Chapter 3

On the first morning of summer vacation in Kyun's residence.

Ring~ Ring~ Ring~

A phone was ringing in the living room.

Kyun Yu-Ri, who was about to go back to her room after having a glass of water, took it and answered.

"Hello. Sung-Ho oppa? *yawn* It's rare for you to call early this morning. Hmm? Sang-Min oppa? Wait a moment, I'll give him the phone."

Rubbing her eyes, Kyun Yu-Ri walked toward her brother's room. As she opened the door, she was greeted by the naked back of her brother who was doing pull-ups in front of a mirror.

"Oppa, your phone. You left it on the couch."

"Oh yeah. Thanks."

Jumping down to the floor, he wiped the sweat on his face with a small towel on his shoulder while taking the phone from her hand.

"Oppa sure is diligent as always. Aren't you tired of exercising every day so early?"

"Heh. What are you saying, Yu-Ri?"

Lifting his chin, he flexed his right arm, showing his well-developed muscle.

"If I stop my training, my hard work until now would go down the drain, right?"

"Bleh. What a narcist."

Kyun Yu-Ri stuck out her tongue and went out of the room.

"If you want to show off then at least change your old ringtone to something more classy."

Clicking his tongue at his sister who didn't appreciate his hard work, he put the phone in his ears.

"Hey, Sung-ho. Can't wait for the first day of vacation, huh? Do you want to have breakfast with us?"

<No, thank you. I already cook on my own.>

"Really? How unusual for you to cook at this time. The sun has not even fully risen yet. Are you that hungry? Haha."

<Well, it's not wrong. I suddenly woke up with hunger that quite huge, so I make myself kimchi-jjigae right now.>

"Woah, Sung-Ho's kimchi-jjigae~ It has been a long time since I ate your cooking. By the way, are you okay? Your voice sounds different than usual."

<Actually, there is something that I want to discuss with you regarding that. Can you visit my place today?>

"Wait. What happened? Are you sick?"

<No. I don't think so. Rather than sick, it's…>

"?"

<I'm sorry, it's hard to explain it on phone.>

Sensing something weird, Kyun Sang-Min's red eyes became serious.

"Hey, are you really alright!? Should I call my parents to bring you to the hospital!?"

<No. You don't have to. I can't say there is nothing abnormal, but I'm technically fine. It's just hard to explain it on the phone. That is why I want to talk directly with you.>

"Understood! I'm coming right at you! Wait for me!"

Hanging up the phone, Kyun Sang-Min hurriedly wore his clothes and ran outside. His sister who was still sleepy became awake as she watched him.

"Oppa? Where are you going?"

"I'm going to Sung-Ho's place for a while. Please tell mom and dad for me."

"Huh? What!?"

The younger girl became bewildered.

"Hei! What time is it? What about the dishes? Isn't it supposed to be your turn today?"

"Sorry. I don't think I can do it today. There is an emergency there, so I will eat at Sung-Ho's place. Be sure to wash the dishes properly. I love you, lil sis. Good-bye."

Without telling what the emergency was, Kyun Sang-Min opened the front door and started running at full speed.

Seeing her brother running away, Kyun Yu-Ri spat out curses.

"Stupid oppa! What kind of emergency? You just want to play with Sung-Ho oppa, right? It's always 'Sung-Ho this' and 'Sung-Ho' that! You two should just get married and live together ever after!"

Fortunately, Kyun Sang-Min didn't hear the last sentence as he was already far away.

'Wait. Other than his voice, his way of speaking is also different. Is it really Sung-Ho that I talked with on the phone?'

A wisp of thought went to his head before it disappeared quickly.

Their houses were not that far apart, but it was still quite a distance to walk on foot. Of course, such a distance was nothing for Kyun Sang-Min who always had extra stamina at his disposal.

Arriving at the front of Kim Sung-Ho's house, Kyun Sang-Min knocked on the door loudly.

"Sung-Ho! Sung-Ho! Are you there? Answer me!"

Before the neighborhood could come out and complain, the door opened.

"Huh? Who are you?"

Rather than his childhood friend, a stranger with a tall build opened the door, making Kyun Sang-Min confused.

'Did Sung-Ho invite him? But he never let anyone visit his house except my family.''

"Sang-Min, it's me."

The stranger spoke with a familiar voice. Even though the octave was slightly low, there was no way Kyun Sang-Min could mistake it.

Wait. Don't tell me…"

Raising his trembling hand, he pointed his index finger to the stranger.

"Sung-Ho? Is that you?"

The stranger—or to be precise, Kim Sung-Ho—nodded.

Silent descended on them for an amount of time before Kyun Sang-Min broke.

"WHAAAAAAAAAAATT!!!!!!"

"SHUT UP YOU BRAT! STOP MAKING NOISE EARLY IN THE MORNING!"

