Chapter 40

"Huh? You all didn't know...?"

Did I say something wrong? Kangsan closed his mouth tightly, glancing at Chahaya. Seo-eun cast a glance at Chahaya, who was smiling indifferently.

"What are you talking about? That Young-il hyung died?"

But why did Abdulaziz say he was taking care of Young-il?

"Why hyung?"

Handon-hee also showed her confusion.

"It's a long story."

"Seo Kangsan, let's switch teams."

"Why?"

As Handon-hee approached, Kangsan jumped.

"Let's talk to Chahaya while we go."

"Just listen to Kangsan. Yuchan, you go with me."

Chahaya sent Kangsan to the other side and grabbed Yuchan by the collar.

"Ouch! No, Deputy Guild Leader! Can't you just send Hondon-hee and Chahaya hyung together?"

Yuchan, who was being dragged away, desperately called out to Seo-eun.

"Yuchan, see you later. I'm worried something might happen if I send them together."

Seo-eun needed to hear Young-il's story, so he sacrificed Yuchan.

"That's too much."

"Han Yuchan, do you want to go with the unreasonable hyung?"

"My name is Kim Yuchan?!"

"I'll go, see you on the mountain."

Chahaya walked towards the Sung-ra department store, and Yuchan's back, which looked like he was being dragged to the slaughterhouse, gradually disappeared.

"Let's go too. Kangsan, tell me what happened first."

The remaining members turned towards the Propaganda Office. The northwest was more crowded than the southeast because it was not only the territory of the DK Guild but also home to dozens of smaller guilds. The department store probably played a significant role as a landmark.

"That's... Chahaya hyung said he should say that he killed him, but it was really self-defense."

"Chahaya killed him?"

"This is a long story. It happened after Seo-eun hyung went missing."

Kangsan raised his eyes, filled with reproach, as if blaming Seo-eun.

***

On January 1st, all the manseongjong were isolated in the Narakga, and a period of confusion ensued.

Some believed that the Narakga existed somewhere on Earth and decided to explore the edges of their regions. Those who returned all said the same thing:

"The area outside the Narakga only exists in terms of surface and area."

If the Narakga existed on Earth, there would have been a way to escape through the sea or sky. However, the edges of the regions, divided into four by the intersection, were only black surfaces.

Those who reached out to the black surfaces experienced their bodies transforming into two-dimensional forms. They were etched onto the black surface like drawings on a flat canvas, unable to move forward. They only dipped their hands and feet, not daring to throw their entire bodies. When they threw stones or objects, the two-dimensional forms were sucked away and disappeared.

They called the black surfaces "black walls" literally.

Fear of the unknown spread among the manseongjong, and mutants appeared incessantly. The leaders of each guild had no choice but to suppress the chaos for survival. Large guilds took the lead in organizing the regions and established their own rules.

Even in the midst of war, troublemakers existed, and some manseongjong violated the rules and acted on their own.

"Didn't you hear that Min-jae's group was almost all killed?"

Two months after Seo-eun went missing, Tachun, which was originally in the northeast, had been in the southeast for a month.

Tachun, once called the top guild in Korea, was supposed to control the northeast, but Seo-eun did not attend the Narakga guild meeting. Instead, he sent Handon-hee or Chahaya, but they were not interested in territorial expansion. Eventually, the northeast was taken over by Hororolo, the second-largest guild.

Those who were dissatisfied formed their own guild, and Min-jae became the leader.

"Really?"

Kangsan was surprised by Chahaya's question, thinking he knew.

"Didn't you know? They were fighting over the landmarks in the northeast and got into a conflict with the Horo guild. The Horo guild's healer and circulator died, and a revenge battle started."

Handon-hee, holding an unlit cigarette, answered.

"Weren't the people Min-jae took all high-level?"

"The guilds formed an alliance. They couldn't stand up to the combined effort to take down Min-jae."

Large guilds devised various measures to stabilize the Narakga, one of which was the alliance.

About thirty large and small guilds, including DK, Hororolo, and Tugon, joined the alliance and strengthened their unity. They agreed to leave the southeast as an unclaimed territory, intending to push lower-level or difficult-to-control aggressive manseongjong into the southeast.

"Still no news of Seo-eun hyung?"

"If Seo-eun decided to go missing, it's hard to find him."

Chahaya looked at the abandoned Matahari.

Tachun's base was originally near the landmark in the northeast, the "Miri Tree Mart."

For a while, Hororolo generously provided food to Tachun. Then, Hororolo notified Tachun that they would no longer provide support if they did not join the alliance. They also suggested merging the guilds, clearly intending to absorb the leaderless Tachun.

Those who remained in Tachun chose to survive independently. They stepped into the chaotic southeast.

"Seo-eun hyung must have felt the burden."

The guild leaders were previously businessmen, doctors, and various other professionals. Unfortunately, Seo-eun was the youngest and had the least social experience among them.

At first, Kangsan blamed Seo-eun, but over time, his guilt grew.

Without a deputy guild leader, Tachun was uncontrollable. The two top-tier members focused only on escaping the Narakga and did not care for the guild members.

"Isn't it like locking the stable door after the horse has bolted?"

Handon-hee crushed the unlit cigarette in the ashtray.

