Chapter 66
Chapter 66
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Translator: crow
Chapter Title: The World Beyond the Right Eye - What Would Humanity Have Done Without Us?
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Former Saram Logistics Chairman Han Sarang (63) teared up as the long-awaited moment finally arrived.
"Finally, we're digging up the time capsule."
He was the only son born to Han Boram in his fifties—the founder of the Utmost Merchant Guild, precursor to Saram Logistics. He'd grown up hearing stories about the time capsule from his father.
[On the day you were born, we changed the company name to match yours.]
[When we first established the Utmost Merchant Guild, we buried a time capsule in front of the monument to be opened in a hundred years. Make sure you dig it up someday.]
[I put all sorts of things inside. Not just company-related stuff, but also items from the war era that my grandfather and father treasured. By then, even scraps of junk like that will be priceless relics, right?]
What on earth could be inside? Han Sarang shook off his misty-eyed emotions as he gazed at the unearthed time capsule.
"Aigoo, it's not even my company anymore. Better open it quick."
It was a relief that the "someone" who'd bought the company hadn't claimed ownership of the time capsule.
He was just about to pry off the lid when his personal pooch, raised at the company, kept pestering him to play.
"Yonseok-ah, I'm busy right now."
"Woof!"
"Sigh, this guy."
Han Sarang loved dogs. They stared only at their owner with blind loyalty, thrilled by the slightest affection—far more like family than his wife, who'd stabbed him in the back and divorced him twenty years ago, or his kids, who lurked like hyenas waiting for him to die and leave an inheritance.
"You rascal, chasing your tail again? Heh heh!"
"Woof woof!"
And wasn't their stupidity just adorable?
"Sigh, how would you guys survive in the wild without humans? Nature's all about survival of the fittest, but you've lived on cuteness alone."
He finally shoved the pooch aside and opened the time capsule. It was stuffed with all sorts of odds and ends.
"Oh..."
A newspaper from the day the Utmost Merchant Guild was founded.
The guild's first stock certificate.
The first imported foreign coffee beans and the first factory-made nuts produced by the guild.
There was plenty more, but it seemed like they'd run short on items fitting the capsule's size—most were antiques from Han Sarang's ancestors.
"This is a bullet, and a busted carbine rifle? Someone's dog tag, and arrowheads? Heh heh, Dad, you rascal."
Then, something at the very bottom caught his eye.
"A grenade?"
It was a round orb, smaller than his palm—a perfect silver sphere with a button in the center.
"Doesn't look like a grenade, though..."
What the hell was it? Han Sarang instinctively pressed the button hard without thinking.
Beeeep-!
"Ack! It's gonna blow!"
Startled, Han Sarang hurled the silver orb far away. It didn't explode, but it vibrated wildly before shooting straight up into the sky.
"W-What? This is some ghost-level nonsense!"
And moments later.
"Huh?"
The sky's color changed.
"What the...?"
Beyond the blue sky, clusters of rainbow lights began descending.
"What the hell are those!?"
From that day on, Han Sarang's retirement plans were scrapped.
"Light? Light orbs? Light clouds?"
His dreams of joyfully traveling the world turned into plans for fleeing to survive.
"Huff, huff."
Han Sarang dragged his aged body along, running until rotten breath poured from his mouth.
'Run, gotta run!'
Three months had passed already. The world had ended, and humanity was no longer its master.
'Hide, gotta hide!'
That day, the very moment the light orbs descended from the sky.
Clusters of round, condensed lights began hunting humans.
[Emergency alert! Light orbs are descending from the sky! They fire beams at humans, vaporizing anyone they touch into dust! Stay indoors and avoid going outside at all costs...]
The government stepped in, but it was no use.
[Weapons have zero effect on the light orbs! The U.S. dropped nukes, but they passed right through unscathed!]
[Light orbs phase through all physical matter! Physical attacks are useless—flee rather than fight!]
Humanity's arsenal of violence—guns, bombs, missiles, even nukes—meant nothing.
In this nightmare, all humans could do was run.
'Here, hide here!'
Han Sarang had survived this long thanks to the light orbs' quirks. They targeted the young and vital first, largely sparing geezers like him.
'Please, just pass by...'
Sometimes, the light orbs even fought each other. He'd narrowly escaped death a few times when a rival orb showed up and crushed his pursuer.
'Please.'
But his luck had run dry. Today, a light orb locked onto him. He ran desperately, but it chased relentlessly—no rescuers in sight.
'Please, please!'
Huddled under the eaves of a collapsed building, praying, a blinding light filled his vision.
"Ah..."
A light orb had appeared, firing its beam at him.
'This is it. I'm done.'
Everything was over. Han Sarang closed his eyes and accepted death.
"?"
But when he opened them again, he wasn't dead.
"Where... am I...?"
He awoke naked atop clouds in a world brimming with rainbow lights. He tried to move, but bound tight by the clouds, all he could do was turn his head left and right.
"Argh!"
Right in front of him, a naked young man equally bound in clouds screamed. A light orb approached the youth's forehead, a sharp golden gem embedded within its rainbow glow.
"S-Save me!"
His desperate plea fell on deaf ears as the golden gem pierced the young man's forehead. It burrowed into his brain and vanished; the wound healed instantly, but the youth went still.
"Crazy!"
He was probably dead—no, definitely dead.
Trembling in terror, Han Sarang pissed himself. Soon, a rainbow light orb approached him, embedding a golden gem just like it had the youth.
"Live..."
When he came to again, Han Sarang realized he hadn't died.
'Where the hell am I?'
Far from dying, he was trapped inside a glass case.
'Everything's huge!'
Beyond the case lay what seemed like a normal human world—TVs, radios, chairs, computers—but all scaled for giants, dozens of times larger than human-sized.
