# Chapter 19
Despite not wanting to know, his sharp eyes and intuition naturally revealed it. There was some kind of repeating routine. From the moment he noticed it, Lee Hwan began to read those lips and slowly vocalized.
“O… D…”
The mouth shapes repeatedly shouting something. Lee Hwan concentrated on the beginning.
‘Od…?’
Od. Bod. Hod. What could it be?
“P… B… Ac… Black.”
The mouth opening and closing. This time he could identify it clearly.
‘Black.’
Od black.
…Code black.
“!”
The moment he recognized their signal, Lee Hwan’s heart sank with a thud. An emergency signal that the support team would hardly ever call out under normal circumstances. Those twisted forms in Naru uniforms were shouting it.
In a gate, “Code Black” is a term used only in life-or-death crises that precede casualties. It was a phrase that froze his heart solid just hearing something similar, let alone wanting to hear it. This meant the figures before him were definitely related to Naru.
Had there been an incident where the support team died here before? Lee Hwan racked his brains while holding his ragged breath. But if there had been such a mass casualty, there was no way he wouldn’t know about it. Even if it had happened ten years ago.
Moreover, this uniform was the latest design at that time. This meant it wasn’t something from long ago.
‘…Wait.’
Among the faces too distorted to recognize, Lee Hwan saw a figure with a thick neck and reddish spots on the chin.
‘…Section leader?’
His heart dropped again with a thud.
Why was someone who had been glancing at him until just now and should be currently alive and exploring, here in such a state? And there weren’t just one of these figures, but one, two, three, four…
At that moment, Lee Hwan realized that the number of human figures was exactly the same as the number of team members who had entered Gate C-17 and had an accident in the past.
*Chik-*
“Leader, this is VIP.”
Lee Hwan immediately picked up the gate radio.
—Leader copy.
*Static…*
“Going to channel three, three.”
—Moved. This is Leader. What’s the matter?
Fortunately, a perfectly normal voice came through the radio.
The section leader was safe. Despite his distorted form waving right in front of him. That fact gave Lee Hwan comfort while leaving an unsolvable question.
Lee Hwan reached out his hand again. Figures passing through with the sound of breathing. Not hallucinations, nor ghosts. Then what were they?
As Lee Hwan was about to touch the distorted section leader again.
[You have found a fragment of causality.]
One more thing that shouldn’t be visible entered Lee Hwan’s view.
* * *
It was like watching a film in an old cinema. Or perhaps witnessing a scene in a dream.
He could see a figure arriving at the cavity. Tall and slender, with slightly drooping eyes. Eyebrows raised just as much. It was Kang Dongha. Unlike the present where Lee Hwan was attached to him, the Dongha visible now was alone.
There was one more difference. The center of the cavity was not empty. There, a familiar object to Lee Hwan was floating, emitting an unusual light.
A small, glowing skill stone, red like blood…
A shape seemingly impossible to forget even if he bit his tongue. It was the regression skill stone that Lee Hwan had obtained in his moment facing death.
‘…!’
Lee Hwan unconsciously tried to reach out his hand but felt his body wouldn’t move. Instead, this time he tried to take a deep breath, only to realize he wasn’t present in the scene before him.
Ah, this wasn’t reality. This was someone’s—or something’s—memory.
As Lee Hwan gasped silently, Kang Dongha’s figure glided past him.
Kang Dongha approached the skill stone with trembling legs and slumped down. The skill stone emitting a clear red light looked almost mystical.
Kang Dongha stared at the skill stone as if entranced. Gradually, intense emotions filled his eyes.
Longing, anticipation, greed, and ecstasy.
His pupils changed. At that moment, Kang Dongha’s world began to flow in a complete 180-degree turn. Just from that scene, just from Dongha’s expression, Lee Hwan could feel it.
Kang Dongha reached out. His long, delicate hand stopped in front of the skill stone. He wouldn’t experience any status window or transformation, but still, he trembled with joy. As if instinctively realizing this was no ordinary skill stone.
Kang Dongha made an expression so honest that his thoughts were easily readable.
—If only I could awaken. If only I could awaken.
His thoughts seemed to echo inside the cavity.
Kang Dongha closed his hand and grabbed the skill stone. In that moment, there was a sound like “pa-ang!” as compressed air spread out. Simultaneously, the gate shook.
A monstrous cry from afar. Kang Dongha awakened from his reverie with a start.
Even in that moment, he didn’t let go of the skill stone but ran with it firmly grasped. At the entrance to the cavity, Kang Dongha witnessed a high-level monster—the kind that only appears in level 2 gates—heading toward the center of the gate.
