Chapter 1: Back on Earth

Stranded. Day one.

I have no idea where I am.

When I woke up, I found myself in a forest.

Stranded. Day seven.

I saw a wolf.

Not a cute little wolf pup like you see at the zoo. A wild one. It was huge.

I sprinted away from it. What an experience.

<+1 Stamina>

Oh, shit! What was that? I swear, I heard something!

Stranded. Day thirty-one.

I think I’m losing my mind.

Maybe I’m imagining things now. It’s as if this place is a world from a game.

Stranded. Day sixty-seven.

The wolf pack that’s been chasing me is still roaming the area.

I can’t let my guard down. I don’t know when they might attack. Besides, there are much more dangerous things out there in the forest than the wolves.

I need to find somewhere safer to hide.

Stranded. Year one.

I don’t know how to explain my situation other than with the word “adaptation.”

I survived. I’ve completely adapted to the forest…

<+1 Strength>

Or maybe I’ve evolved…

Stranded. Year two.

I became friends with the wolves that were chasing me.

Is it because they’re canines? They’re starting to look a little cute.

It’s almost as if they recognize me as a member of their pack.

Jeez, I feel like a survivalist.

Stranded. Year fifteen.

I thought about it for a long time. Now I finally made up my mind.

I need to find other people.

The two moons in the sky feel stranger than usual today.

Stranded. Year thirty-one.

I’m still stuck in this place.

I haven’t found a single human being.

And no, I haven’t made it out of the woods.

It’s so fucking vast…

Stranded. Year sixty-seven.

I don’t think there’s anyone else on this planet.

Only the furry beasts… I’m making more and more friends.

Stranded. Year ???

How many days have I been here?

I can’t even remember…

It feels like it’s been at least 500 years. How am I still alive?

Stranded. Year ???

It’s no use trying to find other human beings.

Any sign of intelligent life would be good enough for me. If only I could find a trace of anyone out there…

This is a primeval forest. Everything’s natural. Untouched.

I feel so goddamned lonely.

Stranded. Year ???

A red portal appeared.

“Maybe I’ve been alive too long,” the man muttered to himself as he stared at the portal. “Look at me, worrying about something like this. After all I’ve been through.”

The man had lived a life full of worries. Now it was do or die. He couldn’t overthink every single decision anymore.

“Let’s go. What’s it gonna do? Kill me?” He chuckled to himself.

There was nothing more painful than living forever. There had to be something out there after this life, or this simulation, was over.

He pondered for a long time before he made the decision to walk through the portal. When the man would consider these kinds of problems, he'd think for a long time. But when he finally decided, he would act immediately. Without any more hesitation, he stepped right through the portal.

Zap!

The portal swallowed the man whole. It expanded and collapsed into itself and disappeared from the forest. Only a hideous pit remained where the portal once stood, as though the forest had been struck by a meteorite.

The animals from the forest trickled out from the trees one by one amid the chaos. They howled and cried at the man’s sudden absence.

“Awoooo!”

Their howls were filled with resentment toward a man who had left without saying goodbye.

The forest echoed with their moans of despair.

Their king was gone.

* * *

An abandoned city. A group of people walked down a broken asphalt road. Suddenly, their leader, a blond woman named Suyeong Choi, stopped dead in her tracks. The three people behind her followed suit.

“I think we’re close,” she said.

She closed her eyes as she focused. She had the ability to sense dimensional energy. She felt a hint of it nearby.

“Set the detector up here,” she commanded.

“Yes, ma’am.”

Suyeong’s team took out mechanical instruments from their backpacks and scattered them around.

Meanwhile, Suyeong picked up her phone.

“Did you find it?” asked the voice over the line.

“Yes, sir. I’ve sent you the coordinates. Please dispatch the management team.”

Their work here was done. Suyeong and her detection team were responsible for finding the dimensional rifts before they occurred. The portal management team would come after and take over from there.

“Well done, team,” said the voice over the phone before they hung up.

One of the team members approached Suyeong as she put her phone in her pocket.

“Ma’am, where are we going to eat later?” he asked.

The team had just found a dimensional rift and had finally returned to Seoul after a long week. They looked forward to a night out together over some good food and plenty of drinks.

“How about some chicken feet and soju?” she suggested.

“Ha ha! You and your chicken feet!”

“What? You don’t like chicken feet?”

