Chapter 9

"Are you perhaps a mage?"

"A mage?"

"I mean what you just showed me. For an illusion spell, it was quite realistic. That's impressive."

"What illusion? What have you been listening to? I'm an Esper, Your Highness."

Her tone was sarcastic. When the woman raised her hand with her palm facing up, blue flames pooled and flickered concavely above her palm. It was marvelous.

"It's real fire, but does it look fake to you? Want to touch it?"

"Ah, please put it out... It's hot."

The person sitting next to the woman moved away from her with an annoyed voice.

'...Real fire? Not an illusion?'

The fire was blazing brightly above her palm. Nain was mesmerized by the brilliant flames, his lips slightly parted. His eyes, which had been blank the whole time, sparkled with interest.

'Esper...'

Nain understood that mages in this place were called by the term 'Esper.'

The woman who was a fire Esper and the crisis detection response team leader displayed a screen in front to explain gates to Nain.

"People like that agent over there are called Espers... or more broadly classified as awakeners."

Awakeners, once also called the new human race, shared their history with the emergence of 'gates.'

Starting from when the first awakener was born in South Korea, awakeners began appearing one after another all over the world. Among them were newborn babies, and sometimes supernatural abilities suddenly manifested in teenage boys.

"Gates began appearing suddenly four years after awakeners were born."

One day, cracks appeared in space. Fissures formed in empty air, space became distorted, and strange-shaped monsters emerged from holes created when the ground caved in like sinkholes.

People who didn't understand what was happening got caught up in the cracks and went missing, or were brutally killed by monsters.

Cracks that formed sporadically around the world destroyed landmarks of cities, and monsters harmed national leaders, causing serious political and economic crises.

One nation collapsed in an instant. Half the city's population died. The number of doomsday theorists surged in countries around the world, calling it the beginning of catastrophe. In devastated cities, people no longer went to work and waited for the end with their loved ones.

An unstoppable disaster. The destruction of cities. The annihilation of the economic population.

Massacre, plunder, murder...

When humanity was facing the end of civilization, a solution emerged like a miracle. The method to pacify gates that had continued spitting out terrible monsters even when trained soldiers were deployed was discovered by pure chance.

That method was deploying awakeners.

From the moment an awakener who could use supernatural abilities entered, the outside of the crack became quiet as if time had stopped. As long as the awakener who entered beyond the crack didn't die, the gate would stop causing damage to the outside.

Opinions were divided worldwide about whether to mandate awakener deployment into cracks. No, there were even extreme claims that awakeners were to blame for the cracks in the first place.

It took a long time for collapsed cities to regain function, but humanity quickly accepted change as always.

Awakener management agencies were established in all countries.

From immediately after awakening, awakeners became affiliated not with their birth country but with the International Awakener Management Center. When introducing themselves, they would identify as center personnel instead of stating their nationality.

This was because of the argument that regardless of which country a gate occurred in, human life and safety should be prioritized above considering the interests of origin countries. People who had already tasted the beginning of world's end once unanimously agreed with this opinion.

"So today, most gates can be predicted when and where they'll occur. When we detect spatial cracks, we station agents... that is, Espers there in advance. If it's a dangerous gate, we evacuate people beforehand too. Then we proceed with cleanup."

"Is there a way to eliminate gates?"

"Of course. If you destroy the core inside the gate or kill the leader or matrix of the monster organisms, the conquest is complete and the gate's life ends. But corridor-type gates..."

The man trailed off while gauging Nain's reaction. Unfortunately, the type Nain was caught up in was special. It wasn't the kind that could be conquered this way.

"...Corridor-type gates are difficult to predict when and where they'll occur, or when they'll close. The gate you were caught up in was exactly that type. Corridor-type gates have the characteristic of only being caught on radar immediately after occurrence. They're fickle, so we don't carelessly deploy Espers even when gates occur."

"What? But there was an Esper who rescued me from inside..."

The man nodded.

"Normally, we would only control the vicinity until gate extinction and check whether any missing persons occurred. There aren't many... well, there aren't any Espers who volunteer to go in there. Then when a dimension wanderer falls, we take protective measures. That's all we can do on our side."

"But I was."

"Yes. Very fortunately, the Esper closest to the gate that occurred that day was Ash."

...Ash?

Nain tilted his head at the name he was hearing for the first time.

"Normally, we wouldn't deploy anyone inside before the gate naturally extinguished, but he volunteered. Ash is originally a bit... Anyway, he went directly into the newly formed corridor-type gate and brought you out."

"..."

"Thanks to that, Mr. Nain's current condition is very good even excluding the fact that you're a dimension wanderer. It's fortunate it doesn't seem like you were left inside for long. They say corridor-type gates eat away at people's minds."

That's why Ash too... The man added a remark while shaking his head. Nain's gaze wavered. Though he didn't know why the man was trailing off, it wasn't a good nuance.

'Is that the person who still hasn't woken up?'

The thought that it was because of him wouldn't leave his mind. He was grateful but also so sorry he didn't know what to do with himself.

Currently, gates were broadly classified into three types.

First, emission-type gates where monster organisms pour out. Second, mirror-type gates that replicate the environment where the gate occurred to form a maze.

And lastly, corridor-type gates that connect to other dimensions or planets.

The existence of corridor-type gates became known because of an incident where someone caught up in a gate reappeared. People involved in related incidents are called by the term 'dimension wanderers.'

Humanity's first dimension wanderer was an Asian woman in her thirties. The woman had already been processed as deceased by her family, but she was discovered 20 years after her disappearance in a place 150km from where she lived.

Moreover, the woman hadn't aged at all compared to when she disappeared. The woman said she had only lived elsewhere for about a month and couldn't adapt at all to the situation where everyone except her had aged 20 years ahead.

Gate researchers concluded that time doesn't flow at the same speed inside and outside gates. That was all. It was quite a meager result compared to the effort and cost put into research.

"But there is a way to return."

Nain muttered as if to himself. Hearing that there was someone who disappeared and returned, that alone was enough for Nain.

"..."

Then the center executives looked at each other. The 11th Branch Center Director, who had been silent the whole time, opened his mouth as representative.

"That can't be guaranteed until the gate opens again."

"I see... When will it open again?"

"Nobody knows."

"Can I go there and wait? It would be troublesome, but I'd like you to take me back there."

People fell silent. Reading the troubled look in their silence, Nain frowned.

No, hadn't such manuals been created precisely because there were several precedents as dimension wanderers? Then by now they should have prepared some efficient countermeasures. He couldn't understand at all what they could possibly do if they couldn't guarantee anything.

"...Even if a corridor-type gate opens again, there's no guarantee it connects to the place where you were."

"What do you mean by that?"

"It means we won't know anything until a gate opens."

"..."

Only then could Nain not hide his troubled expression.

Wanderer, they called him. So it wasn't just being briefly lost? Nain was a bit bewildered since he had believed without doubt that he could leave here soon.

'Nain, I call them travelers.'

He didn't know if a day would come when he could see Cheche again, but Nain decided that if he met her again, he would correct her that the word traveler was wrong. Rather than that, the word used here to refer to people like himself. Yes... he would definitely tell her that wanderer was a much more appropriate expression.