Chapter 3

As soon as I said that, Haeyoon’s eyes widened.

“While the bridge is dangerous, people won’t be able to walk for a week with their bags. We may be in our twenties, but the majority here are middle-aged.”

“What if we reduce our supplies as much as we—”

“Do you think we can just enter the indoor gym? That place is probably in chaos right now due to a lack of supplies. If we don’t bring something, they’ll refuse to let us in.”

Haeyoon looked like she had more to say, but kept her mouth shut. Despite the risks, there was nothing we could do. If we didn’t bring supplies to the indoor gym, we would be turned away at the door, and then we’d all die.

“Minjoon, how far can you see with your Reconnaissance Skill?”

“I’m not exactly sure, but I can survey everything in my field of vision.”

That was enough to be useful.

“Get as close as possible to the bridge and use your Reconnaissance Skill to survey the area. We can at least determine if the bridge will collapse or not while we cross it.”

I don’t know if my commanding words bothered him, but even though he was frowning, he nodded in acknowledgment. I had no time to deal with trivial complaints.

“But... the other people will have a lot of complaints. After all, crossing the bridge is going to be dangerous,” Taebyeong said cautiously, but I was resolute.

“Tell those who are willing to come to do so. If some people want to stay, it doesn’t matter to me.”

In other words, I would abandon those who were meant to be abandoned. They all stiffened as if they understood the underlying meaning of my words.

“No matter how many follow, I’m going to leave this place tomorrow and head to the indoor gym,” I declared firmly.

***

I could see the night sky through the cracks in the wall. As usual, lights that were either stars or satellites twinkled from time to time.

After the chaos from earlier had passed, and as I looked up at the night sky by myself, I had many thoughts about this situation.

First, was this reality or a dream?

It was too absurd to be reality, but for it to be a dream, too many people that I didn’t know were appearing. Was my imagination this rich? Or did I unknowingly have regrets? If I had acted differently, could I have saved everyone?

Second, if this was reality... Why had I returned to the past?

In itself, going back in time just to return to the same past didn’t make any sense. But if everything was truly real, how and why did I return to the past?

When I thought about the time before I transmigrated, it was even more difficult to understand.

For three years, I had miserably survived in this damned Gate. During that time, I met a group of Hunters and became friends with them. Together, we tried to clear the Gate. I even found out the truth about something that I didn’t want to know.

In the end, I made it out, but not without sacrifices.

As soon as I escaped the Gate, I was bombarded with scouting offers from large guilds. I had proved my competency in the Gate, but I felt like I was a secondhand rookie and didn’t know that my value was sky-high.

I ended up rejecting all the offers and joining a medium-sized guild: Defiance.

The reason was Hyewon Pyo, who was a Hunter that had taught me a lot of things. She had died in the Gate and had been the former leader of the Defiance Guild. After her death, her younger brother Yeonwon Pyo took over. As I wanted to fulfill Hyewon’s will, I remained in Defiance.

From my time in the Gate, I knew who the real enemies were as they had been secretly casting their shadows.

Just how many times had we fought?

By the time I was feeling hateful attachment to the pointy-eared bastard that I had fought countless times, we had decided to risk it all in a final battle. I was of course on the front line.

Yeonwon had tried to stop me from going, but I had to go. Defeating the Gate was my life goal and my reason for living.

At the end of an endlessly long fight, the pointy-eared one pierced my chest with his spear.

There was no doubt that my end had come. With the thought that the bastard’s face was strangely distorted, I faced my death.

Up to this point, my memories were so clear. Afterwards, had I miraculously survived and was now dreaming about my transmigration while in a vegetative state? Was this all my imagination?

But for that to be true... No. Everything was too vivid.

I clenched my fist and dug my fingernails into my palm. Yeah, the feeling of the wind against my cheeks and the sound of grasshoppers chirping can be manipulated. If I was getting illusion therapy or had been hit by a combat Skill, this was definitely possible. But...

My Unique Skill, Spatial Interference.

As I lightly activated the Skill, I could feel the familiar sensation rise up from my toes.

Ah. Who else would be able to reproduce this sensation?

All the information about the space I controlled was being engraved into my brain. It was as if I was drawing up a blueprint in my mind. Could this enormous amount of detailed information be really manipulated into an illusion?

Yeah. Whether this was reality or a dream didn’t matter. Since I had returned, this meant that my teacher was also in this place. Whatever this was, I didn’t want to see my teacher die again.

Teacher, maybe saving you in this place is my path to atonement. If I can see you alive and breathing, even if it’s a fantasy inside my head, I’ll willingly dive into it.

But first, I needed to focus on the task at hand. The best scenario would be to have as many people come back alive. Since I was given a chance to make a different choice, it would be wise to be proactive.

First, I’ll head to the indoor gym with these people, and then, I’ll look for my teacher. If she’s there, then...

As I planned things one by one, my eyelids started to close.

