Chapter 3 : Countdown to Catastrophe

‘This café was originally a franchise.’

The franchise café I was sitting in was one I had often visited before.

Other than that, the names of subway stations and regions remained unchanged, and I even saw a few familiar bus routes.

However, the company I used to work for did not exist, and some of the pen names of writers I knew could not be verified.

‘The year is the same, but my age is different. The age gap between my younger sibling and me is different, too.’

Not only was it strange that I had suddenly become 14 years younger, making me 20 years old, but the age gap between my sibling and me, which had originally been 10 years, had also shrunk.

Here, my younger sibling was attending high school. If I estimated within a reasonable margin of error, that would make them around 16 to 18 years old, meaning the age gap was roughly 2 to 4 years now.

Why on earth was there such a discrepancy? I had no idea.

Hmm, I really couldn’t even make a guess. But then again, did it really matter?

If I were the protagonist of a book someone was reading, the readers might be frustrated.

They might be urging me to think deeply, wondering what if all of this was a crucial clue.

‘What can I do? It’s not like I can come up with a solution just by agonizing over it right now.’

There might be some crucial information I had overlooked, but right now, nothing was more important to me than meeting my younger sibling.

“Hmm.”

2:05 PM.

Out of habit, I checked the time again and repeated my meaningless search. No matter how many times I checked, the world remained the same, except for a few discrepancies.

I went over my conclusions once more—if I was meant to find out, I would eventually. With that simple thought, I returned to the smartphone I had been checking earlier.

My photo album was mostly filled with pictures of my younger sibling or ones we had taken together, making up about 97% of the images.

The rest consisted of photos of flowers, trees, birds, and stray cats that seemed to have been taken randomly while passing by.

It appeared that, even in this world, I liked animals and didn’t use social media.

The only game installed on my phone was the same candy-matching game I had enjoyed in my original world.

My CocoaTalk chat list was quite empty.

Other than my younger sibling, Hayul, the only messages were promotional texts from various accounts.

The only work-related conversation I could find was in a chatroom titled “Manager Kim Chul-woo,” suggesting that I had worked a part-time job at some point.

Even that conversation ended two months ago, with farewell messages exchanged upon my resignation.

‘So, have I been unemployed for the past two months?’

I logged into my banking app to check my balance.

Since I wasn’t living alone and was taking care of a younger sibling who was still a student, I couldn’t afford to be idle.

I had enough money to get by for now, but if either of us were to fall ill or get into an accident, it would be a cause for concern.

That was the extent of my financial situation—just enough to scrape by.

After thoroughly searching my smartphone, I found another similarity.

Even in this world, our parents were absent.

The only difference was that, here, I still had a few photos taken with them.

“……”

Well, that was something.

Just in case, I backed up my photos to a web hard drive run by a major portal and uploaded them to multiple email accounts I created for storage.

Even after all this, only 2:20 PM had passed.

Realizing I still had 40 minutes before meeting my younger sibling, I set my phone down and closed my eyes, trying to calm my overly tense mind and body.

I took a deep breath, held it briefly, then exhaled slowly.

I tried to clear my mind, but keeping my thoughts empty was easier said than done.

Even though I regularly practiced meditation, there wasn’t a single moment where my mind was completely blank.

Still, I focused on avoiding thoughts about problems I couldn’t solve immediately—like wondering what had happened to the original owner of this body.

Normally, in these kinds of situations, the original person’s soul would have either died or swapped with mine, but there was no sign of a will, and in the other world, my body had sustained enough damage to confirm death.

Based on all the stories I had read and edited over the years, such mysteries typically got resolved later in the plot.

So, I didn’t bother worrying about it.

Well, that was a lie. Of course, I was worried.

But since there was nothing I could do about it, I forced myself not to think about it.

For now, I just needed to breathe deeply and focus on keeping a natural expression when I met my younger sibling.

How much time had passed while I was meditating like that?

I heard the sound of the café door opening. Footsteps approached me directly.

With a nervous heart, I slowly opened my eyes.

Standing before me was my younger sibling, a face I had drawn countless times in my mind.

“Hyung? Whoa, how much did you drink?”

“Hayul…”

I told myself to stay calm—Hayul had just seen me this morning before school. I had to act natural and not do anything strange.

I couldn’t cry, hug them suddenly, or act suspiciously. I ran countless simulations in my mind to maintain a composed front.

But my throat tightened, and my patience evaporated.

Before I knew it, my body moved on its own.

Just before tears welled up, I shot up from my seat and pulled my younger sibling into a hug.

“Ack! What the—? Hyung? What’s wrong?”

“….”

No matter how close we were as siblings, this must have been shocking for Hayul.

In Korea, siblings usually didn’t show affection like this. They might find it gross or think I had gone crazy.

But unexpectedly, Hayul stayed still in my arms, then slowly returned the hug and chuckled softly.

“Hyung, did you make an American friend or something? Are you copying their greetings now?”

“Haha, you got me.”

I answered as casually as I could.

Whoever this supposed American friend was, I owed them a meal.

The overly dramatic hug, which had drawn the attention of everyone around us, ended quickly. Thanks to Hayul’s joke, I managed to calm down.

