The new ruins we arrived at after passing through the hologram.
This place, too, was a sealed stone chamber where not even the sky could be seen.
But I could tell at once that this was not Earth.
Of course, I could breathe just fine, and there was no particular smell.
But there was one absolute difference.
The gravity was different.
“Wow, my body feels so light.”
“It feels like my weight’s been reduced to a tenth.”
Many people were looking at me, but among those who had arrived first, there were still people hopping up and down.
There was no need to jump like that. The moment I moved my body, I knew.
Everything felt different, from moving my arms and legs to turning my head.
‘Low gravity isn’t simply a good thing.’
My body moved far more than I expected. It seemed I would need practice to move the way I had before.
As I was checking my condition, I suddenly sensed a presence.
Pat.
I dodged to the side.
When I looked toward where I had sensed it, a man who had not been there a moment ago was standing there.
He was a Black man in a military uniform—an American soldier.
He had come this close, yet I hadn’t sensed his presence.
If that wasn’t it, had he moved so fast that I couldn’t sense him?
It was the first time something like this had happened since I had gained my senses.
When I stared at him in surprise, he was glaring at me as well.
His expression said that something about me displeased him.
The American soldier opened his mouth.
“...What is your name?”
Fortunately, it was English I knew.
On top of that, the other party was a U.S. military officer.
I answered immediately.
“I am Sergeant Hyeon Myeonghan.”
When I answered in Korean, he failed to understand me.
The American soldier’s expression worsened.
I could have answered in English, but I had no reason to do him that favor.
Even if I spoke like this, there would be someone who would answer for me.
“It says here. It's number 12. He's a sergeant in the Korean Army.”
As I expected, a foreign man shouted to him in English. There was a sheet of paper in the man’s hand.
‘It says Korean Army sergeant, number 12...’
That paper probably had information about me and the others.
But there was only one sheet. It seemed impossible to write detailed information in there.
Besides, this time, I hadn’t been chosen because of my ability. There was no reason for detailed information to be written down.
The American soldier glanced at Sergeant First Class An, who was retching beside me, then muttered quietly.
“You brought two bags and a backpack. I don't like it, but I guess I'll have to settle for this soldier.”
It was a low mutter to himself, but I could understand it.
‘It sounds like he’s trying to make me do something because I brought a backpack, too...’
I didn’t know what he intended to make me do, but judging from his displeased expression, it did not seem like a bad thing.
‘No. It might be something troublesome.’
In the military, standing out was bound to bring all kinds of trouble.
My pounding heart immediately calmed down.
After looking me up and down one last time, the American soldier descended from the altar without any explanation.
Unlike when he had appeared, he moved slowly this time.
He did not head toward where our group was gathered, but toward the people holding spears.
The dozen or so people there were almost all foreigners.
‘Are they Americans? About half of them look like soldiers.’
They seemed to be the advance team the deputy director had mentioned.
Even so, unlike us, they did not seem to be ordinary people.
They were not all soldiers, but at the very least, it looked as if all of them had received basic training.
‘If they’ve been trained, they’re no different from soldiers.’
Soon after, Sergeant First Class An, who had been retching, came to his senses.
“Kaak. Ptui. Are you all right? I thought I was going to die from dizziness.”
Fortunately, Sergeant First Class An was not naked.
But there was no sign of his backpack or bags.
‘Is the difference in baggage related to the dizziness? Or is this just another difference between individuals?’
Unlike Sergeant First Class An, I was not dizzy in the slightest.
Come to think of it, the female student who had crossed over first had also looked fine.
She had already descended from the altar.
Only the two of us remained on top of it.
This was all because of the American soldier who had suddenly barged in.
Of course, there was no way such an excuse would work in the military.
"Hey, you two, come down quickly!"
The spear-bearing members of the advance team snapped at us on top of the altar.
At their order to come down quickly, we immediately descended from the altar.
After Sergeant First Class An and I stepped down, people appeared on top of the altar again.
Unconscious people, and people whose faces were streaked with tears.
They were the ones who had been set aside earlier.
The general and the deputy director had truly sent them here.
The advance team members clicked their tongues when they saw the last people to appear.
“Are these trash?”
They cursed in English as they climbed onto the altar.
They woke the unconscious people with the shafts of their spears.
“Where is this?”
“What happened?”
Those who regained consciousness looked around with bewildered faces.
“They really sent us by force... What do we do? Please, let us go home.”
The people who had been dragged here by force pleaded with those standing around them, but the advance team members were merciless.
They used spears, threats, and even violence to make them move.
After even the last people joined us, the advance team led us out of the stone chamber.
Thanks to the torches carried by the advance team, we were able to make out the stone chamber and the connected cave to some extent.
The cave connected to the stone chamber was a long, upward-sloping passage.
Relying on the torches, we continued through the dark cave.
It looked like a natural cave, but it stretched on straight without any twists.
The steeply sloped cave continued for a long distance, like climbing a mountain.
It felt as if we were walking back up the height we had descended by elevator.
If the cave had not been relatively even, the ordinary people might have given up midway.
The low gravity made it less physically demanding, but because their movements were unfamiliar, people struggled more than expected.
Fortunately, I adapted quickly.
When I adjusted right away, some of the advance team members looked at me with puzzled eyes.
People had to rest several times before the cave ended.