Was I mistaken, or did it seem like the stars were smiling down at me?

***

The next day, about two-thirds of the people decided to leave. Everyone who talked with me yesterday followed me. While it wasn’t my intention, my confident tone seemed to have left quite an impression on them.

I took more than enough supplies and started to head outside. Or to be more exact, I slightly lifted the plastic that was covering one side of the collapsed wall and stepped out. Tension could be felt in the air as the ruined mart came into view.

“Ugh...”

Someone started to gag. Pieces of corpses were scattered all about. They were what was left over after the monsters had chewed them up. Limbs and heads with barely any flesh on them were rolling around. While it was a disgusting sight, it was also a familiar one.

“Looking at the traces, it looks like this really was the wind raker’s territory.”

There were clear fingernail marks on the wall while the concrete had been smashed like tofu.

Everyone’s faces turned pale as they saw the gruesome remnants.

Fortunately, it seemed like the monster hadn’t remained at the mart as we were able to leave without encountering anything. Everyone was clearly nervous that they would encounter the wind raker. But while the wind raker could make its body invisible, it couldn’t hide its presence or sounds.

It was close to impossible that the monster would be able to move around silently when there was stuff all over the mart’s floor. So they didn’t need to be that nervous.

“Gosh...”

“What the heck is...”

The situation outside of the mart, however, was far worse. It looked as if a massive storm had blown through. Buildings were half-destroyed, and trees had been uprooted and were lying sideways on the ground. There were traces of blood here and there, but everyone tried their best to ignore them.

I heard a buzzing noise at the same time I saw something flutter by in my field of vision. Thin wings that were covered in a red film. A very distinct characteristic.

I felt like the world was collapsing around me.

The wind hit my cheeks with the gritty sand particles it was carrying. I got it now. Seeing all this made it all the more apparent. I had been dragged back into this hellish place.

Before I could get swept up in my emotions, I dashed back into the mart.

“What... was that just now?”

“It’s a red-banded hornet,” I said to a pale-faced Seongmin. Its noisy buzzing seemed close at first and then gradually faded away.

The red-banded hornet. As one could tell by its savage name, it was a monster that had a deadly stinger on its tail. While it looked similar to a bee, it didn’t conveniently die like a bee when it stung its target.

“So it uses a poisonous stinger?”

“Of course not. A regular hornet uses its stinger to poke its victim. The red-banded hornet’s stinger can rotate, so it’s closer to a drill.”

As if to demonstrate my words, the monster started to drill its way through the mart’s wall with its stinger.

“Arghhh!”

Someone left their supplies and ran towards the warehouse. But that was a foolish thing to do. Originally, monsters had their own respective territories. This mart was obviously the wind raker’s.

But the fact that the wind raker was nowhere to be seen, and the red-banded hornet was invading it meant...

“The land general’s corpse seems to be attracting the monsters.”

This barren land was hard not only on humans, but also monsters. As monsters were always starving as well, this meant that they could fight to death to eat corpses. While it may have been standing now, by nighttime, the warehouse would be in shambles too.

“W-what do we do? Damn, it’s going to pierce through the wall soon!”

Chansong’s screams were interspersed with other profanity. Like he said, we could see the end of its drill-like stinger. But could I say that it was fortunate that this hornet was also a F-grade monster? The reason was that the way to kill it was clear.

Its weak spot was also evident. It was the stinger it used to attack. It was like a glass sword with strong offense and low defense.

“Everyone, hide!”

People hid in the mart’s stalls or behind the debris of the collapsed ceiling or wall. While it was sloppy, it would do for now.

The hornet finished drilling through the wall with one last loud buzz and entered the mart. As it rubbed its transparent wings together, it gave off its distinct, resonating sound. While hornets probably used that sound to communicate with each other, to humans, it was just intense.

The best-case scenario would be that it didn’t notice us and headed to the warehouse. Because human corpses were scattered about in the mart, it wouldn’t be able to detect our scents.

The hornet folded its wings and landed on the ground. Its disgusting legs worked together closely to crawl forward. It lightly tapped its antenna on an arm that was rolling around and then passed it. I guess it got its fill somewhere else.

As it slowly walked away, I quieted my breathing. I even held the hem of my shirt against my chest to try and cover the sound of my heart beating.

In the suffocating silence, the hornet had nearly passed by all of us when suddenly, someone sneezed.

It suddenly stopped in its tracks. A chilly silence once again settled in the mart. As the tension grew, the hornet flew up.

With a loud buzz, it darted to the source of the noise. Damn it!

There was a screech of metal pieces crashing into each other. Fortunately, Taebyeong must’ve been right next to it.

As he looked like a Tank specialist, he had been supplied with an iron plate in advance. It seemed to have played its role. After a hole had been drilled into a frying pan, he threw the iron plate.

“Roll to your side!”

At my shout, he instinctively flung his body to the ground. In an instant, there was a hole drilled into the iron plate.