In the setting of this guideverse BL novel, a fissure cracks open in the earth without warning, splitting the ground apart. The surrounding area is immediately evacuated and sealed off, left abandoned until the fissure closes on its own. A process that usually takes a few days.
Any place where such a fissure appears, allowing creatures from another world to crawl through, is classified as a restricted zone.
Until the fissure closes and the spread is contained, Espers, individuals with awakened abilities capable of combat are deployed into these restricted zones. Their role is simple but dangerous: eliminate every creature that emerges. The zones remain under constant surveillance throughout this period. Espers operate in rotating shifts, entering and exiting the restricted area in a continuous cycle until all threats are neutralized and the fissure finally seals itself.
Today was the last day of the fissure, that jagged wound torn between worlds. The air tasted of copper and ozone. The Espers had been ordered to stay until the fissure sealed completely. Only then could they sweep the zone one last time and clear out every last monster, those twitching, hollow-eyed creatures that lurked just beyond the perimeter. But instead of clearing the zone, they started fighting.
It started with a glare. Then a sharp word. Then a shove.
Within minutes, the two senior Espers, Wi Hajoon and Hyeong Ki were nose-to-nose, veins bulging in their necks, voices rising like steam from a cracked pipe.
"You think you're the leader here?" Wi Hajoon spat, jaw tight.
"Better me than a senseless child who doesn't know when to shut his mouth," Hyeong Ki fired back, knuckles white around his weapon.
The others tried to intervene. A hand on a shoulder. A whispered "Not now." But the argument metastasized, spreading like wildfire through dry grass. Accusations flew. Old grudges clawed their way to the surface. Someone shoved someone else. Then came the crack of a fist against a jaw. And in the chaos, no one noticed the shadows creeping closer. By the time anyone realized, it was already too late.
"We're surrounded!" someone screamed.
A monster lunged at Hajoon's back. He didn't even flinch, too busy driving his elbow into Hyeong Ki's ribs. Another creature sank its teeth into Hyeong Ki's arm. He merely shoved it aside and swung at Wi Hajoon's jaw instead.
Around them, their teammates fought for their lives, shouting, bleeding, retreating step by step while the two idiots at the heart of the storm punched and grappled and cursed each other like the monsters weren't even there. Blood dripped from split lips. Breath came in ragged gasps. And still they wouldn't stop.
That was what had happened in the novel, and Rim Young had to prevent it from happening again because Wi Hajoon gets seriously injured in the fight. Then, for the first time, he goes on a rampage when he sees Su Iseul guide Hyeong Ki, who was also on the verge of a rampage.
It was a whole mess.
Rim Young eased his pace, each footfall set carefully and muffled, the soft scrape of rubber soles against fractured pavement. His breathing slowed to match. Ahead, a building loomed, its facade scarred by a few blasts, with a doorway dark as an open mouth. He slipped inside, letting the shadows swallow him whole. He pressed his back against the cool wall for a moment, listening. Nothing stirred.
Thanks to Wi Hajoon and Hyeong Ki having been deployed to this zone for quite some time now, hours bleeding into a gray, indeterminate slog the path here had been clear. Not a single monster crossed his route. That alone felt like a small miracle. Rim Young allowed himself a thin, humorless smile.
At least my timing is better this time around.
Taking the emergency stairs, he decided to settle on the fifth floor. Just in the middle of the building. If he had to retreat, he'd be able to, and this was also high enough for him to overview the situation. The fifth floor greeted him with shattered ceiling tiles and overturned furniture, chairs lying on their sides. A cold draft passed through the broken windows. He crossed to the nearest window glass long since blown out, leaving only a jagged frame and crouched low, just below the sill. Then he slowly lifted his head to peek outdoors.
Detecting no monsters in his immediate view, just the empty road in front, he swung his crossbody bag forward against his chest. Reaching inside, he took out the binoculars he had prepared. He pressed the eyepieces to his face, the rubber rims settling against his brow bone like a second pair of sockets. Rim Young swept the lens left. He scanned the plaza below, searching for the two familiar silhouettes.
Where were they?
If nothing else works and it all happens just as it had in the novel... should I try to guide Wi Hajoon instead? It'd be better than nothing, right? He might be able to provide some relief to him until another guide or Su Iseul guides him professionally. Still searching for the Espers, Rim Young's ears caught something else at that moment.
A sound.
Shhlk-shhlk. Shhlk-shhlk.
Like something moist peeling away from a surface, over and over again. Like two damp slabs of meat being pressed together and pulled apart. Like...
He lowered the binoculars slowly, the rubber eyepieces grazing his collarbone as they swung from the strap around his neck. And then he looked down. Right beneath him!
His breath caught, not in a gasp, but in a quiet, internal seize, the kind that freezes your lungs mid-draw and leaves your chest hollow. There was a monster passing directly below his fifth-floor window. Passing wasn't quite the word. Dragging was closer. Oozing was even better. Its body moved with a terrible, deliberate slowness, each step sending those wet shhlk-shhlk echoes climbing up the building.
It was huge.
Not long. Not wide exactly. But tall. So tall that Rim Young, peering down from five stories up, found himself nearly level with the thing's midpoint. Its head...if you could call it that...brushed against the fourth-floor windows. Its body rose like a tower of pinkish, glistening flesh, mottled with darker blotches that pulsed faintly with every labored movement.
Two legs. Just two. But they weren't like any legs Rim Young had ever seen. Thick as tree trunks at the top, tapering down to sticky, bulbous feet that clung to the asphalt with each step and released with that obscene, wet smack. The flesh shimmered, slick with some kind of viscous secretion, and as the creature shifted its weight, entire sections of its body wobbled—jiggled like overfilled water balloons about to burst.
A Two-Limp Bubblegum Monster.
Rim Young had read about them. The reason he was being so quiet was because of these monsters. These creatures were harmless until they detected you. Until they saw you, or heard you, or somehow sensed the warmth of your breathing body nearby. Then they didn't attack. They didn't charge. They simply inflated.
Their bodies ballooned outward with terrifying speed, skin stretching thin and translucent, and then—pop—they exploded. Into a fine, invisible mist that turned anyone caught in its radius into... well. Mincemeat was the official classification. Minced, shredded, pulled apart at a cellular level. There was no dodging it. No blocking it. You just... stopped existing as a coherent person.
The only warning was the sound. The shhlk-shhlk of those two sticky legs dragging across the ground. And right now, that sound was impossible to ignore.
Shhlk-shhlk. Shhlk-shhlk.
It sounded like clapping cheeks. Like two fleshy palms slapping together in rhythmic, shameless percussion. Like some strangers or not strangers were going at it in the wild...
Shhlk-SHHLK. Shhlk-SHHLK.
Louder now. Closer. The creature was passing directly beneath him, its massive body blocking out the street below, casting a wobbling pink shadow across the broken asphalt. Rim Young didn't move. Didn't breathe. He wanted to step back from the window, to press himself against the far wall. He should hide behind the wall, but he was afraid of moving right now. Thinking it would be just as bad if the monster saw him, Rim Young was about to silently step sideways when a hand clamped on his mouth so abruptly he almost shouted.
"....."
He squeezed his eyes shut as the monster passed by him with the person behind him still holding onto him. The hand on his mouth was pressed so roughly that he couldn't even make a sound, which he didn't know was a good thing or not. Only after the monster had gone far away did a low voice come from behind him.
"Give me one good reason for you to be here right now."