"Hello everyone, I am the administrator of the 8th reality. Pleased to meet you."
Those were the first words that horror spoke. The pressure from the sky gave me a headache.
My legs started to tremble. I felt all strength, all will drain from my body. In an instant, I understood that obedience was the only option left to me.
In the sky, a head the size of a planet looked down on humanity with a malicious grin.
"As for the first storyline, congratulations to those who succeeded. For the others, well..."
He raised his hand—a titanic hand. My field of vision wasn't enough to see it fully.
This Earth-sized hand snapped its fingers.
BAM
A deep sound echoed, the ground shook. Around me, the windows of buildings turned blood red. Screams rang out all around.
In a split second, everyone who hadn't completed the Storyline and had stayed in the buildings was dead.
"Yes, you should've been more careful haha. Hahahahahaha."
The creature twisted in hysterical laughter in the sky.
"Now listen to me... You are now my livestock."
He licked his lower lip.
"You have no choice but to do what I tell you if you want to survive."
A window opened in front of us.
"All you have to do is follow the storyline to the end. That's all I ask."
[Storyline]: Forgotten Legends.Description: Join your faction.Time allotted: 5 hours.Reward: ???
"Be careful what you choose. This choice is final."
The Administrator looked down at Earth, smiling. Then, like fog, he vanished into the expanse of the blue sky.
He seemed to enjoy the situation—as if this was all just a game to him.
A second window appeared, inviting me to choose from three factions.
Choose a destination:
Earth
Sky
Spirit
I slowly hovered my fingers over the three options in front of me. The texture of the screen was strange—cold and warm at the same time, solid and liquid. It was... ethereal. Yes, that was the word.
Every time I hovered over one of the choices, my five senses reacted.
The first option made my fingers tingle as if charged with electricity. A distant song echoed in my ears. A heavy weight pressed on my shoulders. It was a strange sensation—pleasant, but for some unknown reason, I immediately withdrew my hand and moved to the second option.
This one was less welcoming than the first. My fingers touched the cold, hard surface of the window. Then I felt a sudden sense of well-being throughout my body. The smell of cut grass and dew filled my nose. This time, the sensations were quite pleasant. I'd even say it was hard to pull my finger away from it.
The last option, titled 'Spirit,' was very strange. I felt a deep emptiness within me. Not one created by the contact, but one that had always been there, buried inside me, now brought to light.
The Administrator's words came back to me.
I couldn't afford to make a mistake. It was better to choose with intent and thought than to take just anything.
The more I thought, the more my intuition pointed toward a single choice. I pressed my finger on it, and the window closed with a chime before an object appeared in the air in front of me.
I caught it in my hands. It was a metal compass. Only this compass had no needle. I held it in my right hand and examined it from every angle. A thumb slot was on its back.
As with the passport, I pressed my thumb into it. The compass began to glow slightly, and then a thread of golden light emerged from its center and trailed off into the landscape like a path.
A very convenient way to find your way.
I began walking through the streets of Seoul. The few people I passed also held compasses and seemed to be following their own paths. The streets were nearly empty. In places, children's cries echoed between the buildings. All the cars were stopped as if time itself had paused.
Around a corner, my attention was drawn to a young boy slumped over some corpses. Perhaps it was fate or maybe just chance, but I had to cross that alley. A faint voice came from the boy.
"..."
It was inaudible, but he was murmuring something.
"Wake up..."
I slowly walked toward him.
"Come on... Wake up..."
The child couldn't have been older than ten. A half-mangled woman's corpse lay in his lap. With one hand, he supported her head; with the other, he held a passport against his chest.
I slowly moved around him. Helping someone—especially a child—would only bring me trouble. Especially since a boy so young would only weigh me down in my survival.
['The Witness Burdened by regrets' disapproves of your actions.]
Yeah, well, I'm not about to take in every stray lamb I meet either.
Ding!
A window opened in front of me.
[Side Storyline]: Rescue Taehyun.Description: Due to your actions, your storyline has been altered.Time allotted: ???Reward: NoneFailure: ???
Oh great. The memory of the Administrator's smirk came back to me. It was clear now—I had no choice.
['The Witness Burdened by regrets' is glad you reconsidered.]
I turned around and knelt beside the sobbing boy.
I was already bad at talking to people, and now I had to comfort a child who had just lost his mother.
Taehyun turned his head toward me. One thing disturbed me: he seemed to have cried so much that he had no tears left. His cheeks and eyes were completely dry.
I opened my mouth to speak, but no words came out.
I tried to gather my thoughts and opened my mouth again.
"I'm sorry..." Taehyun looked at me with his deep brown eyes. "...for your mother."
What a stupid thing to say. Being sorry wouldn't change anything.
I pointed to the passport he held in his hand.
"But you have that. That means you deserve to survive."
Taehyun lowered his eyes to the passport and murmured, "It's not mine. It's useless to me."
That made sense, since each passport was assigned to one person and had to be unlocked with their cosmos.
Wait—cosmos? How did I know that? That word, which had seemed foreign just minutes ago, now felt strangely familiar. It was like I had just remembered a buried memory.
Taehyun pulled his bloodstained arm from behind his mother, snapping me out of my thoughts. That's when I saw it.
His arm wasn't supporting her.
Taehyun slowly pulled a knife from deep in his mother's back.
My face tensed.
His still-empty gaze shifted to me, then to my right hand, which held my compass and passport.
My body recoiled.
['The Witness Burdened by regrets' summons a protective barrier.]
In a split second, Taehyun lunged at me, his left hand gripping the knife aimed at my neck. The blade struck the barrier, which shone brightly, and Taehyun was thrown back.
The adrenaline surge brought many memories to the surface.
I reached out to him. "Taehyun!"
He got back on his feet and charged again.
"Taehyun, stop!"
I jumped back to dodge a strike.
"There's no point in taking my passport. It'll be like with your mother—you won't be able to use it."
Taehyun stopped, the knife inches from my abdomen.
"I can help you, Taehyun."
He looked at me warily, still holding the knife.
I wasn't lying. There was one thing I could do. I had wanted to keep the extra passport to maybe sell it later, but oh well. I pulled out the passport I had received after completing the first part of the storyline.
Since I already had a passport, the one I received by mistake remained in limbo due to a system error. It was unassigned, so in theory, anyone could use it.
I handed him the passport. He lowered his knife and took it. A sound rang in my ears.
[Congratulations!][Side Storyline: "Rescue Taehyun" completed successfully!][You receive 1,000 stellaron as a reward.]
As soon as he touched it, the gray passport gained golden edges. He looked at it, amazed, then slipped it into his pocket and sat back down beside his mother.
He hadn't received a compass or anything. Plus, he was likely in shock and acting on autopilot. If I left him here, he would probably let himself starve to death.
I motioned with my hand.
"You coming?"
His gaze seemed troubled for a moment, then went blank again. He stood and followed me.
We walked for another hour before reaching a green space. I rarely went out, so I didn't recognize it immediately.
Then I saw a large sign reading 'Jeongjeon' next to the door of a wide temple, from which came screams and the sounds of fighting.
The large wooden door was useless since there were wide openings on each side big enough for two men to pass through.
Inside the temple grounds, an unusual scene unfolded. About a hundred people, all wearing outfits straight out of a drama, were practicing martial arts in an open area under the guidance of a bearded man in traditional clothes.
Around them, sitting on the edges, were at least twice as many people, all in city clothes and stained with blood.
A voice echoed to my right.
"Welcome to the 'Temple of the Spirit.'"