I haven’t gone on a trip since losing my family.

Unless you count deployments for missions or reassignments as travel.

Still, there were places I wanted to see.

Like the ruins buried in the sands of Ozymandias, or the Nazca lines—vague longings to one day witness them with my own eyes.

That kind of trip wouldn’t be some physically demanding backpacking journey.

Certainly not a trek across a barren, gray wasteland like inside a Rift.

Even so, I once tried to formulate a kind of doctrine for long-term operations beyond the Rift.

Say what you will, but the Rift itself is remarkably hospitable to humans.

Temperature, humidity, air pressure, atmospheric composition, manageable gravity.

It’s no coincidence that people once saw the Rift as a new opportunity.

The problem lies beyond that friendliness.

A landscape that induces depression, an environment devoid of water or food, monsters that appear sporadically.

Over time, humanity discovered that there’s an invisible force within the Rift that warps and erodes the human mind.

Faith was the first proposed method to resist the Rift.

In fact, devout believers tended to endure longer and more stably within the Rift environment.

But I have no faith.

There was no room left in me for faith, with hatred already deeply rooted in my heart.

In the end, my conclusion was simple: endure it.

There’s no point in twisting and turning to avoid the unavoidable—it only leads to greater inefficiency.

The habit of cleverly profiting from every situation can result in a single catastrophic, perhaps irreversible loss.

So I just stare out at the gray earth and take another step forward.

The key is to minimize psychological stress as much as possible.

In an inevitably stressful environment like a long march, tools are the best way to reduce that stress.

As the director of Room 803, I selected the finest equipment I could obtain.

For boots, I picked a Gore-Tex model that’s ergonomically designed to reduce strain on the ankles even after long walks. For the backpack, I chose the time-tested ALICE pack known for its military use.

Jang Ji-young calls it an “Aris-baek,” and unintentionally, the pack turned out to be a perfect fit with the exoskeleton I wear on my lower body.

Marching isn’t exactly our line of work as Hunters.

Even back in school, they never made us do march training.

One instructor once tried to introduce it into the curriculum, but Jang Ji-young had a fit, yelling that Hunters weren’t grunts—and the idea was immediately scrapped.

So for the internal layout of the military backpack, I actively consulted advice from soldiers.

Heavy, rarely used items go at the bottom; light, frequently accessed items go on top.

That arrangement helps manage the center of gravity and minimizes the energy loss—and with it, the continuous stress—that comes from imbalance during long treks.

I added a special customization to the backpack.

While based on the ALICE pack, I had it modularized so that in an emergency, I could detach parts of it.

The detachable modules included food and weapons.

Both vital assets with their own distinct importance.

Inside the detachable portion, I packed spare underwear.

Dirty underwear isn’t just unsanitary—it’s terrible for stress management.

In the same spirit, I brought dry shampoo and cleansing wipes, anything that could help with hygiene without needing water, as long as the weight allowed it.

I’ve never done special forces training—rubbing mud on my face and rolling around in shit—and I never will.

All I want is to maintain a condition that lets me fight at 100% when the time comes.

In case of the worst possible scenario, I brought psychotropic drugs.

Of course, this is only a last resort.

When there’s absolutely no other way to manage stress, when I feel myself collapsing—then and only then would those so-called narcotic painkillers be used, and even then only as a medically recommended prescription.

Still, I doubt I’ll ever actually take them.

They're more like a good-luck charm.

A significant portion of the backpack is taken up by food, as an extension of the previously mentioned stress management strategy.

Within the limits of weight and resources, I prepared items that could bring maximum joy and nutrition.

I packed a lot of candy in particular, and even one can of yellow peach syrup—Soo’s favorite.

That can, made before the war, might end up being my final luxury meal.

According to Cho Yong-goo, it takes about a week on foot to reach the known end of the Rift, called the Crevasse—but that’s not certain.

He’s never actually gone all the way there either.

At most, he probably just wandered near the Outer Rim entrance and turned back repeatedly.

This was the mindset I prepared for the journey.

Fortunately, there was a path.

Iron towers, resembling power transmission towers, stood at wide intervals, stretching into the distance.

These towers were installed to respond to various natural phenomena occurring in the Outer Rim.

In particular, they were built to manage the wide-area, extreme temperature changes said to occur frequently out here—hence the towers change color at different height segments depending on the surrounding temperature.

"The base color is a dull black. Once it exceeds 25°C, the middle segment turns a lighter black. Over 30°C, a soft blue appears on the upper midsection. That blue grows darker, and at 50°C, the segment just below the top turns white. If it exceeds 100°C, the very top becomes red. It sounds dangerously hot, but up to 100°C is still considered survivable—like how people don’t die in a sauna. Beyond that, survival can’t be guaranteed. That’s why you have to keep checking with a telescope constantly."