In the end, it was only after several hours that we were able to leave the cave.
Once we stepped outside, I understood why we had not been able to see the outside from the cave.
It was night outside.
The first thing I saw after leaving the cave was the night sky.
The night sky was not dark.
“My God.”
The sky was filled with stars.
It was a sight as if the Milky Way had filled the entire heavens.
Fortunately, the constellations I could recognize still remained.
Constellations visible amid countless stars.
Their positions and shapes were slightly different, but the fact that there were still constellations I could recognize reassured me somewhat.
“This is impossible...”
“It really isn’t the Moon.”
Though they were awed by the night sky packed with stars, what truly shocked people was not the stars.
In the sky floated moons—no, satellites.
One satellite as large as the Moon, another half the size of the Moon, and even a broken, half-formed satellite that was clearly shattered.
Those who had been half in doubt until now finally understood reality.
We had come to another planet.
While everyone else stared blankly at the sky, I quickly examined my surroundings.
Because it was night, I could not see in detail.
But with my eyes, which seemed to have grown even better than before, along with the starlight and the light of the three satellites, I could make out quite a bit.
I confirmed the scenery beyond the rocks and frowned.
‘An ordinary wasteland? No, that’s a little strange.’
A desolate plain where almost no trees or grass could be seen.
This was an ordinary plain with nothing special about it.
That was what made it strange.
An ordinary wasteland.
‘That doesn’t make any sense, does it?’
In truth, the most astonishing thing was that I could breathe comfortably on another planet.
Still, I could force myself to understand that.
After all, they wouldn’t have built spatial transfer ruins in a place where one couldn’t breathe.
But to think I would see such an ordinary landscape.
If it weren’t for the satellites, I might have believed this was Earth.
That meant this planet—at least this surrounding area—was similar to Earth.
The material of the ground, the sky, even the grass and trees sparsely visible across the plain.
They were all things one could see on Earth.
A planet dozens of light-years away being similar to Earth?
This was not an ordinary matter.
‘Looks like I have one more thing to ask.’
They had said that if we came to this planet, we would be able to hear the answers we wanted, but I had never believed those words from the start.
Seeing scenery similar to Earth only strengthened that thought.
‘Maybe it’s not that they won’t answer, but that they can’t.’
What the Americans had done was merely get an old ruin moving again.
That alone was an incredible feat, but it seemed likely that even the Americans knew far less than they did not know.
It was while I was thinking that and examining the surroundings.
“Everyone, attention!”
A man holding a spear stood before us and spoke loudly.
He looked East Asian, but since he had not said a word until now, his nationality had been unclear.
Since he was speaking Korean, he seemed to be Korean.
“I am Park Osu, the team leader in charge of Koreans here at the First Camp.”
He began with informal speech from the start.
At the words of the man, who appeared to be in his mid-thirties, several people frowned.
“Starting tomorrow, all of you will be doing various tasks on this planet and mining black stone. You will hear the necessary explanations tomorrow as well. Since it is late tonight, you will rest in your respective lodgings.”
I heard someone curse quietly.
The atmosphere turned strange, but he continued speaking.
“The lodgings where you will be staying were prepared with great difficulty by the advance team. Do not bring up pointless complaints and tire out the advance team members.”
He pointed behind us with his spear.
When I looked where the spear indicated, I saw other caves beside the one we had come out of.
Several caves had been opened beneath a rocky hill standing alone in the wilderness.
The cave we had emerged from was among them.
They all looked like old caves untouched by human hands. I had no idea what exactly the advance team had prepared.
He did not accept any questions. Instead, he collected the belongings we had brought and told us which caves we would sleep in.
“There is no separate toilet, so relieve yourselves outside. It gets cold at night, so when you sleep, it would be better to huddle close together.”
He explained the situation in bits and pieces, but instead of helping, it only made us realize how harsh our circumstances were.
Assigning caves one person at a time, when my turn came, he frowned as he looked at the backpack and bags I was carrying.
“So the person in charge of the box has been decided.”
His words were similar to what I had heard from the American soldier in the ruins.
I couldn’t help but ask.
“What does the person in charge of the box mean?”
Fortunately, he answered me.
“It means the person in charge of the Dark Box, the spatial expansion box.”
I heard his answer, but I did not understand what it meant.
But I could not hear any more.
After saying that much, he waved his hand.
“That’s enough. You’ll hear about it tomorrow once your work is decided. Your cave is that one.”
He told me which cave I would sleep in.
Judging from his frown, it seemed he did not like me.
I did not like him either.
Without asking anything more, I headed toward the cave he had indicated.
As expected, the inside of the cave, which was not deep, was empty.
Only the piles of grass laid out here and there showed where people were supposed to sleep.
At least the small fire burning in the center of the cave filled it with some warmth.
I could only click my tongue after seeing the inside of the cave, but for now, I needed to rest first.
My body was not exhausted like the others’, but my head hurt too.
Since the day had been full of shocking events from the morning on, it was only natural that my head hurt.
I lay down roughly in an empty spot.
Then I immediately tried to sleep.
An unfamiliar world, an unfamiliar environment, a cold night.
There were more than one or two things that could keep me from sleeping.
One thing I had learned during operations was the ability to fall asleep the moment I lay down.
Unlike other times, I felt as if some strange energy was rummaging through my body, but even so, I barely managed to fall asleep.