Surviving Among the Entities

Former Sarang Industries Chairman Han Sarang (63) shed tears as he finally witnessed the long-awaited moment.

‘I’m finally getting to open the time capsule.’

As the only son born to Han Boram in his 50s, the founder of the company’s predecessor Eodeumtang, Han Sarang grew up hearing stories about the time capsule from his father.

[I changed the company’s name to match yours on the day you were born.]
[When I first established Eodeumtang, I buried a time capsule in front of the name plaque, intending to open it 100 years later. Be sure to open it someday.]
[The time capsule contains all sorts of things, not just company-related items, but also things my grandfather and father collected from wartimes. By then, even those seemingly ordinary scraps would have become artifacts, wouldn’t they?]

What could be inside? As the opened time capsule was revealed, Han Sarang barely suppressed the emotions welling up within him.

“Well, it’s no longer my company, so I should hurry and open this.”

It was fortunate that the ‘someone’ who purchased the company didn’t assert ownership over the time capsule.
As he was about to open the lid, the dog Doldol he had raised at the company kept bothering him, wanting to play.

“Not now, Yonseok.”
“Woof!”
“Geez, this dog.”

Han Sarang liked dogs. Dogs that only looked at their owners and followed them blindly seemed more like family than his wife, who had divorced him 20 years ago after hitting him over the head, or his children, who were like hyenas eyeing his wealth and just waiting for him to die.

“You stupid mutt, chasing your own tail again? Haha!”
“Woof woof!”

Plus, wasn’t their foolishness endearing?

“Ah, how would you all have survived in the wild without humans? Nature is the survival of the fittest, but you all survived because you’re so cute.”

After finally pushing Doldol away, he opened the time capsule. Inside were all sorts of miscellaneous items.

“Oh……”

The newspaper from the day Eodeumtang was established.
Eodeumtang’s first stock certificate.
The first foreign coffee Eodeumtang imported and the first factory-made nuts they produced.

There were many other items, but it seemed there wasn’t enough space in the capsule, as most of the contents were antiques that had belonged to Han Sarang’s ancestors.

“This is a bullet, and a broken carbine rifle? This is someone’s dog tag, and this is an arrowhead? Haha, typical of my father.”

At that moment, an object deep inside caught his eye.

‘A grenade?’

It was a round, spherical object. The palm-sized silver object formed a perfect sphere with a button in the center.

“Doesn’t seem like a grenade, though……”

What could this be? Without realizing it, Han Sarang reflexively pressed the button firmly.

Bzzzt!

“Ack! It’s exploding!”

The startled Han Sarang threw the silver sphere far away. It didn’t explode, but it began shaking violently before shooting up into the sky.

“What, what is that? It’s spooky as hell!”

And a short while later.

“Huh?”

The color of the sky had changed.

“What is this?”

Beyond the blue sky, clusters of multicolored lights began descending.

“What the hell is that?!”

After that day, Han Sarang’s retirement plans changed.

“Lights? A swarm of lights? Clouds of light?”

From his initial plan to happily travel the world, it changed to a plan of fleeing to survive.

“Huff, huff.”

Han Sarang ran while dragging his aged body, panting heavily.

‘I have to run, run away!’

Three months had already passed. The world had fallen, and humanity was no longer the master of this world.

‘I have to run and hide!’

On that day, the moment the swarm of lights descended from the sky.
The numerous clustered spheres of light began hunting humans.

[Breaking news! Currently, a swarm of lights is descending from the sky! Reports state that these lights are firing beams at humans, and any humans struck by the beams are disintegrating into dust! Everyone is advised to refrain from leaving their homes and minimize going outside as much as possible……]

The government intervened, but it was no match.

[Weapons are completely ineffective against the swarm of lights! According to reports from the United States, even nuclear weapons had no impact on the swarm of lights!]
[The swarm of lights passes through all physical objects! Physical attacks are completely ineffective, so instead of resisting, you should flee!]

The history of violence humanity had built meant nothing.
Guns, bombs, missiles, even nuclear weapons – nothing worked.
In this situation, all humanity could do was run.

‘Here, let’s hide here!’

The only reason Han Sarang had managed to survive in this world so far was due to the nature of the swarm of lights. The swarm targeted young and youthful humans first, largely avoiding the elderly like Han Sarang.

‘Please, just pass me by……”

And at times, the swarms of light would even fight among themselves. There were a few instances where he was nearly caught and almost died, but other swarms of light arrived and overpowered the pursuing swarm, allowing him to narrowly escape.

‘Please.’

But his luck had finally run out. Today, the swarm of lights spotted Han Sarang, and no matter how hard he ran, they relentlessly pursued him, with no other swarms coming to his aid.

