Nightmare of the Past (1)

The shopping mall distorted as another space began to form. I closed my eyes for a moment amid the phenomenon I still couldn't get used to. When I opened them again, the surroundings from just moments ago had completely vanished without a trace.

The first thing to greet me was a barren wasteland with not a single blade of grass in sight. The red light of twilight dyed the earth, and an aura of death permeated the air. I stood atop a small hill on that dry land. After being in a crowded place, I was now in one where not even a single rat could be seen... I had been promised special training and half-expected to be thrown into the middle of monsters, but this was unexpected. Honestly, it would be a lie to say I wasn't relieved, but at the same time, I felt curious about what kind of training could possibly happen in a place like this.

After scanning the view before me, I lowered my head while thinking that. There, exactly as it had been fitted in the store just earlier, was the magical girl outfit. The ribbon wrapped around my neck without feeling too tight, and the wristbands with frills at the ends. The sensation of the frills at the hem of the skirt brushing against my thighs still hadn't become easy to get used to. The same went for the black stockings that covered my legs quite high up. Even if the top was somewhat manageable, the skirt and stockings still felt awkward enough that I couldn't help being conscious of them no matter how much I tried not to. Honestly, while I had chosen this outfit as the relatively better option, the design itself carried a very girly sensibility in every detail. If it hadn't come with a mask that could cover my face, I probably would have picked something else.

With my face flushed like that, I was fiddling with the frilled hem of the skirt when I suddenly felt a strong wind blowing from behind and lifted my head. The wind was closer to fierce than gentle. As it whipped up black dust and swept through the area, the skirt hem fluttered endlessly. I pressed down on the billowing skirt with one hand while grabbing the hat that had been perched at an angle on my head with the other. Once the wind gradually died down, I slowly turned my head toward its source as if drawn by something.

And the moment I saw "it" come into view, I froze on the spot with my eyes wide open. An old castle stood tall in a spot not far from here. The building sat alone in the middle of the wasteland. A massive, majestic fortress that looked like something out of a medieval fantasy game. Yet despite its ornate design, the appearance before my eyes was quite shabby. Clear signs of damage were visible everywhere, and the passage of time could be felt in every corner. Adding the surrounding barren wasteland only emphasized that feeling further. All things considered, the castle looked like an abandoned fortress left alone in a fallen territory.

I had been staring at the castle with trembling eyes when I shifted my gaze toward the direction the voice came from. There, not far away, I saw the figure of that guy. With his back to me, Ulthar had been looking at the castle a short distance away and now turned his head diagonally toward me.

"You... did you implement this place knowing what it was?"

Ulthar said that with a nonchalant expression, his eyes sparkling as he stared at me. On the other hand, my face, now realizing where this was, couldn't have been more twisted. To me, facing this place again was no different from reopening a wound that had healed over many long years. I never imagined I would see this place again while alive. At the same time, the sorrow, regret, and hatred that had been hidden for so long began to surface from deep within my heart.

Over the past several years, I had gone through countless experiences while working as a porter. Among them were memories that had left me with indelible scars. I stared at that spine-chilling castle, which I had thought I would never see again, and slowly recalled the memories of the past.

Unlike recently when I had been looking for work at a manpower office, several years ago I had worked as an exclusive porter for a single party. It was a rare case where, after happening to work together once and finding we got along well, we continued teaming up a few more times before signing an exclusive contract. An exclusive contract was the best opportunity for porters who had trouble finding work every time, so I had been quite lucky. The fact that the party's leader was an older brother I had known from my school days as a senior-junior relationship played a big part, and the rest of the party members were also good people who were rare in this line of work.

After escaping the pressure of having to find work every time, a stable life followed. The steady income that came in at regular intervals played a large role, but above all, it was because my relationship with the party members was good. Although it was a small-scale party with few members, the people there treated each other like family. At first, I thought they were only acting that way on the surface out of consideration for me as an outsider. I figured that once we got used to each other over time, they would inevitably show their true colors, since that was how every other party I had seen behaved. But a few days after signing the exclusive contract, an incident occurred that completely erased that thought of mine.

