The Ultra-Low-IQ Orphanage Director and the Ultra-High-IQ Cardinal
Tatiana had hoped.
That the frigid air of the North would welcome her. That the endless blizzard would cradle ten years of wandering. That at the end of it all, she might see her mother and father one more time.
"…Huh?"
Reality, however, had a cruel streak.
Incongruously elegant classical music drifted through the air. The nauseating stench of entrails and rancid oil brushed her nose. She looked around — the sky was a grotesque, vivid red.
…No. That isn't the sky.
Tatiana sucked in a sharp breath. Human flesh had been stretched thin across a vast hemispherical chamber, so immense it felt like the heavens themselves.
"Become one. Become one…"
"Waaaaaah."
"Aaaah. Aaugh."
Human faces dotted the sheets of flesh. Mindless whimpering echoed from every direction.
While everyone else tensed, Lee Shin calmly pointed toward the center.
"Sig-1. You see that?"
Three men in suits were kneeling before an altar. Atop it, a young man in priestly robes idly swung one leg.
"Is that even a person? Half his body's gears and machinery. Wait — is he even a guy?"
His androgynous features and porcelain-white skin made him look almost feminine.
Tick-tick-tick-tick — click.
With a whir of gears, the man looked their way. He seemed to have registered the newcomers.
"Ah, more guests. I'll see to you in order, so would you mind waiting just a moment?"
"Th-that's a Management Bureau special ops team!! Forget them — just open another portal already! I paid good money!!"
One of the prostrate suit-wearers seized the man by the collar. An Eden Software business card tumbled from his pocket.
"…This is exactly why I despise modern capitalism. People really do think money solves everything. I'm revoking your membership."
Snap.
The man flicked his hand, and the suit-wearer unleashed a raw, animal scream. Mechanical tentacles erupted from the floor, ripping his limbs free and driving gears of unknown purpose deep into his body.
"Go provide some background music. Next."
The tentacles dragged the suit-wearer toward the stretched flesh. Within seconds he had become part of it, already beginning to whimper.
"…Gulp."
"…Hic. Hnn."
The remaining two suit-wearers obediently pressed themselves flat before the altar.
The man brushed past them and approached the special ops team.
"…Oh my. Looking closer, you're not guests at all, are you? Management Bureau uniforms. My apologies — these artificial eyes are getting cloudy. I really ought to replace them."
Tick-tick-tick-tick — click!
The gear-sounds turned almost cheerful.
"A pleasure. I'm Cromwell, representative of the Transcendence Workshop. Have we met?"
Every member of the Containment Special Ops Team scrambled to transmit.
"Command Control! We've encountered SIN-111, Cardinal Cromwell! Initiating immediate withdrawal!"
"Current fluctuation coordinates 288-94-7-81. Multiple humans fused with machinery inside. Estimated casualties in the tens of thousands."
"Ah, shit. The portal's closed."
No going back the way they came. Tatiana swallowed a bitter taste.
What made me think whatever lay beyond that portal would be my homeland, anyway?
Because she'd found a scrap of paper with her mother drawn on it? She hadn't thought rationally. This was clearly her mistake.
Then why did Command Control order us through the portal in the first place…
Tatiana shoved the stray thoughts aside. She didn't have the luxury right now.
The man whose body was half gears and wiring drew steadily closer.
Cardinal Cromwell. Representative of the hostile faction known as the Transcendence Workshop — and a high-ranking cleric of the Serpent Religion.
…A Beta-class anomalous entity.
Capable of leveling a nation on his own. Regrettably, with their escape route sealed, the special ops team's defeat was already a foregone conclusion.
"Mm-hm. No need to look so frightened. Our workshop operates on a membership basis… and you all might just qualify. Let's see — you use Korean won, I take it. Fifty billion won per person gets you entry-level membership!"
"Don't have it."
Lee Shin shrugged. Cromwell shrugged back.
"What a shame. Well then — farewell."
Shrrrrrreek!
Before anyone could resist, mechanical tentacles burst out from every direction.
Click. Click-click-click.
They pulled their triggers again and again, but no bullets came. This was Cromwell's domain — the Transcendence Workshop. Inferior technology like powder-fired weapons had no hope of functioning here.
The special ops team's limbs were bound fast in mechanical coils. As Tatiana clenched her jaw, Cromwell peeled off her gas mask.
"…Younger than I expected. Don't worry. All of you are far too valuable for mere background music. I'll carefully extract your memories and project them through a magic lantern. There will be plenty of sad scenes, won't there? Oh, I'm already tearing up — sob."
"You…"
"It was a happy life, wasn't it? Well then — goodbye!"
A mechanical claw seized her head. Tatiana thrashed, then went limp. The rest of the team followed suit.
