The Age of Chaos
Project Armageddon.
The moment he heard those words, a matching look flashed across Yoo Sung-jun and Choi Hyun-seok’s faces.
“What’s that?”
At Yoo Sung-jun’s question, Jack Kalt blinked slowly.
“I thought neither Meteor-nim nor Choi Hyun-seok would know. This is top-secret even in this world.”
“And you got your hands on it?”
“I was lucky. I found it in the shelter I secured.”
Yoo Sung-jun shot him a flat, suspicious stare.
Was he planning to annihilate the Middle merely to protect this Project Armageddon thing?
What in the world was it that he was willing to throw everything he had at stopping Kalakwa’s awakening?
As if urging him to go on, Yoo Sung-jun tipped his chin. Jack Kalt smiled faintly.
“If telling you everything earns me your sincere help, I’d be glad to explain.”
“Then talk. Perfectly, so I can’t dismiss it as a lie. If you can do that.”
“If I can?”
His eyes shining, Jack Kalt asked the question, and Yoo Sung-jun set the glass vial containing the Cell Degenerator on the desk.
“I’ll do my best to take down the Middle.”
He had already built a massive clan called Quantum.
If he could keep it running steadily, he wouldn’t have to envy a thousand elite troops.
And yet the reason he was fixated on Project Armageddon had to come down to one of two things.
Something that could make him stronger—or something needed to create a perfect defensive system.
Offense or defense.
Either way, the goal was probably the same.
Preparation for the Five Calamities. If it was a factor that made that possible, there was no harm in hearing him out.
Maybe this was a chance to obtain information he had already monopolized, without much effort at all.
“So. Your answer?”
If he didn’t answer now, the deal he’d just put on the table was gone.
Picking up on that undertone, Jack Kalt shrugged.
He stood and pointed toward the door.
“Come with me. It’ll be faster if I show you directly instead of explaining it in words.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Blood Diamond. Do you really think that filthy band of killers is even a threat to Meteor-nim? Of course not. The real issue is something else.”
“...Don’t tell me it’s because of Project Armageddon?”
“Yes. I figured it out before I killed the stalker. How to open the door leading down into the bunker, where it is hidden.”
At Jack Kalt’s words, Choi Hyun-seok’s mouth fell open.
He had led the effort to occupy and remodel this place.
He had practically turned it inside out, and yet he was only hearing this from a third party, so of course he was shocked.
“Choi Hyun-seok-nim, you should come too. The owner of this place is entitled to hear this information as well.”
“Yes... I understand.”
Choi Hyun-seok finally shook off his shock and got to his feet, and Jack Kalt led the way.
With unhurried steps, he guided the two of them toward the central hall.
***
Once the three reached the central hall, they headed for the center.
“Do you know how many years ago this parallel world was destroyed?”
“You mean when all of humanity either turned into Infectors or died?”
“Yes. Meteor-nim, do you think I’m talking about the timeline listed in the game’s setting book?”
“No. This isn’t the same world as the game. Still, it must be at least 140 years old, right?”
“That’s about the same conclusion I reached.”
At Choi Hyun-seok’s interjection, Jack Kalt tapped the floor with the toe of his shoe.
“You’re saying that because you looked at the manufacturing dates stamped on the equipment, aren’t you?”
“And you know something better?”
“Yes. In the journal left behind by the people who ran this project, they said they were the last survivors.”
And it was based on exact records, too.
Jack Kalt stopped tapping and shoved his fingers into the seam between the steel plates.
“In other words, the day they died was the true first day of the apocalypse. One hundred fifty-six years and two hundred eleven days ago. Humanity in this world was already finished.”
“What does that have to do with what we’re talking about? Doesn’t seem like it does.”
“Haha. Have I ever said anything without a point?”
Jack Kalt valued efficiency almost as much as Choi Hyun-seok did.
Yoo Sung-jun gave a small shake of his head, and instead of answering, Jack Kalt lifted the steel plate.
Beneath it, all kinds of wires lay exposed.
He didn’t pry it open just to show us this.
As expected, Jack Kalt followed the path of the wiring.
He lifted and lowered the plate again, tracing the one wire that stood out from the rest—a dark red line.
A wire red as blood.
It ran straight toward the north side of the central hall, where there was nothing but a blank wall.
“...Here it is.”
Jack Kalt murmured, and peeled the steel plate away from the wall.
What was revealed was a red button arrangement forming a geometric pattern.
Without hesitation, as though he already knew the answer, Jack Kalt pressed through the tangle of buttons.
“Choi Hyun-seok-nim. Didn’t you find it strange? It’s been over a century. Does it make sense for power to still be flowing in a place that was used as an Infector nest all that time?”
“I checked the solar panels and wind turbines that were barely still working around here. That’s why there was residual power.”
“Is that really so? Do you honestly think those facilities alone could support the power requirements of this place, which could house several hundred thousand people?”
“There was also a separate battery system. By my calculations, the power stored there alone would’ve been enough to operate the bunker for a short time.”
“Think carefully. It wouldn’t have been just a short time.”
Having apparently finished pressing every button, Jack Kalt took his hand off the wall.
He seemed to enjoy the conversation, because a faint smile played at his lips.
The more the exchange with Jack Kalt continued, the more Choi Hyun-seok looked as if he’d been struck repeatedly by surprise.
Before he realized it, he muttered, “...Right. There’s no way the bunker’s power could’ve stayed on for a whole day with just that.”
He seemed to be remembering the time they had taken down Muaz and cleared out the bunker.
Back then, every light inside the bunker had been blazing everywhere.