The towers are designed to change color using purely chemical composition—no energy input like bulbs or LEDs—so the color change isn’t bright or clear.

Constant observation is the only way to avoid being slow-cooked alive inside the Rift.

Thankfully, such terrifying phenomena are rare.

Still, one incident is enough to kill everything, which is why so much equipment and cost was poured into building the temperature-detection system.

There are countless other horrifying phenomena in the Outer Rim, but those are problems I’ll have to face myself.

I marched for one full day.

In this world of no night or day, I didn’t bother sticking to a 24-hour rhythm.

I walked for 2 hours, then rested for 10 to 20 minutes. If I walked more than 8 hours, I made sure to rest for at least 1 full hour.

I’ve never «N.o.v.e.l.i.g.h.t» needed much sleep anyway, so I kept it to about 4 hours—but the quality of my sleep was poor.

Every time I closed my eyes, the unnerving sensation I felt from the moment I entered this place—of someone watching me—intensified.

Those who’ve experienced the inside of the Rift say what I’m going through is actually very mild.

Even someone mentally strong like Kim Hanna told me that whenever she closed her eyes, she saw people she’d watched die gruesomely, still breathing and trying to speak, or dead family members standing with their backs turned and unmoving.

It’s clear that some sense I’m unaware of is being overstimulated in a way I can’t perceive.

Stay in this gray world long enough, and disorientation, anxiety, apathy, and cognitive dissonance start piling up as a set.

If a shaman came here, they’d say it’s full of ghosts.

Those who believe in the afterlife might say this is what lies beyond death.

But this place isn’t the spirit world or the hereafter.

It’s a real, tangible world we simply don’t understand.

There was one unexpected comfort.

John Nae-non.

My quiet, docile little friend tucked in my chest would occasionally come out to eat with me. Its fuzzy body, adorable appearance, and the mere fact that it was alive and warm like me brought immense comfort.

“John Nae-non.”

I called its name every time I fed it.

It never responded, of course—but maybe it was because this environment was so hostile to life that I gradually started feeling closer to it.

I spent a full week like that, marching alone through isolation and internal madness.

I hadn’t encountered any boiling-frog zones or similar phenomena yet.

But on the seventh day, around 4:30 AM Seoul Standard Time, I finally saw a monster.

An unprecedented giant species—something I had never seen before—suddenly appeared 12 km away. No warning.

Horrifyingly, it resembled a human... but wasn’t human.

It moved with an awkward quadrupedal gait, like a person forcing themselves to crawl on hands and feet, pacing erratically across the vast plain below.

I continued walking along the railroad track, keeping it to my side.

Two hours later, the giant collapsed on its own and began convulsing. Four hours after that, it disintegrated into particles of light.

Unlike on Earth, particles of light vanish rapidly in the Rift.

Almost as if the Rift itself absorbs them.

What just happened is hard to explain.

If I had to guess, maybe it was a prototype test?

The Rift creating a new monster and testing whether it's viable or not.

Still, ever since I entered, one question keeps gnawing at me.

A question I’ve long pushed to the back of my mind—one that countless scholars and sages have pondered: what exactly is the Rift?

I knew it was unprovable, untestable—that’s why I deliberately ignored it. But every time I witness an incomprehensible scene like that, the question rears its head again.

I shoved the rising doubt back into the shadows and kept walking.

“······.”

A sudden chill crawled down my spine.

One of the towers, spaced every 3km, had changed color.

That alone wouldn’t have rattled me this much.

But the tower behind it—and the one behind that—had also turned a soft shade of black in their middle sections.

At some point, without me realizing, the temperature had gone up.

According to scholars, humans can’t actually feel temperature itself—we only sense how quickly heat is transferred to or from us.

I’m human too.

My body has no sensory organ linked to the brain that tells me the exact temperature.

My eyes were the only things alerting me to the ambient shift, and in this hallucinatory, psychotic landscape, I had gotten careless.

I didn’t expect the color change on the tower to be this subtle.

But one thing was certain: I’d entered a boiling-frog zone.

Panic started to rise.

Not full-on despair, but a sickening anxiety blared in my mind like a broken alarm clock.

I steadied myself and pulled out the telescope.

I scanned the towers.

They were all the same color now, but I searched for the one that looked even slightly darker.

I couldn’t find it.

My anxiety deepened. I felt like my body would burst into flames from the heat at any moment.

This was a time for a Professor’s mindset, not a Skeleton’s.

It wasn’t hard.

Because I was both a Skeleton and a Professor.

“······.”

At the 11km mark, northwest—arbitrarily labeled for convenience—one tower still retained its full dark-black base.

