The Ruler of the Transmigration Labyrinth
The ruler of this Transmigration Labyrinth knew my past, knew exactly who I was, had recreated my equipment with meticulous precision, and was the being who had lingered here longer than any other. The first suspect that came to mind was Alice. She was an android who had remained in this labyrinth since the Earth era, and after such an unfathomable span of time, it would have been strange if she didn't know about me. But even the slightest reflection made it clear. It wasn't Alice. Still, it was someone who knew me as intimately as she did. Someone who had either attended the victory ceremony on the day I assassinated those military generals or had at least heard the reports of the incident and its location. The sequence of entry supported this theory as well. We had entered in the order of Kiyara and Vertea, then Pon and Remy, and finally myself and Alice. If one measured by who had been here the longest according to that sequence, Vertea and Kiyara rose to the top. Yet neither of them belonged to the modern world, so they could not have known the specific gear I fought with. Therefore it had to be someone else. But who?
I didn't know. What I did know was that this entity did not think kindly of me. Moreover, it might possess military knowledge. Nothing concrete came to mind. Perhaps the thirty-seven years that had passed since then had blurred the possibilities. Regardless, the party reached a unanimous conclusion without debate: whoever waited in this hotel corridor was the ruler. Naturally, questions lingered. How did I know? Why did it claim to be me? What was my true identity? But they understood this was not the time for interrogation. Adventurers foolish enough to ask such things at a moment like this would never have risen to intermediate rank. Instead, Remy spoke.
"Do you have a plan?"
He asked me in a faintly weary voice, readjusting his grip on his bow. "To locate the ruler, avoid that thing, and find a way to escape."
Subjectively, three days had passed since we entered the Transmigration Labyrinth. None of us had eaten or rested properly. That meant we had only one opportunity. I nodded with absolute certainty.
"There's one catch. It will be rather dangerous."
With the party watching me in half-doubt and Sera, Vertea, and Alice gazing with quiet trust, I laid out the plan.
Ha Jinwoo strode down the corridor. He had debts to settle and revenge to claim. His steps never faltered as he checked every hotel room, the soles of his armored boots already sticky with blood and shredded flesh. Each stride left a fresh crimson print. Follow those bloody footprints and you would find the pulverized remains of human corpses. Bodyguards, high-ranking military officers, soldiers assigned to the site. He had killed them all. His vengeance made no distinctions, and unlike the real me, he had not selected his targets after careful deliberation. The Ha Jinwoo interpreted from those shallow memories had simply slaughtered everything in sight with brutal efficiency. His objective was total annihilation—a path entirely different from the one the true Ha Jinwoo had chosen.
He was rounding a corner when his micro-current brushed against the muzzle of a gun. He froze exactly as he was, then instantly withdrew and took cover. A submachine gun roared, spitting fire with a vicious rattle. Bullets shattered the wall and screamed toward him. Ha Jinwoo shoved off with one foot and burst from cover in a bold rush.
"Target acquired!"
At the short cry, every barrel swung toward him. The disciplined movements aimed for head, torso, and vital points with lethal clarity. Ha Jinwoo tilted his helmet slightly, reading the bullets' trajectories as they sliced through his micro-current. Minimal movement was all he needed. He drew back his knee. The lowered stance let rounds whistle overhead while he twisted sideways to evade the rest. After roughly ten wasted shots, he was already pulling the trigger.
Boom. Boom.
The reports sounded closer to explosions. Each time the shotgun painted the corridor with muzzle flash, human bodies answered with even greater sprays of blood. The five bodyguards lying in ambush ahead were torn apart. Ha Jinwoo's micro-current expanded in every direction—behind, beside, ahead; point-blank, long range, medium range. His eyes never moved. There was no need. His body simply acted.
A twisted punch crushed a skull with a wet crunch. He stomped the falling corpse and yanked the ambushing shotgun forward, dragging its owner along with it. The man could not resist the overwhelming strength. When he tried to pull the trigger, Ha Jinwoo worked the pump to jam it, then pressed the already-loaded double-barreled shotgun against the bodyguard's head and fired. The upper body vanished from the neck up. Not a flicker crossed Ha Jinwoo's eyes. Death was an old acquaintance to South Korea's super-soldiers. At least, that was how the entity distorting him perceived it, and Ha Jinwoo moved exactly according to that perception.
Leaving the bodyguards reduced to rags, lumps of meat, and scattered remnants, he pressed forward. Rounding the next corner, he met a proper defensive line. Hastily stacked barriers and cover. Muzzles aimed in unison from behind them. The instant he appeared, a storm of bullets demolished the wall he used for cover. Rounds glanced off his armor with ringing vibrations, but he ignored them. Hesitation or fear of return fire would only push him backward. He gripped the shotgun in one hand, kept the shield tight to his body, and surged out to fire.
