The Crawling Chaos Comes Knocking
"Mr. Kim Hyunseong, are you home?"
Knock knock knock knock!
I was just about to turn on my computer, like Nyarlathotep had told me to, when someone started pounding on my door.
My phone buzzed right then — an ironclad order from Nyarlathotep.
"What? Why?"
If she was calling it a nuisance, whoever was out there definitely wasn't your average neighbor...
"Okay, I'm going inside."
Following her advice, I ignored the knocking, slipped back into my room, and booted up the computer.
Let them knock for a few minutes. They'll get tired and leave.
"So who are these people that want to kidnap me, exactly?"
"..."
Honestly, I was dying of curiosity, but arguing with her would get me nowhere, so I swallowed it and moved on.
Knowing Nyarlathotep's personality, she'd tell me sooner or later anyway, when the time was right.
Vroooom.
I hit the power button, and the computer hummed to life, glowing with bright neon light.
A high-end rig I'd put together with the five million won I'd received the moment I aged out of the orphanage — three million for the computer, two million for Academy entrance prep. It broke down perfectly.
You might be thinking: who spends orphanage support money on a gaming PC?
But back then, at a time when nothing in the world mattered to me more than computers and games, it was an offer I couldn't refuse.
For the record, I got my apartment through the government's awakener housing subsidy.
Looking at it that way, I really did get lucky just by awakening, even if it was only F-rank.
'Well, technically I'm not even F-rank anymore...'
A slight flinch.
Now that I thought about it, the situation was starting to sink in for real.
Two days. That's all it had taken for a nonstop chain of unbelievable events.
The two friends I'd been gaming with all this time were gods — and not just any gods, but ones who'd signed an Incarnation Contract with me and handed me power that wouldn't bow even to an A-rank?
For a guy who'd spent nearly a year floundering at the bottom of the barrel, F-rank and sponsorless, that was not the kind of information load you process in forty-eight hours.
'It's real.'
But now, I could accept it.
My whole house had burned to the ground, for one. And when I looked at the dazzling skills lined up in my status window, denial simply wasn't an option.
'I really became a god's avatar.'
A stroke of luck I never saw coming.
A contented smile crept across my face.
As soon as the computer started up, a message from Nyarlathotep arrived.
And then a question suddenly occurred to me.
"Wait, aren't you guys all out in outer space? How are you even playing games?"
"Oh, I se— wait, you're on Earth?"
She was living on Earth?
"Then just come live at my place. It's not like you've got anywhere to stay anyway."
"It's way too big for one person anyway. Besides, it's more fun when friends are crowding the place up, right?"
I'm not enough of a scumbag to give the cold shoulder to gods who are actively helping me.
Come to think of it, back when we made the contract, their appearances were, well... enough to drive a man out of his mind...
"I'll think pure thoughts, I promise."
I smacked my own cheek once and downloaded the game Nyarlathotep had sent over.
Hold on — isn't this a twenty-year-old game? This is what she brought back like it was some legendary masterpiece?
...Fair enough. An old game means it won't hog my specs. A win, really.
The game in question was a party-based RPG dungeon crawler that had briefly been popular twenty years ago.
Great gameplay, but the lore was so incomprehensible it got buried and forgotten — a tragedy of a game.
Its setting claimed that if a god called "A■■■," whose mere name drove people mad, ever woke from slumber, the universe would end. That a "Great Old One" who'd slept for a thousand years would fly into a rage and wipe out humanity.
A game absolutely stuffed with proper nouns you couldn't parse unless you sat down and organized them into a spreadsheet.
'Wait. Great Old One?'
Great Old One.
Translated literally, it meant "the most ancient and greatest of things."
And by pure coincidence, it was exactly Cthugha's title.
'No way, right?'
There was no chance this game was actually about the same being as Cthugha.
I'd already survived the absurd revelation that my gaming buddies were gods — a name overlap was nothing to write home about.
The two of them had apparently taken a real liking to this game, happily hammering out chat messages as they launched it and spun up a server.
