1 PM.
I rolled around on the bed.
A terrible drowsiness weighed down my entire body.
Every time I tossed and turned, my loose short-sleeved T-shirt rode up to my chest.
Cool air touched my bare skin, but I didn't even have the mental energy to open my eyes and pull my clothes down.
—Knock knock.
The sound of someone knocking on the door.
I didn't answer. If I pretended to be asleep, they'd leave.
But my shallow trick didn't work.
—Click.
Familiar footsteps approached the bedside.
"My puppy. Still sleeping?"
Mom's voice.
The blanket was pulled back with a whoosh.
Mom lightly tapped my stomach, which was fully exposed from my shirt riding up.
"It's already lunchtime. Don't sleep with your belly out and catch a cold. Get up quickly. You need to eat."
"Ugh..."
I groaned with a furrowed brow.
My eyelids felt like they weighed a ton.
Mom slipped both hands under my armpits.
Lightly—whoosh.
My upper body was lifted before I could resist.
Half-asleep, I was led out of the room by Mom's hands.
I planted my butt in a dining chair.
I picked up a spoon with my eyes half-closed.
I scooped up some kimchi stew broth carelessly and bit into a thick rolled omelet.
Drunk on sleep, I swallowed it down my throat without even tasting it.
I finished the meal roughly.
I staggered toward the bathroom.
I turned on the cold water at the sink and splashed it roughly on my face.
Only then did my hazy mind gradually return.
I wiped the water from my face with a towel.
In the mirror, a silver-haired beauty with wet hair stared back at me with indifferent crimson eyes.
I should be used to it by now, but sometimes when I see it half-asleep, I still flinch in surprise.
I hung the towel on the drying rack and came out to the living room.
Mom was sitting on the sofa watching TV.
I slouched down next to her.
Just then, the smartphone I'd tossed on the table vibrated loudly.
Caller: Association President Park Jin-cheol.
Ominous.
I extended my mana to press the call button and switched it to speakerphone.
"What is it."
—Oh, Tae-ho! Were you resting?
The old man's voice on the other end of the line sounded strangely excited.
—Those data you collected going around the guilds. Our research team stayed up all night compiling everything and produced the first analysis results!
I blinked.
They already went through that massive amount of data?
"Already? That's way faster than I thought. Are you running some kind of supercomputer or something?"
—Haha! We have to do things quickly. We're Korean, aren't we? I made the researchers bleed a little from their noses.
A ruthless employer if there ever was one.
—Should I send you the materials by secure email first? Or will you come to the Association and get a direct briefing? Given the nature of the matter, it would be better to see it in person.
Annoying.
But the possibility of Inner Cores existing and the true nature of Gates were issues directly connected to my safety.
I couldn't just ignore and pass over them.
"Send the materials by email for now, and I'll come to the Association to hear the details."
—Alright! Don't be late!
The call cut off abruptly.
I got up from the sofa.
"Mom. I'm going out for a bit."
"Oh my. Going to work again? Be careful."
I went into my room and put on outdoor clothes.
I opened the veranda window.
I gathered mana at my toes and kicked off the air.
I flew across the city sky toward the Hunter Association Headquarters in the middle of Gangnam.
* * * * *
The Association President's office.
When I opened the heavy soundproof door and entered, a strong coffee scent and cigarette smell hit me.
Association President Park Jin-cheol sat on the sofa, flipping through a stack of documents with bloodshot eyes.
He looked like he'd stayed up all night.
"You're here."
The old man pushed a stack of documents toward me.
"Crimson Lotus, Paradise, and the special dungeon raid logs and corpse autopsy data you extracted from the guilds. And a results report combining our research team's hypotheses."
I sat on the opposite sofa and picked up the documents.
They were filled with dense text and autopsy photos.
"Let's start with the conclusion. What is it."
"The monsters pouring out of Gates. They're perfectly divided into two different ecosystems."
The old man rubbed his face wearily as he continued.
"To put it simply, fantasy and martial arts. Two types. The direction of evolution itself is completely different."
I turned the first page of the documents.
There were skeletal diagrams of orcs and goblins containing Mana Stones, compared with autopsy diagrams of Magical Beasts presumed to contain Inner Cores.
"The phenomenon called Gates."
The old man's voice sank heavily.
