Kim Sibaek pressed his forehead in stunned silence. His fingertips, now cupping his suddenly bloodless face, were deathly pale.
‘Was what I just saw… really the future?’
A fleeting doubt crossed his mind—had someone with malicious intent launched a psychic attack on him? But the vision had felt far too vivid to dismiss so easily. At first, the overwhelming perspective of the first-person view had disoriented him, but now the landscape that stretched below was slowly burning itself into his memory.
The ground had been littered with countless corpses, drowned in horror, despair, and sheer disbelief. Among them, without a doubt, was Lee Hangyeol. Not the child from past memories, but a fully grown adult—just as he had appeared moments ago.
Judging by how little his appearance had changed, it couldn’t have been too long from now. What season was it in that vision? How much time did they have left?
And was Lee Hangyeol the only one of his siblings lying dead?
‘Goddamn it.’
Kim Sibaek desperately tried to recall the faces of his other siblings. Nothing. He couldn’t even begin to imagine how they might have grown up.
[Death and Beauty looks at you with great concern.]
It was only much later that he managed to explain the vision to Lord Biendeoé.
[Death and Beauty wails that it cannot die in a world nearly devoid of divinity.]
[Death and Beauty cries out for Death and Rest with all its might.]
[There is no answer from Death and Rest.]
[Death and Beauty is so stricken with terror that it can no longer see.]
The Divine Words flickered before his eyes. A fledgling crow flailed about in a panic, its short wings fluttering wildly. Strangely enough, the chaos helped Kim Sibaek regain a sense of calm.
‘The end of Earth, huh…’
He clasped his interlocked hands tightly. Though the vision hadn’t physically affected him, its intensity had left his head throbbing.
The notion of destruction wasn’t unfamiliar to him. In Mak Slechth, chaos-worshipping Paladins of Chaos would sometimes incarnate, much like the Edokers, and each time, the demonic beasts grew more ferocious. Had they failed to defeat those Paladins, Mak Slechth would have surely fallen.
Yet even when the Paladins of Chaos manifested, the gods themselves could never intervene directly. At best, they’d deliver vague, roundabout prophecies or appoint Apostles or Paladins to empty roles. Never before had a quest been granted to prevent annihilation—nothing like this “system.”
‘Wasn’t it said that divine intervention brings greater consequences due to causality, so the gods can only affect things indirectly? Is Earth somehow different…?’
He didn’t know. Earth wasn’t like Mak Slechth, where divinity permeated everyday life.
There was only one being on Earth with whom he could discuss such things.
“Lord Biendeoé, I’m thinking of discussing this with Woonie.”
He scooped up the frantic baby crow and held it to his chest. Lord Biendeoé flapped its wings and clutched his forearm tightly. Only he could protect this frightened young god. Resolving himself, Kim Sibaek made his way to the elevator.
Unlike in the morning, the building was now bustling with people. After stating his name at the entrance to the executive office, the secretary, already informed in advance, immediately let him in.
There was a guest in the office. A woman stood with her hands clasped behind her back, dressed in a guild uniform.
“You and the Guildmaster don’t have many years left before you hit forty. Five or six years will pass in a blink. You need to start taking care of your health before you suddenly fall apart.”
“Yeah, yeah, got it. You can leave now.”
Tae Woon waved her off absentmindedly. The woman, who had been rattling off health supplement sales talk with her guild ID badge around her neck, gave a polite bow to Kim Sibaek as she exited the room.
Kim Sibaek’s sharp vision caught a glimpse of her name on the badge in that brief moment.
[7777 Guild Raid Division, 2nd Strike Team Captain, Seo Gaeun]
“Oppa, chicken is great, but next time can we have pizza? I can eat a whole pie by myself.”
Watching Seo Gaeun walk away, Kim Sibaek’s gaze dimmed. Ever since childhood, her appetite had been enormous—and now she’d grown into a tall, sturdy adult.
…Could she have been one of the corpses in that vision?
He swallowed a heavy sigh, pressing his palm firmly to his eyelid, then let go. Composing his expression, Kim Sibaek managed to feign composure.
“Why does Gaeun talk like that?”
“I brought her back after she spent years in the military.”
“She used to study so hard saying she’d be a soldier one day. Guess she got her wish.”
“The world almost went under, so these days, Hunter backgrounds are more highly valued in the military than even Korea Military Academy grads.”
Though unintentional, the conversation had veered into talk of apocalypse again. He felt Biendeoé trembling in his arms.
“Are you busy? I can wait until you’re done.”
“It’s fine. What’s more important than you, hyung?”
Before Kim Sibaek could protest, Tae Woon had already taken off his glasses and stood up. He led him to the sofa, and they sat down side by side. Biendeoé, calmed somewhat by the warm herbal tea brought in by the secretary, nestled into his arms more quietly.
“A moment ago, the system gave me a quest.”
“Huh?”
Tae Woon’s face went blank.
“The system? What’s that?”
“You don’t know? It’s something like a status window?”
“Status window? Like in video games?”
