Chapter 2: When Safety Malfunctioned

It’s a bit of a stretch, but objectively speaking, Lee Ju-ju was a remarkably excellent guide.

This was even more so, given that he was a rare S-Class Guide, and his overall impression was that of an innocent yet surprising beauty, with an attractive mole right under his left eye on his pale skin, contrasting perfectly with his black hair.

Espers are people who are so desperate for a Guide that they would even fawn over the ugliest person on earth, so Lee Juju, being good-looking, was even more special.

It was a situation where the Guide holding their hand and providing Guiding made their hearts flutter with his face alone, and his abilities were also top-tier.

The fact that Lee Ju-ju was a good-looking Guide ignited a fire among the Espers.

Because everyone wanted to have a Guide like Lee Ju-ju.

Even his formidable attitude, like an impregnable fortress, stimulated the competitive spirit of greedy Espers, and all sorts of guys jumped in to have a fling with Lee Juju even if the matching rate was only 50 percent.

Until the recent appearance of Michelle, an S-class esper chosen by Lee Ju-ju, the Seoul branch was akin to the Warring States period.

For a Guide to be considered excellent, they needed to possess three things: mental care for the Esper, Guiding ability, and personal capability, and Lee Juju was definitely among the top ones.

It means he was a celebrity in the Guide world.

It was unfortunate that such a person’s bank balance was merely six digits.

Even if he was completely captivated by a yellow Maserati, he shouldn’t have been.

Lee Juju swallowed his tears and tried to think about the allowance which had been doubled and doubled again.

It was a quadruple rate.

Converted to Korean won, it was 3 million won for one night.

It was impossible not to be captivated.

Damn Maserati.

He should have just nodded obediently when Michelle offered to buy it for him; refusing out of pointless pride had come back to bite him where it hurts.

‘Let’s just turn on the radio. Something happened anyway. The alarm sound disappeared completely, but that’s for others to investigate and solve.’

With a gloomy face, he took out a walkie-talkie that resembled a mobile phone.

“Code 0022. Code 0022.”

He called out twice just in case voice recognition didn’t work, but there was no response from the walkie-talkie.

Only then did he realize something was strange, tapping the walkie-talkie and turning it off and on repeatedly.

However, the walkie-talkie remained unresponsive.

The radio wasn’t working.

“What the? Code 0022. Calling Main System. Calling Subsystem. Mary Annanobis. Mary?”

Lee Juju’s complexion, began to bleach white again, as he kept tapping the walkie-talkie,.

It felt like cold sweat was running down his back.

Nevertheless, there was no mechanical voice responding with the usual [Hello, Guide Lee Juju. I am Mary Annanobis. How may I help you?]

Didn’t they say the Main System responds even if a nuke goes off?

Why did the Subsystem, which they said works without issues even in space, go haywire too?

“What is going on…….”

Lee Juju, who had been relieved just by the fact that he had turned on the lights, jumped up from his seat.

Perhaps something really did happen.

Then shouldn’t he escape from the laboratory as soon as possible?

Lee Juju hurriedly tried to push the iron door open.

But the iron door, which had opened somewhat even if it was heavy before, truly wouldn’t budge an inch, and Lee Juju felt like he was going to faint.

“Damn it!”

Something was going terribly wrong.

The thought that he had to escape this suspicious laboratory by any means necessary dominated Lee Juju’s mind.

Searching the surroundings thoroughly, his eyes landed on emergency supplies tucked away in the corner of the laboratory.

Perhaps feeling uneasy about the 50-centimeter-thick iron door, the scientists had also created an escape route in case of an emergency.

Without delaying, he picked them up.

It was an ice spray and a sledgehammer.

Its purpose was easy to guess.

If he sprayed this ice spray on the iron door and hammered it, the door would shatter in an instant.

That was what he intended to do.

If only that damned equipment, which he thought served merely as a scanner when he passed by, hadn’t turned on with a wooong– sound.

“What the–!”

It ended up being his last cry in this world.

****

It was when he regained consciousness that he realized his mind had gone black as if a fuse had blown.

He slowly opened his eyes.

Moonlight was gently coming in through the narrow window.

He definitely turned the lights on earlier, so when did he turn them off?

