Raea, who read Ha-min's puzzled expression, continued speaking.
"Literally. Just like you woke up in the cube without knowing why, I did the same."
"But the developer said I was the first and only character to wake up from the cube on my own. If he knew you, he would have told me..."
"That's all I can tell you."
Once again, Raea drew the line and took a step back. The fact that this was all she could tell meant there was more information she hadn't told.
".. Then I'll be going now."
"yes."
It wasn't a satisfying ending, but Ha-min had no choice but to cultivate patience. At least for one night.
-
The true name for this tranquil and expansive cube space is actually "Space of Life." It was given this name because it was filled with cubes imbued with life.
But until Hamin woke up, Raea hadn't felt even a shred of warmth in this place. In fact, looking at the cold cubes made her neck feel tight.
All I can see are cubes, an endless space of unknown depth and width, a wisp of fog of unknown origin, and stars and cracks in the sky. A dark and lonely place where no people, no animals, no time, no weather, no clouds exist.
I had been there for so long that I didn't want to come back, but sadly, it was also a precious place.
Leah sighed softly and walked to the edge of the cube. Looking up, she saw a crack in the sky, much larger than before, covering it, giving it the appearance of a vast Milky Way.
Due to the several days of active communication with Terra to restore Asterum, the rift was growing at a rapid rate. If it continued to grow, even the boundary between the sky and the rift would become indistinguishable.
Leah, who had been staring at the crack for a moment, looked straight ahead and held out her palm facing upwards.
"Hey. Are you there now?"
As Raea spoke into the air, a square window appeared on her outstretched palm, writing down the words. Soon after, letters began to appear beneath it.
'for a moment.'
After waiting a few minutes, the following content appeared.
'Hamin is okay, for now.'
"Okay. Thank you."
'But you'd better be more careful.'
A brief silence followed, and a loneliness settled over Raea's eyes as she stared at the writing.
"know."
'okay.'
"Another way... you haven't found it yet?"
'Sorry. I don't have time right now, so I'll put that aside.'
"No need to apologize, I..."
Leah lowered her gaze, her trembling eyebrows furrowed slightly. She pursed her lips tightly and took a deep breath. Pain spread through her slowly exhaled breath.
"I can wait as long as I want."
For several seconds, no reply came back in the chat window, as if the other person was choosing their words. Only traces of something repeatedly being written and erased flickered, suggesting a wait.
'I'll say it again, it's probably better to think it's impossible, for your own sake.'
"...I'll stop now."
As Raea clenched her open palm, the chat window disintegrated into pixel fragments and disappeared. Silence returned to the cube space, but Raea's mind remained untouched.
'..I know... I know...'
-
The next evening, the restoration of Asterum was nearly complete. As long as you forgot about Caligo's possible return, you could almost believe it was as peaceful as ever. The sun had just set below the horizon, casting a tinge of blue in the sky.
"Now we can each sleep in our own homes."
"Oh, that's right, finally."
Eunho stretched his arms and stretched vigorously. The members, who had barely rested for about ten days, were visibly exhausted, and they all agreed to take the next day off to rest.
Bambi, who looked tired, spoke to Eunho, who was yawning with her mouth wide open, in her characteristically curt tone.
"Let's not see each other tomorrow, really. Just keep in touch."
"Oh, hyung, you're the one who should be calling me to say you miss me, please."
Noah smiled pleasantly at the two bickering again. Everyone looked visibly tired, but no one seemed annoyed.
"Everyone worked hard. Get some rest tomorrow and let's meet up the day after."
"Thank you for your hard work, hyungs!"
Yejun and Hamin concluded the conversation with cheerful voices. After a brief farewell, Noah, Bambi, and Yejun left. However, Eunho didn't go straight home, but instead glanced around.
"Brother, what are you looking for?"
"Yeah... I don't know where Raea is. Have you met her today by any chance?"
"no."
Ha-min recalled last night. That was the last time he saw Rae-ah. She hadn't returned to the hideout by morning, so no one had seen her all day. Eun-ho's face immediately turned sullen after hearing Ha-min's answer.
"It's a shame, I was going to show you cyberpunk while you were resting."
"They probably don't know that we've all gone home yet, so I guess we'll come back to the hideout later."
"Right. I guess I'll have to sleep in the hideout today. See you the day after tomorrow, Hamin!"
As Eunho and the others set off for the hideout, only Ha-min remained on the dimly lit streets of Asterum. Unlike the other members, Ha-min didn't head straight home. He had something he absolutely had to do.
