CHAPTER 504: AQUARIUM (4)

0% 1.

There’s a saying, ‘in the blink of an eye.’

It literally means something happens in the brief moment it takes to close and open your eyelids.

But what phrase would you use for something that happens even faster than that?

Siwoo had been training under his master for a long time.

Part of that training included reacting instantly to danger, shifting into a combat stance, and never blinking when under attack.

In other words, from the moment he deflected that mysterious blue bead with his gauntlet, he hadn’t closed his eyes once.

“.......”

Yet somehow, in an instant, everything around him had changed, like a Bian Lian mask1 shifting faces.

When he came to his senses, the comfortable sofa, the drinks between them, the luxurious wallpaper, and the fireplace were all gone. Instead, they were standing in the middle of a street.

The time and season had changed too.

It was definitely midnight, but somehow it was daytime, and instead of white breath, a humid sea breeze brushed against his nose.

Siwoo knew he should stay sharp , that he shouldn’t let his guard down when he had no clue what had just happened, and yet, he found himself gaping in sheer disbelief.

“Where... are we?”

“Mr. Siwoo, was this your doing?”

“No. Which means it wasn’t you either, Countess Deneb.”

Staying on high alert, he scanned his surroundings and took in the scene – one that could only be described as a ‘port.’

To add a detailed explanation, it would be ‘of old times.’

Out on the sea, large sailing ships with white sails flapped in the wind, and countless smaller boats were docked along the shore.

Near the pier, a row of street stalls was packed with colorful trinkets and goods, piled up like war trophies, while the streets were cluttered with carts.

“Mr. Siwoo, stand behind me.”

“Do you have any idea what’s going on?”

Deneb spread her arms, positioning him behind her.

Like it or not, he was still her son-in-law.

She raised her mana to its peak, scanning the area.

“No. Not a clue. But something’s really off. This place could be dangerous.”

Something was definitely wronf.

Too many things didn’t add up.

Being suddenly transported to an unfamiliar place was weird enough, but a harbor this large, where sailing ships came and went, should have been bustling with people in broad daylight.

Yet all that surrounded them was an eerie, suffocating silence.

It was a completely silent zone except for the occasional sound of waves, let alone a single sign of human presence.

“There’s no one here.”

“Not just people. No animals, either.”

Deneb’s voice was low and steady as she pointed toward the carts and the street, where fish were piled up in boxes.

As she said, instead of the horses that should have been tied to the cart, only harnesses and horse droppings were rolling on the floor.

Also, there wasn’t a single flying insect that should be commonly seen on the fish left like that.

It was as if all living things had simply vanished.

“.......”

“.......”

However, after about five minutes of holding their breath and keeping watch, nothing unusual occurred.

There were no sudden appearances of homunculi, nor wicked witch stepping out with a dramatic laugh, declaring, ‘You’ve fallen into my trap!’

Just the unsettling stillness, the tension pressing down on them, and the sensation of sweat slowly trailing down his back.

“We should move while keeping an eye on our surroundings.”

“Whoever did this could be waiting for us to drop our guard.”

“Even so, this place is too open. We need to find cover.”

“.......”

Deneb looked around for about 5 more minutes without saying a word, then sighed, tidying her disheveled bangs.

“Alright, standing around isn’t going to solve anything. Let’s take a look around.”

“Got it.”

“Mr. Siwoo, how do you always get caught up in these bizarre situations?”

“...Yeah, I’d really like to know that too.”

2.

Just as they suspected, this wasn’t Gehenna.

Deneb was a native of Gehenna, so there was no way she’d be wrong about that.

Looking at the city’s overall shape, it stretched along the harbor in a crescent, following the docks.

The bay area held the sea and piers, while a circular fortress surrounded the outer edges, enclosing the city within.

The sturdy stone walls loomed over the city, their jagged peaks jutting out like sharp fangs.

“This place feels like it’s under some kind of strange magic.”

“Did we travel back in time?”

“I doubt it, but this definitely looks like a city from that era.”

From what they could see, it was a port city, sitting right on the water’s edge.

Based on the lifestyle and the structure of the sailing ships, Deneb estimated the time period to be the mid-Middle Ages.

Remaining on high alert, the two walked from the harbor toward the city along the main road.

After passing by the stores scattered along the main street near the pier and passing through a checkpoint where no soldiers were standing, the city hidden behind the castle wall was finally visible.

“It’s narrow.”

“And small too.”

Even though it wasn’t the time to stand around and admire the scenery, those were Siwoo and Deneb’s first impressions.

They’d expected it to be small based on the docks, but not this small.

If Tarot Town captured a medieval fantasy version of peasant life, then this city had ripped off the ‘fantasy’ and left only the harsh, unvarnished reality.

The main road, used by carriages, was at least somewhat maintained.

But beyond that, the surrounding streets were a mess of black, manure-soaked mud, barely leaving enough space for people to stand when a single cart passed through.

And the buildings?

Unlike Tarot Town, with its solid two- and three-story stone houses, this city’s structures had only stone foundations and first floors, while the second floors were hastily built with wood, making the buildings look flimsy at best, and even that was considered decent around here.

“Still, for the time period, having proper stone walls suggests it’s a fairly developed city.”

Deneb’s added insight only confirmed Siwoo’s thoughts.

He never really thought much about the phrase “The Middle Ages were a Dark Age,” but looking at this place, he could see why people called it that.

Even if he were given a noble title and mountains of gold, he wouldn’t want to live in a time like this.

Past the checkpoint, they found themselves in a tangled mess of narrow alleys, buildings crammed together, and market stalls clustered like mushrooms in every available space.

