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A light was emanating from his palm.
It was a cold, cyan light. Faint, yet unmistakable.
Ian stared at the glow. He wasn't startled. He wasn't panicked. He simply—processed it.
[UNIDENTIFIED ABILITY DETECTED / CLASSIFICATION: PENDING / EMOTIONAL INDEX: 0.0%]
Classification: Pending.
It was a category Ian had never seen before.
Around him lay the ruins of what, five seconds ago, had been a massive experimental wing. Now, it was just twisted metal, charred paper, and severed wires. Smoke curled into the air. Sirens wailed in the distance. Someone was screaming.
Ian did not move.
[SECTOR SCAN COMPLETE / SURVIVORS: 0 / IAN: SURVIVED / CAUSE: UNKNOWN]
Survivors: 0.
Twelve people had entered. Only Ian remained standing.
Ian clenched his fist, enveloping the light. It did not go out. He flicked his fingers once. The surrounding debris rose half a meter into the air for 0.3 seconds before settling back down.
[LAYER ACCESS: CONFIRMED / MATERIAL LAYER: OVERWRITABLE / GRAVITY OVERRIDE: ACTIVE]
Overwrite: Available.
The world was beginning to look like source code—something that could be edited. Ian processed this fact for four seconds. And then—
"Well, this is absurd."
That was all. No awe. No terror. As for any guilt regarding the eleven others—Ian didn't even know what that was supposed to feel like.
[EMOTIONAL INDEX: 0.0% / SYSTEM STATUS: NORMAL]
Normal.
It was perfectly normal. And Ian didn't realize back then that that was the real problem.
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Seoul was data to Ian.
23 million emotional layers. 1.47 million daily conflict logs. 38 physical threat signals per hour. Ian processed them all. Fast, accurate, and devoid of emotion.
Today was no different.
[FATAL CONFLICT DETECTED / SECTOR 7: MAPO-GU ALLEY / INTERVENTION IN 4 SEC]
It was a dark alleyway. A large man was pinning a woman against the wall. Ian stood at the entrance of the alley and scanned the man.
[NEURAL OVERRIDE: AVAILABLE / MUSCLE DENSITY: HIGH / NEURAL PATHWAY: MAPPED]
Ian raised his hand in the air. 0.2 seconds. The man's body pulled back of its own accord. His arms dropped. His feet retreated. The man himself didn't even know it wasn't his own will moving him.
The woman escaped the alley.
[OVERWRITE: COMPLETE / EMOTIONAL INDEX: 0.0%]
Ian turned away as if nothing had happened. He didn't need gratitude. As long as it was processed, it was enough.
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3 AM. A hallway in a dilapidated apartment complex.
[CARDIAC GLITCH DETECTED / SUBJECT: MALE, 71 / VENTRICULAR FIBRILLATION / T-38S]
38 seconds.
Ian reached out. He made the material layer of the door transparent. His hand reached through the door—connecting via the layer. He touched the old man's chest. He could see the trembling cardiac waveform. Ian straightened it with his fingers, like correcting notes on a sheet of music.
[CARDIAC LAYER: REWRITTEN / NORMAL RHYTHM: RESTORED / ELAPSED TIME: 6S]
Inside the room, the old man opened his eyes and clutched his chest. Ian withdrew his hand. His expression remained vacant. No sense of pride. Just—processed.
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A bustling street during the day.
The moment a convenience store clerk stepped out with a trash bag, a man rushed from the alley. A knife in his hand.
It stopped 5cm away.
The knife froze in mid-air. The man froze, too. Like a statue. Ian walked slowly through the crowd. He took the knife from the man's hand. There was no resistance. He dropped the knife into a bin. He accessed the man's memory layer. From the moment he entered the alley—Delete.
The man started moving again. He looked around blankly and vanished.
[DAILY PROCESSING RATE: 100% / EMOTIONAL INDEX: 0.0%]
Perfect. Ian liked it that way.
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It was the same city, but a completely different world.
Jung Dyne was walking through an old neighborhood slated for redevelopment. A street where things destined to vanish were gathered. Faded signs. Cracked walls. Weathered paint.
Dyne saw them differently. It wasn't pity in her eyes; it was a gaze that saw beauty. She stopped in front of a half-peeled mural and took out her camera. Her finger hovered over the shutter, then—she lowered it.
She just watched with her eyes. For a long time.
"...It's prettier this way. Just as it is."
She whispered to the empty alley. She took out a notebook and wrote:
Things that are half-gone sometimes speak more than things that are whole.
Dyne looked through the lens. At that moment, within the old glass, the hidden texture of the world was shimmering. A language of fractures that even Ian could not classify. Dyne didn't know what it was. She just felt—it was beautiful.
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Red light.
Dyne took a photo out of her eco-bag. Black and white. A blurred shot. An unrecognizable silhouette.
"...What was I even trying to take a picture of?"
The light changed. Dyne started walking, looking at the photo. Her head was down. Ian was walking from the opposite direction.
[SUBJECT SCAN: 247 / AVERAGE EMOTIONAL INDEX: 34.2% / EFFICIENCY GRADE: C+]
Dyne walked with her head down. Ian walked with his head up. The distance closed. Ian's scanner pointed toward Dyne.
[SCANNING… SUBJECT: DYNE / MEASURING EMOTIONAL INDEX…]
It stopped.
[FATAL GLITCH DETECTED / EMOTIONAL FREQUENCY: UNMEASURABLE / CLASSIFICATION: FAILED]
Ian stopped. For the first time.
In that instant, the photo flew out of Dyne's hand. Caught in the wind. She tried to grab it, but it was out of reach. The photo touched Ian's hand.
[IMAGE ANALYSIS: FAILED / NOISE LEVEL: 94% / UNCLASSIFIABLE]
Unclassifiable.
Ian looked up from the photo. He saw Dyne.
[OVERLOAD WARNING / SYSTEM TEMPERATURE: 42°C → 112°C]
Ian froze. He didn't know what this was. It was his first time.
"That's my photo."
Dyne held out her hand. Ian handed it back. Her fingertips brushed Ian's for 0.1 seconds.
In that moment—cold, cyan pixels began to fall like snow around them.
"...Is this a dream?" Dyne asked softly.
A faint wisp of steam rose from behind Ian's ear.
"It is an error."
"An error? The world is breaking so beautifully, and you're calling it just an error?"
Ian tried to process it. He couldn't.
[EMOTIONAL INDEX: 0.0% / CRITICAL ERROR: UNMEASURABLE]
For the first time, 0.0%—was lying.
────────────────────────────────── — End of Episode 1 —