I must have blacked out for a moment.
My head is spinning.
'Slowly...'
When I opened my eyes, the first thing I saw was a long iron rod embedded in the asphalt.
If things had gone just a little differently, that sharp piece of metal might have pierced right through me.
Guess I'm pretty lucky after all.
'The train's completely derailed.'
I didn't move recklessly and first checked my body's condition.
I had some minor scrapes on my limbs, but nothing serious.
Thanks to the fat guy.
He and his bag had acted as a cushion.
Swoosh.
I carefully got to my feet and surveyed my surroundings.
The subway had veered off the tracks and flipped onto the road above the bridge.
In the process, the fat guy and I had been flung out of the train.
'An earthquake?'
Shattered glass and twisted metal plates were scattered everywhere in a hideous mess.
Cars were overturned, and plenty of people lay sprawled on the ground.
But there were even more corpses inside the subway, turned into bloody pulp.
'What luck...'
If I hadn't been thrown outside, I'd probably be dead too.
And if the subway had dived into the Han River instead of crashing onto the road, I'd have drowned.
'This guy's dead.'
The fat man who'd cushioned my fall had stopped breathing.
The floor was soaked in the blood he'd spilled.
Since the blood hadn't coagulated yet, I must not have been out for long.
"Hey... help me."
I'd just finished assessing the situation and was about to check for other dangers when a faint voice called out.
"Over here..."
I turned toward the voice.
My eyes met those of a female driver trapped in a white car.
Her vehicle had collided with the overturned subway.
"The door won't open."
After checking my pockets, I approached the woman.
She was dressed in a white blouse and grimacing as she wrestled with the airbag.
Clunk clunk.
The door seemed warped.
A closer look showed she wasn't badly hurt—just some scratches from the broken window glass.
This woman was lucky too.
"Grab on."
The woman wrapped her arms around my neck.
The moment I pulled her safely out through the window...
⚙ SYSTEM NOTIFICATION ⚙[Earth begins preparations to leap to a higher dimension.]
Some kind of voice echoed in my mind.
The voice that everyone would later call the System.
To me, it sounded just like my late mother's.
◇◇◇◆◇◇◇
Smoke rose from various spots.
Nearby, I could hear the groans of people coming to their senses, and from farther away, continuous explosions rang out.
The chaos wasn't limited to this bridge.
A massive pileup had occurred on the riverside road visible in the distance.
Not a single car was moving.
Behind it, collapsed apartments came into view.
Some buildings looked intact, windows and all, while the one right next to them had crumbled completely.
'Hell on earth...'
I thought I was standing at the scene of some horrific disaster.
Until that unidentified voice spoke again.
⚙ SYSTEM NOTIFICATION ⚙[Mana settles upon Earth.] [The trials begin.] [Penalty applied to Earth's dominant species 'Humans.']
It felt like the voice bypassed my ears and spoke directly to my brain.
"What was that just now? Some kind of mechanical sound...?"
I absorbed all the surrounding information and let my imagination run wild.
Seoul—no, the entire metropolitan area.
To exaggerate further, the Korean Peninsula... no, the whole world.
'Is falling apart?'
If the chaos I'd experienced was happening worldwide.
If I wasn't going insane.
"No, seriously! What the hell? It's not like there's a hidden camera or something... Hey."
So what should I do?
What did the voice mean by 'trials'?
I looked up at the now-clear sky.
Were the anomalies and earthquake I'd seen before blacking out just precursors to the trials ahead?
"You heard that too, right? This doesn't make any sense...!"
The woman's voice beside me grew increasingly agitated.
She was practically yelling in my ear, so I put some distance between us.
One thing was clear: I wasn't the only one who'd heard the unidentified voice.
"Mana? What is this, some fantasy novel...? Ah, that stings. Damn it."
That was her reaction.
And the reactions of the other survivors starting to appear one by one were much the same.
They all looked terrified or utterly bewildered.
"Help over here! Someone's pinned down!"
Then a young man raised his voice.
Soon, people began moving about.
Some tried to free people trapped in cars, others helped those crushed under debris.
Some fiddled endlessly with their phones, while others just stood there in a daze.
"Haa... why won't this thing work either?"
The woman next to me had been talking about car insurance but was now tapping furiously at her phone.
"Could I borrow your phone?"
"Mine's dead too."
So nothing here was working right.
Phones were out, and even those running around to help others were coming back covered in blood from various spots.
"So what do we do?"
The woman looked at me and asked.
We probably need to walk out of here first.
"To somewhere safe..."
As I started to reply, the woman spoke again.
Her eyes wide as saucers.
"Huh? O-over there."
I turned to look where she was pointing.
Something strange was swarming in from the south end of the bridge.
Green-skinned and small like children.
"What are those?"
"No idea. Run."
Whatever they were, fleeing was the smart move.
An unarmed human could be in danger even against smaller wild animals.
Let alone a group of them.
Especially if they were ugly creatures I'd never seen before, drooling as they came.
