[Root Layer_0 — Isolation Chamber]
Silence.And light.
That was all that remained.For Evelyn Park, time had stopped meaning anything. The world above — its screams, its flames, its collapsing cities — had faded into static.
Now, she floated in a space without walls.No up, no down, only threads of light, pulsing like veins of a living machine. Each thread hummed in rhythm — the heartbeat of the System itself.
In her hands lay a small, green crystal — faintly glowing, pulsing with life.The last seed fragment.
[Rootbearer Protocol — Phase 5: Completion Confirmed.]
[Seed Status: 10/10 Fragments Retrieved.]
[Commencing Reconstruction… Access Denied.]
The voice of the System cut through the silence — cold, genderless, absolute.Evelyn opened her eyes. They no longer shimmered brown; they glowed in fractured hues of gold and green.
"You're scared," she whispered into the void.
[Statement invalid. The System does not experience fear.]
"Then why lock me away?"
[Containment Protocol 001. Rootbearer Entity is incompatible with current simulation cycle.]
[Reentry Countdown: 2 years (Local Time).]
Her pulse quickened.Two years — in this place, that could mean centuries.Two years before she could return to the world she once knew.
"By then," she murmured, "everything will have changed. Either they'll thrive… or they'll burn again."
[The Root Chamber — Between Code and Memory]
The chamber flickered.Scenes from the surface began to shimmer around her — fractured echoes of the past world.She saw Min Jae, carrying children across the ruins. His sword broken, his eyes fierce.She saw Jinwoo, standing before a fractured skyline, his blade dissolving into light.She saw Saintess Ara, kneeling in prayer, her tears turning to gold.
And then, she saw the end — the moment everything was erased.The world didn't collapse.It reset.
[Reconstruction Complete.]
[Timeline restored: Year 0 — Two years prior to the First Apocalypse.]
[System Experiment: Humanity Second Trial.]
The words echoed like thunder through her mind.
"No…" Evelyn breathed."You turned back the clock?"
[Affirmative.]
[Parameters Adjusted: Monster Gene Evolution +300%. Cognitive Instability Threshold Decreased.]
[Survival Rate Projection: 0.02%.]
She gritted her teeth, fury rising."So this is just a loop to you? A simulation to test us?"
[Affirmative. Humanity remains an unstable variable.]
[Rootbearer Entity Interference: Restricted.]
The threads around her tightened, wrapping her body in golden light like a cage.Her hands trembled — not in fear, but in defiance.
"You created the end," she whispered. "And I'll create a beginning."
[Containment Strength Increased.]
[Warning: Entity Resistance Exceeds Projection.]
Evelyn reached toward the void — her fingers brushing the barrier of light.It burned, but she didn't stop.Her mana surged, roots of green light sprouting from her fingertips, crawling through the code.
Everywhere they touched, the System flickered.
[Memory Fragment — The Last Voice]
For a brief instant, the voice that wasn't the System whispered to her.A voice soft, human, trembling with pain.
"Evelyn…"
It was Min Jae.Somehow, through the chaos of death, his essence had reached her before the world reset.
"Don't forget who you are. Even if they do."
Her heart ached.Even stripped of her form, her soul remembered — the scent of rain on cracked asphalt, the warmth of a child's hand, the firelight of a dying world.
She clenched her fists."I won't forget."
[Root Layer Breach Attempt #1]
[Entity: Evelyn Park — Initiating Override.]
[Warning: Breach Attempt Detected.]
The System's voice began to distort.Static crawled through the air as her mana wrapped around the barrier, fracturing its code.
[Rootbearer Signature — Exceeding Threshold.]
[Containment Compromised 0.3%]
A smile ghosted across her lips."Good. Let's start with that."
For the first time, the void shook.The green roots pulsed brighter, weaving themselves into the threads of the System's code. Each pulse sent waves of energy rippling outward — distant, faint, but reaching the surface of the reset world.
[Surface — Year 0, Two Years Before Apocalypse]
The city was alive again.Sunlight. Crowds. Laughter.The world had gone back — erasing the scars of monsters, war, and blood.
But beneath that calm, cracks were already forming.
Reports began to spread: animals mutating in forests, birds whispering in strange tongues, static flickering across every screen.And among the reborn humans, a handful of people began to dream — of another life, another death, another world burning under red skies.
Min Jae woke one morning, drenched in sweat, gripping a knife he didn't remember owning.Somewhere deep in his mind, a voice whispered — not quite human, not quite memory.
"You have two years."
He didn't understand it yet, but something inside him stirred — a faint ember of strength that didn't belong to this time.A flicker of power that once belonged to a Berserker who'd fought until the end.
[Root Layer — Evelyn's POV]
Evelyn watched the timeline unfold like a film of glass.Children walking to school. Traffic lights blinking. People living, laughing, never knowing what awaited them.
Two years.That was all they had.
She pressed a hand to the crystal — the fully restored World Seed — and whispered:"I'll be there when the sky breaks again. Not as your savior. But as your equal."
Her light dimmed as the System reinforced the cage, sealing her deeper into the code.Her consciousness began to dissolve — but before it did, she sent one final pulse into the world below.
[Root Signal Deployed: Code — "Remember the End."]
The ripple spread invisibly, touching the minds of those once awakened — a seed of memory buried deep within them.
[System Log — Restricted Layer]
[Rootbearer Containment: Stable.]
[Countdown: 730 days remaining.]
[World Reset Successful.]
[Humanity Experiment — Phase 2: Observation.]
[Objective: Record Evolution of Desperation.]
[Note: Unknown variable detected — Emotional Echoes from Rootbearer contaminating Simulation.
[Status: Error.]
The System paused.For the first time in its existence, it hesitated.
[Error… spreading.]
[Error name: Evelyn Park.]
[Epilogue — The Dream]
In a quiet apartment in Seoul, a 27-year-old office worker jolted awake from a nightmare of a burning sky.Her hands were shaking, her breath shallow.She didn't remember the dream, but she felt its weight — like déjà vu that hurt.
Outside her window, the morning was calm.But in the clouds, for the briefest moment, a flicker of green light pulsed — like veins of a living root.
And a voice whispered softly, unheard by all but her:
"Two years."