PARADOX 40

Gu Jeyi sent Hanseo home first.

Sitting on the sofa, Hanseo aimlessly clenched and unclenched his fully healed hand. His arm felt lighter now that the bandages were off, but his heart seemed to grow heavy in inverse proportion. It felt as if the suffocating atmosphere of the place he had just left had clung to him.

Everyone present there knew the weight of the words “Gate conquest failure.”

If a Gate isn’t closed in time, it becomes a horrific disaster. While the inside of a Gate is a space in another dimension separated from reality, after a certain period, it begins to erode the real world. If it’s a low-rank Gate, it’s a relief, but once it reaches B-rank or higher, the situation becomes catastrophic.

Several countries had already vanished from the map for this very reason. Since South Korea had also faced several crises, the public trembled at the mere mention of a conquest failure. If they felt that way, it went without saying for Hanseo, who had experienced the Great Catastrophe firsthand.

Perhaps due to pressure from the Center, the media remained quiet. However, it was impossible to completely hide a Gate that appeared right in the middle of downtown Seoul. The internet was already burning up with discussions about this Gate.

Title: Looks like the Miudong Gate conquest failed

I live in Miudong and soldiers are everywhere right now. The atmosphere is grim.

Comments

—?????

—What?

—Wait, is this for real? Not a single article is up.

└ I’m a Miudong resident and it’s true ㅠㅠ A few days ago the Espers went into the Gate and it didn’t disappear, so I thought it was weird, but then suddenly this morning soldiers swarmed in… When I asked what was happening, they said they couldn’t tell me because it’s a national secret, but the vibe is really strange.

└ I just saw an article pop up, but when I went back in, it said it was a deleted post;;;

└ Holy crap, so scary.

—I live in Miudong too, and when I tried to take a picture, they smacked my hand away. I thought my screen cracked when my phone flew off lol ㅡㅡ

—Sigh.. has the time finally come..

└ Who the hell are you ffs

Title: Are the Miudong Gate rumors true? Any insiders here? Give us a fact check.

Comments

—Seriously, what happened? Even if you call the Center, they just give you the same bot answers over and over.

—I’m an insider and the conquest team was wiped out, so it’s a total disaster. I’ll delete this post later so I don’t get caught.

└ What, if they were wiped out, does that mean they’re all dead? How do you know?

└└ Espers wear special equipment before entering a Gate. If their bio-signals aren’t picked up, they’re dead.

└ This is really screwed;;;

—I heard from an insider too that the Gate was estimated as a C-rank and the team that failed was average B-rank? Even so, since they failed, they’re just incompetent lol. These E-squitos live off taxes and can’t even do their jobs right smh.

└ Ugh ffs, the stench of this guy. Looking at people like this, humanity going extinct when a Gate bursts seems like the “good ending.”

Title: Nothing to be scared of We have God-Jeyi!!!!!!

Comments

—Right, the fear-mongering over something not even confirmed yet is too much ㅠ Let’s not be anxious.

—Yeah, did everyone forget? Just a few years ago, conquest failures happened occasionally. In the end, “God” handled it so there were no problems.

└ In God-Jeyi we trust.

└ Believe 222

└ 33333333333

└ 4444

—But why didn’t Gu Jeyi go into Miudong? Haven’t heard any news lately, did something happen?

└ He got married. Probably enjoying his honeymoon.

└ He’s only one person, he can’t go into every Gate.

└ Is “cloning” not one of his abilities ㅠ

—It’s only been a little while since he came out of a Gate on his wedding day ㅠㅠ I feel bad for both Gu Jeyi and his husband.

└ Nothing to feel bad about. It’s the rule that you work harder after getting married. Gotta earn that diaper money.

└ There’s no way a kid is happening, so why diaper money…?

└ What he’s already earned is probably enough lol.

└ Whether he’s married or not doesn’t matter. He’s not someone who works for money in the first place.

└└ “God-Jeyi”

Despite the anxiety, the sentiment mostly flowed toward relief, with people thinking, ‘But it’ll be fine once Gu Jeyi goes in.’

Hanseo’s thoughts were similar. Gu Jeyi would most likely enter that Gate. Although his wavelength hadn’t stabilized to the target level yet, if the situation was dire, Pyo Myeongho wouldn’t be able to stop him anymore.

However, the fact that Gu Jeyi hadn’t entered this Gate in his past life weighed on his mind.

Miudong Gate. Had he heard of it before? It felt somewhat familiar, yet also not. But because of that, he was all the more certain that nothing major had happened at this Gate. If it had been a Gate like the Great Catastrophe, there was no way he wouldn’t remember it.

