Chapter 3
Chapter 3
I Want to Leave the Forest of Skeletons (1)
Startled out of my mind, I threw the mask away and collapsed onto the floor, staring at it in shock.
“The mask… talked?”
The mask lay on the ground facing the ceiling.
Slowly, I crawled toward it on all fours and cautiously reached out.
“Uuugh…”
Keeping myself ready to pull back instantly, I extended a single finger and gently touched the mask.
“Hey! What’s wrong with you?! Why’d you suddenly throw me?!”
The moment my finger touched it, a sharp voice pierced straight through my head.
“AAAGH!!!!!”
I immediately jerked my hand away.
And the voice vanished.
“This is insane… the mask really talks?”
Feeling slightly terrified, I backed away from it.
For some reason, the mask seemed angry.
“…Still, at least I finally have someone to talk to, right? Better than being completely alone.”
Trying to comfort myself, I stood back up.
“Hooo…”
After taking a deep breath, I picked up the mask again.
“You’re seriously making such a huge fuss. Am I really that scary?”
“Y-You… who are you?! G-Ghost begone… n-no wait… rest in peace…? Ah… maybe not?”
Unlike what I imagined, my voice shook like a leaf.
And laughter echoed from the mask.
“Ahahahahahahaha! Hey, relax, relax. I’m not gonna eat you.”
“…”
The mask laughed so hard it felt like the world was shaking.
Meanwhile, I stood there awkwardly until my trembling slowly calmed down.
“Uh… who… are you?”
“Shouldn’t you introduce yourself first? That’s basic manners.”
The mask spoke in a slightly grumpy tone, and I hurriedly introduced myself.
“Uh… my name is Lee Siwoo…”
“…What?”
The mask suddenly became serious after hearing my name.
“Your name is Lee Siwoo? Where are you from?”
“Huh? From where? Uh… Seoul, Sou—”
“Seoul? I’ve heard that somewhere before… What country are you from?”
“Country? …South Korea?”
Though honestly, would someone from another world even know what South Korea was?
“…South Korea? Wait… do you know Neo Joseon?”
“Neo Joseon…? What kind of bizarre name is that? The only Joseon I know is Gojoseon and Joseon.”
“I knew it! You— were you summoned from another world? Are you a Hero?!”
The mask suddenly became excited and started bombarding me with questions.
And somehow, I ended up answering them all.
“A Hero…? Come to think of it, some really pretty woman called Saintess or something kept calling me Hero earlier…”
“I knew it! You really are a summoned Hero!”
“Uh… I don’t know if I’m a Hero, but I definitely think I got summoned into another world…”
I recalled suddenly being pushed on the stairs, waking up in that white space, and eventually ending up here.
“What are you talking about?! Obviously only Heroes get summoned from another world!”
The mask sounded dumbfounded, leaving me with nothing to say except weak excuses.
“No… I seriously don’t know anything. I just suddenly ended up here…”
“Suddenly? Wait… then how did you even enter this place?”
“Huh? I just fell down here.”
“Fell?”
“It’s true. The floor opened and I dropped down.”
Thinking back, one of those white-armored people had definitely pulled some kind of lever.
The mask went quiet for a moment as if thinking deeply.
“The floor opened…? I don’t really understand what you mean…”
“I’m serious…”
“Well, whatever. Which numbered Hero are you?”
“Huh? Numbered Hero?”
“I mean exactly what I said. Which Hero are you?”
“There’s more than one Hero?”
Wait, weren’t Heroes usually supposed to be unique?
“…You really don’t know anything.”
The mask sounded genuinely shocked.
“I told you already… I basically got thrown down here immediately after arriving in this world.”
“Haah… alright, fine…”
The mask fell silent again, apparently deep in thought.
Meanwhile, I carried the mask back out into the hallway.
“I’m exhausted…”
I sat down in the middle of the corridor and leaned back.
The mask stayed completely silent the entire time I moved.
“Um…”
Eventually, I was the first to speak again.
“So… what exactly are you?”
I had been curious about the mask’s identity this whole time.
“Where is this place… and why are you here?”
“Right. I still haven’t introduced myself.”
The mask paused briefly before continuing.
“…My name is Momotani Himeko. I was the Second Hero summoned into this world.”
“The Second Hero?”
“Yeah… although I failed and ended up like this…”
By “like this,” she probably meant becoming a mask.
I stared blankly at the mask, which looked as if something had sealed her inside it.
“Don’t stare so hard…”
As I continued looking at it, her voice echoed again.
“You can feel people looking at you?”
