The Age of Confusion
Through her in-ear communicator, Yoon Choi tried to tell everyone that a third force was operating in the area.
Not until the life-form picked up by radar had been confirmed with the naked eye.
Bird-footprints.
“They’re a group called Evolve. Just like us, they’re after the core of the Infector housed in the lab.”
Suddenly, Jack Kalt’s words came back to her in vivid detail.
Especially the secret mission he had given her.
“There’s a laboratory hidden in the canyon. I’ll offer a bounty worth 500,000 points to whoever finds it first. However, the annihilation of the Mungi has to remain the top priority. Understood? And one last thing: never, under any circumstances, go inside the lab. If you enter on your own, you’ll have to accept expulsion from the clan.”
Evolve was clearly looking for the laboratory Jack had mentioned.
Yoon Choi thought that if she followed them, the lab they were after would surely turn up sooner or later.
If the others—especially the users from Quantum—find out about this, all it’ll do is lower my odds of getting the 500,000 points.
Besides, the Korna raid was nearly over anyway.
So trailing them in secret and figuring out the lab’s location wouldn’t have much of an impact on the Mungi raid.
Once she secured the location, she could simply report it through her private channel to Jack Kalt.
That would net her over a million points once the 500,000-point bounty and the mission-clear reward were added together.
Then I can cure Dad.
A hopeful future spread out before her.
Before she knew it, Yoon Choi had clenched her fist.
The decision was made.
She would follow Evolve. In silence, without even letting her comrades know, she trailed after the group of more than twenty people.
The ability of Yoon Choi’s Omega Suit, Whisper, sharpened her hearing far beyond its natural limits.
Even from a distance, their voices began to come through clearly.
“To think Infector and users would fight at such a crucial moment.”
“I know. At this rate, could a holy war break out?”
“Haaah, I thought we’d be able to recover the Holy Grail so easily and meet the glorious Lord Evolve...”
“Let it be. For now, let’s focus on recovering the Holy Grail. Didn’t Assistant Bishop Karon say so? That a holy war was unavoidable.”
“Is that really true?”
“Why wouldn’t it be? A holy war isn’t just a fight over the Holy Grail, you fool. It’s also the act of saving those possessed by demons, or Infector like us who’ve never received the blessing.”
“I-I see... Assistant Bishop Karon really did sharpen his blade for this, didn’t he?”
“And it’s not just Lord Karon, either. With Lords Amia and Ucal leading the front lines of the holy war as well, all we have to do is follow quietly.”
“Right. That’s how it should be. But is the place where the Holy Grail is stored still far off?”
“Mm! Just got word. It’s not far from here. A little farther west and that’s it.”
That was where Whisper cut out.
Since it only amplified the sounds of her chosen target, she couldn’t ignore the strain it put on her power.
I’ve got to leave enough fuel to get myself out alive.
Judging how much power she had left, Yoon Choi followed them down the winding slope of the canyon.
They were outside the area designated for the Mungi raid, but as a helper she had already memorized the entire terrain in advance.
There was no shortage of places to hide a single body.
Between those rocks over there. If I come out through that gap and then slip into the hole in the cliff, it’ll be perfect.
As she headed west, she finally saw the place they had been talking about.
Holding even her breathing still, Yoon Choi gauged the number of people gathered in the broad clearing.
Sixty-nine people. That’s a hell of a lot... Is this the lab entrance? If so, then I don’t need to follow any farther, do I? I can just report from here.
Yoon Choi had no interest in taking unnecessary risks.
At this point, hadn’t she found the laboratory and confirmed the approaching threat?
She was just about to quietly turn back and find a good moment to retreat when one of the cultists standing before the smooth cliff wall began pressing against it.
Strangely enough, each press caused parts of the wall to sink in, forming perfect squares.
So it’s like a password.
Once all of them were inside, the door might close behind them.
Which meant that if she wanted to report it, she had to memorize that password.
Postponing her return for a moment, Yoon Choi committed the positions and sequence of the presses to memory.
After a total of eight presses, the entire wall finally slid inward on its own.
As the stone wall receded and slowly disappeared to the side, a massive passageway was revealed beyond it.
Why aren’t they going in right away?
Yoon Choi stared at the three people standing at what appeared to be the laboratory entrance.
