By Zephyria 
It was only a taste, but having had some warm broth made the outside air feel slightly less biting.
Whether inside the restaurant or on the street, Joo-oh followed closely behind, keeping his hood pulled deep over his head as instructed.
When an adult toy shop came into view, Mu-hae felt a slight tremor in the left arm Joo-oh was clinging to.
“Cut the crap.”
“I didn’t say anything.”
Mu-hae quickly passed the building, fearing the other might become even more interested. In that fleeting moment, a thought—truly dog-like in its worthlessness—crossed his mind, though he didn’t know why it occurred to him.
If that bastard turns into an Aberrant, would his lower half change too? If so, would some monster dildo of an incomprehensible fetish be hanging there, hulking and hideous?
He hadn’t seen anything like that on the three-meter-tall Aberrant he’d run away from…
‘…’
Realizing belatedly what he had been thinking, he clenched his jaw tight.
Fuck. Fuck. He’d had a foul imagination. He felt as if his mind was becoming contaminated.
“Dammit.”
“I told you, I didn’t say anything.”
“Who said you did?”
“You looked at me with those eyes. I thought you were going to ask if we should go in there to look for a cord.”
It would have been better if that were the case. He felt as if another long scar had been etched into his brain, following the lubricant incident.
Mu-hae, already possessing a cold face, added a menacing expression as he quickened his pace.
To think that his thoughts, following Joo-oh’s identity and the Starpath, had devolved to this point. He truly felt like he’d become a filthy pervert.
It seemed Teacher Jung’s indirect warnings to avoid a promiscuous lifestyle weren’t just because of various diseases and ailments.
“I’ve decoded the cipher, but the range seems too wide.”
“The coordinates weren’t listed, after all.”
“If it’s the west, just how far west are we talking about?”
Since it pointed to the most dilapidated slums, it likely meant along the very edge of the Dome City. No matter how often he said eccentric things, Joo-oh wouldn’t be asking because he didn’t know that.
Come to think of it, the two had followed the cipher to the west of Goryeo City’s slums, and specifically, even further west.
Perhaps their final destination was a place located at the westernmost edge of this Comfort Zone.
“Shall we go this way?”
“Sure.”
Their aimless wandering finally headed toward a specific spot. Mu-hae found the building located furthest to the west in the filthy neighborhood.
Was it because it was so far on the outskirts? Or perhaps because government officials frequented the area more than the interior of the slums?
There wasn’t a trace of any human presence nearby. The ruins, littered with all sorts of debris and trash as if abandoned long ago, looked like a place where a lunatic might jump out swinging an axe at any moment.
“Clear this away.”
Screeeech—!
The iron door, whose bottom was bent and jammed in the doorframe, crumpled instantly. Following the direction of Joo-oh’s strength, the rusted metal didn’t just bend; it cracked and collapsed.
Rumble— Crash!
As stone powder and dust billowed up, Mu-hae covered his nose with his sleeve and scanned the surroundings.
Only after confirming no one was around did he turn on his flashlight and enter through the crumpled iron door.
Rustle. Clatter. Crunch.
As expected, the interior was filled with broken concrete fragments and various waste. He felt things being crushed and stepped on wherever his soles touched.
A strange smell lingered, suggesting the place hadn’t been used for anything wholesome. Metal containers rolling around the edge of the hall were half-corroded.
It was somewhat absurd that there were graffiti on every wall in a place like this. Seeing the state of the door, they must have squeezed through an entrance barely wide enough to fit a head.
To crawl into such a dangerous place just to spray-paint…
Most of it consisted of crude curses and sexual words. SEX, SEX—scribbles scrawled everywhere like the work of someone obsessed with lust became Mu-hae’s landmarks in the darkness.
Since he had passed a large pillar and a green ‘SEX’, he just had to find that mark when leaving. There was one more similar scribble, but the ‘X’ was pathetically distorted, making it easy to distinguish.
Patter. The sound of something light scurrying was heard. As soon as he looked beside him, Joo-oh whispered as if to say it was fine.
“It’s a rat.”
This was a city where most animals couldn’t even enter without permission. Yet, these rats—whether Beasts or animals—were often spotted in the slums; they seemed to occur naturally.
That was probably why they were processed into meat and stocked in slum grocery stores without anyone knowing. The taste of the broth he’d sampled earlier lingered unpleasantly on the tip of his tongue.
“Jump up there.”
As he expected, even the stairs leading to the upper floors of this abandoned, unauthorized building were not intact.
The metal used for the frame was scrap iron, showing how poorly it had been constructed. In front of the severed path, Mu-hae lightly stomped his foot.
Whoosh. He leaped as if flying to the second floor, which was less filthy than the floor below. This meant there were significantly fewer traces of intrusion.
Scrape—.
Since there was no graffiti to use as a mark, he scratched a piece of brick he’d picked up from outside against the concrete wall with all his might.
Only after confirming a red line remained did he explore the second floor, which had been uselessly carved out into various corridors.
“Jin Mu-hae. Over there.”
Fortunately, the stairs were intact this time. Listening to the sound of a rat scurrying away, Mu-hae climbed the stairs effortlessly.
