Ch.36Emergency Staircase (2)

I tried to escape the anxiety by focusing on the task at hand.

Right. My hands are almost completely healed, so maybe that’s why they asked me.

Click-

My home on the 6th floor, which I hadn’t seen in a while. Opening the front door, I found moving boxes piled up everywhere.

Boxes crushed and collapsed from being hastily moved.

It reminds me of my first day here.

I had properly signed the contract and moved in, unpacked everything and was about to sleep, when suddenly someone started pounding frantically on the door.

Looking in the mirror, I discovered I had suddenly become a woman’s body.

It was unbelievable, but I had no choice but to believe it.

The evidence is this very body I have now.

My once-destroyed back works perfectly fine now, but I need to stand on tiptoe to check boxes placed high up, and I get out of breath quickly after even a little exertion.

After clearing away the moving boxes, I found the tablet I had hidden.

It was a dream I desperately wanted.

But now that I’m here, it seems like nothing special.

Not being able to draw manga isn’t worse than dying. I used to think the opposite.

Come to think of it, did my brother make it out safely?

He seemed to have left the apartment right after helping me move my things.

“……”

This is what annoys me the most. I can’t know anything for certain.

If I knew something clearly, I could at least feel reassured. The survival principle of this apartment was that you had to act with confidence in the midst of uncertainty.

Let’s go back to the 7th floor.

The large tablet was a bit heavy, but not impossible to carry.

Just as I was clearing the screen and organizing the cables below…

BOOM!

An explosion sounded from the floor above. Screams mixed with gunshots.

Reflexively rushing into the hallway, I stood there dazed, staring at the elevator.

The elevator that had been with me on the 6th floor until just now was now on the 7th floor.

7 [▼]

Then back to the 6th floor. It starts coming down.

– I need to run.

I can’t use the stairs. I almost died going down those stairs just a few days ago.

But hiding here? That’s dangerous too.

It’s not like I didn’t know what kind of floor the 6th floor was.

I just knew everything, but strangely didn’t feel any sense of danger. Was I temporarily insane?

Anyway, continuing to wander around the 6th floor is beyond what I can handle.

So what should I do?

7 [▼]

I can faintly hear radio communications.

– Entering the 6th floor shortly.

– This is a space with spatiotemporal anomalies. Wear watches and always be aware of the time. Work in pairs and check the exact time every 10 minutes. Over.

6

Swoosh.

The doors open on both sides, revealing the interior of the elevator.

It’s those people I saw at the department store. Soldiers from “the Foundation.”

– Capture the target alive.

I wasn’t given time to consider other options.

I immediately ran down the stairs.

The emergency exit under bizarre rules,

whose exact operating mechanism no one has been able to figure out.

– Target has gone down the stairs.

– Deploy lower-ranked personnel first to retrieve the target.

Thud.

Thud.

Thud.

Footsteps echo in the dark emergency stairwell.

Thudthudthudthud.

Footsteps overlap behind me.

I can’t tell if it’s the sound of Foundation personnel following me or the sound I’m making myself.

Thud

Thudthudthud

Thud

Thud

Pushing away my wildly flying hair, I looked up the stairs.

Just one floor above, another me was coming down.

The female version of me. A now-familiar sight.

And behind her were soldiers descending the stairs at superhuman speed.

What should I do?

Should I keep running?

The numbers on the emergency light continue to decrease.

[3 ch chchchchchchchchchchchchchtseueuueueueueueueueueueueueueueueueueueueueueueueueueueueueueueueueueue]

[2 ch eu eung]

Now the last flight of stairs.

I can see the first floor below. The outside, bathed in warm sunlight, almost blinding.

It seems to be saying that everything will end if I just step outside through the glass entrance.

I stopped and caught my breath.

Things I hadn’t seen before started becoming visible.

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&LOOP&

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77777777777777777777777

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I stood still.

Numerous footsteps were following behind.

The first to appear was me.

I already knew what I had to do.

– Even if things change in the future, past mistakes will remain. So go back to the past, and start from the very beginning.

A little further down.

I went down the stairs and hid in the darkness between the first and second floors.

I couldn’t see my feet, couldn’t see my moving legs. Looking down, I couldn’t see my body, and even holding my hand in front of my face, it was invisible. In this darkness where I couldn’t be certain of my own existence.

“Phew…”

I reached out and gently pushed over my other self.

“Aaah!!!”

“Huh, gasp… barely caught myself.”

A woman wearing a hat grabs my ankle and catches her breath.

Standing in the darkness, I found myself watching myself resist.

“Stay still!”

Yoon Daju’s slender fingers pressed firmly on my shoulder.

I’m now between the second and first floors.

The fallen me is on the second floor.

“……Huff. Gasp…”

“……”

Me and Daju catching our breath.

And another me passed by the two of us, continuing down.

Before I could only hear eerie sounds, but now I could see more closely.

“Huh?”

From “me” who opened the glass door on the first floor and went outside, a voice full of confusion is heard.

The outside was still filled with light, but the warm atmosphere from before was gone.

Something appears in the corner of my vision.

Like a censored video with mosaic, black squares were rising in a line outside the apartment.

