Chapter 69
Chapter 69
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Translator: MadScientist
Chapter: 69
Chapter Title: Into the Broken Nightmare
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Riiing.
Riiing.
“Haa...”
I sighed at the familiar alarm sound and barely managed to open my eyes.
“Huh...?”
But as I looked at my bedroom ceiling, I felt a strange sense of dissonance.
For some reason, the house felt unfamiliar. It was a house I had lived in for years...
‘It's my usual house, but... what's going on?’
I tilted my head and stretched.
Then I immediately went to the bathroom, washed my face, and had a cup of coffee.
My routine before work. Even though these were actions I always performed, I felt strangely out of place.
“Gulp...”
I couldn't understand it at all.
Why was I so relaxed? Was I always this laid-back?
I didn't have to worry about being late for work... Wait, why didn't I have to worry about being late?
“This is weird... It's strange, but I don't know why it's strange.”
As I drank my coffee, I carefully tried to recall my memories. The real me, not this strange me...
“That's right... I'm supposed to hate going to work. That's the normal Jang Jo-jun...”
As I thought that, a sense of powerlessness, a deep-seated annoyance toward my company, and hatred for my boss and colleagues gushed forth.
Recalling these forgotten emotions, the sense of dissonance that had been lingering since earlier began to fade slightly. It felt like a picture that was slightly off-kilter was returning to its original form, a sense of stability.
“I wonder if I'll ever win the lottery...”
I've been buying lottery tickets every week for ten years now, but strangely, I can't even win the fifth prize.
I don't know how unlucky I am. Well, hoping for luck in my miserable life is probably a mistake in itself.
“Sigh... What a pathetic life...”
I lamented my fate and started getting ready for work.
To get along with those shitty bastards at my crappy company without fighting today, I can't be late. I have to force myself to muster up some energy.
If I don't, I'll get pushed around by people all day and spend most of it in annoyance and anger.
Creak.
I made up my mind to try and brighten up my shitty life, even a little, and opened the front door to step outside.
Just then, I ran into the woman from next door.
‘The woman from next door... Eun-ji?’
Wait, how do I know the neighbor's name...
And what is this? This aching feeling.
I want to hug her right now. It feels like it would be okay. She feels like my woman.
‘Am I crazy? Why do I keep feeling this way today?’
The long holiday must have been too much. My mood is floating, and the familiar day feels unfamiliar.
As I stared at her, the woman awkwardly greeted me.
“Uh, hello...”
For a moment, I didn't know what to say.
Should I say it's good to see her? Or that it's been a while...
No, we barely ever run into each other in the first place...
As my thoughts deepened and I couldn't answer, the woman looked at me strangely and then pressed her lips to mine.
“Uh! Wh-what is this...!?”
“A morning greeting. Don't you know? We always do this.”
“Uh... Yes?”
“I'll be late at this rate. I'm going on ahead, Oppa.”
She stroked my lower body once and then melted into the shadow, sliding down the railing.
“What is this... Ugh...”
Watching her descend to the first floor, I felt a strangeness so profound it twisted reality. A headache that felt like it was drilling into my brain followed.
‘Something just felt incredibly off. What is this feeling?’
I don't know. I just focused on the thought that the woman from next door was really pretty, and soon the strangeness and the distortion vanished. At the same time, the thought of wanting that woman filled the void left by the distortion.
‘Could I date a woman like that... even get married and have kids?’
My life had no connection with women. I had zero dating experience.
There were no women who approached me favorably in the first place. But the woman from next door just made a pretty aggressive move on me...
I imagined dating, marrying, and having children with the woman from next door as I hurried to catch the subway.
‘Hell train...’
As expected for the morning, the subway was packed. But they were all women.
From women holding axes, women with piercings, and tall women who looked over 190cm, the subway was full of familiar faces.
“Uh...”
I was running late for work, so I squeezed my way through the crowd of women and boarded.
Breasts flew at me from here and there, hitting my face.
“Hoo...”
I was buried in breasts. Their exotic scents dug deep into my nose every time I inhaled.