When he finally reached the third floor, a broken outer wall was the first thing that caught his eye. Breathing in the stuffy air, he shone his flashlight, revealing an open space.
‘There’s nothing here.’
It was empty. He’d hoped, but as expected, it was nothing more than an ordinary ruin.
A slight sense of disappointment washed over him, but at the same time, an incomprehensible, subtle sense of relief filled his chest.
…The events of the world, which had led from introduction to climax to a return flight without a moment to breathe, had finally begun to slow down.
The moment of choice had not yet arrived.
Ruminating on these inner thoughts he hadn’t even realized he had, he glanced back at Joo-oh. The other was looking around, wondering what was so fascinating.
Flash. Mu-hae shone the light in his face as a prank, and the boy frowned and giggled.
“That’s it. Let’s go back.”
“Without looking more?”
“There has to be something there for me to look at.”
As Mu-hae gestured to Joo-oh and turned around, he lost his balance with a thud.
The damn floor of the building was pitted and uneven, as if it had been struck by a hammer. Mu-hae quickly braced himself against the wall to keep from falling.
“Just my luck…”
Muttering as if spitting the words out, he looked up, and through a gap in the cracked and collapsed outer wall, he saw the outside scenery, which was relatively brighter than the interior.
Beyond the low buildings, a shabby building about four stories high stood firm. One side of the wall glowed dimly due to a cheap neon sign attached to the top floor.
He was about to look away without much interest when he discovered a thumbnail-sized scribble on the edge of the gap.
←
‘An arrow?’
It wasn’t a simple stain; it was an artificial mark that anyone could recognize. Frowning at the suspicious feeling, he looked outside in the direction the arrow pointed…
“Jin Mu-hae. What are you looking at?”
“…Fuck.”
As his perspective shifted slightly, the position of the scenery in his sight changed. A building with a triangular roof, blocking a low, fluorescent pink circular light, entered his field of vision.
Thump. He felt as if his heart had dropped. Mu-hae’s gaze moved busily, just as it had when he was searching for a familiar pattern in the cipher.
Moistening his dry lips, he took a couple of steps back and almost tripped again.
As he stumbled and braced himself on the floor, an absurd detail he had missed in the darkness was revealed.
Mu-hae pressed the flashlight close and rubbed the rough concrete. Scrape. White stone powder came off on his fingertips.
‘…’
Had he thought the floor was pitted as if someone had hit it with a hammer?
In reality, the concrete in a specific location had an artificial shape, as if it had been broken by a strong impact.
A square. A circle. A triangle inside. The image he had just witnessed floated in his mind. He suddenly recalled that a fairly recent date had been written behind the frame where he found the cipher.
“What is it? I want to see too.”
He didn’t even have the presence of mind to push away Joo-oh, who was squeezing in. He remained still for a while, staring silently down at his Link Watch.
“Jin Mu-hae. This is…”
Joo-oh’s eyes widened, as if he had also easily discovered the pattern. Without a word, Mu-hae abruptly clicked off the flashlight that had been illuminating it.
Dammit. He’d found it. He knew that once the location was specified, even vaguely, he would find it eventually.
Despite obtaining an important clue, he felt ruined rather than happy. Jin Mu-hae tried to calm his furrowing brows and took the flashlight from his waist in his hand.
“Be careful on the way down.”
If he hadn’t noticed at all, it would be one thing, but he couldn’t pretend not to know a destination he had clearly seen.
Watching the figure leap down the stairs, Mu-hae felt a more unpleasant and lingering feeling than when he had drunk the broth of unknown origin.
* * *
WELCOME TO LA VIDA 🙂
~Year 16, Day 121~
[Quest]
Main Quest
Tutorial (Completed)
CHAPTER 1 (Completed)
CHAPTER 2 (Completed)
CHAPTER 3 (Completed)
CHAPTER 4
☞ The Way Back
Repayment √
Meeting Olga Again √
The Handkerchiefs of -1 and -4 √
The Owner of the Clue √
☞ Whereabouts of the Item
Prisoner 28067 √
Experiment Na 1.07 Gap √
Find the Requested Item √
Cheong’s Backer √
☞ Someone is Watching
A Defense Force Member’s Worry √
Searching for the Suspect √
The Mystery of the Frame √
Where the Sun Sets √
☞ Reunion (In Progress)
What the Shapes Say
Joo-oh stared blankly into the air.
Once, he used to secretly browse the system window while pretending to sleep or pretending to watch TV intently.
Feeling as if Jin Mu-hae was looking at him pitifully, he simply began to open it openly.
Naturally, Mu-hae gave him a look that said ‘there he goes again,’ but at least it wasn’t a look as if he were seeing a fool, so this felt better.
‘Reunion.’
Everything in the world has a beginning and an end. It seemed an ending existed even for a story that had become quite different from what he knew.
Joo-oh’s fingertips tingled at the significant quest classification. He clasped his chilled hands together and brought them to his chest.
In Jin Mu-hae’s journey, the story assigned to a certain point in the world of 「La Vida Blue」 was coming to an end.
That fact made Joo-oh look back on all his fragmented memories.
Not only the past year since meeting Jin Mu-hae, but from that very moment long ago when he discovered his changed self after falling into a strange world…
231 – I Became an Aberration in a Dead Game