The Age of Chaos
‘Loki, you must know. No—there’s no way you don’t.’
Please speak. I will answer anything within the knowledge I possess.
‘Good. Mission changes happen when a user witnesses them, right?’
That is correct.
‘Then what if the being involved in this mission is a user? What if the user has already occupied this place—shouldn’t the mission disappear?’
Normally, yes. It should disappear or be replaced by another mission. However, there can be exceptions in certain situations.
‘What kind of exception?’
They sever their connection with us.
‘There’s a way to do that?’
Yes. If they deliberately accept the D-Virus, we detect the contamination and are forced to leave their side. We have to prevent any possible spread of contamination.
So that was it.
Yoo Sung-jun stopped running and stowed his greatsword.
Behind him, the shattered remains of Defoil bodies lay strewn everywhere in a ruinous mess.
It was the corridor collapsed by Butcher’s ambush.
If Yoo Sung-jun couldn’t get through, there was no way they could.
In other words, the one they had just killed was the last.
There were no more creatures guarding the lair of the Death Spoil.
‘This is the entrance.’
Was there still some instinct left from when they had been human?
The door—made as if from spit and mud kneaded together and spewed from a mouth—was covered in bizarre patterns.
The massive thing was shut tight.
Defoil saliva webbed across it, sealing the door firmly as though to make sure it could never be opened from outside or in.
‘Why?’
There were still 610 users on the mission zone.
That number kept nagging at the back of his mind.
If they had left the mission zone, they should have been gone already.
If they hadn’t, then he would have seen them somewhere in this dirt tower by now.
If he still hadn’t found them, then there were only two unexplored areas left.
‘This place and the underground where Butcher came up from.’
His brother and Choi Hyun-seok had fallen underground.
Both of their radios were probably broken, because contact was impossible.
Yoo Sung-jun gripped the NU-101.
It would be a waste of energy to switch to Burst Mode and fire.
He changed it to shot mode and unloaded round after round in rapid fire.
BOOM!
The nano-particle shells shattered the hardened saliva into pieces.
The door jolted in response.
Then the seal came fully loose, and the door slid open under Yoo Sung-jun’s strength.
Beyond it, the lair of the Death Spoil revealed itself.
Something grotesque and unexpected was laid bare before Yoo Sung-jun’s eyes.
“...What the hell is this?”
The Death Spoil was tied to a massive iron scaffold in the shape of a cross.
Its carapace had been carved open, and its innards were spilling out.
Whether it was still alive or not, only faint breaths came in a thin, steady hiss.
The color of the spines packed across its shell was dull to the point of sickness.
The Death Spoil’s head, reminiscent of a dragonfly’s, struggled weakly upward.
Its honeycomb compound eyes were just as dull as its spines.
Its blurred gaze caught Yoo Sung-jun’s figure.
Countless mechanical devices surrounded the creature.
And that wasn’t all.
Tubes from those devices were jammed into all over its body.
Whether they were drawing blood or feeding it, the machines were full of a blue liquid.
There was no way those devices had been made by an Infector.
Which meant...
User.
The source of why the mission had not changed.
The user who had cut themselves off from their supporter was here.
“You’re someone I’ve never seen before. Could this disturbance be your doing?”
A man in a white lab coat stepped out from behind the near-dead Death Spoil.
***
Maybe because the place was as huge and solid as a high-rise building.
Rumble... thud! Crash!
Dodging chunks of debris that fell intermittently with the shaking, Yoo Sung-hwan swallowed the groan trying to rise in his throat.
It felt like fire was raking across his entire body.
They had fallen freely from a dozen floors up to the underground.
The reason their bodies hadn’t been smashed to pieces was right in front of them.
A glass tank, still intact despite collisions with both debris and Butcher.
Blue liquid sloshed inside it.
The two of them had crashed into that tank and just barely escaped from it.
“What... is that?”
“That was the Butcher who shot straight up. So that must have been the tank that kept him asleep.”
Butcher had been unlucky enough to slam into the rim of the tank.
That impact had torn his body in half and crushed it to pulp.
Fragments of viscera, carapace, and flesh were scattered everywhere. The stench was atrocious as a bonus.
