#23 The Illusory Realm (幻界)
#23 The Illusory Realm (幻界)
The probability of escaping Kang Tae-ho converged on zero.
Even with all those advantages, I'd only managed to take Hong Yuri from Gu Jin-ha by pulling adds during a boss fight — and Kang Tae-ho was far stronger. Worse, there was an unidentified sniper behind me.
'It's over.'
Running wasn't possible, not by a long shot. My desperate attempt at C-rank Stealth didn't change a thing.
"Heh. Would you look at that. Stealth-type skills and everything."
His gaze was still locked onto me. The fact that he could see me perfectly forced me to hold my breath and swallow hard.
'Figures...'
Even if I dumped every remaining Skill Point into raising Stealth, hiding was impossible. Even if I grabbed a speed-related skill, the outcome wouldn't change.
"Uh. Team Leader. You got here fast."
Without lowering his bowstring, the archer stood behind me. The slightest twitch, and I'd be shot — the unease crawled up my spine. The moment Kang Tae-ho swung that Conqueror's Great Sword from his shoulder, death took a long stride closer.
"Yeah. Strong enough to give Yu-ri and Jin-ha trouble."
"...You're saying you came anyway?"
"Cut them down and they all die. Simple."
Ridiculous. If it were that simple, those two wouldn't have gotten wrecked in the first place. Though for him, the statement probably held true.
"Are we killing it? Isn't that a waste? It's canid — couldn't we tame it?"
"Don't be an idiot. You've seen what this thing's done. You seriously confident you can tame it?"
The archer made an awkward face. Taming monsters wasn't unheard of — but this was the bastard that had made fools of Search Team 3 for an entire month. Nobody even knew how it had escaped Jirisan Mountain, and if it hadn't been spotted in the Gyeongsan dungeon, they never would've tracked it down. The archer clicked his tongue, looking genuinely disappointed.
'...Shit.'
The footsteps strode closer. Killing me was apparently a settled matter. No escape, no hiding. So I had to try something else.
'Change.'
I used Change to form vocal cords. I didn't know the anatomy, but I'd done it once before when I killed Gu Sang-seop, so it wasn't difficult.
"St—op."
The moment words left my mouth, Geohan's face — the kind that looked like nothing could faze it — went rigid. The archer, stunned, fumbled his bowstring. The arrow hadn't been aimed, but it was still vicious. I barely dodged it before the archer came to his senses and nocked a fresh string.
"T-Team Leader. Did I mishear that? Please tell me you didn't hear it too."
"...Shoot-to-kill is rescinded. We take it alive. No exceptions."
'Shit. What now?'
The one stroke of luck was that Geohan had sheathed the Conqueror's Great Sword. As the great blade vanished into subspace, Geohan cracked his knuckles with a series of pops.
"Nothing beats the feel of your own fists, yeah...?"
Lunatic. A single off-target punch from Gu Jin-ha had shattered half my skull. A direct hit from Kang Tae-ho meant instant death. If I got captured now, the best-case scenario I could imagine was a cage and a life spent as a lab animal. I had to keep the conversation going, somehow.
"Prodigal Sons. Threat. Tail."
"...What's it saying?"
"No idea."
'Damn it.'
At this point in time, nobody knew about the Prodigal Sons. Maybe they knew something, but not the name. I needed a different angle — something that would seize his attention.
'What do I have? What do I say to stop Kang Tae-ho?'
What had Kang Tae-ho done in the novel? What was his whole deal?
"Kang Hoon. Alive."
The words came out in desperation. Kang Tae-ho's steps halted. But the reaction wasn't what I'd expected. His expression twisted into something murderous, a cold, wintry killing intent radiating off him.
"...Seong-hun. We capture this thing. No matter what."
"Wasn't that already the plan?"
'Shit.'
An arrow loosed from the string. At the same instant, Kang Tae-ho lunged. A fist the size of a pot lid swallowed my entire vision — and in that moment, right when I thought I was dead, I heard a cry. "Kyu!"
