By Zephyria But only for a moment, J added in an awkward tone.
“I said it so confidently, but, well… I was confused. A lot.”
J, who was tapping the cheek of his mask with his fingertip, slowly opened his mouth.
“I’m the only survivor of the West Sea Rift.”
“…Everyone else died?”
“Yes. Actually, it hasn’t been long since I came out of the Rift.”
“……”
“When I came out, several years had passed.”
Jung-bin’s face changed as he listened to his story. A chilling sensation ran down his spine. He lifted his head with a pale face.
“Wait, just a minute…. Are you saying you spent several years inside the West Sea Rift?”
Eight years had passed since J entered the West Sea Rift. J hadn’t been out of the Rift for long. If they had been trapped in the Rift without an exit for eight years. And if J was the only one who escaped….
‘Wouldn’t that be too cruel?’
Cold sweat broke out. Jung-bin tried to appear calm and chose his words carefully, but he couldn’t find the right ones. However, J, the person involved, replied nonchalantly.
“Ah, I don’t know about that.”
He tilted his head and muttered.
“I don’t know if I was really in the Rift for eight years, or if the flow of the Rift and reality is different, so I just dropped in here…. My memory isn’t clear.”
“What do you mean?”
“My memory isn’t complete. There are blurry memories, as if they’ve been cut out in the middle.”
“……”
Could it be that his memory was affected by excessive stress? It was a plausible story. In fact, some of the first-generation Awakened were in recovery due to memory problems. But it was too early to jump to conclusions. Jung-bin thought for a moment and said.
“…First of all, there have been no reports of the time flow of the Rift and reality being different.”
“The West Sea Rift might be the first case. That Rift was a bit strange.”
“……”
“Anyway.”
J stretched. He continued with a rambling tone.
“I came out of the Rift and found out that eight years had passed, I’m already a dead man, and so much has changed. The world I knew was definitely not like this….”
“……”
“It’s peaceful even without me. No, maybe it was because I wasn’t there. I felt like all of that would disappear if I showed up.”
The words he uttered calmly were heavier than any words or actions. A weight that couldn’t be easily commented on. Jung-bin couldn’t dare to answer and quietly listened to him. J continued slowly.
“There’s no place for me here.”
J, whom he had watched for a short time, wanted peace more than anyone else. He thought that if he sacrificed himself, the chaos would eventually subside, and the world would find stability.
But the peace he had so desired was achieved in a place where he was not, and the person who had longed for it more than anyone else hid for fear of breaking that peace. It was an ironic situation. J shrugged.
“I was also afraid to appear in front of people back then…. I felt sorry for being the only one who survived when I couldn’t save anyone, and honestly, well, I wasn’t in my right mind. So, as someone said, I tried to live quietly. That was the conclusion I came to after struggling in my own way.”
“……”
“…It didn’t work out the way I wanted.”
Was he talking about the day the rankings were updated? It was rare for someone to turn the country upside down with just one name. Jung-bin smiled bitterly. J said lightly.
“But I became sure. In that Dungeon.”
“Dungeon?”
“That Dungeon where your arm was broken.”
J pointed to Jung-bin’s right arm with his chin. Jung-bin unconsciously touched the scar on his arm. The Invasion Dungeon that suddenly increased in rank. J appeared when he lost consciousness and collapsed, destroyed the Golem, and disappeared. Jung-bin didn’t know what happened in between. He asked cautiously.
“I heard a rough story from Hong Ye-seong… but it was a bit of a pie-in-the-sky story. Can you tell me what happened then?”
“Huh? It’s nothing much.”
J, who was tapping his mask, said.
“I went into the Invasion Dungeon because I had something to do there, but suddenly the rank went up. And when the Dungeon Master appeared, I caught him. That’s about it.”
Since earlier, J had been putting too much information into his light words. Jung-bin, who had been chewing on his words, couldn’t overcome the excessive information overload and covered his eyes.
“Where did you hear about the Invasion Dungeon… That’s top secret. It’s information shared only with a very limited number of Rankers, but how….”
J turned his head slyly and mumbled.
