A New World (1)
The moment Seon Yul and Cheon Li Yu passed through the Main Gate, they felt as if they were suddenly falling into a bottomless abyss.
That dizzying sensation lasted only an instant before they arrived somewhere.
Both Seon Yul and Cheon Li Yu had naturally assumed that once they crossed the gate, the gate itself would remain behind them.
But there was no gate behind them.
The two of them were standing alone in what looked like a forest filled with enormous trees packed tightly together.
The trees were so large that they immediately realized this was not the Earth they had lived on.
“…Is this Earth-001?”
“…Is that even a tree?”
Cheon Li Yu muttered while looking up at the tree stretching endlessly toward the sky.
She even activated Divine Eye to estimate its height, and to her surprise, the tree was nearly 300 meters tall.
“At this point, that’s not a tree. That’s practically a mountain.”
Not only was the tree 300 meters tall, but its circumference was also enormous.
It genuinely felt as if they had arrived in a land of giants as tiny people.
“Let’s check the important things first.”
Seon Yul immediately tried opening Absolute Space. If Absolute Space couldn’t be opened here, that would be the worst-case scenario, so it had to be confirmed first.
[Creating entrance to Absolute Space!]
Tssssss
Fortunately, the entrance appeared.
“Let’s go inside.”
The two of them entered Absolute Space first.
Since they had no idea what might jump out outside, Absolute Space was the safest place.
Inside, nothing had changed.
Everything looked the same.
The first thing Seon Yul checked was whether he could exit through the Absolute Space entrances he had previously opened back on Earth-104.
Surprisingly, every single entrance connected to Earth-104 had disappeared.
It felt as if crossing over here had reset them.
‘Then the only thing left is… the emergency exit…’
Next, Seon Yul checked whether the emergency exit remained.
“Huh? The emergency exit is still there?”
“No way… does that actually work? If it does, isn’t that totally broken?”
Cheon Li Yu muttered in surprise.
“Let’s try using it.”
Seon Yul cautiously activated the emergency exit.
However, he couldn’t use it.
But unlike the other entrances that had simply disappeared or been blocked, this one showed a different message.
[To activate Emergency Exit (Earth-104), a ‘Return Stone’ is required.]
“…Uh… this…”
Seon Yul quickly opened the description window of his Absolute Space ability and checked the emergency exit section again.
[Emergency Exit] Currently set to [Earth-104]
(Each use of the emergency exit consumes 1 Return Stone per person using the entrance.)
The description had changed.
“…If we have Return Stones… we can use the emergency exit.”
That was an incredible discovery.
If that worked, Seon Yul might not even need to use the Main Gate anymore.
“Then we should get Return Stones first.”
“And Soul Stones, too. But before that, we probably need to figure out what kind of world this is.”
Cheon Li Yu was right.
Before worrying about Return Stones or Soul Stones, they needed to understand what kind of world Earth-001 actually was.
And what existed here.
“Let’s go back outside.”
They had confirmed the basics. Now it was time to begin exploring.
The two stepped out of Absolute Space and slowly walked between the enormous trees that still felt impossible to get used to.
Cheon Li Yu carefully scanned their surroundings with Divine Eye, checking every nearby danger.
Thanks to that, their exploration was safer than expected.
After walking for some time…
A massive cliff came into view.
A cliff so enormous that even the gigantic trees looked small beside it.
Its height seemed to easily exceed four kilometers.
“What is this… some kind of giant race world? Everything’s huge.”
Seon Yul muttered while looking up at the cliff.
“If we climb up there, we should be able to see most things.”
Using Absolute Space, climbing the cliff was effortless.
They simply opened an entrance above and moved up.
The first thing they saw after reaching the top was…
A wyvern.
Whooooosh
After seeing the wyvern fly past outside the Absolute Space entrance, Seon Yul and Cheon Li Yu did not step outside immediately.
“That thing that just passed… was that a wyvern?”
“The shape looks right… But is it supposed to be that big?”
Surprisingly, wyverns were monsters Seon Yul had hunted on Earth.
But although this one looked the same, it was two to three times larger.
“The trees are big… and the monsters are big too…”
Seon Yul recalled the strange sense of discomfort he had felt since arriving in this world.
“Li Yu. Did you notice anything strange when we came here?”
“Something strange? Ah… I did feel it. How do I say it… sticky? Like the air is full of mana.”
“Exactly. I felt the same thing. I think the reason everything here is bigger is because of that.”
“Because the mana density is higher, they absorb more of it and grow larger?”
“Exactly.”
Seon Yul nodded.
“So when the system said magic users from our world can’t last four months here… it must be because we can’t withstand the high mana density.”