Judging from the conversation she had overheard, those three must have been the ones who had risen to the rank of assistant bishop.
Karon, Amia, Ucal. Hell if I know which is which.
Yoon Choi wanted a decisive victory in the battle to come.
If she could uncover their purpose and prepare for their actions, Quantum—and even Blood Rain—would be able to preserve more of their elite forces and profit from it for a long time.
This isn’t a matter of seeing them once and being done with it. I need to keep as many team-leader types alive as I can.
So she kept gathering more information.
Hiding her breath, Yoon Choi used Whisper.
Because it was an ability that caused power to plummet the moment it was activated, she set the duration as short as possible.
Her targets were the three standing before the entrance.
Their voices began to reach her.
“From this point on, we will secure the Holy Grail and conduct the holy war.”
“Let it be!”
“I, Assistant Bishop Karon, will oversee the preparations for the holy war.”
“Ooooh!”
“Before entering, we shall hear the final words of Assistant Bishop Amia.”
Assistant Bishop Karon. So he was the one leading the holy war.
She had gotten the important information, so now it was time to leave.
Yoon Choi slipped into a blind spot where they couldn’t see her and hid herself to move away from the spot. But then—
“I’ll kill you! That rock back there! The bitch slipping out like a rat from behind it! I’ll kill her!”
The shout sent a chill crawling up Yoon Choi’s spine.
At the same time, Whisper was forcibly canceled.
But the voice of the person called Assistant Bishop Amia did not vanish.
It drew even closer.
And then, right above her head—
“I said I’d kill you!”
Assistant Bishop Amia had already leaped into the air and, with a thunderous cry, swung the sickles clenched in both hands.
***
They said a wounded beast was the hardest to deal with.
The Mungi was exactly that kind of foe.
It was far more ferocious and powerful than it had been in the game.
In other words, it was desperate.
It must have thought that if it couldn’t kill him in a short, decisive exchange, then it would be the one to die.
That was why it had hurled itself forward and unleashed those rapid-fire blasts so recklessly.
Jack Kalt was pushed back by that force, but thanks to it, I was able to get in close.
Desperation narrowed its vision.
The Mungi had prepared an ultrasonic attack, fixated on Jack Kalt’s frantic attempts to dodge its strikes.
It had clearly missed Sung-jun, who had been calmly waiting for his opening, intent on ending the creature before it could escape.
In the end, I pulled this off thanks to Jack Kalt unknowingly playing bait.
From the beginning, Yoo Sung-jun had intended to pour out everything he had.
Everything except one thing: adrenaline.
Once used, it would leave him in the grip of a vicious, paralyzing weakness five minutes later.
A helpless exhaustion neither resistance nor control could avert.
You can’t control hormones.
He had thought he might have no choice but to use it depending on the situation, but once he actually fought, he realized he didn’t need to drag it all the way to the very end.
So he unleashed everything except adrenaline.
The brachial strike that burned through 40 percent of the suit’s power and nanomass, the fusion of hyperventilation and compressed breathing, the pinpoint concentration that exposed every opening.
The strike sequence linked together as smoothly as flowing water.
And perfection gave birth to victory.
RUMBLE!
“Haa... haa...”
Yoo Sung-jun steadied his breathing and looked down at the Mungi, split cleanly in two and collapsing to the ground.
It was over. A short, crisp finish.
While everyone else was busy holding back the Infector or wearing them down in battle, he had killed the highest-priority target first.
Did I get it?
“Shut up, Loki.”
I was only trying to joke... I feel like I barely did anything this time. It feels like I had zero part in this mission.
“You knocked those bone fragments aside like a proper Ultimate Shooter. That’s enough.”
Loki fell silent.
She knew, after all, that she really hadn’t done much.
Knocking away the bone fragments? That hadn’t even been her own doing. It had been done under compulsion, not by choice.
She had only fired at whatever Yoo Sung-jun’s finger pointed to, based on the target-designation ability.
“I-it’s over?”
At Jack Kalt’s cautious question as he approached, Loki answered in his place.
BOOM! The Mungi’s corpse was shredded into rags by merciless gunfire.
The sight made the tension in Jack Kalt’s face loosen at last.
