#3
[Esper MEETS Guide Virtual Experience is now in progress!]
With that message, a dizzying sensation, like tumbling from the top of a high bunk bed after a wrong move, washed over Wonwoo.
Before he could even get used to the sudden darkness, he was sent rolling on the floor by an impact that crushed his entire body. It seemed that as the virtual experience activated, he had been dropped from a high place.
'Is this what it would feel like to be hit full-force by a train that didn’t slow down?' Wonwoo bit his lip unconsciously to forget the pain.
“This is on a whole other level than just dizziness or pain, you damn system….”
The moment he tried to pull his sprawled body together, a breeze blew, tickling his bangs. Then, sunlight, so strong it was stinging rather than warm, touched his face.
Suppressing the pain, Wonwoo opened his eyes to a cloudless, blue sky so blindingly bright he had to shut them again.
It was a very familiar scene, and as he pondered where he was, he realized it was a view he often saw from the subway. A landscape where you could see the shimmering *yuns of the river stretching out in the distance, cars moving busily, and buildings packed tightly together.
Wonwoo was on the Han River bridge.
“Unbelievably real. For a virtual experience.”
Technically, the fact that he was outside when he had been inside his house didn't make sense, but having already time-traveled, he figured what did it matter and continued to take in the scene before him.
The wind tickling his hair, the sunlight that made him instinctively close his eyes, and the various clattering noises of something moving busily, grating on his ears….
His gaze shifted, drawn by the sound that disturbed the peaceful, fluttering atmosphere.
The first thing Wonwoo saw was the wreckage of something, so utterly destroyed its form was unrecognizable. Before he could even wonder why such a thing was on a bridge, he saw something that shouldn’t be there among the debris, which looked like the aftermath of a crushed shipping container.
“An arm? A person?”
The noise grating on his ears was coming from that hand, which was flailing about, causing the surrounding debris to fall. Without a moment to think about whose hand it was, what the debris was, or where he even was, Wonwoo ran towards the hand that someone was desperately extending.
“H-Hey… are you okay?”
The person was buried too deep, and it seemed they couldn't hear him properly, as the hand continued to struggle and move.
Wonwoo reflexively pulled out his phone from his pocket to dial 119, but a thought flashed through his mind, and he stopped.
“In a virtual experience, if I call 119, will they come? No, before that, if this is a virtual experience, then this is also virtual….”
As if on cue, the hand that had been reaching upwards went limp and dropped with a thud, as if to prove a point to Wonwoo, who was doubting his own reality.
And as if it had been waiting, an alarm similar to a siren sounded from the phone Wonwoo was holding.
[Everything that appears in this virtual experience is a story that unfolds under the assumption of ‘What if the participant, ‘Kim Wonwoo,’ had not regressed?’!]
[It may seem real, but please enjoy this virtual experience that ultimately did not become reality! （＾∀＾●）ﾉ]
[Additionally, please be careful when dealing with any monsters you encounter! ヾ(^▽^*))]
“…Hah, the more I see of this thing, the crazier it is.”
Wonwoo’s eyes returned to the hand that had just fallen limply. He couldn’t tear his gaze away from the hand, which was now motionless, unlike its frantic movements just moments before.
“You want me to look at that and enjoy myself?”
Wonwoo took a deep breath in and out to calm his churning heart.
*Right, this is fake. It’s not real.*
Only after repeating this to himself dozens of times could Wonwoo tear his eyes away from the person whose hand was the only thing visible, buried under the wreckage. Then he slowly looked around again.
First, he had to figure out what situation he was in. This situation the system was showing him was a ‘Virtual World-Ending Experience.’ A simulation that proceeded under the assumption that he had not regressed.
Wonwoo quickly realized where he was standing.
“This is it. Right after I was sucked into the Gate on the subway.”
He hadn't noticed before, distracted by the hand that had suddenly appeared, but as he slowly looked around again, he saw that the wreckage he had thought looked like a crushed container was stretched out along the railway tracks.
It was a subway train. It had been hit so hard that it was not just dented but mangled beyond recognition. The sight made Wonwoo’s throat feel dry. Even though it was a virtual experience, facing the fact that the train he had been on was so damaged it was unrecognizable made his stomach churn.
“Calm down, Kim Wonwoo, it’s okay. This is fake, it’s virtual.”
At the end of it, he could see a circle emitting a black aura like a black hole.
“…A Gate.”