Cheon Li Yu quickly reached the same conclusion Seon Yul had.
“Probably. But we might be different because we have Absolute Space.”
Inside Absolute Space, that sticky mana density disappeared.
As long as they used Absolute Space properly, they might be able to remain in this world for a very long time.
“Let’s take a look outside.”
After activating Divine Eye, Cheon Li Yu shared her vision with Seon Yul.
“Wow… this cliff… It’s full of wyvern nests.”
“Yeah. If I lived in this world, I’d probably call it Wyvern Cliff.”
Seon Yul said jokingly.
But coincidentally, people in this world actually called it exactly that.
More precisely, it was known as “Wyvern Cliff in the Dark Forest.”
“How do you want to proceed?”
Cheon Li Yu asked.
Seon Yul was clearly the leader, so the decision was his.
“First… let’s hunt a monster. If we take down a wyvern, we’ll get a sense of what we need to do here.”
The system hadn’t told them exactly what to do.
It had only said to obtain Soul Stones and Return Stones to save their world.
So the most urgent question was how to obtain them.
And hunting monsters was the obvious first step.
Seon Yul already had a plan.
Click.
He picked up the Barrett M82 beside him and chambered a round.
“I’ll take down one that flies up to the cliff. Just find the target with Divine Eye.”
The safest hunting method was still the same:
Sniping monsters from inside Absolute Space.
Seon Yul mounted the Barrett M82 at the entrance and waited.
Even though the world had changed, the hunting method didn’t need to.
Back on Earth-104, he had hunted wyverns with the Barrett, too.
Of course, if their larger size made the rifle insufficient, they would simply adjust later.
After about 15 minutes…
Cheon Li Yu, who had been watching the wyverns flying near the nests below, finally spoke.
“One’s coming up! Three o’clock direction!”
Seon Yul immediately aimed the rifle and waited.
SHWAAAA
Soon enough, a massive wyvern soared upward over the cliff.
Seon Yul tracked it through the scope, waiting for the moment it hovered.
Like a veteran hunter, he slowed his breathing and followed the creature’s movement.
Then…
The wyvern paused briefly in midair.
Seon Yul didn’t miss the chance.
BANG!
A completely alien gunshot echoed across Earth-001.
Perhaps similar sounds existed here, but weapons identical to those developed on Earth-104 likely did not.
This might have been the first gunshot ever heard on Earth-001.
FWOOSH -THUD!
The armor-piercing round, empowered by Powerful Strike, slammed into the wyvern’s torso.
Normally, wyverns on Earth-104 would have turned to dust from a hit like that.
But Earth-001 was different.
SCREEEEEE!
Even after taking the shot, the wyvern was still alive.
It twisted painfully in the air, barely maintaining flight.
‘As expected… different.’
Seon Yul calmly aimed again.
BANG!
The second shot struck the wyvern’s head.
CRASH! RUMBLE!
This time, it was enough.
The massive body plummeted down the cliff.
Whoooooosh…
‘…It didn’t turn to dust?’
In that moment, Seon Yul clearly realized the difference between this world and theirs.
‘This… is reality.’
Back on Earth-104, monster hunting had often felt like playing a game.
But here, everything felt brutally real.
Which meant looting monsters would also be real.
“Li Yu. Let’s head down.”
They had already left an Absolute Space entrance below.
They moved down and used Divine Eye to locate the fallen wyvern.
It wasn’t difficult.
The body had fallen straight to the ground without getting caught in branches.
The two cautiously approached it.
“Do you think if we dismantle it, we’ll get Soul Stones, Return Stones, or magic crystals?”
Cheon Li Yu examined the corpse.
“Hm… let’s move it into Absolute Space first.”
Seon Yul had no intention of dissecting it outside, where it was dangerous.
He stored the corpse inside Absolute Space.
Then both of them followed.
“…How do we even dismantle this? Do we have to learn butchering skills now?”
Cheon Li Yu muttered worriedly.
“Dismantling…”
Seon Yul thought for a moment.
Then his face lit up.
“Li Yu. Stay still for a moment.”
Before she could react, Seon Yul focused his mind and altered the internal structure of Absolute Space.
By spending 5 kg of magic crystals, he added a large room-like structure.
Once the structural change was finished, he threw the wyvern corpse into the new room.
“What are you doing?”
Cheon Li Yu asked, completely confused.
“To make dismantling easier. We don’t need to do it ourselves.”
The target of the dismantling was…
Shadow Workers.
The newly created room was essentially a butchering chamber.
From now on, Shadow Workers would dismantle monster corpses there, sorting not only the loot but every possible material item that could be obtained.
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