Level 2 Dimension Management: Nibiru’s Melancholy – 4

Once through the gap, a familiar Korean street unfolded.

The acrid smell of exhaust fumes and the trees lining the street made Lee Mina realize she had escaped that hell.

Taking in things she thought she would never see again, feeling them on her skin, hearing them, she was lost in sentimentality for a moment.

Ten seconds. Lee Mina slapped her cheek hard.

Smack! The sound was loud, and passersby stared at her strangely.

“What makes you think you deserve to rest?”

She muttered quietly to herself, as if scolding herself.

“I don’t deserve to rest.”

Looking at the small notification window that popped up in front of her, she walked somewhere.

The notification window, labeled ‘Level 4 Dimension,’ disappeared with a flick of her hand.

Lee Mina walked as if she had a destination in mind, but there were no clues.

She simply followed her intuition, or rather, the direction her shadow stretched.

If someone had been watching her intently, they would have immediately noticed that the shadow rippling beneath her feet looked strange.

Mina walked along the road as if she were walking to work.

From a busy downtown area with many people to a residential area with a moderate number of people.

Squeezing through the densely packed buildings, a secluded building appeared.

Without hesitation, she entered the basement of the building.

-Thump

Her slender hand knocked on the steel door blocking the way.

A dull metallic sound echoed up the stairs.

“Hmm… is this how you do it?”

Tilting her head, she closed her eyes and reached out her hand.

The shadow wriggling beneath her feet stretched out like a spider web, swallowing the shaded areas of the building.

Like a food fighter shoving food into their mouth, the shadow writhed and grew in size.

The shadow stopped expanding when it was about four times the size of its owner.

Taking the shape of a giant hand, it emerged from Mina’s back and firmly grabbed the steel door.

-Creeeeeak

With the sound of metal bending, the hinges flew off.

The screws that had been holding the hinges popped out and headed towards Mina’s eyes, but the shadow snatched them away before they reached her.

The shadow that broke the door did not carelessly discard the thick steel.

Perhaps reflecting its owner’s neat personality, the shadow swallowed even that.

Peeking into the seemingly empty interior, Mina moved her feet.

A damp and unpleasant smell stung her nose, and she instinctively frowned.

-Tzzzzzzzz

Groping around, she turned on the basement light, and dozens of cockroaches scurried into the dark places.

Seeing the sight, Mina hesitated to move her feet for the first time.

“Can you get rid of the bugs too?”

As Mina spoke to the shadow that was clinging to her side, the shadow extended something like thorns in all directions like a hedgehog.

The extended shadow spread into every corner, and Mina assumed that the shadow had killed the cockroaches.

“Ah… don’t absorb them.”

Remembering that it had swallowed the steel door whole, Mina warned.

As if upset that its meal had been interrupted, the shadow trembled a few times. Of course, Mina didn’t care.

Her feet, which had stopped because of the cockroaches, were lifted again.

The stench grew stronger with each step, and she slowly walked around the house until she reached the room that was presumed to be the source of the stench.

-Squeak

When she opened the door, the already rotten corpses of a woman and a man were lying there.

The man was tightly bound, and the woman was sitting at the man’s feet.

The man’s face was unfamiliar. However, Mina could roughly guess who was inside that body.

The woman seemed to have killed the man with a knife and then taken her own life.

“You didn’t die peacefully.”

If it’s suicide, shouldn’t you slit your wrists?

She muttered, looking at the knife marks all over her body as if she had harmed herself.

Mina carefully searched the woman’s bosom.

She had hoped for something that would be a clue to this tragedy, but she didn’t get any dramatic clues.

Just a wallet.

Looking at the ID card taken from the wallet, Mina recited the name of the dead woman.

“Lee… Hye-jung?”

It was the name of the woman who killed the man she loved first.

“How many times have I killed Inho?”

It was a sudden remark from her as she looked around the tragedy in the basement.

It was a bit out of place as the opening line to Mina’s long journey.