The Urgent Deployment to H-69
The private jet the hunters boarded one by one boasted an interior as spacious as its exterior suggested. Each seat offered generous personal space, and the chairs could even be reclined into beds. Elisa spent the entire flight analyzing the aircraft, completely absorbed. Watching her, her brother scratched the back of his head and spoke.
“This won’t do. You have sunglasses, right?”
“Here they are.”
“Wear these. Your eyes give you away too easily.”
“Ah, thank you.”
The sunglasses Ekaterina handed over became a shield for Elisa’s eyes. Once she put them on, she stood up, claiming she wanted to look around the cabin, and headed toward the rear.
The hunters who had boarded in turn sat clustered by team. They gave Elisa curious looks as she wandered alone through the cabin, but no one said anything. After completing a full circuit and returning to her seat, the announcement for takeoff preparation came over the speakers. As Elisa fastened her seatbelt, Ekaterina, seated beside her, asked quietly.
“Hohoho, so you’re the owner of Elisha, aren’t you, Miss Elisa?”
“Oh my, how did you know?”
“The similarity between the names Elisha and Elisa, your profession as a scientist, and the fact that an artificial being like Elisha wouldn’t accept just anyone into her body. There were plenty of clues to piece together.”
Ekaterina was as sharp as ever. Elisa seemed caught off guard by the situation as well; the gazes of the two smiling women crossed uneasily. They studied each other, trying to gauge one another’s intentions, until Elisa finally took a step back.
“You’re right. Elisha is my doll. What is it you want?”
“Hohoho, I don’t want anything. I simply wished to thank Elisha’s master for allowing her to become part of our family.”
“I’m only respecting the will of Elisha, who possesses free will despite being a doll. There’s no need to thank me for that.”
Thus the two exchanged opinions about me. Mostly, Ekaterina would ask questions to extract information about me, and Elisa would respond by mixing truth with lies as appropriate.
“You have no intention of transferring ownership of Elisha?”
“Absolutely not. Elisha is my precious doll. I won’t hand her over to anyone.”
“How unfortunate.”
Ekaterina still seemed reluctant to give up on making me her brother’s wife and inquired about transferring ownership, but Elisa’s stance remained firm. Their conversation only ended when the announcement came that the jet was departing.
The private jet was, just as Elisa had said, truly enormous. It raced down the runway, rapidly gained speed, lifted smoothly into the air, and soared skyward with considerable force pressing everyone into their seats. Elisa kept her eyes fixed on the window, unable to look away. In an instant they were above the clouds, the jet flying at an immense speed. A monitor in front of each seat displayed current speed, remaining distance, and estimated arrival time. The ground visible through the window receded quickly, replaced by the vast ocean that had only ever been seen in videos.
Whoa—the ocean really is spectacular. The jet continued to accelerate until, with a thunderous boom, it broke the sound barrier and settled into a cruising speed of Mach 2.
“This is it! This is exactly the kind of plane I’ve always dreamed of!”
“All right, calm down already.”
“She really is a weirdo, meow.”
When the excited Elisa shouted, everyone had their hands full trying to quiet her. Watching the scene, I decided to tidy up my room while the plane flew toward its destination.
After roughly five hours of flight, they arrived in New York, a city in the United States. Regular passenger flights supposedly took around fourteen hours, so this was remarkably fast. Only after the jet landed and they disembarked did Elisa return to the mental space.
“Did you enjoy yourself?”
“It was incredible. It really was a dream plane. We’ll ride it again on the way back, right?”
“Probably. Anyway, I’m heading out now.”
When I stepped outside, everyone was waiting for me as I stood there blankly. Oh no—Elisa had entered without even activating the AI.
“I’m back.”
I said, removing the sunglasses.
“It’s Elisha, meow.”
“You really were watching everything from inside too?”
“Yes.”
“That’s amazing.”
“More importantly, let’s get moving. Almost everyone’s already gone inside.”
Looking around, I saw that, just as Ruya said, the other hunters had mostly entered the airport. We hurried inside as well and were directed to a different area from the security checkpoint used by ordinary passengers. After a simple identity check, we passed through and emerged from the airport to a landscape quite different from Korea’s. Unlike the cramped, dense feeling of Korea, everything here felt open and expansive.
When our team appeared, a man who looked like a local official waiting by the entrance spoke.
“I’ll guide you. This way, please.”
The man in a suit and sunglasses led us into a nearby building and down a corridor.
“Just follow this passage.”
“Thank you.”
Other hunters who had arrived earlier were already moving through the corridor one after another. We blended in with them and entered, emerging into a rather large space. Lights suspended from the high ceiling illuminated the windowless interior. The hunters who had arrived first sat on folding chairs, murmuring among themselves.
“Let’s find seats quickly too.”
