Chapter 11 : The day the sky opened

Time flowed, and October 3rd arrived. Gaecheonjeol.
*(TL Note: Gaecheonjeol (개천절), literally “Opening of Heaven Day,” is a national holiday in South Korea celebrating the legendary founding of Gojoseon, the first Korean kingdom, traditionally dated to 2333 BC.)*

Gaecheonjeol is one of Korea’s five major national holidays.
Originally used to signify the founding of the nation, the term is now primarily used in a different sense.

Gaecheon (開天).

Literally, the day the sky opened.

October 3rd, over ten years ago, was an incredibly special day.
It was the time when Gates first opened across the world.

“…It reminds me of the old days. You said you were taken around this time too, Unni?”

Han Sol and I were day drinking.
Each for our own reasons, unable to spend the holiday with a clear mind.

“I don’t remember the exact date, but it was around then.”

Han Sol said she still couldn’t forget that time when monsters poured out from the vast sky.

Did she say she held out for almost a hundred days with other students in the dormitory?
It was incredibly tough because the dorm was far from campus.

“Well… although not many people get dragged into other worlds now, I heard it was quite severe back then. Thanks to that, most Returnees are from that period.”

Gates. No, the otherworlds inside Gates are generated from humanity’s collective unconscious.

However… if all surrounding humans disappear for some reason, and an environment is formed where deep magical power depends solely on one person’s strength, that otherworld gains extreme realism.

A newly born otherworld naturally pulls in the person who created it, and through this phenomenon, ordinary humans from Earth are abducted to another world.

It’s like how pulling a fixed sheet of paper in all directions just stretches it slightly, but pulling it only in one direction tears it.

The more people there are, the more stable the average subconscious becomes.

And, among those dragged into otherworlds, the ones who survive against overwhelming odds until the gate reopens become Returnees.

“…I still can’t quite believe it. That it was all a fabricated world?”

When I first heard the explanation about returning, I thought it was nonsense.
There was no way such a concrete and truly f*cked-up world could have come from my head.

Besides. Doesn’t that mean the world’s destruction was entirely my responsibility?

The idea that the Land of Prosperity existed because of me, and that it was destroyed because of me, was too heavy a burden.

“It’s just a theory, after all. Besides, you were just the trigger, Unni. Even without you, that otherworld would likely have been created.”

I nodded with difficulty, wetting my lips with the red wine in the glass.

“Pfft. I don’t know. But it doesn’t change the fact that it’s because of me. If I had just done a little better…”

Wouldn’t Caspar have lived?

“Hehe. I’ve had those thoughts a lot too. Actually, I still do.”

Han Sol, her face flushed, drank soju.
It was alcohol Sol had brought to drink together.
*(TL Note: Soju is a clear Korean distilled spirit.)*

Originally, I planned to drink soju too after a long time, but my tastes had changed significantly, and soju didn’t suit my palate anymore.

It wasn’t just soju.
When I tried to enjoy hobbies I once cherished, I frequently failed.

To the point where I couldn’t possibly believe my past self liked this.

…What exactly am I?

Dragged into an unfamiliar world and making it my second home, much of what constituted me had changed.

Appearance. Gender. Tastes. Even species.

But it was okay.
I thought it was an unavoidable change.
At least there was continuity of memory.

But… if all of that was actually a phenomenon caused by being sucked beyond the Gate.

What am I?

Am I, as the scientists say, a hybrid created from a mixture of humanity’s collective unconscious, mana, and the remnants of some man who once existed in the past?

Or…… maybe I’m just insane.

A madwoman who thinks she was once a man.

“Unni. Don’t think like that too much. There are more than enough other things to think about.”

“Heh. Yes. Right. Anyway… what I have to do hasn’t changed.”

I will save my sister and care for her for the rest of my life until she regains her original form. Until I’m certain she can live well without me.

After that…

I’ll ask to be buried next to Caspar and probably commit suicide.

“…Ah. And Unni, where did your clothes go? The ones we bought together last time.”

Oops.

I fiddled with my fingers, feigning innocence.

Those got completely ruined during the last Gate subjugation.
The labels and patterns were all erased, making them meaningless anyway.

But if I told her the truth, the response would be obvious.
She’d probably scold me for wearing expensive clothes during a Gate subjugation.

But thinking about things like that is annoying.
Do I have to worry about what clothes I wear when I’m not even seeing Caspar?

“…Unni?”

“Ah. More importantly. Sol, aren’t you going anywhere today? It’s Gaecheonjeol.”

Although things had stabilized to some extent now, the scars intensely left on people had consumed the past national holiday.

Therefore, Gaecheonjeol was a memorial day.
A memorial day to commemorate the day countless people died.

Around this time of year, places adorned with wreaths could often be seen.
I thought I saw many while going out to buy wine.

