24
Chapter 24
"Ah. It's here."
The voice bounced off the dark sewer walls, echoing gloomily. In the pitch-black darkness where he couldn't see an inch ahead, the Stuck Man tilted his head back to look up at the concrete ceiling.
Lee Yeon-woo, who had been browsing the internet, held up his mobile phone and shone the flashlight on the Stuck Man.
"Excuse me? What's here?"
The Stuck Man, hit head-on by the white light, slowly lowered his head. His eyes, reflecting the white light of the flashlight, looked at Lee Yeon-woo. Without blinking, he raised his left hand.
"Something like me. One, two, three. Including me, that's four?"
Folding his fingers one by one from the thumb, only the pinky remained extended, as if by promise.
"What does that mean—"
Lee Yeon-woo instinctively stepped toward the Stuck Man, but stopped mid-sentence. His right foot wouldn't move. As if it had taken root, as if his foot had become a nail driven into the ground.
Gulp
Swallowing hard, Lee Yeon-woo slowly looked down. The mobile phone light, which had been facing forward, followed his gaze. His foot was gone. Only his calf remained.
Below the ankle, he was embedded right through the concrete.
"Uh, uh..."
Before he could even process what was happening, the Stuck Man spoke gloomily.
"It's okay. The world is just breaking, just like I did. You'll be able to get out soon."
"Right now. You meant something like you has arrived, correct?"
Faced with this strange accident, Lee Yeon-woo tried to think calmly. Having experienced this a few times, he knew that losing his cool meant certain death.
'Four NPCs. Level 4. The error is spreading to the size of the city—'
Thump—
Before he could finish his thought, his body was suddenly flung toward the ceiling. His vision went dark in an instant. There was no way there would be lighting inside the concrete.
The moment he penetrated the concrete, he saw the vertical shaft of a manhole. A wall with steps embedded one after another.
Lee Yeon-woo urgently reached out and grabbed the ladder. The mobile phone he had been holding in his single hand flew into the air, spinning and causing the shadows to flicker wildly.
"Ugh!"
Hanging by one hand, his body swung like a pendulum and slammed hard against the filthy wall. Swallowing a groan, Lee Yeon-woo kicked his legs frantically until he found the rungs of the ladder. Having barely managed to stabilize himself on the ladder, Lee Yeon-woo gasped for air.
There was something more dizzying than the filth, the pain of being hit, or slamming into the wall.
Spin—
The mobile phone floating in the air spun like a tossed coin, slowly drifting upward. Just like in outer space.
The situation was clear.
Lee Yeon-woo slammed his head against the wall.
'I'm screwed. What do I do, what do I do? Should I go up? Should I stay here?'
What if he stays down and gets flung away again? What if he stops inside the concrete? He'd be dead for sure.
'Going up is just as dangerous.'
There are buildings, cars, and street trees on the surface. Even if he flies up into the sky and falls, he'll still end up dead.
For a moment, Lee Yeon-woo paused halfway up the ladder and scanned above and below. The darkness ebbed and flowed, following the rotation of the mobile phone.
Lee Yeon-woo made a decision.
'Plan B. If I kill the Stuck Man, the anomalies might decrease.'
It was then. From beneath his feet, he heard the sound of the Stuck Man climbing up, step by step. Lee Yeon-woo looked down.
The Stuck Man was climbing up, holding a knife that had somehow been dropped.
"Shit."
A bead of sweat trickled down.
'Will the Stuck Man actually die for me?'
This was the same Stuck Man who had complained of back pain from being stuck in a door in a bad position. Even if he could respawn, it wouldn't be without pain. And now he even had a knife?
Drip, a droplet of sweat fell.
The Stuck Man, who was hit on the forehead by the sweat, frowned.
"Are you very surprised? This is just daily life for me."
"No, well..."
"I suppose so; anyone would be after experiencing this. Everyone else is the same. We can come back to life even if we die, but others can't."
"Y-yeah. Once you die, that's the end."
While talking, Lee Yeon-woo barely managed to stop his gaze from drifting toward the knife. He couldn't let it show that he intended to kill him.
'How do I take it? How can I kill him?'
While Lee Yeon-woo was absorbed in these thoughts, the Stuck Man spoke as if venting.
"Actually, I hate myself like this. Why was I made to break the world? I understand why the company keeps us locked away like nuclear bombs. But still."
The Stuck Man shifted his grip on the knife. As the mobile phone rotated upward, the Stuck Man was submerged in darkness.
"That doesn't mean they should treat us so poorly. No food, just strange experiments. I'm human too. So..."
The mobile phone turned another half-circle, and the white light shone down on the Stuck Man again.
