Chapter 82
Chapter 82
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Translator: uly
Chapter: 82
Chapter Title: Let's Go, to the Higher Dimension
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Geon-woo, Pang, Muhammad, Cheon Su-wan, Tucker, and Ivan had gathered together, having all decided to leave Earth on their own.
One new face had joined them.
“Unexpected.”
Even Geon-woo hadn’t anticipated that he would show up here.
“I feel the same way. I’m hit with reality just thinking about why I’m here.”
He was Jumper, a member of the Guardian special team.
“I heard from Director Bayron that you volunteered half on your own?”
“Well, you could say that.”
Jumper averted his gaze from Geon-woo with a complicated expression.
Half on his own meant the other half was against his will.
No wonder reality was hitting him.
“The more the merrier in the group. Welcome aboard. More heads are never a bad thing, right?”
Ivan grinned broadly and waved at Jumper.
His body, excluding his face, was covered in the prominent plating of his bio-armor, making him look like a bear draped in shell.
“Ivan, do you just let anyone join your team? A teammate who doesn’t mesh is a danger in itself.”
Tucker, who had a build as large as Ivan’s, didn’t look pleased about Jumper’s arrival.
“That’s just because we haven’t trained together. Once we take him in and drill him to hell and back, we’ll become one unit.”
Cheon Su-wan attached the condition that they could adapt him through training, while Muhammad, his face half-covered by his turban, remained silent.
He had maintained the attitude that as long as he could use the Prophet’s Obelisk, nothing else mattered.
“Funny. Have you lot ever synced up with us before? You just played around with Geon-woo’s jiangshi during the subjugation battle.”
But Pang rebuked them, treating Jumper and the others as no different.
They were all here riding on Geon-woo’s coattails anyway.
“We’re gathered to help each other, but like Pang said, the team leader is Geon-woo. If you don’t want to die—or if you want to die meaningfully—then acknowledge what needs acknowledging.”
Unexpectedly, it was the hitherto silent Muhammad who said this.
“Well, sure…”
“I acknowledge it.”
“No reason or qualification to deny it. I’m clearly the weak one here.”
“I-I’ll follow the director’s orders too. Yes, yes.”
Cheon Su-wan, Ivan, and Tucker, as well as even Jumper, accepted Muhammad’s words and nodded.
“Good. Then let’s make it clear. For the time being, Geon-woo is our team commander. Right?”
Pang asked as if stamping it official, and everyone nodded.
With the hierarchy settled, Geon-woo stood up and drew all eyes to him.
“The Prophet’s Obelisk only grants qualification to operate in higher dimensions. That means we have to find our own way to get there.”
Everyone, including Pang, nodded at Geon-woo’s words.
“Then, does anyone here know a way to reach a higher dimension?”
Geon-woo asked the group.
But no one raised a hand.
“The only higher dimension we know of right now is the demons’ realm. So we’d have to go there… which isn’t ideal, is it?”
That wasn’t a question but a confirmation.
Everyone knew survival odds amidst the demonkin were slim.
“Do you have a way?”
Muhammad asked Geon-woo.
“Two ways.”
“Two ways?”
“One is to head to the outskirts of demonkin territory and slip out from there.”
“So there’s a way to reach the demonkin territory outskirts.”
“If we’re lucky.”
“Putting the first method aside for now, what’s the second?”
“Earth or Onvoroad will start interacting with other dimensions, so info on other higher dimensions might come up. We wait for that as long as possible.”
“Doesn’t that mean the first method is our only real option?”
Cheon Su-wan muttered at Geon-woo’s response.
It was a sign he didn’t like dragging out time on Earth.
“Is there a reason to rush? Even those who dislike us have no choice but to wait.”
Jumper countered Cheon Su-wan’s reaction with a puzzled look.
“Sigh. That guy’s seriously lacking, huh, Geon-woo?”
Pang sighed, pointing at Jumper.
“What’s that supposed to mean? Why me?”
Jumper’s face flushed red at Pang’s words painting him as deficient.
“I did mention the second method, but it’s not without a time limit. Alright, anyone here not know what I mean by time limit? Be honest and raise your hand!”
Geon-woo asked the group.
Tucker and Ivan subtly twitched their fingers.
“Wow, you guys don’t know either? You’re just like him?”
Pang looked shocked, pointing at Jumper.
“What’re you talking about?”
“What’s the deal?”
Ivan and Tucker asked Cheon Su-wan.
“Warning.”
Cheon Su-wan answered.
“Warning? What warning?”
“No way, that?”
Here, Tucker and Ivan’s expressions diverged.
Ivan seemed to have an inkling, but Tucker was still clueless.
“It’s not some warning from Director Bayron. What is it? Fill me in.”
Jumper asked Geon-woo in a somewhat agitated voice.
“It’s the feeling of your power being suppressed. Your strength drains for no reason.”
Pang explained to Jumper and Tucker.
“What about it? That can happen.”
