Slanted to one side from the gust of wind, the trees gradually returned to their original position. The wind stopped blowing, and their plan had ended in success. The cliff which had been crowded with monsters just a moment ago was now wiped clean, and not a single monster remained. Not just the monsters, but no humans remained, either. Ru Amuh looked at the edge of the empty cliff, and his eyes became blank. There was a message hovering in the air. It was a message that Chi-Woo had sent just before he was sucked into the whirlwind.
[Sorry for lying. This was Ms. Hawa’s and my decision.]
The following messages were short and choppy because Chi-Woo had to quickly type. Still, Ru Amuh fully understood what this message meant: Chi-Woo was apologizing for lying and telling him to not feel guilty since this was a decision that he and Hawa had made of their free will.
“Teacher…!” Unable to accept reality, Ru Amuh shouted in shock once realization caught up with him. He rushed to where Chi-Woo had been standing, hopeful that Chi-Woo would be hanging somewhere below the cliff.
[Don’t come for us. Search for the others. Escape.]
The next message told him to not bother looking for him and urged Ru Amuh to find Eshnunna and Ru Hiana quickly before escaping the mountain.
[Stay alive and meet again.]
The message ended with Chi-Woo telling him that they should meet again after surviving.
Crack. A sharp sound came out of Ru Amuh’s mouth. “Why…”
Bam. He suddenly heard a heavy thud. Across from him, the giant monster approached and tilted its head towards the cliff. It blinked like it was also confused, seemingly too preoccupied with Chi-Woo’s disappearance to notice Ru Amuh’s existence. The giant monster was truly enormous, but its movements looked doltish. There could be other monsters, but this was an opportunity.
Ru Amuh was conflicted, but then he saw Eshnunna lying prone across below a hill and squeezed his eyes shut. Recalling Chi-Woo’s final words, Ru Amuh forcefully moved his heavy feet, not to where Chi-Woo had fallen, but where Eshnunna lay.
* * *
Some time passed, and as the sun lazily made its way down the sky, a man appeared near the vicinity of a fortress. He looked so terrible that a beggar would have mistaken him as their friend. The man sighed in relief when he saw that the fortress was still intact. Then he clutched onto a paper bag in one of his arms tightly before making his way in. After passing the fortress’ three castle walls in order, the man was a bit taken aback that there was no one walking around when it wasn’t even night or early morning. It was quiet, way too quiet. Perhaps people had moved bases during his time outside. However, the man soon found out that he was wrong, and he saw a cluster of people walking toward him from far away. It seemed this group of people had also sighted him, as they made a small commotion. Then they came to a stop and unsheathed their weapons against him in high alert.
The man smirked and raised one of his arms as he stomped toward them. “I’m Allen Leonard from the sixth recruits. I’m not anyone suspicious, so please put your weapons back down.”
“Who is this bastard? What is the sentry doing…?”
“Who are you…oh?”
Realizing that this beggar-looking man was Allen Leonard, the hero looked stunned.
“It’s been a while since we last saw you. Where have you been?”
“I wandered a bit outside. I was requested to find something.”
“Ah…Anyways, thank goodness you came back alive…” The hero trailed off. For some reason, his expression looked dark, and the other heroes’ faces appeared likewise.
“What happened? The fortress is too quiet,” Allen Leonard asked, and the hero let out a long sigh. He turned around and jerked his chin to indicate the direction for Allen to go. Following the gesture, Allen started walking again, and he heard a faint noise further in. It sounded like people were murmuring or even crying. When he finally reached the square, Allen was able to see the situation for himself. He saw everyone in the fortress gathered at the square, circling around a couple of familiar faces and murmuring.
It seemed they had arrived at the same time as he did by coincidence, and their conditions were no laughing matter. Nevertheless, Allen was happy to see that they had come back safely, but then he stopped himself. The atmosphere was strange. Ru Amuh was standing with a sorrowful face, and Eshnunna had collapsed onto the ground spiritlessly. Likewise, Zelit stood looking lost as Ru Hiana shook him by his collars. Then…Allen flinched and turned around to look for one more person. The search party that had gone off to look for food had come back, but there was a missing person. No matter how much he looked, Chi-Woo was nowhere to be seen.