My lower body kept trying to get bigger... If I were to touch the butt of the woman standing in front of me at this rate, it would be over.
I forced myself to suppress my erection.
Just then, the woman standing in front kept pushing her butt out, rubbing it against my lower body.
No matter how hard I tried to hold back, it was unbearable. The more her soft butt rubbed against me, the rougher my breathing became and the bigger my penis grew.
‘This is insane!! Why is this woman doing this!
Until it was time to get off, I had to sing the national anthem over and over in my head.
·
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Time passed in an instant.
It felt like the middle part was skipped, but I had finished my overtime and returned home.
“Haa... I'm tired...”
The moment I entered the house, I collapsed and caught my breath for a moment.
“Ha. That bitch, Deputy Kim... She only acts like a bitch to me. Makes you want to offer her as a sacrifice...”
How long do I have to live like this?
The repetitive daily life is so exhausting.
The repetitive annoyance is now just tiresome.
“Should I just quit...”
No matter how shitty and annoying it is, I've been enduring it because I have nowhere else to go, but is this right?
If I quit in anger, I'd have to go around doing Human Sacrifices or slave hunting...
“Maybe... that would be better...”
Maybe it would.
I've heard the hourly pay is good these days. Maybe it's not a bad idea to just use this chance to submit my resignation and become a Cultist.
Whether it's my crappy company's salary or a Cultist's hourly pay...
I want to quit my company and give that bitch Deputy Kim a piece of my mind.
I want to smash the face of that bitch who barks at me like a dog with rabies every time she sees me...
As I was having these thoughts, a scene from a movie suddenly came to mind.
The movie with McConaughey and Angelina.
In it, the protagonist gets a chance of a lifetime and quits his job, and there's a scene where he yells at his boss and smashes a colleague's face with a keyboard.
‘A legendary scene that holds the resentment of every office worker with a shitty boss or colleague...’
If I imitated that scene with a keyboard, I'd be headed straight for prison, but maybe I could at least go for the bitch's face with a tentacle...
That's when it happened.
Ding-dong.
“Huh...?”
Who would be visiting me?
And at this late hour?
I have no family. And shamefully, no friends either.
My relatives are worse than enemies.
Who on earth could be visiting me?
I checked the peephole.
“Huh...?”
Outside the peephole stood an abnormally beautiful woman with white hair and red eyes.
With her fangs bared.
“What the... That woman. In the middle of the night.”
It's not a horror movie.
What business does she have at my house in the middle of the night?
“Fuck...”
I felt a little creeped out and didn't answer.
Then I quickly turned on all the lights in the house.
“Haa... Did I play too many games...”
If I have a mental problem, someone like me with no connections is done for.
I have no family to take care of me or any assets to be taken care of with.
‘It's better to just die than to flounder around with a mental illness.’
I don't want to be dragged to a mental hospital and get pumped full of nerve stabilizers all day, chasing after bluebirds among crazy people.
“Fuck... Nothing works out for me...”
My life is truly horrific. It seems like I'm the only one who keeps failing. I'm the only one who gets tangled up.
If I'm going to get tangled up anyway, I wish the whole world would get tangled up and collapse.
Right, we all fail together, fairly.
My negative thoughts gradually deepened.
Before I knew it, I was making a noose and putting my neck in it.
Ding-dong.
That's when the doorbell rang again.
“You fucking!!”
What the hell is this bastard doing, messing with my doorbell over and over?
I can't take it anymore. Scary or not, I don't care.
I grabbed a baseball bat from the house and threw open the front door.
“Uraaah...”
Standing in front of the door was the guy from upstairs.
The guy from upstairs who sometimes gets so drunk he mistakes our first-floor apartment for his own...
But why... does this... feel like I've seen this scene before?
What is this deja vu?
Why has the guy from upstairs turned into a zombie?
A zombie?
‘Deja vu...?’
What did I do next...
I don't know. It's blurry.
“Uraaah!!!”
I just swung the bat without hesitation.