Kim Sibaek was just as bewildered. Given that Earth, like Mak Slechth, had monsters and Awakened beings, he had naturally assumed there would be a status window too. Ever since arriving on Earth, the activated “system” had seemed to him like a replacement for Divine Words—a medium through which the will of “Earth” was conveyed instead of the will of the gods. So, he’d figured a status window would be part of the package as well.
“If there’s no status window, how do you check your abilities?”
“We figure them out bit by bit through trial and error. It’s more categorized now since a lot of data’s been gathered, but in the early days, it was absolute chaos.”
It was frustrating to encounter such unfamiliar concepts. How was he supposed to explain something when there was no shared context at all?
“So, what exactly is the system?”
“Well, it’s…”
As he struggled to articulate an answer, as if on cue, a new window popped up before his eyes.
[Having trouble explaining the system? (╥﹏╥) We’ve prepared something just for returnees like you!]
[Tutorial Quest 02]
[Try to get a sentient lifeform to say “status window.” Something surprising might happen!]
[Time remaining: 10:00]
Kim Sibaek clutched his forehead.
“Uh, Woonie, this might sound weird, but another quest just popped up.”
“Really?”
He was ready to be treated like a lunatic, but Tae Woon’s expression didn’t waver. He simply followed Kim Sibaek’s gaze to the empty air as though expecting to see something there.
“Do you believe what I’m saying?”
“I do.”
The words weren’t delivered with any dramatic flourish or emotional weight. They were plain, calm—and for that very reason, they struck with all the more sincerity. Behind Tae Woon’s eyes, he could see the image of the young boy who had once taken every one of his jokes at face value.
He was briefly at a loss for words. Twenty-one years was more than enough time for someone to change. And yet, this boy had somehow stayed exactly the same.
[Death and Beauty says, “That one would probably treasure a pebble from the roadside if my Apostle told him it was a gem.”]
…He couldn’t deny it. Ignoring the Divine Words, Kim Sibaek briefly explained the system and the quest. Tae Woon’s expression turned slightly hesitant.
“If you really want me to do it, I will, but… honestly, it’s kinda, um…”
He understood. This wasn’t a game, and Kim Sibaek himself used to be embarrassed to say “status window” out loud. But in the beginning, expressing one’s will verbally was essential for transmitting it into the divinity-saturated world of Mak Slechth—there had been no other choice.
“So if I don’t say it, the world ends?”
“Uh, well…”
Saying it out loud made him feel like a complete idiot. But Tae Woon nodded with all seriousness, and then, in a clear voice, spoke the words.
“Status window.”
Nothing happened.
“……”
[Too bad (๑˘･з･˘). The reward for this quest is a valuable life lesson: don’t trust people so easily. Try persuading them in your own way next time. We believe in you, dear returnee (˘▾˘)♫•¨•.¸¸♪]
[Oh, and by the way—the whole “world ending” thing? That part’s actually true. If you don’t believe us, feel free to fail the quest and earn the achievement for destroying Earth! Toodles!]
“……”
Seriously…Even Kim Sibaek, who typically avoided foul language, had to bite his tongue to keep the curses from spilling out.
“Sibaek-hyung?”
Despite not being the one who said the word “status window” out loud, it was Kim Sibaek who covered his face, his earlobes glowing red with embarrassment at age thirty-five.
After much trial and error, he managed to explain the quest in detail, and once again, Tae Woon accepted it without any suspicion.
“So in Mak Slechth, you could see status windows and Divine Words, right? Unlike Earth, even though both have monsters.”
“Yeah. The system of status windows and Divine Words was created by the gods. So I figured Earth’s god might’ve done something similar, but I guess not.”
“I’m not even sure if Earth has a representative god. Even the deity of the world’s biggest religion didn’t do anything noteworthy after the Cataclysm.”
“Didn’t clergy ever manifest divine power?”
“I don’t know what divine power is, but there are some Awakened priests—like the nun at our orphanage—but they use mana just like regular people.”
Tae Woon tapped his chin thoughtfully.
“Are we sure the system that’s interfering with you is Earth’s god at all? It’s kind of… undignified.”
Kim Sibaek agreed. Especially the way it used emoticons and symbols to express itself—utterly chaotic. He wished it would just stop.
“The way it talks makes it seem like it has a personality. Honestly, I’m glad it doesn’t communicate more directly.”
“Why?”
“Because if it did, you’d probably explode from stress and drop dead.”
“Ugh…”
Tae Woon, perhaps sensing the heavy atmosphere, deliberately took a playful tone. Thanks to that, Kim Sibaek, whose chest had been tight and heavy ever since the vision, finally managed to breathe a little easier.
“I kind of like seeing you frustrated for once. You’ve always shouldered everything without showing a hint of strain. Even when I offered to help, you just kept saying you were fine.”
“If I’d had to rely on someone fourteen years younger than me, I wouldn’t have been much of an adult.”
“What about now? I’ve grown up too, you know.”
The floor beneath the sofa seemed to shift slightly, and before he realized it, Tae Woon—who had been sitting a modest distance away—was suddenly very close. The presence of a grown man, solid and imposing, loomed in all at once.
