A Twisted Society
Experienced people who've lived through something often say this.
When you realize something is wrong, it's already too late.
When Ahn Moon-ho realized the meaning of those words, everything was already too late, as expected.
General people like him couldn't even imagine the enormous power that had already pressed a blade to their neck, so how could they possibly fight against it?
So they submitted and gave up.
They cleanly accepted their defeat and crawled on the ground like dogs.
It wasn't because of some ugly desire to survive somehow. They just thought it was too 'precious' to disappear from the world like this.
"Super Rookie, you entered this prison much later than I did."
Han Seungho asked the man standing behind his back, who had a cold gun barrel pointed at his nape.
It wasn't a question he was hoping for an answer to, but he hoped the man would at least understand the intent of his question.
Of course, the other person just slightly poked the back of his head with the tip of the gun barrel as if to say 'keep talking' instead of answering.
"... Since you entered this prison later than me, you must have been exposed to relatively recent outside news. So there's no way you wouldn't know that this world is much more twisted than what we know."
"Is there a world that isn't twisted?"
A rather cynical response.
But that was why one could tell that the Super Rookie was a person who had properly witnessed the atrocities of the outside society.
His tone and attitude were also those of people who had once harbored great ambitions but had tasted a deep sense of powerlessness before a huge wall.
Just like the past Ahn Moon-ho, the current Super Rookie must have gone through a similar process.
Otherwise, it wouldn't be easy for someone so young to become a death row inmate as a first-timer.
"What I want to say is not simply about this society, but about what this society has been twisted by and for. Most people only know that this society is corrupt, but they don't even realize that it's twisted."
"So you want to give me some untimely education on perspective? Are you from Daecheong-dong?"
"Haha, I just thought I should first reveal something about you before trying to persuade you."
After a moment of no answer, Ahn Moon-ho understood it as a silent affirmation and continued his explanation.
"To put it bluntly, this society is being run by a small number of great power holders. Ah, I should mention beforehand that this is not some common conspiracy theory. I know the usual suspects like Illuminati, Freemasons, Deep State, shadow government, etc."
"Keep it simple."
"The mastermind behind twisting this society is someone similar to those conspiracy theorists but essentially something different, and in specific fields, much more grand and overwhelming in power.
Virtual conspiracy theorists that appear in fiction? When asked if such existences really exist, Ahn Moon-ho would unconsciously smirk.
Sometimes reality is much more horrifying and immense than people's imaginations.
"Some have grasped enormous capital, some overwhelming technology, some political connections woven like a spiderweb. They can control everything in this society but don't bother to control it. They rule but don't govern, don't they?"
"Then isn't it inappropriate to say this society has been twisted because of them?"
"If they had wanted to dominate this society, they would have already completely dominated it. The reason they don't is not because they need to, and more importantly, their desires are completely different from the start. What they truly want is not the domination of this world. It's the Dark Zone."
Even he was quite surprised by this statement.
He could clearly feel the atmosphere had changed from a moment ago. Perhaps the air had become heavier, and he thought a bullet might be fired from the gun barrel pointing at his nape at any moment.
"Those great existences want the Dark Zone?"
"I was a researcher studying the Dark Zone. I was quite deeply involved. I wasn't a field worker who directly conducted expeditions, but I was one of the people who painstakingly established new theories and proved hypotheses by examining the data and items brought back by field workers. It was only natural that I would come into contact with sensitive information about the Dark Zone. And the result was this."
"It seems you knew what you shouldn't have known."
"Yes, that's right. I realized that the Dark Zone wasn't actually started by research through cooperation between the government and corporations, but by some existences even higher than them wanting it."
Of course, if he had known up to that point and stayed silent, taking the secret to his grave, he wouldn't be trapped here now.
But Ahn Moon-ho was essentially a person who explored the unknown, and as a scholar whose curiosity was satisfied only when he resolved it, he would dig deep once something caught his interest. More than others.
"At the time, I used my maximum authority to access internally classified materials, digging in like a worm eating through the peel of a fruit. But the more I dug, the more I found. Why the Dark Zone is being researched, how much capital and manpower are being spent to research the Dark Zone, and how many Dark Zones exist in this world."
"It seems the reason for researching the Dark Zone caught your interest."
"Yes, the costs or manpower for Dark Zone research, or the locations and numbers of other Dark Zones outside Korea, didn't matter much to me. Since I was one of the people researching the Dark Zone anyway, I figured that kind of information was fine to know. But the reason for researching the Dark Zone... I, as someone like me, shouldn't have been able to know. Even a fragment of it."
One day, a sudden intrusion into his home by the latest combat robots and drones, and numerous heavily armed agents whose affiliation was unknown.
On the day he was firmly bound and dragged away like a dog surrounded by dozens of gun barrels pointed at him, Ahn Moon-ho was locked in a solitary cell with only a speaker, forced to choose options.
Would he be silently processed as a 'person who never existed' without a sound, or, taking into account his past Dark Zone research achievements, be sent to the Dark Zone as a prisoner to serve 'them' forever for the rest of his life?
"When forced to choose between dying cleanly or living miserably like this, what I could do was to bow my head like a dog and survive. Actually, I didn't care much about my own life or the Dark Zone I was researching. I just wanted to confirm exactly what they wanted to achieve with the Dark Zone. Since I had only accessed a very small fragment of that information, and it came out so sensitively, there must have been a reason."