“That’s why I told you we shouldn’t bring him…!”
He heard an angry and teary outburst.
“We shouldn’t have brought Senior…!”
As soon as Allen heard these words, his face stiffened. He had his worries, but hearing the words shocked him so much that his mouth hung wide open.
“Senior…! How can he go like this…!”
Allen’s arms slid down. The medicine and herbs in his paper bag slid to the ground. The goods he had barely managed to salvage were now completely meaningless. Chi-Woo was dead. The thing they had worried about the most came true. Allen didn’t even bend down to pick up the items, but instead stood blankly on the spot.
“Do something…! Senior, he…!”
Ru Hiana’s cries rang throughout the square with no sign of stopping.
* * *
Five days ago.
Chi-Woo felt a cold sensation, and when he opened his eyes again, he realized two facts. First, his surroundings were pitch black, so he couldn’t see anything. Second, he felt intense pain all over his body.
‘Where am I…?’ Chi-Woo tried to lift himself up from the ground, but felt a sharp pain in his wrist and toppled over.
“Ow, ow, ow…!” It wasn’t just his wrist that was in pain. His palm felt like it was burning, and his ankles felt numb. Then he felt the wet and sticky sensation all over his body: it was blood that had drenched him all over. Chi-Woo smiled bitterly. He had been too preoccupied with escaping to be concerned about anything else, but it was only expected that he would be inflicted with many injuries after being surrounded by monsters.
‘The pain is killing me…’ While groaning, Chi-Woo tried to assess the current situation. The last memory he had was falling off the cliff with Hawa.
‘I think I’m alive.’ And besides that, he didn’t seem to be near the Evalaya Mountain. It would have been very difficult for him to survive after falling from such a high place, so he wondered how he ended up in a dark space without sunlight or moonlight.
‘Am I not in a mountain, but somewhere completely different?’
Were they suddenly teleported into an unknown place while falling off the cliff? In ordinary cases, he would have dismissed this idea as preposterous, but with the World’s Milestone, it wasn’t impossible. Even though the World’s Milestone was weakened, a miracle could occur with the appearance of a Deus Ex Machina.
‘A message should have popped up.’ He did see a faint message in front of him. However, since it was so dark, he couldn’t read it. ‘What the hell. I should at least go to a place with a bit of light…’ Chi-Woo took in a deep breath and felt around. Judging by the hard texture, he seemed to be on rocky terrain. However, rather than a rough and uneven surface, what he felt was a smoothly-cut rock wall. Chi-Woo rolled toward the wall and got as close as possible before propping himself up with its support.
After struggling to get up, a sharp, metallic smell of blood assaulted his nose. It seemed that he was bleeding heavier than he had thought. His physical condition was awful, and the bag on his back felt like it weighed tons. However, he had to get moving. Since he was able to survive, he needed to at least find a way to continue living.
‘It’s so difficult because I can’t see an…’ Now that he thought about it, he didn't know where Hawa was. He didn’t know whether Hawa was also transported here, or had fallen to a different place. Maybe she had continued to fall while he was the only one transported? The last scenario was too awful to even think about, and Chi-Woo shook his head. He couldn’t jump to conclusions yet. He needed to first move and read the message to get a general idea of the situation.
Every step was a struggle as Chi-Woo moved with the support of the wall. He had to stop only a few minutes after. He couldn’t feel the wall anymore, which had basically acted as his guide. ‘It stopped?’ No matter how much he waved his hand around, he couldn’t feel anything. It was the same for the floor; the path suddenly stopped here. Even though it wasn’t completely gone like the wall, the floor seemed to have become extremely narrow, approximately 30 centimeters by his estimation. If he wanted to continue further, he would be walking on a tightrope. Or in other words, he would fall again with even one misstep. ‘This is insane.’
Why was he transported here of all places? Had he actually died, but simply didn’t know this was the afterlife? All kinds of thoughts passed through his mind. He wondered if he should keep going this way, or find a different path. While he was pondering this, Chi-Woo suddenly flinched as he felt shivers run down his back. ‘What is that?’