"Until now, we just thought of it as a disaster where space tears open and monsters pour out. But no. This is clearly a passage where life forms from another dimension or another space cross over to this side."
"You're stating the obvious."
"The problem is, there isn't just one connected dimension."
The old man stubbed out his cigarette in the ashtray on the table.
"A dimension with a Western fantasy worldview based on mana and Mana Stones. And a dimension with an Eastern martial arts worldview based on qi and Inner Cores. It means at least two or more completely different worlds are simultaneously punching holes into this planet called Earth."
My fingers stopped turning the pages.
The scale was getting strangely large.
"We don't know what causes Gates yet—neither us nor the scientific community. But what's certain is that real worlds with independent civilizations or ecosystems exist on the other side. And there's one more horrifying hypothesis derived from this."
The old man pointed to the very last page of the documents.
There was a graph of casualties and missing persons statistics from the early days of the Gate Shock.
"Three years ago, when Gates first opened, over 100 million people went missing worldwide. Not casualties—missing persons whose bodies were never found. In Korea alone, 400,000 people vanished."
"They were eaten by monsters, so no bones would be left."
I replied dryly, but the old man shook his head.
"There were too many clean disappearances without even traces of predation. What if. Those missing people didn't die... but were swept away by the dimensional backflow that occurred when Gates opened and crossed over to the other dimension?"
I narrowed my eyes.
"You're saying there's a possibility humanity is surviving in the other dimension."
"Right. And this is the research team's core hypothesis."
The old man leaned his upper body close to me.
"The Gates we've blocked so far were one-time portals that closed over time or disappeared when cleared. But a two-way Gate that's permanently and completely connected to the other dimension might have appeared somewhere on Earth."
"......"
"No, it's highly likely one has already appeared and the major powers are hiding it. Countries like the United States, China, or Russia."
The old man's eyes gleamed sharply.
"If there's a nation monopolizing resources from the other dimension through a two-way Gate... Inner Cores beyond Mana Stones, otherworldly elixirs, artifacts and such? Earth's power structure will be completely overturned soon. It's no different from colonizing a new dimension."
My head throbbed dully.
A terrible headache.
I thought this was a simple defense game of beating up beast bastards invading the neighborhood front yard.
But the old man's briefing suggested this situation could develop into a clash between dimensions and a massive political power struggle among major nations.
"This data, it's accurate, right."
When I asked while putting the documents down on the table, the old man nodded heavily without a word.
This wasn't just baseless speculation.
It was chilling facts cross-verified by tens of thousands of corpse autopsy data and guild raid logs.
"This content... will you pass it to the government."
At my question, the old man stroked his chin and let out a deep sigh.
"I'll have to think about it. But shouldn't we inform the Blue House too? The scale is too big for us to move independently. We need state power to monitor the movements of intelligence agencies worldwide through the government's diplomatic network and find concealed Gates in other countries. If we compile the information, we can reach the truth."
The old man was right.
This wasn't a problem that could be solved by a few Hunters being good with swords.
"Phew..."
I let out a short sigh.
I leaned back deeply against the sofa and muttered dryly.
"I'll leave the decision to you, old man. Politics aren't my concern."
What I could do was clear.
Whatever crossed over from the other dimension, whether two-way Gates opened.
Cutting down with overwhelming violence anything that threatened my daily life and family.
"For now, I'll go around the guilds and investigate a bit more to see if there are any suspicious signs."
I got up from my seat abruptly.
My head was too complicated.
My capacity was too lazy to chew and swallow the grand worldview foreshadowing.
I glanced down at the old man and raised my right hand.
I bent my wrist lightly and made a gesture of tossing back a shot glass.
"I'm feeling gloomy and my head hurts. Let's have a drink, old man."
At my gesture, a smile spread across the old man's stiff face.
"Haha, sounds good. I stayed up all night too, so I'm really craving alcohol."
The old man got up and picked up the receiver on his desk.
"Secretary Kim. Cancel all this afternoon's schedule. I have urgent external business with Hunter Kang, so don't look for me."
The old man hung up the receiver carelessly and put on his jacket.
We left the Association President's office side by side.
I decided to soak the complicated and unpleasant truth in alcohol for now.
It was a commute home where a plate of pork belly and a glass of soju right now felt more urgent than tomorrow's world destruction.
