Chapter 239

Translator: ZERO_SUGAR

Chapter 239

──────

The Monad I

Today’s story is a rare one-it’s going to list multiple mysteries in sequence.

Well, to be fair, that’s how my stories usually unfold, as if laid out like pieces of a puzzle. Not a perfect omnibus, but at least a half-omnibus kind of format.

In that sense, this episode can be likened to an "omnibus within an omnibus," a story within a story-like a Monad reflected in another Monad.

I hope you enjoy the mysteries as they unfold.

First Monad.

First, I’d like to tell you a ghost story related to the Ice Age.

As you may know, the Ice Age Anomaly has been isolated on the internet. After capturing footage of the Ice Age, we sealed it away in a hidden post on SG Net.

However, with Anomalies, you can never afford to rest easy and say, "It’s sealed! Done and dusted!" Classic anime like Ghost Stories taught us this lesson well—exorcists had to deal with consequences across generations because they didn’t know this.

But I, the Undertaker, who claims to be the world’s top Anomaly expert, was always well aware of this.

It’s crucial to maintain sustainable isolation after the initial seal.

“Hey, boss.”

That’s why I had already given Seo Gyu the command to keep monitoring the hidden post related to the Ice Age.

One day, Seo Gyu came to me, looking a bit troubled.

“Hm? What’s the matter?”

“Well, you know how you locked up the Ice Age Anomaly on SG Net the other day, right? That one with the... uh, romance?”

“For the last time, there was no romance between me and the Commander. That was just the Anomaly's distorted and edited footage. But yeah, we sealed it. So?”

“Uh, yeah. About that... I think you need to see it for yourself.”

So I went to check.

Now that I think about it, I’ve never really described Seo Gyu’s workspace, have I? Let me give you a quick rundown.

To put it simply, Seo Gyu’s office looked exactly like a "Chinese mobile game factory." Hundreds of smartphones were spread out on the table, all logged into SG Net. Each phone displayed a "hidden post isolation" scene, where Anomalies were being held, and was set to a low volume, just soft enough that only someone with heightened perception could hear the Anomalies screaming in their final moments.

- Aaaaaahhhhh...

- Hero, if you’re reading this, it means you’ve returned home safely, right? Even if you’ve lost all your memories, your noble will to return to your original world has moved us...

- This is a picture of a cat lying on a white bed.

- Anyone want to talk about Romance of the Three Kingdoms with me?

What can I say?

This tiny office was, in fact, a cyber Anomaly prison.

The Anomalies that required physical sealing were transferred to the underground prison at the National Road Management Corps headquarters. Meanwhile, the Anomalies that couldn’t distinguish between reality and the virtual world were all confined in SG Net.

In a way, the nickname "Special Warden" suited Seo Gyu much better than "Such A Fucking Dumbass." As the Commander of SG Net, Seo Gyu was essentially the world’s biggest Anomaly warden.

(There was a good reason he rarely left the base and stayed put like a totem.)

“Hm.”

I quietly observed the cyber prison. Each smartphone was practically a solitary cell for the Anomalies.

“So, this is how a scientist must feel when they look at brains in vats.”

“Pardon?”

“Just talking to myself. So, what’s wrong with the Ice Age?”

“Oh, well, take a look at this...” Seo Gyu held up one of the phones. The tag on the screen read 668-711, and it was playing the familiar Surviving the Ice Age documentary.

Right at the part where the Commander and I kissed.

It was an embarrassing scene, but I didn’t care since the footage was heavily distorted by the Anomaly. It wasn’t real anyway.

I simply ignored it.

“So what?”

“Well, don’t just glance at it, take a closer look, boss.”

“...?”

I was slightly taken aback. Was he asking me to focus on the kiss scene with Noh Do-hwa? Had Seo Gyu lost his mind?

“Not the content, the length of the video. Don’t you think something’s off?”

Fortunately, Seo Gyu hadn’t gone crazy yet. He was making a valid point.

The video on SG Net’s hidden post was indeed... a little odd.

“Huh?”

I frowned.

‘Was this kiss scene always this long?’

Time seemed off.

Originally, Surviving the Ice Age was a three-part series—Day 1, Day 2, and Day 3—with each episode lasting about 20 minutes. In total, the entire video was roughly an hour long. The Commander and my kiss was supposed to be in the final part, and it should have lasted less than 30 seconds.

But for some reason, in Surviving the Ice Age: Anomaly Edition, no matter how long we waited, the kiss scene didn’t end.

“...Is the video longer than usual?”

“Yes. I checked multiple times. The displayed time says 20 minutes, right?” Seo Gyu pointed to the screen. “But when you actually play it, it runs for 24 hours.”

“What? 24 hours?”

“Yep. The video loops continuously for a full day. I confirmed it twice before coming to you, boss.”

I rubbed my chin.

‘24 hours... That's 1,440 minutes. A video that was originally 20 minutes had expanded 72 times its length?’

I didn’t understand.

“...You said you checked it twice. Is there anything else that’s changed?”

