Ziiing—Zing—
A place he’d rushed to in a panic. Even from a distance, something about the dungeon felt off.
Only Moon Tae-young could see the Gate’s movements. The way the light flickered and the cracks twisted was so uncanny, it made his chest tighten.
What the hell happened here? He checked his phone, wondering if there was something more, but all he found was a government-issued alert urging evacuation. No other messages had come through.
Even when he tapped on random news updates, all he saw were empty headlines and a flood of panicked netizen chatter.
When he looked back up, the Gate—unstable and flickering—came back into view.
He hesitated. Is it even safe to go in there…?
But standing around doing nothing felt far too dangerous. If monsters were to overflow from that Gate, this tiny village—likely still full of unsuspecting residents—would face a catastrophic disaster.
Moon Tae-young didn’t give himself time to reconsider. With one sharp movement, he vaulted forward and stepped into the Gate.
Shaa— The scenery around him shifted, revealing the inside of the dungeon.
Screee—
Sriiik—
Considering the Gate was in such a frenzy, he’d expected the inside to be a chaotic mess. But strangely enough, it was eerily quiet.
The sensation was unnerving.
Listening to the brief gusts of wind, Tae-young scanned the area. The air inside the dungeon felt heavier and more noxious than usual.
He took a few steps forward—then suddenly froze, realizing something that sent chills down his spine.
Sriiik—
Klik—Sriiik—
That sound in his ears, like air hissing… wasn’t the wind.
Breathing…!
He whipped his head around—and dozens of gleaming eyes were staring back at him in the dark.
SKREEEEE!
KYAAAAAH!
BOOM—!
With that first ambush, a grueling battle erupted.
Clearing the dungeon was exhausting and dangerous.
Moon Tae-young cut, burned, and smashed through the onslaught of monsters forcing their way out, finally making it to the dungeon’s final chamber.
Wiping monster blood from his face, he found fresh cuts and scrapes all over his body—injuries that never would’ve happened under normal circumstances.
What the hell’s going on outside…?
The question hit him out of nowhere. Was it just this dungeon, or were all the dungeons nationwide going haywire?
If it was happening everywhere… then the world outside must be absolute chaos.
He wanted answers, but his phone had long since lost its signal. No way to get any updates from the outside.
He couldn’t even tell if Cha Eui-sung had tried to contact him or not.
The thought of Cha Eui-sung—probably pale-faced with panic—made his mouth go dry.
…It’s okay. Once I ‘connect’ through this dungeon, I’ll be able to sense the state of the others—at least vaguely.
Tae-young steadied himself, pushing down the rising dread and focusing his mind. It felt ominous, yes—but this was faster and more reliable than running outside to dig through internet rumors.
But the moment his hand touched the dungeon wall—
[FIND?! AH!!! ?!]
Everywhere, the cracked message windows of that thing flickered into view—sudden, chilling.
He hadn’t seen these in a long time.
[Condition—Fulf?? Succ??]
Even with its garbled syntax, the message carried a pressure he’d never felt before.
Moon Tae-young’s pupils dilated.
Something was twisting, warping—he felt like his mind was being pried open, his consciousness dragged into something else, like fingers wrapped around his neck, forcing him to share an inner space.
BEEEEEP—
A sharp ringing pierced his ears, and blood dripped from his nose in thick droplets, spattering the ground.
His vision began to flicker—then, wave after wave of unknown memories came crashing into him.
***
“Fuck, of all the goddamn places in the country, why the hell did it have to be Cheongseri?”
The vision was blurry and nauseating, like zoomed-in footage taken from far away, shaking as if the camera was barely holding still.
“Fucking System bastard. ‘Hero’ my ass.”
But despite the distorted resolution, it was easy to recognize whose voice this was—and even in such low quality, the sharp features of that face were unmistakable.
“Ah, Mr. Kim Jeong-baek. Why the hell did you take so long to pick up?”
— “Too long? Ah, I see you called earlier.”
“What happened with the role I told you about?”
— “The role… oh, the eleven-year-old? Yeah, I’ve got a few candidates. It’s not hard to find someone, so don’t worry.”
“It’s just the role of a niece, so it’s fine if she comes off a little distant. It’s not some major part—just find someone who won’t screw it up.”
A conversation incomprehensible—and one he didn’t want to understand—continued on.
What is this scene? The question didn’t even have time to form before his mind accepted the situation.
Moon Tae-young realized what it was. A memory—of his lover, cloaked in secrets.
More precisely, a sliver of the events that had taken place in his absence.
“Ha… I guess I’ll have to go meet him again.”
But Moon Tae-young refused to accept it.
That thing was always shady from the start.
Though he’d borrowed its power whenever he had the chance, he’d always assumed the cost of that would come for him someday, once his revenge was complete.
So in his mind, even this vision could just be another false scenario fabricated by that thing.
