Falling didn't feel like falling.
It felt like being un-written.
My body stretched, folded, compressed into something that wasn't quite matter, wasn't quite thought. Do-hyun's grip on my wrist flickered—real, unreal, real again—like the universe couldn't decide if we were allowed to touch.
Then—
We hit something.
Not ground.
Not air.
Context.
A feeling like the world suddenly remembered to load.
Light slammed into my eyes.
Do-hyun and I collapsed onto solid stone, rolling to a stop inside a cavern of enormous pillars. My breath heaved in my lungs, and for a moment, all I could do was lie there, staring at the ceiling as reality struggled to stabilize around us.
Do-hyun pushed himself upright first.
"You alive?" he asked, voice rough.
I coughed. "Define 'alive.'"
He offered me a hand.
I took it.
The moment our palms touched, the air hummed—softly, almost like the system was watching.
Do-hyun immediately pulled his hand back and glared at the ceiling.
"If you're thinking of interfering again," he muttered to nothing, "go ahead. I dare you."
No response.
But the stones vibrated faintly.
I stood carefully.
The cavern was vast—far larger than anything natural—and carved with spiraling lines of text, looping endlessly along the walls, the pillars, even the floor under our feet.
But the text was different from the system code I'd seen before.
Older.Rougher.Not digital.
Almost… handwritten.
Do-hyun walked to the nearest pillar and dragged his fingers over the markings.
"What is this place?" he murmured.
The text shifted under his touch, reorganizing itself into legible words.
I stepped closer.
The letters rearranged—
PROJECT HEAVEN DRAFT — ROOT LAYER
Do-hyun stiffened.
"Root?" he repeated. "As in… the core?"
"No," I said quietly. "Deeper. This isn't the system core. This is the layer below it. The foundation everything was built on."
Do-hyun scanned the cavern, jaw clenched.
"So we fell beneath the world."
"Yes," I whispered. "And we weren't meant to."
The air trembled.
A ripple spread through the cavern as another line of text crawled across the floor, forming beneath our feet:
WARNING: UNAUTHORIZED ENTRY DETECTED.STABILIZATION IMPOSSIBLE.ROOT LAYER IS INCOMPLETE.
Do-hyun exhaled sharply."Great."
But it wasn't the warning that froze me.
It was the next line.
HELLO, JIHO.
A cold shock ran through me.
The handwriting changed — no longer system-like, but uneven, jagged, almost trembling.
Do-hyun turned. "Jiho…?"
I shook my head slowly.
"I didn't write this," I whispered. "I swear."
More words appeared, scrawling themselves violently across the stone:
YOU FINALLY MADE IT DOWN HERE.I'VE BEEN WAITING.
Do-hyun reached for his broken sword hilt, instincts sharp.
"Who's talking?" he demanded.
The stone shivered.
Letters formed a single phrase:
THE ONE THEY ERASED.
My blood turned cold.
Do-hyun's eyes narrowed. "Elvastia?"
"No," I said.
The handwriting wasn't Elvastia's tone.This felt older.
Worse.
A pressure pushed against my skull—a presence noticing us, focusing on us, like a buried mind waking up for the first time in ages.
Then the walls lit up.
A sentence carved itself into every surface at once:
BEFORE YOU, THERE WERE TWO OTHER ADMINISTRATORS.THEY REMOVED ONE.THE OTHER IS STILL HERE.
Do-hyun stepped closer to me.
"What does it mean 'still here'?" he whispered.
The cavern shook.
A new line tore itself across the far wall—
LOOK BEHIND YOU.
Do-hyun spun instantly, lifting his guard.
I turned slower.
And saw—
A silhouette.
Tall.Unmoving.Standing between two pillars like it had always been there.
Not a shadow.
Not a glitch.
Something else.
Something alive.
Do-hyun stepped in front of me instinctively.
"State your name," he said, voice cold.
The silhouette tilted its head.
Then spoke in a voice that felt like old paper crumbling:
"…J-1."
Do-hyun's grip tightened around the broken sword hilt.
"Another prototype?"
But my heart stopped.
Because its voice—
I knew that voice.
Not like J-0.Not like the system.Not like the Author Interface.
It sounded—
Human.
"Jiho," the silhouette said softly, "you shouldn't have rejected the merge."
It stepped forward.
Light hit its face.
And I staggered back.
Because the figure standing there—
looked like me.
Not the perfected version.
Not the system-made one.
But older.
Tired.
Eyes sunken like he hadn't slept in years.
And wearing the expression of someone who'd been trapped in the root layer for a long, long time.
He smiled faintly.
But his voice was broken.
"I'm the Administrator you were supposed to replace."