“Yeah. A little. I can feel almost everything.”
Fascinated, I started turning the mask around in my hands.
“Hey! Don’t spin me around however you want! I’m getting dizzy!”
A sharp shout immediately rang through my head.
“Ah… sorry.”
“…”
After I apologized, the conversation awkwardly died down again.
“Um… Momo? Maybe—”
“…What did you just call me?”
“Ah… uh… your name’s kind of long…”
“……”
“Go on.”
For some reason, there was a strange feeling in her voice that I couldn’t quite describe.
“Oh! Right! I was wondering if you know a way out of here…”
“……”
“……”
“……”
“Momo?”
The moment I called her Momo again, she noticeably flinched.
“Huh? Ah… sorry, what did you say?”
“Do you know how to get out of here?”
“Right! You said you fell down here earlier, didn’t you? Explain exactly what happened first.”
In a hurry, Momo asked me to explain how I got here.
I told her about the beautiful woman, the floor opening beneath me, and falling into this place.
Of course, I edited out the embarrassing parts of my introduction.
“Hmm… the woman you saw was probably the Saintess…”
“Yeah, she said she was some kind of Saintess from the Goddess Church…”
Thinking back on it, she really had been unbelievably beautiful.
And judging by how she casually ordered around those white-armored knights, she clearly held enormous authority.
“But why would the Saintess do that?”
Why would she throw a Hero from another world into a place like this?
“…You’re still hiding something, aren’t you?”
“Uh… well…”
In the end, I had no choice but to tell Momo everything.
Including that introduction.
“You idiot.”
“I mean… it’s not like…”
“Haah… whatever.”
“…”
But it just came out on its own…
“She probably thought you weren’t the Hero.”
“Huh? What’s that supposed to mean? You said everyone summoned from another world is a Hero.”
“I mean, from the Saintess’s perspective, you probably didn’t look like one.”
“Didn’t look like a Hero…?”
If I wasn’t a Hero… then what was I?
“I heard that when the Saintess summons Heroes from another world, a few impurities sometimes get mixed in.”
“Impurities? Me?”
“Well… maybe?”
…So I’m not a Hero?
Seriously?
Really?
For real?
Momo’s explanation crushed me completely.
So it happened again.
Because of another stupid mistake from my childhood…
Again.
Again!
AGAIN!!!
Now I was going to rot and die inside some damp underground prison full of skeletons!
If only I hadn’t said that stupid line!
No, why was I summoned in the first place?!
I’m just a normal college student!
Damn it… damn it…
DAMN IT!!!!!!!!!!
I violently rejected the reality I’d been thrown into.
“It’s okay. The Saintess will probably realize something’s wrong soon enough.”
“Huh? Really?”
“Impurities usually stand out immediately.”
“Really? Seriously?”
“Yeah. Apparently those kinds of people either attack others the moment they’re summoned or say obviously dangerous things.”
For some reason, it felt like Momo’s gaze turned toward me halfway through that sentence.
I desperately ignored it.
“They’ll probably keep summoning impurities without finding the real Hero, so eventually they’ll come looking for you.”
“Really? Seriously?”
“Yeah. I told you already, I was the Second Hero. I heard it directly from the Saintess who traveled with me.”
Momo spoke confidently enough that I couldn’t help believing her.
“Alright! Then it’s escape time!”
“What?”
“We’re getting out of here! With you helping me, it should be easy, right?”
“…You struggled against a single skeleton and you think escaping this place will be easy?”
“Well… that’s…”
Momo immediately brought up how hard I struggled just to defeat one skeleton.
“Do you have any idea how dangerous this world is? This isn’t the same world you used to live in! Hundreds of people can die in the blink of an eye here and nobody would think twice about it! You almost died yourself just now!”
Momo’s words struck directly at my weak spot.
“Th-That’s true… but I can’t just stay here forever. Sitting around waiting for rescue feels wrong…”
I weakly argued back.
“I… I just want to go home… sniff…”
“Haah…”
I swallowed the emotions rising in my chest and looked toward Momo.
“Momo… really… sniff… is there really no way…?”
“…You look pathetic, so stop crying and stand up.”
“Huh?”
“Hurry up!”
“O-Okay!”
Startled by Momo’s sudden shout, I instinctively stood at attention.
“This place isn’t an underground prison. It’s one of the seven underground sanctuaries dedicated to the Goddess.”
“Ah… so that’s why there were goddess statues everywhere.”
