner. She was angry at the owner.
“Huiyeong is hanging out with bad kids! Dad, please pay more attention to Huiyeong!”
Seeing that, Yeonghun and Section Chief Jang shook their heads.
It seemed being a father wasn't easy even for the owner.
Today was another day of overtime.
After finishing work, Yeonghun was heading home.
It was almost midnight, and the alleyway was desolate.
Only the convenience store was lit, and neighborhood delinquents were gathered in a small playground on one side, smoking.
More than half of them looked to be high school age, but Yeonghun paid them no mind. Nothing good would come from making eye contact with them.
Yeonghun lowered his head and quickened his pace.
His home, which he reached after walking for about ten minutes, was a semi-basement unit in a three-story multi-family building.
Yeonghun went inside.
A kitchen and a room. That sparse house was the one and only space that belonged to him alone.
He washed up briefly and sat at his desk.
On the desk were a slightly outdated computer and monitor, along with a tablet used for drawing pictures on the computer.
Yeonghun turned on the computer and started drawing on the tablet.
He worked at a small company like this, but he had a dream: to become a great cartoonist or illustrator. So every day, he drew little by little like this.
On the screen, a young woman's face was being drawn. She had short hair and a beautiful, expressionless face.
Yeonghun set down the tablet pen and tilted his head. It was a face he was seeing for the first time. Yet, looking at the woman's face, he felt a sense of longing.
It had started recently. He had begun doing such strange things.
A chill ran down his spine, and he erased the woman's face. Then he started drawing a different picture.
But he soon saved the drawing he was working on and turned off the computer. He was too tired to make any progress.
Lying in bed, he let out a bitter smile. This was the reason he ultimately worked at such an ordinary, small company.
Unlike other ordinary people, he simply lacked willpower.
[Pathetic bastard.]
He fell asleep to a quiet scoff.
***
Feeling that his other-dimensional self had fallen asleep, Yeonghun took off the dimensional connector he had been wearing on his head.
Beside him, Seonhui was still asleep.
Outside was enveloped in darkness, and only the light from the dimensional connector in his hand illuminated the surroundings.
He sat down and looked at the headphone-shaped dimensional connector. It was the final version of the contraband dimensional connection device.
Five years had already passed since the dimensional connector was first created. The dimensional connector, which had repeatedly failed, finally succeeded by utilizing an ability user's dimensional power. The jubilant development team immediately connected to another world.
But it was not a world of monsters.
The dimensional connector linked the user to their parallel-world self.
The dimensional connector was a failure.
It had been a problematic project from the start. Many ability users who participated in the experiment became vegetative, and later even the core developer became vegetative. In the end, the dimensional connector was scrapped.
But Yeonghun had inherited the dimensional connector that a close ability user had used, receiving it as that person's keepsake.
Fortunately, this new version of the dimensional connector had no major problems. That was why Yeonghun had remained unharmed until now.
But he was a little worried. The face that the other world's Yeonghun had drawn on the screen was Seonhui's face.
As the number of connections increased, it seemed he was influencing the Yeonghun of that world. Yeonghun thought he should reduce the connections.
Yeonghun had been using the dimensional connector to heal his mind.
It gave his war-weary spirit rest. Thanks to that, he was enduring well.
He put away the connector and lit a candle. The government lacked the capacity to send electricity to the front lines.
Yeonghun took out a wooden carving and a small carving knife from his bag.
While connected to the dimensional connector, his body was asleep. Having had sufficient rest, he needed to pass the time until Seonhui woke up.
Scrape, scrape.
He began carving. He had started when the war began and he could no longer draw. The carving gradually took on Seonhui's form.
Time passed. Feeling an itch on his face, he turned his head to see Seonhui staring intently at him.
When Yeonghun smiled at Seonhui, their pagers rang. It was an emergency.
Yeonghun let out a sigh. He couldn't even spend his day off to the end.
They hurriedly left the motel. The sound of sirens echoed across the dawn sky.
An emergency was declared for the entire unit. Yeonghun learned the cause of the emergency from the soldiers.
It was a lightning-fast invasion by monstrosities.
The military called the monsters Yeonghun's team had dealt with “reconnaissance-type monsters.”
The reason was that if these reconnaissance-type monsters did not die and settled in one place, there was a certain probability that a dimensional monstrosity would appear, and those monsters appeared to scout the surroundings for the dimensional monstrosity.
Dimensional monstrosities had appeared two years after the first reconnaissance-type monsters emerged. And they had turned the world into hell.
After that monster appeared, various names were given to it, but now they were all called dimensional fixed monstrosities, commonly known as Larvae.
They were gigantic larvae with hard shells, and after that monster appeared, humanity had been helplessly pushed back.
Even now, humanity had yet to find a proper solution to this monster.
***
All strike team members except Team 2 were gathered in the division commander's office.
Combining the numbers from Team 1 and Team 3, there were nine. It was a number that didn't even reach squad strength.
Team 1 had clearly come out while sleeping and looked exhausted, and only First Lieutenant Gang Hyeok seemed to have relieved his stress, as his expression looked fine.
The division commander explained the situation once everyone had gathered. The division commander's expression was stiff.
“Two hours ago, reconnaissance-type monsters attacked across the entire front. Our division was also hit; 2nd Squad lost two people, including an assassination-type ability user.”