At a glance, it almost looked like a ‘post-apocalyptic ruin’.

Not a single human in sight, not even a sewer rat scurrying through the filth.

And yet, despite the eerie emptiness, the city still felt strangely alive.

There were inns where horses could be tied up and taverns with their doors wide open.

As they ventured a bit further, they spotted a permanent market square displaying various leather goods, grains, and seafood.

By modern standards, it lacked a lot, but for people living here, the infrastructure was enough to get by.

By the time they explored a plaza about a third the size of Tarot Town’s central square, both Siwoo and Deneb had let their guard down a bit.

Even when one was caught in bizarre, inexplicable situations, repeated exposure tended to dull the sense of crisis.

After using the plaza as a landmark, they wandered through more of the city.

And no matter where they went, it was all the same.

A suffocating silence with not even a single insect buzzing around, a city frozen in time, appearing dim and lifeless even under the bright sunlight.

Most importantly, Siwoo’s golden eyes didn’t detect a single trace of magic anywhere.

“There’s really no one here.”

Siwoo muttered as he reached out, tapping a loaf of bread hanging from the eaves of what looked like a bakery.

Honey, which seemed to have been painted several times, was dripping from the surface of the bread hanging like a cocoon.

“Mr. Siwoo, don’t even think about eating that. You know the story of Persephone, right?”

“...Are you saying this place is the underworld?”

“Not exactly, but you never know.”

“I wasn’t planning to eat it anyway...”

It didn’t look appetizing in the slightest, and besides, he wasn’t stupid enough to eat random food in a situation like this.

Deneb took off the cape draped over her shoulders and tied it around her waist.

She must have been hot all this time, but now, for the first time, she looked like she was relaxing a little.

“By the way, Countess, we haven’t checked out that alley over there yet.”

“I doubt it’ll be any different... but let’s go.”

The alleys in this era were such a mess that calling them streets felt almost too generous.

Broken crates were scattered everywhere, and murky water trickled through poorly dug drainage channels.

What stood out the most, though, was the sight of discarded fish guts bobbing up and down in the filthy water.

“Huh?”

Siwoo and Deneb, who had been pressing forward despite the unbearable stench, suddenly came to a halt.

It wasn’t because something had appeared.

But the moment they approached the alley’s end, the scene before them shifted in an instant, just like when they had first arrived.

Standing in front of them now was the grandest building in the city, a cathedral.

Built from solid white bricks and coated with a layer of plaster, the chapel looked so extravagant it seemed like it had used up four or five times the usual construction budget.

They had been walking toward the end of the alley, yet somehow, they now stood before the fountain outside the chapel.

“.......”

Siwoo looked shocked, while Deneb, on the other hand, pressed her lips together as if she had figured something out.

“Follow me.”

Deneb turned back the way they’d come.

Siwoo followed, and as soon as they did, it was like reliving the same experience all over again.

The grand cathedral and its elegant fountain disappeared, and they were once more standing in the dark, musty alley.

“How’d you do that?”

“I didn’t do anything. It’s just how this space works.”

Deneb’s voice was calm as she continued.

“As you might have guessed, this alley and the chapel are on opposite sides of the plaza. If you take the central plaza as a reference point, the chapel is to the east, and this alley is to the west.”

“Is that so?”

“In simple terms, this space is shaped like a sheet of paper rolled into a sphere. Since we reached the ‘edge’ of the paper, we ended up on the other side. If we keep heading north, we’ll probably reach the harbor where we first arrived.”

It wasn’t the easiest concept to grasp at first.

The Earth is round, but because it’s so massive, it appears flat.

If such a narrow space maintains a spherical shape, it would inevitably have some curvature, yet this city lacked such anomalies.

Which meant... this had to be a magically separated space.

“So basically, this is like a pocket dimension sealed off by a large-scale barrier, like Gehenna?”

“Smaller in scale, but yes, that’s essentially correct. It’s surprising to find a witch capable of this level of spatial magic besides Keter. In any case, we need to find a way out.”

“Do you have any leads?”

“No, but every pocket dimension has an exit.”

When Deneb, sobering up from the intoxication, displayed a resolute demeanor.

-DONG! DONG! DONG! DONG!

A deep, ringing chime echoed from the bell tower overlooking the entire city.

Siwoo and Deneb held their breath, staring up at the massive tower with the cross on top.

At any other time, the solemn ringing would have caused them to pause for a moment of admiration, but this unexpected turn of events was only a prelude to something ominous.

“The sun is setting.”

Just as Deneb said, with each chime, the sky grew darker.

As if in response, torches lit up across the streets, and faint light seeped through the cracks of tightly shut buildings.

By the time the last ring of the bell, which had been ringing incessantly, lingered in their ears, the city was already in the middle of the night.

“.......”

Deneb and Siwoo scanned their surroundings, their breathing slightly unsteady.

Maybe it was the lingering echo of the bell, but the sudden silence felt even heavier.

-FLAP FLAP FLAP

A strange sound broke the silence.

It was coming from the direction of the harbor.

The sound of tens of thousands of passenger pigeons flapping their wings at the same time began to fill the city.

“I’ll go check it out.”

Siwoo immediately kicked off the wall of the alley and climbed onto the roof.

What came into view was the wide horizon, filled with black shapes.

Countless strange creatures, their forms resembling flying fish, were swarming toward the city.

FOOTNOTES

1. Bian Lian, or "face-changing," is a traditional Chinese dramatic art form, a key element of Sichuan opera, where performers seemingly change masks instantaneously, often with a quick movement or fan swipe.