Right — when your gods ask for something, you provide. I wasn't about to penny-pinch over this much.
And so I fired up the game and logged into the server too.
And ten minutes into the game, I laid eyes on the Great Old One's face, went completely insane, and died.
Son of a bitch.
"I'd say that's about enough."
Nyarlathotep, wearing her human form, had pried open a rough gap between dimensions and crammed her belongings inside, murmuring to herself as she worked.
Though "belongings" was generous — there wasn't much of anything.
Just the Necronomicon, a handful of game consoles, and one "item" tucked in at the bottom.
"Kim Hyunseong will be pleased."
She smiled as she said it, smoothing down her black dress.
"Goodness, what abject poverty."
KA-BOOM!
Then, with a flick of her hand, she demolished the palatial estate worthy of royalty and began to walk.
"It has been a long while, my home. Farewell."
Thud, thud.
And so she tore down the colossal mansion — her own residence — and set off for Kim Hyunseong's apartment.
"Let's GO!!"
Fwoooarrrgh!!
Cthugha threw a backpack haphazardly over her shoulders and bolted out of her home.
At the same instant, her house burst into flames.
She was the type who liked to stand out, so her house had been even taller and more colossal than Nyarlathotep's.
And within less than a tenth of a second, that house crumbled into a pile of ash.
"Time to go see Kim Hyunseong!!!
That girl, whose chest and head were practically indistinguishable in size, took off flying at something close to the speed of light.
"Whew..."
I closed the game and stretched my arms high overhead.
Any minute now, the two of them would show up at my place with their luggage.
If they set out now, it'd take them thirty minutes or so to get here, right?
If I used that time to get things ready...
- Move aside!
- She really made those breasts ridiculously huge. Doesn't she know Kim Hyunseong likes a moderate size? Not too big, not too small?
- R-really?
Why could I hear voices outside? And why did they sound so familiar?
Click.
Praying it wasn't what I thought it was, I opened the front door.
"There he is."
"Here I am, as you can see."
Standing there were a red-haired girl who could only be Cthugha, and the silver-haired Nyarlathotep I'd seen at the contract.
"Behold these absurdly massive breasts."
Then Nyarlathotep went to work on Cthugha's... ahem. Her ah... Actually, I'll stop there.
Grope, grope.
"Why the hell are you groping me?"
"Tell me, Hyunseong. Do you not prefer breasts like mine over ones like hers?"
I had no idea where this conversation had come from.
It seemed related to whatever they'd been arguing about at the door, but...
"Uh... well, I mean, yeah?"
Honestly speaking, I wasn't a fan of gigantic chests. I liked a moderate size.
Something that fits in one hand yet fills it completely — the kind of feel that seems purpose-built to be pleasant to hold.
...I don't even know what I'm saying. Something about the unexpected situation must have briefly short-circuited my brain.
As expected of the woman whose face alone had driven me momentarily insane. To think her mere stage-setting could scramble me again.
"Just get inside."
Anyone watching would have called this an embarrassing situation, so I ushered the two of them into the apartment.
"A splendid dwelling."
"Wow... it's so pretty."
Nyarlathotep and Cthugha marveled aloud as they looked the place over.
Compared to the places they'd lived, it was barely a doghouse — but the fact that they rated it highly simply because Kim Hyunseong lived there was a secret the two of them would take to their graves.
"You are not joining us for the evening meal?"
"Dinner? I didn't know you two would get here this fast, so I haven't prepared anything."
Seriously — what kind of person shows up at your house less than a minute after making plans?
The only reason it was possible at all was because the people in question were gods.
By their own standards, this probably was arriving quickly, so I couldn't even complain.
"Not us, fool. We speak of you. Did you imagine a god has no need of food?"
"What?"
I answered with a momentary look of confusion.
Now that she mentioned it, I hadn't eaten a single meal today.
Grab.
Nyarlathotep and Cthugha each gently took one of my hands in theirs.
"Then come along, shall we?"