I Don’t Want This Reincarnation

As I landed with an uneasy expression, Ha Tae-heon asked me, “How is it?”

“First off, I saw a building in the north.”

How do I explain something like that? As I looked about, pondering, Ha Tae-heon’s and Cheon Sa-yeon’s eyes followed me.

“And?”

“The building is a bit unusual. It looks like a castle from a fairy tale.”

“A castle from a fairy tale, you say.” As if he understood my words immediately, Cheon Sa-yeon nodded his head. “You must be referring to something like the Alcazar Castle in Segovia, Spain.”

“Segovi… what?”

“The Alcazar Castle in Segovia. A famous castle that inspired many fairy tales.”

Again, I had no idea what you were talking about.

Reluctantly, Ha Tae-heon answered on behalf of me. “As far as I know, there is no gate in Korea with such a structure.”

“I don’t recall either. Worst case scenario, we should also consider gates overseas. We’d better go north first.”

I was mesmerised at the sight of Cheon Sa-yeon and Ha Tae-heon talking to each other.

‘What the… You guys are talking to each other normally?’

I thought they’d disregard each other or be more sarcastic. Well, that wasn’t the case. Park Geon-ho and Woo Seo-hyuk, who didn’t have a very good relationship, also kind of cooperated with each other inside gates. These two must be similar.

Feeling relieved, I said to the two of them, “We should travel with my wind since it’ll be faster that way.”

At that moment, Cheon Sa-yeon and Ha Tae-heon’s black eyes looked at me at the same time. I reflexively stumbled backwards from those intense eyes, but Ha Tae-heon wrapped his arms around my waist first.

“Certainly, that would be best.”

“Uh…”

Surprised, I looked at Ha Tae-heon. This was the first time Ha Tae-heon held my waist in a situation that was not in battle. I covered my mouth with my hand and suppressed my joy. However, it was not easy to cover my smile.

‘Is it… safe to say that we’re a little closer now?’

As if I had received a surprise gift, my heart beat a little faster. I coughed and tried to use my ability, but this time an arm snaked around my neck and shoulders from behind.

“…what is it?”

“You’re more familiar with my arm than his.”

“……”

Cheon Sa-yeon, standing behind me, looked down at me and smiled gently. Ha Tae-heon narrowed his brow as if dissatisfied.

“Um.”

Against my wishes, I was surrounded front and back. I think I was going to drop a person while flying with the way things were.

“This position…”

“I held him first,” Ha Tae-heon said in a low voice, before I could even finish my words.

“You don’t know anything. I’m already making a lot of room for you*. Because Yi-gyeol likes to be held in my arms,” Cheon Sa-yeon retorted with a smile.

What are these guys doing now?

“You guys, please stop.”

Why was the conversation like this? I pushed away Ha Tae-heon, who had a cold expression on his face, and Cheon Sa-yeon, who was smiling but speaking in a hard voice.

“Anyway, I can’t use my abilities in this position, so we’d just fall together. Just holding hands is enough.”

“Hmm. How about going separately without physical contact?”

“That’s a little… I have to distribute my energy between three people, so if I lose concentration, it’ll be dangerous. Two is fine, but three is difficult.”

“It’s okay to split into two groups; it’s not a bad idea. You just need to keep Ha Tae-heon up while I hold you.”

I was about to nod my head involuntarily at the very natural suggestion, but I managed to come to my senses in time. This punk really…

“No, can’t the three of us just hold hands and go?”

“Wouldn’t it be better if I held you comfortably?”

“No, it wouldn’t.”

Ha Tae-heon, who looked at me quietly for a while, spoke up. “I’ll carry you on my back if you want.”

“…what’s different from Master Cheon Sa-yeon’s suggestion?”

Ha Tae-heon, you were acting like this too? I sighed and said firmly, “If you two keep doing this, I’ll go alone. Either hold my hands or run together. Do one of the two.”

“So cold-hearted.”

“……”

When I pulled away from them and held out my hands, though they were both dissatisfied, they gently took my hand. Cheon Sa-yeon held the left, and Ha Tae-heon held the right. It seemed like both of them didn’t want to run.

Thinking that our time was wasted on useless things, I used my ability without delay and jumped up.

* * *

As we headed north across the forest, the castle I saw earlier appeared. Landing in front of the huge gate, I looked up.

“It’s bigger than I thought.”

A building surrounded by high walls and a long pointed roof to prevent enemy invasion—it was literally the castle we only saw in fairy tales.

As I looked around, feeling strange, I realised that the castle gate was open. Ha Tae-heon frowned at the gate, which was opened just enough for one person to pass by.

“Someone else already entered.”

“Let’s go in, too.”

As I got closer to the gate, I pushed the gate just to see. I could easily push it open despite its size. If I could push it open, it meant that any party attendee could have opened this door and entered.

“There may be other attendees who came here besides us.”

“This gate (instance) doesn’t look particularly large, so that’s definitely the case.”

I nodded at Cheon Sa-yeon’s words. Looking at it from above, there was nothing special about the gate except this castle. Others who had also fallen into the forest were likely to gather in the castle, like us.

