Chapter 48

Chapter 48. Awakening (5)

[April 28 (Wed) 01:00]

[Transcendent Shin Si-woo confirmed entry into the Void.]

After the Gate crisis, all economics had revolved around that axis.

For better or for worse.

The role of civil servants was no different.

[Gate Management Bureau]

Just as the Awakened Management Agency managed Hunters, the Gate Management Bureau managed 'Gates.'

Land that had been swallowed whole by the Void, like Jeonju in Jeolla-do, also fell under their jurisdiction.

Normally they'd record things like 'Lord Patriot has bombed the vicinity of the Void,' but this morning, a change had occurred for the first time in a long while.

'Lord Shin Si-woo…'

Im Su-hyeon, assigned to the Gate Management Bureau.

Her parents had disappeared into the Void.

That was why she had volunteered for this post.

In truth, most people who took this kind of assignment were those whose families had been swept up in it.

She had watched the pitch-black darkness all day.

And recorded.

[April 28 (Wed) 11:00]

[The darkness of the Void has begun to tremble.]

She suddenly noticed something strange.

'That's trembling?'

The name 'Void' had been given because that darkness had been endlessly still.

Pure black, nothing more.

A calamity that existed as though silently devouring everything, without the slightest stir.

"Wha…"

It was trembling.

Im Su-hyeon frantically pressed the red button.

The emergency call button.

Pressing it connected directly to the Blue House.

<This is the Blue House Emergency Response Team. We've confirmed an anomaly at the Jeolla-do Gate. Please brief us on the specific situation.>

The Blue House Emergency Response Team confirmed the location of the call, then immediately summoned the Special Task Force — Hyeonmu.

At the same time, they responded to the Void Monitoring Team where Im Su-hyeon was stationed.

Im Su-hyeon spoke in a trembling voice.

"Th-this is officer Im Su-hyeon. The Void is trembling. This is the first change since observation began—"

Im Su-hyeon's report cut off mid-sentence.

The sound of shaking breaths could be heard.

<Ms. Im Su-hyeon?>

No answer.

The Emergency Response Team escalated the emergency level by one notch per protocol.

Then they continued the conversation with the first discoverer.

<Ms. Im Su-hyeon, you need to stay calm. No matter what happens, you must not lose focus around Gate anomalies.>

Inside Gates, Hunters could exert extremely powerful force.

Ordinary people, on the other hand, could not withstand a Gate's wavelength.

Their minds could collapse, or in severe cases, they could die.

<Ms. Im Su-hyeon! The Hyeonmu Special Task Force has departed for your location. If you can just hold on a little longer—>

Thanks to [portals] being installed across the entire national territory, response times had shortened further.

Already, all available Hyeonmu personnel had been assembled and were crossing the portal, and would soon use a [Gate] to move to the Jeolla-do vicinity.

So hold on.

<Please take calm, deep breaths and count to ten with me—>

The Emergency Response Team tried various approaches to keep Im Su-hyeon's mind anchored.

Then, amidst it all.

Her voice suddenly came through.

"The G-Gate… no, the Void is d-disappearing."

That place where her parents had vanished.

A calamity that had remained unchanged for years.

Its darkness was beginning to scatter, slowly.

<What do you mean by… C-could you please give a more detailed description?>

This time, it was the Emergency Response Team's voice that trembled.

[The Void.]

Jeolla-do and Gyeongsang-do.

A great catastrophe that had even erased the longstanding regional rivalry between the two.

All of South Korea was of one heart, praying for their return.

That Shin Si-woo had headed there was already known to the entire nation.

Every media outlet on WorldNet had reported it; there wasn't a soul who didn't know.

"I-I'll say it again."

And yet, the notion that a Void which had consumed hundreds of thousands could be vanishing was simply unbelievable.

Im Su-hyeon, the first to witness it, felt the same.

"……"

Mom.

Dad.

They might be coming back.

She shed tears.

But she steadied her heart and fulfilled her duty.

"The Void is dissipating."

Still trembling, but clear.

"As of Wednesday, April 28th, 12:13 PM, the Jeolla-do Void Gate has been annihilated."

* * *

Jeolla-do publicist Kim Jun.

True to someone who had been trapped in this space for 1,135 days, he had no idea who I was.

"Y-you're telling me you're the second Transcendent to appear in South Korea? How am I supposed to believe…"

In a way, it was only natural.

On top of everything, he'd lost his memory when contracting with the Dark God.

