Creator’s Favoritism

An eerie silence hung in the air.

Feet still planted on the cold bathroom tiles, I cautiously peeked out, keeping my head low. In the spot where Kang Chagyeong had been moments ago, only his backpack remained.

‘Could he be dead? Surely they wouldn’t kill off the protagonist right from the start?’

My eyes darted around in panic. The bathroom I was in was tucked in the farthest corner of the basement. 

You had to turn a sharp corner to exit, so from here, all I could see was the long corridor leading to the bathroom. 

I wet my dry lips with my tongue, glaring at the corner as if waiting for something to emerge.

Still gripping my growing unease, I snatched Chagyeong’s bag and slung it over my shoulder with a nervous resolve. If Tito had planted some death flag for him, I wasn’t leaving the backpack behind.

At that moment, the heavy iron door of the men’s bathroom swung open without warning.

I whipped around, tense, but before I could react, a hand shot out and grabbed my wrist, yanking me inside.

“!!”

“Shh…!”

It was Kang Chagyeong. He pulled me into the men’s bathroom and shut the door quickly, locking it. His face was pale, but apart from that, he looked unharmed—no scratches, no blood, not even a hair out of place.

“A gate’s opened,” he whispered, his voice shaking. “We have to… stay as quiet as possible… and hide…”

As he spoke, fear etched deep into his expression, I glanced toward Tito’s direction, half-expecting the next panel of disaster. 

Tito’s tablet moved ceaselessly, his pen gliding over the screen, drawing frame after frame. 

I could see faint, white rectangular boxes forming just before each cut was sketched in. This one now—

-Bang!

Exactly. I was right. If I play my cards right, I might be able to predict when the monsters would show up.

Lost in my own thoughts, I barely noticed Kang Chagyeong’s bewildered gaze.

“What if we die? What if we die?” he muttered, clutching his head in his hands. He was falling apart, panicking in a way that made the situation even more suffocating.

‘No, focus.’

If Chagyeong was panicking, it was up to me to see things clearly.

I took a deep breath and tried to assess the situation, relying on the mental fortitude buff I was pretty sure Tito had drawn for me. It gave me enough clarity to size things up.

‘A sealed gate. Two civilians. Even if I die here, there’s no guarantee I’ll awaken as a hunter.’

Objectively, the odds were stacked against us. But the more I tried to be rational about it, the more despair wrapped itself around my thoughts like a vice.

I didn’t know how the gods or creators in whatever divine realm viewed this scene, but to me, there was no escape. This was real.

-Boom. 

-Thud.

Heavy thuds reverberated from the floor directly beneath us, like massive furniture being slammed down violently. Kang Chagyeong, his body tense with fear, stared at the bathroom tiles as they faintly vibrated beneath our feet.

“I don’t think we should stay here,” I muttered, glancing toward the door. Every instinct screamed at me to move.

“N-no. The hunters will be here soon…” Chagyeong stammered, his voice barely above a whisper. He looked at me, desperate, like someone watching another lead them straight into the flames of hell.

“Did you properly read the system message earlier?” I asked, trying to keep my voice steady.

Chagyeong blinked in confusion as I calmly showed him my phone, the screen still displaying the system alert.

[SYSTEM: A sealed Gate has opened at Seunghwa Building in Yeouido-dong, Yeongdeungpo-gu, Seoul. 54 minutes and 12 seconds until the seal is lifted.]

“It’s a sealed Gate,” I said quietly, watching his expression shift from hope to horror. “Hunters can’t enter until everyone inside dies, the time runs out, or all the monsters are killed.”

Chagyeong had been too caught up in the routine of civilian evacuation procedures to fully grasp the gravity of our situation. When the truth finally hit him, his face turned an ashen blue, like the color had drained from his very soul.

“So the hunters…” His voice cracked.

“Won’t come,” I answered flatly. The weight of reality settled between us like a heavy stone.

