Surviving Every Worldview

Chapter 48: Turn around and get closer (1)

“Seon-woo. Seon-woo–”

My eyes opened.

My body was sprawled out on the white, cold marble floor, and beside me, Seorin was squatting down, lifting my arm and playing with it.

“Wow- Seon-woo is awake-”

“What are you doing…….?”

“I’ve been waking you up for five minutes.”

She grabbed my hand and hauled me up.

As I got up with support, I was able to find the grappling hook and cell phone lying a long way away.

It landed on the marble floor but the screen seems unbroken.

“Are you okay? How did you wake up in the first place?”

“I don’t know, I’m not a long sleeper, I guess-”

“Where’s Do-yeon?”

“Oh, she…I moved her first.”

Seol Do-yeon was sitting motionless, her back bent over in a backless chair.

Like the two of us, she didn’t look particularly hurt.

“I woke her up, but she asked me to wait, so I just let her sit there. She must be tired.”

“She’ll be fine, she’s a big sleeper.”

“You know……well.”

“I can’t count the number of times I’ve called her, and I bet she didn’t answer half of them because she was asleep.”

“Ah. There’s someone like that—me too.”

She smiled sympathetically and pointed around the building.

“Oh, this is the student center? It’s so big, with a cafeteria!”

“It’s not a university, it’s an academy, is there such a thing…? And how long have you been looking around?”

“About 20 minutes, by myself.”

After all, academies are educational institutions, so it’s not surprising that there are similar buildings with different names.

But why did we end up in this place?

“Is there any way out of here?”

“Yes, the door is open.”

“Why did the professor send us to this safe place?”

“I don’t know, even if you ask me-”

I’m just glad we’re not locked up, but we’re not really safe.

“Hey. Wake up. What are you going to do if something happens, won’t you wake up?”

“Ughhh… I’m awake… I was resting when I saw you collapsed…….”

After waking up Seol Do-yeon, we all searched the student center together.

We weren’t locked in the student center. The door was open, so we were able to get out.

There were no robots or dolls waking up and chasing us like last time, nor did we see any suspicious spaces like the control room.

I just needed to find my dorm or study hall to get back.

I’d seen a lot of landmarks last time, so I just needed to find them.

However, things didn’t go as planned.

“Didn’t you say we only need to find the central tower-?”

“I did…….”

“I don’t see that! What happened?”

As Seorin whined, we couldn’t find our way.

The six-story student center is immaculately clean.

Outside, the sidewalks are well-paved, and the nearby trash cans are piled high with not-so-old trash.

We’re still somewhere in the academy.

However, the tall tower in the center that serves as a landmark is nowhere to be seen.

“Is it obscured somewhere?”

“There aren’t enough buildings nearby for that, are there?”

“Yeah. I’m sure we could find a high place to look around.”

Nearby, the only buildings visible were probably five or six stories high.

This way, we can’t even see beyond the hills in the distance but surely the Tower was tall enough to be unobstructed by the hills. …….

“That’s right. Seon-woo…….About what you said earlier.”

Just as I was about to ponder, Seol Do-yeon approached and asked.

“What do you mean?”

“Can we keep wearing these uniforms? I heard they have some kind of weird function?”

“Oh, right!”

In the hustle and bustle of the situation, I had forgotten about that important thing.

The weird outfit shows a combat HUD and has a cognitive filter that distorts your senses.

I don’t want to keep it on and have some weird feature turned on.

“Let’s just…get some other clothes first.”

* * *

One hour into our confinement at the Academy.

After checking out every facility in the student center, we came to this conclusion.

“We’re screwed. There’s no such thing as a guard’s uniform.”

“Weren’t you supposed to find a clothing store and get some?”

“Does the Academy have such a thing?”

“It’s an educational facility, but… it’s as big as a city and everyone lives here, so they could sell clothes, right……?”

Do-yeon muttered without confidence, but she was right.

Although it wasn’t nearby, there was probably a place somewhere in the vast academy that sold clothes.

“Then let’s get out of here, and we can change clothes while we find our way.”

“Ugh. If only I had the internet, I could’ve made it…….”

Listening to Seol Do-yeon grumble, we left the student center.

I’m not sure which direction we’ll take to get back to the path we know.

……And so, three hours into our confinement at the Academy we noticed something strange.

There were different student halls, separate dining halls and we even found and entered another study hall, but it was empty.

There were no stores selling clothes, and there were no uniforms like the ones worn by cafeteria workers.

At this point, I could only assume that there was external pressure.

“If we haven’t found it yet, we never will…….”

“Are they trying to keep us in uniform?”

“That’s a really neat trick.”

“Yeah…….”

I thought we’d keep the uniforms because they were managed by humans until Android took over.

Anyway, things weren’t going as planned, so I had to do something.

“Do-yeon, you really don’t have anything in your phone’s gallery that we can pick from? It doesn’t have to be fluorescent like last time.”

“I wish I had……I didn’t save anything except for the ones that I need to take out in an emergency, like the tools you use.”

“That’s a big deal.”

You never know when you’ll be caught unawares by the cognitive filter.

Maybe it’s already happened, or maybe it’s going to happen at a critical time.

We can’t just take it off….although we might have to if we’re in real danger.

“I don’t know what to do, Do-yeon. Sewing might actually be faster.”

“What if we don’t have any materials? Maybe we could just tear the uniform into little pieces and break it down. The…circuits in the clothes. If that’s broken, won’t the cognitive filter be broken?”

“Oh.”

Good idea.

I pulled out my pistol and pointed it at the sleeve of my shirt.

Bang-!!!

Purple beams of light hit the thin sleeve again and again.

The uniform reacted to the impact, activating its circuits and protecting my wrist, which was hidden by the sleeve.

