HACKED 48

“Huh? Why don’t you know how to get to the headquarters? You go back and forth whenever you have a chance, don’t you? There are regular meetings, emergency calls. You go to meet other Compilers you know, too.”

“I’m asking because I don’t know, aren’t I?”

“Something must be seriously wrong…”

<IsItPresbyopiaCrap> looked at me with pitying eyes. I’m the winner, so do I have to be looked at like this by the loser?

“It feels strange to give such a basic explanation… cough. There is a control device in this Pantheon, too, right? Our device is in the form of a large book. What is it like here?”

“This thing?”

I took the terminal I’d been carrying in my pocket and showed it to him. I hadn’t even turned on the screen to show the interface; he had only seen the exterior of the machine, but he nodded immediately as if he understood.

“Yes, that. Mister Myeong’s is quite basic. The hardcover book I use is on the unique side, too, but there are many even stranger ones. I’ve seen a crystal ball, and I’ve seen someone who transplanted the functions into a humanoid android, and one Compiler even said he used to be a teacher and used chalk on a blackboard…”

“Just get to the point.”

“Ah, right! Look at me. I’m sorry. Mister Myeong must be very busy, but as I get older, I just ramble more… haha. I wonder if I should get a brain firmware upgrade when I get my artificial eyeball replacement surgery.”

‘Artificial eyeball replacement surgery? Brain firmware upgrade? What is he talking about? Did he come from some SF cyberpunk world?’

There wasn’t just one or two things in his words I wanted to nitpick. But for now, the main business was more urgent.

“I’ve taken out the terminal, so what now?”

“There’s a function related to the Hyper-Dimensional Gate in the control device, right? In my case, it’s the type that activates when I write into the book with a quill. Since Mister Myeong’s is in the form of a smart device, you probably just need to tap or drag.”

A Mister dressed in robes with a long beard and a pointed hat, looking like he’d play a Great Mage in a Western fantasy movie. That Mister was naturally using words like ‘smart device’ and ‘tap.’ The sense of cognitive dissonance was immense.

Regardless of that, ‘Hyper-Dimensional Gate’ was a familiar term. It was something I saw at the top every time I entered the management menu of the terminal.

Please select a management menu.

▷ Command and Control

▷ Incarnation

▷ Hyper-Dimensional Gate

▷ Training

▷ Research

▷ Data Analysis

▷ Equipment

▷ Resources

▷ Settings

You have selected ‘Hyper-Dimensional Gate.’ Please enter the coordinates to move through the gate.

Default Registered Coordinates

— (None) — (None) — (None) …

“In the default registered coordinates, there’s ‘Headquarters’ at the very top. That’s the Narrative Compilation Union Headquarters. You just select that and move.”

“It’s not there.”

“Pardon?”

“There is a coordinate input window, but there are no default registered coordinates at all.”

“That can’t be!”

<IsItPresbyopiaCrap> jumped up. The twins, who were standing side by side behind him watching, moved simultaneously as if they had planned it. Two pairs of small hands grabbed the back of his head at the same time and slammed it into the floor.

Thump!

“Gack! Cough! A-Aaaah! Please save me. Save m…!”

“…Let him go.”

The man lifted his head again. A dark red mark had appeared on his forehead. It wasn’t just a mark from hitting the floor; it was a bruise. That was going to turn purple if a little more time passed. It was painful just to look at.

“Don’t cry.”

“Sniff, Mister Myeong… sob, hic, thank you…”

“No, I’m not saying that to comfort you. I’m telling you not to drip tears and snot on the floor of my main base.”

“……”

The man wiped his face vigorously with the sleeves of his voluminous robe. His entire face became red and irritated, making him look even more ridiculous, but I decided to ignore it for the sake of moving things along.

“It makes no sense for ‘Headquarters’ to be missing from the default coordinates. Who could memorize those long coordinates… Besides, it’s entered by default in the first place, so it shouldn’t be deletable even if you tried to do it arbitrarily?”

“Then is there no way to go?”

“You said there’s a coordinate input function, right?”

I looked down at the screen. The cursor was blinking in the empty input window.

“Yes. This seems to work.”

“Mister Myeong, you are truly, truly lucky! It’s really hard to meet a Compiler like me, but what a coincidence this is. Oh my goodness, actually, I…”

“Just the point.”

“Ahem. Coincidentally, I happen to have the headquarters coordinates memorized!”

“Why do you have that memorized?”

“Eh, e-eh?”

“Didn’t you just say ‘who could memorize those long coordinates’ a moment ago?”

I narrowed my eyes and examined him.