Thwack!!
The baseball bat struck the man's head head-on.
I kept smashing the head of the zombie who had lost its balance.
Then I stomped on the neck of the dying bastard.
“Haa... Haa... Haa... You... fuck...”
My hands were soaked in blood.
Han Tae-yang was dead.
Han Tae-yang..?
“What the. Where is this...”
Before I knew it, I was standing alone in a house I didn't recognize.
The sense of dissonance was reaching its peak.
“Ah... Ah...”
That's when, from inside the master bedroom, through a slightly open crack in the door, someone made a strange noise while looking at me.
“Y-you, fuck!! Who are you!!”
“Ugh... Ugh...”
It was a nameless man who had lost his wife.
I knew his name... but I can't remember it now.
The bastard was looking at me with hateful eyes.
That wasn't all. From all over the house, the people I had killed were glaring at me.
As if resenting me. As if wanting to kill me.
“Wait. The people I... killed...? I killed them... What kind of bullshit is this...”
Slowly, bit by bit, my memories began to awaken.
Only then did I realize this was a dream.
“A dream... Right. The blue pill I've been avoiding. Fuck... It was a dream.”
Only then did the restraints of dissonance that had been binding me vanish one by one.
So that's why I felt something was strange all day today; it was all a dream.
‘The blue pill I've been avoiding... What the hell. They said there'd be a special event, and they just made me have this boring dream...’
I feel like I've been tricked. I spent thousands of coins just to have this lame nightmare?
Did they expect me to feel guilty for the people I killed?
Or did they want me to be scared?
I don't feel an ounce of guilt for the bastards I killed with my own hands. I only killed those who deserved to die.
And there's no reason to be scared of bastards I've already killed once.
Now that I realize this is a dream, there's nothing to be afraid of.
As I thought that, the space began to ripple, and a notification window appeared before my eyes.
⚙ SYSTEM NOTIFICATION ⚙
[You have entered the stage of a complete lucid dream.] [Moving from 'Nightmare of the Daily Life' to 'Tragedy of the Shared Dream'.]
“Shared what... Ugh...!”
Before I could even ask what it meant, I fell asleep again.
*****
“Ugh... My head...”
I held my throbbing head and got up.
“This is...”
The place I opened my eyes to was a land covered in a reddish sky and things I couldn't identify.
It was as if a piece of hell had been cut out to make this place. The sky was ominous and unsettling.
As if soaked in blood... red... and red again.
Just... because it's red... it's beautiful...
That's... what exactly...
“Hey. Lower your head.”
When I was captivated by the red sky, someone called out to me.
The voice had a mechanical tone mixed in, who is it?
I don't know.
I should lower my head and check who it is...
That red sky, those red pupils.
They're so beautiful... I can't take my eyes off them...
Zzzap!!!
“Graaah!!!”
A dizzying shock from the back of my neck.
An intense stimulus from an object that seemed to be a taser or something.
I convulsed, foamed at the mouth, and collapsed to the ground.
Thanks to that, I was finally able to tear my gaze away from the red sky.
“Ughhh!!!”
Still on the ground, I looked up at the one who attacked me, and a man in sunglasses, heavily armed like a soldier, was looking down at me.
‘A robot..?’
I squinted my eyes and looked closely. He wasn't a normal human.
More like an android mimicking a human form.
There were seams at the joints. Also, where his skin was torn, machine parts were exposed.
‘Is he a robot or a cyborg?’
I'm not sure exactly. Whether he's a modified human or just an android.
Just from his appearance, I could tell that most of his body was made of machine parts.
“Sorry for attacking you suddenly. But I had no choice. This is the most effective method.”
He extended a hand to me as I barely wiped the foam from my mouth with my sleeve.
I took his cold hand and stood up.
If he wanted to kill me, he could have done it several times already.
The fact that he's keeping me alive means either he has something for me to do, or he's an incredibly kind robot. One of the two.
I hope it's the latter.
“Gulp...”
“Hey, don't look up at the sky. Nothing good comes from looking at that sky.”
