A Gloomy/Dark Room
A chat popped up in the bottom left corner of Choi Kangjoong’s monitor.
[ahljkraw: Ah]
[ahljkraw: This bastard, seriously]
[ahljkraw: Ah]
[ahljkraw: You really play this game like shit]
[ahljkraw: Ah, damn it]
A flurry of rave reviews surged up the chat.
Choi Kangjoong grinned and typed back.
[best-ing: Bro, your dimension is so cozy]
[best-ing: Thanks, I’ll use it well]
[best-ing: Should I pay rent? How much do you want?]
[ahljkraw: You game-addict bastard]
[ahljkraw: Only a jobless bum would be gaming at this hour]
[best-ing: Bro]
[best-ing: You’re gaming at this hour too, aren’t you?]
[ahljkraw: I’m a Hunter]
[ahljkraw: You just keep gaming your whole life]
The other player has exited the game.
The word “Victory” flashed boldly across the screen.
No amount of insults—calling him a gaming addict or a bum who played games at this hour—could faze him.
He’d been a shut-in, gaming from his room for four years now.
Choi Kangjoong pressed the match button.
The game he played was ‘Dimension War’.
It was a strategy game where you chose from over ten races and wiped out enemies from other dimensions.
The races included humans, elves, orcs, and even beings made of metal or stone, or those closer to spiritual entities.
There were also several hive races modeled after ants or bees, and Choi Kangjoong’s favorite among them was the Apocalid.
Strangely, Choi Kangjoong preferred exotic and sharply featured alien races over the mundane, human-like ones.
What was surprising was that this was a game based on reality.
After the Great Cataclysm, when people became aware of beings from other dimensions and discovered mana.
Interacting with other races, passing through Gates and dimensional lines, going back and forth between dimensions—these were all now reality.
Except Apocalid was a race of fiction, so it didn’t actually exist.
“It’s matched.”
His opponent was the same guy from earlier.
Perhaps out of stubbornness, the opponent didn’t exit during the countdown.
The game started, and as expected, he received another round of raving reviews from his opponent.
After a few more rounds, dawn broke.
It was almost time for his family to leave for work.
Even for a shut-in with a reason, it was awkward to bump into family after pulling an all-nighter.
He shut down the computer and lay on his bed.
A moment later, the door opened.
It was Choi Kangjoong’s mother.
She checked to make sure her son was breathing, then left the room.
Letting go of the self-reproach that had become chronic, Choi Kangjoong drifted into sleep.
When he opened his eyes, it was evening.
He could hear murmured conversations outside his door.
Occasionally, laughter burst out.
‘Yunseo’s home.’
Choi Yunseo was Choi Kangjoong’s younger sister.
She lived a completely different life from him.
Pretty and smart, she was popular with everyone.
She also had a talent for swordsmanship, so she entered the Hunter Academy, and after graduating, she was specially recruited by one of the top three guilds, the Dawn Guild.
That’s why, whenever she came home on vacation, their parents’ faces would light up.
In contrast, Choi Kangjoong looked every bit the part of a reclusive shut-in.
He didn’t finish school properly, and he had no friends.
It was all because of the Gate incident.
His entire school year was trapped in a Gate, and he was the only survivor.
It was the worst tragedy since the Great Cataclysm.
The trauma led Choi Kangjoong to a reclusive life.
He couldn’t go outside, and only felt safe in his tiny room.
A year later, after pulling himself together a bit, he managed to return to school.
He did fine for a while.
Until he heard the rumors—he was the coward who survived alone, the cursed one.
Logically, he knew only a tiny handful of jerks said such things, but just knowing those kinds of people were nearby made it unbearable.
In the end, he dropped out of school and shut himself in his room, devoting himself to games.
That’s why he felt ashamed whenever he saw his younger sister.
There were times when he felt jealousy and anger at how siblings could live such totally different lives.
Even if he wanted to change, he always rationalized it away as being because of the accident, and that ruined everything.
After wandering in depression and panic, it now felt like even his family was drifting away from him.
He sometimes thought they must criticize him behind his back, asking why he had survived just to make them suffer.
Even though he knew his family, as fellow victims, would never do that, he couldn’t stop his mind from running that way.
Ding.
His phone rang.
He always kept it on silent, but it rang because of an emergency alert—Monsters had appeared nearby.
