Just as I tilted my head, wondering if it operated on voice commands, the screen flickered to life on its own.
Almost immediately, a news broadcast began to play.
[We bring you a breaking report. At approximately 00:00, an unregistered illegal Esper went into a rampage in Jung-gu, Busan, completely devastating the surrounding area. The government is currently investigating the incident, and…]
‘…An unregistered illegal Esper?’
Among the words flowing from the anchor’s mouth, a strangely familiar term struck my ears.
It was undeniably an unfamiliar concept to a normal modern citizen, yet why did it not feel completely foreign to me?
‘I’ve definitely heard that somewhere before… Where was it?’
I racked my brain desperately, tearing through my past memories to find a connection.
Esper, Esper, Esper.
As I repeatedly chanted the word inside my mind while digging through my thoughts, a specific memory suddenly flashed before me.
“Ah.”
Right, I remembered. It happened during one of my grueling overnight shifts at the office.
I had briefly stepped away from my desk, and when I returned, an inexplicable book was sitting right next to my computer.
I had no idea who left it there, and the whole thing was bizarre.
It wasn’t even a work-related manual; it was a novel, and I couldn’t comprehend why some lunatic would randomly leave a fiction book on my desk in the dead of night.
I had cursed up a storm about it. I initially thought about tossing it straight into the trash, but a lingering sense of unease made me open it—and that choice, it seemed, was the root of all my current trouble.
At the time, despite being completely buried in deadlines, I had devoured the entire volume in one sitting as if I were utterly possessed.
I ended up getting brutally chewed out by my boss the next morning and deeply regretted it.
‘I think the title was ‘The World of Despair’.’
I had already been thoroughly exhausted from working overtime, and the contents of the book had been bleak beyond belief.
One day, a mysterious gate erupted out of nowhere, and monsters began pouring out of it.
Just when it seemed humanity was on a straight path to total extinction, superhumans capable of hunting the monsters emerged—individuals known as ‘Espers.’
Everyone initially welcomed the arrival of these Espers, viewing them as absolute saviors, but that hope didn’t last long.
The more the Espers utilized their abilities, the worse their side effects became.
It started with simple headaches, then spiraled into tinnitus, vivid hallucinations, and various excruciating bodily pains, before their systems finally overloaded, triggering a fatal rampage.
Essentially, their bodies would detonate like a bomb, completely obliterating everything in the vicinity.
‘I remember the book mentioned that overusing their power causes an impurity-like energy to build up in their bodies. And that energy acts as a lethal poison to Espers.’
While the book featured countless background characters, the narrative focused primarily on four individuals.
All four belonged to the S-rank—the highest tier among Espers.
Some were good and others were evil, but given that the world was standing right on the edge of the abyss, their morality felt secondary.
The critical point wasn’t whether they were saints or villains.
The real issue was that they frantically searched for a way to cure their side effects, but ultimately, every single attempt ended in failure.
‘When people talk about a story having absolutely no hope or light, that book is the textbook definition.’
The four main characters ended up dying in different locations on different dates, completely tearing themselves apart during their respective rampages.
In other words, every single Esper who awakened their power eventually died, resulting in the total destruction of the world.
How could the world possibly remain intact when the only countermeasure against the monsters had been wiped out?
The ending had left such a foul taste in my mouth that I had shoved the book into a dark corner of my desk and never looked at it again.
To think I would get stabbed in the back by it like this.
‘No, no way.’
I immediately rejected the thought.
The evidence was still far too flimsy to confidently state that I had been transmigrated into a novel. All I had to go on was a single vocabulary word.
‘Right. This could all just be a incredibly vivid dream. Obviously.’
Even though I had already internally acknowledged that this reality was far too visceral to be a dream, I forced myself to look away from the truth.
If I didn’t, the future ahead of me would be entirely pitch black.
Who on earth could maintain their sanity knowing they were trapped in a world with a guaranteed bad ending?
It was still too early to jump to conclusions.
I was desperately repeating this denial, praying in my heart that I hadn’t been pulled into a tragic novel, when the door leading deeper into the living room opened with a soft sound.
The man reappeared.
“Why did you come out instead of resting more? Is it alright for you to be moving around?”
As he spoke and walked toward me, he was carrying a tray.
On the tray sat a cup of water and a bowl of porridge with a faint stream of steam rising from it.
I stared back at the man, who was still smiling with his lips curled upward, and gave a quiet nod.
“Yeah. I’m fine.”
To avoid provoking any suspicion, I forced a soft, completely innocent smile onto my face.
People generally lowered their guard when dealing with someone who appeared entirely harmless and compliant.
“…Why?”
When the man simply stood there holding the tray, staring intently down at me, I tilted my head, putting on a naive front.
I couldn’t comprehend why he was staring so hard that it would make anyone feel uncomfortable, but his gaze felt incredibly foul and unholy.
It was obvious that his look wasn’t born out of any good intentions.
“It’s nothing. More importantly, why don’t you come over here?”
Shaking his head as if he hadn’t just been staring intently, the man naturally guided me toward the dining table.
I sat down on the chair just as he directed. Immediately after, he placed the food from the tray directly in front of me.
“Even if you don’t have an appetite, try to eat a little. That’s the only way you’ll start feeling better.”
I stared down for a moment at the porridge, which was filled with finely minced vegetables and beef.
No matter how I looked at it, it was just an ordinary bowl of porridge, yet why did it feel like a bowl of poison?
It was likely due to the unholy gaze the man was still directing toward me.
“…Mmh. Thank you.”
As I slowly lifted the spoon, his eyes followed my exact movement.
It was persistent to an extreme degree, as if he intended to burn every single breath, motion, and action I made into his mind.
