Chapter 3. Advent
Chapter 3. Advent
Episode 3. Advent
Light pierced through the crown of my head and penetrated my spine.
There was no burning heat in my brain, nor the physical pain of my body being torn apart.
It was just the sensation of every thought circuit in my head being bleached stark white, as if soaked in bleach, only to be terrifyingly and vividly reassembled in a split second.
Immediately after a short, intense dizziness brushed past my retinas, something unrealistic was displayed in the empty air of my field of vision.
[ You have awakened an ability. ]
[ Name : Seo Ji-han ]
[ Attribute : Electric Shock ]
[ Lv. 1 ]
---------Stats---------
Intelligence | 10 | 1 Tier
Strength | 10 | 1 Tier
Agility | 10 | 1 Tier
Stamina | 10 | 1 Tier
Durability | 10 | 1 Tier
Resistance | 10 | 1 Tier
A single, translucent, neon-green window was floating in the center of my vision.
It was exactly that 'Status Window' I had seen ad nauseam in modern fantasy novels or RPG games.
"...What is this?"
Wondering if I was seeing things, I waved my hand through the air.
However, my fingers just passed futilely through the translucent screen, and the window followed my gaze without a single error, tracking the movement of my eyeballs.
A bizarre virtual reality that could neither be touched nor erased.
When I strongly thought, 'I want to close the window,' it slid away, its transparency increasing like a hologram until it vanished, and when I acknowledged it again, it popped up before my eyes like lightning.
If someone told me this, I would have treated them like a crazy person and ignored them.
But... I clearly saw it. It definitely existed.
At the bottom of the screen, blurry text was additionally written.
[ You cannot distribute stats. (Free Points : 0) ]
Stats, experience, level up. The words coming to mind were all RPG game terms.
Someone, or something, with absolute power must have turned the world we lived in into a game board.
And I had become a participant forcibly placed at the starting line of that game, regardless of my will.
...The problem was, the meaning of the number 'Level 1' in this kind of game was obvious.
The most vulnerable and incompetent existence defined by the system.
That meant I was the lowest-tier prey, for whom it wouldn't be strange to die at any moment.
I turned my head and looked around.
Everyone on the beach had the same look on their face.
Some were blankly staring at something in the air, waving their hands, groping in front of their eyes, or screaming.
Everyone was seeing the same thing. Their own, individual windows.
"Ji, Ji-han...."
So-hee grabbed my sleeve so hard it felt like it would tear. Her face was deathly pale.
"Do you see it too? There are strange letters floating right in front of my eyes. What is this? I'm scared, Ji-han...."
"...It's okay. Just calm down, close your eyes, and take a deep breath. It's nothing. Stick right by my side."
I spoke words of comfort to reassure her, but my own heart rate was also rapidly increasing.
My brain was spinning so fast it felt like it would explode from overheating.
At least it was certain that I wasn't the only one chosen.
Is this phenomenon a localized disaster limited to just here, Okinawa beach? Or is it an apocalypse on a global scale?
What flashed through my mind was the bizarre glowing phenomenon in the skies around the world that I had seen nonchalantly on the news on my way home from work yesterday.
That ominous veil of light had already covered the entire Earth.
If the beams of light that fell when the sky split just a moment ago were the reality of those signs, it was extremely reasonable to assume that at this very moment, Seoul, New York, London—the entire Earth—had fallen under the control of the system.
How was it in typical novels? Forced evolution of humanity? Or planetary remodeling for the amusement of higher-dimensional beings? I didn't even have the luxury of time to resent whatever transcendental bastard was playing this prank, or why it had to happen right now, on my vacation day.
What was certain was that this wasn't some temporary natural disaster that would be talked about on the news tomorrow morning and then evaporate.
And in human history, such a massive and simultaneous paradigm shift has never once had a peaceful soft landing.
And that premonition came true in less than 5 seconds.
"Aaaargh!!!"
A scream erupted from somewhere.
When I turned my head, uncontrollable, bright red flames were surging from a man's fingertips.
He had a face terrified by his own inability to control it.
