1 – Massachusetts Crack

Welcome to the [Massachusetts] Rift, Hunter.

As I entered the Rift zone, the voice of the AI guide echoed.

Usually, once a Rift is observed, a no-access order and an evacuation order are issued for the surrounding area. Rifts continue to appear irregularly in the same location, which allows the Association and the government to create facilities to intensively manage them.

This Massachusetts Rift was no different.

It was located in Uiwang City, Gyeonggi Province, where Uiwang Station used to be. However, a massive Rift appeared right in the middle of Uiwang Station, absorbing everything around it. As a result, the current Uiwang Station was newly built closer to the industrial complex. The Rift that appeared here is periodically commissioned to guilds or Hunters for conquest.

If the Rift isn’t conquered, the Otherworld inside will contaminate reality. So, whether they like it or not, the government and the Association have to spend their budget to resolve the Rift.

“Hmm, it always has such a unique shape~”

The Rift doesn’t look that impressive on the outside.

However, it looks like a dangerously cracked pane of glass in the air, as if it would shatter into pieces if you touched it.

Entering the Rift is simple.

Just pry open this cracked glass and step inside naturally.

Of course, you have to be a Hunter or Awakened who has wrapped Mana around their body to somehow increase their physical strength, or who knows what might happen if an ordinary person touches it.

Sometimes, Rifts don’t just appear on the ground, but start in the sky at stratospheric heights or in the deep sea.

“Then, before going in…”

-Click.

I take a selfie with my smartwatch.

Leaving evidence or logs before entering a Rift is basic. And since beautiful me looks beautiful no matter how I take a picture, it shouldn’t be a problem to just take a quick selfie like this.

Rift conquest application.

Only one person.

Okay.

Shall we go in now?

-Squeak!

With the sound of stepping on broken glass, the space changes.

The first thing I see after crossing the Rift is a dark, deep sky.

Unlike beautiful me, black dust and clouds are floating around in the sky. Below, there are trees swaying in the wind and a landscape that looks like a perfect replica of a town in Massachusetts.

I describe this unfamiliar landscape, which is similar to our world yet so different, as ‘the mirror has become blurred.’

It was so similar to our world, as if reflected in a mirror, but it was too quiet and still, as if there was no one there.

I thought the expression ‘the mirror has become blurred’ was quite fitting because it couldn’t hide the alien and awkward atmosphere, even though it was similar to our world.

“Oop.”

I spread my wings and floated in the air for a moment.

The starting point of the Rift is in the sky.

If I hadn’t been careful, I might have fallen straight down 500 meters as soon as I crossed the Rift.

Even an Awakened would probably be seriously injured if they fell from that height without any protection.

Of course, I was fine because I was born with wings.

I fluttered my unfolded wings like the hem of a dress for a moment.

Then, I set foot on the landscape that reminded me of an American rural town.

Hello.

It’s me.

Beautiful me has arrived.

Townspeople, rejoice.

Ta-da.

I landed on the rooftop of a pub, bowing slightly as if to greet them.

Ah, sadly, there’s no one here.

There are no spectators to admire my beauty.

Sniff, sniff….

I looked up at the sky again for a while.

Watching the clouds flowing by quickly, I took a deep breath.

Somewhere, I could smell something acrid.

It smelled like burning rubber, or as if a plastic factory had melted down. But I knew exactly what this smell was.

‘Hmm~ It smells like burning human flesh.’

Not a good smell.

Not a beautiful smell.

If I think about what that smell is, then whatever’s happening here is definitely not beautiful.

The landscape itself wasn’t that strange.

It was the scenery of a small town in America.

As the name Massachusetts suggests, it was probably a ‘Reality-Replicated Otherworld’ in the form of a small city or town in Massachusetts, USA.

The buildings were intact, and so were the roads.

The only strange things were the black clouds flowing by at an unusually fast pace and the unpleasant smell of melting or burning human flesh.

When you enter a Rift, you usually see a clear enemy.

Goblins or Orcs.

Or a spider legion, a swamp of poison that threatens humans, a crystal valley.

But inside the Massachusetts Rift, there was nothing that could be called a dangerous or hostile entity. Just an eerie atmosphere all around.

The rural town in Massachusetts was completely silent wherever I went.

“Quietness… 9 points.”

Perhaps if this were reality… the narrow alleyways that would always be bustling with people were empty, and the trees surrounding the town stood in faded gray instead of green.

The houses along the road were built of old wood, and even these had traces of twisting and being swept away.

It gave the impression of being naturally corroded after being left unattended for a long time.

Most of the windows were broken or covered in a hazy layer of dust, making it impossible to see anything inside.

The dark storm clouds in the sky were ominously low, dominating the town threateningly as if they could be reached with a hand.

Lightning flashed briefly between the clouds, scattering faint light, but it quickly disappeared.

The wind blew strongly and indiscriminately, shaking the houses and trees mercilessly.

