Autophagy

Song Lei dashed out of the shower and put on his clothes. He then walked through the eerie dark corridor to get to the door of room 1408. For some reason, he felt that it was unnecessary to be worried about this being. However, he could never be too much cautious.

After arriving in front of the door, he held and pulled the door's handle. With a creak, the door revealed what was behind it.

Room 1408 was just like how Song Lei had left it. There was nothing that caught his eyes. Of course, other than the human silhouette sitting on the ground, confusedly looking around and possibly scared.

'Wait... How could there be a human here?' Song Lei asked himself. From what he could feel, the thing in front of him was nothing supernatural. 'This should be impossible... I clearly remember being told that Lost One's spawned in corpses... Then what is different about this person? I clearly remember that there was no corpse here...' He contemplated.

"P- Please! Don't kill me!" A timid voice reached Song Lei's ears. 

'A woman huh...' He muttered inwardly. Seeing her shuffle on the ground to get away from him, the only thing Song Lei could feel towards her was pity.

"Don't make too much noise," Song Lei said. Then thinking about what he said, he facepalmed. 'That came out very wrong...' He thought. Looking around, he closed the door behind him and turned the lights of the room on.

There was a girl, sitting on the opposite side of the room. Her brows were furrowed as she clasped her hands over her mouth to obey Song Lei. Suddenly, she broke out into tears, barely keeping her voice down.

She seemed to be about Song Lei's age, seemingly of Asian descent. She was relatively short, about 1.6 meters tall with a thin frame. She had black hair, which was wavy and was cut in a long bob with bangs covering her forehead, accompanied by black eyes which were much less usual for the New World, considering that your hair could be of any color when you came here.

'Well... Now that I think about it if the Lost Ones are spawning into the corpses of others, how did the first Lost Ones come here? Or was there even a first one?' Song Lei asked himself. Dispersing these thoughts, he swirled around The Excommunicator he had taken out before coming into the room and put it back into his soul storage.

Seeing Song Lei make the sword disappear into thin air, the girl's eyes widened even more, rather than becoming relaxed. She tried to back away once more. Unfortunately, her back hit the wall, indicating that she had no room left to escape.

Song Lei walked up to her and crouched, looking right into her eyes.

"You should calm down. I'm not going to hurt you," he said. "I know you are confused and don't know how you got here. If you calm down and think about it a little bit, you'll realize what's going on," Song Lei said with genuine concern on his face. He, too, had been like this once. Although he was in a much worse situation then, it would be a bad experience for anyone to die and find themselves in a completely foreign place. 

As Song Lei's words reached her ears, her brain started working again. The adrenaline running through her bloodstream started lessening in effect. After waiting for about fifteen minutes, her tears slowed down before coming to a stop as she raised her head and properly looked at Song Lei's face for the first time.

'H- How handsome...' Was the first impression she had of Song Lei when she became able to form proper thoughts. However, she shook her head and dismissed that line of thought from her head. Now that she had overcome the initial wave of primal fear, a second one was well on its way.

Countless thoughts spun around her head, hitting the walls of her mind and bouncing around. Where was she? Who was this person? What was his goal and most importantly, Was she in danger?

Out of all these questions, her brain dismissed most of them and picked the most reasonable one.

'Am I in danger?' was the one that was the most important for her survival, her brain decided. To resolve this question, an analysis of the situation was required. She quickly started thinking about how she could've arrived here.

She was going back home after an average day of school. She was in a hurry. As her home wasn't exactly in the safe parts of the city, and the sun was slowly dipping down into the horizon, she didn't want to stay out late and get in trouble with dangerous people.

Then, suddenly, a truck appeared. She wasn't able to hear the horn because of the headset that covered her ears. In an instant, before she could realize what had happened, she was flung away like a potato sack. The rest was darkness.

As all of these memories showered her with confusion, her eyes focused on the person in front of her.