To break the growing silence, I pulled out the damp vest from my coat pocket and handed it to him. He stared at it blankly for a moment before putting it on, his expression vacant. The wet fabric clung to him awkwardly, but he didn’t seem to care.

“You should wring it out a bit first…” I suggested, my words feeling pointless as I watched him slump down, his mental state clearly shattered. He was there, but he wasn’t present.

Meanwhile, several cuts had passed in Tito’s paneling, but I had been watching closely, squinting in anticipation. I had been preparing for this—still absurd, but not as jarring now.

「Tito unconsciously mimics a frown while drawing ‘Maeng Sun-woo’s’ face.」  

Ridiculous. This whole thing was so absurd that, even knowing Tito was some kind of god, begging for mercy didn’t seem worth it. He clearly had no intention of saving me from this hell.

Shaking Chagyeong’s shoulder with one hand, I raised my voice, trying to snap him out of his daze. “Come on…! Snap out of it!”

-Kieeek-!

A monstrous cry echoed through the building, high-pitched and drawn out.

The noise was bone-chilling.

Chagyeong flinched, his wide eyes finally meeting mine as the terror of the situation sunk in. His breath came out in quick, shallow gasps.

“We don’t have many options,” I said urgently, taking advantage of his focus. “There’s been constant noise from the floor below. I think it’s right underneath us.”

“…The monster?” he whispered, his voice barely steady.

“Let’s try going upstairs for now. If we’re lucky, the seal might be lifted while we’re climbing,” I explained, trying to inject some hope into the plan. It was a gamble, but staying here wasn’t an option.

Chagyeong hesitated for a second, but the distant sound of another crash sent him scrambling to his feet.

Unlike open Gates, sealed Gates are covered by a dome-shaped veil over the site where the Gate appears. The monsters that awaken inside attack upon sensing the breath of nearby living beings.

Surviving until the seal is lifted is almost impossible, but not entirely so. Yet, hearing the terrified screams of people and the monsters’ howls in surround sound made it nearly impossible for me to muster the courage to face those creatures.

“Get up. Let’s go up together. If we just stay calm, we’ll be fine.” I urged, trying to sound more confident than I felt.

‘Unlike me, you don’t have a death flag, so you’ll be okay.’

 The thought twisted my insides, but I pushed it aside and focused on Chagyeong.

After a moment of catching his breath, he finally stood up, determination flickering in his eyes.

[SYSTEM: 14 monsters fully open their eyes in the sealed Gate in Yeouido-dong, Yeongdeungpo-gu, Seoul.]

The system message appeared, a cold reminder of our dire situation. A brief silence fell between us as we processed the information.

Normally, even in a Gate that produces many monsters at once, there are at most three or four. A Gate that produces ten at once would make headlines, but fourteen?

It was as good as telling us we were doomed. Chagyeong’s eyes darkened, reflecting the same realization that struck me.

「Tito silently writes the system message.」  

Even Tito, in his godly quietude, felt the weight of the moment. But whether there were 14 monsters or 140, what needed to be done remained unchanged.

We opened the men’s bathroom door and began to walk slowly toward the stairwell, muffling our footsteps. We had to keep looking around constantly, not knowing when a cut revealing a monster’s appearance would occur.

As we reached the stairs leading to the ground floor, an unpleasant metallic smell wafted toward us. Amidst the silence, a series of grinding and squelching noises echoed from below, as if something was chewing on a corpse.

Gripping Chagyeong’s wrist tightly, I urged him forward, one slow step at a time. Fortunately, we reached the building lobby without incident.

Turning my head to the left, I saw the entrance we’d come through, but beyond the glass doors, a thin, red air membrane pulsated ominously.

The curtain was marked with thick lines like blood vessels crisscrossing here and there, blocking out the light and sound from outside.

“Ah, it’s disgusting. Really disgusting,” Chagyeong muttered, recoiling from the curtain with a look of revulsion.

