Chapter 4: Arrival

UNKNOWN BUILDING

10 minutes after extraction

The wind blew Jinwoo's hair as he sat by the ledge of the roof. With the contrast of the warm meadows of the Otherworld and this world's dark, snowy climate, it was hard to believe that all this had happened in a mere day. In fact, yesterday, he was in Korea doing his job and living with his girlfriend. It was today that he received the call that a spatial distortion, involving his sister, had appeared.

And then there was the fact that time there ran quicker than here. It was by luck that the Rulers had discovered the anomaly right when it appeared, or his sister would've been there for months while only minutes passed here. In a related note, thank God for his teleportation ability

And there was the… spirit. Apparently, she was an ancestor of the Japanese girl and her family's guarding spirit. She was a good source of information regarding how the System there worked and how it affected its participants.

However, it was the fact that the spirit, Mokomoko, even existed that struck Jinwoo odd.

She wasn't composed of mana like his soldiers, or the remnants of the dead, and there was the fact that he couldn't fully detect her, only the disturbance in the mana around her. She seemed harmless enough, though she was terrified of him, so he let her go.

Ever since he had reset the world, many peculiarities had arisen that weren't present in the previous world. The Rulers, of course, detected a few spiritual entities that weren't composed of mana, roaming the world, a couple of vampires (so far. They seem harmless enough, however), and… the Japanese exchange student in Korea. Less talking about him, the better.

His phone buzzed, snapping him out of his thoughts.

"Hello," he asked as he accepted the call.

"Monarch of Shadow," the voice on the other end began. "Are you absolutely sure that you want to go through with this? Even with the unknowns–"

"I'm sure," he interrupted. "When will it be ready?"

"Twenty minutes."

"Alright. And when I'm gone, how safe will my sister be? And her friend."

"We will use as much of our resources necessary to ensure their safety."

"Hm… see you when the teleportation gate is ready."

Jinwoo ended the call and went down the stairs.

When on the second floor, he found a door, tapped the password and went in. He looked around: a clock on the wall in front of him, a kitchen, dining table, and fridge on the left, living room, bathroom, and the rooms on the right. He quietly stepped across the floor, as if he was floating, and entered her room. He saw Jinah in her bed, her figure raising and dropping the blanket covering her figure.

He whispered, "You awake?"

He waited a bit, and heard a barely audible, "No."

He sat by her on the bed. Looking at her, it reminded him of when she was still shaken from the orc attack, something that, fortunately for those involved, won't happen in this timeline. She looked small, the blanket tightly around her as if to act as a shield.

So much had happened to her in such a short amount of time. Being this way is more than reasonable.

"I just want to make sure that you're doing alright," Jinwoo gently said.

Jinah gripped her blanket more tightly before uttering in a tense murmur, "I'm fine."

Jinwoo put his hand where her head would be. He exhaled deeply and started stroking it, as one would do to comfort another.

"I'm sorry I couldn't talk with you much," he apologized. "There was so much going on today… but, I should have checked in with you sooner. I'm sorry about that."

Jinah shuddered under the blanket. Still facing away from Jinwoo, she confessed,

"It was scary."

"Yeah."

"Some people died, we almost died… it won't get out of my head."

Jinwoo stopped his hand, and put it back on the bed. He blinked twice before telling her what he was going to do.

"Jinah," he softly said, "I'll be going to bring your friends back in a few minutes. I'm not going to lie, it is very dangerous, I just want you to know that. Thinking about what I have now before going back, I am so thankful for all of you. Mom, Dad, you, Hae-in, for being in my life."

Jinah turned towards her brother and nodded in response. Her unsmiling, dark face clearly showed how shaken she still was, but also how conflicted she was.

"If it's so dangerous, then don't go."

She gripped onto his arm firmly. Whether she should prioritize her friends, or let her brother go there to his possible doom, it was hard to choose a side at this time.

"You're not alone here, we can't lose you," she said, her voice quietly shaking. "You have Hae-in Noona* too." (*a honorific for an older sister or a similar, female, older figure)

"I know," —his eyelids lowering— "but knowing that there are kids the same age as you wandering around that dangerous place, I have to go. The fact that if I don't do anything your classmates will lose what I have makes me think that I have to go even more."

She finally let go, and turned back around.

"I know."

"I'm sorry you had to go through all this, that I wasn't there sooner."

"It wasn't your fault…"

"I know, but still."

Jinwoo straightened his back and put his hand on her shoulder.

"Jinah, I want you to know that, no matter what happens over there, I will definitely come back. I promise."

Jinah quickly rolled over and hugged her brother, burying her face into his back.

"Be careful," Jinah whispered, a tear soaking into her brother's jacket as softly as the words that left her lips.

Jinwoo smiled.

"Yeah." He rose from the bed and left the room.

Right when the door closed, he vanished.

When he arrived, there were wide walls around, which were a metallic gray, and support beams which held the roof together. In front of him, a man in a black suit approached him with a purple stone in hand. It was a vessel of a Ruler.

"Welcome," the vessel greeted. "I was quite worried that you weren't going to make it in time."

"I had to tell Hae-in that I was going to be gone for a bit."

"I see. Well, here is the teleportation stone," —the vessel handed him the stone in his hand— "and good luck, Monarch of Shadows. May we meet again."

As soon as he had the stone in hand, he poured a bit of his mana into it and the world went white.

It was a strange feeling. He felt weightless, could feel nothing, smell nothing, sense nothing. Being trapped here would be a fate worse than death. It was a region his power would not work in, a space beyond all things that existed, exists, and will exist. It is why a link when making such journeys is important.

The teleportation stone in his hand was a double-use relic; it acted, additionally, as a link between two worlds for its purpose. It cannot handle the energy needed for more than two trips, however.

Making this relic was an intricate and time-consuming process. To reduce the time of preparing from a day to twenty minutes was a huge leap achieved during an incident prior to this one. Every second counts when it comes to interdimensional rescue operations. For instance, using Jinah's recovered phone, the time difference from her Otherworld to the regular world was almost a year there for every twenty minutes in the normal world.

Would they even want to return? Jinwoo thought while floating in the hyperspace. More than a year had passed there, enough for the stranded students to adjust to life over there... or even worse, dominate it.

Finally, the white background was slowly replaced by the scenery of a green grassland and woodland, along with a blue sky slowly fading in. In a few seconds, he was now in the cool spring day.

"Well, I guess I'll have to do my job now."

LOCATION: OTHERWORLD

THREAT LEVEL: UNKNOWN