He realized this was connected to what had happened when he grabbed the skill stone. Something that should never be done in a gate. He had tampered with a secret mechanism of the gate without any veteran expert present.
At this rate, the entire support team would be killed or injured. The monster was still nearby, but it would eventually head to the center.
Kang Dongha hurriedly picked up the radio to report this fact, then hesitated briefly. In an instant, his face turned cold.
A monster lingering in an ambiguous zone.
A chill seemed to frost over Kang Dongha’s eyes… and he turned off the radio.
‘No.’
Lee Hwan unconsciously opened and closed his mouth. But the vision didn’t stop.
*Pusuk-*
*Pa-ak!*
Going even further, Kang Dongha fired his gun in the direction opposite to the exit.
Due to the silencer, the loud sound only echoed from the wall where the bullet hit.
*Pusuk-* *Pa-ak!*
*Pa-ak!*
‘No, please.’
Lee Hwan shouted. His voice still couldn’t reach inside the vision.
‘You don’t have to do that, you can just escape.’
*Pusuk-* *Pa-ak!*
In Lee Hwan’s view, the monster turned its body toward the center of the gate. Tough tendrils disappeared toward the support team, who couldn’t even respond.
Kang Dongha used that opportunity to leave the vertical cave with a propeller.
Screams echoed through the gate. Terrible screams, as if their skin was being peeled from the crown of their heads. But Kang Dongha didn’t look back.
Using Support Team 3 as sacrifices, Kang Dongha escaped the gate while they were being slaughtered.
* * *
With a gasp! Lee Hwan broke free from the vision and raised his head, breathing roughly. At some point, he had collapsed in the middle of the cavity.
“Huh… huk…”
His heart pounded as if it would burst. As sweat kept flowing into his mask, he unconsciously wiped his face through the hole below his nose, and blood came away bright red on the back of his hand.
Lee Hwan spat out a nosebleed that had gone down his throat and slowly calmed his trembling body.
‘….’
What had he just seen?
He’d learned about something from before the regression that he never would have thought of. Not only the disaster but also the existence of the skill stone.
Moreover, a system message he had never seen before. “Fragment of causality”? What was that, having pieces and all? Lee Hwan spat blood to the side once more and glanced at the distorted figures.
If the causality that the system was desperately trying to block was related to the monster wave… this clearly referred to the incidents connected to that event.
Lee Hwan struggled to control his racing heart and opened his skill window.
* EX Broken Clockwork (0 times)
* B Spatial Control (☆)
Thankfully, the regression skill remained intact. However, as he had just seen in the vision, the place where the skill stone should have been was empty. As if two skills couldn’t exist in the same timeline.
The puzzle pieces clicked into place in his mind. If that was really what happened before the regression, what did it mean?
‘Think. Think.’
Lee Hwan squeezed his trembling hands and turned his thoughts.
If what he’d just witnessed was true, Kang Dongha had obtained an EX-grade skill stone before the regression. And somehow, for reasons unknown, it eventually ended up in Lee Hwan’s hands at the final moment.
With it, Lee Hwan had turned back time, and now he was witnessing the origin of the incident. He had learned about both the catalyst for the regression and Kang Dongha’s dirty deeds at once.
‘That fucking bastard.’
So that’s why he had transferred to the Awakening-related department.
Kang Dongha obtaining the EX-grade skill stone was a story from seven years ago, when the skill stone sent Lee Hwan back. Kang Dongha’s obsession with awakening clearly blossomed here.
He must have been bursting with the thought that if he could awaken, even at a lower level, he might be able to possess an EX-grade skill.
“Kheugh…!”
Lee Hwan raised his head to check his skills while he was at it, but the nosebleed went down his throat, causing him to cough severely. He spat out more blood and took off his mask, shaking it vigorously. The blood that had heavily stained the white mask spattered and fell to the floor.
‘If it’s a project to create Awakened people.’
Semi-awakening. Recalling that Kang Dongha was the culprit behind the monster wave, there must have been something in that project. He must have participated in it, or something similar.
The response Kang Dongha had given when Lee Hwan mentioned semi-awakening resonated in his head.
‘That’s… closer to mutation than awakening, isn’t it?’
Mutation, was it? Words that he had merely found suspicious and passed over now weighed heavily, pressing down on Lee Hwan.
Thinking about it, this wasn’t something to be easily overlooked. Lee Hwan now realized that important clues were contained in every single word that slipped from Kang Dongha’s mouth.
