The outside of the Outer Rim is also called Gyeongoe—the realm beyond awe.

Only the strongest of the Regular Awakened operate in this place.

Woo Min-hee, Na Hye-in, and Kang Han-min are the primary figures active here.

Perhaps Jeong Dae-kyung worked here as well, but there’s no record of that.

There are no iron towers that change color with temperature in Gyeongoe, but they say it’s still impossible to lose your way.

That much was true.

Someone had built those stone pagodas you usually see next to temples.

Had they been normal stone pagodas, they might’ve felt quaint, but here, someone had stacked stones weighing from several kilograms to several dozen kilograms into towering piles.

It was probably Woo Min-hee’s doing.

Both in terms of ability and personal taste.

She’s not a Buddhist, but apparently she liked visiting temples.

She once said she liked the calm atmosphere.

Those stone pagodas were positioned precisely at each point where one might lose their way, and thanks to them, I was able to advance without losing my path even once through this land of darkness I’d never seen before.

As I’d sensed since entering the Outer Rim, the deeper I went, the rougher the terrain became.

There were times I walked for half a day up a slope close to a ten-degree incline, and I had to detour around giant blade-like rocks jutting up from the ground.

The first real threat came on the second day after entering Gyeongoe.

While dozing briefly, leaning against a boulder, I felt a presence.

Something vaguely human loomed in front of me.

What I had clearly sensed as a person turned out to be a bizarre creature resembling a sea lily, with a pale gray hue.

Judging by its size—about the wingspan of a human with arms outstretched—it didn’t seem like a monster but more like an interdimensional lifeform.

It drifted through the air, fluttering like a ghost, before suddenly lunging at me.

Crack!

I reacted instantly.

Two swings of the axe struck the thing, leaving deep gouges in its head and torso.

After those two blows, the creature glowed in midair, then was absorbed into space itself and disappeared.

“......”

Like I’d just seen a ghost.

But it had been real.

And yet, what does “real” even mean?

There’s something I’ve always felt ever since entering the Rift.

The boundary between reality and illusion is blurred.

It’s similar to—but not the same as—that time in the past when I was crushed in the Rift with all my limbs broken.

Back then, what I felt was an absolute silence no different from death.

Now, it’s different.

It might be some kind of auditory hallucination tied to mental illness, but I keep hearing something—something that sounds vaguely like a voice, without pause.

Just like the gaze that kept brushing against me, pricking at my senses again and again.

There was no physical sensation, no tactile or auditory stimulation, but that sea lily-like ghost just now had made me feel a distinct chill.

Exactly.

It’s all so diverse.

Maybe it’s because, back then, I only ever operated near the entrance to the Rift, but the eerie gazes and noise that seemed to echo at the edge of the audible spectrum—those were always there, even from the entrance.

Why?

Is it because of the change Jeong Dae-kyung triggered in me?

Could be.

I can’t deny that I’m not ordinary.

But I want to carefully propose another hypothesis.

What if the change I’m sensing in the environment isn’t due to me changing—but because the Rift itself has changed?

There’s no way to prove the Rift is alive, but most who operate within it, myself included, know it from experience.

Necropolis uses the inexplicable wavelengths emitted by the Rift.

Maybe that wavelength from Necropolis has reverberated beyond the Rift itself, and what I’m hearing is just the afterecho.

The grueling incline finally ended.

A vast plain unfolded before me.

Unfortunately, the crevasse—what I’d hoped to find, the giant fissure in the earth—was nowhere to be seen.

Looks like this journey will stretch out a bit longer.

Still, I could smile.

At the boundary where the slope turned downward, something resembling a snowman stood.

Its eyes were drawn on as if carved from sharp metal—it had to be the work of a person. Probably Woo Min-hee.

Back in school, she definitely had a mischievous streak.

I recall Kim Daram once grumbling about their school days.

When he played pranks, it was a horror movie. When she did, it was a romantic comedy.

Personally, I thought Kim ~Nоvеl𝕚ght~ Daram was kind of cute in those days, but opinions vary.