“Oh, sure. It’s not like I have a choice, is it? Ha ha!”

Suyeong smiled at the light banter and looked around. It was a complete mess. Constant bombardment had broken and scattered the buildings and roads. Before the ruins of these buildings, there once stood a great city.

This was why they took their job of finding dimensional rifts seriously. They had to find them before the portals opened. They had to evacuate the civilians and set up military bases in the area to prevent the portals from opening. Because wherever the portals opened, monsters appeared.

“Huh? Ma’am, there’s something strange going on with these numbers.”

“What is it?”

As Suyeong approached the computer, the numbers on the screen increased rapidly.

Beep! Beep! Beep!

The dimensional energy numbers were rising past their limits. A portal was about to open.

“Everybody, fall back!” Suyeong shouted.

As she gave that command, a crack appeared in midair.

Zap!

The crack sparked and deepened. The space around it became distorted, and a red portal formed.

“Aw, fuck,” muttered Suyeong, “I had a nightmare like this last night.” She was beautiful, and she loved to swear.

“Run!” she shouted as she drew her sword from her belt. She got into a defensive stance.

Suyeong’s team members immediately picked up their equipment and ran.

Nobody knew what would come out of that portal. Suyeong, their team leader, was the only person who could buy them time and still have a good chance of surviving.

Bzzt!

The portal trembled. Out walked something with a silhouette of a man.

Is that…a person?

The creature looked bipedal, but it didn’t necessarily mean it was a human. After all, a lot of monsters were bipedal. Suyeong backed away to maintain a safe distance from the creature. If she suddenly ran, the creature might attack and tear her throat out.

“Urgh…”

The unidentified creature coming out of the portal approached her slowly. She couldn’t tell if it was moaning or grunting. But its eyes were blazing dangerously.

My body… Suyeong was taken aback. It was like she couldn’t escape from those deep, abyss-like eyes. She felt like a rat frozen in front of a snake. It was like her body instinctively knew to surrender without a fight.

Come on! Move! Suyeong was utterly powerless. How could anything trap her with just a look? She couldn’t accept that. You’re a five-year veteran! Snap out of it!

“Finally…” The creature that looked like a man winced as though he was in pain. He spoke Korean.

He walked closer to Suyeong. There was a lethal look in his eyes. Even boss monsters in high-rank dungeons didn’t have as deadly a look in their eyes as this man.

“I’m back…” The man collapsed.

Suyeong awkwardly caught the man before he fell to the ground. The restraint had lifted from her body.

“Hey! Hey!” She laid the man down and snapped her fingers in front of his face. But he was out.

Bzzt!

The portal shrank and vanished into thin air. It disappeared just as quickly as it had appeared. No monsters had come from it this time. Just a human being. The portal must have been a return portal. Suyeong had never witnessed one for herself until today, but she knew they existed.

“M-m-ma’am!”

Suyeong’s team rushed back as soon as the portal disappeared.

“Bring me a stretcher,” Suyeong commanded.

“Is that a human?”

“Yes. It’s a returnee.”

Suyeong glanced at the man sprawled on the ground. He looked like he was asleep. Suyeong no longer felt threatened.

Who are you?

The team headed back to the Returnee Control Department.

* * *

His body felt heavy. It was as though he had fallen into an abyss and just barely managed to crawl out of it.

“Urgh…”

He was regaining consciousness. Even though he still didn’t have any strength at all, he felt himself gradually coming to his senses. He opened his eyes. There were bright lights shining from a white ceiling.

Where am I? He lay still for about ten minutes.

Then he suddenly realized where he was.

“A hospital,” the man muttered.

It had been so long since he’d left Earth. He had forgotten everything about his life here. But now his memories came flooding back to him, as if he were flipping through an old photo album. He started to remember things about Earth that he had shoved into the back of his mind.

TV, remote control, IV drip, bed, curtains…

He sat up in his bed. He pulled out the needle attached to his forearm.

Blerp blerp blerp.

Soon enough, the bleeding on his arm stopped. He wiped the blood with his sleeve and was pleasantly surprised.

“It’s soft,” he muttered.

It felt very different from animal fur. It was soft and pleasant. This is probably…

“What fabric feels like,” he whispered. It was so airy and light. He almost burst into tears.

He was finally back in civilization.

