By Zephyria 
〈You idiots.〉
From atop a mountain of torn and burst corpses, the boy sneered with an air of boredom.
〈Nothing ever changes.〉
Bang!
Blood erupted from the wing of a magical beast that had spotted fresh prey and shifted its target toward the boy. In the opposite spectator stands, there was a child aiming a massive sniper rifle, nearly as large as their own body. It was a very young child, looking barely like an elementary school student.
The boy shouted.
〈Yang Eun-ho! Keep firing! You can do this!〉
The trembling muzzle steadied. Bang! Ba-bang! The bullets struck repeatedly, targeting the magical beast’s wings.
The magical beast let out a roar of fury and soared into the sky. Just before the gliding beast could crash into the spectator stands, the child with the gun vanished as if extinguished, and a tall girl appeared in their place.
Clang! A thunderous crash echoed through the area as the girl’s riot shield collided violently with the magical beast’s claws. Perhaps reinforced by a mage’s magic, the shield did not break, and the girl withstood the charge of a beast several times her own weight.
Bang! The next gunshot rang out from the opposite side. Blood sprayed from the beast’s wing again. The beast tried to fly toward the source of the gunfire that sought to tear its wings apart, but the girl would not let go.
〈I bet I taste better than that scrawny kid!〉
The magical beast shrieked as an axe slammed into its foot. While the girl held the beast’s attention, another boy with dyed blonde hair grabbed the child and moved their position in the blink of an eye. With every move, the child fired, and with the final shot, the frantic beast’s wings finally lost all function.
〈Kieeeeeeek!〉
However, losing the ability to glide did not mean the beast’s beak and claws had weakened. Blinded by pain and rage, the beast poured everything into the girl. A crack snapped through the shield that had been barely holding on.
The moment the girl was knocked backward, a boy in black clothes, who had somehow climbed onto the stadium roof, leaped down into the stands. A dark shadow extending from beneath his feet pierced through the beast’s body.
The magical beast thrashed and twisted its entire body, raging in an attempt to shake off the boy clinging to its back. Even as it violently rubbed itself against the wall as if to grind his back away or slammed him repeatedly, the boy clung on tenaciously. He climbed up with blood-stained hands, gripping the beast’s blade-sharp feathers.
Finally, as the boy reached the head, the darkness in his hand solidified into a shape, lengthening like a spearhead. When it pierced through the beast’s eye and tore through its brain, the man knew that the despair of Dongdaemun Stadium had come to an end.
Yet, the man’s own despair did not lift. Magical beasts that people in the shelters had given up on, too terrified to even attempt a hunt, were hunted by brats who were at most in their early to mid-teens. Why did those things only appear now?
The man poured despair and hatred upon the boy in black, who stumbled as he jumped down from the beast’s body, covered in wounds. Instead of the boy, who ignored him completely, the blonde hair boy became indignant.
〈Do you have any idea what Tae-un had to do to procure that gun, mister? Do you know how hard Han-gyeol struggled to acquire reinforcement magic!〉
〈Don’t waste your energy; just leave him. He’s a human who will never change. If he were the kind of person to change his mind with a few words, he would have evacuated when I warned him.〉
The boy was right.
Even after the refugees who formed a community around the boy began to live like ‘humans,’ even after they finally escaped Seoul, and even after people adapted to the changed era and the national system operated stably. The man was forever wandering the Dongdaemun Stadium of that day.
The man didn’t even carve his parents’ names on the memorial monument in Gwacheon. That he lost his arm, that his parents died, the tragedy of Dongdaemun Stadium—it was all, all the fault of the boy who hadn’t come to save them sooner. It was the fault of the hunters who didn’t help despite knowing the tyranny of the shelter. It was the fault of a fate that gave him such trashy traits. It was the fault of the government that abandoned Seoul.
With his parents’ 21st anniversary of death approaching as it did every year, the man decided he would return all this despair to everyone. Since the era had changed and obtaining weapons had become easier, it wasn’t very difficult for the man to acquire an explosive magical tool.
And then.
〈Since you’re going to die anyway, why not die productively?〉
The boy in black appeared. Looking exactly as he did 21 years ago.
Laughter burst out. The man laughed frantically. Have I finally gone mad and started seeing things? Or is a magical beast with illusion abilities messing with my brain to use me?
It didn’t matter. As long as he could spread despair and hatred to more people, it was enough. Thus, the man willingly accepted the proposal of the boy he had ignored 21 years ago—the proposal of ‘something’ that surely was not that boy.
Soon, a translucent window appeared in the air.
[Quest 01]
[Become the host of the Id Portal at the Management Center on the designated date.]
