The Foreigner on the Periphery

Earthlings had already experienced terrorist attacks on the Dimensional Jump Terminal twice this year. For such an incredibly rare event to repeat within so short a span was unprecedented. In truth, it was an unappealing target for terrorists. It offered low returns for high risks, and inflicting enough damage to paralyze its functions was nearly impossible.

As if to prove the point, the previous attempts had failed to leave a single scratch on the facility's most crucial component: the Guidance Tower.

Many confused it with the control tower, but unlike the latter, the Guidance Tower was an unmanned facility functioning much like an airport's Instrument Landing System.

It was a massive, ten-story Magic Tool operating in a remote corner, far from the passenger and navigation facilities. As the landmark symbolizing the Terminal and the core artifact responsible for pulling in and launching Jump Ships, it was protected by the strongest barrier the Committee had ever personally installed. To put its durability into perspective, even when Leo unleashed a mountain of lightning in Hong Kong, the Guidance Tower remained completely unscathed.

Considering all this, gaining any practical benefit from a Terminal attack was inherently difficult.

Yet, the third attack had just erupted.

Even so, the chances of success seemed slim. Compared to the previous two locations, taking down the New York Terminal was a significantly taller order. Not only was the barrier impregnable, but prisoners from all over Earth had been gathered there.

But neither the Committee nor the prisoners themselves could have expected to be pushed back so helplessly.

Boom! Bang! Bang!

An armed troll spat a curse. It was the very same troll who had personally guided William on his first day. His face, once full of cynicism, was now stained with dismay, frustration, and sheer terror. He had survived all sorts of hardships since becoming a prisoner, but he had never experienced anything like this.

A Magic bombardment with an untraceable origin.

It felt like being toyed with by a ghost.

Rumble!

The attacks poured down from random directions at unpredictable times. Just when Magic seemed to tangle and concentrate, something would violently erupt, as if a door had opened in thin air.

The latest attack was a firestorm. The explosion completely swallowed a guard post, melting the ground into grotesque shapes. The prisoners who barely escaped the blast fled without looking back. Orange flames viciously licked at the heels of those frantically flying or sprinting away.

Roars and explosions. Similar scenes repeated several times, and with each blast, even the troll standing far away could feel the heat singeing his fur. Shockwaves traveled through the earth. Finely pulverized concrete fragments pelted every direction like bullets. A few pieces grazed his cheek, but the troll didn't flinch. The red line vanished instantly as his skin regenerated. He was too enraged to care about such minor injuries. He shouted roughly into his Communicator.

"Hey, command center! You need to figure something out! What are we supposed to do if we all get wiped out like this?!"

Damian, situated in the command room, didn't have any brilliant ideas either. He could only reply through his Communicator, telling them to hold on somehow. The troll spewed a barrage of curses in response, but that only lasted a few seconds.

Boom! The transmission cut off with a massive explosion. The troll no longer responded.

Damian felt the blood in his head run cold. He glared at the situation board, as if an answer would pop out of it.

'This is strange. It makes no sense. From start to finish... it's all so bizarre.'

It was already unexpected that Asif-666 possessed this level of firepower.

But what was even more surprising was his method of launching the airstrikes.

Whoosh!

Shadows swept across the ground like a tidal wave.

"Damn it, here it comes again! Run!"

"This is crazy!"

The darkness violently overflowed, refusing to spit out what it had swallowed. Those who witnessed it desperately avoided the black boundaries, scrambling to widen the distance whenever it crept closer.

And what of those who were swallowed?

Prisoners with special abilities occasionally reported back. They could sense people still breathing inside. There was no way to tell if they were a handful of lucky survivors, a visible fraction among many, or simply dying victims counting their last moments.

The prisoners fleeing the Magic bombardment and the shadow monster's assault soon ran into another ambush.

"Cough! Urk... Blegh!"

"It's a curse! It's that bastard's doing!"

An orc prisoner's chest swelled before he began to vomit violently.

He threw up small, leech-like creatures coated in glistening slime. He continued to heave endlessly. Since he didn't remember eating a bucket of flatworms for lunch, the route of infection was obvious.

It was Magic.

Other victims kept appearing one after another: prisoners scratching their skin like madmen; prisoners collapsing while leaking reddish-brown slime from every orifice; prisoners losing their teeth, hair, and nails while suffering from acute muscle weakness; and prisoners giggling as they chewed on their own fingers.

Their common denominator was clear.

"Fall back and avoid the smoke! It triggers a curse the moment you touch it!"

At some point, the surrounding smoke had taken on a bizarre glow. Its vibrant hues resembled the warning colors of highly venomous animals. Desperately evading it, the prisoners threw themselves out of the way. They retreated, dragging their cursed comrades along.

