Smack!
What brought back was the splitting sound of air and the stinging pain that followed.
The mont I opened my eyes, I saw the hand coming at , caught it mid-swing by the wrist, and twisted it.
“Ah! Ah!”
As my vision slowly returned, I recognized the voice’s owner.
Cheon Young-jae.
I looked around.
There were people.
“······.”
Quick situational awareness is one of the most important skills required of a Hunter.
I assessed the situation.
We were still in the underground bunker facility. None of our team mbers had been lost, and we were under attack from a powerful force—likely a bombing strike.
BOOM!!!
A deafening roar split the sky above us, shaking the very ground beneath our feet.
“It’s collapsing!”
“No, wait!”
The lights flickered as the hallway shuddered, dimming one by one, heralding our end.
But my mind was fixated on one thing alone.
Lee Haeng-taek. Jeong Dae-kyung.
Call him what you like.
The man who once held my hand and spoke with —where is he?
At the very least, he’s not among the people gathered in this cramped room.
Since the bunker was on the verge of collapse, our priority was to get out through the corridor.
After the chaotic escape, we erged to an unnad mountain ridge, where the blue sky felt like a blessing.
Cheon Young-jae kept giving a strange look, which bothered —but in truth, dically speaking, fainting is a very dangerous sign.
Thud! Thud! Thud!
The bombing continued.
Missiles occasionally struck the mountain peak like ice picks.
To avoid the risk of friendly fire, we had to move far away.
We re-evaluated the situation only after we’d retreated about three kiloters from the bunker entrance, into the wooded hills beyond.
My gaze naturally turned to Woo Min-hee.
Before I lost consciousness, she was the only one in that ashen-gray room.
The mont our eyes t, she responded imdiately, as if she’d been waiting.
“That person disappeared all of a sudden, and at the sa ti, you lost consciousness.”
After catching her breath for a mont, she continued.
“I don’t know what happened after that. I called for help and dragged you out of that bombed-out room. That’s all.”
I checked my watch.
Aside from the ti it took us to move, barely any ti had passed.
Which ant that from the mont I confronted Jeong Dae-kyung to the mont I lost consciousness—it had taken less than three minutes.
“······.”
It’s strange.
Vaguely, I feel like I spent an eternity in there.
“What now?”
“Do we go back? Realistically, the only way to get past the erosion zone and into Seoul is that train.”
“Who knows. It’ll depend on what Pyo Won-sang decides.”
While my companions talked about our next steps, I tried to recall what had happened.
But nothing surfaced.
“······.”
I couldn’t just leave my anxious teammates hanging, so I had to say sothing—anything.
I’d already made my decision.
Just as I stood up to speak about our future—
“Huh?”
Like a lie, a piece of that erased mory began to return.
Under the watchful eyes of my companions, I alone sank back into the past.
*
What are monsters and Rifts?
Why did they suddenly appear before us? Why are they driving us to destruction?
There’s no explaining it.
At least, that’s the conclusion when you reach beyond the limits of what I can perceive.
Earth’s offspring—humans and the like—tend to act with intent. But the children of the universe are born, burn, and vanish according to a given order, without reason.
Suppose the Earth has a sense of self.
If you asked Earth, “Why do you rotate? Why do you revolve around the sun?”—what answer would it give?
That’s the kind of question this is.
There’s no intent. Therefore, analysis is impossible.
It’s rely a phenonon that occurred.
The provisional classification that scholars assigned to Rifts after giving up on explanation—that classification is the essence of the Rift.
And yet, we’ve never gone beyond that point.
“Connection. That’s what we are.”
A man’s voice echoed from the darkness.
He is Lee Haeng-taek. He is Jeong Dae-kyung.
Maybe he’s a third entity I don’t fully know.
What matters is that this personality—whoever he was—spoke to with good intent, conveying what he understood to be the truth.
Connection.
It’s true—sothing beyond, so unknowable thod, has connected us to it. That’s been indirectly proven by the countless things we’ve seen with our own eyes.
The monsters born within Rifts, the particles they turn into when their function ends, and the Necropolis transmission we accessed through Valentine’s sacrifice.
Necropolis—it still exists, still broadcasting like the radio waves humans used before the war. It’s repurposed now for a dying humanity.