Wincing, the two of them treated their injuries first.
“Hyun-seok, sit over there for a moment.”
“Gh... R-right.”
Yoo Sung-hwan had only come away with a body full of bruises, but Choi Hyun-seok was not so lucky.
He had instinctively shielded himself and taken the debris meant for Yoo Sung-hwan.
Because of that, a sharp fragment had sliced his side, and blood was pouring out.
“I’m going to start with a cell regeneration injection and a suturing procedure, okay?”
“Getting a specialist to introduce me to you will rank in the top five best decisions of my life.”
“Stop talking and focus on breathing.”
He pulled the procedure tools and injections from the pocket he’d stored them in.
It had to be done quickly.
There was no telling when or where Defoils might swarm in.
There was no worse time to run into them than in the middle of a procedure.
As if there could be anything worse than this.
Suppressing a dry laugh, he began with a local anesthetic.
This was a compound wound.
It had been pierced by shrapnel, sliced open, and then crushed beneath weight.
It was only because the water in the tank had absorbed part of the impact that things hadn’t been worse.
If that hadn’t happened, the shrapnel pressure alone on his side would’ve caused necrosis.
In every respect, they’d been lucky.
He started by injecting the cell regeneration serum into the stab wound, lacerations, and bruised flesh.
You could think of the injection he had bought in the Enter Room as the internal version of a medicinal foam spray used to treat external wounds.
Luckily, the internal organs weren’t badly damaged.
If he had anesthetized first for no reason, it would only have slowed the drug’s spread.
Yoo Sung-hwan washed Choi Hyun-seok’s side with saline, then injected the exposed organs.
“This’ll sting a bit.”
“Kghhhhh...!”
It was far beyond a simple sting.
The pain came in waves, brutal enough to make a man wish someone would just knock him out.
Choi Hyun-seok clenched his teeth so hard they seemed ready to crack, forcing back a scream.
Fortunately, Yoo Sung-hwan’s treatment ended quickly and calmly.
He carefully injected the damaged organs, then moved on to the anesthesia.
The local anesthetic entering the dermis quickly robbed the area of sensation.
After that, everything went smoothly.
He manipulated two clamp scissors as naturally as if they were extensions of his own fingers.
The nylon thread was tied in a surgical knot, in the form of a surgeon’s knot.
It didn’t even take three minutes.
Choi Hyun-seok was honestly impressed.
Even if every ability had improved thanks to physical enhancement, it was still incredibly fast.
At this level, I could even run without pushing myself too hard.
He finished the dressing by carefully spraying foam over it as well.
That was the end of the procedure.
Choi Hyun-seok’s Omega Suit covered the wound.
That would keep eyes from going to the injury for now.
“Let’s move. We need to get to the transfer point first and find some way to contact the others.”
“This wasn’t caused by a bad signal, was it?”
“We’ll know once we get out.”
At that, Yoo Sung-hwan touched his in-ear piece, then put on his visor.
Now that the immediate fire was out, the strangeness of the situation became easier to feel.
First, that glass tank. He didn’t know what it was made of, but it was absurdly sturdy.
And the surroundings? This wasn’t a place built from the dirt and rocks the Defoils had dragged in and piled up.
“Looks like something people built, doesn’t it?”
At Choi Hyun-seok’s guess, he nodded.
It was a wide, empty concrete space.
When he activated the heat-detection function, all kinds of doors came into view.
Some of them were open.
But they were blocked by debris.
There were four that weren’t open.
The two of them started with the closest one.
They weren’t searching for the sake of searching.
Their goal was escape and nothing else, but both of them shared the same question.
Is this tied to the 610 users?
With that thought running through his head, he kept up the silent search.
The first door was out.
It was jammed shut with debris.
The others were in similar shape.
The ceiling had probably collapsed from the blast just now.
“So now there’s one left?”
“If this one’s blocked too, we’ll have to cut a new path.”
“It’s a shame to waste the cartridge in your Laser Pointer, but we may have to lower the output and cut through the debris anyway.”
With a regretful look, Choi Hyun-seok reached for the door handle.
