Chapter 2
My consciousness slowly surfaced from the depths.
I opened my eyes.
‘What?’
I was bewildered as I came to my senses.
‘No way. Am I alive?’
I knew my wounds better than anyone.
It was not just the wounds, but the medium that inflicted them that was the problem.
The cursed spear wielded by the Keeper of the Apocalypse.
A dreadful weapon that disintegrated living beings at the cellular level with just a touch.
That was what had pierced through my abdomen.
Even Choi Do-yoon, who had an incredible healing ability, could not withstand that attack. But now my body was fine.
Rather, the wound on my abdomen had disappeared as if it had been washed away.
‘Huh?’
It was then that I realized something was wrong.
It was not just my wound that had healed.
My appearance was also different.
“What is this?”
The human body that should have limbs intact was gone and instead there was an alien flesh.
I looked around.
I was in a dark and narrow hall that did not let much light in.
In the space that seemed like a hall, there were others who looked like me lined up in rows and columns.
They looked like some white rice cakes.
They had two protrusions that looked like arms and two large eyes on their faces.
They could have been mistaken for mascot characters at an amusement park.
‘What the hell is going on?’
I thought I was dead, but I was alive.
And I was reborn as a strange creature I had never seen before.
“Everyone is here.”
At that moment, a thick voice came along with a being that appeared in front of us.
It was a guy with a bone deer head wearing a suit that fit him well.
‘That’s Teller, right?’
Teller
He looked different from the ones who ruled over the apocalypse, but he was definitely of the same race.
I could not possibly not know them.
Teller appeared out of nowhere and opened his mouth before I could wonder why.
“I’ll give you a brief explanation about this situation. You are now Teller of Celestial Corporation and you will work for them. And this place is where you prove your abilities.”
‘What? What kind of nonsense is this?’
But I had no choice but to stay quiet.
The others around me did not say anything and stayed still.
It would only be a loss for me if I stood out here.
The deer head said.
“That’s all for the explanation. Now it’s time for you to show yourselves.”
At the same time.
The floor we were standing on split left and right.
‘What…?’
Before I could even react, I and the other white guys fell down through the gap.
Below the hall floor was an endless expanse of space.
Thrown into the middle of space, I instinctively held my breath.
‘Are they trying to kill us all?’
But that thought was only for a moment, as a translucent window popped up in front of my eyes.
[Genesis’s Protection is activated.]
‘Can I breathe?’
A white membrane that seemed to be protection wrapped around my body like a soap bubble.
I could breathe and I did not feel the coldness of space.
Looking around, I saw that the others were also inside translucent spheres.
I was able to catch my breath and grasp the situation.
‘First of all, I’m dead. But I came back to life. I don’t know why and I don’t know where this is. No, is it in the middle of space? And judging by what the deer head said, it seems like I’ve been resurrected as a Teller.’
I wanted to take some time to figure out what was going on, but unfortunately reality did not leave me alone.
Ding.
[Mission-First Step]
You have become a Teller. Teller is a being that shows stories to spirits on their behalf. To do that, you need to decide who to show them.
Goal: Make your first contract.
Success: Promotion to full-time employee
Failure: Existence annihilation
Time limit: 1 hour
‘What?’
Giving me a mission with a time limit of 1 hour right after throwing me into the field.
And what’s with existence annihilation if I fail?
What kind of ridiculous situation is this?
‘No. This is not the time for that.’
The mission had already started.
Compared to when they did not tell me anything and just told me to figure it out during the apocalypse, this was very kind.
‘Teller shows stories to spirits by choosing a protagonist, a first contractor. That’s it. Then the place is.’
A giant planet caught my eye.
It was the blue planet Earth that I thought had been destroyed.
I laughed bitterly to myself.
‘I’m going crazy.’
Seeing the intact Earth made my head more complicated.
I narrowed my eyes and examined the Earth.
The Earth filled with white clouds over the blue sea.
It was definitely the Earth before the apocalypse.
The Earth after the apocalypse that I knew was not like that.
The land was sick and cracked and turned black, and the sky was red and only ash winds blew.
The Earth had become a planet that could not be restored.
The Earth was fine like that?
A hypothesis came to my mind.
‘Did I go back to the past when I died and came back to life?’
Regression to the past.
That was the only explanation.
‘Yeah. If I can come back to life after dying, going back to the past is also possible.’
I was curious how this situation came about.
[00:57:34]
But as I saw the time given to me decrease, I had to erase that thought.
‘I’ll focus on the mission now.’
If I failed the mission, my existence would be annihilated.