Indeed, Rifts have the property of connection.
The man before takes that idea one step further.
“Awakened aren’t mutations or monsters. They’re just more deeply connected than others.”
Lee Haeng-taek was vividly reconstructed before .
His face, etched in my mory, held just the right balance of youth and age from our ti in Paju.
“Because they’re more deeply connected to that, they can fully wield the power that cos from it.”
One truth, revealed by Lee Haeng-taek:
Being Awakened has nothing to do with human strength.
Rather, it seems more tied to a person’s nature—their capacity to receive, their receptivity.
Of course, from a personal perspective, that receptivity could very well be seen as talent.
One in hundreds of thousands—or millions—these extraordinary individuals have always been called geniuses, regardless of ti or place.
So depending on how you view it, strength through receptivity to Rifts could also be seen as human strength.
Now the story resus where that outstretched hand t mine.
I definitely took that hand.
And with it, a fragntary yet comprehensive understanding of the Rifts poured into my head.
Maybe that knowledge had already existed in my subconscious, and that hand simply untied the tightly bound ribbon around it.
“······The world is especially cruel to n.”
It was clear even without taking his hand that Lee Haeng-taek was a man made of complexes and inferiority.
Even in this incomprehensible, inescapable space, he eagerly unloaded his misfortunes without any prompting.
“I’ve got nowhere to go, no one to grab a drink with. No matter where I am, I feel it—those condescending stares. You know? When I wait in line forever just to try so trendy restaurant I saw on social dia, I see guys around my age with their wives and kids—laughing just enough, sighing just enough—enjoying their little mont together.”
For just a mont, Lee Haeng-taek turned into sothing close to Jeong Dae-kyung.
More precisely, Jeong Dae-kyung and the family he loved appeared before like a set—then vanished.
“······.”
“Even that’s a mory, I guess. For , it was just another aningless day. And once that thought hit, I couldn’t even enjoy the food. I had to wolf it down and get out.”
So traits in people never change.
Even within this strange connection—where the concept of ti, space, even self was faint—I, Park Gyu, remained cynical and cold.
“Why even go to those places? Wouldn’t you be better off eating at a neighborhood gukbap joint?”
Maybe this thought didn’t co from Professor, or Skelton, or Umchang—but was 100% pure human Park Gyu.
“!”
Lee Haeng-taek was clearly shocked.
Even in that aningless space, where his face blurred, so emotion managed to cut through the fog.
“Yeah.”
It seed he’d realized sothing.
He shook his head with a bitter smile and went on.
“I can’t help it. Once you connect to this, everything becos eternal. How should I put it? I could disappear—like the others who don’t respond anymore. Like that sweet Shanghai girl who used to follow Kang Han-min around. But the parts that make up —those won’t vanish. Like nails hamred into a wall, they’ll drift through this world forever.”
I had countless questions, but sohow this ambiguous world seed to restrict my ability to speak.
From the start, it felt as if my very existence was fated to be an uninvited guest in this realm.
So I mostly had to listen.
Fortunately, aside from his initial rant, Lee Haeng-taek stayed within the range of what I’d wanted to ask.
“You rember—I said I could make you Awakened. It’s possible. I know how.”
Lee Haeng-taek grinned—or at least, that’s how it looked to .
“Even Kang Han-min’s little brother doesn’t know. People like us—who are perfectly connected—we each have a specialty. Like how a pool player plays pool, or how an AV actor does, well, you know. Oh, and Kang Han-min’s little brother has his own thing too.”
Hearing that confird it for —the man before was mostly Lee Haeng-taek.
“I know the code. The frequency, or whatever, to connect with that. You saw it earlier, right? What I did? I used to only hear it, but now I can speak it.”
Lee Haeng-taek stepped closer.
I felt a strange throbbing.
And within , a fire that had been smoldering suddenly blazed high, as if drenched in fuel, burning hot enough to consu even .
“······.”
I stood at the crossroads.
Before lay the entrance to the new horizon I’d longed for—Awakening.
Lee Haeng-taek opened his mouth.
SCREEEEEEEEEECH—
A strange sound rang out. Not one a human voice could produce. Yet it echoed vividly through this ambiguous space.
In that mont, the scenery changed.
