RTN 11

When I opened my eyes everything was white.

Not a door, not even the faintest seam — just a smooth, solid whiteness. I lay collapsed alone in that vast space.

I sat up and stared around dazedly, then snapped back to myself and checked my body. White shirt, white pants. Bare feet. My hair was loose and messy.

A hair tie lay on the floor. I picked it up and tied my hair back; my hands trembled slightly. I couldn’t tell whether it was nerves from the unfamiliar situation or an aftereffect from swallowing the golden jelly.

Did I even eat it properly?

I examined myself again. Outwardly at least I seemed fine. The terrible stomach pain that had struck when I first swallowed the jelly had vanished as if it had never been there.

Surely they hadn’t taken it back out of me?

My chest dropped. Maybe they had extracted the weapon while I was unconscious and locked me here.

If that were true it would be the worst. That would give the military one more reason to kill me. The moment I could no longer prove that I can see the status window, it was obvious they’d slaughter me along with the others.

The others should still be alive, right?

I had no idea how much time had passed since I blacked out in the security room. Same for whether the others were alive.

My palms, pressed to the floor, were sweaty. Until I fell here they were strangers to me, but thinking that over thirty people were waiting just for news about me made the responsibility weigh heavy.

I stood up. My legs felt weak and I swayed a little, but I didn’t fall.

First I needed to see if there was a way out. I was about to press at the walls to try and shove one aside when a clanking sound sounded above my head.

Something dark jutted down from the high ceiling. Its tip flashed smoothly in the light, and when it began to move toward me I threw myself sideways on instinct.

KRAK!

A thunderous blast erupted where I had been standing. Smoke cleared and revealed a cratered floor. At the same moment a squealing noise came from overhead.

When I lifted my head my skin crawled. Black gun barrels were jutting out all over the ceiling. There must have been a dozen or so.

The clanking of loading echoed. It wasn’t just one this time. They were going to fire in volleys.

I planted my feet and braced. The curse slipped out of me automatically.

“Goddamn….”

They expect her to dodge that.

Central control room. The massive video wall screens each tracked the same target obsessively from different angles.

A woman—rolling, running, narrowly evading a barrage of bombardments—was being followed closely on the screens. Kim Do-woon watched with his arms folded.

Even watching it, it was hard to believe. A few people murmured softly.

“How is she dodging that?”

“Either she’s trained, or her reaction time makes no sense.”

She moved her body well. I’d sensed it from the first time I saw her. There was an attitude in her that showed she could push her body to its limits.

Even when everyone else lay flat, she alone refused to give up—she crawled away, wriggling free; when they tried to subdue her she pushed and sprang up without flinching, constantly scanning for openings. I was surprised when she pushed off despite having someone step on her back. She hadn’t even used full strength—she clearly knew how to fight.

And now she had been avoiding indiscriminate bombardment for five minutes. This was a test meant only to threaten the target—no cover, no support.

“This is never going to end. She shows no sign of tiring.”

“Did she already eat S-rank?”

“That’d be irrelevant if her ability hasn’t manifested yet—this is probably just her baseline stamina.”

“If we push her into a corner, the status window should appear, right?”

“Theoretically, yes.”

The problem was she wouldn’t be cornered.

Kim Do-woon clicked his tongue inwardly. She didn’t need the status window—she was dodging perfectly alone. And her movement was getting more efficient; it was obvious she’d learned the fire pattern.

“Shall we just target them all at once?”

“And if she dies? Want to destroy an S-rank?”

“Such a hassle. Either way she’s a fraud….”

One researcher grumbled, then was elbowed by a soldier and fell silent.

After that nobody spoke carelessly. All they could hear through the mock combat room’s microphones were the woman’s low curses and rough breaths as she dodged the attacks.

A few glanced at this side of the room. They were too ashamed to look at Baek Yi-hyun directly, so they sought his opinion by looking our way.

Kim Do-woon nodded toward the screen. It meant shut up and focus on your work. Even if the test looked pointless, if it was Baek Yi-hyun’s order they had to follow it.

Since entering the control room Baek Yi-hyun had been silent, staring only at the woman on the screen. As always, emotionless, offering no explanation.

That made no sense to Kim Do-woon—Baek Yi-hyun prioritized practical results over procedure.

He sometimes exercised flexibility to an extreme, flagrantly overriding military law. For someone like him to spend precious time on a test like this made no sense.

This was too FM—too informal. There were more efficient, unofficial methods. For example, torture….

“Are the strangers Seol A-yeon saved still on the transport ship?”

Kim Do-woon for a moment didn’t catch Baek Yi-hyun’s question. Calling the strangers by a proper name sounded strange.

Yet his mouth moved and he answered. Habit from the battlefield—obeying orders immediately without judgment—was ingrained.

“Yes. They’re all detained.”

“Bring me the youngest one.”

This time there was no immediate reply. All the soldiers’ gazes shifted from the screen to this side. Baek Yi-hyun said, extremely dryly,

“The youngest and weakest.”

So it’s a test.

I felt certain of that. They wouldn’t have allocated such a huge space just to kill me. They could have blown my head off right away.

So I wasn’t being executed right away. Once I realized that, the turrets’ motions became clearer.

After dodging their attacks tens of times and nearly identifying their pattern, part of the floor suddenly clicked and dropped down with a heavy thunk. A small figure rose up in the opening like a projection, then the floor closed smoothly.

Our eyes met. A frightened face. A familiar face. The kid who had stuck to me on the transport ship.

Oh no.

Blood rushed to my head. How could they—no matter what—

“Hey, you bastards!”

I shouted as if trying to vomit the words.

“Are you even human? Are you sane?!”

The ceiling turrets that had been tracking me flowed smoothly and settled, aiming at the kid.

I pushed off the floor and ran toward the child. There was no other choice.

I had to save them no matter what.

The strangers had cooperated with me. I needed them too—their information, and everything else they could help with. We were a community of fate, in a way. Losing that kid was unacceptable; that reason surfaced as a justification even as I ran.

I ran with all my strength, staring at the child’s terrified face.

I wanted to tell them it would be okay. Don’t be afraid. I’d get them out somehow.

Was Baek Yi-hyun like this too—did he feel the same when he protected me from the flames? If I had grown even a little stronger since that day, it was all thanks to Baek Yi-hyun.

I threw myself and grabbed the kid hard. Strangely, there was no warmth coming into my arms. My hands, my arms, my torso passed right through the child and I collapsed miserably onto the floor.

When I swallowed a groan and lifted my head, the child was gone. A hologram. Relief came before the hollow feeling of having been tricked. At least they hadn’t used a real child as bait.

I pushed myself up immediately. But it was too late to dodge—the attack was almost on top of me. Instinctively I wrapped both arms around my head and curled into a ball.

With a hissing sound a chill swept around me. At the same time a force snapped out and struck from all directions. It sounded like rain hammering on a tin roof.

I stayed curled up, tensed, for a while.

When the whiteness settled and several seconds had passed I loosened up and lifted my head a little. The scene wasn’t clear. I lowered the hands that had been covering my head and raised my chin further.

What I saw first were translucent windows. Dozens of status windows were circling slowly around me, densely packed, each sounding a warning.

Beyond them the floor was completely destroyed and in ruins. The status windows had repelled the attack.

I reached out toward the windows. The status windows that had previously let my body pass through now could be touched. They felt smooth and cool like glass. The status windows had materialized.

And their contents. All the windows showed the same message.

[If safety is not secured within 1 minute, everything within a 100 km radius will be reduced to nothing.]