The Only Dragon Remaining Upon This Land
The Arctic. The crown of the Earth, and a place melting in real time as the world warmed. Broad, if one cared to call it broad; small, if one cared to call it small. And there, Scientist was.
Captain Kid raised a hand.
"Are you certain he is at the Arctic?"
"Certain. Inside the institute, he wants for nothing."
"Impossible. If the institute were at the Arctic, Terra could not have failed to notice. The construction alone would have exposed the whole of it."
He pressed on, fervent.
"The same holds for the nineteenth century, before Terra even existed. In that age, without so much as an ironclad, one could not reach the Arctic at all."
It was thoroughly commonsensical. Scientist's intellect was transcendent, but he was still, unmistakably, human. For him to go to the Arctic alone and knock a research institute together was impossible. And even if he had built one, Terra possessed satellites. Being discovered would have been inevitable all the same.
"What you say is right. And what you say is not right."
The Devil's Research Institute had become a laboratory only after Scientist planted himself in it and made it his own, but the place had originally served another purpose.
"That building has stood for a very long time. Since the most ancient days."
"......The Age of Myth?"
Pele's eyes flashed sharp.
"Correct."
The Age of Myth. An age of battlefields where the gods ran wild. The institute had been raised then.
"Why? Did the gods have some reason to go to the Arctic and put up a building?"
"Pele. I said it was built in the Age of Myth. I did not say the gods built it."
"......Don't tell me."
"Yes. Another One built it."
The closing years of the Age of Myth. After clearing the gods away in great numbers, Another One realized that an uninvited guest had fallen out of the cosmos. He had been busy amusing himself, yet an intruder that had pierced his awareness by its own strength interested him, and he went to seek the guest out in person.
A continent of glacier. At the exact center of that land, cold through every season, lay a seed of blackish crimson. Fed on the nourishment of the ice, the seed had already germinated, and the sprout that pushed free bared an endless hunger.
Another One grasped what the seed was at a glance. A thing that drifted the cosmos, devoured planets, and repeated growth and collapse: a Planet-Eater. It had crossed thousands of light-years and arrived on Earth.
Seeing the seed, Another One had said this.
Had it not fallen at the Arctic, the seed would have eaten the planet in an instant, though Another One would have disposed of it before that could happen. Because it fell at the Arctic, germination came a little late, and so it was able to survive.
Another One decided to raise the creature. Out in the cosmos it was a thing of which there were only rumors, and even he was seeing one for the first time. The splitting of Forever was about to be carried out, and he would have time to fill; he thought he might keep it as a hobby.
And so, at the Arctic, a flowerpot was made, built on the whim of an Absolute. Later Another One remodeled that pot into a laboratory and gave it to Scientist.
That was why Terra had never found it. Modern science could not overcome the science of the cosmos. Deceiving a satellite's eye, and a human eye, would have been simplicity itself.
"I don't believe this. He's raising a creature that could destroy the Earth, as a curiosity? And he's still doing it?"
"Yes. Research material, and he even taught it to play charming. He has wrung every last use out of it."
"Ha."
Pele let out an empty laugh.
"Mr. Phantom, then that thing our Great Shrine Maidens were researching..."
Perhaps the word seed had given him the thread of it. Shrine Priest Tsukumi let out a groan.
"Yes. An enhancer drawn from the seed's mature form, the Devil's Tree. A Great Shrine Maiden researched it and put it to use."
"How could anyone commit so vile an act..."
"The formal name of that enhancer is the D-Series. Three kinds in all, from D-3 to D-1, circulating in the dark. In all likelihood they have already passed into the hands of villains and men of power, and are being put to diligent work ruining the world."
It made no distinction between the Third World and the advanced nations. The aim was the chaos of the world, and the spread of the Devil's Tree's roots. Just as with the demon's double they had seen on Jeju, a hub was built through those who took the drug, a hub that could reach from one fixed place out into every corner of the world.
What became of the original world, where a thing like this walked about in the open, I will leave unsaid.
"By a mercy beyond measure, the Devil's Tree is gravely ill, and the danger of the D-Series has fallen a great deal. Intervention in those who take it is nearly impossible now, and production of the drug has stopped."
"Fortune in the midst of misfortune. Heaven is aiding us."
Shrine Priest Tsukumi pressed a hand to his chest in relief, and Hwang Seokgu and Dan Miryu flinched. They looked at me with complicated expressions.