“Haaah. Changing the subject… Well. I’m not going anywhere specific today. My cohort had a relatively good survival rate. And I’ve mourned a lot over the past 10 years already. Honestly, even when parents die, nobody observes the three-year mourning period anymore, so that should be enough.”
*(TL Note: The traditional Korean mourning period (samnyeonsang) lasted three years.)*

I didn’t ask why she was day drinking so much then.
Instead, to change the mood, I looked out the window reflecting the clear sky, searching for a topic of conversation.

Then, suddenly.
I felt a sense of unease.

Flowers were blooming profusely.

They weren’t plastic wreaths for mourning.
They were natural wildflowers.

“Sol. Are flowers supposed to be blooming now?”

I felt slightly creeped out.
Was this place always filled with so many blooming flowers?

“…Just a moment.”

Han Sol opened the window.
Beyond the window, the Chinese trumpet creeper flowers I saw before completely covered the wall.

I searched for information about Chinese trumpet creepers online.

– Native to the southern regions of the Korean Peninsula. Blooms from June to August, all fall by September.

It was now October 3rd.
The location was northern Gyeonggi Province.
Clearly one of the highest latitude locations in South Korea.

“Could it be the effect of the Vivid Four Seasons Gate we subjugated last time?”

Sol didn’t seem too concerned yet, but my senses were still sounding alarms.

Flowers react sensitively to the environment.
That’s why, even in the Land of Prosperity, flowers were the first to vanish amidst the decay and plague.

It wasn’t due to global warming either.
The temperature was clearly within the normal range.

The flowers should have withered long ago.

“…Uh. Or maybe, the owner of another house likes flowers? They could be an Awakened of that type, right? A Hunter awakened with plant-based abilities. I saw on YouTube there were some Druid Hunters.”

“This entire area around here is my land. Just in case, I paid extra to have all the houses vacated. I don’t like noise.”

It was a precaution in case I went berserk and contaminated the nearby land.
Thanks to that, I spent a lot of money, but well, I wasn’t someone to fuss over money at this point.

“Ah, no. But this is still Gyeonggi Province…? Unni, were you perhaps some kind of chaebol before? Uh. No wonder it felt unusually quiet coming here.”
*(TL Note: Chaebol refers to large, family-controlled industrial conglomerates in South Korea.)*

Was the fact that I bought dozens of buildings for privacy more surprising than the abnormal climate phenomenon? Han Sol’s mouth hung open, unable to hide her bewilderment.

Hmm.
Thinking about it, I did subjugate quite a few Gates without telling Han Sol.
Sol probably wouldn’t calculate exactly how much I earned, so she wouldn’t know how much wealth I had.

“That’s not important. Have you received any contact from the Association?”

“No… Just the usual spam emails the Association sends.”

Right.
If there had been contact, it would have come to me first.

Ah, wait.

“Why are spam emails coming from there?”

“You know, stuff like some international forum or an invitation for a guest lecturer somewhere. I’m not going anyway, so it’s all spam. It’s a bit annoying because I can’t even block them.”

Hmm.
So that was the situation.
Letting it go in one ear and out the other, I decided to focus back on the original issue.

First, I went to the news tab and skimmed the major headlines.
There were many eventful happenings, but the hottest topic among them was one.

Miscarriage. There was news that pregnant women around the country were having miscarriages. They were trying to figure out the cause, but it seemed like something was wrong with the process of forming the child’s soul.

Besides that, phenomena similar to what I experienced, where flowers weren’t withering, were reportedly discovered in various places nationwide.

This was just looking at the central region of the Korean Peninsula.
What about the south then?

With a tense mind, I searched for more news, quickly skimming the contents.

However…, other regions didn’t seem much different.
Seoul and southern Gyeonggi, as well as Chungcheong, Gangwon, Jeolla, Gyeongsang, etc., all showed consistent phenomena.

Meaning, nowhere was particularly worse.
Similar phenomena were even reported in neighboring Japan and China, so it wasn’t just Korea’s problem.

Then perhaps it wasn’t so bad?
Just as I was about to relax slightly.

An alarm suddenly blared from my phone.

-Beep! Beep! Beep!

An alarm tone that anyone would recognize as serious.
I quickly picked up my phone and checked the content.

It was a message sent by Bari, the Association President’s secretary.

It wasn’t an official announcement or a disaster alert, which made it even more ominous.
Because an individual had triggered a forced notification typically used for disaster alerts.

Reading the content, the ominous feeling became reality.

—

S-rank Gate, Seocheon Flower Garden.

Opening

Erosion Area: Jeju Island and approx. 10 nautical miles of Jeju coastal waters

Projected Damage Area: Entire Korean Peninsula and parts of East Asia

Casualties: 0 (approx. 3000 including fetuses)

High-Risk Erosion Group: All persons residing in the projected damage area. Estimated over 100 million people.

All Hunters receiving this message, please come to the Association immediately.

Hunter Association Emergency Defense Special Task Force, Bari.

—

Once again.

The sky began to open.