“Yeah. Originally, only a select few within the Goddess Church knew about this place. But after I got sealed away, it was probably forgotten and turned into a dumping ground. That mountain of bones and the skeletons probably came from that.”
Though honestly… did the Saintess really not know about this place?
Well, there was probably some complicated reason.
“I get the bones… but the skeletons were dumped here too?”
“Don’t be ridiculous! Undead monsters like skeletons are created when corpses absorb death energy! In a place with a mountain of bones like you described, it’d actually be stranger if skeletons didn’t appear!”
“A-Ah… I didn’t know…”
As I hurriedly defended myself, Momo finally remembered my situation and stopped snapping at me.
“…Alright. First, let’s focus on getting out of here.”
“Yeah! Got it!”
I placed Momo on my head securely and started walking down the corridor.
“First, stop in front of the door and sit down. There’s something we need to prepare.”
Following Momo’s instructions, I sat down near the door.
“I’m sitting. What now?”
“You understand that if you go outside in your current state, you’ll die immediately, right?”
“…Yeah.”
Remembering how terrified I’d been when I first saw the skeleton, my body trembled slightly.
“So, to ensure your minimum survival, I’m going to teach you a skill.”
“A skill?”
“Yeah. It’s the perfect skill for survival.”
“Oh! What is it?!”
Excited, I rolled my eyes upward, trying to look at Momo sitting on my head.
With the dramatic atmosphere of a god bestowing blessings upon a follower, Momo declared proudly—
“I’ll teach you the greatest evasive technique that exists in this world.”
“The greatest evasive techniiiique!!!”
The phrase “greatest” instantly hooked me.
“Its name is… Emergency Evasion Maneuver!!!”
Momo announced it dramatically like a cartoon character revealing a secret gadget.
“WOOOOOOOW!!!!!!!”
“This Emergency Evasion Maneuver is a legendary technique capable of dodging every attack.”
Momo sounded extremely proud, like she was revealing some priceless treasure only to me.
“It dodges every attack?”
Wait… was that even possible?
“But… realistically, can you really dodge every single attack?”
“Of course. Why else would it be called a legendary technique?”
“As expected of another world! This place is full of insane stuff!”
“Well… there is one tiny side effect, but it’s not a big deal.”
“A side effect?”
Honestly, a skill this ridiculous having no downside at all would’ve been stranger.
“This Emergency Evasion Maneuver is a legendary technique that dodges every attack. However, there’s one little side effect—it completely ignores the condition of the user while dodging.”
“Ignores the user’s condition…?”
Not understanding, I asked again.
Momo answered with a slightly awkward tone.
“Well… Emergency Evasion Maneuver only focuses on escaping in the most optimal direction… It doesn’t care what happens to the user’s body in the process. For example, if an attack is coming toward your face and the optimal escape path requires bending your neck backward ninety degrees…”
“No way…”
“Exactly. Emergency Evasion Maneuver will bend your neck ninety degrees or dislocate your shoulders and pelvis if necessary. As long as it avoids the attack, it’ll do it without hesitation.”
Everything about that sounded horrifying.
“That’s not a tiny side effect at all!!!”
“Calm down… it’s still better than having nothing, right? And situations like that are extremely rare. Usually the safest direction for your body is also the optimal one.”
“But still…”
I couldn’t shake off the uneasy feeling.
“So… are you going to learn it or not?”
“Haah…”
But honestly, I had no choice.
After taking a deep breath, I answered.
“I’ll learn it. A dislocated shoulder is better than dying.”
“Good decision. Now close your eyes and focus.”
“Huh? You can learn it just like that?”
“Yeah. I developed a special teaching method, so stop talking and concentrate.”
Following Momo’s instructions, I closed my eyes and focused like I was meditating.
As I concentrated, I began feeling something touching around inside my brain.
“Is this normal? This feels really weird…”
“It’s fine, so focus.”
After a while, the inside of my mind slowly turned white until everything around me became engulfed in whiteness.
“Ooooh… this is kind of amazing!”
As I experienced the strange sensation, I noticed a small moving dot inside the white space.
“What is that…?”
Focusing harder, I watched the dot grow larger.
Its shape stretched out until it slowly transformed into a human figure.
“That’s…!”
The person stood with their back turned toward me, but somehow I recognized them instantly.
Wearing slightly rusted iron armor, leather pants, and messy medium-length hair, the man looked perfectly adapted to this world, as though he had been born here from the beginning.
As I approached closer, the man suddenly turned around.
His face was filled with small scars.
And with a cold expression, he stared directly at me.
“…Me?”
It was completely identical to my own face.