Ancient Secrets

Tweet tweet tweet.

I woke up to the sound of birds chirping. Through the window, I could see a blue sky.

I jumped up without even stretching. I searched for my sword and bow. They were nowhere to be seen.

‘Where am I? Where’s my gear?’

My heart pounded. No sword, no bow, not even my leather clothes. I stood there naked, or so it seemed, at a complete loss.

‘What is this? These flimsy, light clothes… I thought I wasn’t wearing anything…’

I was breaking out in a cold sweat when I suddenly remembered.

“Ah, right. That’s how it was. Phew… I thought I was going to die…”

I collapsed face-first onto the bed.

“Am I… safe?”

Safe… what a weak and sweet word it was.

+ – + – +

When I opened the door, I found myself in a sunlit living room. It smelled immaculately clean, without a speck of dust.

The marble dining table was set with all kinds of drinks and food.

Monggu and Yuria, who had woken up before me, were sitting there sipping their drinks.

They were staring intently at the empty space above the center of the table.

“What are you looking at?”

As I sat down, puzzled, I began to see what Monggu and Yuria were watching.

[Orc charges are extremely dangerous. Every year, many soldiers lose their lives to orc charges. Today, we’ll learn how to counter an orc’s charge using a hook gun.]

A hologram was playing above the table.

A man strode confidently across the tabletop, explaining with self-assurance.

There was no time to question the situation; the immersion was immediate and captivating.

[Grrrr…]

A 30cm tall orc appeared at one end of the table, while the man, now shrunk to about 15cm, stood at the other end facing the orc.

Suddenly, the orc’s eyes were magnified and appeared floating above the center of the table. All of our gazes were drawn to the middle of the table.

[To stop an orc’s charge, capturing the exact moment when the charge begins is the most important thing. Look at the orc’s eyes. They’re dripping with a vicious red light. Right now those round, glowing eyes will become distorted horizontally and vertically. That’s precisely when the charge begins.]

The man continued his explanation as the orc’s eyes flickered ominously.

[Not yet, not yet.]

[A little… just a little more. Wait patiently.]

Finally, when the orc’s eyes flickered greatly and distorted horizontally and vertically, the man shouted.

[Now!]

Boom!

The 30cm orc kicked off from the table and charged forward.

Fwwip!

The 15cm man fired his hook gun toward the floor on his left while jumping high to the right.

The hook gun shot out a rope attached to an anchor.

It looked similar to the grappling hook used by Batman from Earth.

As the orc approached the man, both their bodies zoomed in as if being magnified, until they were over 1 meter tall. Their movements became vividly clear.

Clank!

Kyaak!

The orc’s neck caught in the hook the man had fired.

The anchor gripped the ground firmly, and whatever material the rope was made of, it withstood the orc’s charge without breaking.

The man, who was being pulled toward the orc by the rope’s rebound, shouted.

[Right now! Pull the hook gun!]

Ratatatatat!

The rapidly retracting hook gun rope left a wound on the orc’s neck, and simultaneously, the man received elastic momentum and instantly circled around the orc’s neck.

The rope connected to the hook gun perfectly strangled the orc’s neck.

[Kuik… Kweeik!]

The orc made pig-like choking sounds as it collapsed to the ground.

The man, who had been pulling the hook gun while pinning down the orc, confirmed the orc was dead, then looked up and said cheerfully.

[Now this orc is mine. I can do whatever I want with it. When you skin an orc’s belly, you’ll find thick flesh that’s the only edible synthetic protein material in an orc’s body. There’s no better protein source if you’re stranded.]

The man skinned the orc’s belly, cut off a piece of dark flesh, and chewed it raw.

[Mm. It’s like chewing bitter rubber. But it’s better than dying of starvation. Next time, we’ll learn how to survive the Calamity of Lightning. This has been Survival Expert Sergeant Bear.]

The hologram ended.

“Wow…”

Monggu let out an exclamation.

Yuria’s eyes sparkled as she manipulated the hologram in the air, searching for something else to watch.

Then she noticed me sitting beside her and jumped in surprise.

“Ah! You scared me… When did you get here?”

“Huh? Um… just now.”

I answered with a blank expression. Yuria smiled mischievously and asked.

“Did you see it?”

“Sergeant Bear? Yeah, I saw it. That was incredible…”

“Right! Incredible! If warriors like that existed in the ancient past…! If we had this knowledge, we could have defeated the orcs more easily…!”

Yuria and Monggu started chatting excitedly. Well, as children from the Star Continent who had never seen TV, the entertainment value of what they just watched must have been beyond words.

…I felt the same way.

Damn… did Earth people watch this kind of stuff every day?

We chatted for quite a while before finally calming down.

“Wow… r-really amazing. W-what kind of m-magic was used to make s-something like that appear on the t-table?”

Monggu’s voice still hadn’t settled, and he continued to stutter.

Really… that condition might last his entire life. Mental illnesses aren’t easily cured.

Anyway, is this really magic?

It doesn’t seem like magic since I can’t see the movement of magical power or mana…

“It’s not magic. This entire space isn’t real to begin with.”