Still, I gave an explanation.

"If not, how else could I have gotten in here?"

I had the ability to cleave time and space.

Thanks to that, I'd discovered the Gate hidden within the Void and had entered his body directly, arriving at the [graveyard].

"I-if not, it wouldn't make sense, but… wait, there are really two Transcendents now? Whew—."

After a long hesitation, Kim Jun finally let out a sigh of relief.

He muttered quietly, something like 'South Korea is insane. Two Transcendents?'

"You've truly suffered through 1,135 days."

"Huh? I-it's already been that long?"

He had lost his memory.

The scope was larger than I'd thought.

I calmly recited a slightly embellished truth.

"Jeolla-do publicist, Mr. Kim Jun. For 1,135 days, you led hundreds of thousands of survivors and endured, while ceaselessly sending rescue signals to the outside."

It was thanks to that that I had come here.

And that was genuinely the case.

"S-so Lord Patriot not bombing us was also…"

"Yes, it was all because you sent survival signals, Mr. Kim Jun."

"Ahh, it wasn't in vain."

He did have a vague memory of what he'd done.

He simply didn't know specifically how long it had been or what had happened.

'Is that fortunate, I wonder?'

From roughly 300,000 down to 170,000.

An enormous number of people had died, but those who would have all perished had survived.

I disclosed only his heroic deeds and concealed every dark aspect.

For him, it was only right.

"I-I… all those people."

Kim Jun wore a complicated expression as he gazed at the structure built from massive coffins.

Perhaps seeing nothing but heaps of coffins made it feel unreal?

Kim Jun used his ability and began extracting the people from the coffins.

The versatility was incredible.

'He's just pulling them out by the ten-thousands.'

The problem was that the people's condition didn't look great…

They all appeared to be on the verge of death.

"C-can we call them saved?"

I used the [Life-and-Death Demon] to bestow [life force] upon the people.

The British Doctor had said he could revive anything as long as a breath remained — and the Life-and-Death Demon, created by absorbing his ability, could perform the same feat.

True to a being born from Iris's demons, the Life-and-Death Demon restored the people's health in an instant.

"These are the people you saved, Mr. Kim Jun."

Only then did Kim Jun seem to grasp the reality of it, gasping for breath.

I gave him a moment.

Until he calmed down.

"Could I, perhaps, ask about your abilities?"

"Ah, yes. O-of course."

He was still dazed, his reactions slightly slow.

Even so, Kim Jun began calmly explaining his Awakened abilities.

The [graveyard] was a place for storing coffins, and the [coffins] were objects that suspended death.

And he — the Gravedigger — was the guardian who watched over the coffins.

"B-but I didn't undergo a trial…"

"I suspect this entire experience inside this space was treated as a trial."

The Void — this Gate — had been an environment as brutal as any trial.

I shrugged and asked him to continue explaining his abilities.

"Ah! And I have an ability called Communication."

An ability to make contact with the outside of the graveyard.

That wasn't what I was curious about.

"That's not all, is it?"

I had witnessed a miracle that couldn't be explained by those alone.

"W-what else should there be?"

"All those people are alive and intact — your current abilities don't explain that."

Kim Jun cried out with a bewildered face.

"Y-you swallowed them up with that terrifying monster and spat them back out! If they recovered because of that, why are you asking me—"

170,000 — an enormous crowd.

I had swallowed them with the Life-and-Death Demon, bestowed [life], and spat them back out.

So yes, the survivors who had been barely clinging to life were now healthy.

"No, that's not what I'm asking."

What I wanted to know was.

How so many people could possibly have—

"I'm asking why all 170,000 have become Awakened."

Every last one of them.

* * *

President Lee Seok-hyeon and Senior Prosecutor Kang Mu-jin gathered in one place.

Since Shin Si-woo had become a Transcendent, this had been a daily occurrence — but this time, numerous working-level staff were present alongside them.

"This is the first time the number of civilian survivors from a Gate has exceeded 100,000."

The Void was still in the process of vanishing, but the President was certain of its 'annihilation.'

He was leading the meeting under the assumption that survivors would exceed 100,000.

Given the achievements the Transcendent called Shin Si-woo had demonstrated, preparations befitting that level were in order.

Above all, when would such a windfall come again?

"This is a first since the Emergency Response Team was established. Detailed briefing, please."

The Righteous Prosecutor Kang Mu-jin, who by rights should not have been here, also joined the meeting naturally.

