“Jeongwoo….”
“Hm?”
– Please save me, anyone is fine…. Please, please!
Jaehee’s face turned pale. The fact that he kept hearing a voice whose identity he couldn’t determine felt like something unknowable was crawling over his skin.
“Jeongwoo, you really can’t hear that voice right now? Really?”
– Anyone, please! Please! Save me, save me!
The voice grew increasingly desperate. It became more and more unbearable. Jaehee grabbed Jeongwoo’s arm tightly.
– I can’t end it like this, I can’t believe this is the end. No, no! Please, please, anyone is fine…! Please…! Save me, save me!
“Jaehee?”
The sound that had come from far away grew louder, now ringing out clearly as if someone were shouting right beside him. And yet, such a desperate voice. As he listened to it, his consciousness gradually grew hazy and he felt as if something was wrapping around his limbs and pulling him down into the depths.
“Jaehee, Jaehee!”
That’s when Jeongwoo struck Jaehee’s body hard. With a smacking sound, Jaehee finally shook his head and came to his senses.
“Hey, get it together?”
“Huh? Wh-what’s wrong?”
“What’s wrong? You just said you heard some sound and then you were spacing out. A sound? What sound? That sound you said you heard at the Management Bureau?”
Jaehee exhaled heavily and nodded. In that brief moment, he felt as if he’d been dreaming with his eyes open.
Though it was a short time, his back was damp with cold sweat.
What just happened?
“Yeah…. The sound was so vivid that for a moment I thought it was a real sound.”
Jaehee glossed over it vaguely. If he explained in detail, it would only make Jeongwoo worry more.
“So the sound gets louder when you enter the dungeon. Something’s weird about that, right? Was there anything else strange?”
“It was just too vivid. It was begging to be saved, quite desperately.”
“It seems like this forest has some influence too. Let’s hurry and get out of the forest.”
Jaehee didn’t mention that the voice he heard was similar to Jeongwoo’s voice. For some reason he couldn’t explain, he felt reluctant to tell Jeongwoo.
Instead of saying that, Jaehee urged them to hurry out of the forest and quickened his pace.
There was something strange about this forest. Being here made him feel like he was becoming strange.
But getting out of the forest wasn’t as easy as expected.
The forest was much larger than they’d thought, and the trees stood densely packed without gaps.
Without the dungeon energy detector that Jeongwoo was carrying, they wouldn’t have been able to even get their bearings and would have gotten lost.
The densely surrounding trees all looked similar, and the deeper they went inside, the more overgrown it became.
Eventually it grew as dark as being inside a cave, and they had to take out lanterns from their inventory. But worse than a cave was having to weave between trees in the dark. It was fortunate, at least, that they had plenty of food in their inventory. Since time was pressing, they couldn’t have a proper meal, but instead walked while eating simple things like chocolate bars.
Both of them gradually spoke less and less. They couldn’t really tell how much time had passed. They simply walked between the increasingly dark, quiet trees.
Their hearts grew tired before their bodies. As they walked without rest between the dark, endless forest, voices began to be heard again from somewhere.
– Jaehee. Jaehee.
At some point, the pleas to be saved changed to calling Jaehee’s name. This was worse quality than the screams begging to be saved. It sounded affectionate like Jeongwoo, calling his name, making him almost turn around several times. But Jaehee didn’t look back and didn’t slow his pace either.
– Jaehee, Jaehee. Won’t you look back at me? Are you abandoning me?
It was clearly Jeongwoo’s voice. Every time Jaehee heard that voice, his mind momentarily became hazy. But Jaehee tried hard to pull himself together by looking at Jeongwoo walking ahead of him.
Jeongwoo is right there. So the sound coming from behind can’t be Jeongwoo.
Soothing himself as if speaking to a child, Jaehee mechanically moved his legs.
The forest grew increasingly humid and quiet. Aside from the trees, no other living creatures could be seen, making it feel less like a forest and more like a graveyard of trees.