Yuria said.

“Ah…”

“Ah…”

Monggu and I made stupid sounds at the same time.

That’s right…

This place wasn’t reality, was it?

+ – + – +

[Virtual reality mode terminated.]

I opened my eyes to the rigid voice.

I was in a room large enough to fit an entire ten-story building.

The walls were far away, the ceiling impossibly high. The floor seemed equally distant below.

The walls, ceiling, and floor were all made of metal, and gentle wave-like shadows rippled on the walls in the bright light.

“Wow… I just woke up but my body feels so light. There’s no fatigue at all. And I’m not even hungry.”

Yuria, having just opened her eyes, marveled as she examined her body. Her voice echoed through the space like in a cave.

“Uh… umm.”

Monggu was frozen stiff, nervously glancing down at the floor. Judging by his behavior, he seemed a bit scared.

That’s understandable, because

we were floating in the middle of this enormous room. Overall, it felt like being trapped in a giant fishbowl, and looking down was dizzying.

This was ‘Barracks #1.’

According to the Assistant Ego’s rigid explanation, this was where we would eat, bathe, sleep, and train from now on.

The room was filled from floor to ceiling with a clear liquid that was 99% light-permeable, and our bodies floated buoyantly in the middle of it.

This liquid completely filled our lungs and stomachs, automatically providing oxygen, water, and nutrients. The nutrients absorbed from this liquid didn’t even need to be excreted as waste, and the liquid would automatically clean our bodies if they became dirty.

It was convenient in many ways, but it was still a desolate space with nothing in it.

However, the reason this place could serve as sleeping quarters, dining room, and training facility was thanks to the ‘virtual reality’ magic.

Except for the fact that time didn’t stop, the virtual reality magic resembled my [Simulation] ability and transformed this place—essentially just a ‘floating metal fishbowl’—into a space of infinite possibilities.

We could sleep in that wonderful guest room we were just in, submerged quietly in this liquid, and eat delicious food.

Except…

“But there’s really no warning at all. Kicking us out of the quarters as soon as the duty hours begin.”

As Yuria said, we couldn’t stay in that comfortable virtual reality indefinitely. Since this was basically a military facility, the virtual reality was terminated without warning when duty hours began.

Of course, my case was a bit different. I hadn’t been kicked out; I just followed after seeing Yuria and Monggu disappear.

“I was told I could stay as long as I wanted?”

“What? Why?”

Yuria opened her eyes wide. I gave her a smug smile.

“Because I’m a level 3 administrator.”

Yuria made a sour face.

“Yes, yes. My lord is different from us lowly 10th-class supplies. Wait! Come to think of it, Administrator, what are you doing in a barracks for humble supplies? You might get contaminated by our lowliness! You should leave immediately! My lord should sleep in the administrator’s quarters.”

Yuria swam over and pushed me on the back.

That’s right. This was Barracks #1. It was originally a space for ‘storing’ 10th-class supplies.

I recalled my conversation with the Assistant Ego yesterday.

“Are there any bedrooms?!”

-Administrator quarters. Search result: none.

“Do you mean the quarters are deactivated? Or that they don’t exist at all?”

-Facility directory review. Administrator quarters. None.

Hearing that, I screamed internally.

‘…What? Don’t administrators sleep?’

“Then what do we do? We have nowhere to sleep?”

-10th-class supplies are stored and preserved in barracks. Administrator. Entity without physiological functions.

“What?”

So, the administrator quarters Yuria mentioned didn’t even exist as a concept.

I grumbled as Yuria pushed me along while I floated.

“If there were administrator quarters, I’d want to go there too! If the place storing supplies is this nice, imagine how good the administrator quarters would be? But… did ancient mages not sleep? What do they mean, no physiological functions?”

Something occurred to Yuria as she heard me, and she stopped pushing, instead leaning against my back. Her hair tickled the back of my neck.

“Well… I wonder if administrators were gods?”

“Gods? That’s absurd. I’m an administrator, but I’m human, right?”

“True. But judging by the fact that you need to sleep, you’re not a proper administrator either.”

“Even so, suddenly talking about gods is a bit…”

“But you said it yourself yesterday. Those three-dimensional shapes carved on the capsules, you thought they looked like ‘names.’ Do you still think that?”

“…I don’t know why, but they still seem like names to me.”

“Names that can only be pronounced by moving a mage’s Circle. Isn’t that godlike enough? Just look at the magic that makes up this facility—is this something humans could use?”

“Hmm… even so, that’s too much of a leap.”

“Fine~ So we have to keep investigating.”

Somehow, Yuria’s voice had a tone of excitement when she said ‘keep investigating.’

She detached herself from my back and smiled broadly.

“By the way, I was talking with Monggu this morning…”

“Yeah?”

Suddenly, Yuria raised her hand to dust off her shoulders and knees, corrected her posture, and placed a fist over her chest.

Monggu, who had been behind us, hurriedly swam over and did the same action.

This was… a ritual performed when making a special oath.

Yuria spoke in a bright voice.

“Let’s form a nomad. The Baek Jun-woo Nomad.”

A nomad? The three of us?