CH 225

Kim Jin-Woo was left stunned by the unexpected question. His labyrinth had been destroyed when the Floors suddenly collided, which had left him so distracted that he had completely forgotten the existence of the Moai. When he recalled their existence, he felt a chill all over his body, as if he had been splashed with cold water.

“Aren’t you a little worried that we can’t even see a single one of them when they used to swarm the area?” Uther groaned as he rubbed his slimy body.

“Now that you mention it, not a single report mentioned them at all,” Kim Jin-Woo replied.

There were no reports on the whereabouts of the Moai coming from the countless Under-Elf Rangers that had been sent out on extensive patrols. That meant the Moai had disappeared somewhere beyond the reach of the Grand Labyrinth.

Kim Jin-Woo, who had been pacing non-stop, stopped in his tracks and immersed himself deep in thought. He stayed silent as he watched Uther pick up the dripping slimes and return them to his body.

Where could the Moai, which had disappeared as suddenly as they appeared, have gone? It was too vague to say that they had all been killed off by the earthquake. The question of where they had gone without a trace weighed on Kim Jin-Woo’s mind.

“Even so, they were faithful in their own way,” Uther said, in a tone that made it hard to tell whether he was reluctant or disappointed.

However, Kim Jin-Woo was confused about the situation as well. After thinking for a long time, he finally spoke. “Uther.”

“Yes, my Lord.”

“We’re going to have to expand the scope of our reconnaissance.”

Uther’s slimy body spurted and bubbled.

***

Without further delay, Kim Jin-Woo headed to the surface. Both Yoon-Hee and Lee Jun-Young were glad to see him after a long time, but he went straight to the Paju Gate without even taking the time to say hello.

“Hey, you assholes! Can’t you move faster? Looks like you’ve all started slacking off after resting for a while, huh!?”

“Jung-Hwan isn’t back yet!”

“What? Didn’t we contact him a long time ago? If he can’t come right now, we’re moving out without him!”

Ever since the Moai had invaded the surface, the Paju Gate had been closed off, but now, it was bustling with explorers preparing to enter them once more. Although it wasn’t as crowded as before, there were several competent-looking explorers among the crowd.

“Come on, man! Hurry up!”

The explorers were taunting one another, afraid that they would fall behind even a little in the queue.

“Has the chaos in the Underworld been sorted out?” Kim Jin-Woo asked one of the explorers walking around busily.

The explorer stopped and examined him up and down, asking, “Where ya from?”

“Ah, I’m from the Association…” Kim Jin-Woo said.

The explorer’s reply was blunt, as he was presumably unhappy about being questioned when he was busy. He told Kim Jin-Woo to check the official documents if he belonged to the Association before rushing toward the group of explorers that had formed in the distance and heading into the Underworld.

“It’s all in the official documents.”

“Just look it up in the official…”

Kim Jin-Woo tried to ask a few more people, but they all gave the same stern response while refusing to provide any further explanation. In the end, he decided to head to the Underworld personally to check out the situation.

However, just as he was about to head into the Underworld, a guard at the post called out, “Wait, stop! Where are you from?”

A lot of people had asked Kim Jin-Woo about his affiliation. He replied that he belonged to the Association and tried to continue on his way.

“Let me look at your permit for a second,” the guard said.

What’s this all about? Kim Jin-Woo wondered. He could hardly understand the situation that had unfolded at the Paju Gate. In any case, he took out his explorer’s license and handed it over to the guard.

However, the guard shook his head and asked for the permit again. “I’m talking about the Underworld entry permit, not your license. Don’t tell me you don’t have an entry permit?”

There was no way Kim Jin-Woo, who had just returned from the Underworld, would have such a permit. No, he had no idea what the guard was talking about in the first place.

“Explorers without a permit are unable to use the gate now, so please head back,” the guard said.

Come to think of it, the explorers had things that resembled name tags around their necks. Realizing that fact belatedly, Kim Jin-Woo stepped back and observed the situation.

“I heard that Hyung-Tae and the rest have already moved in. Fuck, are we too late?”

“If we pick up our pace, we can catch up to them quickly. After all, once we get inside, they’re going to struggle the same as everyone else.”

Listening to the conversations of the people passing him by, there seemed to be some kind of mission going on.

“Mm.” Kim Jin-Woo had the ability to avoid the detection of the guards, but instead of sneaking into the Underworld, he decided to turn around. It was a pity that his smartphone had run out of power and he was unable to make a call to Mr. Baek or the Association.

“Did something happen on the surface?” Kim Jin-Woo asked Lee Jun-Young after returning to his Paju residence in hopes of borrowing a phone.

Lee Jun-Young had gotten so into the fun of upgrading her labyrinth that she had neglected the situation on the outside for a while, and she quickly but belatedly started making a few calls.

“What? What do you mean!? If something like that happened, you should have told me, no!? Even if I didn’t pick up your call, you should have at least texted me! Urgh, you stupid fool!”

After calling a few of her contacts, she seemed to have made a breakthrough, as she angrily hung up her phone and explained the situation. “I’m sorry. I was too distracted,” she said apologetically.

“That aside, explain what’s going on,” Kim Jin-Woo said. After all, he too hadn’t paid any attention to the surface, so it wasn’t fair to pin all the blame on Lee Jun-Young now.

In response, Lee Jun-Young quietly shared the information she had just heard, saying, “The Underworld has completely changed.”

She explained that creatures that could once only be seen on the Middle Floors were now roaming the Lesser Floors. The disappearance of the Moai, combined with the fact that the Floors had integrated, made the distinction between each Floor ambiguous.

These were all the exact same situations Kim Jin-Woo had experienced on the 9th Floor. But that didn’t mean he knew everything.