“One hundred fifty-six years is a span even a nuclear power plant couldn’t keep up with. Well, maybe if workers had maintained it, it would’ve been possible—but like I said, the world ended, didn’t it?”
So, just as Jack Kalt had suggested, the bunker’s apparent power supply from long ago made no sense.
“What I’m about to show you is the reason the power lasted. And, at the same time, the project sleeping inside.”
Rumble.
The wall made of steel plates slid aside.
When the central hall, which had seemed to have nowhere left to go, revealed stairs descending underground, the three of them could finally see the hidden space below.
Step, step, step.
As the three descended, the lights came on in sequence with their footsteps.
The surrounding darkness slowly brightened.
When they reached the bottom of the stairs, the illuminated underground space came fully into view.
“Here it is. Project Armageddon, hidden inside the Gimpo Airport shelter.”
“This place... existed?”
“That’s beyond surprising.”
Yoo Sung-jun voiced his honest reaction.
In the center stood a cylinder.
Countless wires attached to the glass cylinder stretched upward.
What mattered was the thing resting inside the green liquid that filled the cylinder.
Yoo Sung-jun knew exactly what it was.
No, there wasn’t a user who didn’t know it; it was that familiar.
“An Infector core.”
At Yoo Sung-jun’s low murmur, Jack Kalt nodded.
“Recognized it immediately, I see. That’s right. An Infector core. Since it’s already living independently, it doesn’t need to be maintained. As long as the facility is set up, it will yearn for survival on its own, and convert that instinct into energy.”
That energy flowed throughout the bunker.
So, that was the truth behind the unidentified power source.
But the most important thing, Project Armageddon itself, was still ahead.
Jack Kalt stepped up to the enormous glass tank and ran a hand over its surface.
“The tiny handful of humans who survived were preparing to strike back. That’s this. If we couldn’t make a vaccine, then we’d fight back with the same virus. So they extracted an Infector core they barely managed to capture and raised it. The energy it kept producing was only a bonus.”
“I get why they raised it. They were planning to feed this to another powerful Infector, weren’t they?”
Had he guessed right?
Jack Kalt burst out laughing.
“Puhahaha! That’s right! Exactly! As expected of Meteor-nim. I thought there was nothing left that could surprise me, but you just shattered my expectations.”
“That still wouldn’t change anything. It would only let the Infector skip a few stages of individual evolution.”
The D-Virus was fixated on one thing only: exterminating humanity.
Yoo Sung-jun had tried removing that nature before, too.
In the game, raising Infector eggs through Craving Eggs and trying to rehabilitate them had been the most representative example.
It failed every time. Then Ryong-i appeared.
The one and only creature that held goodwill toward humans.
That was Ryong.
He had finally appeared as an exception.
At any rate, it looked like the people who planned this project had been trying to obtain an existence like Ryong.
“I’m sure it failed spectacularly.”
“Even when they altered the DNA structure to remove aggression, it recovered before long. The same thing happened when they modified it so the only thing it felt was goodwill toward humans.”
As they kept failing again and again, humanity was driven right to the edge of extinction.
And at the end of that road, they carried out their final plan.
“In the end, the goal of using one Infector to eliminate another was revised. They took the most plausible plan and added flesh to it, then moved into final preparation.”
That was Project Armageddon.
“Consume an Infector core altered to preserve humanity, and become an Infector yourself. Then drive the other Infectors away with that power.”
Jack Kalt tapped the glass tank lightly.
“That is the reason this core exists.”
“But they never carried it out. No—couldn’t carry it out is more accurate.”
Yoo Sung-jun could say that with certainty.
Which meant the Infector core had stayed here all this time, simply churning out power.
“Exactly. Their final line of defense failed too.”
They couldn’t preserve their humanity.
They couldn’t keep their reason, and turned into Infectors, killing off the few people who were left.
As he followed Jack Kalt’s explanation, the shape of the truth finally came into view.
The reason that killer group had nearly become the greatest threat.
They had originally been aiming for this place.
Cornered by the coalition in the middle of that attempt, they must have swallowed that core to break the stalemate.
And then, unable to withstand the tremendous power of an incomplete Infector core, they would have transformed into a high-level Infector.
That would’ve been a threat even I’d have trouble handling.
Just imagining it sent a chill down his spine.
Now Yoo Sung-jun understood why Jack Kalt was obsessed with this project.
He was after a source of power strong enough to execute the Five Calamities.
But it was incomplete.
For now, it was nothing more than a biological power plant that produced electricity.
Don’t tell me he knows how to complete the project?
If so, that made sense.
But the words Jack Kalt spoke next were completely unexpected.
“I still don’t know how to complete this project. That’s why I’ve been gathering the scattered journals and combing through the traces of the project based on the information left behind.”
“You mean this thing is in the area we’re going to wipe out when Kalakwa wakes up?”
“Yes. That’s why we need to prepare even more thoroughly. It’s time to reinforce our power.”
“What, are you about to say that since we’ve had our bodies enhanced, we can safely eat that thing? You’re not seriously going to spout nonsense like that, are you?”
“Haha, of course not.”
Jack Kalt smiled and denied it.
“Ryong, was it? The dragon seems to follow your companions very faithfully. No hostility toward humans, no savagery either.”
Yoo Sung-jun’s brow twitched.
But Jack Kalt ignored his reaction and made his offer.
“So why not try an experiment? It’s an Infector, after all. An enemy of humanity—something that should be eliminated. If it still remains friendly to us after consuming the core, then that’s a gain. If it doesn’t, then we simply eliminate it.”
How about it?
Yoo Sung-jun considered the proposal, which sounded almost innocently reasonable.
It wasn’t a long consideration.
After a brief moment of thought, Yoo Sung-jun opened his mouth.