Chapter 103

Pedestrian Ⅰ

There is no such skill as [Teleportation] in this world.

The fairies of the Tutorial do pop out of thin air, but as mentioned in the last episode, this is merely invisibility magic.

Anomalies like the 'Isekai Truck' appear suddenly beyond the horizon. However, the trucks do not actually [Teleport]; they merely 'generate' from blind spots out of human sight.

To reiterate, there is no such skill as [Teleportation] in this world.

However, phenomena that come quite close to [Teleportation] do exist.

[Mr. Undertaker, it seems you need to urgently head to Busan.]

"What? What's going on?"

[Well, it's hard to explain...]

The Saintess hesitated.

The mere hint of hesitation was enough to make me extremely anxious. The Saintess was a near-obsessive perfectionist who always paused time to rehearse her lines before talking to me.

But I only discovered this secret in the 713th cycle, and this was only the 141st. So I asked without much thought.

"What's the matter?"

[...A tunnel has appeared in the sea off the coast of Busan.]

"What?"

[Quite literally, an undersea tunnel has appeared. I think you should come see for yourself, Mr. Undertaker.]

Have you ever heard of the 'Korea-Japan Undersea Tunnel'?

It doesn't matter if you haven't. It's a structure that doesn't exist in reality anyway.

The blueprint for 'connecting Korea and Japan with an undersea tunnel!' has been suggested continuously for a long time, but its practical benefits, which would outweigh astronomical costs, have not been proven.

The originator of this project was no ordinary person.

Later, he became the Prime Minister of Japan. His notable achievements during his tenure included the Battle of Leyte Gulf, the Battle to Recapture the Philippines, the Tokyo Air Raid, the Battle of Iwo Jima, and the Battle of Okinawa.

The fact that the 'Undersea Tunnel Collapse Disaster' was not added to his illustrious lineup was perhaps his one stroke of luck.

A fanciful paper plan.

So when I received the Saintess's urgent message and arrived in Busan, I couldn't help but be dumbfounded.

"No way... It really is an undersea tunnel."

There were no seagulls off the coast of Busan.

Instead, there was a tunnel.

More precisely, a tunnel had popped up on the coastline where the old Sinseondae Pier once stood.

But there were several differences from the original plan. As often happens with grand projects when they compromise with reality, the originally conceived 'railroad tunnel' had significantly shrunk.

It had shrunk a lot, to be honest.

It was so narrow that not even a freight truck could pass through properly.

"Ah, you've arrived, sir?"

Yellow "Do Not Enter" tape was already draped around the tunnel entrance.

While members of the National Road Management Corps were busily moving around, Noh Do-hwa greeted me with her morning coffee in hand.

"Thanks for your hard work. I came immediately after receiving the Saintess's message. What's going on?"

"Well, as you can see, a pedestrian tunnel popped out of the sea. The first report came in at 5 a.m. A crazy road management officer who likes to jog early in the morning was the first to find it..."

"Is it really connected under the sea?"

"We had divers do some snorkeling. They reported that coral has appeared in the waters off Busan because the tunnel slopes down like a... you know, into the seabed."

"Sexual harassment? I'll sue you."

"Ha, a 1,000-year-old geezer saying that. So, Undertaker, what do you think this is?"

"It's an anomaly."

I looked up at the plaque at the tunnel entrance.

"It's also a Void."

The tunnel was dirty with graffiti and doodles, but it wasn't hard to identify its name.

犬鳴隧道.

Inunaki Tunnel.

This wasn't a Korean anomaly.

It was Japanese, from across the sea off the coast of Busan.

I had to be on edge because an area-type anomaly without legs or wings had crossed the sea into another country.

Its danger level was continent-class. It was an anomaly comparable to the World Tree 'Udumbara'.

"...You didn't order the road management officers to explore inside, did you?"

"Ha. Of course not."

Noh Do-hwa smiled brightly.

"I sent death row inmates..."

Behind her, Yu Ji-won was waiting. On a makeshift folding table, a nautical chart titled 'Straits of Korea and Surroundings' was spread out.