‘Please, please!’

As he hid and prayed under the eaves of a collapsed building, a bright light shone before his eyes.

“Ah……”

The swarm of lights that had suddenly appeared fired a beam at him.

‘So this is how I die.’

It was the end. Han Sarang closed his eyes and accepted his death.

“?”

But when he opened his eyes again, he wasn’t dead.

“Where is this……”

He had awakened naked amidst the clouds, in a world filled with multicolored light. He tried to move his body but was bound to the clouds, his only freedom being to turn his head left and right.

“Uaaah!”

Right in front of him, another naked youth bound to the clouds by the clouds let out a scream. A swarm of light approached the youth’s forehead, and within the multicolored light was a sharp golden gem.

“Sa, save me!”

Despite his desperate plea, the golden gem pierced through the youth’s forehead. As the gem burrowed all the way into his brain before disappearing, the wound on his forehead healed itself, but the youth remained motionless.

“Insane!”

Perhaps he was dead – no, he was definitely dead.
Trembling in fear, Han Sarang wet himself. Soon after, a multicolored swarm of light approached him and thrust the same golden gem into him.

“Liv……”

The next time he regained consciousness, Han Sarang realized he hadn’t died.

‘Where is this place?’

Far from being dead, he found himself trapped inside a glass case.

‘Everything is so huge.’

Beyond the case, the world looked like an ordinary human world. There were TVs, radios, chairs, and computers, but they were all dozens of times larger than human size.

‘Is this the swarm of lights’ prison?’

Were they actually giants? Then what was the reason for appearing as swarms of light until now? Were they aliens after all, and the swarm of light form was some kind of transformation?

‘There are many other people trapped here besides me.’

Peculiarly, most of the people were young men and women, with no one around Han Sarang’s age.

[&^%&%^*?]
[Yes, that’s correct.]

At that moment, the noise coming from the TV sounded different. Until then, it had just been meaningless static with a meaningless image on the screen, but suddenly the noise sounded like voices, and the image showed two light beings conversing like a news broadcast.

[This is the ‘Transcendental Translator’ we recently developed. Humans are unable to properly perceive beings from our dimension and only recognize us as swarms of light, light clusters, or clouds. But if this is implanted into their brains, it converts our appearance into a form within their range of knowledge and perception.]
[So with this implanted, we would appear as humans and speak like humans to them!]
[Yes, that’s right.]

What the light being was holding was the very same gem that had been thrust into their heads earlier.

[With this, we can achieve deeper rapport with our companion humans. Sometimes there are those who don’t implant the Transcendental Translator, citing good intentions, but that’s an act of inflicting stress on companion humans.]
[Ah, stress is fatal for humans.]
[Stressed humans can exhibit symptoms like self-harm, depression, bipolar disorder, overeating, weight loss, and more. Their happiness plummets, and they may even try to take their own lives, so those who haven’t implanted it must do so immediately.]
[Yes, that was an interview with companion human expert ■■■■■■.]

The contents of the TV left Han Sarang’s mind reeling.

‘Companion humans? What is that supposed to mean?’

Were they daring to treat us, the lords of all creation, as pets?

[Next, we’ll hear the story of how ◆◆◆◆◆◆ first discovered humans.]
[Haha, discovering humans was a coincidence. As a researcher, I had purchased a Dimensional Explorer to observe lifeforms from other dimensions.]

A piece of footage appeared, showing the same silver sphere Han Sarang had taken out from the time capsule.

[It was a versatile device capable of detecting even lower-dimensional beings, but no matter how many times I pressed the button, it wouldn’t activate. When I inquired, they said it sometimes had contact issues and only activated after pressing it about 100 times, so I received a new one. They told me to discard the defective one, so I just tossed it into a random dimension, and miraculously, that turned out to be the dimension where humans lived – their planet.]
[So the humans picked it up and pressed the button?]
[Yes, it usually wouldn’t activate on the first try and would have been destroyed or discarded, but I guess they either got lucky and it activated on the first press, or they just kept pressing it until it activated.]
[What was the situation like when it activated?]
[The image of humans just popped up on the screen! And the moment I saw it, I thought, ‘Wow! What an adorable lifeform! Such a cute, foolish, naive, dull, idiotic, and lovable lifeform!’ That’s the blazing feeling that erupted within me.]

Beyond the screen, the light being spoke.

[Haha! Humans are indeed endearing in their foolishness. What lifeform would create weapons capable of causing their own extinction while fighting among themselves?]
[According to observations, humans’ self-destructive tendencies rate a perfect 10 out of 10. If we hadn’t intervened, they likely would have wiped themselves out through infighting within 100 years.]
[Their primitive level of technology poses no threat to us, but it was more than enough for them to race toward extinction.]

