The Jelly Alien Will Save You! Chapter 59

“Keep your eyes closed and your ears covered.”

 

“Huh?”

 

“Close your eyes, cover your ears…… and keep purifying continuously.”

 

The cold sensation moved my hands to my ears.

 

I squeezed my eyes shut and covered my ears with both hands.

 

Then, I summoned my Power of Purification.

 

With my eyes and ears covered, my senses felt strange.

 

Though my body wasn’t moving, it felt as if my surroundings were tilting minutely.

 

As if the ground were very slowly becoming slanted.

 

“…?!”

 

It was the illusion of the direction I believed to be ‘up’ gradually sliding to the side, while the space beneath my feet became a wall.

 

Just then, a fierce wind blew, and I had to be careful not to lose my balance.

 

And in an instant.

 

the damp, musty scent—like rain-soaked concrete—changed.

 

The scent swirling around the tip of my nose with every breath was now the smell of dry earth and dust.

 

The sensation beneath the soles of my feet changed as well.

 

I, who had been standing on hard concrete, now felt as though I were standing on a coarse texture.

 

What happened? What did he do?

 

My heart throbbed wildly. 

 

* * *

 

Haeeon looked down at the small alien and then slowly raised his head.

 

Before he knew it, stone steps had appeared in front of him as well.

 

If one set foot even once on that thing—often called the ‘Infinite Stairs’—they could never escape.

 

“…”

 

Tap, tap. 

 

Passing by the pink jelly, Haeeon headed toward the front of the stairs. 

 

There was only one way to break the trick of the stairs. 

 

Someone among the party had to climb them. 

 

It was a rule that demanded a sacrifice.

 

For that reason, Haeeon began to step onto the stairs himself. 

 

One step.

 

Gulp.

 

Another step.

 

Gulp.

 

Every time he climbed, the stairs tried to extort something from him.

 

Vitality, energy, spirit.

 

However.

 

Haeeon let out a small laugh.

 

Every time he took a step, black contamination spread from his toes, filling the stairs to the brim. 

 

An overwhelming amount of contamination—far beyond what could be endured—consumed the structure.

 

Crack!

 

Creeaaaak—!

 

Along with the sound of breaking bones, cracks began to form in the stairs.

 

The stairs, which should have been infinite, revealed an end, as if they wanted Haeeon to stop.

 

But Haeeon didn’t stop pouring out the contamination.

 

As if he were pouring the filth directly down his own throat.

 

Simultaneously, the corners of the corroded stairs crumbled and fell away.

 

Haeeon’s form was now blurred into the shape of a blazing black flame.

 

As if he had become contamination itself.

 

Crack! Crunch!

 

Debris fell from all over the stairs and rolled across the ground.

 

He stood atop the collapsing staircase as if reigning over it like a king.

 

Rumble—!

 

The speed at which the stairs crumbled grew faster and faster.

 

Then, long hands began to emerge from between the stonework.

 

—Aaaaaaah!

 

—Hyuuuuuu!

 

Making grotesque screams, those things flailed around to grab Haeeon. 

 

But Haeeon merely looked at them with indifference.

 

The hands exploded before they could even reach him.

 

Thwack—! Bam—!

 

Blood splattered onto his cheek.

 

Haeeon, nonchalantly wiping it away with the back of his hand, glanced at the jelly standing below.

 

He worried that she might hear the screams or the explosions, but it seemed she heard nothing.

 

A moment later.

 

Haeeon slowly closed his eyes.

 

And when he lifted his eyelids, he was standing on a road, not the stairs.

 

The stairs lay ruined on the road, drenched in the blood leaking from between the cracks.

 

‘I’ll have to clean this up.’

 

Thinking of it as if it were nothing, Haeeon adjusted his distorted face and put on his gas mask.

 

* * *

 

Even though I was standing still, I felt nauseous, as if the world were turning upside down.

 

‘Just what on earth is happening?’ 

 

I opened my eyes just a tiny bit.

 

Then, what appeared before my eyes was the end of the street moving. 

 

The buildings at the edge of my vision, the roads, even the streetlights… everything was being pushed or collapsing, slowly shifting positions.

 

‘How?’

 

Just then, another building tilted.

 

It was at a falling angle, but it didn’t drop. The building simply remained tilted, connecting with the ground in a different direction.

 

In the midst of that, the road split apart. 

 

The road, cracked in half, overlapped like colliding tectonic plates before one branch vanished. Not a single speck of dust remained on the side that disappeared.

 

I couldn’t believe it.

 

It was as if the city were being rearranged and reassembled like puzzle pieces.

 

I held my breath.

 

Just then, I saw the Central Bank building being pulled forward very slowly. 

 

The entire city was being aligned based on that building.

 

It was almost as if… as if the city were moving according to someone’s thoughts.

 

And when it felt like things were finishing up, I squeezed my eyes shut again.

 

“Now—”

 

Cha Haeeon’s voice was heard from very nearby.

 

“You can open your eyes.”

 

I cautiously opened my eyes.

 

The stairs were gone, of course, and the road where the toppled traffic light had been until moments ago was now an empty intersection.

 

No billboard, no creaking signs.

 

Instead, what stood before my eyes was the massive Central Bank building.

 

My mouth gaped open before I knew it. It felt as if the world had spun around and around. 

 

I looked up at Cha Haeeon.

 

I had a bucketful of questions about what had happened and what he had done.

 

But the moment I saw him, the words were stuck in my throat and wouldn’t come out.

 

Cha Haeeon was looking down at me through his gas mask.

 

It almost seemed as if he were trying to block all questions, or perhaps as if he wanted to hide something.

 

Every time he let out a ragged breath, contamination billowed out from the gaps in the gas mask.

 

Without a second thought, I grabbed Cha Haeeon and shouted for purification.

 

“Purification!”

 

But no matter how many times I tried, the Power of Purification faded away before it could even touch him.

 

“Why isn’t it working… Purification! Purification!”

 

As I continued to try, Cha Haeeon brushed my hand away.

 

“Don’t bother. It’s not something your power can handle.”

 

“But you…!”

 

Even without measuring the levels, I felt I knew the state of the billowing contamination.

 

That it was incredibly thick and deep.

 

But Cha Haeeon simply turned his head away as if it were a nuisance. He didn’t seem to want to hear me.

 

“…”

 

Soon, he began to stride forward.

 

Watching his back as he walked away without saying a word, I finally realized.

 

That is what’s keeping you from going home.

 

I looked down at my two hands.

 

I found myself feeling increasingly frustrated with my powerless and insignificant strength.

 

Suddenly, the image of myself back in the hospital room, waiting only for the day I would die, flashed through my mind.

 

“…!”

 

I flinched, my body trembling.

 

I shook my head to clear the thoughts that were trying to sink me, then approached Cha Haeeon and took his hand.

 

As if to show that this much was nothing.

 

Cha Haeeon faltered and looked down at our joined hands.

 

Fortunately, he didn’t pull away and stayed holding my hand.

 

“Your hand is clammy.”

 

He said it spitefully, though.

 

“It’s squishy and dewy.”

 

I retorted shamelessly.

 

“It’s so clammy I feel like I could do laundry with it.”

 

“That’s great! Then I don’t have to make you a washing machine, right?”

 

“How did the conversation even go there?”

 

While we bickered like usual, we arrived in front of the bank.

 

“We’re all here.”

 

At Cha Haeeon’s words, which sounded somewhat steadied, I looked up.

 

“Oh.”

 

It’s the bank!