Goldfish Rescue Operation

"Hahk—!"

I jerked awake, gasping for air.

Had it all been a nightmare?

But they had definitely called my name.

And that woman at the end…

"Hayeon? What's wrong?"

"Ah… Dokja…"

The moment I saw Dokja in front of me, the image of that woman's head falling off flashed through my mind.

"Ugh…!"

I forced down the sudden, violent lurch of my stomach and pushed myself up from the floor.

"Hayeon? Are you okay? You look awful."

"…I'm fine. Just gonna hit the bathroom real quick…"

I fled like a man on the run.

I could feel the others' eyes on my back, but that hardly mattered right now.

If I didn't empty whatever was churning inside me this instant, I genuinely thought I might lose my mind.

"Urgh… uweeeegh…!"

The second I reached the bathroom, I started heaving everything out of my gut.

A revulsion and disgust beyond any words I could put to them.

Only after I'd purged whatever had been boiling inside me did my head start to clear again.

"Haa… ha… What the hell… was that dream…?"

From what I'd seen in my memories, that place had clearly been Lobotomy Corporation.

And the me in that place had been a Twilight species.

The two wings sprouting from my back.

The gear I'd been using.

But I had no such memories.

The existence I knew as "Park Hayeon" was nothing more than a twenty-three-year-old Korean man.

So then what the hell were those memories?

They had unmistakably been mine.

Mine, and yet not mine.

That ambiguous boundary churned through my skull all over again.

The more I thought about it, the more it felt like my mind was coming apart.

"…Angela. Ayin. You two know something, don't you?"

"Right… You still can't tell me, is that it?"

They clearly knew something about me.

But they couldn't say it.

In that case, there was no point dwelling on this any further.

Just thinking about it felt like my mind ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠was collapsing, and the ones who held the answers were staying silent.

So the right call was to focus on the crisis staring me in the face right now.

I left the bathroom and headed toward where Dokja was.

By now, he'd be saying he was going to rescue Yoo Joonghyuk.

And my prediction hit the mark.

I ran into Dokja's party as they were walking toward Exit 1.

"Oh, Hayeon? What are you doing here…"

"Just walking, trying to clear my head… What about you?"

"Perfect timing. Hayeon. Can you help me out?"

"It's about Yoo Joonghyuk, right?"

"…How do you know that?"

"I've got my ways. Anyway, I'll help."

"In exchange, don't ask me anything."

If Dokja started pressing me about the state I'd been in just now—

I really thought my mind might shatter for good.

"…Alright. I won't ask a thing."

"Good. Then let's go."

And with that, we set off toward Exit 1.

"That bastard went into the hidden dungeon at Exit 1, right?"

"Y-yeah?"

"And it's been eleven hours since she went in?"

"Y-yeah…"

"If we leave her like this…"

We arrived at Exit 1, which was radiating an ominous aura.

"Yoo Joonghyuk dies today."

Alright then. Time to save a goldfish.

Beyond the black curtain lay a place that looked exactly like a movie theater lobby.

We started making our way deeper into the dungeon.

Lee Jihye did raise some doubts about rescuing Yoo Joonghyuk along the way, of course.

Torn posters lined the walls around us.

"Unnie, all the posters are ripped up. Who would do that?"

"Who knows."

"Yoo Joonghyuk, probably."

An escalator leading upward came into view.

It had long since stopped working, but that wasn't a problem.

"Let's head up."

"Hey, Jihye, was it? You use a sword too?"

"Yes! I love swords."

"Right? Swords are the best."

"There's just something about the feeling of cutting things, you know?"

"Unnie gets it too!"

Honestly, I had to give them that one.

The rush of equipping Ryoshu's Identity and carving through enemies really was something else.

"Your sword looks nice."

"Ah, my master gave it to me. What about yours, unnie…?"

"Mine is… m-mine's nice too."

Jung Heewon, still stuck with her Paleolithic bone knife, quietly tried to hide her blade.

Suddenly I felt kind of bad about the whole thing.

"Hey, why do you use formal speech with Heewon-ssi but talk down to me?"

"Huh? Uh… I'm kind of weak to cool unnies."

Our Dokja is cool too, you know.

Jihye still had a lot to learn.

Let's see… Voices up ahead. We must be close.

"Hold up."

"Shh. Someone else is here."

"What the hell, we already tore through a ton of them. Anything left?"

"There's one more over here!"

"You sure? That there's a bunch of them in there?"

"I told you. Info I bought from the Prophets for a thousand coins."

"Creepy bastards, but their intel's solid."

Wow. Extras about to die.

"Alright, let's go in."

Wiiiiing—

A blue light poured down from the top of the poster, and the extras caught in it vanished.

"W-what just happened?!"

Then the same blue light shot toward our party as we gathered in front of the poster.

"Aaagh! What is this!"

"U-ugh…"

"Heewon-ssi, you like movies?"

"Of course. Doesn't everyone?"

"You might start hating them after this."

"What? What are you suddenly—"

In an instant, my field of vision flipped.

And the landscape that filled it was—

A jungle dense with trees and undergrowth.

"Where the hell is…"

"Where are we?!!!!"

"We're inside a movie."

"Unbelievable things just keep happening…"

"Lady, what movie is this?"

"You'll find out soon enough."

"Can't you just tell me?"

"Hold on, kid, what are you—"

A massive mantis burst out right in front of Gilyoung.

Jihye reached for her sword.

"Hey, kid! Back up, now!"

Thup—

"This is a Titanoptera. A Triassic-period insect."

"What?"

Gilyoung and the mantis radiated a strangely familiar rapport.

Jihye stared at him like she couldn't believe what she was seeing.

"That kid… what is he?"

"Fabre."

"Mini Fabre, yeah."

Just wait till you see what our Gilyoung can do later, Jihye.

"Unnie! Hyung!"

Gilyoung called out to us urgently.

And then the ground began to tremble.

"Wh-what! The ground…!"

"Kyaaaaah!"

"S-save me!"

"Those people were on the first floor earlier…!"

The ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠source of the tremors came into view behind them.

"I… I know what movie this is."

"…Yeah. Me too."

And then a colossal dinosaur let out a tremendous roar.

Holy shit.

"Aaaagh!!!"

"Run!"

The party broke into a desperate sprint.

And then—

Whoosh—

Thwack—!

One of the extras took a dinosaur tail square on.

He slammed into a tree and hung there limp, his neck bent at a grotesque angle.

"Hoo—"

"Wait, mister! Are you seriously about to fight that thing?"

"We have to kill it if we want to make an exit."

"Make an exit?"

"Forgot already? We're inside a movie."

"Let's give it a hell of an ending."

"GRAAAAGH!"

Clack—

I loaded a glowing bolt into my crossbow.

The yellow eyes set into my armor began to shine.

"Be bewitched by the lantern."

The T. rex's eyes went slack as it locked onto me.

The moment the message window appeared, the yellow eyes on my gear flared crimson.

An ominous energy poured from the bolt loaded in the crossbow.

"If you're bewitched by the lantern, you die."

Fwoosh—!

I pulled the trigger, and the bolt screamed through the air at a terrifying speed.

Thwack—!

It punched clean through the T. rex's skull, leaving nothing behind.

That, old-world loser, is what gear advantage looks like.