Along with Kyun Sang-Min shouting, a bald old man in an undershirt yelled at them from the window of the house next to them.

***

Sitting at the dining table, Kyun Sang-Min's gaze was wandering through the air as he still had not come to his senses.

Walking from the kitchen, Kin Sung-Ho brought a pot of kimchi-jjigae and put it in the middle of the table. Two sets of cutlery and two bowls were already prepared along with the rice cooker.

"For now, let us eat first before the food gets cold."

"Y-Yes… Let's do so."

The two picked up their cutlery and started to eat.

As Kyun Sang-Min took his first bite, he forgot about anything else and focused on eating.

'Mmmm…This is Sung-Ho's cooking. This spicy and umami seasoning is definitely his.'

Chewing his food, Kyun Sang-Min examined the person eating with him.

'But what the hell happened to him? No matter how you see it, that is not just a mere growth spurt.'

Kim Sung-Ho's height was previously 167 cm, but now he looks over 180 cm, much taller than himself. Not only that, his childish face had somehow become more mature and refined. His now tight t-shirt also did a poor job hiding his body that seemed to have gained some mass.

Not only was his physique, but his demeanor was also different. Previously, Kim Sung-Ho always had a bad habit of directing his head down all the time. That was why others often mistook him as timid when they met him. In reality, he could be quite sassy, especially with Kyun Sang-Min who always gets into trouble. Restless might be an exaggerated word, but that's just how Kim Sung-Ho was.

But now, he was different. His calm disposition made him unreadable. Even when he talked, walked, or ate; it all carried in an elegant manner, unknown if it was intentional or not. His face also looked devoid of any emotion.

'How? What the hell happened to him? Is he perhaps Kim Sung-Ho from the future that came here by time machine? Or did aliens kidnap him and replace him with an android who copied his memory? Or perhaps he found a legendary ginseng from a nearby mountain and ate it?'

As Kyun Sang-Min's imagination ran wild, Kim Sung-Ho put his bowl on the table.

"Sang-Min, you seem to be eating slower than usual. Does the food taste weird?"

"W-What?"

He nearly choked in panic. Without realizing it, Kyun Sang-Min became too focused on his own thoughts that he almost ignored his food.

"No! Absolutely not! It's delicious as always! Really!"

To prove it, Kyun Sang-Min started to eat at a fast pace.

Seeing him eating vigorously, Kim Sung-Ho raised the corner of his mouth.

"I'm glad you like it."

Seeing his smile, Kyun Sang-Min was stunned for a moment.

'Did he ever smile like that before?'

Ever since Kim Sung-Ho lost his parents, he had never smiled for real. Although he did smile on some occasions, he could feel that that smile was somehow forced. Kyun Sang-Min sometimes thought that perhaps he didn't like to live with his family.

But now, he felt that the smile he showed was sincere. It reminded him of the old days when they played together as children, long before the tragedy happened.

'I see'

Kyun Sang-Min put down his empty bowl with a smile.

'He didn't change.'

Although there were a lot of things he didn't understand, he knew one thing.

'He just came back to his old self.'

Somehow, the small weight in his heart that had bothered him for a long time had slowly subsided.

***

After finishing breakfast, the two went to Kim Sung-Ho's bedroom.

Climbing up the bed, they sat across each other without a word.

After some time passed, Kyun Sang-Min couldn't hold on and broke the ice.

"So, you said you want to talk about something."

"Yes."

Kim Sung-Ho nodded his head.

"This is very important, for me, you, or probably the entire human race on earth."

"I-I see…"

He wanted to comment on how the scale escalated very quickly, but before that, there was something he needed to point out first.

"Does this have anything to do with your appearance?"

"Yes. It is related."

Turning on the AC with a remote, Kim Sung-Ho continued.

"You must be surprised by my change of look. To be honest, I almost didn't recognize myself in the mirror."

"Well, no shit. You literally become a different person."

Kyun Sang-Min folded his arms while shaking his head.

"Seriously. What happened to you? How can you change so much in one night?"

Kim Sung-Ho closed his eyes for a while.

"...This will be a long story."

***

Somewhere in this universe, there was a place called the Abyss. Its size was colossal compared to the Earth we live on. It was a mysterious place filled with corrosive dark energy that could affect living beings. This dark energy was called Abyss Power.

The Abyss was akin to a bottomless pit. It swallowed many worlds or planets without rest. Even now, the Abyss was trying to spread its influence to expand itself in real-time.

The method it used to swallow other worlds was through invasion. By invasion, it would send other creatures that were infected by Abyss Power to a planet and let them massacre the original inhabitants. Living organisms that were affected by Abyss Power would lose their reason and only move by their instinct to destroy everything.

The planet that could not defend itself from the invasion would fall into the Abyss. The majority of the inhabitants would die, and the rest who survive would be infected by Abyss Power, turning them into mindless monsters, ready to become the next pawn of the Abyss.