"The problem is that the main body lies in Scientist's institute. However weakened, it is a monster that regards planets as food. Assume, at the least, that a chief deity on the order of Pele is in there."
Every one of them answered with a tense nod.
"And leave the Devil's Tree to me. The rest, I leave to all of you."
I had wanted to face Scientist myself, but too many already had a prior claim on him. The Devil's Tree could not be ignored either. The choice had been settled from the start.
"Only, no one knows what will be inside the institute. Our people are not the sort to come up short wherever they go, but even a dog has half its meal already eaten once it is in its own house. If we slip, there may be deaths."
"A risk we'll take."
Hwang Seokgu stroked the back of his hand. A fang showed between his lips.
"Well. That is all I had to say. Any questions?"
"Isn't there a plan, apart from this?"
Dan Chuyeon asked, careful.
"A good question. In truth, there is no grand plan."
I looked at Roadman and Captain Kid.
Captain Kid nodded.
"Authorization has been received. If you wish, we can depart as soon as tomorrow."
I raised a thumb. With that, transport was secured.
"Then first, we board the multi-passenger jet Terra has prepared and fly straight to the Arctic."
And after that.
"We find the institute with Roadman's ability."
Roadman's power could find a path anytime, anywhere, so long as he had a faint clue and time enough. By that ability, they would find the institute quickly.
And once they found it.
"We charge straight through to the entrance."
With so many people, stealth meant nothing. They would break in at speed and go in a straight line to Scientist.
"Whatever blocks the way, we smash."
The flowerpot, in any case, consisted only of what surrounded the Devil's Tree. Everything short of the deep interior was modern technology. They could wreck the place to their hearts' content.
"So it's just a frontal charge."
"It is. And nothing is more certain than that."
Infiltration was for cowards. If you had the confidence, you broke it all.
"True enough. Sneaking in with this company would be rude."
Dan Chuyeon swallowed hard and looked around. A force that could bring a nation to ruin had gathered, all of it, inside this narrow house.
"Still, there is something that worries me."
"What worries you?"
"The gardener who raised that Devil's Tree. There is no chance that one comes?"
"None. Even if he comes, he comes after it is finished."
When I said it as if there could be no doubt, Elder Wildflower's brow twitched.
"And why are you so certain."
"Because he's that sort of man."
"........."
Don't look at me with so much doubt. A man with instincts that sharp, and still this full of suspicion.
"Then how stands the roster? Do we go with only the people here?"
"Mm. I'd like to leave the minors out, but..."
Dan Chuyeon and Na Wangrang stared straight up at me.
"I'm not sitting this one out. It's an all-out fight."
"I won't either."
Refuse them, and they looked ready to follow by force. It made me uneasy, but neither of them was unconnected to this. There was nothing for it. I would have to hope their potential showed itself properly in the fight.
"As you can see, this company alone is enough."
"Hm. Very well."
Elder Wildflower accepted it.
"No further questions?"
A silence held for a little while. It seemed there were no more.
"Good. Then rest well for the rest of tod—"
A soft slide.
Just as I meant to dismiss the meeting, Sipsado, who had been standing in attendance behind Hong Yumin, quietly came forward.
"Sipsado?"
Sipsado met my eyes. Beneath the conical straw hat, through the veil, clear black eyes held a host of feelings. Worry, unease, anger, longing, anguish, deliberation... The woman who had seemed a doll showed emotion for the first time.
"May I take part in this operation as well?"
A lovely voice rang out, a jade bead rolling, the voice of a daughter raised in a noble house.
Surprise touched the eyes of everyone who knew Sipsado. For this person had not spoken a single word from the moment they met her. A silence one might have mistaken for muteness, and that silence had broken.
"You weren't intending to take part?"
"......I am a prisoner. I thought I would not be permitted to involve myself in this matter."
"Don't worry. You're already on the roster. You came with us all the way to Japan. What reason would there be to leave you out?"
"........."
"Is there something more you wished to say?"
Participation, it seemed, was only the opening of her words. Not the true aim.
Sipsado removed the hat. Black hair that had been gathered beneath it spilled down in a beautiful fall, and under it a face of nation-toppling beauty caught the light. Sipsado knelt, demure, upon one knee.
"I beg this of you."
She spoke in a voice thick with grief.
"Save my mother from that wicked demon."
"She is the only dragon remaining upon this land."
At Sipsado's words, Hong Yumin's eyes began to tremble, violently.