-Oppa, you must be awake. I’ll call you out.
Choi Yunseo approached.
Choi Kangjoong wished she wouldn’t come, but the door opened anyway.
Bright light poured into the dark room.
“Oppa, you’re up. Let’s eat dinner together.”
“Uh, yeah……”
Pretending to sleep didn’t work on a Hunter’s keen senses.
Choi Kangjoong just wiped the sleep from his eyes and went out to sit at the table.
Even just in her tracksuit, Choi Yunseo seemed to shine.
Choi Kangjoong couldn’t help comparing himself to her.
“Oppa, what’ve you been up to lately? Still playing that game where you fight other races?”
“I play lots of games, not just that.”
“Do you play Hunter Archive too?”
“A bit……”
“Did you draw me?”
“You’re SSR, so it costs a lot to pull you.”
“So you don’t have me, huh. Too bad.”
Even when Choi Yunseo spoke affectionately, Choi Kangjoong mumbled his replies.
“Kangjoong, how about trying some work? It’s easy and comfortable. You just have to sit.”
Their father, Choi Jooyoung, spoke up.
He was the CEO of a Trading Company, and had arranged a position for his son.
Choi Kangjoong knew it was an easy job, but just thinking about stepping out the front door made his hands tremble.
“I’m sorry……”
“Well, it can’t be helped. What matters is how you feel. Tell me anytime if you change your mind.”
Choi Jooyoung didn’t push further.
Choi Kangjoong felt even more ashamed for being treated so considerately.
How much of a disappointing son, or brother, must they think he was.
He couldn’t take it any longer.
“I’ll go back to my room.”
“You’ve eaten plenty. Go rest.”
His mother, Yoo Haein, comforted him as he left.
Choi Kangjoong put down his spoon and returned to his room.
Once he shut the door and was alone, he could finally breathe.
Click.
He sat in his chair and turned on the computer.
This was the place where, hiding behind the identity of ‘Choi Kangjoong’, he felt most at ease.
He double-clicked the Dimension War icon on his desktop.
The loading bar filled, and the game screen appeared.
Behind the solemn logo ‘DIMENSION WAR’, various races battled.
Today, the Apocalid—Choi Kangjoong’s main race—caught his eye even more.
Each tiny Apocalid was nothing but a terminal following the will of the Hive Mind.
The true self was the single, immense Hive Mind.
How easy would life be if he could just follow a grand Hive Mind, like those things?
If he could just move by command, with no need to think, maybe there’d be no pain.
But he didn’t want to be devoured, either.
Choi Kangjoong hated Monsters.
They’d killed his friends and turned him into what he was.
Yet, he still played races like Monsters, because he liked the idea of tearing, smashing, devouring, and multiplying across dimensions.
All he needed was to see the word “Victory” pop up, without thinking about anything.
Beneath that, there was a thirst for revenge, too.
He wanted, through this race, to crush the things that attacked his school that day.
It was something that would never happen in reality.
This race was fictional, and no one knew what kind of Monsters had attacked that day, or from which dimension.
They struck like lightning, then vanished like the wind.
Click, click, click.
He got a match, and Choi Kangjoong moved his mouse quickly.
He was so absorbed, he didn’t even hear his parents and sister leaving out the front door.
After another all-nighter of gaming, Choi Kangjoong lay back down on his bed.
‘I want to become an Apocalid.’
Tears soaked into his pillow.
‘I want to be an Apocalid, living without a single thought.’
[The Dimension System is connecting to your will.]
[The Dimension System is reading your memory.]
[The Dimension System is searching for a suitable ability.]
Suddenly, text appeared before Choi Kangjoong’s eyes.
It was an Awakening.
He jolted upright.
Awakening, connecting to the Dimension System and gaining special abilities, was something everyone dreamed of.
Would he now gain a special power and live a new life?
[The Dimension System is……]
Bzzzt, bzzt, bzzzzzzzt.
“What’s happening?”
[Error occurred.]
[Error occurred.]
[Error occurred.]
He had never heard of such a thing.
The Dimension System governed all dimensions; he’d always heard it never broke down.
-Krrrk.
He heard the cry of a starving beast.
If the massive Hive Mind of the Apocalid were to manifest in reality, it would probably sound like that.
[Devour.]
[Absorb.]
[Multiply.]