After Seo-eun disappeared and Tachun lost its center, they had to secure their own food. One by one, members left Tachun, leaving only the three present, Yuchan and Abdulaziz, whose whereabouts were unknown, and Young-il.

"Where are you going, Hondon-hee hyung?"

Kangsan asked Handon-hee, who was leaving with only his sword.

"Are you my mom? What do you care where I go?"

Handon-hee pushed the office door irritably. Kangsan scratched his neck, embarrassed, thinking Hondon-hee had become more irritable recently.

Chahaya lay on the sofa and fell asleep. The silence was broken by a loud bang as the doorknob hit the wall.

"Yoo! Re! Ka!"

Young-il, who had just come from the bath, was drenched. It seemed it was raining outside. With a beard on his chin, Young-il looked excited.

"Hey! Where did everyone go? I have a surprising discovery!"

"What is it, sir?"

In his early twenties, Chahaya had briefly worked part-time at Young-il's cafe, so he called him "sir" more often than "hyung."

"Do you know what I found out?"

"I don't want to guess. Just tell me the main point."

"I'm putting up with it because you're a good customer for the cafe."

"Did you find Seo-eun?"

"No, the deputy guild leader is nowhere to be seen. If he missed him so much, he should have treated him better when he was around."

"I treated him well."

"Weren't you a delinquent in school? Didn't you bully the deputy guild leader?"

Chahaya, unable to listen anymore, lay back down. Young-il grabbed a towel and wiped his face. He then took something out of his pocket.

"Is it a ugwangseok?"

Kangsan, who had moved closer, showed interest.

"No, it was a ugwangseok."

"Uh..."

The small rock, smaller than a fist, was a black, shapeless lump.

"I put this in the black wall and pulled it out. My hand was fine, but the ugwangseok was altered. I thought one wouldn't be enough, so I put about five in. They all turned black like the wall, and only the outer shell remained, like a hollow candy. What do you think this means?"

Chahaya finally showed interest.

"Does the black wall eat ugwangseok?"

"Like a person leaving only the skin and sucking out the organs and blood."

Young-il shook the hollow ugwangseok.

"The black wall is two-dimensional, right?"

We can jump off the ground, but two-dimensional space has no "up." Just like a drawing on a flat sketchbook can't rise into the air.

The black wall removing the contents of the ugwangseok, which had no volume, was impossible in two-dimensional space.

In simpler terms, the black wall extracted the yolk and white from an egg without breaking it, suggesting it might be four-dimensional.

While Chahaya and Young-il discussed the black wall, Kangsan sucked on a lollipop.

"Originally, this was about 30 ounces. Look."

Young-il placed the ugwangseok on his palm and hit it with his other fist. It shattered easily like a hollow glass ball.

"Who else knows this?"

"Only you guys. I might be the first to discover it. Who would throw gold into the black wall?"

The ugwangseok Young-il sacrificed to the black wall was worth at least 10 billion won.

"I need to go see it myself."

Chahaya put a few ugwangseoks from the office drawer into his backpack. Kangsan, who had finished his lollipop, followed them, not wanting to be left alone.

Rain rarely falls in the Narakga, but when it does, it lasts for more than two days. Apart from that, the seasons in the Narakga are similar to those in Korea.

The physical bodies of combat-type manseongjong surpass ordinary humans, so they are not affected by cold or heat. Nevertheless, Chahaya rummaged through a cabinet of miscellaneous items and found a broken umbrella. He disliked having his vision obscured by rain.

"Chahaya, can I use this?"

Young-il picked up Matahari, which he had left by the window. Chahaya threw his sword to Young-il.

"Give that to me."

"Is this in place of the deputy guild leader?"

Young-il pretended to stroke Matahari and then handed it to Chahaya. Chahaya fastened a belt for swords around his waist and sheathed Matahari in a leather scabbard before picking up the broken umbrella.

The other two, without Chahaya, headed towards the black wall at the edge of the southeast, getting drenched in the rain.

"What are you going to do now?"

Young-il, for some reason, was discussing the future.

"If we keep this up, we might have to take down the Tachun sign."

"We've been growing unnecessarily large. This is normal."

"Man, the deputy guild leader would be disappointed."

"That's true. After Seong-hee noona died, Seo-eun hyung was the only one who knew CPR in our guild..."

"Still, he abandoned us and ran away."

Recently, whenever Seo-eun was mentioned, Chahaya's mood worsened. Handon-hee, who learned that the guild members had driven Seo-eun away, also became irritable. Kangsan had to abandon his thought that the three of them were not close as time passed.

It took about ten minutes to walk to the black wall. Tachun chose a corner in the southeast for their base because the black wall was nearby.

Chahaya often visited the most unknown area in the Narakga and even wondered if Seo-eun had approached the black wall out of curiosity and been sucked in.

"Hey! Hey?!"

Kangsan shouted towards the black wall. The heavy rain obstructed his vision, so he rubbed his eyes with his palms. The same was true for Young-il. Only Chahaya, protected by the umbrella, could see the black wall and ran towards the person entering it.

It was Seo-eun.

Chahaya called out Seo-eun's name louder than the rain. He grabbed Seo-eun's arm and pulled him away from the black wall.