By the way, that equipment was suspicious beyond measure.

Making the user faint, what on earth is its purpose?

Perhaps he didn’t collapse from shock, but sleeping gas knocked him out.

To perform biological experiments on him.

All sorts of thoughts floated around his head and disappeared.

“Where is… this ?”

To be honest, the reason he diligently watched Isekai dramas where the protagonist moves to another dimension and plays an active role was because it was thrilling and interesting to see ordinary protagonists living in modern times suddenly drop into a new world and be active, not because he wanted to dimensionally travel himself.

Absolutely not.

He came to realize just how absurd the feelings of a person forcibly transported to another dimension are, and that this uncool line wasn’t just a cliché but something anyone placed in this situation would say without realizing it.

With a completely pale face, he examined this place that looked like a ‘Rift’ or a ‘Gate’.

He thought he would retire from the field early and work at the comfortable headquarters just receiving a salary, but what is this situation?

His mind was dizzy.

Nevertheless, his eyes, which used to explore the insides of A-Class Rifts, weren’t rusty, and following the instinct detecting danger, they were faithfully doing their job.

But dust had settled thickly, making it hard to recognize anything.

It was even harder because it was dark.

Above all, his nerves were burning up because he didn’t know when a monster might pop out out of nowhere and try to chew him up and swallow him.

In his late teens, he had taken interest in going in and out of Gates with similarly immature teenage Espers, and in his early twenties, he went in and out even more crazily, thinking it would become an experience.

Even then, he didn’t forget to carry a powerful Esper by his side.

Not by dropping alone like this.

Being able to immediately tell that this wasn’t reality, was a cool thing, but at the same time, it was something that dropped him into the abyss of despair.

After taking several deep breaths to fight off the surging panic, he slowly got up and sat on the floor.

“Huh?”

But that chair in front of his eyes.

Isn’t that the chair he sat on before fainting earlier?

He looked around carefully with new eyes.

Since a facility where dust has piled up thickly and is worn out here and there to the point of crumbling, can absolutely not be reality, this must certainly be a ‘Rift’ or a ‘Gate’.

Why is it so familiar?

Lee Juju blinked his eyes and muttered just in case.

“Light?”

As if it were obvious, the inside of the facility became brightly lit.

However, perhaps because it had used up its energy, the sensor started to flicker dimly.

It was absurd.

Only then did he think that this might be the facility where he originally was, and realized that dimensional travel or whatever was all delusion.

He still couldn’t understand the interior of the facility which looked like traces of time remained, but considering the series of commotions where the alarm rang and the fuse blew, there might have been a problem that caused the facility to become worn out.

Lost in thought, Lee Juju looked down at the perfectly fine-looking ice spray and sledgehammer held tightly in his two hands like salvation.

‘Right, at least I have one self-defense item.’

Lee Juju thought calmly.

‘First, I should go outside and request rescue.’

Recalling the Gate Code of Conduct, he stood up while still dazed, and had a hard time getting out of the half-decayed iron door.

The rusted iron door was so worn out that he couldn’t even attempt to open it.

Instead, he carefully inserted his body through a gaping hole and moved sluggishly like a mollusk, managing to extract his body somewhat like a gymnast.

Only then could Lee Juju face the windows with no intact corners and the corridor of the facility where spiderwebs were stretched all over the ceiling corners.

‘Okay.’

Lee Juju pinched his cheek hard without delay.

Sharp pain struck immediately, enough to make him yelp.

Of course, since it could be inside a Gate, he didn’t make a sound.

‘It’s not a dream.’

After taking another deep breath, he found the winding emergency stairs and started walking carefully.

Since he confirmed it wasn’t a dream, he thought he would be able to know how the situation was unfolding if he first went out to the entrance.

His guess was that the entire building was undergoing Gate-ification, most likely.

If this place was a ‘Rift’ and not a ‘Gate’, he intended to come back inside immediately.

A Gate would just be this one building, but if it’s a ‘Rift’, well, that’s a different story.

This whole area would have become a lair of monsters.

He walked reducing the sound of his footsteps, hoping his luck was incredibly good.

He couldn’t say he was lucky since he was already swept into a Gate, but anyway, didn’t he just need to survive and get out?