“That’s… because it’s convenient! It’s convenient if you memorize it! To go to the headquarters from our Pantheon, you have to write ‘Hyper-Dimensional Gate’ in the book every time, wait for the loading to finish, then write ‘Default Registered Coordinates,’ and then write ‘Headquarters.’ Think of how inconvenient that is to do every time. If you have the coordinates memorized, you can go there directly in one go.”

“……”

“It’s absolutely, absolutely, absolutely not because I wanted to run away quickly if the back of the bookshelf was discovered!”

That suspicious phrase ‘back of the bookshelf’ kept coming up. I hadn’t even interrogated him, but he was spilling it all on his own. Once the reward settlement is over—that is, when the process of <IsItPresbyopiaCrap>’s dimension being absorbed into mine is completely finished—I should head over there once.

“Then call it out. The coordinates.”

“Ah, yes! 7ISc7IKs…”

I thought coordinates would be a combination of latitude and longitude. But it was a mix of lowercase English letters, uppercase letters, and numbers? It’s damn complicated. It’s like entering an item coupon serial code.

I entered the coordinates as he called them out. Worried there might be a typo, I read them back to him once and finished the verification.

“That’s right. Correct! Now if you activate the ‘Move’ function…”

Do you want to move to the entered coordinates?

[Yes / No]

‘Yes.’

Moving to the entered coordinates. Are you sure?

[Yes / No]

‘Yes.’

Are you really sure?

[Yes / No]

‘This… feels like déjà vu.’

It wasn’t just at the level of déjà vu. it was almost trauma.

In the past, the same question had been repeated three times. When I was being chased by Hwarang and arrived at the central command room in a hurry, trying to open the door for the first time.

Back then, I had hit ‘Yes’ three times in a row without much thought. And the sight I saw… was a mysterious corpse with its head completely gone, and San Gun collapsed beside it? It’s still dizzying to think about.

‘But why is a situation similar to then being reproduced now?’

The ominous and uneasy feeling wouldn’t go away. However, <IsItPresbyopiaCrap> in front of me had a puzzled expression, as if wondering why I wasn’t pressing the third ‘Yes’ already.

It was unlikely that he had given me the wrong coordinates on purpose. Why would he do something like giving me the coordinates of a dangerous area while pretending they were the headquarters coordinates just to screw me over? He would be swept away just the same.

Moreover, he is completely alone right now. I have my Incarnations surrounding me on all sides. If we fall into danger at the same time, the one who would suffer the greater damage is him. Not me.

I took a long breath and pressed the button.

‘Yes.’

“……”

“……”

Contrary to my grim determination, the terminal was quiet. The surroundings were the same. No change occurred.

“Huh? Usually… a gate should appear around here, in front of… us?”

He was more flustered than I was. From his slumped position, he raised his arms and flailed them around in the air.

“Is there some loading because of high traffic? Still, it should be appearing by now?”

Crackle, snap!

Finally, something appeared in the air. But it wasn’t the ‘Hyper-Dimensional Gate’ the man was talking about.

It looked as if a rift in the dimensions had been forcibly pried open and torn—something that shouldn’t happen… There was no way something that ominous could be the ‘Gate’ that Compilers supposedly move in and out of whenever they have a chance.

“Myeong.”

A large hand wrapped around my shoulder and pulled me back. I was dragged away blankly like a doll with its strings cut. My gaze remained fixed straight ahead.

[Warning!] A ‘Dimensional Crack’ has occurred. This is an unregistered type of anomaly.

Inside the crack that appeared across the air behind <IsItPresbyopiaCrap>’s head, noise danced. A series of rupturing sounds, like something clawing at the ears, rang out.

“…Uh?”

The man tilted his head and looked back. The tip of the long pointed hat he wore touched the crack.

Snap.

Sparks flew from the contact surface of the hat and the crack. Just like when the wrong plug is connected to an outlet with an incompatible output.

At that very moment… the crack opened wide like a living creature’s mouth and swallowed his head.

Thwack!

A sound like a large water bag or a fruit bursting rang out. Simultaneously, everything turned bright red. A warm liquid splashed violently, soaking me from head to toe.

Even then, I was stupidly staring straight ahead. Forgetting even the fact that I should close my eyes.

“……”

The hand that had been wrapped around my shoulder moved up quickly and covered my eyes. Thanks to that, I barely avoided the misfortune of the liquid getting into my eyes as well.

A vision more than half-hidden by another person’s hand. What I saw faintly through the gaps in those fingers… was the scene of the headless man’s body collapsing.