Chapter 110
Atlantis Colony (8)
“Oppa…!”
Zia ran up, carrying Inha on her back, her voice trembling with tears.
Inha’s condition didn’t look good at all at a glance.
He was unconscious and his body shook slightly, almost like a mild seizure.
‘That’s…’
A stellar power overload.
It was a symptom that occurred when the body couldn’t handle more stellar energy than it could process.
If left unchecked, it could put severe strain on the body and even risk his life.
Fortunately, Sehyun had seen this many times before.
‘I saw it countless times in my previous life, and I’ve taken measures here several times too.’
Since artifacts involve manipulating external stellar energy, such issues were always nearby.
A few months ago, Doyoung from Cheonji Workshop had the same symptoms, and Sehyun had treated him.
However, there was one thing troubling him.
‘This isn’t a normal stellar power overload. What happened?’
The situation wasn’t worse—if anything, it was somewhat milder.
Typically, stellar overloads were dangerous and needed immediate action.
‘But these faint convulsions…’
Sehyun held Inha’s hand and checked his condition.
Someone else’s stellar energy was infiltrating every part of Inha’s body, eating away at him gradually, almost maliciously.
The opponent that Inha and Zia had encountered seemed just as formidable as Kuroda.
“Zia, take care of him for me. I’ll lose consciousness for a bit too.”
“Huh? What…? Okay.”
Zia hesitated to question him, but then nodded.
She knew what to do.
With one hand, she tightly held Inha’s hand, and with the other, she placed her hand on his forehead.
‘Divert the runaway flow of stellar energy toward me, leaving no way out.’
Luckily, Sehyun was in a state of stellar energy exhaustion.
He had enough capacity to absorb the overflowing flow.
“Krrrkk!!!”
“Oppa!”
A shiver ran through Sehyun’s body.
At that moment, the fleeting images that Inha unconsciously sensed brushed through Sehyun’s mind.
Fragmented impressions passed by.
It wasn’t exactly a mental world, but felt like sharing a dream.
‘Where is this…’
A winding hill and alley in the workshop village.
Three children ran joyfully along the alley.
Inha, me, and…
‘…who was the third?’
The three had always stuck together in childhood.
But that face was faint, almost erased from memory.
Sehyun didn’t even remember the name.
As if it had been cut out of memory.
-
Here!
Inha, who had run ahead up the hill, shouted.
-
Inha, what is this place…?
-
There’s a shrine inside! There are so many amazing things!
They entered the thick bamboo grove, and finally, the secret house that Inha had discovered came into view.
An abandoned shrine, long abandoned by human footsteps.
Inside, the atmosphere was eerie.
Cobwebs hung thick from the ceiling, and the floor creaked under each step.
But to fearless Inha, her eyes were filled only with the mysterious items of the shaman.
Then—
CRACK!
CRASH!!
-
Aaah!!
The old floor collapsed.
And darkness.
Memory broke off, leading to another scene.
-
I’m hungry…
-
It’s dark… sniff… I can’t see anything.
In the blind darkness, only weak voices were heard.
-
Eat this.
-
Sniff… What about you, oppa?
-
I’m fine.
The child whose memory Sehyun couldn’t recall spoke.
She wasn’t fine at all.
She had already stayed up the entire night, completely drained.
The fear that young Inha felt reached Sehyun’s heart as well.
“…You were here.”
Inha, trapped in the mental world, had been here.
A space filled with helpless emotions—dark, hungry, and powerless.
Sehyun gently stroked Inha’s head.
-
Hnn…?
Inha, in the memory—or rather, in the mental world—responded.
“Sehyun…?”
“Yeah. I’m here.”
“I was scared… Sehyun…”
Young Inha clung to him, her arms trembling with fear.
“Let’s get out now. Outside.”
“Yeah.”
Sehyun lifted his head.
The world outside, except for Inha and Sehyun, melted away into a wash of white.
“Oppa!!”
“…Hoo.”
Sehyun exhaled the breath he had been holding and slowly opened his eyes.
Softly sleeping, Inha looked much more comfortable.
Thankfully, the faint convulsions had completely subsided.
‘…Childhood, huh.’
Come to think of it, that memory was quite faint.
He had assumed they had grown up together naturally, but now it struck him—they weren’t two; they were three.
‘Though the problem is, I don’t know who the third was.’
Perhaps Inha remembered.
For now, at least, he was safe, which was a relief.
“Are you okay?”
“Ah… yes.”
Zia scratched her head and began explaining what had happened.
While guarding the supply area, she had encountered a girl and fought, which led to this situation.
The girl was probably the one with the sharp voice Sehyun had heard over Kuroda’s radio.
“Honestly, I’m not sure if I can call it a ‘fight.’”
“What do you mean?”
If it was a fight, it was a fight. If not, then not. How could you be unsure?
“Well… she fainted the moment we made eye contact.”
“Fainted?”
“Yes… She must have had some kind of nightmare. When she woke up, it looked like you were in danger… so she quickly brought you here…”
…A nightmare.