The flames that started from his fingertips devoured the parasols set up nearby and the tents on the sandy beach, burning fiercely.
That was the signal.
Water columns erupted like fountains here and there, turning the sandy beach into a mud pit, and gusts of wind that had lost control scattered sandstorms like blades, gnawing at people's flesh.
Beneath someone's feet, sharp rocks rose like awls, piercing the ankles of the screaming humans.
The 'awakened' people, who had gained supernatural destructive power without knowing why, were suddenly vomiting the power that had formed inside them in all directions, unable to control it.
It wasn't a scene of 'using' magic. The way it erupted like an explosion, completely uncontrolled, was closer to a 'runaway'.
Someone screamed as their clothes burned from sparks flying from their own hands, and someone else was swept away and rolled over by a suddenly erupted water column.
There was no such thing as order.
Everyone was equally confused and equally terrified.
And there is nothing as dangerous as a terrified human. Especially when uncontrollable power is added to uncontrollable fear.
The resort, which had been an emerald paradise, instantly turned into a chaotic hellscape filled with screams.
"So-hee, we have to get out of here. Let's go back to the hotel."
I gripped So-hee's hand until it felt like it would crush.
"Never let go. No matter what happens."
"O-okay! I got it!"
People started running like crazy. As soon as we moved a little bit away from the sandy beach where it felt like only the two of us were, a living hell unfolded where people were pushing each other, knocking others down, and trampling over others to find their own way to survive.
Fear spread faster than fire.
Pulling So-hee tightly behind my back, I exited the sandy beach against the flow of the crowd.
I was confident in this kind of thing.
Because my body knew before my head did where to escape when people were tangled and collapsing.
It wasn't something I learned from good memories, but at least in this moment of apocalypse, it was more useful than any degree from a top-tier university.
As I headed toward the beach entrance, a terrible sound came from behind me.
Crunch— crunch—
A gruesome tearing sound of spinal bones being bizarrely broken and reassembled, and cells abnormally expanding and swelling inside the skin.
Animalistic instinct warned me, making the fine hairs all over my body stand on end.
Looking back, a Shih Tzu that had been on one side of the beach was... changing in real-time.
Just a few minutes ago, it must have been a small pet dog that someone cherished.
Its small body swelled up and instantly grew to the size of a calf.
Its skin tore apart, and from between the tears, its skeleton surged out as pitch-black thorns.
Its two eyes were bloodshot, and black saliva dripped from its bizarrely wide-open mouth.
It was no longer a cute pet dog.
It was a monster crafted by the system.
"W-what is that? Is that a zombie or what?!"
Someone shouted in surprise as they fell, and unfortunately, that was their last shout.
Kwang—!
The monster kicked off the ground, flew up, and pounced on the person who had fallen.
Along with the sound of bones crushing, the scream was futilely short.
"Hup...!"
So-hee covered her mouth with her hands. She staggered as if her legs had given out from the shock.
"J-Ji-han. That... what is that? Just now, a person... a person..."
"Don't look."
I grabbed So-hee's head roughly and buried it into my chest.
I forcibly blocked her from that cruel sight.
I grabbed So-hee's cheeks with both hands, forced her to make eye contact, and spoke as if commanding her roughly.
"Never look anywhere else, just look at me. Got it?"
So-hee looked into my eyes and nodded slowly.
I felt a part of my brain turning cold.
The world had changed. Just now, completely, into an irreversible abyss of ruin.
The sky had split, an unidentified light had descended, innocent living creatures had metamorphosed into bizarre monsters, and humans were being torn to shreds under the fangs of those monsters, becoming sources of protein.
Looking around, there were already hundreds of people lying down and groaning.
I could also see those who had already passed away. In just a few minutes. This was not enough to be described by the word disaster.
Apocalypse. Yes, that was the right word.
In the distance, dull explosions that shook the ground, along with gunshots, were heard in succession.
I recall there being a US military base nearby, so it seemed to be that place.
However, seeing as the intervals between the gunshots were becoming irregular, it was obvious that even the military was unable to control this lawless state and was collapsing.
My reason was screaming in the face of this unrealistic situation, but strangely, my body was chillingly calm and settled.