A woman with a physique better than most men—if she pulled a prank on you, I suppose it’d be more terrifying than funny.

Some folks now treat her like just a regular mom, but that’s only because they never saw her scale a wall like a water-soaked swallow, hurl a brick at a hostile civilian’s skull, subdue everyone around her with a handgun, then poke holes in a monster with a heavy sniper rifle.

A faint laugh escaped my lips.

Intentional.

You have to keep thinking out here.

Only by doing that can your mind stay intact, unscarred by the chilling gazes, whispers, shifts in temperature, and ghostlike beings that appear and vanish around you.

In that regard, Kang Han-min was someone other Awakened naturally admired.

They say that around him, these negative currents are completely shut out.

The power he’s shown—though rarely—doesn’t so much destroy monsters as dismantle them. The technical term is Form Nullification.

From this, it seems Kang Han-min knows how to sever the energy flow connecting the Rift and the beings linked to it.

That’s his known ability.

But I think he’s gone further.

If what I saw is real, and if my memories aren’t distorted by hallucination, Kang Han-min has reached a stage I don’t even understand.

Whether that’s evolution or regression... we’ll have to see.

Uncertainty amplifies fear and anxiety, but despite that, one firm belief has drawn me toward Kang Han-min.

That belief is that Kang Han-min harbors the same flame of hatred that I do.

Losing family, losing someone you love, losing your everyday life—that’s not rare.

Even Kim Daram is in the same situation as me.

But her hatred doesn’t run as deep.

She turned her eyes to reality, trying to paint over her painful past with the fresh colors of new connections.

We’re different.

Sometimes, I can’t even remember my family’s faces anymore—but the flame of hatred I felt back then still burns inside our souls.

That resonance of emotion can only be felt by someone who carries the same fire.

The issue is method.

Even if two people share the same hatred, the way that hatred burns is never the same.

Since our school days, I knew Kang Han-min lived by a completely different worldview and thought process than mine.

I was always the one labeled cold and heartless—Park Gyu.

But I know.

The one who’s truly merciless, who has not even a drop of blood left in his veins, is Kang Han-min.

He’s waiting for me.

Lee Dong-hyeon may have served as a catalyst, but the closer I get to my destination, the more certain I become that the gaze that’s been following me since I entered the Rift belongs to Kang Han-min.

A sudden question arises.

Is Kang Han-min still human?

Or is he a monster?

Or maybe... something else entirely?

Just my imagination.

It’s now the fifth day since I entered Gyeongoe.

Even Woo Min-hee’s markers are no longer in sight.

But I know I’ve reached the end of the journey.

Beyond a field of jagged rocks that pierce the sky like horns and a plain of madness where colossal types are born, I see the great fissure in the earth—like it’s been torn open by a god’s blade.

The Crevasse.

The place where the Rift’s nerves lie.

Now that I can see my destination, the worry and tension I’ve held so far begin to loosen.

I finally have space to look around.

From several kilometers away to within a kilometer, I see colossal types being generated—none of which I recognize.

The only one I can somewhat identify is a massive humanoid figure resembling a giant.

On this infinite plain where the giant types are born, I stripped down.

Like the desert tribes once did, I rubbed my body with the fine sand that made up the Rift’s soil, wiped the vulnerable areas with wet tissues, used dry shampoo, washed my face with cleansing tissues, and even used mouthwash to cleanse myself. Then I changed into fresh underwear.

Especially the underwear—I wore a pair I had never used before.

You could call them my “victory underwear.”

Bright red, like blood—triangle briefs that show how serious I am.

Normally, I prefer boxer-briefs.

But wearing new clothes, I felt renewed in both body and spirit.

I think it was the right choice.

Humans often find happiness in small satisfactions.

Buoyed by a moment of cheer, I let myself think about a topic I’d deliberately avoided until now.

Not Kang Han-min’s intentions—something else.

When I return to Earth, what should I do?

First, I’ll go back to the bunker. That’s certain.

Even before I left, the signs of war were everywhere. By now, cities might already be burning.