Black eyes with black hair, wearing casual clothes, and standing slightly over 1.8 meters, he had an easing appearance. Especially the look of genuine worry in his eyes helped her calm down a lot.

With the last mental boost, given by Song Lei's gaze, she was able to mutter a proper sentence.

"I've been isekai'd?"

*Smack!

'Oh god...' Song Lei thought as he facepalmed audibly.

"Yeah. Right. You've been isekai'd," Song Lei said tiredly. The girl sighed deeply and looked at her hand.

"Umm..." She raised her head to awkwardly stare at Song Lei.

"Song Lei."

"Y- your name?" She asked. Seeing Song Lei nod, she parted her lips to speak. "K- Kang Mirae..." She muttered timidly. Not knowing how to further the conversation, she said, "Your Korean is really good!"

Song Lei chuckled at her words.

"There are no languages in the New World," he said as he held his hand out. Kang Mirae raised one of her brows and held Song Lei's hand. After getting up, she looked around the place to better understand her surroundings.

"Umm... So is this like..." She muttered, thinking about how to express her thoughts better. "You know... There are- constellations or whatnot and they watch us while we fight in a dungeon or something... Is this place like that?"

Hardly holding himself back from facepalming again, a muffled chuckle escaped Song Lei's mouth.

'This person is slightly delusional!'

"W- What? Why are you laughing?" She asked, slightly angry.

"Well..." Song Lei started explaining as he recovered. "I can't blame you, really. Follow me and don't make many noises," Song Lei said. The apartment hadn't recovered enough to form hordes yet, however, it was always good to be cautious.

Leaving the room, he lead Kang Mirae to room 1407. After entering, Kang Mirae's face contorted with visible discomfort.

"I... Why is..." She tried to speak, however, she couldn't form proper sentences no matter how hard she tried.

'Huh... What's happening?' Song Lei thought. Looking around, he realized that the quake demon was staring right at Kang Mirae. Walking forward, he held the quake demon in his arms and put it in the bathroom.

As soon as he closed the door, Kang Mirae seemed to recover from her discomfort.

"W- What was that!?" She asked anxiously.

"Umm... Sorry. My pet demon doesn't seem to like you much," Song Lei blurted out. However, he was confused too. Normally, the quake demon never acted like this since being domesticated by Song Lei. A lot of people had entered this place without Song Lei's presence and it didn't create any trouble.

'What changed..?' Song Lei thought.

"Pet demon?" Kang Mirae asked. "Oh! So you are a summoner class!" She assumed.

Song Lei sighed once more and gestured her to sit down. Opening his fridge, he took out some food for the girl to eat.

"Well... Sorry to break it to you but this isn't a place like that," Song Lei said. "So no classes or constellations."

Visibly disappointed, Mirae started eating.

"This place seems..." She muttered as she looked around.

"Barren? Yeah," Song Lei finished her sentence for her. "I'm the only one here."

"On this floor?" Mirae asked with her mouth full.

"In this apartment," Song Lei corrected. He was technically not alone, however, it was better for the girl to not know the existence of the ghosts upstairs. 'For now at least...'

From then on, Mirae didn't speak until she finished eating. After washing her hands and mouth, she sat against Song Lei once more.

"You're adapting pretty well," Song Lei said.

"Am I?" She asked. "I'm pretty nervous actually," Kang Mirae said as she squeezed her fists. "I always thought that it would be very fun if I were to get transported into another world... But now, I'm just confused about what I'm supposed to do."

"I can give you some information on your situation. Then, you can decide what you want to do," Song Lei offered. Hearing his words, Kang Mirae went silent for some time.

"Will you... Take something from me as payment?"

"No."

"You won't enslave my soul and make me your puppet for an eternity?"

"Uhm..."

"You seriously won't?"

"Oh, God..."

"Sorry..."

Then, an awkward silence descended into the room. Sitting there awkwardly for ten minutes, Kang Mirae raised her head once more to look directly at Song Lei.

"Tell me...."