Black Disaster
Black Disaster
"It's snowing."
Time flew.
After the last bridge attack, there was still quite a while left before Behemoth's dive into the Han River—the Han River Plunge.
It was supposed to happen around March, so until then, I took it easy. Hey, taking it easy was good. Nothing beat taking it easy.
I did consider pulling off one more terrorist attack before the Han River Plunge.
But the more I thought about it, the more I realized there was no real need. Stardus had already grown about as strong as her Year 3 self in the Original Work, and more importantly, it was winter. It was freezing. Mapo Bridge in December had been cold enough—how much worse would it be then? Terrorist attacks were always easier on villains and heroes alike when the weather was warm.
So I holed up in the mansion.
Time to clear my backlog of games.
Even stuck at home, I was never bored. The mansion was in the middle of nowhere, but there were plenty of people around. Me, Seo-eun, Soo-bin, and the Ha-yul siblings—five of us in total.
The siblings had barely made it to school before winter break sent them right back. Wait, what the...
All that hustling to get Seo-eun into school, tampering with administrative records and throwing a fit to send her off quickly—what was that even for? Sorry, Seo-eun.
Anyway, Cha-yun—Ha-yul's little brother—was hitting the books harder now that he'd gotten a taste of school. Seriously, what middle schooler studies that hard? Weren't we all supposed to just mess around in middle school?
And because Cha-yun was studying like a demon, even Ha-yul, who'd been watching him the whole time, started to study too. Wait, you have a healing ability. You don't need to study, you know.
Well, Ha-yul was a high-school senior by then. I supposed it made sense that she was studying. Watching her open college-entrance books so late, I thought that whether it was my previous life or this one, being a student in South Korea meant being destined to study. Poor thing.
Soo-bin gave Ha-yul one-on-one tutoring because Ha-yul had forgotten nearly everything after spending most of her high-school years on the streets. Right, I kept forgetting that Soo-bin had attended Seoul National University. When it came to college-entrance preparation, she knew more than any of us.
Come to think of it, Soo-bin had been far too busy lately. Rotating chores? Fine. But on top of that, she was assisting Seo-eun and tutoring the two kids. Honestly, she was practically raising the Ha-yul siblings on her own. If anyone saw her, they'd assume she was their mom.
And while everyone else was working so hard, I was... uh...
Well, I'd worked hard enough until then, hadn't I? I was allowed a break.
Of course, I didn't spend the entire time playing. I also worked on plans to recruit human disasters—I mean, villains—and kept up with my journal...
But yeah, the time Seo-eun and I spent sprawled out gaming together vastly outnumbered everything else. We cleared dozens of games together on the living room couch. Some of the harder ones were genuinely impossible to beat solo.
"Big bro! Hurry, parry it! Parry and save me!"
"On it. There—saved."
"Phew. Once we take this one down, that's the clear, right?"
And so we whiled away the time.
It wasn't only indoor play, though. On snowy days, we went outside for snowball fights. I dragged the Ha-yul siblings and Soo-bin out too. If you're cooped up inside too long, it's no good—you have to goof off outside sometimes.
"Ack! Big bro! Get over here!"
"Nah, I'm good. Ebehehe."
"Hey! Teleporting is cheating!"
"Heheh—urk!"
"Soo-bin, don't just stand there—join in! Hah!"
"Dain... I'm dead..."
That day I learned Soo-bin was terrifying when she got angry.
Lesson of the day: Do not throw a snowball at Soo-bin's face while she's standing still.
The siblings were rolling snow together to build a snowman. Being up in the mountains, we really got a lot of snow.
A snowy mountain valley had its own romance. Moving here had been the right decision. It was a hundred times better than the underground base. We were deep in the mountains, and because we'd installed devices around the area, nobody came close. We could spend as much time outside together as we wanted.
Sure, getting downtown meant using the Teleportation Device every time, but that was a small price to pay.
Before we knew it, Christmas came, and on a whim, we set up a Christmas tree twice as tall as a person in the house.
January and February slipped by just as smoothly.
...Wait, is time supposed to fly this fast when you're just messing around?
Time drifted like water.
Being holed up deep in the mountains, I kind of forgot about the outside world. That's nice.
Watching Stardus fight miscellaneous villains while I ate popcorn became one of my few events. Unlike Seo-eun, the Ha-yul siblings actually enjoyed watching the fights, so they joined me. Honestly, I thought they watched less for Stardus and more as though it were an action movie—or perhaps they simply liked the popcorn.
While I was enjoying this quiet stretch, the Mangostic Fandom seemed to be going through a rough time.
Everywhere I looked, people were still slandering me, and I wasn't even active.
Sorry, guys!!! But the light will shine soon—just hang in there a little longer!
And so March finally came.
Cha-yun started middle school, and Ha-yul became a high school senior.
I was a little worried about how they'd adjust, but they both seemed to be making friends and settling in well. That was a relief.
They had been assigned to a girls' high school and a coed middle school near the house with the underground base, and both were doing well.
And speaking of school, Seo-eun was a high schooler by then too.
When I gently asked if she had any intention of going, she shot back asking why she'd ever go there. Said she had no time to tinker with computer networks. Right.
