Nightmare
"I'll go put in a request for reinforcements with HQ."
"Got it."
Talking it over between the two of us wasn't going to change anything. We couldn't even get a clear read on the situation. So we decided to focus on what needed doing right now.
First: report to headquarters and request additional Escort Officers. If I'd really awakened an S-Class ability, Se-a might not be able to handle things alone. Healing was already vanishingly rare — if it turned out to be S-Class, there was no telling what people might try. Contact from the Association and the guilds was a problem, but there was a bigger reason than that.
"Villains..."
This world had villains, the same kind people used to talk about on Old Earth. People who'd taken their awakened abilities and become criminals instead of hunters. Protecting me from them left us no other choice.
"How to actually use the ability, huh."
The next thing I needed to do was figure out how to use the power I had. Ability verification wouldn't tell me that. All verification did was identify the name of your power — awakened people just inferred the rest from that name. That was why a certain number of people awakened and still couldn't use their abilities at all.
"How am I supposed to use it?"
Honestly, I had no idea. Thinking back, I'd been feeling a strange sensation in my hands for the past few days, or catching glimpses of a yellow light. That was probably when I'd been using it. The common thread? It happened when I got hurt, or when Se-a did.
"I didn't even know she had a wound."
Yesterday I'd healed the cut on the back of her neck without even knowing it was there. So knowing whether a wound existed wasn't the trigger. Was it the wound itself, then? If so, I'd have to get hurt just to try.
"But what if I get hurt and it doesn't heal?"
Then I'd just be left with a wound and nothing else. I'd find out the name of the ability tomorrow anyway. There was no need to take that kind of gamble.
Something else bothered me, too — the fragments that had fallen out when I healed. Apparently that didn't happen with ordinary healing abilities. The standard method was to use potions made by awakened alchemists to clear out foreign matter first, then heal. Doing it that way even sped the healing up a little, they said.
"Authority..."
It was closer to urban legend than anything real. A word for power that stepped outside the bounds of being human, like the strength of gods from myth. What if this was the power to rewind time? What if it wasn't healing at all — what if it rewound things to before the injury ever happened?
"Okay, now I'm getting carried away. There's no way something like that is possible."
I was still turning over what kind of ability it might be when Se-a came back.
"I put in the request for reinforcements. It should go through tomorrow morning. They asked us to wait at the Hunter Association."
"Thanks."
Reinforcement requests came in two types: emergency and standard. Emergency used a twenty-four-hour response system, for when you were already exposed to an incident. Standard was precautionary — for when something might happen. Since only Se-a and I knew about this, she'd filed it as standard.
"Think you can use the ability?"
"No. Every time I think I used it, it was when someone got hurt..."
I trailed off, but Se-a understood immediately.
"It's okay. Once you get verified tomorrow, we'll have a better idea."
She ruffled my hair roughly and smiled. It was a good thing today was Thursday. Otherwise we'd have had to sit through the entire weekend before we could get verified. The Hunter Association ran around the clock, but that only applied to dungeon-related work. General admin, ability verification, hunter registration — those were weekdays, nine to ten.
With that settled, we spent the rest of the day taking it easy. We unfolded the sofa into a bed, and whenever our eyes met, we kissed. I dozed off in her arms while she held me from behind. When it was time to stream, I streamed — killing the camera and the mic every so often to steal a kiss. That night we unfolded the sofa again, just like we had for the nap, and fell asleep.
"It's been a while since we came out downtown!"
"First time since we bought the computer?"
Exactly ten days. We'd eaten ramen at Hakuwaku and bought the computer last Tuesday.
A message that morning said the reinforcements would arrive at three. Once I got verified, the attention would spike and casual outings like this would get a lot harder. So we'd decided to hang out in the downtown area near the Hunter Association before the test.
"Isn't this place expensive?"
"It's not that expensive! Besides, I heard their lunch special is amazing!"
She said it wasn't expensive, but from the moment we reached the entrance she was angling her body to keep the price list out of my sight. She was so good at it I genuinely couldn't see a thing. She was putting in that much effort. Looking it up on my phone felt like it would miss the point, so I let it go.
"I'm stuffed. It's been a while since I ate this much."
The lunch special was so good I understood why it had a reputation.
"You should eat more on regular days, too."
Se-a said it while squishing my forearm between her fingers. I didn't look that skinny when I checked the mirror after every shower...
"Where to next?"
"Oh, right! I didn't tell you, did I?"
Se-a had planned the entire day's itinerary. I'd been asking since morning and she'd just said it was a secret. I had no idea what was coming.
"We're going to see a movie! There's a V-Max — biggest 4D theater in the country!"
"4D?"
The one with water spraying and seats shaking?
"Yep! And it's V-Max, so the immersion is going to be incredible!"
I didn't know what V-Max was, but it was probably amazing. More than that — I'd never seen Se-a this excited, lit up like a kid. The fact that there were still so many sides of her I hadn't seen yet made me happy. It meant I could keep discovering her. Keep falling deeper.
I followed her toward the V-Max. It was Friday, so there were a lot of people out, most of them looking like students. It was break season and everyone was in casual clothes, so I couldn't tell the high schoolers from the college kids. But every last one of them was looking at me.
"Popular, huh? That's our famous streamer for you."
