Preparing for Delivery
Two months after Choi Ha-neul, Yoo Sena's biological mother, passed away, they found Bori.
The place where they found him was a small forest just over the wall of the annex's backyard, where Choi Ha-neul, Yoo Seung-ah, and Yoo Sena used to take walks.
When they first met Bori, he was bleeding from his ears. Yoo Sena had hurriedly called Yoo Seung-ah to treat the cat's ears.
After that, they named him Bori, and the two sisters took turns raising him in secret.
Eventually, they were caught and ordered to send him away, but Sena kept raising him in secret. Then, in his second year, Bori died from poison fed to him by one of Chairman Yoo Seung-chul's servants.
There was nothing unnatural about this sequence of events.
Except, if you added the sentence, But now, more than ten years later, Bori has come back to life... the genre would instantly shift to horror.
And if you tacked on, Actually, Bori was a test subject created through human cultivation and various other experiments, the genre would change to sci-fi.
That was exactly the situation they were in right now.
They had come for a mundane commission to capture a talking cat, only to hear the cat's truth, and then uncover the real truth hidden within that truth.
As a result, Yoo Sena's breathing grew unstable again, as if she were hyperventilating, while Angela covered her mouth with one hand, unable to tear her eyes away from Bori.
Judging by the faint heat radiating from her, Angela seemed to be trying to verify if Swoo's words were true.
Swoo saw no need to convince them further.
It was a casual guess, but she was absolutely certain.
Bori was a Kimera created by Neonic.
While Lui Chen created Kimeras as military assets, Neonic created them as vessels for memories.
Right now, it was limited to a cat, but eventually, the shape of that vessel would evolve into a human.
The inheritance of memory.
What is the essence of human existence?
The body, or memory.
In a cyberpunk world, where no one believed in souls, those would be the two answers.
But the physical body no longer held much meaning.
People discarded flesh for cybernetic implants, sometimes replacing their entire bodies with prosthetic shells.
Therefore, the ultimate essence that defined a human was memory.
Even if Yoo Sena transformed into a cockroach, as long as that cockroach possessed Yoo Sena's memories, the result would still be Yoo Sena-turned-cockroach. Just like in Franz Kafka's The Metamorphosis.
Where the original body lay did not matter.
The one experiencing the situation right now was the cockroach-Sena. Naturally, she wouldn't think there was a separate original body. She would just think... Ah, something straight out of a novel has happened to me.
In any case, everything that made a human was contained within memory.
As long as memories were preserved, a person could exist as themselves.
To inherit those memories...
And if one could manage that entire process of inheritance themselves...
It was ultimately no different from immortality.
In a world where the shell no longer mattered, this was the most definitive form of immortality.
Was the Chairman of Neonic seeking immortality? Did he want to continuously inherit his own memories to reign eternally as the emperor of Neonic?
If so, why entrust such a crucial task to mercenaries? To argue that it was to make it look unimportant on the surface was a decision with far too much risk.
A man of Yoo Seung-chul's caliber could have handled everything in absolute secrecy.
There was no reason to leave it to mere mercenaries.
And there was even less reason to leak information to the outside, allowing it to reach Lui Chen's ears and eventually Yoo Sena.
That left only two possibilities.
One: the client this time was not Neonic.
And two: Neonic commissioned it knowing full well what would happen.
If she had to choose, Swoo believed the latter was far more plausible.
Angela's investigation had confirmed that the client was indeed Neonic. If it wasn't Neonic despite that, it would mean the third faction Swoo was currently tracking was pulling the strings.
And that would mean their influence reached deep into the heart of Neonic.
That was highly unlikely.
No matter how much power they had amassed under the radar of the Big Three, they couldn't have reached that far. Swoo might run around causing trouble at her leisure, but a megacorporation was still a megacorporation. There was a reason she only caused chaos instead of completely dismantling them.
Therefore, the only remaining theory was that Neonic did this knowingly.
Neonic hadn't leaked this commission to the public. They hadn't just broadcasted it to random mercenaries.
It was a commission targeted at someone specific.
And that specific target was likely Noise.
They must have realized that Noise had perfect mastery over magic.
Did they figure out that I am Noise?
No. Swoo hadn't left a single shred of evidence. Unless they captured Enoch or Angela and scrambled their brains, there was no way for them to know.
They think there's a connection between me and Noise.
Since Lui Chen already suspected a special connection between Wolha and Noise, Neonic's assumption was highly plausible.
Neonic likely believed that any information Swoo received would find its way to Noise. By dangling the possibility of immortality, they hoped to draw Noise to their side.
“Mmm...”
Swoo tilted her head.
She didn't particularly care for this move.
“...What are you thinking about so deeply?”
Swoo suddenly stood up, walked over to an odd spot, and spoke.