The dimly lit interior of the building was awash in red, casting everything in a nightmarish glow.

We had no intention of using the elevator. We didn’t want to imagine what might await us when the doors opened.

In the center of the first-floor lobby was a desk where security guards were usually stationed. As we cautiously approached, we spotted a bundle of keys sitting abandoned.

I gathered the keys in my right hand, being careful not to jingle them, and nodded to Chagyeong. Our plan was to make our way to the building’s rooftop.

My heart pounded so hard it felt like my ribs might break. We took our first step onto the emergency stairs leading to the second floor, trying our best to muffle our steps.

-Bang.

Simultaneously, a bright light burst behind my head, and beyond the stair railing, I saw it—a large, blood-covered body slithering up the stairs.

The massive form, resembling a rodent, struggled to navigate the narrow stairway. However, the numerous hands densely covering its pus-oozing body reminded me of a centipede.

Long fingers, like those of a primate, moved in sequence, feeling the marble floor. My frozen body wouldn’t move properly. Just then, Chagyeong, not understanding the situation, was about to urge me on.

“Hey, why aren’t you mov—”

The rat-like head turned straight up. My eyes met the monster’s blood-red orbs. It smelled of rot.

Red saliva dripped from the tips of the monster’s upper teeth, which had grown so long that its jaw couldn’t close. I could also glimpse the space between its split skull, as if cleaved by an axe.

After seeing the monster directly, my mind filled with a single thought—to escape somehow. Truly, I was terrified.

“Run!!”

Even though it was my own voice, it strangely seemed to come from far away. As if that sound was a starting signal, the monster that had been inflating its entire body began to frantically move its arms, crawling up the stairs.

Chagyeong and I ran as if flying, taking three or four steps at a time. Behind us, I heard a continuous cracking sound, ruptures accompanied by the monster’s sharp cries that made me want to cover my ears.

The one time I looked back, I saw the monster’s long tail, its visible blood vessels violently striking the stair railing. The metal crumpled like paper.

Even without constantly checking behind, I could tell the distance between us and the monster was steadily closing. The sound of its numerous palms slapping against the floor grew louder.

Just as I felt the illusion of its chilling breath on the nape of my neck, Chagyeong, who was running ahead, grabbed my collar and yanked me. His other hand struggled with the iron door handle.

-Bang!!

Almost throwing me inside, Chagyeong slammed his entire body against the iron door. The sound of the door closing reverberated through the entire building.

-Kieeeeek!

The monster let out a scream, its throat opening just a split second too late. Chagyeong, panic-stricken, fumbled with the handle.

His hand slipped several times before the door lock finally clicked shut. Chagyeong, who had barely managed to secure the door, let out a sound close to a sob. He looked on the verge of tears.

As I caught my breath and looked around, I spotted a mop in the corner. Before the monster could break through the locked door, I quickly wedged the mop under the handle.

It wouldn’t last long, but it would at least serve as a temporary measure.

We were in an isolated space on the fifth floor, connecting the emergency stairs to the office corridor. Recyclable trash, seemingly for shared use by tenants, was gathered in one corner.

In the roughly two-pyeong space, there were two iron doors and one elevator. These three entrances occupied three sides of the square room.

Two iron doors faced each other on either side of the elevator, which was positioned in the center.

The door we had come through led to the emergency stairs, so the remaining door probably opened into the office corridor.

I approached Chagyeong, who had collapsed on the spot as if his mental strength was completely depleted, trying to get him up somehow.

I, too, had to crawl on all fours, as the strength had left my legs as well.

“We… huff… we need to quickly—”

-Boom!

At that moment, a heavy noise resonated from outside the locked door. We jumped in surprise and stared at the iron barrier.

Ominous thudding sounds kept coming from beyond the door, as if the monster were ramming its head against it.

We needed to find another route quickly. Just as I turned my head toward Chagyeong,

—Fifth floor.

With a familiar sound, the elevator doors opened.