Survival instinct. A hypersensory state where the body reacts before the head. My body was exactly like that right now.
'Think. Seo Ji-han. Calmly. What is most important right now.'
The answer was simple. This frail woman trembling like a fallen leaf in my arms.
"So-hee."
I grabbed So-hee's shoulders and looked straight into her empty, unfocused eyes.
"Listen carefully. You must hold my hand and only follow where I go. No matter who dies, no matter if you hear screams, never look back. Got it?"
"...Yes, Ji-han. I'll only trust you."
So-hee gripped my hand tightly with her slender fingers that were trembling pitifully.
It was a small, warm hand.
We pushed through the crowd and exited the beach.
The hotel is just two blocks down the main road.
It was a distance that took 5 minutes even when we walked leisurely like we were taking a stroll earlier.
But now, with everything stained in blood, that short distance felt incredibly far away.
The streets were no different from the beach. No, it was more miserable and more terrible.
Cars had recklessly rushed onto the sidewalk and crashed, and black smoke and flames were leaking from between the crushed hoods.
Crack— snap—
From somewhere, that chilling sound of skeletons twisting stimulated my eardrums in succession again.
It wasn't just one or two.
In every dark alley of shops, in every building, things that were 'changing' were springing up like mushrooms after rain.
At that moment, it suddenly occurred to me.
The spec of the status window that appeared before my eyes, the supernatural attribute called 'Electric Shock'.
While running, I extended my right hand forward, tensed my lower abdomen, and tried to induce something from within as if squeezing it out.
...But futilely, nothing happened.
It felt like my fingertips tingled slightly, but that was exactly all.
Power you don't know how to use is no different from having no power.
In the end, at the prelude to this apocalypse, what I could believe in and rely on was not the newly acquired 'Level 1' ability, but this body I had been rolling around with my whole life.
"Kyaaaah!!"
Right in front of me, a woman wearing a neat two-piece suit lost her balance and fell roughly onto the cement floor.
And behind her, something presumed to have originally been a stray cat was pouncing, kicking the ground with four legs.
A deformed mass the size of a calf, covered in black thorns.
There was no time to think.
I reflexively snatched So-hee's waist and pulled her hard into the side alley.
"Eek!"
Crunch—!
A dull sound and a scream erupted simultaneously from behind me.
I didn't turn my head. No, the luxury of looking back was a luxury.
I don't have enough spare capacity to pay the price for someone else's misfortune.
"Hah, hah... Ji-han... I think I'm going to die...."
So-hee gasped for air and desperately held onto my hand.
Tears were welling up in her large eyes.
"People... people keep..."
"Don't look anywhere else. Just look at me."
I dragged So-hee, almost snatching her wrist, and sprinted like crazy again.
I pierced through the alleyways, choosing only narrow alleys and the shaded blind spots of buildings.
The main road was dangerous. The more people there were, the more monsters there would be, and the higher the chance of being eaten.
It wasn't something I calculated with my head.
It was just that my body was acting first on the optimal way to survive.
Finally, the huge glass entrance of our hotel, our familiar accommodation, came into view in the distance.
The lobby inside the glass windows was also a chaotic mess with overturned furniture and bloodstains, but at least it was a closed fortress with outer walls and a concrete roof.
I pushed So-hee into the hotel and caught my breath.
While still holding her hand tightly.
In a corner of the lobby, I carefully sat So-hee down in a relatively safe blind spot behind a marble pillar.
Only then did I feel like I could breathe a little in my burning chest.
Of course, it didn't take long to realize that even that short relief was an excessive luxury.
My status window level was only '1'. The only weapon I had was the single, incompetent attribute title of 'Electric Shock', which I didn't even know how to activate.
I had no decent equipment to slaughter monsters, nor any great plan to overcome this apocalypse.
It was natural.
Because I was just a lowly office worker who wanted to live an ordinary life, the kind you find anywhere.
And the reality that befell me was too overwhelming for an ordinary person like me to overcome.
Still, it didn't matter.
Because at least this hand, no matter what happened, I was determined not to let go.