There was no other way to stop the invasion other than fight.

"As the planet Earth—or you can call it 'the Will of the World'—sensing the threat of the Abyss, it appointed a proxy to defend itself, which happened to be me. I was simply chosen because I happen to be the one who has the most proficiency dealing with World Energy."

The entire time he explained, he sat up straight with a poker face. The way he spoke was inanimate—as if reading a phrase off of a piece of paper.

"World Energy is the energy that keeps the planet alive. It is the purest form of energy that already exists since the universe was created. It was necessary for a world to have it for living organisms to live on it.

"When I received the world energy, my body had transformed according to this body's peak potential, hence why my form changed so much. To be honest, I don't know if I could be called human at this point."

"Kim Sung-Ho, are you high?"

Becoming worried, Kyun Sang-Min put his hand on Kim Sung-Ho's forehead.

"As I thought, we need to bring you to the hospital. This sudden growth spurt seems to have taken a toll on your head that makes you hallucinate."

Kyun Sang-Min was really worried. His friend who was always smart and realistic spouted nonsense all of sudden. There was no way he was okay.

"Perhaps showing it to you would be quicker."

Not wanting to make useless talk, Kim Sung-Ho put his index finger on Kyun Sang-Min's forehead.

As the finger touched his head, Kyun Sang-Min felt a sensation of being sucked somewhere. Before he realized it, he was floating inside a dark space filled with nothing.

"Woah! W-What is this?"

Panic, he tried to reach something, but the thing he could touch was only emptiness.

As he tried to adapt to his surroundings, he captured a screen in the corner of his sight. It was like a 3D video, except the size was enormous.

A magnificent castle could be seen on the screen. It had huge walls and unrecognized flags placed on its walls and roofs. Looking small compared to the huge castle, troops of knights in silver armor were patrolling around the place. It was like a movie set of a medieval kingdom.

Suddenly, something resembling portals appeared everywhere. Seeing it, the knights below panicked.

"G-Gates! A lot of Gates appear!"

"Quick! Inform the king! Turn on the alarm of the third state of emergency!"

"Not good! The Gates are showing the sign of breaking up! Change it to the fifth stage of emergency!"

As they ran, the sound of something breaking could be heard. The portals become filled with cracks before their surface breaks with loud sounds. As the barrier of the portals was gone, monsters started coming out from it. The knights tried to fight against them, but as time passed, they became outnumbered as more monsters kept coming.

"For the glory of our kingdom!"

"Keuk…! Captain!"

"Keep hold on! Keep hold on!"

As their morale started to waver…

"The king is here!"

From behind the castle gate, a man wearing a crown and golden armor walked out being escorted by several knights with similar armor. Compared to others besides him, he looks stronger with his big build.

The man took a great sword from behind his back and ran towards the monsters. With a jump, he flew several meters from the ground and slashed his sword in the air. Right after that, A golden arc came out from the swing of a sword and decapitated a group of monsters in front of him.

Cheers exploded from behind.

"Oh, we are saved!"

"Long live the king! Long live the king!"

"Glory to our kingdom!"

Suddenly, an explosion could be heard. Part of the side of the castle collapsed as a huge black dragon soaring in the sky. It released a loud scream and started to burn everything with its black breath.

Amidst the chaos, the king went to the dragon and clashed with it. Powerful auras of golden and black collided, resulting in a huge impact.

Suddenly, Kyun Sang-Min came back to the familiar room. It took him a moment to control his breath before he raised his gaze to Kim Sung-Ho.

"W-What was that?"

"It's a record of the Abyss attack in a different dimension, or planet, from ours. If I have to add, it is a dimension that is closest to us. The lord of that world sends out a warning to our world of impending danger. Since our world didn't have a lord, it appointed a new lord or proxy to defend itself by instinct."

"U-Unbelievable. To think something like this…"

Kyun Sang-Min fell silent for a while, lost in thought.

"So… You said that our world will experience the same thing soon?"

"Yes. That's right."

Kim Sang-Ho nodded.

"Based on my calculation, probably, we can expect the first attack around the time after the summer vacation ends."

"A-After summer vacation!?"

Kyun Sang-Min jumped off the bed in panic.

"W-What are we going to do!? Does that mean we will all die after summer vacation ends? Even if I am strong, I'm not strong enough to fight monsters and stuff! What is going to happen with mom, dad, and Yu-Ri? I-"

"Kyun Sang-Min. Don't worry."

Grabbing Kyun Sang-Min's hands, Kim Sung-Ho brought them together in front of him.

"I won't let you die, nor do I let you fall into their hands."

He put a force into his grip, showing his newly acquired strength.

"As you see, I am different from before. I am not as weak as before."

Put on a confident smile, his sharp azure eyes stared deeply at his best friend.

"I will never let them touch you. This time, it is my turn to protect you."

***