The Age of Adaptation

Ping!

The lighter flipped open, and a flame sprang to life.

Jack Kalt brought the cigarette to his lips, took a deep drag, and exhaled slowly.

Rarely, his expression had softened like this.

"How do you feel after wrapping up something big?"

"Hmm... Usually, I guess you’d feel proud or satisfied?"

Yoon Choi, who had been seated across from Jack Kalt and absorbed in typing, paused and tilted her head.

"Once I finish this report, I think I’ll stretch out with a nice sense of satisfaction, too."

"Is that so? If not for you, it would have taken much longer to secure the alliance with Blood Rain, and more importantly, to make contact with Meteor."

"Come on, we’re both getting what we want here, Jack. I get safety and points. You get a shelter."

"Heh. I suppose that’s true."

He drew in another mouthful of smoke.

Then, slowly letting it out, Jack Kalt straightened the chair that had been tilted halfway back.

"Yoon. Your answer is probably the same as most people’s."

"About what? Feeling satisfied?"

She adjusted her oversized glasses with a face small enough to make them look even larger, but she never took her eyes off the report she was working on.

"But why ask something like that all of a sudden, while you’re supposed to be resting? Did you develop some nasty hobby of tormenting your team leader?"

"Haha, no. I feel something different."

"What kind of feeling, exactly?"

"Emptiness."

Fwoof. He exhaled the last of the smoke and ground the cigarette out in the ashtray.

"At some point, I started taking this situation for granted. So no matter what I accomplish, all I feel is emptiness."

"You can live safer, with more power, and with more comfort."

"Because that’s only natural."

"Jack. You’re annoying."

Jack Kalt smiled faintly.

With his fingers interlaced and resting on the broad desk, he let out a nasal hum.

"Mm. That’s why I was curious. A user like Meteor—someone for whom standing at the summit feels natural—might be the same as me. That was the thought."

"And now that you’ve met him?"

"He was clearly different. And yet, in some ways, he was similar."

Interested now, Yoon Choi stopped typing.

She clicked the mouse a few times, then closed the laptop.

"Different but similar... That’s a pretty slippery thing to say."

"It’s simple. He makes his eyes shine at things that anyone else would call impossible."

"Wasn’t that just the visor’s dark coating making it hard to see?"

"You know what I’m like by nature."

"Ah. So it was a metaphor."

Understanding him at last, Yoon Choi opened the report section on her tablet and handed it over.

"I整理了 the alliance discussion notes. Read through them and tell me if there’s anything you want changed."

"As expected, your work has to be recognized ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠even among team leaders."

"Then will you raise my points payout?"

"We’ve already promised to support Meteor with one million, so that would be difficult."

"Tch."

Yoon Choi pursed her lips and stared at Jack Kalt’s face.

His blue eyes, usually as placid as a lake, seemed to catch the moonlight and glimmer.

Oh... So that’s what he meant by saying he was similar.

All the team leaders knew Jack Kalt’s plan.

It included stopping Kalakwa’s awakening.

The moment that monster stirred, it would bring catastrophic ruin to nearby continents, seas, and islands alike.

And that included the shelter Quantum had its eye on.

Even after I drew up a list of shelters outside ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠Kalakwa’s blast radius, he still refused to change it.

From Yoon Choi’s perspective, she couldn’t understand why Jack Kalt was so fixated on a single shelter.

But what could they do? By now, Quantum’s position had become too firmly rooted to even think about moving clans.

If they tell me to do it, I do it. What else can I do? But...

Yoon Choi remembered the video of Meteor’s raid on Kalakwa.

In the tightly compressed footage, he had slaughtered Kalakwa’s limbs, hands, and toes as if there was no chance of the thing ever awakening at all.

He sliced through a Level 6 mid-tier finger like it was nothing.

Back then, he had been at the peak.

There hadn’t even been room left for him to grow stronger.

And he had still cleared it.

But reality is different.

Just ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠because he had succeeded in taking down Muaaz didn’t prove he could casually kill a Level 6.

Muaaz had been counted among Level 6 threats because of its powerful brainwashing and auxiliary abilities.

Putting Kalakwa’s finger on the same level as Muaaz would be an insult to fingers everywhere.

That thing wasn’t Level 6 because its abilities were difficult to counter.

It was a level assigned purely for physical might.

And on top of that, it had a hive mind, and an army made of infectors it had subjugated through force?

So this... would be almost impossible even for Meteor in his current state.

