This World is too Cruel to Men – Chapter 479

The landscape beyond the rift was bound to be anything but ordinary.

Honestly, how could it not be?

While others may have learned about it from knights, I had heard directly from those who had ventured there.

So I had an idea of what it looked like, but… was this the gap between imagination and reality?

The view of Heogye that I faced now was entirely different in its destructive power from the visions I had conjured in my mind.

How on earth could I express the scene unfolding before my eyes?

It felt as if I was gazing upon a world that had crumbled after an apocalypse.

As I focused on the ruins of civilization, rusted and abandoned, hints of traces left behind by someone who was once just like us made it impossible not to feel that way.

Surviving here for almost weeks was a feat.

Of course, I had my sister Chae-rim with me… but even considering that, at the time, Dogun was just an average person.

In other words, he was in a position to feel pressure more intensely than anyone else, yet he somehow managed to endure it.

To be frank, I could only think that it was impressive.

The very moment I had chosen to cross the rift of my own volition, the fear of facing the scene before me had hit me stronger than anything else; meanwhile, Dogun had been swept into this disaster, the predatory rift, without any say in the matter. How much more terrified must he have been?

If he were an ordinary person, he would have likely lost the will to take any action at that point.

And in such a helpless state, he would have faced death.

Yet Dogun did not crumble.

I heard that the moment he landed here, he scoured the surroundings and secured food and water supplies alongside Chae-rim, who had also been caught in the rift.

That was truly admirable.

Just as I was starting to realize how significant Dogun’s actions were, I was suddenly pulled back from my musings by a sound coming from a distance.

And then I began to do what needed to be done right away.

First… I raised my power and surrounded the area with a wall of ice.

Of course, I didn’t spread it out excessively.

After all, it wasn’t our responsibility to establish the forward base here; that was the job of our partner organizations.

So there was no need to waste energy on unnecessary efforts.

That said, I wasn’t being sloppy either.

Surrounding the area with an ice wall meant I would inevitably have trouble with visibility, and I laid out the thickness as much as I could just in case anything might try to slip through those gaps.

Honestly, with this thickness, I thought it could withstand a few hits, whether it was from a common Another or a Bruiser, and even if some higher-tier entity showed up, it might hold up for a bit.

Still, I had no intention of being careless, so I reinforced the ceiling to be as thick as possible too.

Normally, I would have signaled to them to come over once I had established the walls, but Chae-rim had mentioned that the ground wasn’t the only thing to be cautious of.

Perhaps it was unnecessary concern, but it wouldn’t hurt to be careful.

…Maybe.

Once I had thoroughly sealed off all sides, including the ceiling, I signaled towards the ominously flickering rift behind me.

Well, the signal was merely pulling the string tied around my waist at regular intervals.

So, pulling three times meant…

It was a sign that it was safe to cross over now.

For reference, pulling once meant my situation was urgent, while pulling twice indicated that while safety was somewhat assured, I still needed help.

And pulling four times meant… prepare to seal the rift due to danger.

Thank goodness I hadn’t had to send such signals…

While I was thinking along those lines, I began tugging the string three times in succession at the specified intervals.

I had worried that the signal might not be transmitted properly due to the rift in between, but thankfully, opting for this analog method seemed to have had some effect.

The rift, which had been unsettling earlier, began to writhe even more violently before it started to spit out people one by one.

Perhaps they did not trust the safety of that artificial rift enough to come through all at once.

The first to venture over was surprisingly a woman, the team leader and deputy leader from RK Guard.

With no one else able to match their strength or judgment aside from the heroes on the other side, it seemed natural for these two to take the lead.

As they emerged through the rift, they staggered as if caught by some kind of nausea, almost as if they had previously made an appointment for this.

“Ugh…”

“Ugh…!”

Seeing these two heave as if they were about to be sick made me wonder anew.

If they were experiencing symptoms akin to seasickness, then the reports from HQ about such effects manifesting on crossing the rift must not have been lies. Then why was I completely fine?

‘Could it possibly be…’

Could it be related to the output of my talent?

Watching the two struggling to recover, that thought flickered in my mind, but perhaps it might genuinely be the case.

After all, a significant reason many faced failures during ability tests was due to insufficient output.

In contrast, I had always been told since childhood that my output was exceptional… so maybe that was the true difference.

However, as I considered these thoughts, they faded away upon seeing the next batch of newcomers.

It was inevitable.

That was simply because, if my hypothesis were true, the symptoms experienced by the heroes should have been less severe than those the RK Guard members faced, but the results showed no significant difference.

Yet it seemed they were comparatively milder than the general team members, although the team leader and deputy leader’s experiences appeared quite similar.

There was even one person who seemed to be more affected than the others.

‘What could be the difference then…’

What on earth was it that made me seem completely unaffected?

‘Now that I think about it…’

I believe Dogun had shared something similar.

When everyone else was unconscious, even Chae-rim had fainted, he had been the only one who remained unharmed.

At the time, I assumed it was just luck, but if it wasn’t, and there was some other reason behind it…

Those thoughts were beginning to weave into a chain of realizations.

Perhaps, because I had been among the first to cross over from the others who had remained beyond the rift…

“It must have been difficult to step forward given the circumstances… Thank you for your hard work.”

It seemed she had recovered a bit now, as the woman who had introduced herself as the RK Guard expedition team leader earlier approached me and bowed her head.

“And from now on… you can rest easy.”

Aside from gratitude for willingly taking on such a challenging role, she made it clear she had no intention of handing over responsibilities if it was not necessary.

If it had been someone else, or another hero, they might have taken offense at her comment.

However, that wasn’t the case for me.

Naturally, I had no intention of stepping forward any further.

Chae-rim had said as much: to conserve energy whenever possible.

However, the fact that I had stepped forward earlier was mainly to prevent the situation from dragging on.

Now that I had achieved that goal, I had no need to exert myself further.

“…That’s true. Well.”

Of course, I didn’t want to appear as a convenient tool to be used whenever needed, so I made sure to show a hint of displeasure.

“Things were getting annoying, so this worked out nicely.”

Perhaps that alone was enough to place some pressure on her.

From somewhere, I heard the sound of someone gulping.