Damian gritted his teeth. At this point, he had to admit it: Asif-666 was a monster they couldn't stand against with this level of troops. The moment he targeted the Terminal, the collapse of their defensive line was a foregone conclusion.

The Committee had made a miscalculation.

However, one question remained unresolved.

'Why isn't he killing anyone?'

A prisoner caught Damian's eye as he stared at the screen. An elf was dancing around with his own freshly bitten finger bone clamped between his lips like a toothpick. It was self-cannibalistic delirium.

If he could successfully inflict such a curse, taking their lives directly would be child's play. But no one was dying. Not a single prisoner was dying on the spot.

'He's a fugitive anyway, so he has nothing to lose. He shouldn't be in a position to worry about things like property damage anymore.'

Furthermore, Asif-666's actions resembled a siege rather than an annihilation battle. It was absurd. A single prisoner was surrounding and herding hundreds of his peers. As they dodged the bombardments, the shadows, and the bizarre smoke, they naturally converged on one area.

Around the control tower.

Damian looked at the map. Their initial strategy was to concentrate their forces at the control tower in the center of the Terminal and defend it at all costs. They had assumed Asif-666 would eventually target it. He would likely use something like the Happy Bug to incapacitate the operational staff and flee off-world.

But Asif-666 didn't seem interested in the vessels that would serve as his escape method. Damian looked at the collapsed maintenance bay and the ships buried beneath it. He then stared at the prisoners who had been guarding other areas, now being herded toward the control tower like prey in a drive hunt.

'From his perspective, he should be focusing on luring the prisoners away from the control tower or picking them off individually to reduce their numbers... but he's driving them straight toward it instead!'

At this rate, nearly everyone inside the Terminal would be packed around the control tower.

'Is he planning to wipe everyone out in one fell swoop?'

If so, it made no sense to herd them toward the control center. He couldn't afford to kill the essential personnel stationed there.

Damian felt extreme confusion.

'What are you plotting?!'

He turned his gaze toward the inbound slot, where space warped and sparks continuously flew.

The Committee's forces, entirely unaware of this chaos, were steadily approaching this dimension even at this very moment.

   *

Jenkinson looked around, his expression filled with deep emotion.

Dozens of Ancient Dragons had gathered to weave a spell together. He hadn't seen such a sight since the ancient wars. It was the result of the emergency Balaur Council held in Hong Kong not long ago.

Instead of gathering the entire dragon race, only the Ancient Dragons had been summoned. The agenda was that sensitive, and they needed to maintain absolute secrecy. Opinions had been divided right up until the end, but they managed to reach a consensus by a narrow margin.

It was too early to wage an all-out war against the Committee. Under such circumstances, the proposal from the prisoner Asif-666, who volunteered to take the lead and run wild, sounded quite attractive to several Ancient Dragons. He had even prepared plausible evidence to back it up.

As a result, the dragons gathered here today. Their goal was to steadily chip away at the Committee's forces that had already taken root on Earth or were about to be deployed.

And Asif-666 would shoulder all the blame. He was acting as a scapegoat of sorts. Though they moved for the same purpose, the sins would be borne entirely by the prisoner—a man already branded a criminal. Jenkinson felt deep concern, but Minjun refused to bend, insisting this was the only way to succeed.

Meanwhile, the other dragons weren't worried about Minjun; they naturally feared the backlash that would fall on them if the plan failed. Because of that, they were desperate in their own right. Painting a perfect picture for the dragons—reaping all the practical benefits while dodging the blame—required considerable effort.

"That shadow... it never tires, just rampaging however it pleases! Hey, it's about to bounce off somewhere else again. Celtemerian! Block that spot properly! The shadow is about to touch my poison fog!!"

"I'm doing my best too. Hold on a second. I'll change its direction so it veers away from there."

The prisoners at the Terminal were currently under an illusion. They believed Asif-666 was hiding near the airport, controlling the shadow monster.

However, the Ancient Dragons were doing that job in Minjun's stead. Strictly speaking, "controlling" it wasn't the right word. Rather than directing it where to go, they simply blocked its path so it couldn't enter certain places. That was the absolute limit of their influence over the monster.

It was true that Asif-666 had summoned the monster. But once he unleashed it in the Terminal, an Ancient Dragon set up invisible walls around it and triggered gravitational pulls. Guiding the monster in the intended direction was all they could manage. It was as exhausting as herding a raging bull consumed by madness.

The poison fog designed to be mistaken for a curse, the Magic airstrikes, and the attacks tearing at the barrier were all the handiwork of the Ancient Dragons.

At this very moment, Asif-666 was not at the New York Terminal. They had merely staged it to look that way.

