The World after the Fall

As the lines of people disappeared into the prison building, the door closed. The Gatekeepers joked with each other as they finished their work and passed by Jaehwan.

“What do you think?”

“They’re all weaklings. Most will end up in the labor camp… I don’t see any fighters in there.”

“Yeah. Well, they couldn’t even clear the tower after all.”

After Jaehwan watched the Gatekeepers disappear, he spoke.

“Andersen.”

Andersen grew tense as his voice seemed to contain a faint hint of anger.

[Yeah?]

“How many [Followers] can you take?”

In the dark, swampy insides of the jail, moans were heard everywhere. Yoonhwan looked around to check; there were people mumbling to each other.

“Uh… where are we…”

“You’re from the dark clans! Where did you bring me?”

“Are we on the continent of Asterium? Please, someone tell me!”

“I- I’m from Pangea!”

The spirits began to cry and as a few of them grew too noisy, the prison guards came and punished them. After a monk who screamed ‘clans’ fainted, everyone became silent.

“This isn’t Moorim, Pangea, nor Asterium. So, shut up and stay quiet if you want to live.”

That was all that was explained by the one called the Warden. But with those words, people no longer talked. After that, guards sent the spirits to their rooms. Yoonhwan was also placed in a room.

‘What is going on…?’

He couldn’t understand what was going on. It had been a week since he was dragged into this unknown place. Just a week ago, it was his parents who greeted him when he came back to his senses. His parents told him that he had been unconscious for a month.

-Yoonhwan! Are you okay?

He answered that he was okay. However, he really wasn’t sure. There was one question he had when he saw his parents.

‘Didn’t the world collapse?’

He wasn’t sure why he had that question, as he felt like his head was being crushed. As he tried to remember, his memories became even more blurry. Then, he remembered a name.

‘Jaehwan.’

He didn’t know who that was. He didn’t know anyone named ‘Jaehwan’.

It felt weird.

-You really don’t remember anything? We expected a bit more since you were the last to be awakened…

People asked him various questions, but there was nothing that Yoonhwan could answer. He had brief memories, but if he tried to explain, he would feel excruciating pain, so he couldn’t.

He heard many things from the investigation team sent by the government.

Months ago, over 700 thousand people around the world fell unconscious, and they only began to wake up starting a week ago. They said that some became crazy and committed suicide, while others shouted, ‘I’ve returned!! I’ve returned to the past!!’ as they become delusional and were taken to mental institutes.

-As far as we know, you are the last. It seems that it has something to do with the ‘tower’ that was in the sky until a few days ago…

As he heard the word ‘tower’, Yoonhwan felt a chill. It was weird as he had no memory related to the tower. But, why? Why was he crying?

-Oh, I’m sorry. We’ll come back tomorrow.

The investigative team left him alone as they figured there was a reason behind his tears. Yoonhwan then began to search the internet to find out what happened. There was a lot of information on the web about the ‘Tower of Nightmares’, or the tower that disappeared a week ago. People created all kinds of rumors regarding the tower.

The return of the Illuminati, a new military weapon from China, and so on…

Yoonhwan might have joined in on the conspiracies if it was before, but it all felt so pointless now. He instinctively knew that they were all wrong.

‘The tower is connected to something greater that no one can imagine…’

Yoonhwan wanted to say that to them and he knew he was right, but he couldn’t find any reasoning behind his thoughts. That made him more confused.

Why did he know such a thing?

That’s when ‘they’ came to him.

Before he could resist, ‘they’ snatched him. And in the next moment, Yoonhwan realized his spirit had been taken away from his body. All he heard was a short conversation.

-Do we really have to do this? He wasn’t even in the real game. He won’t remember anything.

-The Union said we have to be prepared for the worst. That Generalslayer destroyed the tower as he moved up the Tree of Imagery, so there are rumors that the memory-seal might not have worked correctly because of it.

-Wow, so the rumors of the Generalslayer were true? That’s crazy. How did he even think of destroying the tower and climbing up from there?

-Anyway, so that’s why we have to manually collect those with impaired memory-seals.

-Ugh, does the Union think we [Apprentices] are like cleaners?

-What choice do we have?

-Ugh. So, how is the [Cultivation] going to be in this place?

-They are discarding the tower. This world is lucky. People in this world should thank the Generalslayer for that.

-But, isn’t it good for us too? World 294 has a lot of fun things. Talking about that, should we stop by the PC-Bang after this one is done while we are here?

-I’m down.

And then, silence.

When Yoonhwan came back to his senses, he was in a place called <Depth>. He looked at the people in the room, and they all seemed to have empty expressions. There was a woman who looked familiar, but he couldn’t remember where he had seen her.

‘It’s cold…”

The cold became more severe right after he arrived at <Depth>. It was getting colder as time went by and Yoonhwan realized that it wasn’t just the temperature.

He felt a corner of his world being destroyed. He also felt anxiety, as if his entire world would just be crushed, and it would squish him like an insect. Yoonhwan then crossed his hands together to pray. However, he couldn’t find someone to pray to. Maybe it wasn’t a coincidence that he remembered the name again.

‘Jaehwan…’

Yoonhwan mumbled as if that was the name of a God, again and again. Then he felt warmth seeping into a corner of his heart. It was just a bit, but enough to protect him. He began to remember the familiar back of a man.

“294-163134.”

And then, his thoughts dissipated.

“294-163134.”

Yoonhwan realized that they were calling him. The Warden was standing outside the cell.

“294-163134. A God is here to take you in.”