I just want to be bored for a day.
Then wouldn’t every day be not boring?
Out of sheer boredom, I started to feel like dying.
…Now that I think about it.
How much time do I have left now that I’ve become a Jelly? To be honest, I had no idea even before becoming a Jelly, but after turning into one, it became even more uncertain.
When I think about matters of death, I wonder if I can actually die.
No matter what, if something precious to me shatters, I feel like I’ll die, but I’m curious if I’ve been given a set lifespan.
What exactly is natural death, anyway?
Isn’t it when cells can no longer regenerate and break down, leading to death? First, aging must come, right, for a natural death.
But does aging even apply to me?
I’ve heard that when some complex something wears out and disappears, you age.
But that’s only according to the standards of humans or animals.
…I could consider myself an animal as well, but I doubt that applies. If that were the case, wouldn’t I have grown larger or even slightly taller without absorbing the Jelly Legion?
Of course, it might not be related, but isn’t growth necessary before aging can occur?
If this is me fully grown, it feels kind of sad…
I don’t know.
I’m just making random thoughts because I’m bored.
After scattering the Jelly Legion in all directions, I had nothing to do, so I sat down on the floor and absentmindedly looked around. At first, it was fascinating and fun to observe the apocalypse, but after staying in the same spot for around thirty minutes, I got tired of it.
Would it be fun if some zombies or monsters appeared? Half of me thought so, and the other half just hoped for nothing at all.
I would choose peace over boredom any day, but this was just too monotonous.
Wouldn’t it be nice if I could use a smartphone?
Of course, in this situation, I’d probably just be able to play a game like Minesweeper installed on my smartphone, but even that would do. If it were Sudoku instead of Minesweeper, I would accept it.
Or even a word puzzle would suffice.
More importantly.
The Jellies I scattered haven’t returned. It’s been quite some time since I sent them out, yet none have come back.
It’s not like they’re trapped somewhere. I told them to return if they found anything, so it’s likely they’ve found nothing. And that implies two possibilities.
One is that this place, which smells strongly of apocalypse, is vast.
Perhaps it’s not just one world, but the real thing. If this area is as large as Earth, it wouldn’t be strange for the jellies not to have returned yet.
…Even if they continue walking, they’ll eventually come back to me, but considering the speed of the jellies, it might not be worth the wait.
The second insight is this.
That this immense space contains absolutely nothing.
We joked about it being an apocalypse world, but it seems to be the real deal.
The world is vast, and the Jellies are small, so they might find something if they venture even farther, but at least there seems to be nothing in this area.
What’s going on here?
A scene that far surpasses just descending a staircase and arriving somewhere underground.
It may not be underground since the sky, although dark, can still be seen clearly. However, it’s too desolate to be Earth as I know it.
Then have I opened a door and somehow ended up in another world?
What happened here to leave it in such a state of ruin?
As I speculated on various things due to the Jellies’ non-return, I felt a strange sense of unease. Because the cause was unknown, it made the unease worse.
The bag of knowledge, which usually hangs loose, only swayed every time I shook my head.
…This useless thing.
From now on, I’ll call it the idiot fur.
If you’re mad, find something already.
While muttering inwardly and chewing on the now idiot fur,
A sense of justified unease overwhelmed me.
I looked back at the door firmly closed behind me. The door through which I had entered without a second thought.
Looking at the closed door brought back memories of the horror stories I used to read avidly.
A door connecting to another world.
A door that could take you to a parallel world.
I also vaguely remember stories about doors that swapped worlds.
…It was interesting when I read them, but now thinking they might actually exist somewhere is somewhat terrifying.
If I’m not curious, I must be lying, but it’s clearly too dangerous when you think about it.
And considering that, entering this door was…
Perhaps too naive. I may feel a sense of peace to the point of boredom, but what if some existence swapped places with me and went to my world?
…Hmm.
Is it dangerous…?
It’s ambiguous.
Since I appear harmlessly in the mirror, I don’t really sense myself as something dangerous.