She didn’t know exactly how strong he was, but Yoon Choi could say it with certainty.

To take down a Level 6—let alone a Level 7 infector—his body and suit enhancement would need to be at least Level 5.

"I’ve read it."

"How is it? Perfect?"

Yoon Choi set the tablet down and adjusted her expression at the sight of Jack Kalt.

"You agreed to send only 30 percent of user support to Gimpo Airport Bunker—what we’re calling the Gimpo Bunker for convenience. Raise it."

"Raise it to how much, exactly...?"

"Fifty percent should be fine."

"What? B-but... If we do that, won’t it be harder to manage point acquisition inside Quantum Clan and keep the clan secure?"

"We’ll handle that by putting forward a new proposal to Blood Rain Clan. We’ll cooperate to clear relatively low-difficulty missions around Gimpo Bunker."

"And set the point split at fifty-fifty?"

"Yes. And don’t worry about clan security. It’ll be fine until the global embargo is lifted."

That left a little over eight days.

After that, the world would split between clans and governments that had finished their preparations, each one either brandishing civilians like tools or trying to embrace them.

"And after the embargo is lifted?"

"I’ll step in."

Jack Kalt stood up.

No matter how massive Quantum was, manpower still had limits.

With roughly fifty thousand clan members, and only half of them available after division, they were supposed to control the chaos in America and rein in the lesser clans and violent organizations?

Impossible...

Yoon Choi looked into his eyes again.

And the thought she’d just had vanished.

Those shining eyes, so eerily similar to the words he’d used when talking about Meteor, left her with no choice but to nod.

For him, impossibility was just one of the things that could be turned into possibility.

"Even if we get through Dark Cover safely, you’re still going to feel empty, aren’t you?"

"I suppose I will. But we still have to do our best. So Meteor can focus on raiding Kalakwa’s stasis point. For now, that’s all we need to care about."

Jack Kalt took Yoon Choi’s coat from the standing rack in the corner and handed it to her.

"So even if this operation feels impossible, we trust Meteor."

Accepting his casual kindness, Yoon Choi grinned.

"I’m going to trust the Jack who trusts Meteor."

"Haha. Fair enough."

As Jack Kalt turned away with a smile, his expression grew frighteningly cold.

His mind had already sorted itself into the tasks ahead.

First, find out what Meteor requested. Then, together with Choi Hyun-seok, assassinate the clan leaders of any clans we suspect have ulterior motives.

He distilled it down to just those two things.

Jack Kalt muttered quietly to himself, then headed for the Enter Room.

◇◇◇◆◇◇◇

Whoooosh...

A hard wind blew.

Yoo Sung-jun watched calmly, but his younger brother and Jeyca were different.

"What the hell is this? Did some giant come along and stab the ground with a finger or something?"

"Yeah. If this had been pierced with equipment you can buy in the Enter Room, there’d definitely be a clean cross-section left behind..."

The wind kept blowing.

And not from above, but from below.

Yoo Sung-jun looked down at the ground, then up again.

It had been torn open vertically.

Sunlight, clear and bright, poured in from a place he’d never expected to see it.

Clods of earth and unfamiliar weeds fell from time to time, dropping into the abyss below without so much as a scream.

The cross-section of the terrain lay bare.

The signs looked like something had been ripped open and smashed apart with brute force.

And yet the hole itself was a straight, vertical shaft.

What the hell is this?

No matter how he looked at it, he couldn’t get a read on it.

Did something burst upward from below?

Or did something drill down from above?

The hole was wide enough to fit at least four dump trucks side by side.

Doug Spider Queen isn’t big or strong enough to do that.

But the wind rising from below bothered him a little.

Could some infector that had been sleeping beneath the queen’s nest have come out from even deeper down?

Am I going too far?

He shook his head, then thought about an infector’s intrusion.

Some massive creature had made this hole, and below it, the Doug Spider Queen had...

"Shit."

He grabbed the greatsword roughly and leapt across the hole.

It was a distance of several dozen meters, but his enhanced body and suit gave him all the force he needed.

"Hyung! What’s going on all of a sudden?"

At his younger brother’s voice from afar, he answered quickly.

"Our target might be gone! We have to hurry!"

For all he knew, this wind might have been the aftershock of a fight between the Doug Spider Queen and an intruder.

He had to keep every possibility in mind.

No matter what happened, they absolutely had to secure its mineral matter.

If they failed, then the whole foundation for crafting the Cell Degenerator would collapse right from the start.

"Get over here, now!"