He touched the watch on his left wrist and warped to a satellite in Cube space. The satellite's systems had already been restored yesterday.
The interior of the satellite was mostly achromatic, with areas other than the screens being white, gray, and black, and artificial light added to it, making the atmosphere feel even colder.
Hamin opened the door to the warp room and walked out, passing through a corridor that looked like the interior of a spaceship he had always imagined on Terra, and stood in front of the door to the central control room where he usually stayed.
Just before he touched the touch panel to open the door, Ha-min stopped and listened. He could clearly sense a presence within the control room.
Since only one person besides himself could enter here, it was already decided who it would be. Ha-min relaxed and immediately placed his hand on the touch panel, opening the door.
But contrary to my expectations, there was no one on the other side of the door that was flung open. I could faintly hear the sound of someone manipulating a panel, so I knew it couldn't have been my imagination.
Ha Min glanced around the small control room. There wasn't any obvious hiding place, so the search was quickly concluded.
Hamin bent down slightly and manipulated the main computer's panel to bring up the screen. Several windows were open, seemingly unclosed while searching for something.
It was truly suspicious. The satellite wasn't even blocked from entering, and if Ha-min had entered while I was using the computer, I wouldn't have cared to confront him. But why did he warp so hastily?
Moreover, the destruction of evidence was far too sloppy to suggest he had attempted to do something without her knowledge. While I didn't sense any malice, it wasn't enough to completely dispel the unease.
Ha-min looked around a little more, then took off his outer garment, hung it on a chair, and sat down, looking up at the screen. There, the materials Raea had left behind were displayed.
Records of the Crack, the will of Caelum and the history of Asterum, and detailed data on 'Yuhamin'.
"I guess you haven't found a way yet."
Most of the data records, except for Ha Min's, clearly showed that they were investigating ways to close the rift.
But why my record..?
Even the records that were accessed were not general information, but only records that had nothing to do with the cracks or communication activities with Terra, such as data corruption records or warp records.
Even a few days of search history, scraped together just in case, failed to resolve the mystery. There were no records of the period during which the system was down, only records from last night until just before, and even those were limited to the time of the crack's creation, its cause, its power, and its role.
Just in case, Ha-min made a separate list of the materials Rae-ah had examined and hid them in a secure folder. Then, he took out the materials on the list one by one and began to carefully examine them.
In fact, since there was not much objective information about cracks yet, most of the information about cracks on computers was written subjectively by Ha Min.
Most of the information was likely known to all the members, including Raea, and even after looking through it carefully, there was nothing new.
Ha Min, who had not found anything unusual, began his investigation, which was the original purpose of his visit to the satellite.
In fact, what Ha-min was investigating wasn't much different from what Raea was looking for. Ultimately, it was necessary to closely examine the universe as a whole, including Caelum, Asterum, and the rift.
In particular, since the rift was absolutely necessary for communication with Terra, I had tried to learn about its origin, nature, and influence before, but I had found out almost nothing.
Unfortunately, even the developers who created Asterum and assisted them knew little about the rift. They only speculated that it affected abstract concepts like time and space.
There was no point in talking about closing the crack when we didn't even know what it was yet.
After searching here and there for a while without finding any meaningful information, Ha-min rubbed his eyes as if he was tired, spread his arms, and stretched.
He had no intention of staying up all night, so he slowly closed the windows he had open and tried to shut down the system to get home.
But just before I pressed the button, the security folder I had created earlier suddenly caught my eye.
'Raea..'
That person was here.
The Raea I've seen over the past nine days has been truly an unfamiliar person.
She didn't seem like a malicious or bad person, but the fact that she was usually calm but sensitive to the cracks made her seem suspicious.
Moreover, it was strange that he never talked about himself and never interacted with any of the other members except Eunho.
Rather than a personality issue, it feels like he's always intentionally trying to keep his distance.
And yet, when we happen to meet, he looks at me with a face that makes me feel uneasy.
[ SEARCH : Seraea ]
Ha Min wrote Raea's name in the search box and thought about it for a moment.
A voice in his head stopped Ha-min, telling him that it was rude to look at someone else's personal information without their consent.
Is it okay to search for information like this just because I'm curious about this person?
'...Let's just look at the general details. I need to know at least when I woke up in the cube and where I've been since then.'
Normally, he would have postponed making such a decision until he woke up and was clear-headed, but for some reason, Ha-min felt compelled to find out something right away.
[widely-]