He got up and walked over to the window. He pulled back the curtains and slid the window open. There was a road outside. The headlights of the cars illuminating the dark streets brought back more memories.

Cars, buildings, roads, signs…

More memories he had suppressed were resurfacing.

“I haven’t forgotten.”

Actually, it wasn’t that he had forgotten them. If he had, he wouldn’t have missed them so much. Even though he had become so used to life in the wild, the memories of what his life used to be like were now coming back to him one by one, there in the hospital room.

“I’m back on Earth.”

He vaguely remembered having encountered someone as soon as stepped out of the portal.

“Oh, my goodness! You’re awake!”

A nurse stood at the door. She was surprised to see her patient standing by the window.

“You have to lie back down!” cried the nurse. “Don’t overexert yourself! The doctor said you have to stay in bed!”

The nurse then noticed the blood on his forearm. “Oh, my goodness! You can’t just pull your IV out like that!”

The man grabbed the nurse’s arm. “Let me ask you a question.”

“S-sir, please let my arm go.”

“Where’s the nearest hunting ground?”

“What? Hunting ground? That’s random.”

“Where’s the nearest colony of fruit trees?”

“There’s no such thing. This is Seoul.”

“What?”

He frowned. So did the nurse.

“Please, let my arm go,” repeated the nurse. The man let go, and the nurse walked toward the door, glaring at him. “You have to stop with your nonsense and stay in bed. I’ll page the doctor.”

Left alone again in the room, the man stroked his stomach.

“I’m hungry,” he muttered.

He had gotten used to hunting and foraging for the past few hundred years. It might take some time before he adjusted back to civilization again.

* * *

Korea National University Hospital was one of the hospitals affiliated with the Returnee Control Department. The hospital was full of world-renowned specialists.

Among them was psychiatrist and psychology professor Doctor Jeongguk Kim, who had experience dealing with countless patients suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder.

“It’s nice to meet you. Have you had lunch?” Doctor Kim reached out to shake the man’s hand.

“Yeah. It was fucking delicious,” replied the man. He left Doctor Kim’s hand hanging in the air.

Doctor Kim smiled as he drew his hand back. He was used to patients speaking crassly.

“Now, why don’t we introduce ourselves?”

“You first, old man.”

People suffering from extreme stress sometimes changed their personalities completely. Doctor Kim was a veteran psychiatrist. He was too experienced to be offended by the man’s insult.

He replied calmly with a smile, “Ha ha, I’m Jeongguk Kim. As you can see, I’m pretty old.”

He smiled, trying to demonstrate his age by highlighting the wrinkles on his face. However, Doctor Kim wasn’t convinced.

Jeongguk continued, “What’s your name?”

“My name…?”

“Yes. What’s your name?”

“I don’t remember.”

This was a common case.

“You don’t remember your name? How did you forget?”

“I just did.”

“Just like that?” Doctor Kim snapped his finger.

“I was alone for a long time. You start to forget your name when there’s no one there to say it.”

Doctor Kim chuckled. “You forgot because no one said your name?”

“No one said my name for a long time.”

“How long?”

“I lost count after about five hundred years.”

“Ha ha! Interesting.”

“What’s interesting?”

Doctor Kim’s face quickly changed as he looked at his patient’s expressionless face. He couldn’t help but feel sorry for him.

Empathy. It was the foundation of his psychological consultations.

“Oh, my goodness. How did you end up alone in the first place?”

“I don’t know. You’re asking me a lot of questions, aren’t you, baldy?”

Doctor Kim didn’t scold him. After all, he was a veteran with twenty-five years of experience. The most important thing was to keep the conversation going and forming a bond. It was all part of the counseling.

“Very well. In that case, tell me about your life.”

“Why do you keep asking so many questions?”

Doctor Kim was actually eager to take on this man’s case. He couldn’t wait to talk to him. He calmed his mind and chuckled.

“I’m just a little excited to talk to you today,” he continued. “How about this? Let’s take turns asking each other questions. Let’s get to know each other better.”

The man stroked his chin. “Okay.”

“All right, then. You can go first. Ask me anything.”

“I met three males…I mean, three men today.”

Doctor Kim smiled. “Okay.”

“Why were they all bald?”

“…”

Doctor Kim’s eyebrow twitched slightly.

“Did they all evolve that way?”

What the hell did this prick say?