🔊 TTS Settings
Chapter : 02
“…What?”
Following the direction of Suhyeok’s finger—
“Why is she still standing there?”
There stood Diel Yekaterina.
“What kind of lines is she saying right now?”
A character inside a dimension shouldn’t have been able to see Headquarters outside the dimension.
“Did the video department mess something up?”
And yet—
Why was it that Diel Yekaterina’s eyes were clearly directed toward them?
“Wait, sunbae. The thing Diel is holding…”
At that moment, Suhyeok pointed at something inside the screen.
“Isn’t that the holy artifact from The Protagonist Is Me!? How does Diel have that?”
At the same time, Ju-ah noticed it too.
A mirror emitting a mysterious glow sparkled in Diel’s hand.
It was the sacred artifact from the neighboring novel, The Protagonist Is Me!.
But Diel was a character from Everyone Is Afraid of Me.
How had she obtained a sacred artifact from another dimension?
Had the dimensions somehow become entangled?
Even Ju-ah, the most senior among them, had never seen anything like this before.
“If the error is this severe, the gate should open, right? Check it and open it immediately.”
At those words, Suhyeok hurriedly moved.
Sure enough, the red light on the Gate Open button was flashing rapidly.
When Suhyeok pressed the button with trembling hands—
“Sunbae! Be careful!”
The air distorted for only a moment before a massive circular portal spread open instantly.
“You have to come back within five minutes!”
Suhyeok shouted toward Ju-ah as she leapt inside.
The worlds of the two people had now become completely different.
“Miss Diel Yekaterina. What exactly are you doing right now?”
Feeling the abrupt shift in atmosphere, Ju-ah approached Diel.
“Where did you get that? It’s dangerous, so hand it over.”
A medieval-style room and furnishings announced the change in dimensions.
And within that setting, only Baek Ju-ah, dressed in Headquarters’ modern uniform, looked out of place.
“So it was you.”
To Diel, it should have seemed as though a ghost had suddenly appeared out of thin air.
“They said this place was inside a novel, right?”
Yet Diel merely smiled calmly, without any sign of panic.
“I was created for the sake of this novel’s protagonists.”
“……!”
Diel knew everything.
That this world existed inside a novel.
That her life moved according to predetermined settings and storylines.
“No wonder nothing changed no matter how desperately I tried. So that was my fate…”
The expression on Diel’s face was strange.
As if she were both sorrowful and relieved at the same time.
“Baek Ju-ah.”
She definitely heard that name.
“No—Agent Baek Ju-ah.”
And then—
“You should suffer the same way too.”
Everything happened in an instant.
“Diel Yekaterina!”
Diel threw the absolute sacred artifact she had been clutching in her hand.
Boom! Boom!
“No!”
By the time Ju-ah tried to stop her, it was already too late.
A blue radiance burst forth between the shattered fragments of the mirror.
The ground shook violently.
“What is happening…?”
And at the same moment—
Crackle.
Diel’s body shattered apart into particles of light.
Her blood-red hair and pale skin disintegrated completely.
“Ugh!”
Ju-ah staggered as she stared blankly at the scene.
“Sunbae! Sunbae Ju-ah!”
Boom! Boom!
Everything around them began shaking wildly.
“Sunbae! The dimension is collapsing! Hurry and come out!”
What?
Snapping back to her senses, Ju-ah turned her head.
You’ve got to be kidding me.
The circular portal that had split open the air was slowly shrinking.
Even Suhyeok’s figure beyond it was becoming faint.
“Take me with you, Lee Suhyeok!”
The gate connecting Headquarters and the dimension was closing.
“Suhyeok!”
Stretching out her hand, Ju-ah ran with all her strength.
Please… no!
But—
“Ugh!”
Crash!
The completely sealed space snapped shut and violently flung Ju-ah backward.