"Company employee, whose name I don't even know. Please survive and testify. Tell them the Stuck Man sacrificed himself for people. And tell them to treat me like a human next time we meet."
Thwack-!
The knife plunged into his neck. The Stuck Man's pupils glazed over.
The next moment, the mobile phone rotated once, and after a cycle of darkness and light, the ladder was empty. Only the clatter of the fallen knife echoed.
"...."
Speechless, Lee Yeon-woo stared down like a stone statue. At the spot where the Stuck Man had been.
'...This is actually a win for him. He'll just respawn anyway. Dying once to demand better treatment from the company...'
Still, how could he not fear death? There's no way it didn't hurt to have a knife driven into one's throat.
'I wouldn't have done that. No matter how much the anomaly spreads, I won't die. There's no reason to seek out pain.'
His grip tightened on the ladder. Lee Yeon-woo instinctively looked up. Toward the surface, where other NPCs or people harboring anomalies might be.
'...Removing one person isn't enough. I have to reduce them further. If I want to survive. This is the right way.'
The mobile phone still floating in the air was the proof. He was still within the range of the anomaly. Lee Yeon-woo muttered to himself as he climbed the ladder.
Step, step, step.
Lee Yeon-woo reached the top of the ladder and pushed the manhole cover with his forehead. With just a light nudge, the cover floated upward.
Lee Yeon-woo emerged onto the surface.
***
It was a disaster.
It was like a game with a broken physics engine.
That was Lee Yeon-woo's first impression as he stepped onto the ground. It felt exactly like being trapped in a broken game.
Cars flew around aimlessly. Sometimes their positions changed instantly as if teleporting, or they spun at high speeds. There were countless instances of them crashing into buildings or people.
Moreover, things seen here and there were hard to recognize, like glitched graphics. There were even things moving without shadows.
Float—
Lee Yeon-woo's body also slowly drifted upward. He grabbed a street tree that had grown through a car to steady himself and looked around the street with blank eyes.
'Those four, no, five.'
Beings that were out of place even in this chaos. They were obvious at a glance.
A woman whose limbs grotesquely expanded and contracted, her features constantly shifting like a monster.
A man running the same stretch of road repeatedly.
A man who fell from the sky, plunged through the ground, and then fell from the sky again.
And, the Fugitives.
"You never mentioned this! Even we got caught up in this! What are you going to do about it!"
"I didn't know either! I didn't think it would expand this quickly!"
A kid holding a game controller swam diligently through the air. Not far away, a man with a toy gun also ran fervently.
What they were both staring at was a blue hole open in the middle of the road.
However, they could hardly get closer.
"Ack! It reset again!"
"Dammit!"
Some would snap back to their starting position, while others were suddenly flung away, flying far from the hole.
Lee Yeon-woo watched the two of them, who were not free from the anomalies like ordinary people, with bewildered eyes.
'Are they suicide bombers? Why are they still here?'
The Seizer, who had flown near Lee Yeon-woo, didn't even look around. Like a madman, he screamed and fired his gun wildly in every direction.
"Dammit! Dammit! The Dedicated Task Force is going to arrive at this rate!"
Click, click, click, click—
It was firing akin to blind spraying. Lee Yeon-woo flinched and stepped back, but there was no change in the direction the muzzle pointed.
To be precise, the hole didn't open correctly.
A spot in the air completely different from where the gun aimed. Even then, it only opened after several seconds, and even that was weirdly shattered.
Even the anomalies they possessed had been eroded by the error. The Driver was the same. No matter how he tried to drive, the car flew off on its own, crashing into the ground or buildings.
Even the notorious Fugitives were helpless in this situation.
"...."
Lee Yeon-woo scanned the street with drained eyes. A street completely eroded by the error. His once shrugged shoulders and back slumped, and his muscles relaxed.
It was all well and good to come up here with such momentum, ready to do anything. But there was nothing a single individual could do.
In the first place, he couldn't even approach the anomaly entities. Even those Fugitives couldn't move as they pleased.
'Should I just go back down the manhole?'
It would be safer than a road where cars and street trees were flying around. Lee Yeon-woo looked down at the manhole. The dark vertical shaft and the ladder.
It had only been a few minutes. The Stuck Man and his voice came to mind.
'Voice...'
He could hear the Seizer spitting curses and the Driver grumbling in a youthful voice.
'Voice.'
Even in a world where the laws of physics were broken, voices reached each other without problem. Lee Yeon-woo closed his eyes tight and took a deep breath.
'Dealing with Error NPCs. I just need to make them act like the Stuck Man on their own.'
Lee Yeon-woo decided to persuade them.