RTN 16

Silence fell.

The quiet was broken by a knock. A researcher opened the door, came in, and quickly began picking up the food scraps from the floor.

All the while Baek Ihyeon didn’t take his eyes off me. Kim Dowoon was the same.

Those searching looks made my nerves prick. Ever since I fell here I’d been on edge without a moment’s rest. I rubbed my face with dry hands.

After the researcher tidied the floor and left, Baek Ihyeon looked at Kim Dowoon.

“There’s no blood at all. Did someone give them something to eat?”

Kim Dowoon lifted a packaged lunchbox from the bedside table.

“They didn’t touch it.”

“I’ll feed them.”

Baek Ihyeon reached out. Kim Dowoon handed the lunchbox over politely but with a strangely bewildered face. Baek Ihyeon sat down on the edge of my bed and spoke.

“Tighten security. If another innocent person gets in, I’ll follow procedure and hold someone accountable.”

“Sorry. It won’t happen again.”

Kim Dowoon only answered and showed no sign of leaving. Baek Ihyeon paused while unwrapping the lunch and looked at him.

“Aren’t you going out?”

“I am.”

Kim Dowoon bowed his head, picked up the lunchbox, and left the room. Before the door closed he glanced back in my direction with a face that seemed displeased.

Baek Ihyeon, by contrast, was extremely calm and composed. He scooped a bit of the food from one side of the lunch with the disposable plastic spoon included. It looked like fried rice.

“They probably didn’t eat it because they were suspicious. I’ll eat first. If it’s safe you can eat too. It’s hard to talk when you look like you might pass out.”

“Mix it.”

I said in a hoarse voice. Baek Ihyeon lowered his hand holding the lunchbox a little.

“This isn’t something you mix.”

“Who knows if only one side got something strange in it? Mix it.”

Baek Ihyeon didn’t react for a while. He held the lunchbox in his left hand and the spoon in his right and didn’t move.

His behavior was so suspicious I stared at him without even breathing.

He probably wouldn’t be able to kill me outright, so it wasn’t likely a lethal poison, but there was a good chance sedatives or hallucinogens could have been mixed in…

“It’ll taste bad if you mix it.”

“Is taste the issue now?”

I was incredulous. Baek Ihyeon seemed about to say something, then silently adjusted his grip on the spoon. He began mixing the food evenly.

He stirred forcefully, pushing food between the compartments and blending everything together with a look full of something like displeasure.

When the meat was mashed and the vegetables squashed into an indistinguishable lump of porridge, Baek Ihyeon stuck the spoon into the center of the lunchbox and offered it to me.

“If you scoop any side and hand it to me, I’ll eat it. That’ll be sure.”

I took the lunchbox and scooped a large spoonful. I was about to turn the spoon’s handle so it would be easier for him to take when—

Baek Ihyeon leaned his torso toward me without hesitation. Before I could react, he smoothly took the food from my hand into his mouth and then drew back.

I opened my eyes wide and watched Baek Ihyeon chew and swallow the food with a blank expression.

Why did he take it from me?

The spoon hanging empty in the air felt unreal.

We’re not the kind of people who feed each other. Normally you’d bring the spoon to your own mouth, right?

Baek Ihyeon got up, took a bottled water from the bedside table, and sat back down beside me. There was no expression on his face as he drank.

I forced myself to stop thinking. It probably meant nothing.

I scooped a bit with the spoon and put it in my mouth. Surprisingly, it didn’t taste bad. In fact, it was quite good.

It wasn’t just the hunger making it seem good. The food itself was excellent. I caught a peculiar, slightly peppery spice—just that would make plain rice endlessly edible.

I wondered what people here usually ate if they could call this “bad.”

The food was warm, too. I couldn’t tell whether the packaging preserved the heat or if it had some self-heating function, but it tasted like freshly cooked rice.

I adjusted my grip on the lunchbox and began to eat properly.

“Eat while I explain—there isn’t much time. The S-rank weapon you ingested, and the status window that’s protecting you, make this an extremely urgent situation for us, so confirming your intent is my top priority.”

I worked the spoon busily and felt relieved again. S-rank. I had eaten that. I would have been lucky with even a B-rank, let alone A, but I’d swallowed an S-rank.

Luck was on my side. Above all, despite swallowing that golden jelly with no information, I was still here and fine…

“Your original body is in a vegetative state.”

I choked. Luckily there was nothing in my mouth—if there had been, I might have spat it all onto Baek Ihyeon’s lap.

“What?”

“Literally. Your body remains over there.”

I couldn’t make sense of it. I put the lunchbox down and felt my body.

“Then this body now? Is it fake?”

“It seems to have been newly created to contain your soul, but the details are hard to determine. There are no prior cases. Numerically, your body registers as two and your soul is here, so the other body would be an empty shell.”

Baek Ihyeon spoke calmly.

“That matches your testimony. You said you didn’t die and that after logging into the game you saw a white light and lost consciousness. As you said, you didn’t die. Your body over there is alive.”

“So it’s only barely alive… in a coma? Wait, wait.”

I pushed the lunchbox aside and grabbed my head with both hands. My brain wasn’t functioning properly.

“Then… then can I go back?”

“I will do my best to get you back home safely.”

I stared at him in a daze.

“But there’s a condition. The S-rank weapon you swallowed is a valuable resource we developed as a main force to end the war. We want you to cooperate in that operation. In return, I’ll take responsibility and get you safely back to your original world.”

Baek Ihyeon manipulated his watch and floated a translucent window into the air. Several windows aligned neatly across the space following his hand gestures.

“You must win the war if you want to return home. The gate you came through falls under our jurisdiction in imperial territory, but the gate you must go through to return is currently deep inside enemy lines. It’s strategically important, so once we secure it…”

Baek Ihyeon’s voice faded on me. I stiffened and stared, bewildered, at the windows he had opened to explain—more precisely, at the translucent status window that floated abruptly above them.

[This is your hometown.]

“…But for that to be possible, your body over there must be alive. So I ask: how do they manage comatose patients over there? How advanced is their medical technology… Seya-yeon? Are you listening to me?”

“What’s a status window?”

Baek Ihyeon lowered the hand he’d been moving. The windows he’d floated drifted down with it.

But the status window kept circling in my vision. Baek Ihyeon couldn’t see it; his gaze never once moved toward it.

“We call those who can see status windows ‘coordinators.’”

“Coordinate what…?”

“Dimensions. The world we stand on now, the world you came from, and every other world we know and don’t know. They’re beings God created to coordinate and manage the countless dimensions. Coordinators can see divine words through status windows.”

“Divine words?”

I couldn’t get used to the sudden expansion of the conversation. My chest beat anxiously.

“Then everything written on the status window is true?”

“Absolutely.”

Baek Ihyeon said it flatly.

“Those who can handle status windows are omnipotent. They can see not just past and present, but also the future.”

“Can’t you change or cancel it or anything?”

“Impossible.”

I couldn’t believe it. Something had to be wrong.

[This is your hometown.]

Another status window hovered beneath it.

[How dare you think you can run away after I brought you here?]