Into the Abyss

The class president stared blankly at the water where Mintest and Jaeyoung had disappeared, alternating his gaze between the two spots.

“What? What’s with that dumbfounded look?”

Mintest teased, as if mocking the surprised class president.

The first to regain his senses was Dongjun.

“How old are you to be pulling pranks like this!”

Dongjun, who rarely got angry, rebuked loudly.

“Kim Jaeyoung! Jaeyoung-ah!”

Behind him, Haewoon shouted, looking into the water where Jaeyoung had disappeared.

His distorted face showed urgency and anxiety.

Dongjun grabbed him, preventing him from jumping into the water right away.

“What if you fall in too!”

Dongjun’s voice was also shaking greatly.

In his heart, he wanted to jump in right away, and he kept glancing at the spot where Jaeyoung had disappeared.

“Kim Jaeyoung! Goddammit, stop playing around and come out quickly!”

“Jaeyoung-ah!”

The other classmates, belatedly grasping the situation, also began to call out for Jaeyoung anxiously.

With the continuous commotion, the attention of the people who had been playing nearby was also drawn to them.

“Hey… what’s wrong with you guys?”

Feeling the serious atmosphere, Mintest asked the question to no one in particular and looked around.

He was about to open his mouth after realizing that Jaeyoung was missing, when,

“Oh, Jaeyoung went to save you……”

The class president, who was explaining the situation to Mintest, sighed deeply with a complicated face.

And he stared blankly at the valley that had swallowed Jaeyoung.

It had been so long since he went in, but Jaeyoung still hadn’t shown even the top of his head.

“What? Th, then we have to save him right away……”

Mintest’s face, which had been full of playfulness, turned pale, almost blue.

Haewoon grabbed him, instead of Dongjun, who had gone to meet the rescue team that might come at any moment.

“Stay still before something really bad happens. I already reported it….”

Haewoon bit his lip anxiously, then suddenly something came to mind, and he turned around.

“Vice-president! My phone!”

“Oh, okay? This is it, right?”

At the same time as he said the words, Haewoon ran towards the tent.

The vice-president immediately picked out Haewoon’s phone from the pile of smartphones that had been gathered.

Haewoon found a familiar number in the block list, unblocked it, and immediately made a call.

“Who do you think you are, telling me to come or not.”

At the same time as the call connection tone started, a low male voice was heard from behind Haewoon.

When he quickly turned around, he saw his brother Saheon, whom he had been desperately looking for, and his partner.

“Hyu, hyung! Hyungnim! Jae, Yi! Euh, Ungi is in the wa……”

Mintest, who had been looking into the water with a dazed face, ran straight over and clung to Saheon’s leg, as if knowing what was going on.

The problem was that his sobbing words were almost unintelligible.

“Sa, save him, please. Please.”

Saheon slowly scanned the area with cold eyes.

No matter how uninterested Saheon was in his surroundings, he knew the faces of his younger brother’s friends, who had lived in the same neighborhood for nearly 20 years.

He discovered a missing face among the familiar faces.

“Mochi?”

It was someone he was interested in, to the point that Saheon had even given him a nickname himself.

Mintest and Haewoon nodded their heads vigorously.

“Yes, yes! Please save him. Our Jaeyoung is going to die.”

Mintest sobbed and clung to Saheon’s pants leg.

Because of that, his movements were not smooth, so Saheon lowered his eyes and glared.

“Get your hand off.”

“Yes, yes!”

Mintest took his hand off and quickly stepped back.

He was afraid that if he annoyed him, he would leave without saving Jaeyoung.

“Here! It’s here!”

Instead of the frozen Mintest, the class president pointed to the spot where Jaeyoung had disappeared, supporting one hand with the other.

Saheon took a step without hesitation.

Splash!

Water splashed everywhere, and Saheon’s figure disappeared.

But soon his head popped up above the surface of the water.

“Hyungnim! Our Jaeyoung is……”

“Did you find him?”

The children poured out words with faces mixed with faint anticipation and anxiety.

“Ahn Jaehyo!”

But Saheon, as if he couldn’t hear the surrounding sounds, immediately called his partner, the esper Ahn Jaehyo.

“Oh, okay? Should I contact the association?”

Jaehyo was quick-witted, as expected of Saheon’s partner.

“Why, why? Can’t you do it either? Can’t you?”

Haewoon looked anxiously at the water where Jaeyoung had fallen and Saheon’s face, alternating his gaze between the two.

Saheon, who was about to return to the water, opened his mouth.

“Get everyone around here out of the water. It’s a dungeon.”

“What? Then Kim Jaeyoung is……!”

Saheon’s gaze towards Haewoon became even narrower.

“I’m not going to stop you if you’re going to let the other guys get caught up in it too.”

Saheon said dryly, as if it were none of his business.

“What……, ah, okay, I understand.”

Thanks to that, the overwhelmed mind that had been flooded with facts became a little clearer.

“Hey! Everyone get out of the water! You too! Get out quickly!”

Haewoon shouted here and there with a distorted face.

When the cold-faced man distorted his face, he looked twice as fierce as usual.

“It’s a dungeon! Everyone get out!”

The surrounding people, who had been murmuring and watching the incident, finally hurriedly packed their things.

Haewoon could only turn his head back towards the valley after confirming that people were moving.

“Please just come out safely.”

After learning that it was a dungeon, Haewoon’s mind became complicated.