"How's it going, Captain Yu? How far have the death row inmates gone?"

"Surprisingly, they've already passed Tsushima. Ah, welcome, Mr. Undertaker."

Click. Yu Ji-won, who possessed the [Mini-map] ability and was the Operations Control Room Captain of the National Road Management Corps and a psychopath, saluted me.

She did this in front of her immediate superior, Noh Do-hwa. What a remarkable brat. Every time I saw her, I couldn't help but be amazed.

But right now, it was more important to focus on the report than on Yu Ji-won's personality.

"They passed Tsushima?"

"Yes, Your Excellency. Look."

On the nautical chart, chess pieces marked 'Kim Jeong-rip' and 'Lee Eun-joo' were moving inch by inch. They must have been the names of the death row inmates.

Dozens of pawns (♟) were scattered around the chart.

"You sent two people into the tunnel?"

"No, Your Excellency. We deployed 72 death row inmates in 12 teams of 6 each. Half of them, 36 people, were given bicycles."

"...So you just cleaned out the prison of the National Road Management Corps?"

"It was the order of the Corps Commander, Your Excellency."

"That wasn't a criticism. Given the continent-class danger level of the anomaly, it was the right decision."

"I also judged that the order was extremely appropriate, Your Excellency."

This brat...

Anyway, right now, Yu Ji-won's personality wasn't the main issue. Excluding the parts of her brain that dealt with morality and ethics, Yu Ji-won's intelligence was quite exceptional.

"When did you deploy them?"

"We started the exploration operation at 07:10 today. It has been 3 hours and 16 minutes since the operation began. The two surviving ones are among those given bicycles, and considering the environment of the Void, their movement speed is quite good."

"...If they are people the National Road Management Corps kept on death row, they must be somewhat familiar with the Void?"

"That's correct. Out of the 72 death row inmates, 69 have at least one experience of exploring the Void."

"But they were annihilated in just 3 hours."

At that moment.

Click-click! The chess piece that was passing the northern tip of Tsushima suddenly crossed the sea.

"Huh?"

"...?"

Both Yu Ji-won and Noh Do-hwa, along with me, looked at the nautical chart at that strange movement.

The chess piece labeled 'Kim Jeong-rip' swiftly moved to the vicinity of Fukuoka. Specifically, to the center of the map marked Hisayama-machi and Miyawaka-shi.

Regardless of how far the distance from Tsushima to there was, it was certainly not a speed any human could achieve.

Thud-

While everyone was gaping, the chess piece for 'Kim Jeong-rip' fell limply.

"......"

"......"

The surroundings fell silent.

There were only two cases where a chess piece controlled by Yu Ji-won on the mini-map fell over.

Either the person corresponding to the chess piece went beyond the map's boundaries, or they died.

Noh Do-hwa muttered.

"Fuck, what is this...?"

Click-click!

Now it was the turn of the last remaining chess piece, 'Lee Eun-joo'. That piece also suddenly moved from Tsushima to near Fukuoka.

As if being dragged by something.

Click! Clack! The chess piece darted back and forth around the northwest and northeast of Kyushu. This way, that way, now southward. Like a ping-pong ball, the chess piece bounced, then thud-

It fell over.

Silence ensued for a while.

"...With all due respect,"

Yu Ji-won spoke up.

"There is nothing wrong with my ability, Your Excellency."

It was indeed with all due respect.

"...Ji-won. Didn't you say you had cycled across Japan?"

"Yes? Yes, I did."

"If you have a map of Japan in your trunk, could you get it out? Preferably a large one."

"Understood, Your Excellency."

Yu Ji-won opened her ever-present trunk bag.

The trunk, fully opened, was a testament to her psychopathic obsession with neatness or perhaps an extremely efficient organizational ability.

Maps of the entire Korean Peninsula, city maps, nautical charts, and world maps were stacked in layers.

Yu Ji-won pulled out a map of Japan in less than 10 seconds.

"Spread it out. Make it connect to the nautical chart of the Korean Strait."

