Plans Converge!
While Yu Ye-na dealt with the fixers from Cyber City, I asked the slumped Deokgu.
“You okay, Mr. Deokgu?”
“Y-yeah…… Sigh, back in the day, stuff like that was nothing.”
“Heh, that's old fogey talk.”
“At my age, yeah, I guess I am one.”
He let out a self-deprecating chuckle, but the mood between us was calm. Probably because we'd both crossed our share of death's doorstep one way or another.
My tongue had felt parched for a while now, so I lit up a cigarette.
“Hoo.”
Nicotine surged back in, sharpening my gaze as I turned toward the hut. The thing that had become a living being at some point had frozen in place.
Just then, Yu Ye-na approached.
“Should we force it open?”
“……Dunno.”
I exhaled a short puff of smoke, and a breeze pushed it my way. Yu Ye-na hated cigarette smoke, so she was using her powers to shove it aside.
“Hoo. It'll come out soon enough, right?”
My guess was spot on. As if it had heard me, the hut's walls and ceiling exploded outward in a shower of debris.
Fragments and dust flew everywhere, but Yu Ye-na's telekinesis shielded us from the worst of it.
As the blast settled, what emerged was Arachino on his knees. Golden chains bound his limbs.
Thud! — Beloah's grimoire slammed shut, declaring the battle over.
“Kuhh.”
Arachino's groan leaked out briefly.
Beloah stood before him, her voice cold and unlike before.
“There is no such thing as perfect creation in this world, Arachino.”
“……”
“You never realized that even what you thought was new was ultimately rooted in some fragment of knowledge.”
“So you were right again.”
Tears trickled from his eyes like beads. His beliefs and grand ideals, ragged as old cloth, had been mercilessly shredded by Beloah's unyielding blade.
“Was I wrong again? Like that day when you tore down the Abyss Research Club?”
“I've told you a hundred times, Arachino.”
Her voice carried a mix of regret. She closed her eyes tightly, her shoulders slumping, then replied in her usual affectionate tone.
“It wasn't your fault.”
“……”
“It was all of ours.”
“If only.”
With a bitter breath, Arachino slowly looked up at Beloah. Regret, lingering attachment, jealousy.
“If only it had been my fault.”
“……Arachino?”
“Then even a mess like me would remain an uncontrollable unknown in some corner of your heart.”
A necromancer deals with the dead. A being that governs what comes after human life. So his final words—
“You were right, Beloah.”
Would linger like a brand even after death.
“You were right again.”
“……”
“Just like always—”
Crack.
Crumble.
Fissures spiderwebbed across Arachino's body. His soul burned away, his flesh crumbling to sand like dry earth.
The end of a mage who wielded magic through his own body as conduit.
“You were right.”
Yet his voice rode the wind like an echo, piercing Beloah's heart.
* * *
I left the exhausted Beloah in Yu Ye-na's care. She'd brought an emergency kit, but unfortunately, neither Deokgu nor I knew how to use it.
Why does a third-floor native carry a mage-specific emergency kit?
Even if it was for emergencies, did she really need one tailored for mages? Whatever.
Deokgu and I rummaged through the wrecked furniture, hunting for the radio.
“It's dented and caked in dust?”
Deokgu pulled the radio from under the rubble. After two mages' battle, I doubted it'd even work.
But.
Kzzt!
Our worries were for naught—the familiar static crackled from the radio.
“What bullshit.”
“Can't hear us, right?”
“It's a radio.”
“Holy shit.”
I'd heard Cyber City crammed all sorts of gimmicks into their machines, but a radio with a mic?
Makes sense.
Guys who slap microwave functions into phones aren't exactly normal. Apparently, the microwave was for heating bread on the commute.
Not much of a congrats. Since things had come to this, I felt like landing a solid hit.
“Hey, Axis.”
I figured we'd nailed the culprit based on our deductions, looking all cool about it.
“You bastard.”
Quoting Meracle's greeting to taunt us—smooth operator.
“Haa…… Not even hiding it anymore?”
“Ha, so you know you can't kill us here anymore?”
Axis replied to my snide question in that same mechanical tone.
Mundane details, but hearing them spill from a total stranger's mouth sent chills racing down my spine.
I knew AI was impressive, but this level?
“How the hell do you know all that? Cyber City is your turf, sure, but the outer floors—”
It felt like hearing tales of a plague. Poison from the village well seeping into every home.
The ocean of information was already tainted by Axis.
“What's your endgame, anyway?”
At this point, I had to ask.
“Why go to such lengths to spark a floor war?”
I didn't expect an honest answer. No need to reveal, no reason to respond.
But Axis answered flatly, without inflection. So casually, so matter-of-factly.
The sheer creepiness made me doubt my own ears.
And I wasn't the only one baffled. Deokgu, who'd been silent till now, chimed in skeptically.
“Uh, Juseon. I don't know much about AI, but…… isn't it answering way too readily?”
Ridiculously, even that got a response from Axis.
“……Is it nuts?”
So that's why it differed from the meeting footage—lighter tone now.
“You gonna answer everything I ask?”
Spouting creepy shit so casually—not a good personality, that's for sure.
“What's your next move?”
I asked with a tone implying doubt it'd answer honestly.
Axis rattled off its situation relentlessly, leaving my head spinning. This conversation defied logic.
“You crazy son of a—!”
The info dump was overwhelming, but one thing was clear.
“Ye-na! Send the hunters to the 6th floor now!”
“What?”
Yu Ye-na, tending to Beloah at a distance, looked up. She didn't question further, pulling out her phone—but
Her phone, faintly visible on the radio cam, went dark.
No way to sugarcoat it—we were too late.
I gritted my teeth and bellowed,
“Why the hell are you doing this?!”
What went wrong? What's the problem? Why do you want humanity gone?
To that—
It answered without hesitation.