Chapter 47

“What do you think about your mother’s failure at the grade 1 gate?! Please say a word!!”

“Did your mother train hard on a daily basis?! I want to ask about her typical daily schedule when she was alive!!”

“Ms. ◼◼◼! Please say a word!!! Right now the dominant opinion is that all Hunters should be turned into soldiers, what do you think?!”

Ihyun ran hard. He sprinted through pitch darkness. With every stride, hands reached from all sides to grab him. Camera lenses were everywhere.

If he stopped even for a moment, the red lights on those lenses flashed. Then countless comments filled the air.

[Comments]

— My daughter was only five, and she died. What did the Hunters do during the grade 1 gate? Hunter Kang Hana kept shooting ads day after day as Korea’s no. 1, but she could not even close the grade 1 gate. How will you compensate for my daughter’s life?

— Hunters are actually nothing lol. They keep showing up on TV doing nothing, then when a real gate appears they don’t even clear it and my house collapsed because of it. My father was inside… give me my dad back.

— Why did only Kang Hana and two from the Sanctuary go??? What are the other Hunters doing?? They keep babbling about Hunter Market and dungeon items and put rescue last while they do real estate deals, so why did they vanish when it mattered??? Kang Hana kept bragging on SNS about her kid and her money, so why did she act alone there??

— Hey, where are those fanboys who said it was fine for Hunters to do SNS, ads, YouTube, and real estate because they still did all their training lol. Where’d they go lol.

— They all died lololololololololol

— The state must control all Hunters. Like in China, shove them all into the army and make them machines for gate subjugation. We gave them freedom and treated them like celebrities, and all they did was slack off training and chase money, then at the critical moment they only thought of themselves. Why do you think you earn money?

Kang Ihyun could not understand this. An avalanche of resentment and rage poured onto him.

Click! The flash popped and Kang Ihyun threw himself flat on the ground.

“Is he the only one who lost his mother? Honestly, didn’t his mom deserve it?”

“◼◼◼. Dad met someone new this time. I want to be with her. You are a good kid, so you will understand, right?”

As he fell, people’s voices rang beside him. He realized that to escape the voices and the SNS he had to run. He started running again. He ran a long while without aim, and what helped him was his Constellation.

[Constellation, Staff of Purification exercises its authority :: Guidance on the Road]

In the dark, his Constellation pointed out the correct path. He sprinted.

Where the golden thread pointed, a pitch-black hole yawned open. He did not care what was inside. If it would let him escape, anywhere was fine.

Kang Ihyun leapt straight in!

[Searching for an exit. You escape the nightmare.]

[Warning :: The owner of the dream does not permit departure.]

[The exit is altered. Entry to reality fails.]

[Entering Deep World :: Floor -30.]

“Gasp…!”

When Kang Ihyun opened his eyes again, he was inside a vast cave. The faint glow of candles fixed to the walls lit the interior. He saw Jeong Suho who collapsed beside him.

“Mr. Suho!! Mr. Suho!! Please wake up!!”

Whether he had fainted or not, shaking him did not wake him. The smell of blood was strong… he thought, and then he spotted an altar.

At the very top of the altar, a bathtub had been set as a sacrifice. The thick smell of blood came from there.

“What is this…”

He slowly climbed the altar. A horrible feeling rose in him. It felt like something he absolutely should not see was up there.

It felt like a secret someone had hidden away because they never wanted anyone else to see it.

Even so, he had to go on. And he found it.

“…N-Nari…!!!”

Inside the tub lay Nari, wrapped in a black, sticky slime. The slime reeked of blood, and as if boiling under some influence, bubbles rose and burst again and again.

Nari lay there asleep. The black slime was endlessly flowing from Nari’s wrist. It was the spot he always checked whenever he entered the dream.

“What is all this… Nari!!!”

Kang Ihyun reached into the black slime to pull her out. But the more he tried, the deeper Nari sank toward the bottom of the tub.

As if there were no bottom, as if she were sinking into a swamp, slowly and slowly. Panting, he pulled his hand from the tub. He could not solve this.

“What is this, really…”

He could not even tell where this was or what any of it meant, so he only looked around. There was no exit. The cave, the fallen Jeong Suho, and Ms. Nari. That was all.

Suddenly, there was movement behind him. Jeong Suho staggered to his feet. Kang Ihyun hopped down a few steps and spoke.

“Mr. Suho! Are you alright?”

[I am alright. The situation suddenly changed, but where is this place?]

Jeong Suho pressed his temple as if his head hurt and looked around. His face showed real shock. Kang Ihyun also scanned the surroundings and let out a long sigh.