The shadowy veil of ambiguity peeled away, and beyond it, countless things—perhaps the pasts of Lee Haeng-taek, Jeong Dae-kyung, and countless others I didn’t know—floated up like objects, then disappeared again and again.
Within that swirling chaos, I heard Lee Haeng-taek’s voice.
“I don’t know why Kang Han-min told you to beco Awakened. But now, I think I get it.”
“······.”
The storm of recollections around ca to a stop.
Only one image surfaced.
A narrow, worn house. In its small living room, an old woman sat alone, staring out the window.
Lee Haeng-taek didn’t explain it—but it needed no explanation.
It was his aging mother.
He had never once spoken of her to —not even hinted.
And so, more than all the talk of loneliness and failure he’d spilled before, I could feel a deeper sadness and longing.
“······He’s trapped in the past, just like .”
Tears fell as Lee Haeng-taek looked up at .
“Just rembering tears at your soul. That’s what he feels. Sa as .”
His finger pointed to a direction—east, by the reckoning of almost all human civilization.
“If you take that path, you can be connected like us.”
His voice sounded distant, like it ca from far away.
But that wasn’t all.
At so point, he began to fade—his body scattered as if in pieces.
“······Hunter Lee Haeng-taek.”
He was already reaching his end.
Knowing his doom approached, he had left Jeju and co here.
Mimicking Jeong Dae-kyung—maybe that was his desperate way of clinging on.
Like how Na Hye-in locked herself in that room, or Woo Min-hee dismissed everything with a cynical laugh.
Now so utterly scattered, strewn in every direction around , Lee Haeng-taek pleaded.
“Let’s go, Hunter Park Gyu. No—Professor. My idol. Let be of help to you. Let believe I was even a little help to a hero like you.”
I looked right.
It was a world of light.
Everything I’d ever longed for was there.
Waves, shockwaves, powers, counterfields, solo monster sweeps, Rift closures across the peninsula, other heroes, new saviors.
It was only natural to walk that way.
All the ans to quench my eternal flas of hatred lay there. To hesitate was to deny myself—Park Gyu.
“······.”
But why?
Why do I hesitate?
I’ve always longed to be chosen by the gods. I still believe that hasn’t changed.
Then why, with the chance right in front of , do I waver?
Because I now know what Awakening truly is? Because I’m afraid I won’t beco like Kang Han-min? Or perhaps it’s a lingering fear of battle I haven’t overco? Or maybe—I just don’t want to feel that ever-present sleepiness creeping back.
But none of those are real reasons.
I thought quietly.
I closed my eyes—even though this was a world where one cannot close them.
“······.”
I nodded.
It might sound absurd, but there is no reason.
It’s not a passing impulse either.
It’s a conclusion as self-evident as the sun rising in the east.
I looked left.
Darkness.
Nothing there. Everything uncertain.
But no one knows what lies that way. Which ans—my curiosity, another facet of the fire inside —still has room to act.
I stepped toward the fading Lee Haeng-taek’s left.
“Professor?”
Even as he vanished, his voice ca—startled.
I kept walking and calmly replied.
“I think this suits better.”
That darkness holds weakness, wretchedness, limitations, and death.
But it also resembles the familiar darkness of my bunker—my wife, in a way, whom I’ve been keeping at a distance lately.
Most importantly, my conclusion is clear.
“I don’t want to be connected to them.”
Lee Haeng-taek stared at blankly.
I kept walking into the dark and continued.
“And even if I do connect—then I’ll do it my way, not theirs.”
That’s the conclusion of Dr. Emiris, of Umchang, of Skelton, of Professor—and of , Park Gyu.
The darkness enveloped , and the little world surrounding began to crumble with Lee Haeng-taek.
Within that collapsing world, his voice—tinged with both self-mockery and a cynicism much like mine—echoed.
“If you hadn’t killed the General-type... maybe Kang Han-min wouldn’t have asked that favor.”
The darkness shattered like fragnts.
Reality called again.
A bowl-shaped depression, empty and waiting, appeared before like destiny.
Little droplets began to fall, filling that hollow space.
And with that, one world vanished—like soone had turned off the power.
Reality returned before .
I saw my companions mid-argunt.
I put my finger to my lips and gave a light whistle.
Everyone turned their eyes to .
Looking at them, I spoke.
“We’re heading back to the train.”
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