With his heightened senses from the shared ability, he felt a foreign substance or figure near him. The foreign figure was precisely moving in his direction as if it knew where Chi-Woo was.
‘Hawa? No.’ The foreign figure was moving way too fast for it to be Hawa; it was running towards Chi-Woo, moving so fast it might as well be flying. Startled, Chi-Woo glanced over his shoulder before quickly trying to move forward. He didn’t know what that thing was, but he had a bad feeling about it. It was nerve-wracking to move forward like this, but there was no time for him to be hesitant. Even though his pain was getting worse, Chi-Woo endured and continued to move forward. However, it didn’t take long before he realized how futile his efforts were; the being following him was way too fast.
‘Again…!’
Growl.
Before Chi-Woo could even finish his thought, he heard an animal’s cry. Even though he knew he shouldn’t, Chi-Woo looked back and froze.
‘When did it…!’
The figure was right behind him. He heard more growling sounds. Even though he couldn’t see well, he knew that the being was at least not human. It was at least four heads taller than he was, and its red eyes beamed at him. Then a violent burst of light shot at him from its left.
Swoosh!
Chi-Woo instinctively jumped forward at that moment.
Splash!
He felt a burning sensation on his back.
“Aghhhhhh!” Chi-Woo screamed and fell, rolling to his side.
Thud, thud, thud, thud!
He didn’t know how many times he had hit the ground, but as he expected, it was a big drop from the path to its surrounding area. Chi-Woo kept rolling down and colliding against unknown surfaces.
Thud!
After ten seconds, he finally stopped rolling.
“Kyaaaghh—!” Chi-Woo gasped for breath. If the mysterious monster came down where he was, Chi-Woo would die without even being able to resist. However, the monster didn’t chase after him for reasons unbeknownst to him; it only lingered in the same place as if it was regretful that its prey had fallen far away. Then Chi-Woo felt it turn to leave through Synesthesia. Maybe the monster couldn’t go down for some reason. However, Chi-Woo was in no condition to think about such matters.
“Agh! Kaaugh!” His physical condition had already been bad, but it grew even worse. He had been bleeding extensively, but after tumbling down and colliding against unknown structures, his back was severely damaged. While his whole body hurt like he had been violently beaten up, the pain from his back was unimaginably excruciating. It felt as if his back was on fire, or a saw was slicing it open. Chi-Woo writhed and squirmed due to the pain too severe to put into words, but soon, he became too drained to even move.
“Ah…Agh…” He couldn’t even let out proper sounds anymore. While he gasped for breath with his stomach on the floor, he recalled Ru Amuh’s words.
[Have you ever tried piercing someone with a weapon like this sword?]
[Or with anything?]
Chi-Woo hadn’t known. He had no idea how painful it was to be pierced. He had expected the worst, but after experiencing it himself, he wanted to immediately die because at least then, he could escape from the pain. The thought did nothing to soothe him; Chi-Woo’s expression became even more agonized.
‘Fuc…’ He had tried everything in his power to survive and fallen off a cliff to avoid monsters. After his close escape from death, he was chased and attacked by an unknown monster before falling again. All his hard work had amounted to this. This whole situation was unbelievably unfair. What kind of shitty luck was this?
‘Fuck…Fuck…!’
While Chi-Woo’s saliva dribbled down to his chin with his stomach on the floor, he slowly felt his body grow numb. Is this what dying felt like? Chi-Woo closed his eyes as he gasped for breath. His family was the first thing coming to his mind.
“Daa…d…” His dad always told him to never give up no matter how painful and difficult things were.
“Mo…mm…” His mom had cried while asking if he really had to go.
“…Chi…Hyunn…” And his brother.
‘Why…did I…’ While calling out to his family, tears began to stream down his face. He didn’t want to die. He didn’t want to die yet, he wanted to continue living. Chi-Woo smacked his lips and was unable to suppress his emotions any longer; he bawled.
‘Dad, mom, brother.’
The full-grown man cried like a child.