Jenkinson averted his gaze.

"It's almost ready."

Where his eyes landed, another group of Ancient Dragons had gathered, straining themselves. From the very beginning, they had been focusing solely on chanting a single spell. They paid no attention to the bombardments devastating the Terminal, dedicating everything to this one spell.

Flash!

And finally, it was complete.

   *

Minjun recalled the past.

The tentacle creature that had slaughtered test subjects bearing an exact resemblance to humans.

Since he had already decided to intervene, he pondered how to stop its actions.

'Should I give the test subjects the power to defeat the tentacles?'

It was not only highly improbable but also far too exhausting.

'Or should I chase the tentacles away myself?'

But what came after chasing them away?

Eternally monitoring beings capable of swimming through the sea of stars was far too annoying.

He reached a conclusion.

He had to give the tentacles a reason not to kill the test subjects.

But how?

It would have been easier if they attacked for food, but right now, the tentacles were reacting solely because they found the test subjects repulsive. They were killing them just as someone would swat a bug—simply because they triggered a physiological sense of disgust.

Was there a way to forcibly strip away the hatred one group harbored for another?

He shook his head. It was naturally impossible. Unnatural methods were equally out of the question. Formulating a suitable feed for those tentacles would turn the planet into a dead star in the process.

Furthermore, since the hatred hadn't stemmed from practical judgment in the first place, it couldn't be eliminated through logic or persuasion. They possessed no shred of the pity or empathy needed for coexistence. They only showed the exact opposite: pure repulsion.

'I can't make them stop hating.'

And he couldn't command them not to feel emotions.

Instead, there was one viable option.

'I must separate the two groups.'

So they could not see each other.

So the haters and the hated could never cross paths again for eternity.

However, he couldn't force the test subjects to leave the planet. The ones to leave had to be the invasive species.

Then, what was the method to make the tentacles leave voluntarily? For him to personally go to that planet to direct traffic would be a massive waste...

'Wait, do I actually have to descend there?'

It was enough to just make it look like he had descended.

'Right. That works best.'

He decided to persuade the tentacles.

And when he stood before them, his appearance had to be something that race felt compelled to listen to and be persuaded by.

   *

"The situation doesn't look easy, Representative."

"I'm watching it too."

At her subordinate Dotes's words, Del replied while keeping her eyes on the screen.

They were in the Earth representative office of the Pan-Dimensional Sentient Relocation Committee, the same as usual. The criteria the Committee's heads used to choose the office's location over seventy years ago was simple. In 1945, on the official founding day of the United Nations, the aliens had made contact with Earthlings through that organization. They had waited for the creation of an institution capable of representing the will of the majority of Earth's population before reaching out.

At the time, the UN headquarters was located in New York. Naturally, the Committee's representative office was established in the same city.

In other words, the Princess of Endelion was currently in New York.

To be more precise, the entrance leading to her location was connected to New York.

"It looks like Asif-666 has shown up, but they can't manage to catch him."

The tentacle's deep gaze remained fixed on the screen. Explosions continued, and prisoners could be seen flying in all directions like ants swept up in the wind.

She muttered to herself.

'Is he really planning to escape that way? It wouldn't be impossible if he knew the Emergency Jump Code... but surely nothing good can come from causing such a massive uproar and drawing so much attention?'

In the exact moment she harbored those doubts.

Crash! Boom!

Her subordinate, Dotes, doubted his ears for a second. An incredibly clear roar had echoed out, entirely distinct from the explosions coming through the screen. Had his superior, that tentacle, suddenly turned up the volume?

Unlike her subordinate, the tentacle creature didn't doubt the origin of the sound. The physical capabilities of her body were far too extraordinary for her to confuse a sound from the screen with one happening nearby.

As if to prove her senses correct, an artificial voice blared throughout the entire building.

"Warning! Warning! Intruder detected! Intruder de—!"

"W-What?!"

Dotes screamed in sheer panic. His eyes trembled violently.

Who on earth would invade this place?

Since the Earth representative office had been empty for a while, it had never been targeted by extremist groups. Ironically, after the long vacancy ended and a new representative took office, the chances of an attack had dropped even closer to zero. It even felt like a perfectly reasonable choice to send the prisoners guarding this place to the Terminal as requested earlier today.

And for good reason. After all, the species residing inside this subspace, carved out through massive spatial distortion, was...

Endelion.

Who would dare break into a 'lair' guarded by a tentacle monster with a six-kilometer radius!

Bang!

"Gasp!"

Fwoosh!

The moment the roar echoed, now much sharper and closer, the last thing Dotes saw was a dense darkness thickly blanketing every direction.

And with that, his thoughts were cut short.

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