So that’s why such scenes appeared in Inha’s mental imagery.
From a child’s perspective, it was a scene worthy of a nightmare.
‘Much more malicious than ordinary hallucinations.’
Ordinary hallucinations project images intended by the caster, so while the scenery may be horrifying, the immersion is limited.
But if it triggers personal trauma in a nightmare, even the mentally strong struggle to endure.
Thanks to Sehyun’s intervention, Inha was fine. Left alone a few more hours, his mind might have been consumed.
Either way, it was a huge relief that it ended here.
“By the way, they look busy, those people.”
“Ah, Brian called.”
Looking around, the area was bustling.
Atlantis patrols were clearing debris, and Brian paced anxiously, biting his lip.
“Are you awake!”
Seeing Sehyun awake, Brian hurried over, flustered.
“I thought you were dead, damn it! Without you, I—!”
“Stop saying things people could misinterpret. Weren’t you worried about the rift?”
“Ah, haha… don’t say such hurtful things! I was worried too!”
“‘Worried too’?”
“Let it slide. Your girlfriend seems to have stabilized quite a bit too.”
“Well, yeah.”
A little more rest, and she’d be fine.
“How’s the situation?”
“Unfortunately… not good.”
Luckily, the supply area had no major damage.
As Sehyun expected, they had only used it to buy time, not to carry out destruction.
The problem was the human casualties.
“These were carefully selected personnel promised the best treatment… Finding people with this skill isn’t easy.”
To have such a disaster occur in a place called Player’s Paradise, even before opening…
Brian shook his head in disbelief, honoring their efforts.
“The good news is, we can manage some recovery with the people present. But…”
Brian’s gaze fell on something.
The coral reef, whose light had dimmed.
It still emitted multicolored energy, but far weaker than when it first activated.
“Is it okay to leave it like this?”
“Of course not.”
It wasn’t in a normal state.
The remaining stellar energy was forcibly circulated to barely maintain its current condition.
“Well, running the coral reef without a rift is meaningless anyway.”
The coral reef was meant to stabilize the rift.
The city depended on the stellar energy from the rift and the special barrier, the Stable Water Zone, created by the rift.
But Kuroda had already killed the rift’s boss monster.
“So the city…”
“It’ll be submerged soon.”
The word “submerged” might not feel real.
Even now, strange water filled the city, replacing air for breathing.
But if the coral reef stopped running now that the rift was gone, the Stable Water Zone would vanish.
Sea water would flood the city again.
“Then, what do we do…?”
“What else? Evacuate the people.”
“Th-That…!!”
Thud—
Brian clutched his head in despair and sank to his knees.
“Is there really no way?”
“Hmmm…”
“Please! You always have a contingency plan, don’t you!”
“Hmmm…”
Sehyun stroked his chin.
Brian noticed the strange demeanor and pressed harder.
“There’s a way, right?! Huh?! I’ll do anything! Money… no, I’ll even give my body!”
Sehyun’s eyes changed.
“Really?”
“…Huh? What do you mean?”
“I mean, you’ll do anything.”
Brian grabbed Sehyun’s sleeve.
“See! There’s a way!!”
“Yes, there’s a way.”
Although the situation seemed serious, the cause of the problem suggested a simple solution.
All the current problems stemmed from the absence of the rift.
“Just recreate the rift.”
“Easy to say… is that even possible?”
“You know the creation method for the rift, right?”
The rift was born when a boss monster’s stellar energy crushed space, creating an independent otherworld.
If the boss monster exists, a rift forms.
“But you can’t just grab one from somewhere and make it appear.”
Technically, a rift forms where the boss monster is born.
“That’s the problem. How do we do that…?”
“Simple. Create the boss monster.”
Sehyun opened his palm. A brilliant sea-colored Soul Stone appeared.
It was the Soul Stone of the Sea Dragon Kuroda had captured.
“That’s!!!”
“It’s the Soul Stone of a stellar-class boss monster. With this, we can inflate it to boss-level.”
“I see. Feed it to a monster to make it a boss monster.”
Brian finally nodded, understanding.
“No, we can’t do that.”
Sehyun shook his head.
“Huh? Why not?”
“If we just want a rift, that would work. But that’s not ultimately what we want, right?”
Why create a rift?
To create a continuous energy source.
Why is energy needed?
To sustain Atlantis.
“This city is based on the Stable Water Zone produced by the previous rift. It also forms the basis of the Atlantis myth. Only an intelligent being can understand that.”
“An intelligent being? Wait… you mean that…”
“Yes, you’re getting it now.”
Sehyun placed his hand on Brian’s shoulder.
“Brian. I happen to know one player who understands Atlantis very well. Do you know who that is?”
No way.
The one they were turning into a boss monster…
Brian’s eyes twitched.
“I like clever adults like you.”
A sly smile appeared on Sehyun’s lips.
“From now on, you literally become the ‘owner’ of this Atlantis.”
