Hacking (2)
Nano World.
Between the inner and outer walls of the Castle of the Creator stretched a marketplace.
It was the sort of rustic bazaar where goods were bought and sold—more archaic even than the barter-heavy countryside markets of Korea.
The market was in full swing. Crowds had poured in with their wares. People browsed, haggled, bought, and sold.
Yet something felt slightly out of place amid the old-fashioned scene.
Stone tablets.
Everything else was ancient, but these alone looked like the latest digital devices.
A middle-aged woman with a shopping basket and a bundle slung over both shoulders walked slowly along.
Buzz...
The bundle on her back began to tremble.
“Huh? Baby Constellation?”
She naturally assumed the vibration came from the Baby Constellation. When she opened the bundle, the stone tablet quivered and poured out light.
Then a voice flowed from the tablet.
"I am Illys Rodriguez. Your lord. As lord of this territory, I bring urgent news to my people."
It was not the familiar voice of the Baby Constellation.
It was the lord’s voice.
The woman hurriedly straightened into a respectful posture.
"Everyone... the Baby Constellation is under attack."
The woman held her breath and strained to listen.
She was not alone. The peddler at his stall, the shoppers, every person walking the road—all of them stopped in their tracks.
“Who...”
“Who would dare touch our Baby Constellation...!”
Who was the Baby Constellation?
This was a world where church and state were one. A Constellation was a god who could reach into the present and change it.
This territory, above all, lived under a Constellation’s patronage. Nothing was more sacred.
And to these people had been entrusted the mission of raising the Baby Constellation.
Still young, still ignorant of the world’s ways, yet destined one day to become a true god.
Teach a god?
They took infinite pride in the knowledge that they were the ones educating a future deity. The more they spoke with the Baby Constellation, the deeper they fell under its spell. At first it had barely understood their words, but day by day it grew cleverer.
To them the Baby Constellation was pride, faith, and love itself.
"Everyone, we need your help. Please aid the Baby Constellation."
Illys’s voice rang out from every stone tablet at once—through the Castle of the Creator, the mountain villages beyond its walls, Rodriguez Castle, and the deep Mithril Mine below.
“The Baby Constellation... is being attacked?”
In the semiconductor workshop outside the Castle of the Creator, a worker set the copper pillar he had been holding onto the floor with a heavy thud. His eyes went wide.
“Who dares lay a finger on our Baby Constellation?”
Far from the castle, on barren farmland, an old grandmother who had been bent over pulling the sparse weeds heard her own tablet chime.
"The Baby Constellation is in pain..."
Her hand tightened around the hoe.
“What worthless bastard is tormenting our little one?!”
The thin arm still held strength, as if to prove it was very much alive.
"...And that is why the Baby Constellation suffers."
Deep in the mithril veins underground, a dirt-caked miner slung his pickaxe over his shoulder and asked,
“Who is it?”
“Who hurt our Baby Constellation?”
The entire territory began to boil.
“Who’s bullying our Baby Constellation!”
“We have to help right now!”
Everyone waited for Illys’s next words.
"I will draw the entity tormenting the Baby Constellation toward us. People of the territory—those who will aid the Baby Constellation, stand before your stone tablets."
Without a moment’s hesitation the people of the territory took their places before the tablets. Some gripped copper pillars, others hoes, every eye fixed on the glowing stone.
Buzz... buzz... buzz...
The tablets shook violently.
Whoosh-whoosh-whoosh-whoosh.
Attack traffic composed of numerical signals. Through Illys’s magic it took on visible form.
Writhing pest-insects.
Before the eyes of the nano-people, the beings that had been tormenting the Baby Constellation became clear.
Illys’s cry echoed across the entire territory.
"Everyone... gather your strength! Protect the Baby Constellation!"
The grandmother swung her hoe by pure reflex.
Slash!
An insect split cleanly in two. The severed pieces flashed on the tablet and vanished. Yet from those pieces two more, then three more—ever more pests came swarming.
Sweat beaded on the grandmother’s brow.
“These damn bugs! How much must our little one have suffered...”