Because it was underwater, it could be more dangerous because it was a dungeon, or it could be safer because it was a dungeon.

Unlike his heart, the valley, where the muddy water had settled, was calm as if nothing had happened.

‘Where are you, Seo Mintest!’

His cheeks, filled with hot air, puffed up roundly as if they were about to burst.

Jaeyoung narrowed his eyes at the blurry vision.

‘Come out quickly, please……’

It was strange that he couldn’t see even his shadow, no matter how much he looked around, even though he wasn’t a small person who could be hidden.

‘Cough!’

Water poured in between his accidentally opened lips.

He quickly closed his mouth, and bubbles rose from his nostrils.

But Jaeyoung lowered his head even further.

Even if he hated him, he was like his brother.

‘Just a little more……’

He couldn’t stop going down even though he knew it would be dangerous.

He had been kicking so much that his thighs felt like they were falling off.

‘How much time has passed? Is Mintest okay?’

Unlike him, he wasn’t good at diving.

His eyes were stinging because he hadn’t closed them the whole time.

But he couldn’t even blink because he was afraid of missing Mintest if he closed his eyes even for a moment.

Then, something black brushed past Jaeyoung’s eyes.

‘I found him!’

Jaeyoung’s eyes sparkled, not missing that moment.

The swaying shape was definitely hair.

Jaeyoung kicked his feet with all his might.

His body was pushed deeper.

‘But has Seo Mintest always been this good at swimming?’

He was getting weaker and weaker, but Mintest, who was going ahead, was so fast that he was barely able to see the tips of his feet and chase after him.

‘Is that really Seo Mintest?’

Jaeyoung had a question only after his vision became blurry.

Mintest’s hair wasn’t long enough to sway like that.

As soon as he realized that, he felt a coldness that penetrated to his bones.

Jaeyoung stopped chasing and stood in place.

Then, the one going ahead also stopped abruptly as if feeling something.

The blood drained from Jaeyoung’s skin, which was already white.

He can’t move.

He mustn’t move.

His tightly constricted heart warned him.

His body stiffened with fear.

If there is someone standing upright in the water, it is not a person.

It’s a common saying.

‘Then, if it looks like it’s not a person but it’s swimming?’

That is neither a person nor a ghost.

It’s a creature.

‘Then this is a dungeon……!’

‘Dungeons’, the birthplace and living area of ​​monsters, suddenly appeared all over the world one day.

No one knows when or how they change, but someone’s house, tomb, subway, forest……, without discriminating, were trampled under the feet of monsters overnight.

There were countless cases of people getting hurt or losing their lives after getting caught up in the occurrence of a dungeon.

‘So, that’s how I was able to endure this much.’

Jaeyoung moved his lips, which felt like they were about to burst from lack of air.

The space and time of the dungeon are distorted.

One hour in reality can be 5 minutes in the dungeon, and 1 minute in reality can be a day in the dungeon.

‘Then Mintest can be safe too.’

It seemed that the time in this dungeon was passing slower than in reality.

So Mintest will be able to endure longer than usual.

Jaeyoung’s body was drained of strength with relief.

‘Still, I’ve never heard of a dungeon being created in the water……’

Jaeyoung, who was bewildered, soon understood.

Well, there is always a first time for everything.

It was just despair that he was the one who got caught up in it.

‘Surely Mintest wasn’t caught by that thing, was he?’

Considering that Mintest disappeared right away without even struggling, it wasn’t an impossible story.

If so, instead of him, who has no ability, messing around, he should go out to the land right away and report it to the Esper Association.

Jaeyoung’s pupils sparkled again.

‘What do I do now?’

First, he has to be able to run away without being caught by the creature in front of him.

Jaeyoung curled his tightly closed lips inward.

Fortunately or unfortunately, it was still floating in place with its long hair hanging down its back.

The dark hair swayed this way and that way with the waves.

However, the relief was only temporary.

As if the creature sensed something, it slowly turned its head towards Jaeyoung.

Between the swaying hair, blue-tinted skin was slightly visible.

Their eyes met.

It was a shockingly deep red color.

Jaeyoung forgot to kick his feet with his eyes wide open.

His body was drained of strength, and his mouth opened on its own.

Water, finding a corner to enter, poured into his mouth.

‘Cough……!’

Cold water pierced into all holes: nose, ears, and eyes.

The creature saw Jaeyoung in pain and stretched its lips out to the side.

The purple lips were torn to just below the ears.

Inside the wide-open mouth, large, sharp teeth were densely packed.

In between the teeth, unknown blackish-red lumps were tangled.

It was the ghost itself described in horror stories or scary cartoons.

Jaeyoung desperately kicked his feet to get to the land.

His arms and legs, which had already felt their limit, felt like they were not his own.

‘Please. Hang in there, Kim Jaeyoung.’

Jaeyoung gritted his teeth.

But it was no match for the creature with claws.

The monster, which had caught up with him in an instant, circled around Jaeyoung as if teasing him.

Squeak, squeak, squeak-

No, it was definitely teasing him.

It looked into Jaeyoung’s face while making a sharp sound like scratching a chalkboard with its fingernails.

‘As if I’ll let you catch me.’

Jaeyoung swam and swam towards the surface that he couldn’t even see well.

Soon, the creature seemed to get bored of teasing him, and a bored light appeared in its eyes.

The creature stretched out its hand, and sharp fingernails stretched out.

The creature elongated its triangular pupils.

And he raised his arm towards Jaeyoung.