After taking a deep breath and forcing a smile, I looked at Hayul.

Hayul smiled back at me, just as I remembered.

I wanted to keep looking at them, to embrace them once more, but I knew I couldn’t.

For them, this was just another ordinary day—they had greeted me normally this morning before heading to school.

Suppressing my impulses, I led Hayul out of the café, heading toward the restaurant they had wanted to visit.

“It’s right upstairs. If you post about it on social media, they give you extra meat.”

“Let’s eat whatever you want, Hayul.”

I meant it.

There was no point in being stingy when it came to food.

If my younger sibling wanted something, I would get it for them—whatever it was.

I was determined to work like an ox so that in the future, I could give my younger sibling anything they wanted—whether it was something they wanted to do or something they wanted to eat.

‘The situation right now is a bit strange, but it’s fine.’

Even though I didn’t know where I was or why this was happening, the moment itself felt like an ordinary day.

Maybe it was because I had encountered so many stories through my job, but this peaceful moment actually made me feel uneasy. Still, it didn’t matter.

I had found my sibling.

From now on, I could think things through. No matter what happened, as long as I had them by my side, we could face anything together.

So, I decided not to worry too much right now. I could come up with a plan later, after my sibling fell asleep, in the quiet hours of dawn.

I would also take that time to figure out what that status window—appearing and disappearing as if hesitating—actually meant…

Ding!

Suddenly—

“Huh!?”

“Uh? Hyung, what’s wrong?”

At the same time as the notification sound, a status window appeared in front of me.

[Emergency Quest Activated!]

Find Shelter 1
Escape the first catastrophe and take shelter in a safe place.

Reward upon success: —-

Penalty upon failure: Death

Time remaining until catastrophe: 10

“….!”

“Hyung?”

Catastrophe? All of a sudden? Does that mean I have 10 minutes left?

As soon as my mind reached that conclusion, the number changed to 9.

“Huh?”

“What!?”

I swallowed hard, and the number dropped to 8. Then it started decreasing rapidly.

Damn it! Cancel! I take back what I said about this being a peaceful reality!

I didn’t know exactly what was happening, but one thing was clear—I had seen too many stories like this in my line of work to not recognize the pattern.

“Hayul, sorry, but we’ll have to eat malatang later.”

“Huh? What? No, it’s fine, but Hyung—wait, where are you going!? Hyung!?”

Time remaining until catastrophe: 2

At times like this, you absolutely must not, under any circumstances, let go of the person you love. Not even for a second.

Time remaining until catastrophe: 1

There was nowhere suitable to hide. I had no idea what was about to happen. So, I grabbed Hayul and pressed myself tightly against a building pillar.

Time remaining until catastrophe: 0

The moment the countdown ended—

“Hngh…!”

I hugged my younger sibling even tighter, held my breath, and squeezed my eyes shut.

Hayul, trapped between me and the pillar, groaned in discomfort and asked what was going on, but I couldn’t answer.

Because I didn’t know either!

I just hoped that nothing would happen—that I had simply pulled my sibling into an awkward, overprotective hug for no reason.

Even if it was embarrassing, I’d be fine with that. As long as nothing happened.

But then—

“What the hell is that!?”

Someone shouted.

“Hey, hey, hey, hey! What the fuck—what the actual fuck is that!?”

Another person gasped in horror.

“Hyung, th-that…!”

I could feel Hayul trembling in my arms.

It wasn’t an explosion or an earthquake.

That much I could confirm. So, I immediately stepped away from the pillar and followed Hayul’s gaze.

Floating in midair, right in the middle of the four-lane road, was a pitch-black mass.

A dark sphere, like swirling black smoke, rotating slowly in a clockwise direction.

“What is that? Augmented reality? Yeah… it must be some kind of AR event, right?”

“……”

Hayul’s voice was shaking as he spoke, despite knowing the truth.

And I knew why he was so terrified—why everyone around us was screaming in panic.

I didn’t know exactly what it was, either. But if I had to guess… it was probably something like a dungeon gate.

Regardless of what it was, it radiated an ominous energy that sent chills down my spine, making every hair on my body stand on end.

‘Where should we go?’

The quest said to find a shelter. Should we head to an evacuation center?

Or maybe hide inside a convenience store, shut the shutters, and wait until it was all over?

But what if monsters started pouring out of that thing? Then we’d be screwed.

Stay calm. Think.

I had read about situations like this countless times before.

The monsters haven’t even come out yet—why am I panicking already?

“Hyung, over there!”

“!?”

Hayul pointed in the opposite direction.

I turned my head—and saw another sphere.

This one was bigger than the first and glowed a bright green. It expanded rapidly, much faster than the black one, and then—

It started sucking in everything around it.

“Ahhhhhh!”

“S-Someone help! Aaaagh!”

“Kyahhh! Mommmmmm!”

Like a massive tornado, the green sphere swallowed up people one by one.

And then—

“Hyung, hyuuuuuung!!!”

“Arghhh!!!”

Just like that, my sibling and I were pulled in, sucked into the green sphere like dust being vacuumed up.