"Yes."

Although the scales were different, the two maps overlapped.

Then something strange happened.

Thud-

The chess piece for 'Lee Eun-joo' was dragged. No, that wasn't all.

The chess pieces scattered around the table, dozens of corpses, started being pulled somewhere as if by a magnet.

Thud- thud- thud- thud- thud-

"......"

"......"

Fukuoka, Kumamoto, Hiroshima, Okayama, Kobe, Osaka, Kyoto, Nagoya, Shizuoka, Tokyo, Sendai...

The locations where the corpses moved were all different. In other words, the bodies of 72 people were scattered all over Japan.

Among them, the chess piece for 'Kim Jeong-rip' was particularly strange.

Rattle, rattle, rattle!

The chess piece that had fallen near Fukuoka trembled violently. It was an inexplicable phenomenon. Then, in a moment.

Crack-

The chess piece broke in two.

The pawn's 'head' remained near Fukuoka, while the 'body' rolled and stopped near Osaka.

The silence grew longer.

This time, Noh Do-hwa spoke.

"Hmm. Should I go get more death row inmates...?"

I shook my head.

"I will upgrade the threat level of the anomaly 'Inunaki Tunnel' to continent-class. We'll contact the Magical Girl Association in Japan. They are the experts. A joint investigation team will likely be formed. Be prepared, Noh Do-hwa, Corps Commander."

"Are you talking about the Inunaki Tunnel? That place is really fucked up nyan."

As expected, Japan's awakened ones were already well acquainted with this anomaly.

A former shrine maiden who received divine power from the Cat God by swearing to always end her sentences with '-nyan' or '-nya' until her death. Now, a magical girl.

The golden-haired awakened one called Manyo Neko responded earnestly to our inquiry.

"There are quite a few mountains around here and there, right? Unless you're a pervert who gets a strange pleasure from climbing mountains, it's convenient to drill a tunnel nyan."

But who could have predicted?

The location of the tunnel, once the lights are off, easily transforms into a space that is 'dark, damp, and feared by people' all year round, and this location condition is a hotspot for anomalies.

Unfortunately, the officials of the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport did not have the ability to foresee the future. In fact, their ability to perceive reality wasn't that great either. As a result, tunnels were drilled all over Japan like earthworm holes.

Then came the Void.

"Keyotaki Tunnel. Ikoma Tunnel. Inunaki Tunnel. They were all famous haunted spots from the old days."

The places renowned as the top three haunted tunnels in Japan.

"But after the advent of the Void, these tunnels started to 'fight' each other nya."

"Fight? The tunnels?"

"Yap. I'm telling you this specially because you're Undateikeo..."

The magical girls in Japan referred to me as Undateikeo. It meant the same as the 'Undertaker.'

"There was a perfectly normal tunnel in our area. But one day, when we woke up, the signboard had changed to 'Keyotaki'!"

"......"

"Keyotaki Tunnel is quite far from our area. A year passed, and then suddenly, the signboard changed to 'Inunaki' nya!"

A territorial competition among anomalies.

A fight to determine which among the three haunted spots was the true 'tunnel anomaly.'

"It wasn't just our area. Tunnels all over Japan, including underpasses, all turned into 'Inunaki Tunnel.'"

"...It's been infected. The concept of 'tunnel' was completely consumed and destroyed by 'Inunaki Tunnel'."

"Exactly. It's fucked up nyan."

The magical girl added, 'That's why no one in Japan uses tunnels anymore nyan.'

In fact, Inunaki Tunnel not only occupied Japan but also began to invade foreign lands.

Even the 'Korea-Japan Undersea Tunnel,' a fictional tunnel that never existed in reality, was devoured and made its own.

Manyo Neko sighed.

"Originally, the real Inunaki Tunnel was at most 150 meters long nyan. But now it has consumed all the tunnels in Japan, and according to Undateikeo, it has even devoured a fictional undersea tunnel, so its total length is..."

The longest anomaly in history.

That was the continent-class anomaly I had to deal with in the 141st cycle.

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