Then memories of others’ reactions popped into my head, bringing a wave of ominous foreboding.
This won’t do.
I need to go back.
Turning my body, I grabbed the handle of the door I entered through. It had opened easily before, so I applied the same amount of force, but…
Click! Click! Click!
It sends shivers down my spine just like the jelly. The door didn’t open.
Click! Click! Click!
Although I pushed the handle with all my might several times, it just made a dull sound without any signs of opening.
It reminded me of those locked doors in games that suddenly appear in reality.
It was strange to begin with that a door without a lock was now locked.
Saying I was bored before, now all that boredom has flown away. I thought something interesting would happen, but I didn’t mean for something this ominous to take place.
Why won’t it open?
In a panic, I pounded on the door.
Clink, thud.
Clink, thud.
An ordinary door that could be seen anywhere now felt as sturdy as a secret vault of a giant bank.
Thinking that the problem was with my soft hands, I made them firm and pounded on the door with all my strength.
As I did, a sound like an exploding wind echoed loudly.
The loud wind soon transformed, spreading out like a monster’s scream.
A noise that seemed familiar somehow.
Realizing that familiarity, I felt a trickle of jelly run down me.
This…
It resembled the scream that led me here.
“Yawn….”
The man wiped the corners of his eyes, having squeezed out tears from a huge yawn, and stared down the seemingly endless stairs.
How long has that blue jelly-like thing been down there?
With no contact since it descended and quite some time having passed, the group, including the man, suspected that something had happened to the Jelly Girl.
However, the last point the Jelly Girl reached was in a spot difficult for a human body to reach.
We don’t know how she descended so quickly, but if the Jelly Girl kept going downwards…
They had no means to retrieve her.
Perhaps if she’s intelligent, she will give up on her own and come back up…
This slightly lax attitude clouds the mind of Hwang Bo-yul, absent from the scene.
No one was seriously staring down the stairs where the Jelly Girl went down and hasn’t returned, because the dreadful scream that caused the Jelly Girl to be summoned has stopped.
Without it, this staircase wasn’t considered particularly dangerous, after all.
The truth is, the dreadful sound caused confusion and accidents for those “inside,” but it doesn’t matter anymore.
If the Jelly Girl solves the situation down there and doesn’t return…
…isn’t this one troublesome Singularity solved in two ways?
Of course, the man standing guard and his comrades beside the staircase are not thinking that far. They simply wish this situation would end quickly.
After all, they have more patrol duties now than they originally needed.
Whether the Jelly Girl disappears.
Or if the noise ceases.
They only wish normalcy would return soon.
“Hmm… don’t we hear that sound anymore now?”
“Yeah… did that jelly-like thing accomplish something? I wish it would come back quickly if so.”
“Of course.”
She might be a bit dim, but it can’t be that she’s continuing down without thinking to come back up, can it?
Nah, if she has intelligence, she wouldn’t do something like that.
As they chatted idly, looking down the staircase, something reached their ears.
Thud… Thud… Thud… Thud…
The sound of something climbing up could be heard.
Has she finally returned?
It took quite a while, but for this extent, …it’s not bad.
Smart Jelly.
I’d like to shake her hand once today.
As they individually thought different things, before too long, they noticed something strange.
Thud… Thud-thud… Thud-thud… Thud-thud…
The sounds coming were strangely dull. When the Jelly Girl went down, it sounded like pooh-pooh—a cute sound—but now, it was like hearing something heavy and bulky approach.
“…Something’s off.”
The murmur of the man caught the attention of those who thought it would finally be over, and they stiffened their faces, gripping their weapons.
“You go to the control room and report the situation and–”
“Behind, behind!”
When the man turned his head to give instructions, the last thing he saw was his companion’s face, which had turned white.
“Aaah! Aaaah!”
“What are you standing there for? Attack!”
He was grabbed by something black and disappeared into the darkened door, never to return again.
Probably forever.