As we went inside, a large garden was revealed. The bushes were not managed, so they came up to our knees, and the fountain built in the centre was broken and dirty, giving off a dismal atmosphere.

Crunch. Crunch.

As we moved forward, clearing the overgrown bushes and leaves, we found the entrance to the castle, which was carved with a pattern. It was a unique emblem—a circle engraved in the centre of a triangle.

I frowned and lamented. “Every time I found a pattern like this, nothing good came of it…”

“The more abnormal gates we discovered, the more emblems we found.”

“It’s clear that this is that type of gate.”

“Of course. I can’t wait to see what kind of monsters will come out.”

“You look forward to everything.”

Come to think of it, I also found this kind of pattern at the N23 Area gate, where I discovered the phenomenon of grade-dropping monsters.

A skull with an open mouth and black smoke wrapped around it. In response to my question of whether it had always been there, Park Geon-ho replied that it was the first time he had seen it.

‘After discovering the pattern, an energy-absorbing monster appeared.’

Could these patterns be a hint?

As I stared at the emblem with a serious expression, Cheon Sa-yeon lightly tapped the emblem a couple of times as if I would come to my senses.

“I know what you’re thinking, but as it is, there’s only one way to go.”

“…that’s true.”

I sighed and pushed the door open with all my might. Kugugung, the tree vines that were somewhat covering the door fell, revealing the castle’s interior.

“It’s surprisingly clean.”

I thought the inside would be messy because the garden wasn’t maintained, but the spacious hall that appeared before our eyes was clean. We walked to the innermost part of the hall and found a staircase going up and a staircase going down to the underground.

Cheon Sa-yeon, who tapped the pile of stones on the stairs with his sword, turned to me.

“The way up is blocked.”

“I guess we should go downstairs first.”

In response to that, I looked down at the stairs going down. It wasn’t dangerously dark, but it seemed necessary to bring a light just in case.

“I wish I had a torch or something…”

“I have my ability.”

“Do you want to burn yourself?”

It was too sticky and hot to use for lighting purposes. Pushing away Cheon Sa-yeon, who was talking nonsense, I carefully surveyed the hall. Fortunately, there was an old table in the corner.

Crack!

I broke the table without hesitation with my ability and grabbed a table leg. Raising the table leg and staring at Ha Tae-heon, he sighed and pulled out a lighter from his pocket. As expected, pretending is pretending.

Just like I did at the D8 Area gate, I lit the table leg and wrapped my wind around it to create a usable torch.

“Shall we go?”

Holding the torch, I took the lead on the way down. I could feel the humid air and the smell of dusty stones of the underground. The sound of dripping water resounded from somewhere.

After going down for a while, I arrived at a large underground space. Between the wall that was redder than the first floor and the black moss growing in the crevices, traces that were presumed to be footprints were visible.

“If there are footprints, it means someone has already come or a monster was here… It’s strange that we didn’t come across either, considering we're in so deep.”

If it was a normal gate, monsters would have to appear earlier.

Ha Tae-heon said, as if he had the same thoughts as me, “Either a gate that has just been cleared or a gate that has not been built properly—it seems to be one of the two.”

“Are you saying it’s a gradeless gate**?” Cheon Sa-yeon looked around the basement with an interested expression on his face.

Gradeless gates. It was a type of gate that appeared in the novel. It was an empty gate where no monsters appeared and had not yet been discovered in Korea.

“In the United States, research is in full swing to remodel gradeless gates to train ability users.”

“To train ability users?”

“Even if the gate’s interior has broken or collapsed, it will be restored to its original form after a certain period of time. No monsters spawn in gradeless gates, so there are many ways to utilise them.”

“It’s definitely not bad.”

In Korea, where there were no gates other than the graded ones, the lowest grade gates, such as C or D grades, were used to train recently awakened attackers. It would be nice if there was a gradeless gate in Korea as well.

If you thought about it simply, you might think that monsters were necessary for training, but there were different kinds of training aside from combat. It would be beneficial to many ability users if there were more gradeless gates to train in.

“Then is this a gradeless gate?”

Cheon Sa-yeon answered my question with a light shrug. “We’ll know soon enough.”

We walked for a long time, about the same time we took when we came down the stairs. The underground space, which I thought was a room, turned out to be a wide hallway, and there was no other way to go but ahead of us.

“Wait a minute.”

Whoosh.

Finding something, I stretched out the torch ahead of me. I didn’t see it wrong.

“The hallway splits from here.”

As we reached the end of the hallway, two choices stood before us, left and right. There were doors that looked identical to the door upstairs.

“What should we do?”

Our choices were also divided into two. Would the three of us move together like now, or would we split into two groups?

Cheon Sa-yeon, who had been drumming his fingers on his crossed arms, turned to Ha Tae-heon and said, “I think it would be better to split up here.”

“I don’t care either way,” Ha Tae-heon replied calmly.

“Great. Then, Han Yi-gyeol.”

“Yes?”

“Choose.”