...Well, I had not expected much anyway. And honestly, it'd have been rather inconvenient if Seo-eun had gone to school. Without her, all my plans would have fallen apart.
After three months together, everyone had gotten a lot closer. Even Ha-yul and Seo-eun, who used to be a little awkward around each other, had grown close enough to act like sisters. Time really did heal things.
Anyway, March steadily passed by.
Right.
It was almost time for it to happen.
The alpha and omega of Han-eun Group's ambitious plan for world conquest. The day was approaching when the Giant Black Gummy Worm, as large as the 63 Building, would burst out.
In the Original Work, that thing destroyed every city north of Seoul and even wrecked parts of North Korea. But soon, it would charge right into the river and die an absurd death—all because of one bridge I blew up as cover for a terrorist attack.
Probably my biggest derailment of the Original Work yet.
The day that would change the fate of South Korea from a hopeless death spiral.
I spent each day waiting for that moment.
And then, one day,
It finally appeared.
***
Seoul, daytime.
Downtown, overlooking the Han River.
Crowds of people going about their business. It looked like any other ordinary day.
Up until that moment.
"...?"
A tremor rippled through the quiet city.
Like an earthquake, the ground shook harder and harder, sending people into confusion.
For dozens of minutes, the vibrations pounded through the ground.
Then—abruptly—it stopped.
And then.
Suddenly.
From beneath the Han-eun Group building, facing the Han River—
Shattering the building above it,
something black burst out.
It looked like a black tower.
A mass of countless tentacles—the Black Disaster.
BOOM—
In an instant, the black mass surged up from the ground and slammed its body down onto the surface.
Shaped like an earthworm scaled to the size of a skyscraper, its sheer bulk alone seemed capable of wrecking an entire city.
As people screamed and scattered before the sudden calamity,
The thing let out a horrifying sound.
Kii... kiiiiiiyaaaaaaarrrgggghhh... kiiiiiiik...
Like fingernails on a chalkboard.
Like hundreds of babies crying at once.
A hideous, piercing noise that radiated pure malice.
The sound was loud enough to be heard anywhere in Seoul, shattering every nearby pane of glass by noise alone—an impossible frequency no living creature should have been able to produce.
It looked like the apocalypse made manifest. A calamity that had come to judge humanity, something human hands could never stop.
Was this how South Korea would suddenly meet its end?
After a brief lull, the creature began to move.
Forward. Only forward.
Like a runaway locomotive, its countless tentacles squirmed and writhed.
As if it had no concept of sideways or backwards,
It tore up the road and charged straight ahead.
From a distance, it resembled a black tsunami.
Visible to the naked eye even kilometers away, it barreled forward as though intending to crush everything in its path.
And directly in its path was the Han River.
There used to be a bridge on its route.
Had been, anyway. It was gone now.
Because some terrorist had blown it up not long ago, there was nothing but open air and the river below.
And so the terrifying monster—the one that seemed ready to doom Korea, the one no hero looked capable of stopping—charged straight into the Han River.
It plunged right into the water.
"KIIEEEEEYAARRRGGGHHHHH!!!"
It suddenly let out a ghastly shriek and began dissolving, as though the water were acid.
And then.
And then.
It was over.
.....?
Peace returned in an instant.
Until moments earlier, it had been a great catastrophe, emitting a horrific noise heard by tens of millions across Seoul and looking like a god of destruction.
Yet it vanished just as suddenly and absurdly, as though nothing had happened.
Only the building it had shattered on its way up, the upturned ground, and the black-stained Han River remained to prove anything had been there.
The calamity had erupted without warning and disappeared just as abruptly, five minutes later.
Case closed. Problem solved!
Man, that was easy.
Sprawled on the sofa, munching popcorn and watching it all on the TV, that was all I had to say.
Huh, it's nice being out in the sticks. Couldn't hear a thing.
Maybe rural property values will go up now. Look how dangerous Seoul is, everybody!
Beside me, Seo-eun had stopped eating her popcorn mid-bite, her mouth hanging open as she stared at the screen.
"Wait, wait. Hold on. Big bro, didn’t we just almost have a major disaster?"
Well, I admitted that the thing's presence was rather terrifying.
Still, in the Original Work, aside from wrecking northern Seoul, Gyeonggi-do, and North Korea, the rest of the country was fine.
Oh. Right. That was a major disaster.
Well, we had stopped it. That was what mattered.
I just shrugged.
Sure, one building got wrecked, but it was over fast.
I bet people weren't too shocked, right?
***
[What the fuck was that just now asdfgh]
Holy shit, I really thought I was going to die
I live in Jongno and when that thing came out I thought, is this it? Am I just dead?
My hands and feet are still shaking, fuck, what do I do
That sound—fuck, I thought the world was ending.
=[Comments]=
[Give thanks to Mangostic for saving your life. If he hadn't destroyed the bridge, you'd already be dead.]
└ [Wait, this is actually true?]
***
Honestly, I'd prefer if everyone just moved on like nothing happened.
I would also prefer to be kept out of it.
"Uh, big bro. Egostic just entered the real-time trends at number ten. Everything above it is monster, Mapo Bridge, Han-eun Group, and stuff like that."
Yeah, no chance of that, right?
Hahahahaha.