“Jaehee. Look over there. We’re almost there.”
“Huh? Mmm…….”
Thinking it was the voice that had been calling him from behind, Jaehee didn’t respond at first, and only realized it was actually Jeongwoo speaking when he saw Jeongwoo’s face.
“Was it really hard? You’re sweating a lot. Maybe we should have rested before moving. But thanks to moving diligently, we made it out like this. The forest must have been huge.”
“Th-thank god I can see sunlight.”
Looking where Jeongwoo indicated, there was a clearing where the forest ended. Seeing the small pond and bright sunshine, he let out a breath of relief. He was sick and tired of trees now.
Warm sunlight like spring sunshine, neither hot nor cold, was pouring down.
“Wow, this is the first time I’ve thought I hope something appears, anything. This is the first time I’ve encountered such a desolate forest.”
As Jaehee looked around the clearing, he approached the pond. That’s when he saw something on the pond.
Something pale that looked like a person’s hand.
“J-Jeongwoo! Jeongwoo, that…!”
“Is it a person?”
What was floating in the middle of the pond certainly looked like a person no matter how you looked at it. But they were quite far away, so they couldn’t tell what condition they were in or who it was.
“I’ll go. Jaehee, you wait here.”
“Wait, can you swim?”
“I’m from the infant athletic program. I’ll take a rope and tie it to that person, so you pull.”
“Ah, okay.”
Jeongwoo quickly took off his clothes, draped the rope he took out from his inventory over his shoulder, and jumped into the pond. The pond looked quite large, but there was no way to gauge how deep it was.
Jeongwoo cut through the pond’s water and swam at a fast pace. The person floating in the middle showed no response even as Jeongwoo approached and grabbed them. Jeongwoo sent a sign that he’d tied them with the rope. Jaehee grabbed the rope and began pulling. Though it was a calm pond without currents, pulling a person tied to the line wasn’t very easy.
It was when he’d pulled with all his might and gotten close enough to identify the person. The man floating in the water appeared to be Kang Mingyu.
Recalling that Kang Mingyu’s Status Window had shown him as weakened, if that man was Kang Mingyu, he probably wasn’t dead yet. It was while he was pulling him like that.
“Huh?”
Someone grabbed Jaehee’s shoulder.
Goosebumps rose from his head to his toes.
Jeongwoo was still swimming out of the pond.
“Hiip!”
The hand pushed Jaehee with strong force. Jaehee rolled and tumbled into the pond.
Still, it was okay. The water was still at a height that didn’t even reach his waist when standing up. But the hand that had pushed Jaehee into the pond now grabbed both his shoulders and began pressing down.
In an instant, water poured into his nose and mouth.
“Puhup, j-puhup, Jeongwoo! Puhup.”
Even though he wanted to cry out to Jeongwoo for help, he couldn’t speak. When he struggled with all his might to get out of the water, the hand pressed his head down again. It was an overwhelming force he absolutely couldn’t overcome.
As he began swallowing water, his consciousness started to grow hazy.
He couldn’t even think about holding his breath and waiting for a chance to counterattack. He flailed his arms and legs frantically, struggling to survive.
Then something grabbed his leg. Even when he shook his leg to break free, it was useless. That hand began pulling Jaehee’s body deeper and deeper into the water.
“Jaehee! Jaehee! Shin Jaehee! Snap out of it!”
Someone called his name.
But the sound was garbled and couldn’t be heard properly.
“Jaehee! What am I supposed to do! Snap out of it!”
Jaehee couldn’t even distinguish whether it was really Jeongwoo or that voice that had been constantly calling him.
As his consciousness faded distantly, his eyes met Jeongwoo’s horrified expression.
Jeongwoo was crying and screaming, and the sight was quite miserable.
Jeongwoo. Don’t cry.
With that last image of Jeongwoo, Jaehee lost consciousness.
Jeongwoo could only helplessly watch as Jaehee disappeared into the water before his very eyes.