Bzzzt—!
Then came the sound of circuits frying somewhere in the background—and his vision froze as if caught in a buffering loop.
The world spun violently. Cha Eui-sung’s figure shattered into fragments, recombining and collapsing again, like a kaleidoscope fracturing in slow motion.
Moon Tae-young squeezed his eyes shut, swallowing down the bile rising in his throat.
Bzztzzzt—
***
When he opened his eyes again, he found himself slumped against the dungeon wall.
As if to explain what had just happened, a status window floated into view before him.
[Moon Tae-young (S)]
░░░░’s Proxy
!
!!
! !
[Demon King]
— Black Veil (S)
— Lightning Strike (A)
— Counter (D)
— Burnt Offering (??)
The messages and status windows affected by that thing had never exactly been “normal” to begin with—
But now, they looked even more distorted and broken than before, visibly flickering like they were trembling.
Moon Tae-young, bloodshot eyes squinting, scanned the window with care.
He’d been watching it long enough to immediately notice what had changed.
This is…
To his surprise, several of the options that had never been translated into human language were now finally visible.
Demon King…?
[Special] Burnt Offering (??)
— Collapses a worthless world, converting it into ░░.
To be honest, the new information wasn’t all that useful.
The part now showing as “Demon King” had already been displayed before in a garbled form, clearly easy to guess.
And the special skill name matched what he’d always assumed from its effect, so it wasn’t entirely unexpected.
Still—thump—his heart sank all over again.
It felt like that thing was whispering in his ear, insisting that what he’d just seen had all been real. Asking if he knew where the bizarre new title in his status came from.
“Fucking System bastard. ‘Hero’ my ass.”
That voice rang sharp and echoing in his ears.
Wiping away the blood he’d spilled, Moon Tae-young stumbled to his feet.
What was that?
He suddenly found himself questioning memories from before his regression—ones he’d never really put much thought into.
Even after turning back twelve years, he could barely remember just four of them.
What about the other eight?
What had the old Moon Tae-young been doing all that time?
Why did he regress? How did he become the Demon King?
Bzzztztzt—!
After showing him that strange memory, that thing seemed to squeeze out the last of its strength, summoning up another glitching message window.
[No mo?? power! Struggli—ng!]
Even without reading the content, the buzzing static alone was enough to guess that thing was in a bad state.
[To confir?m addi?tional inf??]
[Collab!! authori?zat—ion req—uir—ed!]
Moon Tae-young’s face hardened as he pieced together the broken fragments.
That bastard knows Cha Eui-sung’s secret. And now it was using that knowledge to try and extract something from him.
He didn’t waste time thinking it over.
Spinning on his heel, he leapt out of the reeking dungeon without hesitation.
He already had more than enough risks on his hands—there was no need to shoulder another one.
If he needed to know about Cha Eui-sung, he’d hear it directly from him.
Under a starlit sky, the village was eerily quiet, considering everyone had received emergency alerts.
Text messages he’d missed while inside the dungeon started rolling in. A final one arrived announcing that the situation had been brought under control.
The internet was still exploding with chaos, but there were no confirmed casualties.
By the time Moon Tae-young found out that not all Gates nationwide had been affected by the anomaly, he was already standing in front of his empty home.
Still no word from Cha Eui-sung.
Does he not know what happened? Or… is he unable to contact me?
Oddly calm, Moon Tae-young walked into the bathroom, peeled off his stinking, blood-soaked clothes, and washed away the grime. He let the cold water cool his head.
He treated a few shallow wounds that were still oozing blood, then sat in the dark on a chair in his room, lost in thought.
The events had been shocking. The revelations, unexpected. But he was okay.
Once Cha Eui-sung showed up, he’d ask him directly. Eui-sung would dodge and deflect, but eventually he’d talk.
That whole “Demon King and Hero” nonsense—childish titles with no emotional weight—could be figured out later.
He’d known from the day they first met that Cha Eui-sung was hiding something.
But no matter what secrets he held, they couldn’t possibly outweigh the ones Moon Tae-young had, tied to that thing.
“The role… oh, the eleven-year-old? Yeah, I’ve got a few candidates.”
“It’s just the role of a niece, so it’s fine if she comes off a little distant.”
He thought of the expression Eui-sung wore when he’d talked about Seo-ryong, so full of quiet affection—and his eyes twisted with a flicker of emotion.
Still, Moon Tae-young managed to regain some semblance of calm.
At one point, he stepped outside again, his breathing heavier than before. But after climbing the rear mountain and watching over the village for several hours, his heart grew still.
At least until a car came driving into the village with its headlights on.
It stopped in front of a house where there should’ve been no one.
The faint glow of a light flicked on inside Cha Eui-sung’s home.
“……”
Moon Tae-young stared at his silent phone, checked it again and again.
And as if drawn by instinct, he began descending the mountain.