“Right. I don’t know either. After the first roar, spirit energy started sticking together, and then a camera popped up above.”

[I saw that as well. But I have never seen a place like this.]

Just then, his Constellation displayed a semi-transparent indirect message. It was normally yellow, but the semi-transparent shine suggested even the Constellation’s influence barely reached here.

[Constellation, Staff of Purification says this seems to be Nari’s Deep World.]

“The Deep World?”

[Constellation, Staff of Purification says the Deep World is a world made of strata of a person’s unconscious, layered one over another.]

[Constellation, Staff of Purification looks around and says it is a world that not just anyone can enter or even perceive.]

“Then this is Na… Mr. Lude’s unconscious…?”

Here? Ihyun looked around. There was nothing. The only thing present was a single tub vomiting black slime.

That this was Nari’s unconscious, he clenched his fists.

[Constellation, Staff of Purification says the Deep World is divided into several floors, so do not worry.]

“That is a relief, then how do we get out of here?”

[Constellation, Staff of Purification advises that you need the owner’s permission to enter or exit a dream.]

Kang Ihyun recalled the system message, “The owner of the dream does not permit departure.” That meant Nari had allowed them to enter here, but had not allowed them to leave.

And Nari before their eyes was asleep. She showed no sign of waking. Kang Ihyun anxiously rubbed his knuckles.

The situation was clear.

They were trapped in Nari’s world.

“Um, this is Mr. Lude’s unconscious… apparently we have to wait for Mr. Lude to wake up on his own.”

At the word unconscious, Jeong Suho’s gaze fell on the altar’s tub. Remembering what was inside, chills ran down Kang Ihyun’s spine. A voice came from Jeong Suho’s device.

[Why is that bathtub here? Is this a coincidence?]

“No, wait. Please wait, Mr. Jeong Suho! Do not look at that! No, wait!”

Despite Kang Ihyun’s words, Jeong Suho strode up the steps. From the middle, his expression turned into that of a man who had found certainty, and he began taking the steps two and three at a time. Kang Ihyun ran after him, but he could not catch up.

Jeong Suho’s breath grew ragged. Yes, he had thought it was strange. Lude kept saying things that Nari would say. No wonder seeing him had made Jeong Suho miss Nari.

And when Jeong Suho had talked about his past with Nari, that reaction had not been merely “unpleasant.” He had felt something instinctively wrong.

Nari even had the same class as Lude, an illusionist. He had thought it impossible to create a perfectly precise person with illusions, so he had dismissed it as coincidence.

Besides, he had always been bad at predicting outcomes since childhood, so he had tucked that suspicion away with the easy thought, no, surely not.

‘However,’

Half certain now, he set his hand on the tub. This tub. No matter how he looked at it, it was the tub from Nari’s home. He looked inside.

‘…’

Thud, the device in his hand slipped and fell. His hands, full of nicks and calluses, trembled.

Inside, Nari lay there.

It had been Nari who listened to him, who grieved, who stepped up to help him, who scolded him when he refused and pushed the matter forward.

Tears welled in his eyes and soon a sniffling sound filled the air. He held back so the sobbing would not break loose. Jeong Suho only cried and cried.

“Mr. Suho…”

Kang Ihyun called softly from behind. Jeong Suho reached a hand toward the tub and stroked Nari’s cheek.

No, he tried to. The moment his hand touched, Nari slid down, and sank to the very bottom of the tub.

* * *

“Oh dear, seriously… I warned you, Nari.”

The Lord of Chaos watched the situation on a monitor and clicked his tongue. It seemed his little sibling had bottled it up and finally burst. Perhaps he should not have granted so much authority from the start.

“Well… it cannot be helped. Get up.”

At this rate, Nari would be in danger. As she was now, she could not escape the Deep World alone.

Hup, the Lord of Chaos condensed the writhing body of slime. The neat figure of a black-haired man stood straight.

“I will be back. Father. While I am gone, you must behave yourself.”

He looked up. His father still slept. Hoping his father would not rampage while he was away, the Lord of Chaos gathered bubbles and shaped them into Lude.

The father’s bubbles, wobbling in displeasure, he patted and pressed back inside with his hand, then chuckled.

“Foolish Father, calm down. Our youngest is doing well. Your dream will reach the best possible ending. So keep dreaming and dreaming.”

Grinning wide until his mouth reached his ears, the Lord of Chaos opened a warp portal. It was a rift in dimensions that normally required a tremendous price to open.

“Now then… I will go wake you, Nari. And if your candidate male leads get in the way, I will take care of them while I am there.”

The Lord of Chaos stepped into the dimensional rift. It was the same trip he took every day, down into Nari’s Deep World.