“Ah... Yes.”
He took a baseball cap and sunglasses from the bag on his back and put them on me.
The cap's brim blocked the sky a bit, so I wouldn't look up unless I consciously tried.
Also, thanks to the sunglasses, my vision was further restricted.
“Never look at what's floating in that sky. Not if you don't want to become fertilizer for this land.”
Become fertilizer for this land. Is this not just a dream?
Could it be the kind of dream where you can't return to reality if you die?
I might have been dragged to a strange place while I was asleep.
I asked the robot.
“Excuse me, is this a dream?”
“What? A dream? A dream...? Wait, a dream... Right, it's a dream. It's a dream. This was a dream. Hmm... It was a dream.”
For a moment, the android repeated the same words over and over like a broken machine.
I found the sight a bit grotesque and creepy.
I tried to use a skill to restrain him with a tentacle, in case he went crazy and attacked me.
‘I can't use skills. I don't have anything, either.’
In the underground market, the world of fatal error piles like possessors, returners, and reincarnators, I couldn't use skills there, either.
Moreover, my only possessions were the clothes I was wearing. In the underground market, I at least had fireworks and various items, but here I came empty-handed.
‘Of course I'm empty-handed since it's a dream...’
I couldn't feel the presence of Kashnax and Indicron.
It seems I'm completely separated from them because I'm in a dream.
‘Uh...?’
But for some reason, I could feel Botamil's presence.
It was even stronger than in reality.
I spoke to Botamil. I prayed for her to answer.
"Hmm... Hmm... This is..." "The Boundary. The border line... Whose boundary is it?" "I don't know. I don't know, but you can't get out with normal methods." "Never let your guard down there." "If you get sucked in, you'll become a part of the 'Nightmare'." "Ask the being in front of you for help." "He will..."
Botamil's voice was filled with noise.
She seemed to add a few more words, but I couldn't hear them well.
‘Ask the being next to me for help?’
I glanced at the android who was still muttering something.
I couldn't feel any malice or murderous intent from him, but more than that, he was already a broken being. Should I trust a guy like this...
“Definitely... to prevent the increase of entropy... I passed through the wormhole... and this is... a dream... Who am I? I'm a scientist... for research... What was the research...? Ah, definitely to prevent the increase of entropy... I passed through the wormhole... and this is...”
He kept repeating the same words like a machine caught in an error.
If I left him like this, he'd probably just keep muttering the same thing to himself endlessly, so I quickly tried to wake him up.
“Hey! You!”
“Huff...!”
When I called him by tapping his shoulder, he was startled and came to his senses.
Then he bowed his head to me.
“Thank you. I must have... been here too long. My mind keeps wandering.”
“No, where exactly is this? I know it's a dream, but...”
I don't know anything, so I need to borrow the knowledge of him, who seems to know more than I do.
“This is... Purgatory. A place like hell from which you cannot escape...”
“Purgatory?”
“Yes. As you just said, this is a dream. The problem is that no one knows whose dream it is. Because of that, we can't move on to the next stage.”
I'm sure there was a system notification about the tragedy of the shared dream before I fell here...
“Do you know about the tragedy of the shared dream?”
“Tragedy of the shared dream...? I know about the tragedy of the commons, but... tragedy of the shared dream... I'm not sure.”
“Tragedy of the commons?”
I think I've heard of it somewhere...
As I looked puzzled, the man briefly explained the tragedy of the commons.
“The tragedy of the commons is, to put it very simply, the concept that if you leave a shared resource in front of individuals without any rules or laws, everyone will use it recklessly, exhausting and destroying it all... But tragedy of the shared dream... That's a rather ominous keyword.”
The man stroked his chin and fell into thought.
Then he snapped out of it and started walking somewhere in a hurry.
“W-wait! Where are you going?”
“We need to get to the base camp before the sun sets. You seem to be new here, so if you have nowhere to go, just follow me for now.”
I had no other options, so I followed him.
Anywhere is better than being out at night, which is far more terrifying.
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