Common Sense Hijack System-Chapter 94

The van was eerily silent. Karl sat in the middle seat, staring blankly ahead. Ella was next to him, her arms crossed tightly, radiating coldness. Lucy sat at the back, her sharp eyes focused on Valencia, who was in the front, directing the driver.

The only sound was the hum of the van’s engine as it cruised through the night. A faint chill crept in from a small crack in the window, adding to the awkward tension hanging in the air.

Karl finally broke the silence, his voice hesitant. "Where exactly are we going, Valencia?"

Valencia, busy with a small tablet in her hands, replied without looking up. "My place. It’s safe. No one knows about it, not even the Neosia."

"Safe?" Ella scoffed, her voice dripping with skepticism. "How do we know that? You haven’t explained anything."

Valencia sighed deeply, turning her head slightly, her face showing irritation but staying composed. "Listen, Little Girl. I don’t need to convince you. If you don’t want to come, you can get off now and try surviving on your own."

Ella’s hands clenched into fists, her face red with anger. "Stop calling me Little Girl! I’m old enough to know who to trust!"

"Oh, really?" Valencia chuckled lightly. "Because so far, all you’ve done is cause more problems than solutions. So forgive me if I’m a little skeptical about your maturity."

"Enough!" Lucy’s calm but firm voice cut through. "Both of you, stop. We don’t have time for this argument."

Karl glanced at his mom briefly before looking at Valencia again. "What’s at your place? Can we really stay safe there?"

Valencia nodded slowly, her tone serious. "Not just safe. We’ll have time to plan our next steps. You don’t want your mom and sister to keep being targets, do you?"

Karl nodded hesitantly, doubts still lingering in his mind. He then turned to his father, who was sitting silently in the far back corner of the van. David’s face was unreadable, but his eyes were sharp, as though he was lost in deep thought.

"Dad," Karl called softly. "Does any of this make sense to you? The Neosia, Homo Obscura... it feels like a never-ending nightmare."

David finally spoke, his voice low but steady. "Karl, the world is more complicated than you think. And this is just the beginning. You need to prepare yourself for more things that won’t make sense."

Karl swallowed hard, feeling a heavy weight settle on his chest. "So... I just have to accept that this is normal now?"

David looked at his son and gave him a faint, knowing smile. "Nothing is normal, Karl. But you’ll get used to it."

The van slowed down and stopped in front of a massive building with tall steel gates, looking like an abandoned military base. Valencia was the first to get out, typing a code into a panel beside the gate. The gate slowly creaked open, revealing a sprawling area filled with advanced technology and tactical vehicles.

"We’re here," Valencia said curtly. She turned to face them all. "Welcome to my last hideout."

One by one, Karl, Ella, Lucy, and David stepped out, scanning their surroundings with a mix of curiosity and wariness. The silence was no longer from awkwardness but from the tension of something larger closing in. Sirens and the distant sound of helicopter rotors filled the air—Neosia’s technology had found them.

Military forces approached them with heavy steps, their boots echoing across the vast courtyard they had just entered. Karl, David, Ella, Lucy, and Valencia braced themselves as the troops quickly surrounded them, weapons at the ready. But there was something different about the weapons.

Karl felt a tremor run through his body as a system alert echoed in his mind.

[ Warning. These weapons use unstable cosmic energy. Effects are unpredictable. Risk of cosmic explosion is high. ]

Karl turned quickly to David. "Dad, their weapons... those aren’t normal! They’re using cosmic energy!"

David, who had seemed calm until now, looked at the soldiers with a serious expression. "Cosmic energy? How could they have that?" he muttered, more to himself.

A commanding officer stepped forward, his uniform different and marked with the Neosia insignia. Holding a small microphone, his voice boomed. "David—or should I call you Origin—surrender now. We know who you are and what you’re capable of. Don’t make this harder than it needs to be."

Karl’s eyes widened. "Dad, they know about you!"

David raised a hand to calm Karl. "Of course they know. They’ve been after me for a long time. But they don’t know how far I can go."

The officer smirked. "Perhaps. But this time, we have something even you can’t stop." He gestured to a soldier behind him, who stepped forward with a massive futuristic cannon glowing with a blue core.

[ Cosmic energy detected ]

Karl heard the system’s alert and felt his blood run cold. "That weapon... they’re going to use it!"

David stepped forward to shield his family. "If you think that weapon can stop me, you’re mistaken."

The officer only laughed. "We’ll see, Origin. Fire!"

The cannon hummed to life, the blue energy in its core spinning faster and faster, producing a deafening whine. Before anyone could react, a massive blast of energy was unleashed, aimed directly at David. He raised his hands, creating a shield of cosmic energy to counter the attack.

But something strange happened. The energy from the cannon clashed with David’s shield, creating an unstable rift. The air around them felt like it was fracturing, with strange flashes of light appearing.

Karl felt a powerful force pulling at his body. "Dad! What’s happening?" he shouted.

David yelled back, "Karl, stay back! I’ll—"

A massive explosion erupted before David could finish. The wave of cosmic energy engulfed everything, shattering the structures around them. Karl felt himself being thrown, a blinding blue light filling his vision before everything went dark.

---

When Karl opened his eyes, he was groggy and disoriented. His body felt heavy as he struggled to sit up. Looking around, he realized he was in a place he didn’t recognize. The sky above was a dark purple, with streaks of strange green light. The ground was black, covered in glowing stones that shimmered faintly.