I began fast-walking.

I checked the thermometer, but it didn’t show much change.

Thermometers still worked inside the Rift, but for unknown reasons, they responded more slowly than they did on Earth.

People who operate in the Rift aren’t idiots.

There’s a reason, even while the country was collapsing, that they spent a fortune installing temperature-reactive metal alloy sensors.

There’s only one thing to rely on here.

The towers.

I was walking fast, but the destination was still far.

The perceived temperature was still low.

They say even inside boiling zones, the rise can be gradual.

The problem was the range.

Anywhere from several kilometers to dozens of kilometers could see temperatures swing by hundreds of degrees.

If you were dead center, not even a vehicle could save you—you’d be cooked alive.

Thankfully, the nearby towers were still black.

No—

A faint blue was beginning to appear.

There was no change in how it felt on my skin, but the temperature was clearly rising.

The backpack on my back felt heavier than ever, but I picked up the pace.

11km.

A long distance—or short, depending on how you look at it.

Five minutes passed.

I was getting closer to the tower, but the Rift never plays fair.

“······.”

The tower I was heading toward began to shift to blue.

The safe zone had now moved at least another 6km ahead.

Wuuuung wuuuung wuuuung—

That was when a strange humming started vibrating in my ears.

The surrounding towers were trembling.

Whether from the temperature change or from whatever force was causing that change, I didn’t know—but the towers themselves were shaking, scattering ghostly, keening wails through the gray expanse.

Wuuuung wuuuung wuuuung—

In the mind-crushing high-frequency noise, I considered my options.

Should I run?

Or maintain this pace?

The blue was getting darker.

30 degrees? Maybe 40.

Boiling zones heat up slowly at first, but once they reach 100 degrees, the acceleration becomes rapid and uncontrollable.

I set a redline in my head.

White.

I would run once it reached 50 degrees.

If it hit 100, I’d drop the pack.

I’d ditch the weapons.

The firearms, ammo, Hunter weapons—all of it.

If I were right near my objective, I might’ve made a different decision.

With that thought, I pushed my pace harder.

My mind was racing, but I didn’t throw off my balance.

But the Rift doesn’t wait.

Wuuuung wuuuung wuuuung—

The sound grew louder.

And then—

Drip.

Sweat began to bead on my forehead.

Not from exertion.

I could feel the heat in the air itself.

A sliver of white appeared on the tower.

I took a deep breath and began to run.

This wasn’t just a fast walk—this was a sprint that slammed against my heart with every step.

I still had 5km to go until the safe zone.

My life was hanging by a thread.

“Huff! Huff!”

Even when I run, my breathing rarely grows ragged, but the burden of life inside the Rift and this weight—no matter how trained I am—pressed hard.

Even with some supplies gone, I was still carrying nearly 30kg of gear.

WUUUUUNG WUUUUUNG WUUUUUNG-------!!

The towers howled more fiercely.

Heat shimmered in the air.

And in that shimmer, mirages of human-like figures flickered—but I ignored them.

All I saw was reality.

My destination was now just 1km ahead.

BEEEEEEEEEEEP----!!

As the tower screamed like a beast, the topmost segment began to change color.

100 degrees.

Lethal heat.

I yanked the release on my pack.

Time to ditch the weapons.

But the gear didn’t detach.

There was no time to stop and unfasten things properly.

Still in full stride, I ran even harder, slamming my boots into the gray earth.

At some point, the heat wrapped around me like flames, and my vision turned white.

Huff— huff— huff—

All I could hear was the sound of my own breath.

Time was a blur, but I was moving in the right direction.

Probably 15 seconds left.

In 15 seconds, I’d reach the safe zone.

Huff— huff— huff—

Listening to the distant echoes of my own breathing, I moved like a machine.

Step, bear weight, push forward—one mechanical process after another.

Huff— huff—

Even the sound of my breath was growing faint.

My consciousness was fading.

BEEEEEEEEEEEP----

The tower’s shriek still pierced my dulled senses, but how much longer could I keep running?

That, I couldn’t know.

One thing, though, was certain:

No matter how hot the heat surrounding me burned, it wasn’t hotter than the hatred smoldering in my chest.

Through my blurring vision, pale shapes began to emerge.

Large forms.

People.

Woo Min-hee.

Viva! Apocalypse!

And Kang Han-min.

My final thoughts before blacking out.

*

I opened my eyes.

It didn’t take long to realize I was alive.

I turned my head.

The world began to move slowly.

The moment I became aware of that, I heard the sound of iron wheels turning nearby.

“······.”

I stifled a groan as I pieced my memory back together.

Right. That was it.

The human-powered train.

I was riding that train now.