Tucker reacted dismissively to Pang, while Jumper still looked lost.
“Tucker’s just dense, and Jumper’s definitely lacking.”
Pang came to that conclusion.
Geon-woo then began a detailed explanation.
“Powers the world can’t handle—or that exceed its limits—face restrictions. What you experienced, Tucker, wasn’t trivial. It was a warning.”
“A warning?”
“Yeah. A warning to stop there. And those warnings keep coming until they turn into direct constraints.”
“Direct constraints meaning?”
“Exclusion from the world. In other words, annihilation.”
“That’s right.”
Muhammad and Cheon Su-wan backed up Geon-woo’s conclusion.
“Urgh, I thought something was off, but I didn’t realize it was that.”
“Me too. I just thought it was weird.”
Ivan chimed in with a pale face at Tucker’s words.
“That’s why you’re dense and clueless. Why do you think Muhammad and Cheon Su-wan went out of their way to find Geon-woo for the Prophet’s Obelisk?”
“Because they want to get stronger.”
“Exactly!”
“Aigoo, what to do with these idiots. Tsk tsk.”
Pang grimaced and shook his head at Tucker and Ivan’s responses.
But at that moment, the only one not realizing their antics were playful was Jumper.
No matter how naive Tucker and Ivan acted, at their core, they were top-tier mercenaries and agents.
They had grasped the full picture the instant they heard about the world’s warnings and annihilation.
And.
“So that’s what it is? Ah, now I get what ‘half-baked’ means. I haven’t even gotten a world warning yet, so I’ve got no grounds to complain about being subpar.”
Jumper wasn’t a fool either and seemed to have pieced together the situation.
“So you’re officially the maknae from now on!”
Pang pointed at Jumper, cementing him as the team’s youngest.
“Alright, briefing seems over.”
Then Geon-woo stepped in, drawing everyone’s attention again.
He continued.
“We’ve got two options. One: rush to a higher dimension. That’d be the demonkin one, of course, and we’d end up in their territory.”
“Then the other is to hold out as long as possible? If no other way shows up, go with the first?”
Muhammad asked Geon-woo.
“No other choice.”
Geon-woo replied.
“Then shouldn’t we obviously pick the second? But you mentioned both at once, so does the second have risks too?”
Jumper asked Geon-woo.
“Ooh! Our maknae’s on point now? Bright-eyed and bushy-tailed. Hohohoho.”
Pang teased Jumper.
“Right. The second requires enduring world warnings and power displays, plus risking exposure of our prepared hideout in the demon dimension.”
“You made a hideout?”
“Yeah. I figured if no other higher dimension was accessible, we’d have no choice but the demonkin one. So I set up a magic circle there beforehand to connect a dimensional passage.”
“Our Gongryeong Molti worked hard on it.”
Pang shrugged.
As she said, the magic circle in demonkin territory had been made by Molti, who had become a Gongryeong jiangshi.
“But it’s already known I sent Molti jiangshi to the demons. So they’ve launched a massive hunt, and many Molti were discovered and destroyed before returning.”
“That’s not all. They’re digging into the past actions of the returned Molti too. So the magic circle by Gongryeong Molti could be exposed.”
Illyeong followed up Geon-woo’s explanation of the situation.
“Does that mean we can’t do the dimensional transfer?”
Muhammad asked in a grim voice.
“We could open the passage, but no guarantee of safe arrival. High chance we’d get flung to an unexpected spot.”
Geon-woo answered, then turned his gaze back to the group.
“So we need to choose wisely. And sooner is better. Especially for the first option.”
“Um, but if we go, can we come back?”
Jumper suddenly raised a hand slightly as if a thought had struck him.
“According to the Molti memories, they can’t open passages from there to here. If they could, the dimensional war with demonkin would’ve played out differently, right?”
“Wasn’t that because of the system?”
“That system applies to us too, which is the problem. Opening from here to there versus there to here seems to make a big difference.”
“Then…”
“Probably not completely impossible. But assume one-way trip; don’t plan on coming back.”
“As expected.”
“I never planned on returning anyway.”
“In a situation where we might die on arrival, return’s not even on the table.”
“Right. No lingering attachments.”
“Same here.”
“Yeah. Return? Nah. And I’d rather leave now than wait.”
Following Jumper, Tucker and the others drew a line on returning.
Muhammad argued for quick departure even to demonkin territory.
Tucker, Ivan, and Cheon Su-wan exchanged glances and nodded.
“If there’s nothing more to prepare, might as well go.”
“Better to go where we can somewhat predict.”
“Our leader knows a bit about demon territory, right? Better than dropping into the unknown.”
“I-I think so too.”
Even Jumper ultimately agreed to head to the prepared hideout in the demonkin dimension.
Geon-woo looked at Pang.
“Huh? Why look at me? I’m going wherever you go anyway.”
“Then… let’s go to the demon dimension.”
And so Geon-woo finalized their move to the higher dimension.
To the demonkin’s territory.