The Fanatics of Seoul
"Teacher, are you heading straight to Seoul?"
"I have to. My sister's there. And something's happening in that city."
I'd used the Golden Compass — a Guild Quest reward — to search for my sister, and the needle had pointed unmistakably toward Seoul.
"I'm coming with you."
"No, Dad. You need to stay with Mom. You're going to leave her here by herself?"
"Well… no."
We'd managed to get our hands on teleportation scrolls that could take us straight to Seoul — but only two of them. That meant two people, maximum.
Without those scrolls, there was no telling how long the overland journey would take, and we were already running out of time. Seoul had to happen fast.
I'd originally planned to go with Elena. Then Braust contacted her, saying he'd found what sounded like a major lead on the Elf God's reincarnation, and she insisted she had to go to him instead.
So for now, I would head to Seoul alone. If I needed help, I'd get in touch.
Seoul. When the phenomenon first hit, this was the city that lost the most people. It had been the most densely populated place in the country, and the damage here had dwarfed anywhere else.
That same density, though, meant the number of Awakened here was in a completely different league from other regions. They'd been able to stabilize the surrounding area faster than anywhere else, and by now a considerable portion of the city had been restored to something resembling normal.
Inside Seoul proper, as long as you steered clear of a handful of dungeon zones, you could live outside a shelter without much trouble. High-level monsters still showed up from time to time, but that was the kind of thing nobody could do anything about. Set that aside, and daily life was more or less functional. I'd even heard they were about to restart power generation. The city was recovering fast.
Crowds. Actual crowds.
People are walking around outside this freely?
What I was looking at would have been unthinkable in Busan — unthinkable in any other region. I had no idea how they'd gotten to a point where nobody seemed worried about monsters, but even to my eyes, the streets did look safe.
"Hey, wanna see the item I got from the slime cave yesterday?"
"Whoa, that's sick. Can I have it?"
"Get lost, man."
Kids, talking about monster drops the way kids used to talk about games. They looked like they were barely in middle school, and the topic rolling off their tongues was completely natural. This wasn't game talk. They were genuinely bragging to their friends about weapons they'd pulled off actual slimes.
It hadn't even been that long, and people were already adapting to the world that had replaced the old one. They'd figured out how to live in it.
"Whoa! There are so many people here!"
"Hey. Stay still."
The White Dragon had clearly never seen a crowd like this. He kept darting around me in every direction, making it impossible to think.
"There's a lot of delicious smells around here, you know?"
"You pull one more stunt and I swear I will roast you and eat you on the spot."
"Aww, you're kidding, right?"
"I'm not kidding."
I actually pulled out a fork and made a stabbing motion. That finally got him to stop flopping through the air. He settled on my shoulder and went still.
He looked thoroughly dejected. Fine. He needed a scolding this sharp, or he'd pull the same stunt he had last time.
Alright. So the odds that my sister is safe just went up, didn't they?
Looking at a Seoul that had diverged so wildly from everywhere else left me with a strange, unsettled feeling — but the thought that Mi-sung might actually be alright was enough. I checked the compass.
North from here?
I started walking in the direction the needle indicated. The Golden Compass didn't give an exact location, but I could tell she was close. The needle itself was shifting, little by little — which meant she was on the move somewhere nearby.
East.
The needle was swinging hard now. She was really close.
There are way too many people, though.
A street that would have been deserted in Busan was packed here, bustling the way Myeongdong used to be before everything fell apart. Picking one person out of that was not going to be easy.
"Where is she?"
I kept searching by the compass. Then, in the distance — a silhouette.
There!
It was her. No question. Even the clothes were a perfect match for what she'd been wearing in the last Scenario Quest broadcast.
"Mi-sung!"
There was some distance between us, but I figured it was close enough for her to hear. She didn't. She just kept walking, heading somewhere else entirely.
She didn't hear me?
The compass turned with her as she moved, proof I hadn't imagined it. I closed the gap and called again.
"Mi-sung!"
She reacted. She looked straight at me — and her expression was wrong.
What?
She stared at me like I was a complete stranger, tilted her head, and then, having looked me dead in the face, simply turned back and kept walking the way she'd been going.
