I PICKED UP A CHILD IN A DUMPSTER-Chapter 62: Hunger Before Truth (II)
The purple window did not appear suddenly.
It unfolded.
Like thin light tearing open the air itself— silent, precise, indifferent to gravity, fear, or the rushing wind screaming past her ears.
Symbols shimmered across its surface, sharp and unfamiliar, glowing with a cold violet hue that did not belong to the real world.
It stayed perfectly still beside her... while everything else kept falling.
Seorin’s eyes widened, not fully understanding what she was seeing— only knowing that something had arrived at the exact moment she was about to disappear.
Her breath caught in her throat.
(Wait... I... I’m not... at the ground... not yet...)
The numbers continued.
00:00:03
The city below was no longer distant.
Shapes were becoming clear.
Too clear.
00:00:02
Her heartbeat slammed once— loud enough to drown the wind for a split second.
The purple window flickered.
And then—
A text appeared.
Not slowly.
Not gently.
But all at once.
「Emergency Condition Detected
Fatal Outcome Confirmed.
Activating Irregular Variable...」
Seorin couldn’t even process the words.
Her mind was already breaking apart into fragments of fear, confusion, disbelief—
(What... what is this...?)
00:00:01
The final number glowed brighter than the rest.
For a fraction of a second... everything became silent.
No wind.
No city below.
No falling.
Just— her, the empty sky, and the cold purple light beside her.
「Candidate Confirmed.
Seorin — Qualification Accepted.」
The moment the countdown reached zero, the purple light expanded outward— not exploding, but swallowing.
Soft.
Instant.
Absolute.
Like the world had been gently erased around her.
And before the ground could reach her— before pain, before impact and before the end...
Seorin vanished.
Above the hospital, the evening air returned to normal.
The wind moved.
Cars passed.
Distant sirens cried somewhere far away.
On the rooftop—
Si Hon was still frozen near the edge, his hand half reached toward the empty space where she had been.
The hooded man trembled behind him, breathing in broken, uneven gasps— as if he himself didn’t understand what he had just done.
But the sky gave no answer.
Because far away from that falling world— in a place where gravity no longer mattered... purple light quietly gathered around to a girl who was supposed to die.
But something... had chosen otherwise.
***
(Back to Si Hon.)
My lips parted slowly, shock still clinging to my face.
"Wait..."
My voice came out quieter than I expected.
"Ay... continue the story. What happened after that?!"
I was still staring at Seorin, half afraid she might disappear the same way she had in the memory.
"I... I have a lot of questions."
A faint blue glow flickered beside us.
Then the familiar System window appeared, floating lazily in the air like it had all the time in the world.
「(⌐■-■) So do I, Si Hon... the story... piqued my interest...」
There was a pause.
Seorin slowly turned her head and side eyed the floating window with pure disbelief.
「ಠ◡ಠ So... woman... I command you to continue your story!」
"...."
I stared at the window.
Honestly... I couldn’t even tell what expression I was making anymore.
Seorin’s eyebrow twitched.
"ಠ, _｣ ಠ ...Yeah. No. I’m not continuing it. Stay curious. Hmph."
She looked away with dramatic stubbornness.
A second of silence...
Then—
"WHY?!"
I practically begged, my voice echoing uselessly into the darkness.
Too bad.
Absolutely no mercy.
Seorin inhaled slowly... then sighed.
A long one.
The kind filled with exhaustion and you-two-are-hopeless-bitch energy.
"Did you forget why we’re here?" she muttered.
"Are you that immersed in the story you— no... both of you forgot?"
She sighed again, even heavier this time... and pointed forward.
Right in front of us— Piles of dead mole-rats lay scattered across the ground, their bodies twisted in stillness, dark blood soaked into the dirt beneath them.
The air smelled metallic.
Cold.
Wrong.
My gaze followed where she pointed.
Then— realization hit. It was night. Deep night. No moonlight strong enough to see this clearly.
Yet—
"...Wait."
My voice dropped to a whisper.
"How... can I see in the dark...?"
The question lingered in the air.
Because it was true.
Everything was visible.
Not bright— but clear.
Edges. Shapes. Distance. Movement in the shadows.
As if the darkness... was no longer hiding anything from me.
The blue System window tilted slightly, like it was smiling at a private joke.
But for once— it didn’t answer immediately.
And somewhere far beyond the silent field of corpses...
something unseen shifted in the dark, quietly noticing
that I had begun to change.
I ignored it.
But that silence felt... wrong.
I looked beside me and the window of mine was quiet.
We all know the blue window was never quiet.
It always had something sarcastic to say, some useless comment, some smug little reaction that made everything feel less serious than it actually was.
「ಠ,_｣ಠ」
But now... nothing.
I swallowed slowly, my throat dry without me realizing when it had become that way.