"Then you should have been more cautious in prison life. Isn't it ridiculous that the guy who wanted to confirm the truth ended up trying to end his own life's chapter?"
"What I did was simply gather ignorant people about the Dark Zone, share some of the knowledge I knew with them, and encourage information gathering so that the government, corporations, and the prison side could find out what the prisoners wanted. Probably the prison side was displeased with my actions and attached charges like 'incitement' or 'stirring up discord'. After all, since I entered this prison, I wouldn't be able to leave for the rest of my life, and now that prisoners are being sent to the Dark Zone in earnest, it wouldn't matter whether they killed me or let me live."
"In short, the prison's blacklist designation is slander."
"The past me didn't know, but the current me knows my subject well. It's impossible for me to plan a riot or escape, and even if I could, it wouldn't succeed. Of course, the many questions about the Dark Zone and curiosity about what those great existences want to do with it still remain, so it's true that I want to personally form forces to collect information and conduct research. That's why I'm going through Dark Zone exploration with the Lee Doo-ho brothers, needing capital for that."
After explaining this far, he probably understood, so Ahn Moon-ho subtly turned his head.
If he still thought of him as a simple wanted criminal A and planned to collect the prison's reward, then thinking that today's end had come again would be fine.
But for some reason, Ahn Moon-ho felt a strange trust towards the Super Rookie.
The reason was simple.
Unlike the other extremely vicious death row inmates, he had gathered forces to ensure common survival even though he didn't need to take care of other prisoners in the Dark Zone.
It was an additional bonus that he had prevented any accidents knowing that if they all went down to the deep sector together, they could be massacred by the powerful native species.
It was a sight never seen from ordinary death row inmates.
'This man actually had the ability and knowledge to handle all his enemies alone and escape alone. That is, he is not the type who casually takes others' lives for mere curiosity or pleasure.'
Someone like this becoming a death row inmate at a young age? No matter how you look at it, it's suspicious.
Clearly, this man also committed something he shouldn't have known or shouldn't have done, and was accommodated in the prison like him.
Thinking this far, Ahn Moon-ho quietly waited for his answer.
For some reason, it seemed he could trust this man once.
"... In short, I'm not interested in local power struggles, and my purpose is simply to collect personal research on the Dark Zone and information about what those who dominate the outside society want to do with the Dark Zone."
Click.
The gun barrel pointing at Ahn Moon-ho finally disappeared.
"Good, I'll spare you."
"... It's not something I want to say with my own mouth, but is it okay? From your perspective, wouldn't it be better to just dispose of me and maintain a close relationship with the prison side?"
"There's no need for the prison side to have a reason to kill you. I just wanted to execute you as a warning once because you've been causing trouble as a fallen pawn. I know those guys well."
"Then……."
"Reduce your external activities as much as possible so that the prison side no longer considers you a disruptive element. For now, keep your head down and quietly enter and exit the Dark Zone, and those guys will release you from the blacklist. No matter what, since they know you're a valuable former Dark Zone researcher, if you show a submissive attitude, they won't kill you and instead try to extract something from you."
Due to the Super Rookie's precise pointing, Ahn Moon-ho had no choice but to nod his head.
Actually, he hadn't thought otherwise, but since no one had told him such words until now, he had been acting carelessly without knowing the prison's blade was at his neck.
But now he knew clearly, so he had no intention of throwing away even this miraculous second chance.
"Thank you. Then, shall we start escaping? The colleagues who went out first will be waiting for us."
"Wait."
When Ahn Moon-ho was about to board the escape vehicle first, the Super Rookie grabbed him again.
"Since it's come to this, let's do one thing together."
"... Yes?"
Ahn Moon-ho felt an inexplicable sense of unease from the suddenly changed atmosphere of the Super Rookie.
What kind of feeling was this?
Clearly, it was similar to the professor who had said 'do you want to become a grad student?' with a honeyed tongue as sweet as butter, whispering sweet words.
After completing master's and doctoral programs, becoming a Dark Zone researcher at a relatively young age. Unfortunately, because of 'that thing', he had fallen from Dark Zone researcher to death row inmate.
Anyway, this feeling is not good.
"I, I'm not that great, and more importantly, my physical abilities are much inferior to others, so working with someone like you would be quite lacking......"
"A hardware that's lagging behind can be fixed by throwing money at it for upgrades. Rather, what I care about more is the software side than hardware."
The Super Rookie casually approached and put his arm around Ahn Moon-ho's shoulder.
"You want to do Dark Zone research... right?"
He was startled by the sudden dialect, but he had to answer well.
If he made even one mistake here, he felt like the nightmare of that day would revive.
"That's true, but I'm quite satisfied with my current life......"
"To do research, as you said, you need to build forces first, but there won't be enough money for that. To make money, you have to enter the Dark Zone, but if you challenge it like you're doing now, heading straight into the unknown, you'll probably fail to even break even and die. Right?"
"......"
"I'll help you. I can provide capital, information, military power, and whatever else to help you build forces. Of course, you'll have to be satisfied with being a figurehead boss, but since I mentioned that local power struggles aren't the goal from the beginning, it shouldn't matter? As long as you can do the research and information collection you want, it should be enough. So, I'll help you and extract the real value, so you help me and extract the real value."
"T, then what exactly do you want to get by going this far?"
Feeling the same creepy feeling as the day he declared slavery to the professor, Ahn Moon-ho asked.
The answer that came back was surprisingly simple and completely unexpected.
"■■."