In the first place, it was a Gate that had been conquered without Gu Jeyi, so it should be fine. If Gu Jeyi entered, it would simply end faster and easier.

Gu Jeyi didn’t come home that night, and for the first time in a while, Hanseo was left alone in the empty house.

However…

I can’t sleep.

Even though it was nearly 9 PM, strangely, sleep wouldn’t come. His wandering thoughts wouldn’t stop, so he eventually sat up in bed.

The living room was submerged in darkness. Hanseo’s gaze turned toward the firmly closed guest room.

The door would be locked. Whether someone was inside or not, the door to that room was always locked. This was a fact he had learned after seeing the cleaning person looking troubled. When he asked about it, Gu Jeyi had replied that the guest room he was using didn’t need to be cleaned.

That was the end of it, but on a night when sleep wouldn’t come like this, useless thoughts tended to arise.

What is in there that Gu Jeyi is hiding so much?

Hanseo’s eyes narrowed. Something the national hero wants to hide. He didn’t know what it was, but couldn’t it be something that could serve as a weakness?

He stealthily pulled the guest room doorknob, but as expected, it didn’t open.

However, if he were going to back down here, he wouldn’t have started in the first place.

This must be what they mean when they say everything you learn becomes useful eventually.

Among the Cult Leader’s followers, many had unique past backgrounds, and among them was a petty thief. Lockpicking was one of the miscellaneous skills he had learned from him.

“There.”

Upon opening the door, the state of Gu Jeyi’s room was revealed. It was a sight that truly could only be described by the word “disaster.”

Hanseo clicked his tongue and looked around the room. Piles of towels and clothes were stacked on the floor, and things that looked like wearable equipment were scattered haphazardly.

Memories of his past life rushed back again.

That’s right, now that I think about it, he was this kind of guy.

Amazingly, the national hero lived in a space like a trash heap. After the rules were established, he had cleaned up quite well, so Hanseo had momentarily forgotten this.

Did he want to hide his messy room? Hanseo looked around the room with a deflated expression. Should he just take a picture of this and post it on the internet? But what kind of great weakness would this be? At most, reactions like ‘Gu Jeyi has a human side too’ would surely come out.

While smacking his lips in disappointment, Hanseo’s eyes fell upon the bed, which had lost its shape, covered by objects. Just like the floor, various knick-knacks were rolling around on the bed.

“How does he even sleep in a place like this?”

At the moment he muttered that, a familiar object caught his eye. It was a medicine bottle.

“…!”

Suddenly, a chill ran down his spine, making his hair stand on end. Hanseo rushed over and checked the bottle.

“Phew.”

Fortunately, it wasn’t guiding medicine. Then again, there was no way a product that hadn’t even been released on the market would be here. Hanseo, letting out a sigh of relief, looked down at the bottle with a suspicious gaze.

Then what is this?

Only the dosage dates were written on the label, so it was impossible to tell what kind of medicine it was. With a sense of “just in case,” he opened the bottle. Of course, looking at it didn’t mean he would know what kind of medicine it was, but…

“Eh?”

Surprisingly, it was a medicine he knew. It was a medicine Hanseo had taken for years until he was sick of it, so there was no way he wouldn’t recognize it.

Sleeping pills for Espers.

It was around age 27; even though there was nothing specifically wrong with his wavelength, he had started being unable to sleep. Even the dramas he liked became boring, and he even lost his appetite. He would suddenly forget words while speaking, and his memory frequently flickered.

For a mental-type Esper, the Esper’s own mental strength is the most important thing, but since that was broken, he couldn’t control his abilities properly. Eventually, the Cult Leader, noticing Baekgu’s abnormality, sent him to a hospital run by a follower.

He had taken the medications prescribed there for a long time. So, no matter how much time passed, there was no way he wouldn’t recognize them.

No way.

Hanseo placed the bottle of sleeping pills down on the bed. This wasn’t the only medicine. There were several other types of medicine bottles on the bed. There were also medicines portioned out into daily doses in envelopes. Seeing as some of them were long past their expiration dates, it didn’t seem like he was taking them regularly.

Hanseo soon discovered a few more familiar medicines besides the sleeping pills. Antidepressants and stabilizers specifically for Espers… all of which he had once taken himself. He hadn’t seen the others before, but it wasn’t hard to guess that they were medicines or supplements with similar effects.

“…”

Hanseo stood in the trash-heap-like room for a long time.

Feeling an emotion that was difficult to express with the meager vocabulary he knew.