“I'm debating whether to add another delivery address.”
“A-delivery address?”
“Yep.”
Why bring up a delivery address out of nowhere while talking about Bori? Yoo Sena stared blankly, unable to keep up with Swoo's train of thought.
Angela, however, could vaguely guess what Swoo was thinking. But it was only a faint inkling; she couldn't grasp it fully.
“...Swoo?”
“Yeah.”
“Is it... the place I'm thinking of? It's not, right?”
“I don't know. I haven't decided where yet.”
“W-wait a minute. Setting aside the delivery address, is what you said true? That Bori is... a test subject, a Kimera?”
If they raided Yoo Seung-chul's main estate and dug up the backyard, they would probably find a laboratory. It wasn't impossible, but it was something they shouldn't do. Doing so would only topple the dominoes they had carefully lined up.
Therefore, it couldn't be proven.
And if it couldn't be proven, explanations were meaningless.
Swoo simply gave a light nod.
“Yep, absolutely.”
“If... if I look at it that way, everything does fall into place, but wasn't bio-engineering Kimeras Lui Chen's exclusive domain...?”
“Maybe the difference is whether it has a real brain or a cyberbrain?”
Yoo Sena looked at Bori and dry-heaved.
It wasn't because Bori was grotesque, but because humans were so repulsive and sickening.
“Why... why would they do such a thing?”
“To inherit and preserve all their memories.”
“But why would they... Ah.”
Only now did Yoo Sena reach the same conclusion as Swoo.
“Isn't that... basically immortality?”
“Yep. Immortality.”
“Chairman Yoo Seung-chul is seeking immortality...”
The fact that she referred to him as Chairman Yoo Seung-chul instead of her father showed just how much Yoo Sena detested Neonic.
Swoo made a mental note of this detail and recalled the laboratory where she had awakened.
It was said to be a facility where the Big Three corporations had pooled their minds to conduct research.
So Neonic must have obtained some information from there. And the same would apply not only to Neonic, but to Zyrec and Lui Chen as well.
This heightened the probability that the laboratory's closure was due to discord among the Big Three.
Did they all have different uses for Kimeras?
Or did they split apart due to their respective greeds?
Or perhaps they shut it down believing the experiments could never succeed.
Is this body a test subject too?
A test subject created because Neonic wanted a vessel, Lui Chen wanted military power, and Zyrec wanted something else, only to be discarded as a failure in the end?
Then how many mothers and fathers do I have?
Swoo tapped Bori's head idly, letting the silly thought drift away. There was no point in discussing it further. It was time to talk to Bori.
[Are you finished?]
Bori kept his ears covered and wrote the words by moving his tail.
When Swoo nodded, Bori placed the paws he had been using to cover his ears onto the ground and lifted his head.
[What will happen to me?]
“Quick-witted, aren't you?”
[It is embarrassing to say before a great being, but being locked up in a place like that naturally sharpens one's wits.]
“By 'a place like that,' do you mean the laboratory?”
[Yes.]
Bori was certain Swoo had figured out his origins. That was why he could answer so calmly.
Swoo, on the other hand, wasn't focusing on that.
She was just wondering idly if Bori might be her sibling, since they both came from a laboratory.
“What did you mean when you said you could help Sena?”
[I ran around the city in this tiny body and gathered as much information as I could. Through that, I discovered that Lady Sena is acting as a subcontractor for a major corporation.]
“Are you saying you can give Sena greater power?”
[I do not expect such a grand result. Though I have learned human language, there is still much I do not know. It is uncertain what kind of outcome Lady Sena will achieve with my information.]
Even so, it would definitely be of help.
Bori was sure of that much.
“What do you want to do after you hand over the information?”
[I have not thought about what comes after. But judging by the circumstances, I will likely be disposed of.]
“So you plan to go back.”
[That would be safer for Lady Sena.]
Yoo Sena's face contorted.
No emotion bled through Bori's written words. His expression was the same. Perhaps his feelings were deeply buried.
But a human couldn't truly understand a cat's emotions. All Yoo Sena could see were Bori's round eyes and perked ears.
“...Together.”
After staring into Bori's eyes for a long time, Yoo Sena murmured in a tearful voice.
“I... I want to be with Bori—”
“Meow?”
But before Yoo Sena could finish her sentence, Swoo scooped Bori up into her arms.
“Come with me. I'll make you so happy you won't even remember your pathetic former owner.”
Yoo Sena, who had been on the verge of shedding tears like a tragic heroine in a melodrama, wore a blank expression, looking as if she had been smacked on the back of the head.
“If you come, I can show you my awesome tail too.”
Whispering with a beaming smile, Swoo secretly sent a message.
It seemed she really had to add a new delivery address.