What the hell was that?
Was it not her? A lookalike? A dozen possibilities flickered through my head, but I closed the distance anyway. And once I got close enough, a message appeared, as if to confirm that the person I was looking for was standing right in front of me.
The corresponding target has been found.
The Golden Compass has expired.
The Golden Compass shutting down was all the confirmation I needed. This was my sister. And the closer I got, the more certain I became. This was Mi-sung.
"Mi-sung! It's me. Your brother!"
I caught her by the arm as she tried to walk past. She turned and looked at me, blinking, and then said, as if she were looking at a stranger:
"Mi-sung! I said I'm your brother! You don't recognize me?"
"I've never seen you before in my life. Could you let go of my arm?"
She shook me off. The look on her face said she genuinely had no idea who I was, and I could not make it make sense.
"Mi-sung. What is going on with you?"
"I should be asking you that."
"I'm your brother. Kim Min-sung. You don't know me?"
"Is hitting on me like that supposed to be funny?"
I went blank. She didn't recognize me at all. She thought I was trying to pick her up. I'd wanted to believe she was messing with me — but looking at that face, it was not a joke.
I looked at her again, and again, in case I'd grabbed the wrong person. It was Mi-sung. So how was she looking at me like this?
"I… I'm sorry. I think I had the wrong person."
I took a step back. She looked like my sister. She was my sister. But pushing any harder with a reaction like that was only going to make things worse.
"Your sister must look a lot like me."
"Ah. Yes. She does. I'm sorry."
"It's alright. It happens. I thought it was interesting, actually — that you have a sister with the same name as me."
Hearing her say even that, I let her have the distance. I needed to figure out whether the person standing in front of me really was my sister or not.
"I hope you find her."
"Thank you. And I'm sorry about that."
She started to leave. I let her go, planning to follow at a distance — but after a few steps she stopped and looked back at me.
"Um. Do you happen to know about the Calamity?"
"The Calamity?"
The Calamity. I'd heard that somewhere. It had been in the Scenario Quest broadcast.
"No. I don't."
I played dumb. I didn't actually know the details — and if I did know, she might start looking at me strangely.
"I'm only saying this because I'm genuinely worried about you. You need to find a Fruit by the day after tomorrow."
"A Fruit?"
"Yes. A Fruit. You need one to escape the Calamity."
And then she launched into a full explanation. The gist of it was this:
In two days, something far worse than the phenomenon we were already living through would arrive. To stop that Calamity, you needed a Fruit. Anyone who possessed one could escape it.
A Fruit. That was in the Scenario Quest footage too, wasn't it?
A Fruit, supposedly necessary to stop the Calamity. Was that actually true? I had my doubts.
"So you already have one, then?"
"Of course."
She reached into her coat and showed me something. A gem, small, shaped almost like a raspberry.
Was that the Fruit?
"That's it? That's a Fruit?"
"Yes. I happened to get it through some people I know."
"Through other people?"
"Oh! There might still be some left. You'll need a Fruit to escape the Calamity too, Min-sung. Why don't you come with me and get one?"
She wanted me to go with her to receive a Fruit. I didn't believe in this Calamity, and I had zero interest in the Fruit itself — but whatever had done this to her, the answer was probably waiting wherever she wanted to take me.
"I'd be really grateful, if you'd do that."
"Then let's go. There isn't much time. I can't even say for sure whether he still has any."
She took me by the lead and started walking. We hadn't gone far before the crowds of Myeongdong fell away, and she guided me into a quieter neighborhood, then up to a house.
Why are there no people around here?
We hadn't even left the busy streets that far behind, and yet the area was more than sparse — it was empty. Nobody but the two of us. A bad feeling settled in my gut as I followed her, and she stopped in front of a house with a blue iron gate.
"This is it."
"Right."
She knocked a few times on the tightly shut blue gate. From inside, two large men in immaculate black suits appeared.
"Who's this?"
"Hello. I've brought someone new."
At Mi-sung's word they let us through, then locked the iron gate firmly behind us.
Something's off about this place.
Whatever this was, it was not an ordinary house. And the moment we stepped inside, a scene unfolded that no ordinary person would ever believe.