Chapter 226

Chapter 226

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The Concealer III

The Hollow Earth Theory claims the inside of the Earth is hollow in the form of a massive cavern. It follows the lines of similar conspiracy theories like "Nazis on the Moon" or the "Underwater City of Atlantis."

In short, conspiracies with zero academic value. Nothing more than gossip.

Unfortunately, after the Void Descent, physicists turned into conspiracy theorists. There really was a secret Nazi base on the dark side of the moon, and Atlantis still existed in the Atlantic Ocean. In the same vein, the Earth’s interior was, of course, hollow. It was embarrassing as an intellectual to have been unaware of such a simple geological truth.

“Your Excellency.”

“Hmm.”

“There’s a village down here, in the underground.”

“...Hmm.”

“There are people living here too. Should we call them ‘subterraneans’? They look like Homo sapiens at first glance.”

The so-called Homo sapiens that Ji-won mentioned, however, looked quite different from modern humans.

- Euw? Aaa, euw!

- Euwooahh! Ooooho!

The subterraneans spotted the two of us peering in from the ground, and they swarmed us with crude, wooden spears drawn. They stomped their feet and stretched their necks as they let out a barbaric chorus of “ohohoho.”

What could I say? Their civilization was clearly stuck at the primitive tribal stage. They didn’t even bother covering the lower half of their bodies.

- Euwooo! Wahoooo!

One of the subterraneans, who appeared to be their leader, pointed his spear at us, shouting in a language I couldn’t understand. Even with my multilingual abilities, I couldn’t fully translate what he was saying, but judging by the tone, it seemed to be something like, “Get out of there, you monsters!”

But unfortunately, they had chosen the wrong person to threaten.

“Excuse me for a moment, Your Excellency.”

Thwack!

Before I could stop her, Ji-won darted out, drew her dagger, and plunged it straight into the leader’s throat.

- Ugh... Uho...!

- Ooooooh! Ugh! Ughhh!

A few brave subterraneans attempted to fight back, but it was pointless. Ji-won drew another dagger and threw it, and the blade landed squarely between their eyes. In a matter of seconds, four of them had been killed. The rest, terrified, ran for their lives, fleeing from the psycho invader from the surface.

The entire ordeal lasted no more than 30 seconds—a clean, efficient operation befitting the National Road Management Corps’ operation commander.

“Hmph.” Ji-won brushed the dust off her uniform. “They were nothing but rabble. Not even worth Your Excellency’s effort.”

“...Ji-won, I’ve told you countless times—stop revealing your psycho tendencies so casually.”

“They were the ones who threatened us first. Now, let me check the body.”

Shing!

Once again, before I could stop her, Ji-won sliced open the leader’s skull. The sight was gruesome enough to warrant an R-rating on any platform, but fortunately, we didn’t have to worry about censors.

Inside the subterranean’s body, there wasn’t a drop of blood or even organs.

“They’re empty inside.”

“An anomaly, then?”

“Yes, it’s confirmed. Just as this land is hollow, they’re hollow inside as well.”

It wasn’t restricted to the head either. The torso, too, was completely empty. It would have been stranger if these weren’t anomalies.

“But Your Excellency. If you look closely, doesn’t this primitive look a lot like you?”

“What?”

“I’m not joking, Your Excellency. Look carefully.”

“......”

It was true.

The leader Ji-won had killed first, the one who seemed to be their chief, had a face eerily similar to mine. The difference in the level of civilization between us was the only reason I hadn’t noticed it earlier.

“...Wait. The one lying over there looks a lot like you, Ji-won.”

“Oh.” Ji-won blinked, looking down at the corpse. “You’re right. I’ve always wondered what it would feel like to kill myself, but I didn’t expect my curiosity to be satisfied this way.”

“Not something to brag about.”

“Thank you for the compliment.”

The rest of the subterraneans Ji-won had killed also looked strangely familiar. That’s when it hit me.

“Take out the map.”

“Yes, Your Excellency.”

I had Ji-won place the chess piece marked “Undertaker” onto the map, and sure enough—

The chess piece stood upright on the map without issue. The strange phenomenon of another chess piece being drawn to it from the opposite side was gone.

“...As I thought.”

“What’s going on, Your Excellency?”

“It seems these subterraneans were copies of us. Your Mini Map ability was treating me and these copies as the same person.”

“Ah, I see. So, it displayed both the ‘surface person’ and the ‘underground person’ together on the map.” Ji-won’s blue eyes scanned the corpses. Her gaze was unsettling. To the untrained eye, it might seem like her usual expressionless face, but I could tell. Ji-won had a slight twitch in her left eyebrow whenever she was plotting something nefarious.

“Hey. What are you thinking?”

“Oh, nothing. Just that... if your theory is correct, there must be an anomaly counterpart for every surface human down here.”

“Most likely.”

“Which means there are primitive versions of Dang Seo-rin, the Great Witch of the Samcheon World, and Cheon Yo-hwa, the president of Baekhwa High’s student council.”

“...So what?”

“I cannot stand for these anomalies to impersonate Your Excellency’s dear comrades. Please allow me to exterminate them.”

This lunatic.

“Wait. You’re not excited about the idea of killing copies of Dang Seo-rin and Cheon Yo-hwa without any risk, are you?”

“Of course not, Your Excellency. It’s purely out of loyalty to you.”

“You psycho!”

But Ji-won wasn’t going to miss her chance. She launched into a massacre of the subterraneans.

- Uuuugh! Euwhooook?