The blast took two heads clean off. Before the rest could adjust, he was behind cover again, repeating the process each time their barrage thinned. It was mechanical work. The panicking bodyguards died before they could retreat two steps, shredded by the rifle in Ha Jinwoo's hands that poured out hundreds of caseless rounds with a turbine whine.
He broke through the encirclement without slowing. All of it was made possible by his abilities, techniques, and equipment—gear clearly designed for full-scale war. It looked nothing like the real Ha Jinwoo of the actual event, who had used a shotgun and weapons taken from the site to eliminate every general. This version carried a multi-barrel rifle firing four hundred rounds per second, a launch tube for Astrape, bulletproof shield and armor, hundreds of depleted-uranium shells, a double-barreled shotgun, and a superalloy greatsword. He employed every tool to slaughter his enemies and continued the massacre for what felt like an eternity.
Then the Ha Jinwoo trapped in endless nightmare suddenly froze. Bewilderment seemed to radiate from the face hidden beneath his helmet. He tilted his head at an angle. From around the corner emerged an unfamiliar shape—fragments of bodies sliced, shattered, and reassembled like a broken mosaic. Bipedal, quadrupedal, spider-like horrors crawling on too many legs. Machines and fantasy monsters fused into grotesque amalgamations.
The instant Ha Jinwoo saw them, he reacted. He raised the shotgun and fired. The thunderous roar collapsed the front line of monsters. They understood at once: the being before them was an enemy. Screaming, they kicked off the ground and charged. Ha Jinwoo loaded his shotgun while holding the shield, expertly sliding fresh shells among the glittering casings, then advanced.
He rammed a monster with a resounding clang, crushing it beneath enhanced strength and the servo motors of his exoskeleton. When the creature flew away as if struck by a truck, he lifted the shield and slammed its edge down onto the nearest monster's face, pulverizing it into the floor before firing again. He backhanded another that tried to dodge the flaming shotgun, then kicked away those that drew too close. Without seeming to aim, he still burst heads and vital points with precise shotgun blasts. When reloading became impossible, he stowed the weapon and drew his greatsword.
The slaughter grew more intimate. He bashed with the shield, kicked bodies apart, stabbed and decapitated, ripped open torsos until entrails spilled free. Each pass of the pure white blade painted the corridor deeper red. Yet the numbers were still overwhelming. It could not be helped. The coils on the back of his armor opened with a snap.
Crackle-crackle-crackle-crackle-crack!
A massive surge of electricity erupted. Lightning followed the paths of his micro-current and incinerated the monsters biting at close range. They burned black, caught fire, convulsed, and collapsed. Ha Jinwoo pursued the retreating horde with even greater frenzy—kicking heads, stomping bodies into pulp, swinging the greatsword to eviscerate, behead, and fillet. His shield strikes crushed monsters outright. The shotgun roared again, now loaded with dragon-breath incendiaries that set the creatures ablaze. While he methodically finished the screaming, burning monsters, he drew the rifle once space opened. The multi-barrel weapon known as Metal Storm created a lethal curtain of fire. Hundreds of rounds shredded the horde in less than a second. He discarded the empty gun—it could not be reloaded—and reached for his greatsword once more.
That was when he shuddered. A presence brushed his micro-current. He spun and raised the shield on pure reflex.
CRACKLE-CRACKLE-CRACKLE!
A savage bolt of white lightning slammed into him. It burned his retinas, hurled his body backward, scorched the exoskeleton, and shattered the shield. He crashed through a cluster of monsters and rose amid blood and dust.
"...Koshei."
"Ha Jinwoo."
Gray-brown hair. Gray-brown beard. Gloomy eyes. A long scientist's coat. How he was here or why did not matter. Ha Jinwoo rose. Rage burning in his chest, he attached the Astrape hanging on his back to his right arm. Two super-soldiers faced each other—one floating in the air with both hands wreathed in white lightning, the other gripping the lightning of a god. Without hesitation, they charged.
"...It's begun."
Feeling the violent surge through my micro-current, I reviewed the plan once more. I had used magic to create a staircase leading from the lower floor where Vertea, Sera, and I had once been cornered. Then I focused entirely on recalling every detail of Koshei so the recreation would be flawless. It could have gone dangerously wrong, but fortunately nothing unexpected occurred. The moment Koshei appeared, he moved against the fake Ha Jinwoo. I wasn't certain why, but I suspected the hatred I harbored toward the man had been projected perfectly. It didn't matter. There were more immediate concerns.