Usually, these small and medium-sized parties often fought over profit distribution. After all, the profits from conquering low-rank dungeons were small, and awakened hunters generally had strong pride. Of course, hunters with outstanding skills and experience were wealthy enough to earn hundreds of millions as a baseline, but there were far more who were not. Then one day, a woman in the party found herself in urgent need of money. Her parents had suddenly collapsed from illness, and the medical bills were beyond what she could handle, so she had no choice but to reach out to her party members. I clicked my tongue at her pitiful situation while shaking my head. I thought that since most people here weren't exactly flush with cash either, no one would lend her money. But the situation unfolded in a direction I hadn't expected at all. Every single party member extended a hand to her. Not only that, they even took a portion of the income from dungeon conquests and gave it to her without any compensation. That was probably when my view of this party began to fundamentally change.

After that, they accepted me not as a mere outsider but as a comrade. It was a stark contrast to other hunters who had treated my existence as nothing more than a tool for carrying luggage. Their actions were enough to heal my heart, which had been worn down by the hardships of daily life at the time. It was only natural that a sense of belonging to the party, which I had thought meaningless, emerged. And naturally, I had desperately hoped this dreamlike life would continue forever.

But the harsh reality mocked my wish by bestowing a terrible disaster. The incident began with something very trivial: scalped tickets. The term usually refers to tickets illegally traded to enter a game or performance. However, in this industry, it had a slightly different meaning. It referred to the act of reselling gate conquest rights issued by the Council to others at a markup, and the conquest rights being traded in the process were called "scalped tickets" in this world. Of course, it was illegal and crackdowns were frequent, but everyone kept quiet about it, and transactions were openly conducted among small-scale parties. This was especially severe in Seoul. The easiest legal way for a hunter to make money was to join a security company, but in Seoul, there was only one such company—the Council. Moreover, they prioritized elitism and did not hire those whose talent fell short even among the awakened. As a result, small-scale parties directly operated by individual leaders emerged. No matter how large the Council was, it lacked sufficient manpower to deal with the small and sporadically occurring mid-to-low rank dungeons, so it maintained a symbiotic relationship with these small parties. And the problem that arose here was the distribution of work. Compared to the rapidly increasing number of parties day by day, the number of gates generated per day was limited. So it was only natural that competition arose to obtain conquest rights. Although the price was fixed, due to the nature of first-come-first-served competition, there were frequent cases ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠where the desired ticket could not be obtained. After all, people with regular lives couldn't spend all day waiting at the Council branch for gates and conquest rights that might appear at any time. In the end, while this structure outwardly claimed to provide equal opportunities, it was a structure that inevitably produced scalped tickets. Furthermore, unlike ordinary scalped tickets, conquest rights that had passed through someone else's hands had plenty of potential to be misused for crime. In reality, there were occasional incidents where conquest rights for dungeons that had been internally scouted in advance were sold as scalped tickets, after which people hid inside and ambushed later-entering parties to rob them. Since there was no way to verify, all one could do was proceed with the conquest while harboring a dubious suspicion of "it probably won't happen, right...?"

At the time, I also knew about the dangers of scalped tickets, but since I had never experienced such a thing even once until then, I had been overlooking it inwardly. "Something like that won't happen to me," I had thought, as if making excuses to myself. But that complacent idea of mine was shattered into pieces not long after. It was several months after I had signed the exclusive contract with that party. That day wasn't much different from any other. The only difference was that the conquest right the leader had obtained was a scalped ticket bought through a secret route. A few people expressed their discomfort, but that was as far as it went. It wasn't the first or second time they had conquered a dungeon using a scalped ticket, and everyone was somewhat used to it by now. The group entered the gate with uneasy feelings, but the moment they saw the interior landscape, those thoughts immediately disappeared. A majestic castle standing tall against the backdrop of a wasteland where the sunset was setting. No one could take their eyes off that overwhelming sight, which was hard to find even in Korea, let alone on Earth. And I was no exception. I ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠had seen various dungeons until now, but I had never seen a scene like this before. The ones most excited by the interior that exceeded imagination were the relatively young men in the party. Their faces, filled with excitement at the atmospheric interior that seemed straight out of a fantasy novel, were still vividly clear in my mind. After briefly admiring the grand interior, we set aside the fact that this dungeon had been obtained through a scalped ticket and immediately entered the castle visible before us. In truth, without even dreaming that it was a massive trap someone had set. I quietly followed behind the group as they entered the castle while engaging in friendly conversation.