“Gates to China have been opened near the 2nd Floor.”

It was an extraordinary situation, but not something incomprehensible.

Since the 9th Floor was now connected to the Other Underworld, the same must have been the case for the other Floors. It wouldn’t have been strange for places elsewhere in the Underworld to be connected to the Other Underworld.

“But the strange thing is, we’re not the ones who discovered the gate on the 2nd Floor. Apparently, we found out later only because a large number of Chinese explorers came out of it, but that seems to have caused a great headache to our government because there are diplomatic issues as well as immigration issues. They’ve made a request to the Association for now, telling the Chinese not to cross over to our side, but they’re quite the reckless and ignorant type…”

“What’s that got to do with the permit?” Kim Jin-Woo asked.

“It seems that the government doesn’t want this information to be leaked at this moment,” Lee Jun-Young answered.

“I’ve heard that there was some kind of official document regarding it?”

“None of the guys I’ve contacted seems to know anything about it. I think the Association sent them to only those of their choosing.”

Lee Jun-Young further explained that because of various domestic and foreign issues being deeply intertwined due to the incident, the government wasn’t able to publicly disclose its existence and were unofficially protesting to the Chinese government. However, it seemed to have had no effect in preventing the influx of Chinese explorers, which was why Korean explorers were being mobilized en masse to block them instead.

“I think it would be better to ask Park Sung-Jin directly regarding this matter for more details. Since the government contacted the Association directly, I’m sure he would know more than the average explorer. Your smartphone is out of battery, right? Try calling with mine.”

Kim Jin-Woo thanked Lee Jun-Young for her consideration and took her smartphone to contact the Association’s president, Park Sung-Jin.

{I was about to call you anyway. Where were you?}

***

“So what you’re saying is that the explorers are searching the other Floors in case there’s another gate?” Kim Jin-Woo asked.

Park Sung-Jin had personally come to Kim Jin-Woo’s residence, saying that there was a limit to providing explanations over the phone. He explained what had happened in detail.

“For now, that’s the request we’ve received. Whether it’s China, Japan, Southeast Asia, or any other country, if there’s another gate to be found, it’s going to be an even bigger problem. Even the government seems to understand how big an issue this might be, seeing how fast they’re responding. Those guys who usually wouldn’t even give a damn about the Underworld are now issuing rewards to those who find a gate.”

The Republic of Korea was a peninsula country, surrounded by the sea on three sides; to the north there was North Korea, with whom they were under an armistice.

Thanks to their unique geographical layout, the only way to enter the country was by ship or air, but now that gates were suddenly being discovered, the situation had taken a turn for the worse, as if their borders had all collapsed.

On top of that, the unfortunate fact was that the very first country they had been connected to was China. The Chinese government was known to be completely reckless with no sense of diplomacy, and it refused to listen to the request of the Korean government.

“For now, we’ll prepare a separate permit for you so there won’t be any inconvenience.” Thinking that his brief explanation was over, Park Sung-Jin called his office and ordered the issuance of an Underworld access permit for Kim Jin-Woo.

Then, he cautioned Kim Jin-Woo, “The talk of the town is about the Lesser Floors, but it looks like the Middle Floors are seeing gates pop up all over the place as well. I don’t know what the hell happened there, but it seems all the passageways are now messed up and the terrain inside the Underworld has completely changed, so much so that even the veteran explorers are finding it difficult to navigate their way around it. So, you have to be extra careful.”

After the war, the humans had swept through the labyrinths in the Lesser Floors; thus, there were almost no intact labyrinths left in them. Combined with the fact that the Moai had been roaming wildly, it was to be expected that there were no labyrinths left in the Lesser Floors.

However, due to the First Restoration, a labyrinth that had never existed before had now appeared right below the Republic of Korea. Right now, there were no creatures coming out of it due to the damage inflicted by the earthquake, but over time, they were sure to start showing themselves again.

“Mm?” Kim Jin-Woo had been talking for a while when he suddenly felt a sense of incongruity. He thought hard about what might be the cause of it, and he soon realized what he was missing.

If such a large earthquake were to hit the Underworld, it should have been felt on the surface as well. However, both Lee Jun-Young and Park Sung-Jin had only talked about the appearance of the new gate, and neither talked about the earthquake itself.

“How long has it been since you’ve entered the Underworld?” Kim Jin-Woo asked.

“Well, I’ve been so busy these days that I haven’t even been able to take care of my labyrinth at all. I was about to go pay it a visit after all this was sorted out anyway, but why the sudden question?” Park Sung-Jin replied.

“Have you heard about an earthquake?”

“If you’re talking about an earthquake, there was a big earthquake in Southeast Asia, which resulted in a lot of damage, but that was a long time ago.”

When Kim Jin-Woo asked about the earthquake, Park Sung-Jin responded as if he had only heard about it for the first time.

“Hm…” It was a suspicion that Kim Jin-Woo had had in mind, but his conversation with Park Sung-Jin only further raised his suspicion that the surface and the Underworld were two completely separate realms. But he wasn’t able to confirm that at the moment, so he got up with a stiff look on his face and said, “I’ll contact you again if the need comes.”

“If you’re going to the Underworld…”

“If I find a gate, I'll let you know.”

With that, Kim Jin-Woo sent Park Sung-Jin away and called Mr. Baek to evaluate the credibility of the information he had just obtained. Indeed, Mr. Baek seemed to know nothing about the earthquake at all.

Eventually, Kim Jin-Woo concluded that it was highly likely that the surface and the Underworld were two separate realms.

“I’m going to the gate,” he said, preparing to leave the house again.

“Please wait,” Lee Jun-Young said as she ran up to him.