Following his suggestion, we found some empty seats and sat down. Every hunter present wore a tense expression, their faces stiff, clearly indicating their anxiety. Once the final team entered and all hunters were seated, the door closed and the stage at the front lit up. Men in military uniforms and men in suits entered with grim faces and took their places on the stage. With everyone’s attention focused on them, the man standing before the microphone began to speak.
“First, I apologize for the inadequate hospitality despite the long journey you’ve all made. I ask for your understanding as we must proceed quickly due to the urgency of the situation.”
Thanks to the translation ring, understanding wasn’t a problem. After offering apologies and thanks, he began the briefing in earnest, displaying data on the screen. The fact that he dove straight into the main points confirmed how critical the situation truly was.
“The hunter disappearance incidents occurring in the H-69 dimension continue even now. The last information sent by the investigation team was only that it is a dimension currently at war.”
The photos displayed on the screen appeared to have been taken by the investigation team. They showed plants of absurdly enormous size, strangely shaped insects and animals several times larger than those on Earth. The final, heavily blurred photo, apparently taken while fleeing, captured burning plants and fleeing animals.
“Although not yet public, the dimension has been classified as S-rank danger. As soon as the status of those deployed first is confirmed and their remains are recovered, all personnel will withdraw and the dimension will be sealed. What you will be doing is search and retrieval for that purpose.”
After the man in the suit finished speaking and stepped back, a man in military uniform took the microphone.
“The technological level of the civilization at war is estimated to be at least at the level of using gunpowder weapons. To support you hunters, we have decided to lend equipment from the U.S. Army: forty combat supply vehicles, approximately three hundred personal firearms, approximately three hundred sets of special bulletproof helmets and body armor, and so on…”
He explained the various pieces of equipment shown on the screen along with their basic usage. Gwangnam, who had been watching with his arms crossed and a hardened expression, muttered quietly.
“This is no joke. We need to stay sharp.”
“Shit… gunpowder weapons? One wrong move and we could actually die.”
“This is bad, meow.”
The atmosphere among the other hunters was just as serious as our family’s. The teams from Hyunsung Future Chemical, made up of former soldiers, and the Dokkaebi team, composed of madmen, remained calm, but the smaller teams were growing increasingly noisy.
“We pray for your safe return.”
With that, the short briefing ended, and American soldiers began carrying in equipment one by one and laying it out on the floor. The Hyunsung team stepped forward first to receive their gear, followed by the Dokkaebi team. The hesitant smaller teams then followed suit. We received our equipment as well, though everything felt awkward since it was all unfamiliar.
“It’s heavier than I expected, meow.”
“So this is what a gun is.”
“Even if we have guns, we don’t know how to shoot them properly. Why are they giving them to us?”
“Probably so we can at least put up a final struggle in a crisis. More importantly, let’s put on the body armor first.”
Following the instructions we had seen earlier, we helped each other into the body armor. We donned the vests that covered our torsos and the helmets that protected our heads, then stored the firearms in our dimensional storage bags. The soldiers who had been moving among the hunters to assist with equipment left once everyone was geared up, guiding us outside.
We rode in groups of six in combat vehicles driven by soldiers to a building similar to Korea’s gate management office. Combat vehicles lined up in a wide open area began entering the open gate in order.
“Whoa—I didn’t think we’d head straight there the moment we arrived.”
“That just shows how urgent it is.”
“This feels a bit chaotic.”
“Maybe there was someone important among the hunters or the investigation team?”
“Keh keh keh, I heard the president’s son is there. Keh keh keh.”
Besides our five-person family, one more person was riding in the six-seater vehicle—a hunter from the famous Dokkaebi team. He had been muttering something ominous the entire ride when he suddenly interrupted our conversation and dropped a bombshell.
“The U.S. president’s son? Is that true?”
“Keh keh keh, don’t believe it if you don’t want to.”
With a bizarre laugh, he lowered his head again and resumed muttering. Everyone wore awkward expressions, but their reactions suggested they were beginning to understand.
“The president’s son… No wonder they were in such a rush, meow.”
“Why would someone like that cause such a fuss crossing dimensions?”
“Now I get why they mobilized the military too.”
While we talked, the vehicle passed through the gate and arrived in the war-torn, unexplored dimension. The vehicles immediately began moving in an orderly fashion according to their pre-assigned routes. The place our team was headed was a forward base established at the last location where the second investigation team had sent a signal. We would ride the vehicles for rapid transit, but once there, we would have to conduct searches on foot. The ride in the military vehicle was so rough that my backside was already sore, but I endured it amid the tense atmosphere. Soon the vehicle reached its destination and the driver signaled. In front of us after we disembarked stood a fortified position manned by soldiers on guard and a forest that was burning. From the forest, which continuously spewed black smoke, came eerie screams of unknown creatures. Sandbags stacked as high as our chests formed a protective barrier around the area, and inside the wall, combat vehicles were parked in a circle with tents pitched within.
The five combat vehicles would remain on standby inside the fortified position while the hunters immediately dispersed and began their search.