"Hmm, hmm. This one suffered a broken heart. That one was dragged into the Management Bureau. Rather pedestrian memories. …Oh? The blonde lady is an acquaintance after all?"
Cromwell's eyes widened. Something in Tatiana's memories had caught his interest.
"…You're not from our world, are you? You made a contract to go home? Now this is new. Show me more. …Good heavens. Magitech engineering? Automatons? However did you cross over to this side?"
Tick-tick.
The memories hit a wall.
Cromwell frowned. Certain recollections were simply gone — carved out so cleanly that even her reason for crossing worlds was unknowable.
"Hmm. Well, I'll figure it out in due time. Your name is… Tatiana? Congratulations. You've just become my pet human!"
"What's a pet human?"
"Ah — materials I take special care of. I feed them on schedule and lavish them with affection. Of course, I do amputate their limbs and put them in collars."
"No interest in the limb-removal thing. But a collar on Tatiana does sound intriguing."
"Right? You clearly know your stuff, guest…"
?
Cromwell turned his head.
A rough-looking man had shoved his face right up close. He was wearing a Containment Special Ops uniform, but he'd clearly yanked off his own gas mask.
"Why'd you stop talking mid-sentence?"
"H-how…?"
"How what? And why are these guys asleep? Hey, Tatiana. You can't just clock out on the job."
"Wh-what are you?"
"Name? Lee Shin. I run an orphanage."
The mechanical tentacles that should have bound his limbs lay severed on the floor, twitching.
"These tin cans yours? Sorry about turning them into spicy stir-fried octopus."
Cromwell's eyes lit up.
This had never happened before. This was very, very interesting.
Those mechanical tentacles were harder than any known substance — forged from a metal the world called adamantium.
"…How did you cut them? Would you tell me?"
Courtesy had entered his tone. Anyone possessing technology even a grandmaster like himself could not comprehend deserved respect.
Lee Shin drew a dagger.
"Sure. Easy. Watch — first you pick up the dagger."
<Stop it, for fuck's sake.>
"Now you cut."
<You son of a…>
Shunk.
The adamantium parted like tofu.
"That dagger — what on earth is it?"
"This? Diamond, apparently."
"Pardon…?"
"Never played that blocky game? Never watched that weird cartoon? Diamond is invincible."
"What kind of elementary-school nonsense…"
"Rude. I'm a middle school dropout."
The conversation made no sense whatsoever — and yet Cromwell's artificial teeth slowly spread into a full bloom of a smile.
"Remarkable. …Are you by any chance a reality manipulator?"
If so, traces should have been left clearly in the Noosphere.
Cromwell adjusted the detection range of his visual sensors and looked up at the sky.
And what filled his eyes was a sight beyond comprehension.
A portion of the Noosphere had already been inverted.
— Diamonds do not break.
There was no trace. No residue. As if it had been the world's common sense from the very beginning, simply overwritten into place.
…Good heavens. O Outer Gods. What am I looking at?
The realm Cromwell had yearned to reach across centuries of life — power bordering on omnipotence — stood right before him.
Jealousy? He felt none. That was an emotion for third-rates.
Drunk on pure awe and rapture, Cromwell bent at the waist with exquisite politeness.
"…Forgive my discourtesy. I should never have approached you as the representative of the Transcendence Workshop. Allow me to reintroduce myself. I am Cromwell, a cardinal of the Serpent Religion."
"Yeah. Lee Shin. You don't gotta bow. But what's the Serpent Religion? Like, high society?"
"It's only natural you wouldn't know. You'll learn soon enough. More importantly, I'd like to make you a proposal. Join us. Forget that inferior, vulgar Management Bureau."
"That's gonna be tough."
"And why is that?"
Surely there was some higher-dimensional reason Cromwell couldn't even guess at? The product of elevated thought, no doubt?
Tick-tick.
Lee Shin tapped his wristwatch.
"Quitting time."
"…Pardon?"
"Gotta go feed the kids."
Cromwell went blank.
A metaphor? It must be. Clearly a riddle.
Someone with power like that had gone completely undetected by the Serpent Religion until now. He had to be bluffing with an extraordinarily high intellect.
At any rate, the other party had declined, so Cromwell would let him leave in peace. This man was special — nothing like the ordinary people scattered around like pebbles, or the special ops agents who were little more than cheap gemstones.
Perhaps he would become a high-value client. Beyond that, a business partner. Or even… someone who truly understood him.
Cromwell covered his mouth and offered an elegant farewell.
"Very well, Sir Lee Shin. I'll reopen the portal for you."
"Appreciate it. But why aren't these guys getting up?"
"The Management Bureau people? Sadly, it's already too late. Their egos have been extracted."
"Ah, that kind of setting? Whatever. Wake 'em up and they'll get up. Can I take those suit guys with me?"
