CHAPTER 105: CHAPTER 105 - THE MAN WHO RETURNED

Chapter 105 - The Man Who Returned

[You are being led by an unknown force.]

[Entering ’The Puppeteer Pierrot’s Secret Seed Room.’]

[!]

[Ownership of the ’Goblin Hood’ has been confirmed.]

[You are being drawn by someone’s influence.]

Messages poured down in a steady stream.

The moment he passed through the black hole, his body felt as though it had been lifted into the air — as if he were flying.

In an instant, he had been transported somewhere else.

Jhin blinked, regaining his senses.

"Where... is this?"

The floor, the walls, even the ceiling — everything was soaked in white.

It felt like being trapped inside a blank canvas.

He looked down.

"...No shadow."

Which meant this was a world without light.

And yet, it wasn’t dark. It was simply... white.

That scenery — bright but without any identifiable light source — couldn’t be explained by science.

In other words, this was purely and entirely part of the game’s domain.

Jhin tried to understand why he had been brought to a place like this.

"The Goblin Hood showed up in the system message."

The phrase an unknown force had appeared the moment he entered.

It seemed this Seed Room had properties similar to a themed dungeon — a kind of special characteristic embedded within.

And with the Goblin Hood interacting with that, he’d been transferred to this place.

"...Then what about the others?"

He looked around. Nothing.

There was no visible end to this blank white space — not even a hint of an exit.

"Hmm..."

Just as Jhin narrowed his eyes and scanned his surroundings—

"A distinguished guest has arrived."

A sudden voice. Jhin immediately drew his sword and went on guard.

Standing off to one side — who knew since when — was a weary-looking young man.

"You are...?"

"Nice to meet you. I’m Chance."

The man held out his hand with a calm voice.

But as Jhin only stared at him, unmoving, he scratched his head awkwardly and pulled his hand back.

Instead, he summoned a floating screen into the white void and said,

"Let’s talk after you watch this."

"...What?"

Without another word, the video began to play before him.

"October 2nd, 2020. My first day going to work after getting hired.

My dream is one step closer. Even if it’s hard, I’ve got to hang in there."

A vlog?

It looked like something you’d find uploaded to YouTube.

The caption First Day of Work appeared as the video followed a young man, awkward in his suit, on his morning commute.

He boarded the subway, wedged himself between commuters, and finally arrived at his destination.

"I got scolded. I was supposed to copy ten sheets but accidentally made a hundred. What do I do now... this is bad."

The vlog continued.

His first day — filled with blunders, starting from a trivial photocopying mistake.

A clumsy and hectic day in the life of a fresh employee.

That day passed quickly.

The video was tightly edited, cutting out anything unimportant and moving swiftly through the key points.

It was genuinely engaging to watch.

Before long, the next day began.

The camera followed the back of the same young man, up at the crack of dawn and heading out again.

He entered BeyWorld — the time was just past 6 a.m.

"...Watching this is kind of embarrassing."

Chance gave an awkward chuckle.

"Honestly, I didn’t even need to come in that early. There’s no rule that says a new hire has to show up at dawn."

"..."

"It was just me trying too hard. I wanted to do well."

Jhin looked at his face again.

A man burdened by the sheer difficulty of daily life. A man worn out from exhaustion, but still giving everything he had to make his life work.

A young man who wasn’t afraid to give something up in pursuit of a dream.

As he went back and forth between the video and the man, a quiet realization struck Jhin.

N-po Generation...

Jhin, who had labeled himself part of the "N-void generation," had never lived that kind of life.

The N-po Generation — who, in giving up one thing, might still gain another.

This young man was a textbook example.

Now, Chance simply stared at the flowing footage, his eyes filled with quiet sorrow.

Jhin felt no hostility from him.

He lowered his sword and turned his attention back to the screen.

"Was that opening day?"

"Yes. I died that day."

"...You died?"

The young man in the video walked unsuspectingly into BeyWorld.

There, he encountered a massive, unknown clown.

The video zoomed in.

A clown towering like a giant — at least three meters tall, like something out of Daddy-Long-Legs

.

And the new hire, only two days into his job.

The clown looked down at Chance and smiled with chilling glee.

Crunch!

It happened in an instant.

The clown chomped his head off in one bite.

The young man, now headless, collapsed to the floor like a rag doll.

But when the clown held up a crystal —

The moment it stood before the corpse, the body began to twitch... and slowly rose to its feet.

This wasn’t a miracle.

If anything, it was a curse.

Because the newly reborn Chance... was looking up at the clown with flat, emotionless eyes.

Eyes that contained nothing.

And then, the clown took something else out.

Jhin’s brow furrowed.

"...The Goblin Orb."

The clown — or rather, Pierrot — threw the crystal (that is, the Goblin Orb) to the ’resurrected’ Chance and melted back into the darkness.

After that, the lights came on in the amusement rides, and the carousel began to spin.

On Day 1 of the apocalypse — in a BeyWorld that should have been shut down — the theme park began to operate.

In an eerily quiet, abandoned BeyWorld,

a broadcast began to play.

"Welcome. This is BeyWorld — a place overflowing with hope and dreams.

We hope you enjoy your time here."

Chance stood alone in the middle of it all.

What followed after that would’ve been fully deserving of a 19+ label, with #tragedy plastered over it.

People who entered BeyWorld, unaware of the horrors awaiting them.

During the day, it looked like a normal amusement park.

But every night, it reopened —

A "Monster Party."

And the terrors seared into their memories, their worst traumas, began to materialize.

Those horrors transformed into monsters that chased the survivors through the night.

It was no different from a scene in a horror film.