The country turned upside down. As the anchor said, videos taken by citizens near the Channel had begun to flood the Internet. The Channel opened was near Yeouido Hangang Park; it appeared right in front of the countless people who came out for a spring picnic. It was impossible to have no witnesses. The Internet began to explode. Various stories about what it was, comments, mentions, and posts popped up continuously. I spoke and discussions. It ranged from apocalyptic theories to government conspiracies. The hypotheses were wild and full of imagination.
"If I wrote 'That's actually a passage that leads to another dimension, and you don't know what will come out, evacuate everyone around you right away on the Internet anonymously, it would just get buried, right?"
[Right.]
"I thought that if that happened, everyone would panic and run away…why are there so many spectators?" I glared disapprovingly at the TV as I wondered.
Besides firefighters and police to deal with the accident, the Mapo Bridge area was now bustling with soldiers trying to isolate the area. They were building barricades in a hurry, but citizens who were dozens of times more in number than police and army personnel were gathering and watching from every direction. I grumbled as I watched the opaque blue light emitted by the Channel on the screen.
"Everyone can see it."
[This humanity seems to have evolved in a direction where there is no instinctive fear of the Channel. Then that Channel could be the first fully-open Channel on Earth.]
As soon as I saw the Channel on Mapo Bridge, I could see that it hadn't only evolved into an adult body but was also fully open. It was of a huge scale, and it was certainly in a state that could be seen by the public; instinctively, I wondered who could have opened the magic power circuit.
"Is the origin in this dimension over there?"
This was a significant factor.
[Min-joon, haven't you ever been to that bridge?]
"No."
After coming to Seoul, I was stuck in the room for almost three months to install the barrier. After the barrier was completed, I never went outside. I could never go to that bridge, which was outside the barrier.
[If a Truth-Seeker in this world had opened it, the Seed Channel would have been there for nearly 20 years.]
"Yeah."
[If a Truth-Seeker in the world over there opened it up, there would be no sign from this side, and then suddenly it would have opened up like that. If we had checked the presence or absence of the Seed Channel in advance, we would know what kind of case it is, but it was impossible to tell after being in seclusion like this.]
"If the Truth-Seeker in this world completely opened, that meant he's just been out there, right?"
[That's right. If it were this Truth-Seeker's Channel…it would have opened because of his touch.]
"Ah…I really shouldn't go outside today. I don't know if it's still near Mapo Bridge…it's a few kilometers from here."
Parvache agreed with me instead of teasing me on such a day.
[Yeah…you don't have to risk it.]
I had now spent more than half of my life with Parvache, and in some ways, he was the one who had the most significant influence on my personality. He had repeatedly instilled, as if brainwashing, every phrase about the dangers of Truth-Seekers and how terrible life as a living dimensional portal would be. As a result, naturally, in my mind, the Truth-Seeker solidified its existence as an absolute evil that must never be encountered and the most vicious monster in any dimension.
But the Truth Seeker was over there. What if there was a 0.1% chance? It was best to stay stuck in my safe house within the barrier. Yes, it was dangerous outside the house. I should just watch the situation here on TV instead of going out without any reason. In the meantime, Parvache and I could watch the movement of the Mapo Bridge Channel. The Channel, which has been tapered diagonally like a long wound, gradually widened.
[It's fast.]
"Is it coming?" I swallowed drily.
-Ah, at the moment, it looks like the unknown object near Mapo Bridge is getting bigger and bigger!
The spectators were gradually stepping back. Even the soldiers and police officers required to protect the barricade were also stepping back. The crack stretched close to the circle after expanding, the opaque blue light, which had been swaying over the Channel's cross-section, began to vibrate as if it were boiling. Then, a white pillar rose through the blue light.
-Oh, that, that…!
The anchor was speechless.
-N-now, something white came out of the blue light!
I didn't know if it was a good comparison, but it looked like a white radish. A radish that stretched diagonally toward the sky and had an unpleasantly smooth surface. However, it soon became apparent that it was due to the illusion of the camera's angle. The cylindrical object seemed to spin and rotate, and the other side that the camera couldn't capture was revealed. Two dark yellow eyes, a philtrum with only a small hole in place of the nose bridge, and sharp teeth in a long, torn mouth.