“Since I mixed the Cell Degenerator into the sword strike, there won’t be any transfer of the Mungi’s death to Kalakwa.”
“Haaah...”
Jack Kalt let himself sink fully into the feeling of relief draining through him.
It felt like he had just climbed over the highest mountain.
“Did my briefing help?”
“Would it be a lie to say it didn’t?”
He hadn’t fired a chain once, hadn’t fired a gun once.
Still, it had helped quite a bit.
The near-precognitive power he had derived through analysis.
Thanks to that, they had managed to raid without losing anyone to a fatal breach.
Now all that remained was dealing with the Infector they hadn’t finished off yet.
Yoo Sung-jun and Jack Kalt postponed their return and began contacting the team leaders.
First, I need to check on my little brother.
Yoo Sung-jun steadied his ragged breathing as he sent out the transmission.
The recoil is heavier than I expected.
Using adrenaline would make things much easier, but that really had to be reserved for the very last resort.
“Sung-hwan. We’re done on this end. How about you?”
-We’re done too, but... this is bad.
At his little brother’s urgent voice, Yoo Sung-jun felt his blood run cold.
Still, fortunately, it wasn’t the worst-case scenario he had feared.
-Right as we finished off Korna, we confirmed that Yoon Choi’s gone missing. Her comm signal is cut off too.
For a moment, he thought maybe Jeyca had been injured or gone missing.
That didn’t mean this wasn’t serious, of course, but either way, Yoo Sung-jun always put the party’s safety first.
Relieved on the inside, he hurriedly asked, “Any trace? Did you find anything?”
-We’re tracking her with Ryong-i’s nose right now. I think we’ll find her soon, but... huh?
“What is it? What happened?”
After that startled cry, the transmission cut out.
Fortunately, it resumed a few seconds later.
This time the voice was different—undeniably flustered.
-T-there’s blood everywhere.
“Blood?”
-Yeah, and the trail stops right at the cliff wall. There are tons of footprints too.
“Where is it?”
Jack Kalt cut into their conversation.
His face was as cold as ice as he flexed the chain gripped in his hand.
Before long, he lifted his head, eyes full of apology, and spoke.
“This is my fault. I shouldn’t have given that order and called it a secret mission, but it seems to have motivated Yoon Choi in the wrong direction, and she overdid it.”
“A secret mission? What kind of bullshit did you feed the clan members to make them leave the operation and create a mess like this?”
This time, Yoo Sung-jun wasn’t going to let it slide.
At Jack Kalt’s confession, he grabbed him by the collar.
“Did you tell her to sneak off and find the lab? Is that why Yoon Choi ran out without the others?”
“...Yes.”
“Hah. Why the hell would you do something like that? You still didn’t trust us?”
“That wasn’t it. I simply thought that place should be erased as quietly as possible.”
“Erased?”
“Meteor-nim said it himself. A great threat includes not only one’s own life, but also a massive loss or disappearance.”
“Enough nonsense. Get to the point.”
He let go of Jack Kalt’s collar roughly.
After taking a few breaths, Jack Kalt said, “There’s a high probability that a completed ‘entity’ is already there. I was going to... cough—remove it before it was exposed to too many people. If it were unleashed for any reason, it would obviously lead to greater loss.”
“Crazy bastard.”
At his explanation, Yoo Sung-jun imagined the “entity” that might be waiting in the lab.
Most likely it was some sort of Infector or a human-shaped thing created by feeding it cultured Infector cores.
And Jack Kalt had intended to eliminate it in secret.
Why? The answer was obvious if he thought about it even a little.
Because there was a chance—however slim—that one of us might think it could become an ally and end up releasing the thing.
Jack Kalt had apparently carried out this mission in secret to account for that possibility.
It was a more benevolent judgment than expected, but he was wrong.
“You trusted yourself far too much. At the very least, you should’ve told me.”
“...I’m sorry. I thought that making the right call was something I alone could handle.”
“Forget it. Sung-hwan, tell me the location.”
-Uh, the place is...
As soon as Yoo Sung-jun and Jack Kalt heard the location, they kicked off the ground.
They didn’t forget to order the party that had finished the raid to provide immediate backup.
A third party had come here, and entered the laboratory.
The two of them had no doubt at all that that force was Evolve.
---