The special equipment in the form of a school uniform was stronger than the energy gun.

“You didn’t even leave a scorch mark.”

“Wow. Really…….”

Seol Do-yeon was shocked, but at the same time, she stared at the signals traveling through the uniform’s circuits.

She wondered if she’d remembered something.

“This uniform… it’s just cloth, but it’s like a mechanical suit, right?”

“Yeah.”

“Well, I suppose it’s possible to ‘hack’ it…to turn it off entirely.”

I nodded.

“Yeah, but we can’t do that, can we?”

“We can!”

“Who?”

“……I can.”

Do-yeon clasped her hands together and gingerly pointed to herself.

She? Hacking?

Unlike me and Seorin, she doesn’t have a set story, so it’s not impossible.

“Are you saying that because you’ve done it before or because you’re just ‘undecided’?”

“Well, I’m not saying I’ve done it. Can you hear me out all the way through?”

As if I were about to interrupt, she gestured for me to calm down.

“My story is cyberpunk and cyberpunk it’s a genre that hacks like it eats. Right?”

“Right.”

“Well, we can try. We can’t find our way around or any clothes. Give me a break and give me some time. How about it?”

Do-Yeon’s suggestion was timely.

There was no need to think about it since we had to try something.

“Okay. What can I expect?”

“Expectations. Uh…I can’t show it. It’s killing me.”

She blustered.

I find a table nearby so she can concentrate.

I wasn’t sure how long it would take or if it would work, but it was the best I could do.

Meanwhile, Seorin, who hadn’t joined the conversation, was off by herself, staring blankly at another building.

“What are you doing?”

“This is the Learning Hall! The School of Elementalism- oh, if we weren’t wanted, would we be able to learn this?”

“Sis, come back. I told you that we need to go into places we know to avoid any trouble.”

“I wasn’t trying to go in- I was just looking around to see if it was closed anyway-”

I yanked her out of her reverie.

She staggered along, whimpering.

But wasn’t it time to sober up and get a grip?

Why do I feel like she’s getting drunker and drunker?

Like she’s been drinking steadily the whole time?

“Sister.”

“Yeah!”

“Show me what you’re hiding behind your back.”

“……Huh? I didn’t hide anything!”

After a moment’s hesitation, Seorin scurried off to Do-yeon’s side like she was running away.

Only she knows if she really didn’t have anything in her hand.

* * *

We’ve been imprisoned in the Academy for six hours.

It’s a cold winter, and the sun has already set here.

Today, I took out the food I had stocked in my inventory and cooked a meal.

I never thought I’d be killing time in a ghost town like this.

We’re at the Academy, and we’re not doing anything academy-like.

However the biggest problem it’s that I still didn’t feel like I could find my way around.

Even flying around on my own with my grappling hook, I couldn’t see any familiar sights.

I couldn’t see the dormitory complex or any of the outlying towers, let alone the central tower.

The reason is simple.

The Academy must be bigger than we thought.

And we’re so far out on the outskirts that we can’t even see the central tower.

I wonder how long it will take to get back to what we know from here but I didn’t see a solution.

I guess nothing in my life goes as smoothly as the main character.

On the way back, I smashed a nearby vending machine.

It feels good to relieve the stress. I’m glad I tried the first drink I saw inside since it tasted good.

I collected the drinks and went back to the two of them.

“Whew…….”

Inside the dark building, Do-yeon turned on the desk lamp and was finishing up an experiment with Seorin.

As she stretches to turn it on, she holds a remote control in her hand.

It was a crude thing with schematics on the outside.

“Here he comes-”

“Ah…Seon-woo, welcome home.”

Seol Do-yeon half-opened her eyes, smiled, and pointed the remote at me.

“Watch this.”

Do-yeon pressed the red button on the remote.

In my field of vision, the same combat-assist HUD I’d seen in the duel activated.

This time, she pressed another button.

Do-yeon’s clothes instantly changed to her usual hoodie.

When she pressed it again, Do-yeon and Seorin’s clothes were switched.

Even as my vision was being toyed with, I didn’t feel any resistance.

“Actually, I found a way to turn it off pretty quickly.”

“Yeah.”

“I found out that there are a lot of functions, but it’s disappointing. That’s why I made it so that you can turn on only the functions you want.”

“……That’s awesome.”

“Yeah. This is me!”

This was an area where I had no advice to offer, and yet she had exceeded my expectations.

“You’re better than me, after all.”

“You’re complimenting me in the strangest way, aren’t you?”

Seol Do-yeon looked up at me with a smirk.

At this rate, it’s only a matter of time before she gets a story with a solid name.

[※ Seol Do-yeon’s story completion level: 3 → 4]

I don’t know when that day will come.

“Then I’ll leave this to you, Seorin…”

“Yeah-”

Do-yeon handed the finished remote control to Seorin.

“What? Why?”

“Did I say I thought of a way to use the perception filter? I don’t know so I’ll just leave it to you, since my hands are full when things get dangerous anyway.”

“Really?”

I thought you were always thinking about drinking.

[※ Lee Seorin’s story completion level: 2 → 3]

I thought she was just thinking about drinking, but she must have come up with something really good.

…Now it’s my turn to tell her my findings.

I don’t know what to say and I don’t know how far away it is, though I do have an idea for when things get really dangerous.

It’s unlikely we’ll be able to find our way out on our own two feet.

“Seorin, Do-yeon.”

“Huh?”

“If things get urgent in any way, whatever I do, I need you to stay quiet. Do you understand?”

“Why?”

“I can’t tell you that. Just say you understand.”

It was a warning for when I’m able to use the method I’ve been thinking about.

They nodded without asking any more questions, probably not knowing what I meant.

Even so, I might not be able to go out.

Well…..If it doesn’t work out, we’ll all live here together.