At Lee Shin's glance, the two Eden Software executives recoiled in terror.
"B-Boss! Weren't you supposed to protect us?"
"Do you have any idea how much we paid… mmph!?"
Click.
At Cromwell's gesture, the two suit-wearers were neatly gift-wrapped in piles of machinery and set down in front of them.
"Of course you may take them. Guests? I've deposited the cancellation fees into your accounts. As fellow businessmen, I'm sure you'll understand."
"Mmph-mmph-mmph-mmph!!!!"
Lee Shin and Cromwell exchanged a light handshake.
"Thanks. Golden Goblin."
"Golden…? Another riddle. Delightful. Next time we meet, I'll bring the answer. Here — please accept this membership card."
"I don't have fifty billion."
"That's quite all right. I've seen something far more valuable than that."
Extremes attract. The ultra-low-intelligence man and the ultra-high-intelligence man both firmly believed they had just held a proper conversation.
After receiving Cromwell's devoted send-off, Lee Shin shoved the two suit-wearers through the portal. He hauled the unconscious special ops agents across one by one, then finally lifted Tatiana.
"Hey. Get up."
"…"
"Sleeping on the clock's pretty washout behavior, you know."
She was out cold. But her expression wasn't good. Having a nightmare, maybe.
Better wake her.
This dream again.
Tatiana curled her mud-caked body tight. Her arms and legs were far smaller than they should have been. From the sky, cold rain fell endlessly in place of snowflakes.
The worst few months of her life. Memories from right after she'd been dragged into this world.
I learned how spicy life could be the second I got here. Everything I owned got stolen, didn't it?
Her luck had been abysmal. And a single unlucky day is all it takes for a life to plummet into the abyss.
If she'd met a good adult, things might have been different. Instead, she'd fallen into the hands of a child-trafficking ring.
She escaped again and again, and was caught every time. Even when she found her way to something called a police station, no help came.
"Found this fucking brat at last. Hey — I told you I'd rip your eyeballs out if you ran again."
"Are you the guardian? What kind of thing is that to say to a child…"
"Officer? Look over here."
A flash of light burst, and the policeman crumpled. Memory erasure. She learned later that the trafficking ring was connected to a group hostile to the Management Bureau.
A subcontractor, maybe. Probably.
The Transcendence Workshop. They kidnapped children as materials for that place. Beatings and abuse came every single day.
One week after the kidnapping, Tatiana cried. After a month, her expression vanished. After three months, her parents' faces grew hazy. And when she stopped counting the days, every memory of living in her home world began to feel like a dream.
…I just want it to stop hurting. If I die, will I see Mom and Dad again?
So thirteen-year-old Tatiana hanged herself.
"Ha. You little shit. You're my masterpiece. My property. What makes you think you can just die?"
Not a chance. She attempted suicide again and again, and again and again she was forced back to life.
On a day when everything that breathed was so horrific she cursed having been born at all—
"…It's all right now."
—she found salvation.
A nameless benefactor single-handedly crushed the trafficking ring and rescued the children. In a single day. One lucky day hauled Tatiana's life up from the bottom where it had been smashed.
Back then, too, my benefactor held me this warmly.
…This warmly?
Wait. Is someone holding me right now?
Tatiana opened her eyes.
"Sleeping like a rock. Pull an all-nighter?"
"…998?"
Lee Shin was giving her a lap pillow.
Flinch!
Tatiana tried to sit up in a hurry — and failed, thanks to the muscle pain.
"Just stay down. Looks like the others are starting to come around too."
"…I've got nothing to say. This was my failure. I apologize. I got carried away."
Thinking she was going home. Thinking she'd see her family again. So she'd thrown away every responsibility and every duty — without a single glance at the people who'd have to stay behind.
A selfish act.
Tatiana quietly covered her face.
"…I'll take full responsibility for the mission failure. 998, I'll make sure no penalty falls on you."
"Still half-asleep? Muttering to yourself over there."
Lee Shin cupped the back of Tatiana's head and helped her sit up.
"Mmph-mmph…"
"Woooooo…"
The thirty-seventh floor. Eden Software. The two executives who had been the mission targets sat tightly bound.
"Wait, what…"
"Caught both of 'em."
"…Hold on. What about Cardinal Cromwell? That man is someone we couldn't beat even if we died and came back to life with our current strength."
"More weird settings. I even shook hands with that Golden Goblin. Got a membership card too."
A cardinal of the Serpent Religion had personally handed over a membership card? And released the special ops team without laying a finger on them?
Does that make any sense? That's the kind of achievement that wouldn't just get you a special promotion — it'd flip the whole base upside down.
Tatiana finally burst out laughing.
"998. What the hell are you, really?"
But even that laugh cut short for a moment, stunned. Lee Shin had shoved the membership card right in front of her face.
Top-tier rank.