- Ooooooooh! Hoh! Euwhoooo!

Like she had been bottling up her bloodlust all this time, she rampaged through the underground, hunting down the likes of “Subterranean Dang Seo-rin” and “Subterranean Cheon Yo-hwa.” The underground civilization, which had only just begun to form, was almost entirely wiped out that day. And when Ji-won finally skinned the hide off “Subterranean Dang Seo-rin,” a surprise item appeared.

“...A witch’s hat?”

“It’s a pointed hat. And there’s a model of a train further inside.”

“Why is this stuff inside their bodies?”

Indeed, hidden inside the body of the Dang Seo-rin mimic were a witch’s hat and a toy train. No normal human would have such things inside their body.

“Ah. There’s a school uniform inside the body of Subterranean Cheon Yo-hwa. It’s the Baekhwa High uniform.”

“...I have no idea how this works.”

I didn’t understand how the subterraneans had gotten hold of these items, but everything people had lost—their personalities, hobbies—was all hidden here.

“There’s a pile of hair in Seo Gyu’s body.”

“......”

“In Sim Ah-ryeon’s body... Oh, it’s a sketchbook with a short tongue drawn inside. If we burn or destroy these, the surface people should return to normal.”

In some cases, rather than symbolic items, there were simple objects like a notebook hidden inside the bodies. For example, in Subterranean Noh Do-hwa’s body was a piece of paper with “Hatred for Humans” written on it. Even after losing her Hatred for Humans, Noh Do-hwa had continued to glare at me with utter disdain. At this point, her consistency was more frightening than anything.

After going through several stomachs, Ji-won seemed satisfied. She cleaned her dagger and returned to my side.

“Your Excellency, I’ve been thinking... wouldn’t this anomaly be useful to us?”

“Useful? How?”

“This place is the opposite of the Earth. Without your powerful Aura, no Awakener would have been able to find it.”

In short, Ji-won continued, “This is the perfect place for the perfect crime.”

A sense of foreboding crept over me.

“You don’t need to look so concerned,” Ji-won reassured. “All I’m suggesting is that we could use this anomaly to correct the many flaws in human nature.”

“Flaws in human nature, you say...?”

“For example, if we put a notebook inside Sim Ah-ryeon’s copy that says ‘Narcissism,’ then wouldn’t we be able to easily solve one of the issues that’s been tormenting her?”

“Hmm.”

“Your Excellency could use this place as a sort of editor. You could correct and modify the personality flaws of your comrades, making them more functional, perfect versions of themselves.”

“...No. That’s the fastest way to become an anomaly. A being that manipulates the personalities of those around them at will? You’re trying to make me into a dictator!”

“I still think it’s highly practical.”

“No. Absolutely not.” I waved her off with a firm hand. Ji-won’s suggestion was eerily similar to something Dang Seo-rin had attempted in a previous round. The result had been the birth of a Corrupted.

“Hmm. Is that so...?”

Though she looked disappointed (a face only I could read), Ji-won scanned the area around us. The only scenery left to observe was the aftermath of the massacre she had unleashed upon the subterraneans.

“If that is your wish, Your Excellency, I’ll be content with simply exterminating these anomalies,” she concluded.

“Right. We should be thankful we caught them before they stole anything crucial, like our hearts or minds.”

“Understood.” Ji-won obediently packed up and we returned to the surface through the hole we had dug.

She gave up on her suggestion so quickly that, for a moment, I almost let my guard down and followed her back to the surface without thinking twice.

But then something felt off.

Trusting my instincts, I walked over to the corpse of the “Subterranean Undertaker” and pried open its mouth. And there, tucked inside, was a note written in Ji-won’s handwriting.

Suspicions about Ji-won

Doubts about Ji-won’s loyalty

Complete mistrust of Ji-won’s character, personality, and words

“......”

“...Ah.”n/ô/vel/b//in dot c//om

As I held the note, my eyes locked onto Ji-won, who had half-crawled into the hole.

Our gazes met.

And then, like a mole, she scurried deeper into the hole, disappearing from sight. The only sound that followed was the faint tap-tap-tap of her running at full speed.

If I were to describe that scene in a single phrase, it would be:

『Ji-won hid her conscience.』

I couldn’t help but shout after her.

“Ji-won! Stop right there, you little brat!”

There is a short epilogue.

“Hyunnnng! Thank you so muuuuuch!”

“Uh, yeah.”

With his hair restored, Seo Gyu clung to my waist, sobbing.

Not only had his hair grown back, but his sense of identity—his once-proud self—had returned as well.

It wasn’t just Seo Gyu. Others also benefited from the "normalization." Dang Seo-rin had reverted back to her rail enthusiast ways and even held a public burning ceremony of scrapped trains in the station square.

“Well, I, uh... I think I would’ve been fine if you just left me alone...”

Only Ah-ryeon, who had been enjoying her newfound extroverted life, felt a bit regretful. Most people, however, treated the whole incident as an embarrassing part of their past.

Just when I thought the strange story about our underground counterparts had come to an end and we had all returned to normalcy—

A sudden question crossed my mind.

‘Wait. If the underground world was stealing things from the surface, then... what about the sun?’

There had been a sun in the subterranean world, yet the sun in the sky above us was still shining brightly.

In other words, there were now two suns coexisting on Earth—one that had been stolen and another that was still in place.

One sun that had lost something.

Another sun that had stolen something.

“......”

As I sipped my café au lait, I gazed up at the clear sky, focusing on the bright sun.

What had been stolen from our sun by the anomaly?

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