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chapter 4
Baek Ihyun stared at me expressionlessly. I repeated myself.
“Nothing. Even if I tell you, you won’t remember.”
“You’re saying we lived in the same house, yet you have no proof?”
“Exactly. Nothing. If you don’t remember me, how could I possibly prove our relationship?”
“Then I’ll ask a question you can answer. How did people survive?”
This topic had come up several times already. By now, I felt not just fear but genuine curiosity.
“I kept the exit from closing and forcibly signaled people to come here.”
“Then the Orb’s generation would stop.”
“Of course, but…”
“‘Of course, but…?’”
“Yes, but I couldn’t just leave people to die…”
“No.”
Baek Ihyun cut me off coldly.
“I’m talking about something else. You claim you’ve never played the game and aren’t a developer—so how do you know about the Orb?”
“Well, it’s on the status window…”
“Status window?”
Baek Ihyun’s face stiffened slightly. He asked sharply:
“What does it say now?”
I panicked and glanced around. The status window that had been persistently following me earlier had disappeared. I hadn’t even noticed in my flustered state.
“It’s gone now.”
“Call it up.”
“What?”
“The status window. Call it up.”
Putting aside how to summon a status window that appears and disappears at will, I felt a strange sense of unease.
Can everyone see it?
A chill ran down my spine. I had assumed the status window was something only I could see. But apparently, it wasn’t.
Now that I thought about it, I’d never talked about the status window with anyone else. I glanced at the people crouched behind me. A few of them made eye contact with me. They all looked confused.
A few even subtly shook their heads at me.
The soldiers around us were the same. Unlike the impassive Baek Ihyun, their tension was obvious.
It wasn’t just that Baek Ihyun had appeared and enforced discipline.
Only I could see it.
I looked back at Baek Ihyun. My stance was clear.
“Secure my safety first.”
Baek Ihyun didn’t respond. He just watched me with those observing eyes. That unfamiliar demeanor tightened my throat.
I planted my feet firmly on the ground. I had to hold back my emotions. Swallowing the urge to embrace him, I said precisely:
“Until then, I won’t follow orders.”
“Ah, I’m going to die.”
Jang Seokju groaned as he tossed his wire-rim glasses onto the metal table. He looked utterly exasperated.
He sat opposite Baek Ihyun and idly picked up and put down any mug from the cluttered table.
Baek Ihyun silently slid a lukewarm teacup toward him. Jang Seokju drank it in one gulp and exhaled loudly.
In a hoarse voice, he asked,
“Where did you bring someone like that from?”
Baek Ihyun didn’t answer. Everything was on the chart.
2-B Zone, outskirts. Gate 13. Opened after 2 years, 4 months, 5 days. Excavated item: 1 Orb (1.2g). Surviving outsiders: 32. One outsider claimed to have seen the status window. Considering the collective relevance of the statements, Baek Ihyun, commander of the 207th Special Task Battalion, ordered the suspension of all outsider executions and arranged transfer.
Jang Seokju wasn’t asking because he didn’t know; the situation was just that unusual. Even Baek Ihyun, who had grown indifferent to everything after countless life-risking battles, found it hard to believe.
Moreover, the other party claimed to be a close friend. The woman’s tears were far too genuine to dismiss as lies…
No.
Baek Ihyun unconsciously tightened his closed mouth.
She had nothing to do with him.
It was public knowledge that Baek Ihyun had no memory before being discovered by the military, so impersonators often tried to approach him.
Some sent elaborate stories via messages but couldn’t meet his gaze in person, and some even had loosely organized groups.
He was used to approaches like that.
Now that Baek Ihyun was fully established, such small-time schemes couldn’t reach him anymore.
So this time, whoever sent her probably had a major background.
Yet, using such a shallow tactic and picking such a person—it was impressive.
Her appearance was exactly to his taste.
More accurately, since he usually didn’t care about the opposite sex, he had only realized his own preferences upon seeing her.
Of course, she was probably chosen to appear charming to anyone, to mislead him—but it was still surprising.
Moreover, her character was altruistic. No outsider had ever survived a gate while also saving others; she had even left the Orb behind despite knowing about it.
Few people were like that.
It was refreshing.
Her reason for saving others was also unusual: “Because they were my friend.”
Clearly, whoever sent her had made a significant mistake—or she had memorized the script incorrectly.
Otherwise, it made no sense. He would have left them all behind and taken the Orb first. That’s normal thinking.
And above all…
Baek Ihyun raised his eyes. Jang Seokju re-positioned his glasses and stared intently at his tablet.
His heavily furrowed brow looked serious—a rare expression for a frontline-hardened researcher.
“Can outsiders see the status window?”
Jang Seokju shrugged without looking away from the tablet.
“How would I know?”
“We have to report this to the Daga clan council in an hour. Should I just tell them as it is?”
“Goodness, always so stiff… For now…”
Jang Seokju turned the tablet toward us. On the CCTV feed, the woman appeared.
She was sprawled unconscious across a metal experiment table. Measuring wires attached to her limbs moved slowly with her faint breathing.
Baek Ihyun frowned. Red marks pressed and rubbed on her thin wrists and ankles were clear.
She must have struggled. These injuries weren’t there when she was coaxed into the lab under the pretext of a simple ID check.
“Isn’t she pretty?”
For a moment, Baek Ihyun thought he misheard. Jang Seokju pointed at the woman on the screen.
“Pretty, right?”
“Is that important right now?”
“Isn’t it a significant clue?”
Jang Seokju retorted. Only then did Baek Ihyun realize he had overreacted defensively.
Jang Seokju was thinking the same as him—a hypothesis that she might be lying and actually a spy sent by their enemy.
“To tempt a commander who treats women like stone, you’d naturally send the perfect woman, right? Pretty, kind, courageous, an outsider who saves people instead of taking the Orb… Where would you find someone like that? Every element to spark interest, yet…”
Jang Seokju lowered his voice.
“Suppose someone told this woman to approach the commander pretending to be his friend. Lies are easy. I was your friend, never played the game, not a developer, but I can see the status window. Sure, that outsider act is novel, but it’s the same pattern as the usual frauds. But if she touched the dimension, it changes everything.”
He tapped the tablet to bring up a chart.
“This woman, you see, did not die and cross over here.”
If anyone other than Jang Seokju had said that, Baek Ihyun wouldn’t have believed it.
When someone who had ever accessed the game in the other world dies and passes through the Gate to this world, they were called outsiders. There were no other cases.
“She said she logged in with someone else’s ID, lost consciousness when a flash of light occurred, and woke up inside the Gate. Usually, people don’t answer that way, right?”