Wonwoo sucked in a breath. The moment he tried to get closer, the sound of a disaster alert rang from his phone.
[(Emergency Alert) May 8th, 14:23, S-rank Danger Gate has occurred on the Han River bridge between Dangsan and Hapjeong stations on Seoul Metro Line 2.]
“S-rank… Gate?”
If Wonwoo’s memory served him right, the highest danger rank for a Gate that had ever appeared in Korea was A-rank. That Gate, which spewed out bipedal monsters like Minotaurs, werewolves, and vampires—things you’d be hard-pressed to find even in a Hollywood movie—had poured out monsters for two full days.
The monsters were killed by the Espers who rushed to the scene, but it took two days to subjugate the monsters and conquer the Gate. The damage sustained in that time was immense. There were over two thousand injured and over five hundred dead.
The incident was covered everywhere, not just on the news but on video sites and social media. There were even people around him who had been directly affected. So it was impossible not to know about it.
The Gate, still emitting its black aura, now began to spin. It was a rather, no, an extremely threatening movement, as if to show off its ‘S-rank Danger’ status as warned by the disaster alert.
The menacing atmosphere, as if giant monsters would pop out at any moment or it would suck in and swallow everything around it, made Wonwoo swallow nervously.
The Gate spun once. The sight, like a black hole sucking in its surroundings, made Wonwoo unconsciously take a step back.
The Gate began to visibly ripple. Wonwoo unconsciously took another step back.
“Crazy…. It looks like something’s going to pop out any second.”
No sooner had the words left his mouth than something shot out of the Gate. Faced with it, Wonwoo wanted to slap his own mouth and take back what he had said.
One, two, three…. A total of ten long, tentacle-like things were wriggling out of the Gate. It was like a black octopus, with the Gate as its body, extending its legs.
The sight of suckers the size of a human fist plastered all over them made Wonwoo want to collapse and lose consciousness right then and there.
“Why would something like that….”
To tell himself it was fake, an illusion, and that this was all just a virtual experience, the sight of the suckers contracting and expanding, the wriggling movements, were all too vivid. The smell of fish, not just rotting but completely putrefied, also began to torment Wonwoo.
“…Let’s run. Virtual experience or not, how am I supposed to deal with that thing!”
Wonwoo turned to get as far away from the Gate as possible. But the movement of the ‘something’ covered in suckers was faster. The octopus-leg-like thing shot out like an arrow, heading for Wonwoo.
The tip of the leg wrapped around Wonwoo’s waist and lifted him up. The same recoil he had felt when bungee jumping washed over his entire body. A slime, stickier than flour dough, oozed from the leg, drenching his clothes.
The rotten smell that had been tormenting his nose grew stronger, but what truly tormented and exhausted Wonwoo were the suckers, which flaunted their existence by diligently contracting and expanding.
“Shit…. Is it an octopus, or a squid…. What is this….”
The something, which had wrapped not only around his waist but also his arms and legs, began to wriggle like a snake slithering on the ground, heading back towards the Gate it had come from. Wonwoo bit the inside of his mouth to hold back the nausea rising from the pit of his stomach.
-Ppireong-ppireong!
The phone in his pocket made a familiar sound, but Wonwoo couldn't take it out to check.
He twisted his body slightly, trying to break free from the ‘something,’ but it didn’t budge. Instead, as if mocking his efforts, it made its suckers ripple.
And just like that, Wonwoo was close enough to the Gate to touch it with his nose if he fell. Putting aside the fact that it was a virtual experience, this was the first time Wonwoo had ever faced a Gate this close.
The smell of rotting fish, the something that looked like octopus legs covered in disgusting suckers. All of it came from the Gate.
And so, while twisting and turning to escape the octopus-leg-like something, Wonwoo came to look inside the Gate.
The moment he got a proper look at what was inside, his vision went black.
-Ppireong-ppiiiireong!!
-Ppireong-ppireong!!
At some point, the feeling of the ‘something’ that had been squeezing and tormenting his body from head to toe disappeared. And the foul smell, so strong it had been numbing his nose, was no longer there.
But the image of what was inside the Gate, the image Wonwoo had seen, remained like an afterimage in his blackened vision, refusing to disappear.
“……”
What Wonwoo had faced was the end of the world.
A destruction so indescribable, where grotesquely shaped creatures ran rampant over a city that had been destroyed as if by an earthquake, shoving any and all life they could find into their mouths.
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