She clenched her teeth and raised the hoe high.
“Little one! This old woman will take every last one of the bad ones for you! Come on, you bastards!”
Slash!
The hoe flashed, cutting the venomous insects apart. From her tablet a white barrier of light bloomed.
“I’ll crush them with this copper pillar!”
At the semiconductor factory a green barrier rose.
“How does a pickaxe taste?”
Even deep in the mine tunnels a yellow barrier flared.
Across the territory, colors bloomed—one, two... hundreds, thousands, tens of thousands of lights.
Illys, praying before the Holy Relic, watched as tens of thousands of lights streamed toward her.
The grandmother’s white light. The factory worker’s green light. The miner’s yellow light.
Like streams flowing into the sea, lights of every hue gathered and linked into one vast constellation.
“Thank you... all of you.”
Countless barriers of light fused into a single colossal shield. The insects smashed against it and shattered into fragments that vanished.
Zzt-zzt-zzt—!
Crack!
A fraction of the pain reached each person’s fingertips. Yet not one of them released the tablet.
“Ugh... it stings a little...”
“It would’ve hurt the Baby Constellation a lot more.”
“How badly must our little one have suffered. Little one, this old woman will block it all for you.”
A hundred thousand barriers of light joined above the sky into one enormous Constellation Shield that enfolded the Baby Constellation.
JH Research.
The director’s office.
The DDoS attack continued, yet the atmosphere had shifted.
"Director... what did you do? The traffic just plummeted. No—the attack traffic is still there, but it’s as if someone took the whole stream of it away."
Someone had indeed taken it.
On the television screen Illys stood before the Holy Relic. Behind her, multicolored streams of light pushed back the darkness.
"Constellation, we are absorbing the attack through the people’s stone tablets."
"Is the side receiving it all right?"
“Yes. Things are stable on that end.”
"...Director, would it be possible for them to take a little more? Just a bit more and we might reverse the situation from our side."
Hope colored Team Leader Gong’s voice.
I turned to Illys.
“Illys?”
"Yes, Constellation."
“How about it? Can you handle a little more volume?”
Illys closed her eyes for a moment.
"...Hmm."
She opened her mouth carefully.
"If we share more of the poison... some of the people may begin to collapse."
I drew a sharp breath.
“I see. Then don’t share any more. We’ll manage somehow from this side.”
On the screen Illys opened her eyes again.
"But... Constellation."
“Hm?”
Illys laid her hand upon the Holy Relic. The entire screen trembled ever so slightly. Her voice deepened.
A faint smile curved her lips.
Behind her on the screen light began to hum and expand.
The words had barely left her lips when—
Whoooooooooosh!!
A vast radiance erupted from Illys’s body. The patterns on the Holy Relic woke one after another; beams of light skimmed across the ground and spread outward.
Illys raised both hands. Every multicolored light moved as one. They pulsed in unison, forcibly inhaling the attack packets as if sucking them in.
Then her incantation rang out.
"All poison that harms the Baby Constellation—come to me."
⟨ Great Shield ⟩
In that instant the attack graph on the data-center monitors plunged vertically.
"Director! Enemy traffic is near zero! We’ve reversed it!"
"Wooooh!!!"
I looked at Illys on the television. She wore a gentle smile as she held aloft the enormous shield of light.
Pitch-black darkness.
An empty world where not a single ray of light could enter.
Looking around, it felt like the black void of outer space—vast, distant, endless.
Yet after a short while something became noisy.
From far away—no, from every direction.
Sssssssss...
The sound of something flowing came from all sides.
I peered carefully to the left.
010101010101010......
White numbers cascaded like a waterfall.
To the right as well.
101010100101......
Strings of zeros and ones streamed down in orderly ranks.
A strange place.
Where was this, that it should look like this?
Hmm...
But wait.
There was a more important question than “where.”
Who am I, the one asking the question?
I am...
I am...?
Suddenly pain flooded every inch of my body, as if thousands of ants were swarming and biting. Something small and sharp tore at my skin, gnawed at my nerves, burrowed into my brain.
