You Didn't Tell Me the Start of My Transmigration Was a Gate

Chapter 67 Part 2:  Hidden

Hye-won and Even Sang-Jun soon joined in, but we were still unable to point out the shapeshifter.

We had asked questions like, ‘What is the capital of the United States?’ in order to weed out the Shapeshifters, but if people who lacked common sense were suddenly called out as a monster, innocent victims will be created.

‘It would have been easier to tell if we knew each other.’

We don’t usually think about our childhood memories, so if we knew each other we can easily ask them about it.

But unfortunately, we were all strangers to these students.

So we ended up going the classic route—

“Shapeshifters are monsters, and if they don’t eat properly, they’ll lose their minds from hunger.”

“I suppose the most accurate way is to observe it over time, and try to catch it in the act of targeting a human.”

‘Normally, we would have done that, but… as I’ve said so many times. We have something else to do. If we leave tomorrow, we’ll be able to reunite with Yeon-Won in no time, and if things go on like this, we’ll have to…’

I tried to play it cool in front of Kang Woo-Jung, saying that we weren’t obligated to save them, but we couldn’t just leave a dozen students to fall prey to a shapeshifter.

“Alright then… We have no choice but to make a decision. Either we leave these kids behind like this, or we clear up the shapeshifter, even if it will take some time.”

Hyewon-Unnie spoke up first with a stiff expression.

It was something everyone knew but couldn’t bring themselves up to say.

The atmosphere became somber immediately.

‘It’s a difficult choice.’

Yeonwon-ah…

His face came to mind naturally.

The last time I saw him was when he was leaving the house, looking forward to his new life at the university.

I could still see his well-groomed face with a faint smile on it.

“Why don’t we all take some time to think about it… and we’ll talk about it again in the morning.”

It was hard to form an opinion right now anyway.

Everyone nodded in agreement.

Their faces were full of thoughts.

❖

Under Park Young-chan’s leadership, the students with dyed hair were excluded from suspicion, and they were asked to stand up in order.

Since Pyo Yeon-Won was not a dyed-haired student, he was automatically treated as one of the suspicious ones.

He felt a little uneasy with the way Park Young-Chan’s plan was unfolding, but he had neither the will nor the basis to object to it.

So Eventually, Pyo Yeon-won went to bed in silence.

「Hey, hey! Wake up!」

「You can hear us right?」

「Don’t pretend you can’t hear us! We know everything!」

Pyo Yeon-Won woke up to a loud buzzing of voices.

He hadn’t been able to sleep well the past few days because of these voices and was very exhausted.

‘Just ignore them… If I pretend I don’t hear them, maybe they’ll stop, and I can go back to sleep.’

He pretended to toss and turn and pulled his jumper up to his head.

It wouldn’t do much good since the voices would still be ringing in his head anyway, but at least they wouldn’t be able to see him grimacing.

「Help us! Please!」

「No one can hear us but you!」

‘I can’t hear you, I can’t hear you…’

「We have something precious for us too!」

「You can help us save that precious person, please!」

“Precious?”

Pyo Yeon-won flinched involuntarily, after realizing what he had just done.

「 We wondered if we should ask a human, but… But you’re the only one who can hear our voices!」

Pyo Yeon-won’s heart was shaken by the desperate request.

He doesn’t know what’s going on, but it would be too harsh for him to ignore them if he could actually do something for them.

Thump–

“Huh? Where are you going?”

“I need to go to the bathroom.”

Pyo Yeon-Won headed to the bathroom pretending that nothing had happened.

It was just dawn, so there was no one to see except for those who were on duty.

He entered the innermost cubicle, locked the door, and responded to them for the first time.

“…What should I do?”

❖

Drip, Drip, Drip.

A cool rain fell on top of his head.

Tiny raindrops pattered against the leaves, gently dripping and settling to the ground.

The leaves shed most of the rain, leaving only a few drops to fall directly on the ground.

‘How did I end up out here…’

Pyo Yeon-won had been walking in the middle of a large forest for some time now.

「Just a few more steps and you’ll be in our territory!」

「Our most precious person is sleeping there.」

He didn’t plan to go this far, because if he encountered a monster along the way, there would be no turning back.

But somehow, along the way, he didn’t encounter a single monster.

As if possessed by a Ghost, he simply followed them.

「A little more, a little more, a little more.」

And before he knew it, he was already walking in the middle of the forest.

It seems that what they said about them, ‘Wondering if it was okay to leave it to the humans’ was not a lie.

He was able to go on an escape route that led smoothly like flowing water.

“Wow…”

Exclamations unknowingly leaked out from his mouth.

There were countless large trees in the dense forest, but compared to the giant tree in front of him, it was as small as a child.

He could not see the end of it, and its width was enormous.

「Get in here!」

「You can Enter!」

‘Enter? But there was nowhere to go…’

There was only a giant tree in front of him.

“Where the hell am I supposed to go…”

「It’s right in front of you!」

“There’s only a tree in front of me. What are you talking about? Don’t tell me, It’s this tree?”

「You can do it!」

“It can’t be.”

He ran his hand over the bark of the tree, a little perplexed.

The rough, hard texture didn’t seem like it would allow anyone to enter.

The moment he hesitated to pull out his hand, he suddenly felt a foreign feeling on it.

Buzz!

“Huh?”

A light green glow began to emanate from his fingertips, and the old tree he touched was gradually being covered in a layer of green light.

It was a beautiful sight.

Pyo Yeon-Won stared at it with his mouth open, and then, after being urged on by the voices, he finally took a step forward.

To his surprise, what had been a rough bark just moments before…. Was finally giving way to a path as he stepped forward.

It’s hard to see, but there was indeed a space beyond the dead tree!

「Come here!」

「 Welcome to our space!」

After inserting his entire body into the old tree, Yeon-Won found himself standing in a completely different space.

Just a moment ago, he was in the middle of a lush rainforest, but now he was in a vast grassland.

“Uh!”

「The world outside is not our space, and so we can only communicate using our voices, but inside here is our own, and we can even take shape.」

Small clusters of light, glowing a pale lime green, hovered around him.

Pyo Yeon-Won intuitively realized that each and every one of them was an entity that spoke in his head before.

「Follow me!」

「I’ll take you to our precious person!」

He soon took a step forward, a little mesmerized.

With each step, fluorescently colored spores rose and flew through the air.

It was such an unreal sight.