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Fortunately, the underground bunker didn’t collapse.
If Sae-un had thought it would, he wouldn’t have attempted such a reckless attack in the first place.
This place was the fourth shelter. As the only shelter appearing every ten floors, it was a place the tower’s management office also took care to maintain.
He didn’t believe such a place would easily collapse from a physical impact.
Thud-
The cracked rock eventually gave way and collapsed.
As expected, something other than dirt began to appear within the broken rock. Sae-un used magic to clear away the debris.
– The Vault of Greed has been opened.
[ Gust of Wind ]
– An attack magic from the Green Tower that creates a small whirlwind to blow away enemies or disrupt their formation by causing confusion.
Whoo-oong!
Dozens of small whirlwinds were created, carrying away the rock debris.
Kang Han-cheol directly lifted and carried the large debris that the wind couldn’t handle. Or, more accurately, he picked it up and threw it.
Meanwhile, those who had fled began to return, one by one.
“Wow, I thought I was going to be buried alive.”
“Look at that! The rock is broken!”
“Did he really break that? Wow…….”
“Everyone, let’s hurry up and help!”
With more people helping, the debris was cleared away much faster.
When Kang Han-cheol swung his fist a few more times, the cracking rock completely crumbled, and the debris quickly disappeared.
After creating wind to clear away the dust, the obstacle blocking their view vanished, and the identity of what was inside was finally revealed.
“A door……?”
It was a huge door.
Incomprehensible pictures were densely drawn on the dark yellow surface.
Even Sae-un, who had interpreted various murals before his regression [time travel], found it difficult to understand the contents.
The identity of the door was revealed from an unexpected source.
“That’s……!”
Turning his head, Sae-un saw the King looking up at the door with his mouth agape.
He must have come in person because the rock-breaking process was so noisy.
Sae-un asked about the door’s identity, since the King seemed to know something.
“Before the Last Fortress, ‘Hopen,’ was built, there was originally a small ruin in the center of the island.”
“Then did you demolish the ruins and build it?”
“Not exactly. I don’t know why, but the ruins collapsed naturally. The late King seemed to be led by fate and built a castle on it.”
“That’s the current Hopen.”
“That’s right.”
The Last Fortress, Hopen.
In fact, this was the first time Sae-un had heard the castle’s name.
Everyone only called it the Last Fortress, and when they came to the underground bunker, they lost interest in the castle.
In the first place, there was no reason for a player to be interested in the name or history of the castle.
“Although there are no traces of the ruins, there’s a saying that has been passed down from our ancestors.”
“A saying…….”
“Hopen is the castle of the future. It is a castle built on the seed of the future. That was the gist of it.”
The castle of the future.
It was an unflattering designation for a castle that fell with the end.
However, Sae-un was able to infer one possibility from the words ‘a castle built on the seed of the future.’
“Are you saying that the seed of the future is that place?”
“I can’t be sure. I just don’t know why, but that phrase came to my mind now.”
Sae-un pondered.
For this to make sense, someone in the past predicted the current situation and created the place now visible in front of them, guiding people to build a castle on it.
However, Sae-un soon shook his head.
This wasn’t simply predicting the future. It wouldn’t make sense unless they had prophesied the future.
“Whatever the case, I’ll have to check it out.”
It was called a door, but what Sae-un saw in front of him looked more like a wall.
Except for the long vertical line resembling a door gap between the murals, there were no typical door elements, such as a handle or a keyhole.
Sae-un put his hand on it.
The hardness was like the rock he had just broken… no, even harder than that.
It looked like a door, but it wasn’t made for entering.
Kang Han-cheol came closer, ready to strike, but Sae-un shook his head.
A stronger impact wouldn’t break it or do anything.
“Could you wait a moment? I’ll go back to my residence and look through my ancestors’ records. Maybe there’s a clue to open the door.”
“No.”
“Then are you going to give up?”
“There is a way.”
Even if it seemed to refuse entry, there was a way to open it as long as the wall in front of him was a door.
The Master Key. With this key, received as a reward from the tutorial [initial training level], he could open any door.
When Sae-un took out the key, the King’s eyes sparkled as if reflecting its light.
Sae-un hesitated for a moment about where to insert the key, then held it toward the vertical line of the mural.
It was a vertical line that no one would recognize as a keyhole, and even touching it, one couldn’t feel a gap….
Swish.
The key went in so naturally.
But before turning the key, a strange thought suddenly occurred to him.
‘A door that is a door but not a door. Could anyone other than me open this door?’
It was a door that wouldn’t have budged even if the Dragon Kashalaka had found it and spewed its breath.
The King said he would look at his ancestors’ records, but it was questionable whether he could open the door with that.
Sae-un had found most of the hidden pieces in the trials so far, so it was unlikely he had missed a hidden piece with a clue to open the door.
In the end, the only person who could open this door was the person who had this master key. In other words, only Sae-un.
Thinking that far, the ‘castle built on the seed of the future’ that the King mentioned came to mind.
Maybe this place is…….
‘I’ll know when I open it.’
Click.
Sae-un shook his head lightly and turned the key.
He could hear something fitting together, but Sae-un, who had used the key several times, could feel it.
Again, there was no keyhole or lock on this door.
It was just a door in shape, and there was no conventional way to open it.
“Hey, you. What is that…….”
Before the King could express his bewilderment, the firmly closed door began to open.
The vertical line, which seemed to be just a part of the mural, made a creaking sound and gradually widened. The murals on the left and right of the vertical line moved strangely, as if welcoming Sae-un.
As the door opened completely….
“This is……!”
