"Fireball!"
A bolt of fire hurled straight past him, dousing the attacking goblin in flames.
The goblin screamed out in agony before blindly rushing into its comrades in an attempt to snuff out the flames.
The small commotion gave Han a chance. He dived through the hole in the goblin formation, dashing straight for the exit.
A voice called out behind him, but he ignored it.
Right now, he was fully focused on survival.
However, right as he was about to rush out the exit, something shoved him back.
『Warning!』
『 Exiting an incomplete dungeon could result in a dungeon break!』
『Do you wish to proceed?』
"Yes. For fucks sake! Yes!" he shouted, trying to push past the barrier.
An instant later, he felt a tugging force, and he was dragged straight through and shot into a black space.
He felt sick.
The lashback from that last Queen's Gaze hit him all at once, and he vomited blood-filled bile as he was swung across dimensions.
The last thing he saw before passing out was a massive, ancient tower...
Like a beacon of black light at the end of the tunnel.
***
"Wake up."
"Come on, man, you've slept long enough."
The words echoed in Han's ears like whispers. How long had he been asleep?
Actually, did he even care? His head felt like it had been run over.
"A few more minutes pa," he whispered, rolling over and reaching for his sheets.
He froze for an instant, his memories slowly trickling back to him. "Wait. The goblins!" He got up with a start, eyes wide as he did a quick sweep of the area around him.
"Shhh. You're being too loud," a voice whispered angrily.
Han snapped around and found Chul standing behind him.
They were in what looked to be the sitting room of an abandoned house. Television smashed through, and the couch Han was currently standing on charred, with its stuffing mostly pulled out.
"Chul?" Han whispered, slowly calming down.
"Where- where are we?" he asked, getting off the couch. "And what the hell happened here?"
Chul shook his head. "I don't know, I just found a random house," he replied, walking to look out the window. It had tape and cardboard blocking every inch of it, so he had to lift down a section of tape to look through.
"Look, you've slept throughout most of the day. It's almost night..." he continued.
Han sat on the couch, taking a second to recenter himself. For a fleeting moment, he had woken up hoping that everything from the past day had been nothing more than a dream… but the taste of blood and bile in his throat told him otherwise.
"So... did anyone else make it?" Han asked, looking down at his hands. 'Yeah... I sacrificed them. Didn't I?'
"Who cares?" Chul asked, not turning to even look at Han. "Only the protagonists get to be in every chapter," he continued, before moving away from the window.
"Besides, in case you haven't been listening, it's nearly night time."
Han was surprised by Chul's demeanour, he hadn't tacked him as the forward type...
"Night time? And why exactly should I be worried about that?" Han asked, just now realising the severity of his situation. He was in a strange place, with a person he barely knew. And to top it off, he had almost no information about what was going on.
'Yeah... that's what I should do first. Gather information before another monster shows up,' Han thought, getting to his feet. He was still a little dizzy from earlier.
"Where are you going?" Chul whispered, rushing over to stop Han.
"To get information," Han replied simply. "Or do you know where this is? Are we back on Earth? Did we ever leave?"
Chul stepped back, completely silent for a moment.
"What?" Han didn't like the look on his face. "Where the fuck are we?"
"Shhh, I told you, not too loud," Chul whispered back.
"If I had to guess," he said slowly. "We're in an apocalypse novel."
Han's face twisted in confusion. 'RIght. I forgot this guy was insane.'
Han brushed past him. "So we're in a novel you say?" he said, walking towards the back door. As he passed through the hallway into the kitchen, he noticed that there was dried blood in the sink, and dishes smashed on the floor.
'The hell happened here...' he thought, reaching for the door handle.
"Don't say I didn't warn you," Chul warned in the background.
Han opened the door...
"What..."
It seemed as if hell itself had engulfed the earth.
Houses across the street burned with a crimson ember. Cars charred and piled into mounds of mangled metal and ash.
Trees the color of intestines plagued the area like a virus, growing out of houses, trash, and even the road itself.
Han looked up.
The sky itself seemed like an ocean dyed with blood... and the setting sun, if it could even be called that, looked like a bloodshot eye, staring down at this hell scape.
And in the far distance, shrouded in fog, standing tall like a crack in the sky, was a black tower, emitting a green aura, like putrid flesh.
'What is this?'
A waft of rotten flesh filled his nostrils, burning his lungs and he stumbled back into the house, coughing.
Chul had been right about at least one thing; they were in an apocalypse.
"Now close the door," Chul said, walking over to close it himself after Han was too stunned to react.
As they sat there in silence, Han ran the information he knew thus far over his mind.
They were trapped in a foreign land... or at least he hoped this wasn't Earth. On top of that, someone, or something, had torn this place asunder, which likely meant they were still roaming somewhere out there
'It's a little hard to wrap my head around all this. But these are just the facts,'
'Now we just have to figure out a way to deal with it.'
Just then, his stomach grumbled.
'But first, survival.'
"My name's Han by the way," he said finally, breaking the silence.
Chul just nodded. "Everyone at school knows you. You're the genius from 11th grade, right?"
Han gave a confused nod to that. "I guess..."
"But anyway. Now that names are out of the way, I have a proposition."
Chul stared back at him with a questioning expression.