***
"...Vanished?"
Geohan stared blankly, sweeping the empty air. If it had simply concealed itself, he could've accepted that. But if that were the case, he would never have lost track of it. He spread his mana outward — nothing. The Alpha was simply no longer here. As if a film reel had snapped — as if it were the most natural thing in the world — the Alpha had vanished.
"How in the hell?"
Faced with an incomprehensible phenomenon, Geohan's fist clenched until it creaked. His vision could pierce through dozens of kilometers, yet when he swept for the wolf, the creature was nowhere to be seen.
"Team Leader... what is this?"
"I don't know. What I do know... is that it's already gone."
The first thing that came to mind was a scroll. A Short-Range Teleportation Scroll, or something like it. Had the wolf been carrying one and activated it?
'But if that were the case.'
There had been no precursor phenomenon. No surge of mana, no torn scrap of parchment. No shimmer of light.
"Huh. So this was why Yu-ri couldn't catch it?"
Was this ability the reason it had never been caught? He couldn't even guess what kind of ability it was. Invisibility? Spatial leap? Could it be magic rather than a skill? If it was intelligent enough to speak, then perhaps it could have learned magic...
'No. That's insane.'
Geohan shook his head and dismissed the possibility. Learning magic meant some connection to Square, one way or another. But Square — why? Why would they go out of their way to make an enemy of him? He was skeptical.
"Team Leader. What in the world is this?"
"......?"
The archer lifted an emerald-colored scale. It looked like something from a serpent.
"Don't tell me this is..."
Geohan's face hardened the instant he saw it.
***
'That phenomenon again.'
The same one I'd felt when I ran to bypass the Quickening Evil. Back then, I'd assumed it was magic cast by Hong Yuri — a desperate spell thrown while she was on the brink of death to save herself. But Hong Yuri wasn't here. Which meant something else had intervened. And where in the world was this place...?
'It's like a whole other world.'
No — it literally was another world. Looking closely, everything was laid out exactly like the spot where Kang Tae-ho and the archer had cornered me. Except for the fact that the colors looked as though someone had spilled blue dye over everything, and above my head, where the sky should have been, an emerald-green ocean flowed upside down.
'Ah.'
That was when I realized what the blue tint was. Mana. Dense, saturated mana filled this entire world.
'Insane.'
The concentration was suffocating. Just breathing felt like it would raise my magic power. Where was this place? Who had brought me here? And more than anything...
'What the hell is this thing?'
A snake-like creature hovered nearby... To put it more clearly, it had a long, serpentine body, but there was a pair of beautiful wings attached to it. Not bird wings — butterfly wings? Looking closer, the wings were made of membrane.
"Kyu-ruruk! Kyu-ruruk!"
The odd little thing scattered light powder as it flew, preening like it wanted praise. I watched, spellbound, before a jolt of clarity made me snap Insight on.
[Fairy Dragon]
[L: 16.2cm] [H: 2.6cm] [W: 126g]
[STR 16] [AGI 14] [VIT 23] [MP 76]
[Skill List]
[Blink (D)] [Mana Regeneration (D)]
'......?'
Aside from its magic power, it was a thoroughly unremarkable creature. But...
'Dragon?'
A dragon. Whatever the cultural differences between East and West, this meant it was a dragon species.
Right. A serpentine body with wings — it did look like a dragon. It looked like a dragon, but...
'It's way too weak for a dragon.'
Even the wingless Swamp Dragon had been stronger than me, and this thing was a dragon species?
'...Fairy Dragon?'
Then something clicked.
The egg. The dragon bug's egg I'd saved after ending the Sewer Calamity, while it was still in metamorphosis. Weren't dragon bugs the larvae of Fairy Dragons?
'No way.'
I had my doubts. But — no, that "no way" was probably right. There was no reason a Fairy Dragon would save me out of nowhere. It had to be the dragon bug I'd rescued back then.
'Even magpies repay favors, but this is something else.'
