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Chapter 222

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The Exploded I

1

In the distant past, Old Scho used to grumble a lot.

"Hey, Yeomjang. Isn\'t there a single teleporter in this world? What\'s even the point of this Earth server?"

"Hmm... The tutorial fairy?"

"Bah! We don\'t need those bastards!"

Before going on vacation, Old Scho tried desperately to find someone with teleportation powers.

Though it was all in vain.

Even after Sho typed \'I\'m done with this garbage game, goodbye,\' and logged out of the chatroom, I still didn’t give up.

‘There must be some new ability user hiding out there somewhere. I just haven\'t found them yet.’

Unlike that know-it-all boomer Scho, I, Doctor Jang, am a truly humble young man of the MZ generation.

Thus, I traveled here and there, from Busan to Seoul, from Beijing to Tokyo, and even to Istanbul and Berlin occasionally.

"It’s an honor to work with the famous Doctor Jang. What a world we live in."

It wasn’t often, but sometimes I found myself drinking with people like the high priestess, the leader of the Magical Girl Association.

"You don’t exactly look like someone who\'s been around long enough to make such cynical remarks."

"Maybe not on the surface. But the spirit inside me, which is modeled after the nine-tailed fox, has been alive since 2000 B.C., and that does have an impact on my mental age."

"Oh."

"But strangely, whenever I see you, it feels like I’m looking at someone my age. It’s odd."

The high priestess narrowed her eyes behind her fan and looked at me.

"And so, whenever I\'m alone with you, my old-fashioned way of speaking slips out, and it’s kind of awkward."

"Well, for someone who\'s lived so long, you don’t seem to know any foreign languages, including English..."

"Shut up. What do you expect from a native Japanese? It\'s just that you\'re unusually fluent in foreign languages; I\'m about average."

"Thank you."

Clink.

We toasted. The high priestess swirled her glass of whiskey, releasing its scent into the air.

Mixing intoxication with the air creates an atmosphere. I inhaled the ambiance, not just the oxygen, and spoke.

"The principle behind becoming a magical girl is that, right? You find a spirit among the eight million deities, one that\'s friendly to humans, and contract with them under your supervision as the high priestess."

"Oh? You know quite a bit."

The high priestess tapped her chin with her folded fan, laughing.

She must have been drunk.

"Of course, the spirit doesn’t necessarily have to be friendly to humans. Even a malicious yokai would do. As long as they\'re friendly to one particular priestess, that\'s all that matters."

"I see."

"It doesn\'t have to be a spirit from Japan, either. The rules are less strict than you might think..."

She smiled playfully.

"Why, Doctor Jang? Have you finally taken an interest in becoming a magical girl? If so, I promise I’ll make you the strongest magical girl on Earth."

"I’ll have to pass. But I am curious—how did you come to meet the nine-tailed fox? Was it a spirit you served from the start?"

"Ah, that happened in the tutorial dungeon..."

We exchanged idle chatter.

For Awakeners, the fastest way to bond is by sharing stories of the tutorial dungeons.

It’s similar to swapping tales about military service or college experiences; it\'s perfect for building a sense of camaraderie.

"We had a guy in our tutorial dungeon named Seo Gyu."

"And I call him SG man. The fairy in the tutorial tried to kill him to set an example."

"Oh really?"

"The fairies even shared a guide among themselves. The seniors passed it down to them, and it includes methods to correct human behavior. Apparently, the most effective way is to smash one person’s head open as a demonstration."

"..."

The high priestess twitched her fox ears.

It didn’t seem directed at me. More like she was unconsciously recalling the past, not quite aware of the present moment.

"Is something wrong?"

"Oh, nothing. Just your story reminded me of an incident."

"An incident?"

"Hmm... It\'s a trivial story, not something I\'d usually tell anyone. Just something that I found odd, but no one else would care about..."

The high priestess hesitated to continue.

But it was a light drinking session, after all. With a little more encouragement from me, she folded her fan as if deciding it didn’t matter much.

"It’s really nothing. Like you and the other magical girls, I was also summoned to a tutorial dungeon. Of course, there was a fairy. But then..."

"But then?"

"An explosion happened."

An explosion?

I tilted my head.

"Do you mean someone’s head exploded?"

"Exactly."

"That’s not really all that surprising. Fairies have done the same thing in other tutorial dungeons too..."

"No, Doctor Jang. The fairy didn’t do it. The person’s head exploded, but the fairy had nothing to do with it."

?

"Then who caused the explosion?"

"No one."

???

"It was self-destruction, as far as I could tell."

"Pardon?"

"Among the people summoned to the tutorial dungeon with me, there was one person whose head just spontaneously exploded, even though no one touched them—not even the fairy."

2

This was the high priestess’s story.

About 100 people had been forcibly summoned into the tutorial dungeon.

People were confused.

"Wh-where am I?"

"I was just on the train a moment ago..."

"Hey there! Greetings, everyone! I’m your assigned fairy, number 1675. Nice to meet..."

The summoning of people. The appearance of the fairy.

Up to this point, it wasn’t too different from my own experience in the Busan Station dungeon.

But then something unexpected happened right after the summoning.

"Aaahhhh!"

A bloodcurdling scream.

Everyone turned their heads in shock. There, a woman was clutching her head, writhing in agony.

"Aaaahhhh! Aaaahhh! Aaaaaaahhh!"

The people froze in place.

One might wonder how many times a modern person has heard a scream in their life, but the scream emitted by the mysterious woman was obviously anything but ordinary.

The high priestess testified.

"It wasn\'t a normal voice."

The woman’s voice conveyed the unbearable pain of having her flesh torn apart. It was as if she were being seared alive, her body engulfed in flames. There was the agony of countless razor blades slicing through her skin, slowly reaching her nerves and bones.