The night air pressed against my skin, cold and thin, carrying the metallic scent of blood from the scattered mole-rat corpses in front of us. The smell should have made me nauseous. It should have made me look away.
Instead... I could see everything.
「ಠ,_｣ಠ」
Too clearly.
Every jagged claw.
Every patch of dark, stiffened fur.
Even the faint steam still rising from one of the bodies as warmth escaped into the freezing dark.
My eyes traced the shadows beyond them— and the shadows didn’t feel like shadows anymore.
They felt... shallow.
Like thin curtains I could almost see through if I focused hard enough.
A quiet unease crept up my spine.
"...System," I muttered under my breath, my voice sounding unfamiliar in my own ears. "What... did you do to me...?"
「It w—」
The blue window gave a tiny flicker— so small I might’ve imagined it.
"Figured, it won’t talk, tsk."
I looked down and closed my eyes and clench my fist.
「ಠ,_｣ಠ」
Seorin shifted beside me, the crunch of dirt under her shoe suddenly loud in the stillness.
I could hear it too well.
Not just the sound— but the weight behind it.
The rhythm of her breathing.
Even the faint rustle of her sleeve when she moved her arm.
My heartbeat thudded once, heavy and slow.
Something was changing.
Not around me.
Inside me.
And the worst part was— a quiet, undeniable certainty forming in the back of my mind...
This wasn’t temporary.
The System window finally tilted toward me, the blue glow brushing across my vision like cold light under the water.
For a moment, I thought it would make a joke again.
Laugh.
Pretend none of this mattered.
Instead, new text formed—slowly this time.
Almost... carefully.
As if whatever decided to show me these words was thinking much harder than usual.
I didn’t realize I had stopped breathing until the first line finished appearing.
「S-Si Hon...」
(I knew it...)
"Y-yes..." I answered quietly.
「ಠ_ಠ C-could you stop that? You’re making me feel disgusted... why are you being so dramatic? Did Seorin’s story do this to you?!」
"..."
Seorin shifted beside me and muttered under her breath, just loud enough for me to hear.
"Yeah... what’s wrong with him... why is he acting like a drama main character just because he can see a little in the dark... 진짜 이상해 (seriously weird)...."
I let out a slow breath.
"Damn... Seorin’s backstory was intense, alright... I can’t just turn my emotions off."
She sighed and gave my back a few lazy pats, the kind that clearly meant I’m not taking you seriously at all.
"Yeah, yeah. Sure. Whatever you say, actor-nim."
(Actor-nim. Wow. That hurt a little.)
Anyway, she walked toward the pile of dead mole-rats and gestured for me to come closer.
"Now... get over here and use that Spatial Bag of yours. Let’s get some of this so we can head back... and finally use your third reward."
Her voice lowered slightly.
"The three informations... three truths."
She sat casually on top of one of the dead mole-rats like it was just a chair and not a horrifying corpse.
Honestly... her mental strength was scarier than the monsters.
I nodded and walked toward her.
"Yeah, alright... anyway... about the guy in your story... Si Hon."
Her ear twitched.
"Yeah? Oh... right. You both have the same name."
"ಠ_ಠ ...Look at my face."
She stared at me for a full second.
Then scoffed.
"...Uh. Nothing?"
"...Does my face feel familiar?"
"No," she said immediately.
"...Do you remember that guy’s face?"
She tapped her chin and thought for a moment.
"Hmm... actually... no. I just remember he was handsome.
Meh. Not important. Let’s hurry this up."
(...Handsome, huh...)
I sighed and nodded.
"Yeah... fine. But you’ll be shocked later. I’m going to tell you something."
"Sure, sure," she replied lazily.
Beside her, I looked down at the grotesque face of the dead mole-rat.
Its body was stiff.
Cold.
Completely lifeless.
Then—
I reached out.
The moment my fingers touched the corpse—
Warmth.
"...!?"
Heat spread slowly from my fingertips, like something waking up after a long sleep.
And then—
Something that should have stayed forgotten... twitched.
In the span of a sec, faint light seeped out— red... yellow... green... colors shifting like unstable energy struggling to take shape, etc.
Seorin’s casual expression cracked.
"...잠깐만 (wait a second)... what is that...?"
The light stretched— thin, threadlike— then suddenly wrapped around the mole-rat’s body.
Her eyes widened.
"야... Si Hon... what the fuck is that?!!"
I couldn’t answer.
Because the glowing strands had already begun to tighten... and slowly— absorb the corpse beneath my hand.
Silently.
Hungrily.
Like it had been waiting... for me.
Then— a window popped up beside me.
「+0.1 STR」
"?!"
「Growth Condition.
Absorption Target: Dead organic entities only.
Absorption Progress: 1 / 80 Bodies.
Boss-class entities: Locked. 2/8
Absorption requires direct contact.」