-Ah… ah…
As if representing the viewers' hearts and the citizens on the site, the anchor was speechless and on the verge of panic. I thought the white pillar looked like a radish, but it was the head of the being that emerged from the Channel. It began to move out of the Channel, and eventually, the shoulders, arms, and legs came out of the Channel in succession. It was about 10 meters tall with a long cylindrical head that would take up half its height. Its arms, body, and legs, which seemed too small to support such a large head, were covered with a clothing style that couldn't be found on Earth and was very distinguishable from all the fashion available at the moment.
Its entire body was exposed in front of the camera. The anchor no longer made any comments. The staff's screams, bewildering conversations, and screaming voices leaked out of the TV, probably because the studio was in an uproar. But the broadcast never stopped. It continued to reflect the scene taken through the helicopter. I muttered as I looked at it.
"A huge white body, an upright walking, a long head that is half the body…"
[That's the kind you've seen before.]
Yes, I saw it several times while practicing the dimensional leap magic. It was an alien race that my Avatar, formed by magic, had encountered in the cross-dimensional plane. No, it didn't end up with what I exactly encountered, but there were some conflicts…
"Ashpim Giant?"
The surrounding area near the Channel was already a mess. I couldn't hear the gunfire yet, but I could see spectators running away. It was strange to see people as small as ants retreating so rapidly. The giant was looking down with its mouth slightly open. Then, all of a sudden, it began to stride. While most people were running away, some weren't even moving. They seemed to have been struck by a fit of fear. After walking a little further, it stopped just before leaving the barricade, and the giant began to look around with a frown as if it was worried about something.
The giant opened its mouth wide, revealing hundreds of sharp-teeth. As I looked at it, I muttered quietly.
"…Do they eat human-type creatures?"
Parvache calmly answered my question.
[It may vary slightly from dimension to dimension, but the human isn't a favorite food ingredient for them. It's too small to use as a source of energy for that vast body.]
"So it won't rush to eat people right away, huh…"
I never thought I'd see that giant in my world and also near the bridge just a few kilometers from home. I talked to Parvache in a daze when the giant opened its mouth and said, "No." From the giant's perspective, it spoke, but the people who were near the giant would have been assaulted with sound.
"M'ao!"
It was a short syllable, but an echo resonated across the forest and river of buildings. The citizens fled without hesitation, and the military officers surrounding the giant fell in place. It was a decibel loud enough to be picked up from a microphone in a helicopter hundreds of meters away. The sound pressure was so tremendous that it buried the helicopter's sound, and it was a low-pitched tone outside the human range. Those near the giant would have felt a pain tearing their ears and a shock as if their intestines were shaking. The giant kept talking without worrying about the surrounding situation.
"Mwam'aaaoaauu… nguoomoom'oowauaa… mmooom'aawooaawoo!"
I remembered what Parvache explained before. Since sharp teeth overlap not only around the gums but also the roof and floor of the mouth to chop up their prey quickly, they evolved to leave only roots to avoid cutting their tongue with their teeth. Since the tongue remained only as a small trace at the end of the throat, it usually sounded with only long, thin lips and glottis, and the meaning was divided by the slight pitch and length of the tone.
In other words, it wasn't a vocal system that I could understand just because I learned that language. I quickly energized the magic circuit located in my ear, and the reverse order was completed. A soft light wrapped around my ears and disappeared. It was interpretation magic that could understand any language as long as it was listed in the Akashic Records.
"Aooooam 'woo! Ngooiooam 'woo! Mmmoooom 'oowaaw… Wooooomm 'nguoowam! Mmooom 'aawoooaawooo!"
The sound that I heard as a drunken (and incredibly loud) murmur, no matter how well I listened to it until just now, had conveyed its meaning. I interpreted it with a wiggle.
"None? Dangerous tongue… my voice, exchange, dangerous tongue… high… an insect in the ear… Move out. Or… put it in a grave…"
[…]
That's what I said, but it made no sense.
Actually, I still had a low-level of achievement for this kind of magic that used the Akashic Records. I didn't invest a lot of time because I was being pushed to work on the barrier magic. Parvache, who was listening to me, snorted as if it were ridiculous and corrected my stupid interpretation. Unlike me, he didn't use magic. It's the perfect 'knowledge' of the language listed on the Akashic Records. After all, he was also a self-proclaimed spirit.
['Is there a wizard? Wizard, interpret my words. Tell them to get rid of those bugs that make that whirring sound before I get rid of it.']
"Oh, I see. So, it is looking for a wizard."
[Huh?!]