They were just words, but he could tell these were not just for communication—they were orders rising straight from instinct.
[The error has been resolved.]
[Granting suitable ability.]
[You have become the immense Hive Mind that devours dimensions.]
“If it’s the Outer Mind…?”
That was the name of the Hive Mind of the Apocalid race from Dimension War.
[Skill has been created.]
[Skill has been created.]
[Skill has been created.]
An enormous wave of information flooded into his soul, and Choi Kangjoong lost consciousness.
Choi Kangjoong staggered as he woke up.
A glance at the clock showed that twelve hours had passed.
“Man, I’m thirsty.”
He grabbed the water bottle by his bed and drank.
Once the thirst faded, he realized why he’d fainted.
“I awakened, didn’t I.”
No one had to explain it; he could just feel what had changed.
He had become the immense Hive Mind known as the Outer Mind.
His body didn’t feel any different.
But as proof, he could sense the connected entities.
One Walker, one Warrior.
Even without seeing them or focusing his mind, he knew exactly where they were and what they were doing.
So this is what being a Hive Mind feels like—like having two extra bodies.
“It really happened. It’s a little different from what I imagined, but…”
He’d wondered what it would be like to be a terminal under a Hive Mind’s control.
He hadn’t wished to become the Hive Mind itself.
But here he was.
“Well, it’s better than nothing. And this might actually…”
He thought this ability suited someone like him, who couldn’t leave his room.
Wandering anonymously online and moving through dimensions via Apocalid entities—it was pretty similar.
“Just like starting Dimension War.”
In Dimension War, you started with one Walker and one Warrior.
You always did the same things with them, so Choi Kangjoong naturally controlled the Apocalids.
With the Walker, he made a digestion pit, and with the Warrior, he scouted the area.
Moving the Apocalids felt as natural as moving his own hands.
The Walker dug a pit and spat out digestive fluid, then cut down wood to drop into it.
The wood dissolved in the fluid and became nutrients.
Once he had enough nutrients, he could produce more Walkers or Warriors.
The Warrior circled the area.
The terrain was a dense coniferous forest.
The fog was thick, making it hard to see in visible light.
But Apocalids perceived their surroundings in infrared, mana, and various ways, so there was no problem.
“Summon probably means calling them to my side. Will they attack me if I do…?”
The Apocalids were a race whose very core and instinct was predation.
To them, humans were just prey.
But Choi Kangjoong was oddly confident that Apocalids wouldn’t attack him.
He didn’t know why—he just felt it.
“Summon.”
A Walker appeared next to Choi Kangjoong.
The Walker looked like a pangolin, but more aggressive and spikier.
It had six legs, and four big, sturdy claws on its front limbs.
At over two meters long, it filled the room.
“A six-legged dinosaur.”
“Krrng.”
There was no hostility in the Walker’s dark eyes.
Of course, Apocalids weren’t a race that attacked living creatures out of malice.
To Apocalids, predation and absorption were simply instinct, something taken for granted.
“Kind of cute, actually.”
When he held out his hand, it lumbered over, trying to climb onto him.
He couldn’t lift a heavier, larger Walker, so he pushed its mouth away to stop it.
The Walker seemed dejected, its spines drooping down.
“Go back to work.”
He sent the Walker away.
It returned to the spot it had been summoned from.
Just like before, it used its jaws and claws to cut wood and toss it into the digestion pit.
“Better not summon the Warrior in here.”
The Warrior was over three meters tall.
It had scythe-like forelimbs and a long tail—if he summoned it in this tiny room, there’d be chaos.
[The Apocalid Warrior has found a creature it can devour.]
The Warrior’s scythe-like claws skewered a green creature just over a meter tall.
A Goblin.
The Goblin thrashed, oozing green blood, then went limp.
The Warrior dragged the Goblin corpse to the digestion pit.
The digestive fluid bubbled as the Goblin was dissolved into nutrients.
[You have acquired an Evolution Point.]
[Current Evolution Points: 1]
[Goblin Evolution Code Deciphered: 1%]
This was how Apocalids grew.
They absorbed enemies and used the Evolution Points gained to boost their base stats or equip new skills.
They could even develop winged entities capable of flight.
The place where you chose and managed all of this was the .
“To the Chamber of Evolution.”
Choi Kangjoong moved to the Chamber of Evolution.