Se-a teased, linking her arm through mine. I could hear the word "Ian" a lot, so they'd probably figured out I was the streamer Ian.
"They didn't figure it out. There's only one Dan-woo. Where else are you going to find a guy who looks like this?"
"Care to share a few words on becoming the first girlfriend of such a man?"
I curled my hand like I was holding a mic and held it up to her mouth.
"Um... well, first of all, I'm extremely grateful that this kind of luck came my way? I never saw it coming..."
She didn't even fluster. She just took the hand I'd brought to her lips and delivered her statement. The women around us stared in shock as we laughed and played around. Se-a seemed to like that reaction, because she pulled my arm even tighter against her. Her chest pressed fully into my arm.
We arrived at the theater enjoying the stares the whole way there. We picked up our reserved tickets at the kiosk and bought popcorn and soda. This was a world with almost no couples, so they didn't sell couple combos. Instead they had something called a Friend Combo, for eating with a friend. We'd just had lunch, so we only bought one of each.
We'd been goofing around and walking slowly the whole way, so showtime was right on top of us. They checked our tickets at the door and we went in. Our seats were the double chairs on the far left — couple seats, by Old Earth standards.
"Oh, it's starting."
"First time at a movie theater?"
I almost said no on instinct, then stopped. In this world, it really was my first time. A twinge of guilt made me nod instead of answering.
The movie itself was fun. An action flick made exactly to current tastes, I guess? No frustrating plot, everything crisp and satisfying. But the best part was sitting alone with Se-a in the dark, in a crowded room. I'd be focused on the movie, then reach for popcorn and our hands would brush, and I'd suddenly be hyper-aware of her. The seat would rumble and I'd fall into her arms, heart racing. When something exploded on screen she'd squeeze my hand, and that little bit of cuteness made my chest flutter. I couldn't fully lose myself in the movie. But it was a happy time all the same.
"That was so good! Right?"
"Yeah! Especially that last scene where the whole building blew up — I was on the edge of my seat."
"The one where they barely make it out in the helicopter?"
We were still buzzing as we left the theater, trading impressions. After talking it all out, we left the V-Max and headed straight for the parking garage. We were supposed to be at the Hunter Association in thirty minutes.
"I'm starting to get nervous all of a sudden."
"Don't worry so much. It's nothing special."
For "nothing special," they'd sure made a lot of preparations. Sitting in silence just made me more anxious, so I threw out a random topic to loosen up.
"I'm meeting my editor this Sunday."
"Your editor? The one named Hae-ryeong?"
"Yeah."
Unlike my manager, Se-a had said it was fine to meet Hae-ryeong. No point dragging it out — we'd set it for this weekend. Se-a said she was curious what kind of person she was, and we walked for a bit.
About five minutes from the parking garage, the crowd around us started murmuring. People had been murmuring about me the whole time, but the mood had shifted completely. Uneasy. Almost frightened? And everyone was looking in the same direction.
I was about to turn and see what they were staring at when a wave of revulsion crashed over my entire body.
What the hell?
I couldn't move. Frozen solid, like my whole body had locked up. I forced it, slowly — painfully slowly — and managed to turn my head. The words died in my throat.
The sky was tearing open right in front of me.
The sight punched straight through to something primal. My mind simply stopped.
In that instant, Se-a grabbed my hand and started running — away from the parking garage. My legs nearly gave out from the sudden strain, but she held me up and I managed to keep going.
"S-Se-a!?"
"I'll explain later! Just run!"
The moment she shouted, sirens and alarms erupted from every direction.
WEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!
Evacuate to the nearest shelter immediately.
Speakers installed throughout the city blared danger sirens, and disaster alerts screamed from every smartphone.
"What's going on!?"
I had no idea what was happening. I asked her while we ran.
"It's a dungeon break! We need to get to the nearest shelter, now!"
"Dungeon... break."
Dungeons were one of the biggest differences from my original world. Normally a gate would form — an entrance you could come and go through at any time — and hunters would go in, kill monsters, and bring back materials. They called that entrance a Gate.
But sometimes the monsters inside a dungeon came out through the Gate. That was a dungeon break. Commonly known as a Nightmare.
This wasn't a case of monsters coming out of an existing dungeon. Very rarely, a Gate would open in midair and monsters would pour out immediately. They called this kind of dungeon break a Bomb — because it went off without warning, like a bomb, and the damage was always massive.
"KYAAAAAAAH!?"
Screams erupted from every direction as the people around us started running. The ordinary afternoon from just minutes ago was gone.
"S-stay back! Please!!"
"H-help me! Somebody help me!?"
"When is the response team getting here...!?"
THOOOM...!
A heavy, crushing sound smashed through the ear-splitting screams. I glanced back. Monsters were falling from the Gate. It had fully opened.
Misshapen creatures with black bodies and writhing red lines. The symbol of terror unique to dungeon breaks — blackened, corrupted — howled at the sky.
"Don't look back! Just run, look forward!"
Se-a yanked my arm, shouting. Her voice was thick with urgency. I stopped looking back and focused on running.
Monsters pouring from a black hole torn in the sky. People dying to them. The downtown that had been full of laughter, chatter, and shop music was now nothing but screams.
Pandemonium.
It was a Nightmare. Or cosmic horror. A sight that clawed at the primal fear buried in every human being.
The disaster they called a Nightmare had begun.