This was because the Patriot had recently stopped complaining about Kang Mu-jin frequenting the Blue House.

He was clearly intimidated by Shin Si-woo.

"A righteous prosecutor doesn't have to stay in the prosecution office, does he?"

He'd even said that when returning the [Strengthened Yi Sun-sin's Axe].

Kang Mu-jin had thought — since things had come to this — he might as well enter politics.

That was why he sat here, discussing countermeasures with the President.

"Over 100,000 civilian survivors. Shouldn't we start by recruiting doctors?"

Doctors.

Important, yes.

The call had already gone out.

Results hadn't been great, though…

"The number of doctors is woefully insufficient."

This was a Void that had swallowed a city — hundreds of thousands of people.

It was only natural for everyone to be afraid, regardless of age or gender.

Even if it had been conquered, until it fully vanished, no one would want to step forward.

Understandable.

But it was fine.

"Under the Patriot Special Act, conscript the doctors from university hospitals. Leave minimum staffing and send everyone to Jeolla-do."

The Republic of Korea was a democratic nation.

But when a catastrophe like a Gate occurred, the state could infringe on individual freedoms.

The logic was that for a disaster of pan-human scope, all humans must step up.

This hadn't originated from the Patriot.

It was the will of the living Jesus.

"Since we're moving by portal, we can save as much time as possible."

"Who knew improving Korea-Japan relations would help this much…"

"Ahem, let's watch our words for now."

Various discussions continued.

Procuring vehicles.

Finding a location to house survivors numbering in the hundreds of thousands.

Checking how the land corroded by the Void was changing.

And as they did, work progressed steadily.

"Doctor procurement complete."

"Psychiatrists are noticeably scarce. Why?"

"A large-scale polluted-beast incursion hit the frontline military unit, so the psychiatrists were dispatched there."

"Polluted beasts… did they reach the first containment line?"

The President had received the report.

It was why he hadn't slept all night.

'The timing felt almost deliberate.'

The Patriot had entered the [Tower] at 8 PM the previous evening.

Shin Si-woo had headed for the Void at 1 AM.

And the sudden polluted-beast assault had occurred around 3 AM.

Naturally, there were safeguards in place.

[Korea-US-Japan Mutual Defense Accord]

Jesus's judicial support.

Cross-deployment of Transcendents via portal among Korea, US, and Japan.

An alliance designed to cover each other's Transcendent gaps.

And it just so happened that, during the gap when South Korea's two Transcendents were absent, an enormous volume of polluted beasts had flooded down from the North.

"Roughly five times the usual volume came through. However, thanks to the newly introduced portable mobile Gates, we were able to hold the line without major losses."

Even so, the contamination levels were so severe that many soldiers had suffered mental trauma.

Which was why numerous psychiatrists and counselors had headed to the frontline medical facility.

"That front… sigh, that's the most critical area, so let's set aside the psychiatrist issue."

War.

In truth, it was madness.

But thinking only of the frontline made him desperate to go to war right now.

The President was not alone in that — every clean politician who cared about this nation felt the same.

The soldiers suffering there.

Thinking of them alone was maddening.

The President knew well — he'd spent some time at the front himself.

'China.'

They called it North Korea, but the real culprit was China.

The reason they kept invoking a nation that had already fallen was that they couldn't bring themselves to cry out for heavy punishment.

But now, things were different.

'The war is coming soon…'

Just as President Lee Seok-hyeon was lost in thought, someone shouted urgently.

"Mr. President, check WorldNet first!"

The President hastily opened WorldNet and scanned the news.

He could see countless people watching the scene in Jeolla-do in real time.

What if they got caught up in it?

An idle worry arose.

"Deploy troops and tighten the cordon—"

The President was about to issue that instruction when he abruptly stopped.

Then he changed the directive.

"…No, just make sure a safe distance is maintained."

The [Void] that had blanketed the Jeonju area of Jeolla-do had dissipated more than 95%.

And just before the final remnants of darkness vanished, an enormous number of people began pouring out.

No — they cascaded out like a waterfall.

They'd prepared on the assumption of 100,000 survivors, and even that hadn't been enough.

"Lord Shin Si-woo…"

At the tail end of the entire crowd.

Riding a peculiar demon that was half white and half black, Shin Si-woo appeared.

He wore a deeply complex, inscrutable expression, gazing up at the sky.

With a large seed in his hand.