Jinhwan just stared at it, silent, just a long, dead stare. After a few seconds, he turned away and slumped back into the driver's seat, letting his body sink into the worn leather.
He leaned his head back, eyes closed for a breath. Then he snapped.
"Fuck you, Once Gate!"
He screamed, the words raw, cutting through the empty silence like a blade.
The Once Gate.
It first appeared in 1956. The world only learned of its existence when a man in China returned alive after vanishing through it, the first ever to make it back. That was the beginning. The myth turned real.
See, there are normal gates, common by now. They connect to dungeons filled with monsters, beasts, traps, and treasures. With those, you've got a choice. You can go in, test your luck, and leave whenever you want. You can even scan their mana level beforehand to measure their rank and prepare. It's dangerous, sure, but manageable.
But a Once Gate?
It's named that for a reason.
You only get one shot.
The moment you enter, the gate disappears, vanishing from both ends as if it were never there. Not a way to retreat. No backup. No one is gonna rescue. You're cut off from the world you knew.
Once inside, a floating window appears, only visible to you. It gives you a quest. Complete it, and the gate will reappear. You get a reward, and you go home.
But fail to complete the quest?
You're stuck. Trapped in a dead world. Until the task is done.
These aren't just dungeons. They're entire planets. Alternate worlds. Wastelands ruled by silence, where nature's fury or unknown civilisations have wiped everything clean. The Earth still isn't sure, some say it's nature's wrath, others whisper of fallen people and buried empires. But nothing is confirmed.
And now, here I am..
Stranded on this goddamn unknown planet until I complete the quest.
Save the princess.
That's all it said. No hint. Not even a map. No clue where to even begin?
This isn't a city I can comb through, it's an entire planet.
How the hell am I supposed to find a princess in a world where everything's dead? Well, it does have monsters, but what does it matter now?
Jinhwan sighed and lifted his right arm, eyes flicking to the digital display on his wristwatch.
[Level: 13]
[Mana Points: 44]
[Skills: Moonpierce, Flarefrost]
He reached for a half-crushed plastic bottle on the passenger seat, just two sips left, warm and stale. He took one anyway. Then he grabbed his phone off the dashboard mount, checked it out of habit no signal, of course, and shoved it into his pocket.
Stepping out of the car, he shut the door with a dull thunk. The vehicle was wrecked. The front had been smashed into a tree, metal twisted like paper, and another thick trunk had wedged itself behind it, trapping it in a crooked embrace of dead wood.
He stared at it for a second, confused.
"Did the gate open on that tree?" he muttered. Eyebrows tightening. "Seriously....?"
There was no point sticking around.
Jinhwan turned and started walking, boots crunching against dry soil. The land groaned under him, cracked earth, like old skin stretched too thin. Around him, the dead forest whispered nothing. Branches clawed the sky, stripped bare of life. Some trees leaned sideways, snapped at the middle like they'd been struck by a storm decades ago and never healed.
The river he passed was just a scar, no water, only dust and memory.
He kept moving, blue eyes scanning everything: the skyline, the shadows, the movement, anything. His senses weren't screaming danger, but the silence was thick enough to choke on.
After several minutes, the land started to rise. A slope, dry, uneven, but manageable. He climbed it slowly, each step heavy with heat and caution. Then he stopped.
At the top of the hill, his gaze fixed on something far in the distance. It looked like... a wall. A jagged silhouette breaking the endless line of dead trees. Stone maybe, or rusted metal, too far to tell. But it was man-made, or something close to it.
A city?
Possibly abandoned. Possibly not.
But it was something.
A structure?
A start?
For the first time since landing in this world, a flicker of hope stirred in his chest. Maybe just maybe there'd be answers there. A clue. A sign. A direction. Maybe even the princess.
Jinhwan turned away from the hilltop and began his descent, each step careful on the brittle earth. Once at the bottom, he set his pace toward the distant walls he'd spotted, a faint silhouette of hope in an otherwise lifeless world.
As he walked, the silence grew thicker, heavier. That's when he noticed something strange.
The sky...
It had no sun.
Nor moon.
Neither stars.
Just an endless stretch of crimson, like the whole world was soaked in blood. The light didn't shift, didn't change. No breeze stirred the dead branches.
It felt frozen. As if time itself had taken a breath and never exhaled.
Jinhwan frowned but shook it off. He had seen stranger things before. He kept walking.
Then, suddenly, A chill ran down his spine. His body moved on instinct.
He leapt sideways, rolling across the ground just as something slammed into the spot where he'd stood. The dirt exploded with force, scattering dust and pebbles into the air.
He twisted up into a crouch, eyes snapping to the source.
A monkey? nah, not quite.
It stood upright like a human, at least four feet tall, its limbs long but muscular. Matted fur covered its body, but it wore a strip of cloth across its torso like a crude sash, stained and fraying at the edges.
In its hands, it gripped a heavy axe, now embedded in the ground where Jinhwan had just been. The thing hissed, not like an animal, but like something that knew anger.
[Episode 24 End]