The two of them crossed the hole with ease, following Yoo Sung-jun.

And so the three of them pushed forward faster than before.

As they advanced, they cut down everything that stood in their way.

Without stopping, Yoo Sung-jun asked Loki,

Is there a higher-difficulty mission related to the current mission area?

So that means the thing’s still alive?

What? Why?

Which meant even the supporter didn’t know.

The users simply hadn’t encountered the Doug Spider Queen.

So there was no information, and because there was no information, the mission remained unchanged.

Whatever the case, the conclusion is the same: we won’t know until we get there.

Yoo Sung-jun scanned the surroundings.

He didn’t hesitate, and he didn’t move cautiously either.

He smashed down every Doug Spider he saw and used the accumulated points to crush through them.

But he couldn’t do that anymore.

We’re in front of its nest.

Minerals glittering in a variety of colors had been embedded here and there.

Before him stood a passage far larger than the others.

The moment they turned the corner a few dozen meters ahead, the nest would be laid bare.

"Jeyca. From here on out, keep Danger Sensing active at all times."

"Okay. Will do."

It was a new application of the Appraisal Eye.

Not just the state of a predetermined place or living thing, but the ability to judge its condition in the instant as well.

Through her eyes, the whole world probably looked as if it were bleeding outward in broad strokes of colorful paint.

"Sung-hwan, you use Momentary Prediction as soon as we turn that corner."

"Got it. What should I aim for?"

Yoo Sung-jun tapped the place where his eyes were behind the visor.

"The eyes. Aim for the eyes no matter what. That’s the queen’s weak point."

He said it flatly and moved.

The passage was quiet. But the wind still blew.

Just before turning the corner, he looked back at Jeyca.

She sent a hand signal. Green.

It meant they were still safe.

So he kicked off the ground, and his younger brother, following close behind, raised his rifle.

Infector...!

Something black rushed in hard.

His brother saw it, and Yoo Sung-hwan saw it too.

Within the flash of Momentary Prediction, a shape formed in the eye of Trajectory Eye.

It was a target. The circle and line of a guaranteed hit drew itself in the ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠air before him.

The target shifted a beat ahead of the infector’s intended movement.

All Yoo Sung-hwan had to do was aim at the center.

Then pull the trigger, and that was that.

Bang!

The particle round pierced straight through the black thing’s flashing red eye.

With a dry cracking sound, as if its head had exploded, the creature rolled across the ground.

At the same time, a greatsword came down and pinned the rolling creature in place.

Now he could see it clearly.

This was...?

"Doug Spider?"

It wasn’t the queen.

He had guessed as much from its size.

Yoo Sung-jun stared into the nest sparkling with minerals spread out before him.

It was a vast hollow.

It would have been no embarrassment to compare it to the central hall where Muaaz had once been.

And at the center of that nest—

"Hyung, that..."

"I know. Jeyca. Is it still green?"

She nodded. The follow-up appraisal still meant safe.

And so the three of them witnessed the change in a mission that had once seemed fixed and unchanging.

Loki summarized the variable in a clear, efficient voice.

He thought he knew what mission it was.

He could simply see it.

Beyond the Doug Spider Queen’s corpse—

Whoooooosh!

There was an even larger hole than the one they’d seen before.

A bleak wind was pouring out of it.

Yoo Sung-jun took his gaze off the hole and stepped toward the corpse.

What had killed the creature?

What had drilled through and gone into that hole?

The corpse knew the answer.

He worked through the remaining wounds and the traces left by the ability.

"Ha..."

For the next several dozen minutes, he dug through the Doug Spider Queen’s corpse.

And at the end of it, Yoo Sung-jun found what he was looking for.

At the center of the queen’s abdomen, there should have been a fist-sized jewel.

It boasted tremendous hardness—so great that even a Level 7 infector couldn’t break it.

But it was gone.

As with the holes he had seen earlier, the right conclusion was that it had been pierced clean through.

"Did you figure it out?"

"Yeah. Things are going ridiculously, suspiciously sideways."

The ability that could unleash such absolute destruction that even a hard jewel was erased.

That was probably what had drilled the hole too.

The Permeation ability. Yoo Sung-jun knew of a creature that used it.

A creature that could enlarge and shrink its body at will, while also wielding permeation.

"A part of Kalakwa’s body was here."

"A-a part? What part?"

"The pinky finger. That bastard drilled a path through here."

The vast hole, from which the wind still blew.

Inside it, not Kalakwa’s middle finger, but another part of his body had been buried.