The division commander did not even mention the deaths of other soldiers.
“Less than half of the repelled monsters were killed. Moreover, it's reported that at every location where the monsters appeared, they advanced a certain distance and then stopped.”
At the division commander's words, everyone's expressions stiffened. If the reconnaissance-type monsters had ceased rampaging and stopped, there was only one result.
“A dimensional fixed monstrosity will definitely appear. A short while ago, Unified Command Headquarters sent an order to retreat from all fronts. A month ago, South America's last defense line was destroyed by the enemy's attack, and it seems we are unfortunately the next target.”
It seemed the stalemate of small-scale battles over the past half-year had come to an end.
The Korean military, lacking the capability to defend against the enemy's main force, had reached the time when they had to leave the Korean Peninsula.
“An A-rank ability user with the code name Jumper will be here shortly. He appears to have stepped in personally to evacuate all assassination-type ability users to Jeju Island.”
Surprised, Seonhui looked at Yeonghun. Yeonghun gave a bitter smile.
It seemed the higher-ups had abandoned the front-line divisions. Otherwise, there would be no reason to separately evacuate assassination-type ability users, the most important personnel.
“You've all likely realized this, but it seems escape will be impossible for anyone except you. The higher-ups have judged that the monstrosity will appear faster than expected. Well, the time has come.”
The division commander's expression was calm as he spoke. He was a soldier who had witnessed the annihilation of countless front-line units. He had always kept a situation like this in mind.
But the strike team members' faces were grave.
From now on, they had to escape this place alive. Moreover, with the assassination-type ability users gone, the probability of escaping alive decreased even further.
The members took their weapons and headed to the parking lot.
The division commander moved back to the command center. Even if the higher-ups had given up, he had to do his best to save even one more person.
In the parking lot, generators were still running fiercely, supplying electricity to the dimensional movement blocking devices.
Soldiers were running around in all directions.
A soldier getting into a car and rushing out, a soldier running with just a single rifle, and a young soldier leaning against a wall crying—they all clearly knew the situation.
Shortly after, the surviving Team 2 members appeared here and there with bandages wrapped around them.
Although their expressions were dark after having just lost a team member, no one brought up the matter.
These nine people seemed isolated from the surrounding chaos. They quietly looked at the empty parking lot.
Not long after, the space before them began to waver. It was a prelude to spatial movement.
Swish!
As if a single solid line were drawn across the empty air before their eyes, a man appeared. Space was still wavering behind him.
That man, like the people there, was wearing clothes reinforced with metal over his combat uniform.
Yeonghun checked his shoulder. He was a colonel.
An ordinary man in his thirties, he was the movement ability user with the code name Jumper.
He was the last remaining movement ability user in Korea, a person with the immense ability to move up to two people excluding himself a maximum of 400 km.
He was one of the four A-rank ability users remaining in Korea.
The man stopped those who were formally saluting and spoke.
“There is no time. The two assassination-type ability users, please step forward.”
Team 1's assassination-type ability user stepped forward. After looking at Yeonghun for a moment, Seonhui stepped forward.
Yeonghun pressed a handkerchief into Seonhui's hand.
It was a dimensional core he had obtained the day before.
Seonhui looked at Yeonghun after seeing the handkerchief, and Yeonghun smiled at her.
The movement ability user confirmed the two people and had them stand at his sides. He spoke to the remaining people.
“Unified Command Headquarters has judged that there is no time left. Please move immediately after I leave. Good luck.”
As everyone had expected, it seemed the higher-ups had abandoned all front-line divisions.
Yeonghun looked at Seonhui with a bitter smile. Seonhui was gripping the handkerchief tightly and kept looking at Yeonghun.
The soldiers of this era—no, the ability users—had experienced countless farewells. In a time when the living numbered less than one-tenth of the dead, they had parted with that many people.
Yeonghun and Seonhui were both prepared to part.
If Yeonghun survived, they would live together again in joy, but even if Yeonghun did not survive, Seonhui would bury him in her heart and live on.
Yeonghun smiled bitterly inwardly.
He wasn't confident that he could live on if he lost Seonhui.
Yeonghun still didn't know whether Seonhui loved him or was simply with him to find comfort on the battlefield.
But in this pit of despair, such things held little meaning.
The movement ability user placed his hands on the shoulders of the ability users standing at his sides. He unleashed his dimensional power.
His dimensional power did not tear through dimensions but instead created a gap between spaces, connecting this place to a point on Jeju Island.
He threw his body into the gap. The movement ability user and the two assassination-type ability users teleported to Jeju Island.
Nothing remained before the strike team except wavering space.
As they left through spatial movement, everyone began to move busily. The remaining people also had to escape this place.
Yeonghun quietly looked at the spot where Seonhui had left. At the last moment, Seonhui had moved her lips toward Yeonghun.
‘Don't be too late.’
Yeonghun now had a reason to live.
“I'll keep your share separate.”
“Well, when have I ever been shorted? Don't worry.”
Yeonghun asked for Gang Hyeok's understanding regarding passing the dimensional core to Seonhui, and Gang Hyeok waved his hand, saying he didn't mind.
Yeonghun and the strike team members got into the military truck. They had to head south as quickly as possible.