Han Saetbit let out a soft sigh as he gazed at the chaotic bookshelf.
The water that had spilled onto the floor began bouncing up on its own, gradually taking shape.
Two small droplets collided with each other before popping apart and slamming into the wall. At that moment, the laurel wreath stirred lazily.
Silver leaf-like fragments trembled one by one, emitting a faint scraping sound as if they were thinly slicing the surrounding air.
I brushed the lingering resonance from my fingertips.
The laurel wreath shook excitedly in response.
The last drop of water on the floor seemed to realize it was too late, shattering into bits before reforming into a single mass and rolling back onto the shelf.
"Sigh..."
As I shook my wrist, the water particles in the air scattered in all directions, as if handling the cleanup themselves.
At that moment, a breeze quietly brushed over his shoulder.
There was no sound, but that single touch immediately told him someone had entered this world.
I had asked the wind to send such signals myself.
To notify me whenever someone entered the space.
Eemo was calm and cold, but her sense of common sense was subtly twisted. Setang had a child's pure innocence mixed with an unpredictable temperament.
So, no matter who barged in, I needed to know first to sort things out or mentally prepare.
In simple terms, I'd assigned the wind the roles of surveillance and alert.
A split second later, the wind traced a path.
Far from the field where this small cabin stood.
Beyond the distant curve of the terrain, gently bending like the surface of a planet—something I'd sensed while flying through this space on wings of flame to grasp its layout.
A vast, endless desert.
The barren expanse occupying 20% of the entire space.
An intruder stood in the middle of that desert.
The wind then transmitted the intruder's appearance in the form of thoughts.
It was information comprehensible only on a basic level.
But the moment I received it, I drew in a sharp breath.
Black clothes.
White hair.
Bipedal.
A creature vaguely similar(?) to me.
That fact alone was enough to shock me.
The Management Bureau had arrived.
They'd precisely pinpointed and crossed into a dimension even transcendent outer gods struggled to find.
As my thoughts reached that point, a certain phrase naturally came to mind.
From the world before my possession into the game—now dubbed my previous life.
A crude internet slang from that world's web.
How the hell did they do it?
◇◇◇◆◇◇◇
For the past few months, the Management Bureau had been receiving reports of the same type over and over.
The file names differed, but the core content was nearly identical.
"Anomaly detected. Alteration occurred. Cause unknown."
Only the rate at which these reports piled up conveyed the severity of the situation.
Alterations always happened quietly.
Cities operated as usual, skies remained clear without disturbance, and no visual shocks like monsters or interdimensional phenomena appeared.
On the surface, everything seemed perfectly fine.
Yet the Management Bureau's detection systems precisely captured the subtle distortions occurring beneath.
These detected changes went unnoticed by most people.
Even if someone sensed something off, the world had already been rewritten, altering memories and records in tandem.
The structure and method were too seamless and natural for ordinary people to notice.
The Management Bureau wasn't the only one aware of these shifts.
Massive supernatural organizations like the Mage Tower, religious surveillance groups, and international bodies monitoring dimensional fluctuations—all detected similar traces in their own ways.
Their equipment spoke in different languages, but pointed in the same direction.
Something was tampering with the world.
The first alteration began with names.
A specific syllable vanished without a trace from people's names, seamlessly integrating into the entire timeline.
Records, documents, videos, authentication data—all modified accordingly.
The individuals involved felt no discomfort or doubt.
Up to that point, the Management Bureau rated the incident at level 7.
But when the second alteration hit, the atmosphere shifted dramatically.
The disappearance of black hair from all of humanity.
Photos, videos, academic materials, even people's impressionistic memories—all colors changed.
The black color attribute was excluded solely from human hair.
Even past records reflected this naturally erased state.
Without observation equipment, humanity might have remained oblivious forever.
The Management Bureau raised the rating to 8.
But as analysis deepened, the scale exceeded expectations.
The scope wasn't limited to one dimension; traces showed other dimensional and timelines shaking.
The ripple effects neared structural layers entirely.
The risk level was readjusted.
From 8 to 9, then 10.
Finally, grading itself became meaningless.
The breadth and depth of impact shattered existing criteria.
Yet humanity showed no signs of damage.
The changes resembled grooming more than destruction, with ambiguous directionality.
Based on this, the Management Bureau viewed the alterations as unidentified adjustments without hostile intent.
The lack of clear purpose, and restriction to humans only, lent credence.
Their statistical approach was reasonable, but woefully inadequate for grasping the world's underlying movements.
In truth, each alteration carried the same emotional thread, directed at a specific individual.
But that person was an ordinary human, with a name holding no mythic or special significance.
The Management Bureau couldn't use it as a clue.
Complicating matters further was the System's shutdown.
The Management Bureau's core tech, the artificial Anomaly System, handled over half of prediction, analysis, and detection.
But alterations rewrote information, causing constant internal calculation conflicts until it halted itself.
Not powered off, but the framework collapsed under strain.
Prediction networks crumbled, analysis faltered, information flows severed.
The Management Bureau was effectively blind.
Thus, their judgment: one option.
The phenomena couldn't be reversed.
Cause unknown, no intervention possible.
But surveillance and investigation to prevent the next were essential.
The Management Bureau began tracking residual alteration flows with the Mage Tower.
Traces faintly branched, but newly restored equipment filled gaps, revealing coordinates.
"This is outside dimensional structure."
"Form?"
"Terrain distribution reads as planetary. Spherical."
"Size?"
"Not much different from Earth."
"Natural occurrence probability?"
"Hard to judge yet. But traces are too clean."
The conference room fell silent.
A Earth-scale space outside dimensions was unfamiliar.
Structure stable, traces orderly.
This scale required an entity capable of rearranging stellar or dimensional flows.
The Management Bureau concluded.
Investigate in person.
⚙ OPERATION BRIEFING ⚙Operation Name: IRE-001 (Initial Rift Entry - 001) Initial Rift Entry Operation, First Attempt Deployment Personnel: 2 Level 6 Mages, 1 Level 7 Mage, 1 Level 6 Mental Defense Agent, 1 Level 6 Physical Enhancement Agent. Total: 5 personnel.
They stood at the center, where the Mage Tower's stabilization magic circle overlapped the Management Bureau's dimensional gate equipment.
They steadied breaths, aligned defensive angles, checked gear.
Every movement meshed precisely until the portal opened.
But the moment the gate parted, a rift tore through.
No one touched it; space warped on its own.
The dimensional membrane stretched and folded before their eyes.
Individual coordinates splintered in different directions instantly.
Light tore long, scattering across axes.
Sound lost form, senses twisted chaotically.
The five agents scattered to separate regions, their last sight each other slipping away.
◇◇◇◆◇◇◇
Mental defense specialist agent, Lee Sangwon.
As consciousness returned, heat hit first.
The pressing warmth of midday sun, rough sound of sand grinding in wind.
Eyes opening revealed a vast ochre plain.
Horizon blended faintly with sky, hard to gauge the end.
Lee Sangwon rose slowly.
Sand slid down, embracing ankles; wind grazed face, dusting sand grains from cheeks.
Brushing back disheveled hair, pale strands fluttered in breeze.
No questions arose about her hair color.
The concept of black itself blurred in memory.
She scanned surroundings, breathing steadily.
Air dry, strangely pristine.
Similar to Earth, yet structurally off somehow.
She scooped sand in fingertips, let it fall.
"...Where the hell is this?"
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