The two light beings laughed heartily as they conversed.

[In fact, humans only avoided extinction because they’re so cute. If left alone, they would have gone extinct, but we found them too adorable and lovable, so we’ve taken them as companion humans, haven’t we?]
[They were inferior beasts that couldn’t survive in the wild.]
[It’s a wonder they’ve survived this long. Perhaps it was because of ‘those’ beings.]
[Which beings?]
[The ones humans call ‘the Foundation’. While they are human, they’ve transcended humanity. When our research team first went to capture humans, over 15,300 of them fell victim to the Foundation.]
[Were they killed?]
[No, just injured. No matter how much they transcended humanity, they’re still human in the end, so how could they kill us?]
[Phew, that was a scare.]
[Anyway, as I mentioned earlier, since they’re still human, we wiped them all out within 3 days.]
[You killed them?]
[We captured all the humans and turned them into companion humans, while expelling any non-human anomalies to other dimensions.]

At that moment, the screen changed.

“§§§ Teacher, let’s watch something else.”
“¤¤¤¤ Nurse, I want to watch you.”

They appeared to be the rulers of this place, light beings shining with multicolored light.

[Purchase your companion human today!]
[A mischievous white human!]
[An energetic black human!]
[A yellow human with minimal body odor!]
[If desired, you can purchase un-neutered humans and create your own companion human village!]
[Caution: Humans of different colors are highly likely to be hostile toward each other, so exercise extreme caution.]

An advertisement for selling humans appeared.

[Is your human not obeying you?]
[Are they cute and lovable but causing too much trouble?]
[For those individuals, purchase the latest work by the Transcendental Doctor Janus, ‘Humans are Man’s Best Friend’!]
[According to Dr. Janus’ explanation, when a human consumes this pill, their internal genes mutate, causing them to develop a condition called Williams-Beuren syndrome!]
[Humans afflicted with this condition will exhibit excessive affection, trust, and tenderness toward us! No more trouble, only an adorably cute and affectionate human will remain!]
[A must-have for your companion human! Order now!]

“Ha, haha……”

Han Sarang let out a hollow laugh.

“Hahaha, hahahahaha! Hahahahahahaha!”

Eventually, he broke into a maniacal laughter.

“Kik, khahaha! Khahahahahahaha!”

The laughter didn’t stop.

“Teacher, this old human keeps laughing?”
“Yes? It’s probably due to excessive stress. It must be their mating season. Humans are in a perpetual mating season, you see.”

The light being’s hand enveloped Han Sarang.

“Let’s quickly neuter him. Neutering humans prevents stress and allows them to live longer.”

All humans had become companion humans.ity had fallen.

‘The hints were there from the beginning.’

While Baal had pinpointed the location, he didn’t know where the annihilation would originate from.
He only looked at the people but failed to notice the buried, inactive Dimensional Explorer.

‘Beings that treat humans as companion beings.’

They caught the attention of higher-dimensional beings, but to their eyes, our human form appeared too adorable.

‘Like cats, perhaps.’

Our temperaments are fickle, and they likely view us not as masters but merely companions, like cats who receive human affection due to their cuteness alongside dogs.
Maybe to them, we seemed like a mix of dogs and cats, or even more than that.

‘In a nutshell, we were unlucky enough to be targeted for annihilation.’

Things had been rather quiet lately, but who knew something like this was happening?
Since it was an entity that emerged when the game ended without my knowledge, I couldn’t have foreseen it at all.

‘Or perhaps it wasn’t an entity that emerged when the game ended, but one that had existed all along.’

At that moment, Mr. Han Sarang opened the time capsule.

“Doldol-ah, come here?”
“Woof!”
“You want a treat or something?”
“Haha, just some old stuff. That’s why it’s called a time capsule.”
“Hmm, ah! Doldol is trying to chase his tail again.”
“What a foolish mutt.”

Mr. Han Sarang’s gaze turned toward Doldol. Exerting all his strength, he reached into the time capsule and fished out the Dimensional Explorer hidden among the miscellaneous items.

‘The moment that button is pressed, it’s over.’

After carefully concealing it in the palm of his hand, he bid farewell and left.

“Enjoy reminiscing about old times, then.”
“Thanks for making space for me.”

Upon returning to the chairman’s office, I examined the Dimensional Explorer. It was a perfect sphere, just like what I had seen through my right eye.

“Well, then……”
With a 1/100 chance of turning all humans into companion beings if pressed, how should I handle this Dimensional Explorer?