A dry laugh escaped me. The Fairy Dragon flew through the air, scattering light powder, glancing back now and then as if to say hurry up and follow.
'Not like staying here is going to do me any good.'
I kept my mouth shut and followed the Fairy Dragon through this other version of the world, this superimposed layer of reality.
"Kyu-rururuk! Kyu-ruruk!"
The Fairy Dragon was exceptionally cheerful. At the very least, it didn't seem like I was being led into a threat. After guiding me along for a long while, it tilted its head.
"Kyu-ruruk. Kyu-rururuk?"
It cocked its head as if it had forgotten the way. I let out a deep sigh.
'...At least I'm still alive.'
The fact that Kang Tae-ho and the archer weren't following meant this was a separate place — a world mirrored from the real one. Examining it more closely, it was the very dungeon at Ihyeon Park.
'Maybe it isn't fully connected to reality?'
When I finally reached the boundary, the Fairy Dragon gave a nod. It crossed the forest's edge first, and I followed, emerging outside the dungeon. As expected, this place was linked all the way to the outside world.
'This is...'
I had no idea what the principle was. But within it, I could see countless... living things drifting leisurely through the city streets.
'Ah.'
My mouth fell open. Not people — creatures beyond comprehension, all of them living upside down. They floated against the sea that streamed across the sky as their baseline, and I was the only one with my feet on the ground.
'.......'
I racked my brain, but I couldn't remember any world like this ever appearing in the novel. Which meant this was a world even the protagonist had never visited. A world whose existence itself was unknown — and in that world...
"અહીં રાક્ષસો કેમ છે?"
"વરુ, વરુ! મોન્સ્ટર વરુ~!"
The sound of delighted laughter and an utterly incomprehensible language. I'd never heard anything like it. Fairies that looked exactly like Tinker Bell and dragon bug larvae that had yet to reach maturity were mingling and laughing together.
[Child of the Third Winter (Fairy)]
[H: 26.2cm] [W: 240g]
[STR 11] [AGI 25] [VIT 16] [MP 57]
'...A real fairy?'
***
"Are you serious?"
"Do I look like I'm joking? I'm telling you, the Alpha spoke."
The team leader, wrapped in bandages, furrowed his brow. His expression all but said quit your bullshit. Geohan sighed. To be fair, he'd have reacted the same way.
"...If I were going to lie, don't you think I'd come up with something better?"
"You've done it before, sir. Since when did you get so good at lying?"
"Seong-hun saw it too. Isn't that right?"
The man in question was still dazed, muttering to himself — "The monster spoke... the monster actually spoke..." He'd been running his mouth just fine earlier, but on second thought, he'd apparently been pretty shocked.
"...So it seems to be true."
It wasn't likely the two of them had shared a dream. As far as Gu Jin-ha could tell, the Alpha was strong, sure — but not on a level that would faze Geohan. Even if you bent over backwards and assumed it had some mental-attack skill, it would never work on someone like Geohan.
"More importantly, what the hell happened to you?"
"Because someone decided to slack off."
Geohan flinched — he'd poked and gotten stabbed right back. He could've snapped something back about getting wrecked by a monster like that, but he'd fought the flesh heap himself and knew how terrifying it was. Hard to say much.
"The Alpha spoke, you said... Have you ever heard of a talking monster?"
"Not entirely unheard of. But those were mostly just mimicking human speech. Like a parrot."
"...That's about all I've heard of as well."
"But you never know. There might be people out there capturing talking monsters and hiding them."
"That'd be like trying to cover the sky with your hand."
Monsters had been appearing in this world for nearly fifty years. Fifty years — half a century. Could anyone really hide the existence of talking monsters for that long? No matter how he thought about it, he remained skeptical.
"If even you lost track of it, chasing the Alpha is going to be a fool's errand. Yu-ri's in that state, too... We might have to give up."
"Ah. About that."
Geohan lifted something — a single scale. The team leader examined it from different angles and his expression soon grew severe.
"...Don't tell me this is what I think it is?"