Ha Tae-hoon rebuilt the bunker—though I didn’t see the full details, the craftsmanship looked solid.

Frustratingly, I have to admit he’s a more seasoned carpenter than me.

It’s also a given that the bunker will have a new resident.

Woo Min-hee will come.

But will she really come?

We did make a sort-of promise, but we’re both old enough to know—

Just because people make promises doesn’t mean they keep them.

And even when they don’t, it doesn’t always end in disappointment.

Timing and circumstance are everything.

I’d say the odds aren’t that high.

But even with that slim expectation—if she does come... well.

How should I arrange the bunker?

Just because a man and a woman live together doesn’t mean it has to be like a honeymoon suite.

I’ve been alone a long time.

I’m more individualistic than I expected, and like all elegant but powerful carnivores, I love solitude and have a strong territorial instinct.

Maybe I could expand the bunker.

Turn the old bunker that Ha Tae-hoon left as a dummy into her personal space.

If she’s there, raiders won’t be an issue.

And if—though it’s still hard to imagine—our relationship improves, we can adjust as needed.

It’s strange.

The only person I’ve ever felt anything like affection for was Na Hye-in, and yet the one I might end up with is Woo Min-hee.

Well, I always thought she was pretty, even in school.

She’s got scars now, and some of her body is crippled, but the beauty doesn’t just disappear.

There’s about five kilometers left to the Crevasse.

I fed John Nae-non and fired up my thinking circuits again.

The next topic: farming, scavenging, and raiding—the economic activities of the collapse era and their relative efficiency.

This was a frequent topic back on the early Viva! Apocalypse! Korean forums—a community made up mostly of successful, forward-thinking middle-aged men.

You’d think farming would be the least efficient, but it’s the opposite.

Farming is the most efficient. Then comes scavenging.

Raiding is the worst.

Too much risk and cost. Even when it succeeds, the reward often doesn’t match the effort.

Farming might seem hard, thankless, and unprofitable—but humanity didn’t build civilization on farmland for no reason.

Anyone who’s ever farmed, even on a small scale, knows.

Just how abundant and gracious the land can be.

How vibrant and fast life grows from it.

I’ll farm.

When I return.

Maybe with Woo Min-hee. And, if possible, a girl who resembles her.

I’m pretty good at farming.

I learned the essence of it from Kim Elder.

“......”

That’s where my thoughts cut off.

And in that moment of silence, the things I’d failed to notice came alive like ghosts and disturbed my senses.

A chill with no cause. A buzzing noise in my ears that grows harder to endure. Gaze after gaze stabbing through me like spears. An eerie presence. And occasionally, the hallucination of a monster—or a human.

I hunched my shoulders.

Is this the Rift?

Is this why people go mad?

There was a time when I couldn’t understand why Na Hye-in feared entering the Rift.

Now, I owe her an apology.

Even I—dull as I am—feel this much.

What kind of pain must the Awakened, with even greater Rift tolerance, have endured?

I was short-sighted.

I need to focus again.

What should I think about next?

Right.

Let’s think about people.

The precious ones, or the memorable ones.

Countless faces pass through my mind.

Jang Ki-young, M9, Foxgames, Baek Seung-hyun, Kim Daram, her husband and child, Melon Mask, IAmJesus, Gong Gyeong-min, Jeon Si-hoon, the friends of Viva! Apocalypse!, Dies Irae, Na Hye-in, Kang Han-min, and...

That’s where I’ll stop.

The dragons have appeared.

They had human forms. Eyes that gleamed.

Wearing combat uniforms I recognized. They stared directly at me and approached.

There was no avoiding this. No hiding. It was fate.

Soon, we faced each other.

I looked at them blankly, and the one in front spoke.

“You’re Hunter Park Gyu, right?”

I nodded amid a feverish hallucination.

“Savior Kang Han-min is waiting for you.”

Far in the distance, I saw a familiar face.

Na Hye-in.

With a sorrowful expression, arms long and elegant at her sides, she was watching me from afar.

Whether that figure was an illusion or reality, I’ll have to wait and see.

With that thought, I staggered forward.