✽ ✽ ✽
The Portal Keeper was a swarm of countless magical beasts. The swarm of beasts, perfectly recreating the tragedy of 21 years ago, incessantly killed and slaughtered one another.
A beast with severed limbs writhed its torso like a worm, biting the ankle of another beast. The beast whose ankle was eaten collapsed to the ground, stabbing a blade into the back of yet another beast. The beast with a blade in its back opened its maw wide and swallowed the head of the beast holding it.
A sight that was nothing short of the Realm of Hungry Ghosts, where they didn’t stop at killing but devoured each other, yet never felt satiety. It was as if one could only escape this hell by stepping over the mountain of corpses piled up from killing and eating every single beast.
“Hmm.”
The scent of blood, strong enough to numb the nose, was actually the better part of it. Kim Si-baek looked down at the chunks of flesh and pieces of viscera that had splattered in front of his feet and asked casually.
“…It wasn’t actually this bad, right?”
“At least they didn’t practice cannibalism. I can tell how horribly the Id Portal’s host perceives the tragedy of that time.”
“So the core is in there…”
Tae-un tapped Kim Si-baek’s shoulder with his hand.
“Hyung, can you drop me off somewhere high? A flying-type beast appeared back then, and it had a pretty intense entrance. The host would have witnessed it unless they were unconscious.”
The host perceives the tragedy with terrible exaggeration. If they witnessed it, the flying-type beast would also appear several times stronger than it actually was.
“Will you be okay alone?”
“Yeah, it’ll be hard, but I’ll try. I can’t just hide and leave everything to you after making such a grand entrance.”
“Our Un-i is all grown up.”
While feeling pity for the child who had witnessed this tragedy, Kim Si-baek felt proud of his unwavering maturity and raised his field of vision.
“Where should I drop you off?”
“21 years ago, I jumped from the roof onto the beast’s back…”
“Can’t use the roof here.”
Not just the roof, but most of the stadium’s outer walls, which would have reliably blocked the beasts on the ground, had collapsed. However, it wasn’t as if there were no places to step and climb. The edges of the main stadium were a mess of fused or collapsed buildings. A few particularly prominent buildings—such as commercial buildings or apartments—were perceived as places related to the host, like workplaces or homes.
“That looks like a suitable height.”
“Which building?”
Kim Si-baek looked where Tae-un was pointing, reaching out over his shoulder. There was a university building including a high ramp, a small office building, and two apartment buildings.
“That, over there, the apartment at the far end.”
“Which of the two apartments?”
“The one with the drawing.”
“They both have drawings… Ah, the apartment with the yellow and light green balloon drawings? That one is a bit higher.”
“Yes. That one.”
As he hoisted Tae-un onto his back, Kim Si-baek checked the apartment’s location and the spot to use for a running start. It was possible.
Running lightly, Kim Si-baek leaped onto a nearby car and then jumped diagonally to land on a wall that had grown high. Jumping from the wall, which was crumbling like dying embers, he climbed onto a veranda and then leaped several times against the wall to reach the tilted rooftop.
The child, sliding down from his back, brushed the dust off Kim Si-baek’s clothes. It felt new all over again, but Tae-un from 21 years ago was truly small. So small that it was hard to believe he had gone through the tragedy currently being reenacted.
“…You really endured it well, Un-ah.”
Giving him a light hug that contained encouragement for the future, the child gave a beaming, eye-curving smile.
“Aren’t you going to pat my butt?”
“Good grief. You like this?”
Kim Si-baek’s hand, which had reflexively tried to pat the boy’s bottom, paused in mid-air. For a split second, reason overcame instinct. What did this kid say with his butt earlier?
When Kim Si-baek stopped his hand, Tae-un openly displayed a disappointed expression. It was a precociousness that didn’t suit a 14-year-old’s face. Though he was precocious, he still had a cute side.
“I guess the ‘acting cute’ charm has worn off.”
“…Let’s talk once we’re out.”
Thinking about the words he needed to share with him after leaving, Kim Si-baek felt as if his consciousness might be swept away by the portal, so he cut off his thoughts. After roughly ruffling the boy’s hair instead of patting his bottom, he leaped down from the rooftop. Biyendwe’s wingbeats followed behind him.
Remaining on the rooftop, Tae-un narrowed his eyes and gazed at Kim Si-baek’s receding figure. The sight of his back, returning to the past that Tae-un had already passed through, evoked an indescribable emotion. Simultaneously, a familiar bitterness lingered in his mouth. It would have been better if he could see him clearly, all the way to that distant place, so he could capture his entire image.