“Well, since the video got longer, some of the content has changed too. Hang on, let me turn up the sound. Ah, here. If you rewind a bit, you’ll see...”

Seo Gyu rewound the video.

In this part, Yu Ji-won had cornered the Commander against a wall in a classic "kabedon" stance.[1] Surprisingly, Ji-won was much taller than her counterpart, so it looked quite intimidating on screen.

“Commander, even though I acted on my own in that operation, the sacrifice was necessary.”

In the video, Ji-won-played by the Anomaly in the Ice Age spoke.

“If you had given the order, the survivors’ command structure would have collapsed. That’s why I took on the role of the bad cop. There were no personal feelings involved.”

“Heh. For a woman full of personal feelings, you sure know how to talk. If that’s how you feel, perhaps you should lead the next operation yourself?”

“I am an irreplaceable asset.”

“I don’t see it that way...”

“......”

An unsettling tension was building between the two characters.

I blinked. “...This scene wasn’t in the original.”

“Nope.” Seo Gyu nodded, looking exhausted. “For the record, there’s also a scene where the Saintess and the Commander fight. I didn’t show you that because the atmosphere was so intense it made me feel sick. I haven’t been feeling well the past two days.”

“What the hell... This isn’t just edited footage anymore. It’s like the video has been remade with CGI from scratch.”

“Yeah, it feels like they’ve extended the timeline. Instead of just three days, it looks like they’ve been trapped in the Ice Age for weeks.”

I rubbed my forehead.

‘The video’s length has been randomly extended. And to match that, the content has been automatically edited to feel “natural.”’

Why?

I couldn’t figure out the cause.

Was it simply because we had locked the video in the "virtual reality" of SG Net?

“...Aside from the increased length and content changes, there are no negative effects in the real world, right?”

“None. It’s completely isolated.”

“Then let’s leave it for now.”

It left me feeling uneasy, but emotions didn’t matter. What mattered was the real world, not some video stuck in a hidden post on SG Net.

But the strange incidents related to the documentary didn’t stop.

“Boss.”

“What now?”

“Well... the video has changed again.”

Some time later, Surviving the Ice Age: Anomaly Edition evolved into Surviving the Ice Age: Anomaly Director's Cut.

“This time... the video is 72 days long. Each episode. If you add up all three, it’s over 200 days.”

“......”

“The video quality has also worsened a bit. Look here, boss. The smartphone’s screen is now showing two layers.”

As the video continued to expand, it seemed the total runtime was growing by 72 times each time.

“...As I said before, as long as it doesn’t affect the real world, we don’t need to check the video anymore, Seo Gyu.”

“Got it...”

Seo Gyu seemed uncomfortable.

“But the video now includes Dok-seo and Sim Ah-ryeon. The footage implies that the isolation in Liberty Island has gone on for so long that external support had to come in.”

“Hmm.”

“I didn’t watch the whole thing, just bits and pieces, but apparently, the Ice Age has spread beyond Sinŭiju, wiping out the entire Korean Peninsula. Other regions are starting to freeze too.”

“......”

“It feels so real that it’s unsettling. Well, like you said, I won’t watch it anymore.”

Though I didn’t know the exact mechanism behind it, the Ice Age Anomaly was indeed conquering the world within the video.

The Ice Age’s timeline was expanding rapidly-from 60 minutes to three days, and from three days to 216 days.

So, what would happen if there was just one more Extended Edition?

‘...More than 15,000 days.’

About 42 years.

In a world covered by the Ice Age, my team, including the Commander and me, would have to survive for over 40 years.

And even if we made it through that, what would come next?

Only an even more inflated period of 3,000 years awaited us. It was nothing short of despair.

‘I don’t know the cause...’

But I could guess the outcome.

‘That Ice Age Anomaly... it won’t be satisfied with just a “60-minute world.”’

The virtual reality was drawing closer to real reality. At a terrifying pace.

‘...3,000 years, multiplied by 72 again. And then 72 more. Eventually, it’ll reach a point where it can claim to be an entire world of its own.’

Sure enough, the next time I secretly visited the Anomaly prison and looked at the smartphone isolating the Ice Age...

Whoooosh.

There were no longer any voices on the screen.

Buried under the snow was the decaying Statue of Liberty.

My frozen corpse, with its eyes wide open, lay next to Noh Do-hwa’s, both of us holding hands, silently captured on camera.

Whoooosh.

The camera didn’t move anymore. It was simply recording the two of us, long dead, while the speakers emitted nothing but the white noise of a blizzard.

That was the scene of the world’s end.n/o/vel/b//in dot c//om

“...So, even though we isolated it for mistaking the virtual world for reality, it ended up conquering the virtual world instead.”

Whoooosh.

My mutterings were drowned out by the snowstorm.

The white noise sounded strangely like the Anomaly was laughing.

- Human, I am satisfied with this.

This was the first piece of the puzzle.

Footnotes:

[1] Kabedon or kabe-don refers to the action of slapping a wall fiercely, which produces the sound "don". One meaning is the action of slapping the wall as a protest which occurs in collective housing like condominiums when the next room makes noise.

Join our discord at