The Laser Pointer was a near-silent assassination weapon.
With the possibility of needing to break through the ground after escaping underground, it was hard not to regret using such a valuable weapon just to clear a path.
Still, there’s no choice.
He swallowed a dry breath and turned the handle.
Fortunately, the door opened smoothly.
It was nothing like the others, which had all squealed and stuck.
When they opened it and looked inside, both of them froze in shock.
“...What the hell are all these?”
“My God...”
Hundreds of cylindrical glass tubes stretched out before them.
Inside, submerged in blue liquid, were naked human bodies packed shoulder to shoulder.
The moment they saw it, a warning from Yoo Sung-hwan’s supporter flashed up.
Mission cleared. Shall I transfer you to the Enter Room?!@%^%@ Variable detected. An Infector has been detected nearby. Transfer impossible.
***
“What can I offer you? I’m afraid I don’t have much.”
His dirty white lab coat was stained beyond telling—dirt, blood, it was impossible to say which.
It was so oversized that it dragged along the floor as he moved.
A cracked lens in one of his glasses was especially irritating.
The man pushed back his long, shabby brown hair and sat down in a chair.
He had arranged the Death Spoil’s lair as casually as if it were his own bedroom.
He hooked a foot around the chair legs and rolled himself a few feet away from Yoo Sung-jun, grinning.
“You still haven’t answered my question.”
“The disturbance... you mean?”
“Yes. I was too focused on my research in here to check what was happening outside.”
For all he knew, the man might still have been on the side of good—or evil.
Yoo Sung-jun didn’t make a reckless move.
He tried, as calmly as possible, to read the man and the situation.
Can’t tell whether he’s the one who severed the connection you mentioned?
Impossible. Supporters have no such function.
Useless in moments like this.
( Ĭ ^ Ĭ )
Ignoring the crying Loki, he shrugged.
So even the supporter couldn’t tell. Then he’d just have to find out for himself.
He lowered the gun he’d kept aimed steadily the whole time.
To the man, whose face was smiling no matter whether it was raised or lowered, he said, “It was a mission. I was told to find out why the Death Spoil wasn’t leaving its lair. So I was carrying out the mission, and then Butcher suddenly burst up from underground.”
“Oh dear, that was my mistake. I should have anesthetized him more strongly. Once he woke, he must have rushed up in a panic over his master.”
When the man kept shaking his head, Yoo Sung-jun asked, “My companions fell too when Butcher attacked. Is there another way down?”
“Then they fell together with Butcher... oh dear. Oh, dear, dear. This is bad. This is very, very bad.”
“Why?”
“You know, don’t you? Why the mission didn’t change even though there’s a human like me here. Didn’t you ask your supporter?”
“I did. So... you deliberately accepted the D-Virus?”
“Not just me. Everyone took part in this. We devoted ourselves to Evolve, the glorious cult of the New Human Race, and gladly offered our bodies to the holy essence I kept underground.”
The man’s expression changed in an instant.
His face sank into a cold, dead stillness, and only the shape of his mouth twisted.
“They haven’t stabilized yet, so if they sense an outsider, they’ll drag out the evil they’ve suppressed on the surface without mercy. Our believers, and your companions as well, will be in danger.”
The man spread both arms wide.
Sensing something wrong, Yoo Sung-jun brought the muzzle of his gun up again.
“So, since you’ve learned this secret, I’ll give you a choice. Will you cast off your frail human flesh and devote yourself to Evolve? Or will you become the cult’s meal right here and now? If you choose to become a believer, then your companions, and you as well—!”
The man’s eyes turned red.
“I’ll spare you.”
“So that’s what you meant by ‘this is bad,’ you son of a bitch?”
There was no point pretending to be polite now.
From his conversation with the man, he had learned the whereabouts of the 610 users.
And from the beginning, this bastard hadn’t even been one of those 610 humans.
He was a lunatic who had already abandoned his humanity and become an Infector.
Yoo Sung-jun hurriedly asked Loki, ‘Loki. The user count. Now!’
Total: 600 users.
Total: 587 users.
...
Total: 3 users.
It was bad here too.
All the nonhuman things sleeping underground had awakened.