I swung my sword at the head of the formation.
The blade split a monster from skull to pelvis with a wet crunch. As the bisected creature fell, six more pursued me. Kiyara shouted, "Uncle, on your left!" and unleashed magic. A violet flash crossed my vision; the monster closing from the side froze with its neck twisted. An arrow immediately buried itself in its skull. Instant kill. Power it could never have possessed in life. I kicked the corpse aside and kept running.
Three enormous monsters now blocked our path. I answered with my longsword, Jeokjo. Twisting at the waist, I swung the blood-forged blade in a wide horizontal arc that carved every charging monster in half. I didn't need to worry about the openings I left. Pon had already impaled one through the throat and hurled it away.
Still, countless monsters barred our way. The sheer number was enough to make anyone hesitate. But then—
"Mr. Jinwoo!"
Alice raised her voice in song. The very air seemed to tremble, and the power of my sword strikes soared. Each swing severed limbs, waists, and heads that scattered like leaves. The increase in strength was visibly dramatic. I didn't understand the principle, but the magic affected me directly. Empowered by it, I pushed forward even faster. In every gap my blade created, Sera's bullets rained down.
The submachine pistol chattered. Pon, Remy, Kiyara, and I finished whatever her shots failed to kill. I kicked away the monster whose neck Kiyara's single-edged sword had elegantly severed. Vertea scattered condensed flames behind us to block the pursuing horde. I focused my mind to the limit and sensed something unfamiliar touching the scattered micro-current. Dead humans. And beside them, an unfamiliar presence. Between hotel rooms, behind a blood-painted shutter.
I led the panting party to the door, opened it, and slipped inside. We dodged the monsters that surged toward the opening, slammed the door, and locked it. Pressing my body against it, I felt the creatures slamming themselves against the other side in an attempt to break through. Kiyara aimed her single-edged sword at the thumping door and placed her left hand over the hilt.
"Uncle, get clear!"
The blade flared violet and flashed. The door transformed into solid wall. Even the impact sounds changed. After a few more futile slams, the monsters retreated.
Soon only the sound of heavy breathing filled the room.
"...Remy, watch the door. Vertea can rest a little—"
"This unit is fine," Vertea replied in her monotone. "However... this unit will gratefully and joyfully accept Master's concern."
The fox beastkin nodded. I pretended not to hear and slowly turned to examine the room. Furniture, a bed, blood-stained floor, and the corpses of dead bodyguards—all registered through my micro-current.
"Jinwoo, this is..."
"Yes. It's my handiwork, but... I didn't fire these shots."
The marks were unmistakably from my shotgun. The scattered depleted-uranium pellets left a foul taste in my mouth. Still, there was no time to dwell on discomfort. I crossed the blood-soaked room.
"Here, isn't it?"
I didn't answer. I knew he was listening. The memory had been hazy, but seeing it now brought everything back. Not the bodyguards—the environment itself felt familiar. It had been chaotic. Too many targets, too many obstacles. I hadn't paid attention. There had been no time to explain or converse. Perhaps that was merely an excuse. I traced the micro-current to the panic room, scanned the electrical flow with my eyes, and placed my hand on the hidden keypad. I sent a current through it.
Spark. Whiiiir...!
The broken keypad accepted the surge as the correct code and opened. A heavy superalloy drawer slid aside. Inside was...
"...An android?"
It was an android cradling a human in its arms. Eastern features, a face modeled after a middle-aged woman. Yet the plastic, metal, and synthetic skin were unmistakable. A ring adorned the android's ring finger; the same ring circled the old man's finger. The man was already cold in death, but I recognized them both. The android wore the face of a person I had targeted but who died before I could reach her. The old man was her husband.
I met the android's artificial eyes—eyes that had long since lost any light. The phenomenon I had experienced before repeated itself. Unfamiliar memories flooded my mind. An experimental AI that learned through the emotions and memories of others, an artificial intelligence capable of perfectly recreating the dead. Technology the old man had pursued in order to see his wife again. He had grown shabby and old, committed unspeakable atrocities, all to resurrect her. The memory ended with the android looking up at me after I had killed the husband, leaving the android that resembled the primary target behind.
And now that android was here. An existence that must have been trapped in this purgatory for countless years. The labyrinth maintained homeostasis in all things—objects, buildings, environments, even events repeated endlessly. Just like memories. Therefore the corpses would be the same.
I looked down at the android that feared me while it clutched a corpse that seemed freshly dead.
The ruler of this Transmigration Labyrinth stood before my eyes.