“How I ended up here, huh…”
At those words, Lee Han-cheol frowned slightly before he began to speak.
“You probably have a vague idea since you were dropped here too, but I guess it’s because of that game after all.”
“……”
“This might turn into a bit of a long story, but I think I need to start with this… First of all, after you disappeared, things were a bit hectic in the guild for a while.”
Lee Han-cheol scratched his head roughly as he continued.
“Of course, having casualties in a gate isn’t all that uncommon. But having only one person go missing without even a single battle? That was clearly suspicious. On top of that, the type of gate was completely different from anything we’d seen before, so the association even got involved and conducted their own investigation. There was nothing inside. Just a single door and once someone entered it, that person disappeared while the rest of us were thrown out of the gate… It was a bizarre gate in many ways.”
Was that so? Yujin hadn’t expected his disappearance to be investigated all the way at the association level. Though in truth, the focus was probably more on the strangeness of the gate itself rather than on his disappearance.
“If gates like that keep appearing, then people who go in to clear them will just keep disappearing, right? Awakened individuals are a valuable human resource, so I’m sure there was a strong desire not to lose them so meaninglessly. Not that there was anything anyone could actually do, though.”
“When you say there was nothing you could do…”
“The gate closed and vanished immediately after we were ejected from it. So the so-called investigation only involved things like conducting mana wave scans at the location where the gate had been. In the end, we couldn’t find a single clue.”
“Hmm…”
“Luckily, our guild had an official license, or we might’ve been completely ignored by the association for making baseless claims without evidence. Worse, rumors might’ve spread that we were trying to cover up a team member’s disappearance in some shady way.”
“?
When he heard that, Yujin tilted his head, finding something odd. He asked,
“You said there was no evidence? But isn’t it mandated by awakened-related laws that gate raids be recorded on video? Our raid team also recorded every gate clearance, didn’t we?”
What happens inside a gate is unknown to anyone except those who enter it.
Because of this, many influential figures who were concerned about the potential rise in crime within gates had proposed a law mandating that all gate raids be recorded on video and submitted to the Awakened Association.
In practice, those who violated this rule were never granted clearance to raid gates again by the association. And in cases where footage was inevitably lost or the recording failed, a thorough review and verification process was required.
For that reason, guilds with official licenses never disobeyed this rule. Lee Han-cheol, hearing this, frowned slightly but nodded.
“Yeah… that’s right. We did submit our footage as well, and the association confirmed it. The problem was… about 30 to 40 minutes after we entered the gate, the video began to cut out. After a while, it just showed a screen full of static with nothing but loud crackling noises.”
“……”
“Because of that, the loss of footage became a point of concern, and we had to go through a review and verification process of our own… but, well, that part we managed to get through safely. It’s not really important to the current situation, so let’s move on.”
It was clear they’d gone through a tough time over the video issue, but just as Han-cheol said, it wasn’t relevant right now, so Yujin decided to move on and nodded.
Han-cheol continued.
“Anyway… since the investigation became impossible, the whole case ended up in a dead end. The association couldn’t publicly acknowledge a new type of gate without solid evidence… and your disappearance was quietly buried.”
“That’s… a strange feeling.”
The fact that his disappearance had been quietly swept under the rug by society stirred a subtle emotion within Yujin. Though it wasn’t strong enough to make him feel anything in particular.
It wasn’t as if Yujin was some great figure whose disappearance would spark a massive investigation with crowds rallying to uncover the truth. Normally, cases like this were just quietly forgotten, and Yujin thought that was how it should be.
But apparently, Tiamat didn’t think so.
[How cruel. They didn’t even try to properly search for you? Just buried the case without a second thought? What do they take my child for…]
Her cold voice was laced with blatant displeasure. She seemed even angrier than Yujin himself, the person actually involved.
You don’t need to be that upset, Tia. Over 300,000 people die on Earth every day. One person going missing quietly is perfectly normal.
[But still…]
I’m fine, though, aren’t I? Doesn’t that make it all okay? Besides, honestly… I was a little relieved. If my disappearance had caused a bigger stir, I think I would’ve felt like I was causing unnecessary trouble.
[……]
While Yujin and Tiamat were having their conversation, Lee Han-cheol bowed his head to Yujin.
Seeing this, Yujin ended his talk with Tiamat and turned to Han-cheol.
“…Squad leader?”
“First of all, I’m sorry.”
Lee Han-cheol continued speaking and his expression was filled with genuine remorse.
“Still, I was the Squad leader, and it was me who decided we should keep moving forward…”
“……”
“I was the one responsible for your disappearance, but in the end, I couldn’t take responsibility in any meaningful way. I’m truly sorry.”
After hearing those words, Yujin stayed silent for a moment, then spoke to him.
“Please raise your head, Squad Leader.”
“But…”
“I don’t particularly hold any hard feelings toward you. Honestly, I’m grateful just for the fact that you feel that way.”