[ Warning. You have been transported to a parallel dimension due to the cosmic energy explosion. This location is not mapped within the main world. ]

Karl’s heart raced as he surveyed the alien landscape. "A parallel dimension? What? How do I get out of here?"

[ This dimension is a result of spatial-temporal disruptions. You must restore balance within this dimension to find your way back. ]

Karl bit his lip, trying to process the message. "Restore balance? What does that even mean? What do I have to do?"

[ Correct the disrupted common sense of this dimension. This world has experienced severe distortions in its laws of reality. Identify and fix the anomalies. ]

Karl frowned deeply. "Common sense? So, I have to... make this world make sense again?"

[ Correct. Identify and fix the elements that don’t align with natural logic. Each correction will bring you closer to a portal back to the main dimension. ]

Karl let out a long sigh, steadying himself. "Alright. If that’s the only way to get back... I’ll do it."

He started walking, his eyes scanning for anything out of place in this twisted world. But one thing was certain—he had to return to his family and uncover the truth behind everything that had happened.

Karl walked slowly through the dimension that felt like a nightmare. His footsteps crunched softly on the black ground, which felt both soft and cold, like damp sand. The sharp smell of metal lingered in the air, mixed with a strange atmosphere—it wasn’t cold, but it pierced right through him. In the distance, he spotted a structure that didn’t look right: a building with a shape that curved unnaturally, as if frozen mid-flow in a distorted gravitational field.

"Alright," Karl muttered to himself. "Identify elements that don’t fit, right? This has to be one of them." He started making his way toward the building.

The closer he got, the more familiar the building seemed. The shape of the glass windows, the slightly crooked signage above the door, even the vending machine standing beside it. His heart started racing as realization dawned on him.

"This... this is impossible," he whispered, his voice barely audible. "This is the store where I used to work."

It really was the convenience store he’d worked at during his teenage years. But something was horribly wrong. The lights inside flickered erratically, and the shelves seemed to shift slightly, as if they were alive. The sign outside, which used to read "One Stop," had transformed into strange, alien characters that he couldn’t read but somehow felt eerily familiar.

[ Anomaly detected. This structure contains elements from your original dimension, but they have been distorted by cosmic energy. Restoration is required. ]

Karl gritted his teeth and stepped inside. The doorbell chimed, but the sound was strange, echoing unnaturally as if it would never end. Inside, everything looked familiar yet wrong. The shelves were full of products, but their labels had changed into incomprehensible symbols. Some soda cans wobbled on their own as if they wanted to move.

"This makes no sense..." Karl mumbled. He tried to recall his objective. "I need to fix the common sense. But how do I even do that?"

[ Identify elements that do not align with the reality of your original dimension. ]

Karl walked further into the store, his eyes scanning every corner. Then he saw something that made him stop in his tracks. Behind the counter sat a figure, its back turned to him. The figure was completely still, but its shadow on the floor moved independently, as if going about some routine task.

"Hello?" Karl called out cautiously.

The figure didn’t respond. Instead, its shadow on the floor suddenly turned toward him. The shadow had no face, only a dark void that writhed like living ink.

A chill ran down Karl’s spine. "Are you... the cashier here?"

The shadow didn’t reply. Instead, a deep, distorted voice echoed inside Karl’s head.

"Have you come to fix this? Or will you become part of the chaos?"

Karl swallowed hard. "I want to fix this. What happened here? Why is this store in a place like this?"

The shadow paused briefly before speaking again. "This store is a fragment of your past. Cosmic energy merged your memories with the distortions of this dimension. You must restore harmony here to move forward."

"How do I do that?" Karl asked, his voice nearly pleading.

The shadow began to move toward him, slowly merging with the figure sitting behind the counter. The figure finally stirred, turning to face Karl. Its face... was his own.

Karl stumbled back a step. "What the hell is this?"

The other Karl smiled, but the smile stretched too wide, too unnaturally. "This is your store. You know how to fix it. Start by separating what’s real from what’s not."

Suddenly, the shelves in the store began to move faster, spinning in place. Soda cans floated into the air, and the lights overhead burst into blinding flashes of blue.

Karl shut his eyes tightly, trying to think. "What’s real... and what’s not. I know this store. I know what it’s supposed to look like!"

He sprinted to the drink aisle, focusing on what he remembered. "The soda cans should be here," he said, pulling misplaced cans from the wrong shelves. "The chips go over there, not here!"

Bit by bit, the chaos in the store began to settle. The shelves stopped moving, and the labels on the products slowly reverted to readable text. The metallic smell in the air faded, replaced by the familiar, cheap detergent scent the store always had.

Karl returned to the counter, where the other version of himself now looked exhausted, almost translucent. The figure met Karl’s gaze and said, "You’re starting to understand. This world will keep challenging your logic. Don’t give up."

With that, the figure vanished. The doorbell chimed again, and this time, a shimmering blue portal appeared at the entrance of the store. The system’s voice echoed in Karl’s head.

[ Dimension balance level: 00.001%. Continue addressing anomalies to restore the structure of this dimension. ]

Karl let out a long breath and stepped through the portal. He knew this was just the beginning of a much longer and more dangerous journey. But one thing was certain: he wouldn’t stop until he could return to his family and uncover the truth behind everything that had happened.