'Sharp teeth and claws... bipedal?'
In that brief moment, I noted a few characteristics of the green monsters.
"Kiririk."
They let out eerie shrieks as they charged.
I yanked the iron rod from the road and bolted north.
I dodged around the subway and cars blocking the way.
Thud.
But I soon had to stop.
"W-what do we do?!"
The bridge was cut off.
◇◇◇◆◇◇◇
The woman stared at the severed bridge in a daze.
Then she stomped her feet and tugged at my arm.
"Hey! What do we do?"
She looked panicked.
I scanned around for another way out.
There was only one path left.
'Can I jump from this height?'
Into the Han River.
It could be suicide.
But someone else had found a different option.
"Everyone, gather up! If we stick together, they won't attack so easily!"
It was the young man who'd first started helping others.
He wore a cap and wielded a baseball bat from who-knows-where, shouting at the top of his lungs.
"Over here! This way! Injured to the center! Young folks, grab anything you can use as a weapon!"
People flocked to his charismatic voice like moths to a flame.
The woman who'd been following me tugged at my arm to join them.
"Let's go."
I gently shook off her hand and headed toward the man.
'Bear with it.'
Her voice had been grating on me since earlier anyway.
I didn't like how casually she approached either.
"See? Their reach is way shorter than ours. They look just like goblins..."
"What's a goblin?"
"Monsters from movies. Everyone, find something to use as a weapon. Hurry!"
The man had chosen his position wisely.
Planning to hold out between relatively intact cars, it seemed.
As he rallied the group, people grimly searched for weapons.
"If we just hold the gaps!"
One man lifted a fallen car door as a shield.
Behind him stood a middle-aged guy with a golf club.
The eyes of those quickly preparing for battle burned with the will to survive.
'Impressive.'
The capped man was the focal point.
Even though he must be rattled himself, he'd judged the situation swiftly.
And it was amazing how most people moved in unison.
"Huh? Where are those things going?"
While we got ourselves ready,
the green monsters—the goblins, as he'd called them—had charged in fiercely but then scattered across the wide bridge.
"Kirrk."
The goblins that had briefly vanished reappeared.
Dragging something in their hands across the road.
"No way..."
What they dragged were human corpses.
A goblin buried its snout in a body.
Sizzle. Chomp chomp.
Flesh tore from the corpse, staining the goblin's maw red.
They cackled as they partied.
"What the...?"
"I know it's tough, but snap out of it, everyone."
Even in this situation, the capped man kept his cool, eyes wide open.
He kept boosting morale for the shaken group.
'Will they really hesitate to attack us?'
The man was right to assert leadership.
But to me, our group looked like penned livestock.
The goblins' scattered formation was too uniform.
Perfectly encircling us, balanced on all sides.
'Can't just think of them as beasts.'
Wild animals rarely attack humans, surprisingly.
They see us as dangerous.
They only strike under certain conditions.
I wasn't sure if that logic applied to goblins.
Their eyes gleamed like those of a rabid dog whenever they met mine.
"Kyaaack!"
Then a woman's scream pierced the air.
A few goblins had found a live person in the subway.
She wasn't dead but couldn't move yet.
They yanked her arm, and one of her legs came clean off.
"Fucking insane."
"What the hell?"
"Those goddamn things."
The goblins swarmed the crippled woman, shredding her clothes.
Several tore into her while she was still alive.
They didn't distinguish between the living and the dead.
'They're doing it on purpose.'
My suspicion hardened into certainty.
These things didn't fear humans.
And they seemed pretty intelligent.
They were showing us cannibalism to terrify us.
Most corpses still had plenty of flesh left.
No reason to hoard bodies and nibble if they were just filling their bellies.
"E-everyone, get ready."
Some time passed like that.
And the goblins began eyeing us one by one.
The capped man gritted his teeth and spoke.
"Kiririk."
Their cries sounded like laughter.
"They're coming! Stay sharp, everyone! We just have to hold!"
The man tried to rally spirits.
Then the unidentified voice returned.
⚙ SYSTEM NOTIFICATION ⚙[Earth's immune system activates.] [Gates close.] [Spirit Stones take root.]
Now I was certain.
This voice searing into my mind was just like my mother's.
"What the hell does that mean...?"
The woman beside me muttered.
I wanted to ask how it sounded to her, but there was no time.
"Kirrrk."
Because the goblins were charging all at once.
Contrary to the man's words that they wouldn't come easily, they rushed without hesitation.
⚙ SYSTEM NOTIFICATION ⚙[Survive.]
I gripped the iron rod tight and mulled over the message.
Survive.
It felt exactly like my mother, risen from the dead, speaking to me.
The mother who'd always given me wise advice.
I shoved aside every ingrained behavior up to now.
Squish.
I would survive.
To do that, I thrust my arm out without hesitation, the rod's sharp tip slicing through green hide.
⚙ SYSTEM NOTIFICATION ⚙[Fundamental Skill awakens.]
A massive change came over me.