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Perfect black without exception.

The body surrounded by characters turns to dust and scatters.

All joints twist grotesquely, and the remaining flesh falls to the ground and rolls.

I couldn’t look away.

Not just the body, but the entire existence was being dismantled.

Someone was screaming outside the apartment.

I couldn’t tell who it was, but I couldn’t take my eyes off them.

Plop.

The finger that fell at my feet twitched on its own for a moment, then turned to black dust and scattered.

Screams could be heard from outside the apartment.

I kept watching.

I could see outside the apartment.

In the place where the sunlight shines, there is now nothing.

“……You shouldn’t go down.”

Yoon Daju’s voice comes from up the stairs.

Hidden in the darkness, I watched the two people disappear.

“Me” and Yoon Daju from when I still didn’t know anything.

[Timeline]

Just as “past me” was about to climb the stairs, I hesitated for a moment.

“Wait.”

“This way.”

Then immediately followed Daju.

Why did I hesitate back then?

I don’t remember clearly. Anyway, I was startled.

The emergency stairwell is empty again.

No more footsteps can be heard.

“……”

Now I don’t know what will happen next.

I just did something.

The apartment gave me a clue about “time,” and I blindly used it.

Because that’s the only way to survive here.

I avoided meeting my past self because it somehow felt wrong.

I remember it being taboo in almost every time travel movie.

Anyway.

I can only hope this will bring about some change.

After resting sufficiently, I slowly climbed the stairs.

[2cheueung]

[3cheueuueung]

[4]

[5th floor]

When I had almost reached the top of the stairs,

I heard voices from above and hid myself again.

“Let me go, you bastards! Let go!”

“Target retrieved from the 6th floor stairwell.”

“Return to the internal laboratory. Use the elevator for return.”

“Aaaagh!!! You sons of bitches!!!!”

Peeking up, I could see myself crying and screaming.

I was twisting my body and kicking my legs, but two soldiers were firmly holding both my arms, preventing escape.

“May I knock her unconscious?”

“No. Move her as is.”

The Foundation personnel and I disappear.

Watching myself makes my head spin with confusion.

Let’s say what I saw on the stairs was the past. Then what is this?

Am I seeing a possible future that could have happened?

Then where am I now?

This is why I hate time paradox novels. They give me a headache.

Anyway, seeing myself struggling and crying from a third-person perspective, I really do look pitiful.

So pitiful that just watching makes me want to buy myself something to eat.

It’s just unfortunate that it happens to be me.

And one more thing.

Thinking about what situation would make me cry and struggle like that, there seems to be only one possibility.

The others. They must all be dead.

And for some reason, I’m being targeted by the Foundation and taken away.

So what’s happening now?

I acted impulsively, but even I don’t know how the situation is unfolding.

I have no idea what to do.

“Sigh……”

I keep moving because I have to do something, even though I don’t know anything.

The reason I can’t stay still is because I feel like I might collapse at any moment.

“Ugh……”

Without realizing it. A sob mixes with my sigh.

I’ve been deliberately pushing myself.

Deliberately thinking about other things.

But now I’m almost at my limit.

Let’s go back to the 7th floor.

Continuing up the stairs, back to the 6th floor.

I wiped away my tears and pressed the elevator button.

2747#A [▲▼◁◆]

The elevator moves from an unknown floor.

The numbers change irregularly, making it impossible to tell which direction it’s moving.

Nevertheless, the elevator stops at the 6th floor.

As if there’s no problem. As if it’s the most natural thing.

Even if you’ve been wandering through a terrible otherworldly space, pressing a button once brings you back to the 6th floor.

6 [▲]

I’ve heard that time is also a coordinate.

More precisely, time and space combined can be represented as coordinates in a 4-dimensional space.

Then where am I moving now?

Hoping for luck in my heart, as always.

I firmly pressed the number 7 with my fingertip.

***

Floor 2747#A.

The Foundation’s laboratory.

“Sob…sniff…hic…”

The Professor checked the “target’s” condition.

– White skin. Black hair, with an innocent-looking Asian woman.

– Always in a healthy condition.

– Top-level anomaly observation aptitude. (Confirmed capable of identifying entities with concealment level 7 or higher.)

– Top-level anomaly resistance. (At this level, even exposure to “the Fifth” or “the Void” would only result in momentary daze.)

A “psychomanipulative special procedure” was briefly applied to the target to reduce resistance, but there should be no significant issues.

The Professor turned to look at the people following him, with a smile.

“Good. Everyone gathered here, well done.”

High-ranking officials in charge of experiment records. Researchers in white coats. Special agents who had just returned from their mission.

Joy spread among the people gathered in the laboratory.

“Now only one final procedure remains, and humanity will be able to avoid extinction.”

“……Hic!…ugh…”

“Please move the target to 13A1. Also, to perform the procedure, we need the ‘recovery agent’ we’ve been stockpiling.”

People began to move busily.

Agents roughly lifted the collapsed target’s body, while officials typed on laptops. Several researchers hurriedly left the laboratory to fetch something.

The Professor put on a coat over his sweater and covered his crown with a fedora.

“From this moment, I authorize the use of the recovery agent.”