“……”
“And in the end, I’m alive and well right here. So doesn’t that mean it’s all fine?”
Yujin shrugged as he continued.
“Besides, what could you have done back there, really? You’re a complete outsider when it comes to anything outside of awakened-related work.”
“That sounded kind of like an insult….just me?”
“Of course not. I only meant to say that I have absolutely no intention of blaming you.”
In truth, Han-cheol had been nothing more than a combat-type awakened. He had no means of searching for the missing Yujin nor any ability to help in that regard. So really, what could he have done?
Even if he’d wanted to take responsibility, the most he could’ve done was offer something to Yujin’s surviving family. Except Yujin didn’t have any. In many ways, there had been nothing he could do, and that helplessness had probably weighed on him.
On top of that, the whole thing had happened because of his own decision to push forward. Knowing he was a person who took responsibility seriously, Yujin could understand the emotional burden he must’ve carried.
And…
“I don’t think your decision back then was wrong. In a situation where there was nothing to gain, we suddenly had a real chance of getting results. So making that call wasn’t unreasonable at all.”
“……”
“So please, don’t let yourself be burdened too much by what happened to me.”
“…Thank you.”
At those words, Han-cheol looked up; his face was noticeably more at ease. Yujin asked,
“So, what exactly happened after I went missing that led you all the way here?”
“Ah, right. That’s what we were talking about. Ahem, well, first off, our guild couldn’t exactly suspend operations just because one person went missing, right? After we resolved the issue with the lost footage and a few other things, we resumed our activities.”
“Of course you did.”
This was the kind of field where people died. It was no different from being a mercenary. A guild couldn’t just shut down its operations because one person went missing.
“So I resumed leading the First Combat Unit and began tackling gates again… and one day, while clearing a gate, I started feeling a strange sense of déjà vu.”
“Déjà vu?”
“Yeah. The exact same kind of déjà vu I felt when you disappeared.”
“……”
“It wasn’t exactly the same situation as when you disappeared. On the other side of the gate was a grassland, and there were monsters too. But… as we went about clearing the inside of the gate, I kept feeling this growing sense of unease. Like…”
“Like the kind of unease you’d feel in a dungeon from Labyrinth Academy?”
When Yujin cut in, Han-cheol clapped his hands and said,
“Exactly! That’s the feeling! But if you could tell, does that mean you also…?”
“I guess so… I didn’t say anything at the time, but do you remember the door I saw just before I crossed over to this place? The one beyond the gate? Do you remember the writing on it that I read out loud?”
“Ah, yeah. I remember. I definitely asked how you could read it, and you said you didn’t know.”
“At the time, just like you said, I brushed it off and claimed I wasn’t sure. But in reality, I had read a phrase that was written on the door to a trap room. The very same one I encountered during my last playthrough of Labyrinth Academy. And the door itself looked exactly like the one I’d seen in the game.”
“Damn…”
Hearing that, Han-cheol let out a dry laugh. Then, as if something had just clicked for him, he looked like he’d come to a realization and said,
“Wait a second. Come to think of it, didn’t you say you fell into a trap room and ended up in Tiamat’s Tomb?”
“Yes.”
“…Then, did you actually fall into Tiamat’s Tomb? See, I ended up on the 10th floor the last time I entered because of a quest.”
“Just like you said, when I came to, I was in the tomb.”
“Damn…”
Hearing that, Han-cheol looked like he suddenly had a lot of questions he wanted to ask.
However, Yujin’s questions hadn’t ended yet. He asked,
“So, what happened next? I didn’t hear anything after the part where you said you felt something was off.”
“Right, of course. At the time, I couldn’t just stop progressing because of that strange feeling, so I kept going. And… eventually, I ran into the boss.”
At the end of every gate, there was always a boss that served as the core of the gate. Defeating the boss caused the gate to gradually collapse, and the mana stones or items it dropped were incredibly valuable, making it a fight one couldn’t afford to avoid.
“But the boss I encountered… felt really familiar. You know how the Labyrinth has a master guarding every tenth floor? I ran into exactly that kind of guy.”
“…What do you mean by that?”
“The Orc Chieftain… The very monster I used to see in the game appeared right in front of me!”
The master of the tenth floor in the Labyrinth was a being known as the Orc Chieftain. It was an entity that, for something located near the upper floors, boasted formidable strength. And it was said that such a being had appeared inside the gate before the 1st Raid Unit.
“Of course, he wasn’t that difficult an opponent. I mean, we had gathered the best of the best. Not the largest squad, sure, but everyone in the 1st Unit could hold their own, right? Somehow, we managed to take down the Orc Chieftain. But then…”
“But then?”
When Yujin asked again, Han-cheol’s expression hardened as he continued.
“The moment I picked up the magic stone, something appeared in midair. It looked like a black hole, or maybe a portal.”
With those words, Han-cheol began to recount the scene, as if reliving the moment in his mind…
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