“…Something like that happened.”
“Is it true that you were trying to live quietly? You seem to know more than my direct subordinates….”
“No, I tried…, really.”
“Haa….”
Jung-bin, who sighed deeply, swept his hair back with both hands.
“…So, what conviction did you gain?”
“…Well, it’s not that great.”
J made a sound and got up from the slide. The dimly flickering streetlight shone brightly for a moment. He put his hands in his jacket pockets and leaned slightly. Playfulness was evident in his posture and his altered voice.
“I still like saving people.”
“……”
“I like killing Monsters, closing Rifts, and clearing Dungeons, but… I like saving people with my own hands the most.”
Jung-bin opened his mouth slightly. But he didn’t know what to say, so he just watched the being in front of him.
In fact, it might have been impossible for someone like him to live quietly. Then and now, he had the power to capture people’s attention. Everyone had no choice but to look at him. He was that shining.
“I kept failing, I failed in the Rift, and I might fail in the future… but there’s still one success.”
“……”
“So I’m going to keep trying. I’ve rested for a while, so I’ll be able to do better.”
There are things that cannot be done with a sense of duty alone. In the past, Jung-bin always saw J as someone who was struggling to hold on at the edge of a cliff. Everything in the world was driving him to the edge. Jung-bin was also one of the people who drove him out. There were days when he struggled so hard.
But now,
“And….”
The man he met after eight years….
“There’s someone waiting for me.”
He was shining brighter than anyone else.
“I’ve been waiting for eight years, so I have to take responsibility, right?”
“……”
The young man who was staggering on the edge of a cliff, as if he was about to fall off, was no longer there. A lot must have happened in the past eight years. To J, and to Jung-bin. The time they didn’t know each other had changed a lot. Nevertheless, there was something that hadn’t changed.
Jung-bin wanted to help J.
Then and now.
“…I was telling you an unnecessary story.”
“It wasn’t an unnecessary story… Weren’t you worried about me?”
“I was worried. But… I didn’t need to worry.”
Jung-bin finally regained his gentle smile. He lowered the sleeves of his shirt, which he had rolled up, and hid the scar. After buttoning up his sleeves neatly, Jung-bin took out a leather-covered notebook and a ballpoint pen from the inside pocket of his suit jacket. Both were stamped with the Awakened Management Bureau mark.
He clicked the ballpoint pen and looked at J.
“You asked for information about Prometheus and Lee Sa-young. What exactly are you talking about?”
“Everything.”
“Pardon?”
Jung-bin looked at J with a puzzled face. J crossed his arms.
“I also know that Lee Sa-young was Prometheus’s Experiment of Prometheus. Anything that can fill the connection between them is fine. I heard that you were the first to rescue Lee Sa-young, Jung-bin. Please tell me what happened then.”
“No, how did you know that?”
“Something like that.”
“If it weren’t for you, J, I would have caught you right away and found out the source of the information. Really….”
Jung-bin, who had been choosing his words for a long time, said the most euphemistic words possible.
“…You only have valuable information.”
“I’ll take that as a compliment.”
J watched Jung-bin, who was sighing and scribbling something in his notebook. And when he had filled half a page of the notebook, he suddenly spoke.
“Well, I won’t just ask you for a favor. I have information to provide too.”
“Yes? What is it?”
“The scenery in the Invasion Dungeon where you hurt your arm, or the characteristics that appear in other Invasion Dungeons. The appearance of Monsters that only appear there, the sky with white ashes, or collapsed buildings.”
“Ah, yes.”
“It’s surprisingly similar to the scenery in the West Sea Rift.”
“What?”
J’s words were a series of surprises. Jung-bin’s eyes widened. J said calmly.
“That’s why I went. I wondered if the Invasion Dungeon and the West Sea Rift were connected. Well, I couldn’t investigate properly because the Dungeon rank suddenly changed….”
“Wait a minute! Is that true?”
“It’s just an assumption, but we’ll know if we investigate properly.”
J tilted his head.
“If they’re really connected… we’ll be able to take out the corpses buried there.”