The wind didn’t seem like a simple breeze.

It was as if whispers were mixed in, instilling anxiety every time it brushed past my ears.

“Atmosphere 8 points.”

Dust and dead leaves swirled through the streets, and traces of what once lived there were being swept away.

The fields were tangled with dry grass and dead branches, and the ruins of a church steeple could be seen in the distance, standing precariously.

The bell in the steeple creaked every time it swayed, as if wailing emptily.

But the most ominous thing of all was the silence.

The only sounds in this deserted town were the wind, the dust, and the creaking of the steeple in the distance. The town seemed to have been completely drained of life, as if even time had stopped.

The air surrounding the town was filled with an inexplicable sense of unease. It was as if something was hiding and about to reveal itself, a heavy, oppressive fear enveloping the place.

“The mise-en-scène is good. I give it 9 points.”

At this point, it passes my standard of beauty for conquest.

For reference, if it’s below 3 points, I have no desire to conquer the Rift at all.

As I was looking around at the eerie scenery, I finally saw a slightly unique structure.

A closed factory, a school, a farm, an auditorium, a library, a windmill, and a steeple.

The signs and architectural styles of these were intertwined, and the buildings themselves were combined haphazardly to form a bizarre-looking building.

From a distance, it looked like a windmill. It also looked like a cathedral or an art museum.

Since there was still nothing around, it was highly likely that this was the center of the Rift and the place where the Otherworld Rift began.

The only unique place in a space with no unique features.

“This is… 4 points. Not beautiful.”

To be honest, I didn’t really want to go, so I hesitated a bit.

It wasn’t that I was scared, but the abnormally twisted architecture didn’t look good at all.

But what could I do?

This was the only unique feature in a deserted American rural town.

So, I carefully opened the door.

The door didn’t creak.

Had people been coming and going quite a bit?

What I saw when I opened the door was darkness.

But what I saw beneath the darkness was a clear ray of light.

A ray of light from an unknown source shone brilliantly and brightly inside the building, as if God was baptizing a believer.

And under the ray of light, there were people.

Many people.

People kneeling and reverently clasping their hands as if in prayer.

They probably weren’t real people.

Everything inside the Rift was just monsters.

Of course, there were cases where residents or intelligent beings from another world existed, but the chances of them being able to communicate or having a sane mind were less than 1 in 10,000.

But I shouldn’t ignore even that 1 in 10,000 chance.

Tap, tap.

I moved my steps and approached the person being baptized by the light.

“Are you okay?”

The person being baptized was looking up at the ceiling.

When I got closer, I realized it wasn’t human.

It did have a human form.

It had a face. It had arms and legs. It seemed to be walking on two legs.

But its face had no eyes, nose, or mouth.

To be exact, there were only traces of where the eyes, nose, and mouth had been. Now, they were all filled with flesh.

Now that I looked at it, its arms and legs were also very awkward.

They didn’t have the curves and undulations of a normal human. It was as if straight arms and legs had been forcibly attached to a wooden doll.

Grotesque.

Hmm, not beautiful.

As I tilted my head, the human-like thing that was being baptized turned its head towards me.

The staggering thing creaked its neck, then suddenly stopped walking.

“Um, are you okay?”

Creak!

There was a sound of something snapping and breaking.

I don’t know if it had bones, but if it did, I could tell from the sound that they had definitely broken.

• Now, Ah, Go, Ha, Da.

I hear a language.

Not an ordinary language.

It wasn’t even an Earth language, including English and Korean, but for some reason, the meaning was being conveyed.

A sound that contaminates human brain cells.

Of course, I’m fine.

I’m not the one being mentally contaminated, I’m the one doing the mental contamination.

ㅡGo Ha, Let’s become one.

The human shakes its head.

ㅡBecome, Ha, Let’s go…!

The shaken neck pops out.

-One, Go!

The neck spasms and twitches, bends at a bizarre angle, and then something convulses and is pulled out from below the neck.

Let’s become one.

As it speaks, the human head is pulled out and begins to float in the air.

Something similar to a spine was pulled out from the cross-section below the neck.

No, I thought it was a spine.

It wasn’t a spine, but a tentacle that looked exactly like a spine.

The human head, with all the holes filled in, floating in the air, and below it, a tentacle in the shape of a spine.

Ah, right.

It’s a jellyfish.

A Human Head Jellyfish.

With the human head as the center.

The spine is both a tentacle, a stinger, and a hook.

Floating in the air.

Just looking at it made me feel like my visual cells and brain cells were being contaminated and mutated at the same time.

Grotesque, horrific, horror, cosmic?

If I had to pick a genre, it would be something like that….

Score….

“10 points.”

Ah, how beautiful.

No, what’s so beautiful about that?

Ah, it’s beautiful.

It’s beautiful.

It’s beautiful…

I feel this sometimes, but my Succubus instincts have such fucked up tastes.