'Is this the light orbs' prison?'
So they were giants after all? Then why had they appeared as light orbs until now? Were they aliens using illusions?
'And there are tons of other people locked up.'
Oddly, most were young men and women—no one his age in sight.
[&^%&%^*?]
[Yes, that's exactly it.]
Suddenly, the TV static sounded different. Until moments ago, it'd been meaningless noise and fuzz, but now it was voices, and the screen showed two light beings conversing on the news.
[This is our latest invention: the 'Hyperdimensional Translator.' Humans can't properly perceive beings from our dimension—they see us as light orbs, blobs, or clouds. Implant this in their brains, and it converts our form into something their knowledge and senses can grasp.]
[So to them, we look and sound just like humans!]
[Exactly.]
The light being held the very gem jammed into his head before blacking out.
[This lets you bond deeper with your pet human. Some folks skip it thinking purebreds are better, but that's stressful for the human.]
[Stress is fatal to humans, yeah.]
[Stressed humans self-harm, get depressed, manic, binge-eat, lose weight, etc. Happiness plummets, and they try suicide. Implant it if you haven't.]
[We spoke with pet human expert ■■■■■■.]
Han Sarang's mind reeled at the TV content.
'Pet human? What the hell?'
Daring to treat the lords of creation...
Us humans... as pets?
[Next: The tale of ◆◆◆◆◆◆, first to discover humans.]
[Haha, pure chance. As a researcher, I bought a dimensional scanner to observe lower-dimensional life.]
Archival footage appeared, showing the silver orb from the time capsule.
[Universal model detectable by lower dimensions. But the button wouldn't work no matter how much I pressed. Seller said faulty contacts—works once per 100 presses—so I got a new one. They told me to toss the dud, so I chucked it into a random dimension. Miracle: it was humanity's world and planet.]
[Humans picked it up and pressed it?]
[Yeah. Usually it'd get smashed or ditched since it rarely activates first try. No idea if they lucked out or kept jamming it till it worked.]
[What happened when it activated?]
[Humans popped up on screen—bam! Instant thought: Wow, such a cute lifeform! So dumb, naive, slow, idiotic, adorable! My heart exploded.]
The rainbow human onscreen continued.
[Haha! Humans are so dumb it's cuter. What lifeform invents self-extinction weapons?]
[Observations: self-destructive tendencies 10/10. Without us, they'd wipe themselves out fighting within 100 years.]
[Primitive tech harmless to us, but plenty to doom them.]
The two rainbow humans chuckled heartily.
[Truth is, humans dodged extinction 'cause they're cute. We'd have let 'em die, but they're too precious—so we made 'em pets!]
[Wild, they'd never survive.]
[Wild they lasted this long is the miracle. Maybe those guys.]
[Who?]
[In human tongue, 'the Foundation.' Humans who transcended humans. First capture team lost 15,300 researchers to them.]
[Killed?]
[Nah, just roughed up. Transcended or not, still human—can't kill us.]
[Phew, scared me.]
[Anyway, swept 'em in three days flat.]
[Killed 'em?]
[Pet-ified all regular humans, banished the anomalies to other dimensions.]
The screen switched.
"§§§ Teacher, show something else."
"¤¤¤¤ Nurse, I wanna see you."
These seemed to be the rainbow humans owning this place.
[Buy your pet human today!]
[Mischievous white human!]
[Hyper black human!]
[Low-odor yellow human!]
[Want unneutered? Build your own pet human village!]
[Caution: Different colors may fight—handle with care.]
A human-sales ad played.
[Human not listening?]
[Cute and lovable, but too naughty?]
[Try Hyperdimensional Doc Dr. Janus's latest: 'Humans Are Dogs' Best Friends'!]
[Per Dr. Janus: Pill mutates genes, inducing Williams-Beuren syndrome!]
[Afflicted humans show excessive love, trust, affection toward us! No more mischief—just sweet, cuddly pets!]
[Essential for your pet! Order now!]
"Ha, haha..."
Han Sarang laughed hollowly.
"Hahaha, hahahaha! Hahahahaha!"
Soon, he was cackling madly.
"Heh, khk! Hahahahaha!"
He couldn't stop.
"Teacher, this old human won't quit laughing."
"Yeah? Probably stress overload. Or heat—humans are in heat their whole lives."
The rainbow human's hand enveloped Han Sarang.
"Let's neuter him quick. Neutering keeps stress low and lifespan long."
All humans became pet humans.
Humanity perished.
'The hints were there from the start.'
Baal had pinpointed the location but not where doom began.
He'd seen only people, not the buried, dormant dimensional scanner.
'Beings who turn humans into pets.'
We caught the eye of higher-dimensional folk—and apparently, we look irresistibly cute to them.
'Like cats.'
Fickle tempers, seeing humans as peers not masters, yet beloved alongside dogs for that charm.
Maybe to them, we're beyond dogs and cats combined.
'Bad luck snagged us into doom.'
Things had been quiet lately—then this.
An entity from after he quit the game, totally unforeseen.
'Or maybe it existed all along, predating his quit.'
That's when Han Sarang opened the time capsule.
"Ddol-dol, come here?"
"Woof!"
"Anything good?"
"Heh heh, just old junk. That's the point of a time capsule."
"Hmm, ah! Ddol's going for his tail again."
"You silly mutt."
Han Sarang eyed Ddol. He thrust his hand full-force into the capsule, snatching the hidden dimensional scanner amid the clutter.
'Press the button, and it's over.'
He palmed it carefully, bid farewell, and left.
"Enjoy the memories."
"Thanks for the chance!"
Back in the chairman's office, he inspected the scanner. Identical to what he'd seen beyond his right eye: a perfect orb.
"Well then..."
Press it, and 1/100 odds doom all humans to petdom. How to dispose of this?