I had barely come back to life after dying, and I did not want to die again in an hour.
‘The time period is the past. Judging by the relationship between Teller and contractor, the Earth must be before the apocalypse, when the collectors were active.’
The Earth was not a normal place even before the apocalypse.
It was the era of gates that appeared everywhere, monsters that came out of them, and people who hunted those monsters.
Collectors were the term for awakened humans who made contracts with Tellers and fought against phantoms.
‘Find collectors who have not made contracts yet, and grab one of them. That’s it.’
But I instinctively realized that there was another meaning behind this mission.
Making a contract was easy.
All I had to do was find a collector who did not have a contracted Teller and persuade them.
‘As far as I know, collectors also want contracts with Tellers.’
Collectors could reveal their selves to spirits through contracts with Tellers.
Collectors without Tellers could not receive the support of spirits no matter how great their achievements were.
Only Tellers were the only way for them to earn points.
Naturally, collectors who wanted to become stronger by earning points had to desperately want contracts with Tellers.
‘In other words, this is a very easy mission for an hour-long one.’
They both wanted each other, so where else would there be such an easy task?
The difficulty of the mission was low for a situation where they threw me into the field without proper explanation.
I could guess something else from here.
‘In the end, anyone can make a contract. It was possible enough if you had a thinking head. But what really matters is who you make a contract with.’
It was easy to grab any random collector and make a contract.
But what if that collector had no ability or talent?
They would not get any interest from spirits, and they would not earn points properly. That was obvious.
That is, in a broader sense, this was not just about making a contract.
It was more about finding a collector with outstanding qualities.
‘The hurdle is damn high from the start.’
I moved my hand that did not move well and touched the hologram window.
It was an amazing experience.
I was using this for the first time, but in my head I already knew how to use this window.
The image of the Earth in front of me was reduced and floated on the hologram window.
On the map, there were important points where I could move, and most of them were capitals of countries where people lived a lot.
‘First of all, my destination is Seoul in Korea.’
I naturally chose the country where I was born and raised.
But there was one inconvenience, and that was this body.
‘My arms are so short that I can’t press the screen properly.’
And even a blunt hand without fingers, as if I was wearing some kind of mittens.
No.
That would still have a thumb sticking out, but this was worse.
‘If it were me before, I would have finished it by just moving my fingers.’
I missed myself when I was strong then, and at that moment there was a change in my body.
‘Huh?’
My blunt hand grew longer.
Not only that, but five fingers grew on it. It was not only my right hand but also my left hand.
Two legs that could stand on this protection inside.
And two arms.
I instinctively touched my face.
I turned my head and looked at the translucent membrane, and there my figure was faintly reflected.
It was my appearance when I was human.
‘Did it change suddenly?’
I knew that Tellers did not have a fixed form, but I did not know they could change like this.
Could it be because I strongly wished for my old appearance?
‘What’s important now is not this.’
The mission came first for me.
There was still time, but this was not just a matter of time.
I quickly moved my fingers and selected Seoul on the map.
My body disappeared from that place by an unknown force.
***
‘Hmm?’
One of the co-managers of the first mission, Sasramdor, let out red light from his hollow eyes.
He was a Teller of Celestial Corporation with a bone deer head and a rank of manager.
He always gave missions to newbies who had just been born and watched how they moved, as usual.
He thought this time too, there were only mediocre ones as usual until a while ago.
But he saw one guy’s figure and he had no choice but to erase that thought.
‘Did his appearance change in an instant?’
Among those who still could not grasp the situation, one guy changed his appearance in an instant.
‘That’s impossible.’
Usually, newly born Tellers changed their appearance instinctively without anyone teaching them, but that process took from two weeks to four weeks at the fastest.
But that guy just changed in an instant as if he did not care about that process.
Sasramdor even thought he might have seen an illusion.
But.
“Hey. Did you see that?”
“Did his appearance really change?”
“Is that possible?”
The other Tellers who had not yet grasped the situation looked at the empty spot where Kang Yu-hyun had disappeared and muttered in astonishment.
They did not do that because they did not want to change.
The instinct to change was ingrained in them, but realizing it was another matter.
But Kang Yu-hyun achieved that.
In just three minutes.
Sasramdor had to realize that what he saw was reality.
‘He changed from the start? Was that ever possible?’
He had watched for a long time how various Tellers did their first missions.
But without a doubt, there was not a single one who took their own form at the same time as the start.
Even the ones who were called geniuses with talent were the same.
But that record was broken now.
‘This is… amazing.’
Sasramdor thought that the process of this mission, which was always boring, might be different today.
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