I PICKED UP A CHILD IN A DUMPSTER

Chapter 194: something unexpected.

"Ah... fuck."

Si Hon said while they walked toward the portal. Then stopping a few feet from the portal’s edge, close enough that the blue light caught the rain still misting off their clothes and scattered it in slow, cold pulses across the grass at their feet.

Up close it was quieter than it looked— no hum, no wind pulling toward it, just that steady rhythmic ripple moving outward from the center like something breathing.

Si Hon stood there with his hands in his pockets and stared at it.

Jisoo stood beside him and stared at it too.

A moment passed.

"Aren’t you going to tell everyone?" Jisoo asked.

Si Hon scratched the back of his head. "Nah. We’ll be fast anyway." He tilted his head slightly toward the portal. "And doesn’t time slow down in there? Like— relative to outside?"

"It does," Jisoo said, in the tone of someone... genuinely... I don know.

"Then we’re fine."

"Then we’re fine," she agreed.

Neither of them moved for another second. Then they both walked forward together and stepped through.

Everything disappeared.

Not gradually— all at once. The rain stopped mid fall. The grass vanished. The sky, the mist, the distant sounds of the ruined city, the cold, the portal itself— gone.

No transition, no effect, no moment of passing through something. Just the back of he school existing, and then disappearing, and in its place was an absolute nothing.

Pitch black in every direction, the kind that didn’t feel like darkness so much as the complete absence of anything that darkness could rest against.

They were just standing in it. Jisoo and Si Hon, no ground beneath them that they could see, no ceiling above, no walls anywhere. Just black, and the two of them, in silence.

"Huh?" Jisoo said.

Si Hon looked around slowly. "Wait. This is supposed to be a goblin dungeon..."

"Yes." A pause. "What the fuck is happening."

Then something appeared in front of them— pale letters assembling in the dark like they’d always been there and had just been waiting for the right moment to introduce themselves.

[Welcome.]

[First Settlement Qualification Trial.]

[Participants: 2]

[Requirement: Finish The Trial To Create a Safe Zone.]

They both read it. It held for a few seconds, then dissolved back into nothing.

Then the light appeared.

It appeared beneath their feet first— a soft, spreading glow moving outward across the void in every direction like something being poured across a dark floor.

Si Hon took an instinctive step back. Jisoo took a step closer to him, which he noticed but didn’t comment on, and then immediately started shouting. "Wait, WHAT IS HAPPENING— okay, no, that’s not the point— THE POINT IS THIS HAS NEVER HAPPENED BEFORE!! THIS IS NEW!!! WHAT THE HELL IS THIS!!!"

"I don’t know," Si Hon said.

"YOU SHOULD KNOW, YOU READ THE BOOK—"

"It wasn’t in the book—"

"THEN WHAT WAS THE POINT OF THE BOOK—"

"Bitch, It was your book ಠ⁠益⁠ಠ, and there was only eight hundred regression there, you should know this, since this is your four thousands..."

"ಠ⁠_⁠ಠ..."

"Aigooo, and didn’t I already tell you the whole story."

A glowing screen then materialized between them, calm and unhurried, completely indifferent to the noise.

「Welcome once again.」

[First Settlement Qualification Trial]

「Participants: 2 — Si Hon / Jisoo Park

Status: Eligible」

Jisoo stopped mid sentence. Stared at it. Then grabbed a fistful of Si Hon’s hair with both hands and started shaking.

"WAIT... WAIT WHAT THE— UH— OUG— fuck— my hair— DUDE—"

"HAHAHAHA WHAT THE HELL THIS IS SO FUN—"

"ARE YOU PANICKING OR ARE YOU HAVING FUN—"

"BOTH—"

Another window appeared. This one larger, the letters arriving line by line with the patient energy of something that had been waiting a very long time to say this.

[Explanation]

「The world has entered the First Descent.

80% of civilization has collapsed.

Humanity no longer possesses territory.

Humanity no longer possesses protection.

Humanity no longer possesses ownership.

They no longer possess anything—

Which is why this exists.

To survive the First Descent, settlements must be established. To establish a settlement, an Anchor must be created. To create an Anchor, participants must clear a Qualification Trial.」

Jisoo let go of his hair. The shift was immediate— whatever frantic energy had been running through her a second ago folded itself away somewhere, and the calculative version of her stepped back to the front.

She read the window twice, eyes moving fast and precise, and Si Hon watched her do it without saying anything.

When she finally spoke her voice was quieter. Focused. "So if we clear this— whatever this bugged thing is, we get a safe zone. Which Only five exist."

"Yooo that’s crazy... no, actually, isn’t the locations random," Si Hon said.

"Yea, i’ve studied the settlement system before. Had nothing else to do during a few hundred loops." She crossed her arms, still reading. "Five locations total, spread across the city. No overlap. Whoever claims one first keeps it."

A pause.

"No one owns them, though. That’s always been the problem. Groups fight over them because there’s no territory mechanic attached. It’s just— whoever holds it physically at any given time."

Another window appeared before she finished the sentence.

[Reward]

「Success: Safe Zone Creation / Territory Ownership / Anchor Establishment / Settlement Authority」

「Failure: Trial Termination / No Reward」

Jisoo went still.

"Ownership," she said, the word landing differently than the rest. "Territory ownership. That’s— that’s not how it works currently. That mechanic doesn’t even exist."

She pressed two fingers to the bridge of her nose, already working through it. "If we get that, we don’t just have a safe zone. We hold it. Legally. Systemically. Nobody can take it."

"Woah, so.. we don’t need to use the school as a base!"

"You’ve already thought about using the school as a base?"

"Ay. while reading your comc, I never saw you use the school as a base." He tilted his head slightly, something close to a smirk sitting at the edge of his expression. "Made me curious why."

Jisoo’s eye twitched. "The school is a terrible base. Indefensible perimeter, too many entry points, and too dangerous..." She pinched the bridge of her nose harder. "Please forget about it."

"Mm," Si Hon said, which meant no.

The light continued spreading beneath them, slow and steady, coating the entire void in that soft blue glow while the trial windows hovered patiently in front of them.

The goblin dungeon that was supposed to be here was simply not, replaced entirely by something that had apparently decided their situation required a different kind of test. Somewhere outside, time was moving slower. The others were still at the front of the school, still looting, still unaware.

For now it was just the two of them, standing in a white void, about to do something that had apparently never happened in four thousand eight hundred and ninety eight loops.

Si Hon looked at the trial window.

"Alright," he said. "Let’s see what this thing actually wants."