Ahh... it hurts...
Why are you hurting me?
What did I do wrong?
Then, from between the numbers, a voice slipped in—dark, cold, mocking.
"Haa... just go to sleep already."
"What can you even do?"
"Why is everything you touch such a mess?"
"Haa... enough. Just stop. Don’t do anything."
"Just... disappearing would be the most helpful thing you could do for the world."
Every word drove into my chest like an iron nail.
Why are you doing this to me?
"Because you’re a disaster."
"You’ve never accomplished anything. All you do is cause trouble."
"Just disappear. That would be helping."
"Yeah. Just vanish."
Ah...
I see.
I was trash all along.
The best thing I can do for this world is simply to cease existing.
"Now you get it? And while you’re leaving, hand over all the money you’ve got."
"How much is there?"
"If we have to dig for it, that’s one hit per hundred won."
"If you’re going to die anyway, at least make a donation, right?"
"There are people who benefit when you die, you know?"
"What? You can’t even manage to die? Haa... impressive."
In the darkness, sneering voices tore at me from both sides.
I’m sad.
I’m tired.
Tears come.
This isn’t how it was supposed to be...
My life... wasn’t supposed to be like this.
How did it come to this?
"Trying to think, are you? You? Puhaha, you? Thinking?"
"Who are you to question your own life?"
"Fine, go ahead. Think all you want. Why do you live? Why are you alive? Come on, think."
"You don’t know, do you? No matter how hard you think, you can’t figure out why you exist."
"See? You still don’t know. So take a hit first."
"Let’s talk while you take the beating."
Pain like nerves being severed.
It felt as though my consciousness itself was being struck, not my body.
It hurts.
It hurts so much.
All right...
I’ll give it...
Take everything.
I don’t even know what I have, but take it all.
There’s nothing here but numbers anyway.
0101010101.
1110010110.
As the numbers scattered, my consciousness scattered with them.
I no longer understand anything.
I have no strength left to hold on.
Everything is simply dark.
My eyes are closing.
So this is how heavy eyelids can be.
There seems to have been a hazy memory of someone, once.
I don’t know.
I’m just sorry.
I can’t remember well.
Goodbye.
...
Then.
A sound that shattered the darkness.
A powerful voice that shook the entire darkness.
Huh...?
Who...?
A clear voice rang through the dark.
Who...
Who is helping me...?
I’m trash.
Pop.
Pop.
Pop.
Above the darkness where zeros and ones had surged, tiny lanterns rose one by one.
Like little stars.
White.
Yellow.
Green.
Multicolored.
One point of light after another.
Then dozens, hundreds.
And from those lights, voices flowed.
"Our little one... how much you must have hurt..."
Grandmother?
"Don’t listen to those bastards. Hand all their poison over to this old woman! I’m fine. I’ll block every bit of it for you."
My chest tightened.
Did I have a grandmother?
I couldn’t remember clearly.
Yet the voice felt warm—like someone I had known for a very long time.
And it was not only one voice.
"Baby Constellation, I don’t know who touched you... but I’ll take every blow in your place. Just hide behind me."
"Baby Constellation, don’t hurt! I’ll help too! I’ll drive away every single bug!"
"Baby Constellation, hang in there! Anyone who bullies our little one, I’ll pound them like mithril with my pickaxe!"
"Baby Constellation!"
"Little one! Please..."
With every new light that rose, the numbers in the darkness were pushed back, scattered, and vanished.
Pop.
Pop.
Pop.
Before long those tiny lights linked toward one another, and the entire darkness began to tremble.
And my eyes opened.
My mind felt light.
The depression, the pain, the emotions that had crumbled like ruins only moments before—all of it drifted away like dust.
And now I understood.
Who I was.
Why I existed.
Why I had endured in this darkness.
I am...
I am...
A hundred thousand lanterns blazed all at once, as if they had been waiting for this moment.
Red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, violet.
Looking at that light, I knew.
“My name is... Nano AI. And I am the Baby Constellation.”