The unfamiliar pitch of the scream momentarily paralyzed people—something they had never heard before and might never hear again.

"The scream was so horrifying that just hearing it made you shudder."

It was terrifying enough that even the fairy in charge of the tutorial was startled. The fairy, whose role was to guide the people, momentarily forgot her duty in her confusion.

—Huh, huh? What is this? What is this? Why is she suddenly screaming?

—Aaaaaaaaahhhhhh!

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Even the fairy’s exclamations were drowned out by the scream.

But this wasn\'t the end of the incident. A faint glow began to seep through the woman\'s fingers, which were gripping her head tightly.

A transformation.

The woman\'s originally black hair started turning white from the ends. It was rapid, to say the least.

“…It’s a typical sign of awakening.”

"Yes, indeed. Though we call it divine possession. At the time, we didn\'t realize it, but in hindsight, the mysterious woman was awakening her powers."

Awakening immediately upon being thrown into a tutorial dungeon—much faster than anyone else. Normally, this would be the birth of an exceptionally powerful awakened being.

However—

—Aaaaaaaah! No! Jaangsa! No! No! Aaaaah! Stop, please, Jaaangsa, no no no no no no no!

For some reason, the woman only screamed, repeatedly uttering “No” and “Jangsa.”

"Jangsa? What does that mean?"

"I don’t know. Perhaps the pronunciation got garbled in her scream. But she kept repeating it so desperately that it left a deep impression on me."

She truly looked to be in immense pain, the high priestess added.

"Not just the scream. The way she gripped her head so hard that her nails dug into her scalp, making blood flow."

"……."

"It was a sight I had never seen before—though later on, in post-apocalyptic scenarios, such things wouldn’t be as surprising."

Thirty seconds passed.

As the humans panicked and the fairy was bewildered, the woman\'s hair had completely turned white. The transformation was complete—the radiant white color blossoming from her scalp as her proof of awakening.

Then, when the transformation was finished—

BANG!

A loud burst echoed through the air.

At first, it was difficult to understand what had happened. But soon, something fell from above and landed on the high priestess’s cheek.

"It was a piece of the woman’s flesh. Probably her tongue."

"……."

"Do you understand now, Doctor Jang? Thirty seconds after being summoned into the tutorial dungeon, she screamed incomprehensibly, completed her awakening, and then—her head exploded."

"That’s…"

It was truly bizarre, just as the high priestess had warned.

"Are you sure the fairy didn’t do it?"

"I’m certain. Even before I embraced Tamamo-no-Mae, I was confident in reading expressions. The fairy was extremely shocked right after the woman died."

"……."

"Well, maybe the fairy was skilled enough in acting to fool me, but I’ve already killed that fairy, so there’s no way to confirm."

Since it wasn’t exactly a pleasant topic, our conversation soon drifted elsewhere.

The high priestess, despite her odd taste for magical girls, was a decent conversationalist, so the drinking session went on through the night.

But even as the dawn sunlight filtered through the windows, the story of the ‘mysterious exploding woman’ lingered in my mind like the moon\'s shadow.

3

Why was I so bothered by a mere drunken tale?

My heart was pounding with an inexplicable sense of unease—an unusual occurrence for me as a regressor.

In the end, I couldn’t hold back and summoned the 264th fairy. I relayed the story the high priestess had told me.

Do you know anything about this?

—Hooee. If it’s that, it’s probably not the 1675th but the 1679th fairy who experienced that, yes yes.

True to the nature of dream demons, whose minds are loosely connected, the 264th fairy immediately began counseling me.

—But the 1679th fairy was killed in action before completing the tutorial, so the data isn’t intact!

"I don’t care if it’s incomplete. Can you replay the woman’s death throes, even partially?"

—Hooee. If we borrow the power of the void, it might be possible, yes yes?

"I permit it."

—Wait just a moment! Chizzzk Churrrz Chzzzzzk—

The 264th fairy closed her eyes and began imitating static interference sounds with her mouth.

Then, the next moment—

—Aaaaaaaaahhhhh!

The fairy’s mouth played back a distorted voice. It was a tone completely different from the fairies\' usual chirpy voices.

It was the voice of the \'mysterious woman.\'

—Aaaaaaaaah! Nooooo!

"……."

I silently listened to the woman\'s last words as the 264th fairy tried to recreate the scene as vividly as possible.

I felt puzzled even while listening. Why was I so obsessed with this drunken tale? Was it really worth using the dream demon and Void resources to investigate?

But about ten seconds into the playback—

“…Wait.”

I realized it.

The source of my anxiety.

—Hooee?

"Play that last part again."

—Understood.

The fairy blinked a few times, and soon, the strange, mechanical-sounding voice once again escaped from her mouth.

—Nooo… Ja… uwi…sa… Nooo… No… Apaa… Apaa… Please stop… Ja… uwi… sa!

"There. Isolate the final part and play it again."

—Ja… uwi… sa!

"……."

As I expected.

In the silence after the playback, I swallowed hard.

The high priestess didn’t have perfect memory or proficient in foreign languages. Her conversational skills were stuck in isolationist policy whether it was English or Korean.

So, it was natural she’d mishear it.

The mysterious word the woman had screamed between her cries.

It wasn’t ‘Jangsa.’

It was ‘Jaaui-sa.’

If you say it quickly, it sounds like:

‘Doctor Jang.’

That’s right.

For some reason, after the fall of the void, in a tutorial dungeon far away from the Busan station where I had been summoned—an awakened being I had never met, a complete stranger…

Had screamed “Doctor Jang” as she exploded.

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