A completely different world from the underground bunker was revealed.
* * *
The first thing Sae-un saw as soon as he opened the door was the dazzling sunlight.
He hadn’t gone up, but simply moved from underground to underground, yet it felt like he was on the surface.
No, as Sae-un, who had actually been to the surface, it felt more like the surface than the current surface.
“Your Majesty, what is this!”
“Is this what our ancestors called the ‘seed of the future’……!”
The next thing he saw was a garden that seemed to perfectly embody the word ‘nature’.
Was this what a well-kept botanical garden looked like?
Various grasses and trees bloomed harmoniously.
As if it had just rained, dew sparkled on the tips of the grass, and red fruits resembling apples grew on the trees.
‘They’re all edible.’
Sae-un, who had learned about plants from Mamon’s treasure, adding his knowledge from before his regression, knew.
What he saw now weren’t things planted beautifully for ornamental purposes.
The trees were all fruit trees, and the grass was edible, or there were root crops such as sweet potatoes and potatoes.
Rustle.
He heard a small sound and turned his gaze.
A small rabbit was peeking out of the grass, tilting its head.
‘This isn’t the end.’
Starting with the rabbit, he sharpened his senses, detecting more than one or two signs around him.
Walking forward, he reached a place where the botanical garden and another area were divided.
There, various animals, including cows and pigs, were leisurely taking a nap.
Looking to the side, he saw that one section of the fence in the rabbit area was broken, and the rabbit he saw earlier seemed to have escaped through there.
Before long, the King also arrived, following in Sae-un’s footsteps.
He was so eager to follow that his clothes were wet with dew, and he didn’t even notice the leaf on his head.
“Aren’t these all livestock!”
Other people were simply exclaiming at the sight of the blue scenery after so long, but the King seemed to have realized something.
The fact that everything here was edible.
In other words, this place was….
“An ark…… is that what it is?”
It was like Noah’s Ark, carrying male and female beasts to avoid the end and endure the flood.
Even if the world was destroyed once, it could be rebuilt. The ‘seed of the future’ that the King mentioned.
That was what this place was.
‘But why hide this so well?’
If something like this existed, the information would normally be passed down as a legend or through the ancestors’ records that the King mentioned.
Hiding it like this meant that even if they tried to rebuild the castle by going to the surface, they wouldn’t know about it.
In fact, it was all thanks to Sae-un that he found this, wasn’t it?
Even if someone had found it by chance, they wouldn’t have been able to break through the rock in front of it, let alone the door, if it hadn’t been for Sae-un.
“There’s something else over there.”
While Sae-un was racking his brains, he heard the King’s voice.
As he said, there was something like a stone tablet at the end of the garden.
Sae-un could interpret most of the languages in the tower, but this was a language that was difficult to understand, except for one thing. There was something he could recognize.
‘This is…….’
The only picture engraved on the stone tablet.
It was a portrait, but it was difficult to recognize because it was blurry and in a classical painting style, but there were a few clear features.
The cloak hanging on his back, the sword hanging on his waist, the spear stuck vertically on the floor, and the bow that protruded sharply as if expressing ice. And above all, the wolf pattern engraved on the back of the person’s right hand.
The main character was Sae-un. It was himself.
At that moment, a majestic voice that resonated through the air was heard from behind.
“Returner who has gone back in time. The fact that you have found this place means that you have prevented the end as in the prophecy.”
Looking up, Sae-un saw a clear light flowing from the King’s eyes.
The voice was clearly coming from the King’s mouth, but the owner of the voice was not the King.
The voice of a mature woman.
Perhaps, the voice of the ancients who created this place.
“Although we have already disappeared, we prepared this place with the hope that our seeds will be a small hope for the human race that will continue in the future.”
A prophecy. This was not a word to be taken lightly.
Since they called Sae-un a ‘returner who has gone back in time,’ it meant that they had even prophesied that Sae-un would regress and destroy the meteorite.
Then, what was it like before the regression? Did this place exist at that time? Did it exist, but Sae-un couldn’t find it and it withered away without anyone knowing?
His head was spinning.
“Please, help the last remaining people and take humanity to the surface.”
The King bowed. No, the ancient being possessing the King bowed.
“This world may be just one of the places you pass through, but to us, this place is the real world.”
Sae-un’s body flinched.
It was what he had always wondered about.
Whether the trials that existed on each floor of the tower and the people who existed in the shelter were real living beings or existing dimensions.
The voice he heard now was telling him the answer.
“It will be difficult, but you will be able to increase the power of the ‘wolf’ while helping humanity.”
The power of the wolf.
At the same time as that word, the stigma [mark] on the back of his right hand shone as if answering.
“And this is a small reward we have prepared.”
Swish-
A thorn covered in curved patterns appeared in front of the stone tablet. At the same time, the letters shining on the stone tablet flowed towards the thorn.
“Please, not only us but also this world. This space. Please take care of this time.”
With those words, the voice disappeared.
The moment the King was about to lose consciousness and fall, a knight who appeared at the right time hurriedly ran up and supported him.
Sae-un saw the situation and decided there was no reason to cause unnecessary misunderstandings.
Above all, the King, who soon opened his eyes, hadn’t lost the memory of what had just happened. That’s why he seemed confused, but he didn’t seem to treat Sae-un as an enemy.
Sae-un turned his head, approached the stone tablet, and picked up the thorn.
A ‘reward’ prepared by an ancient being who prophesied the future.
The thorn was imbued with the power of ‘Sinpa’ [God-Breaking] that breaks the power of God.
It was Sinpaguek (神破棘) [God-Breaking Thorn].