The Meeting
Suddenly, a memory from my past life surfaced.
Back in the orphanage days. Among the kids I was close enough to call "friends," there was one who wrote web novels.
He'd been doing it in secret, never telling any of us… but somehow his pen name got out. From that day on, everyone called him by his handle instead of his real name.
The reactions were gold, so it was pretty fun. I never really understood why he was so embarrassed about it, but I teased him anyway because it was entertaining.
Of course I wasn't bullying him. He seemed to enjoy it in his own way. It was all consensual WWE, I swear…!
So why, then, was that karma coming back around to me?
"Well then, shall we talk about your streams for a bit today, big sis?"
"W-what…?"
My brain blanked for a second. Bringing up my streams like this — did that mean she'd watched them?
No… Maria had only called her a few hours before we left. I'd never even streamed for her. How could she have seen anything?
"I don't remember uploading any of my broadcasts anywhere…?"
"Some kind soul edited them and put them up themselves. I'm sure they're a blessed, wonderful person!"
The space around Clara's hands fractured, just a little. She'd carved an exception into the Vatican's absolute barrier — the one that blocked all electronics.
Then she pulled out a phone and turned the screen toward me. Filling the XTube display was someone's channel.
The channel name: Ju-ttak Video Archive.
A tiny channel with roughly a hundred forty subscribers, packed with familiar videos.
The first stream. The Sword Saint vs. five hundred multi-account Girl-Cup disaster. My first meeting with Ara. The first cam broadcast. The duel with Sword Saint candidate Lee Seon-woo. And even the Par-ttak who'd shown up in real life to take the Ju-ttak out.
Every single thing that had ever happened on my stream, meticulously recorded. And in the channel description sat a familiar nickname.
A Slave Par-ttak's Ju-ttak Archiving Channel.
"…A kind soul?"
My gallery had only two Par-ttaks. Maria, my personal physician, and Viewer 219.55, the one drafted during the first stream.
But only one of them actually worked the gallery.
Maria was an officer in the Far East Forces in her own right. Unless she was looking after me, she was buried in paperwork, checking the Far East situation, handling a dozen other things.
Which meant the only Par-ttak doing eraser duty was 219.55. Knowing that guy's usual behavior, the word "kind" raised some serious questions.
"Him?"
The same guy who constantly dragged some bizarre Girl-Cup topic into the gallery and set the place on fire.
Still, he'd been a huge help when I was in danger. Since becoming a Par-ttak, he'd been diligently erasing posts, and every time I went live he showed up and managed the stream properly — so I trusted him to a degree now.
…Wait a second.
Didn't that actually make him a good person?
"Uh… hmm…"
Come to think of it, whenever I torched the gallery, he was always the one scrambling to put out the fire.
And since becoming a Par-ttak, he didn't even troll anymore. Probably because he'd have to clean up his own mess, but still.
I owed him for a lot of things, and he'd even made a fan channel for a nobody streamer like me…
What the hell. He really was just a good person, wasn't he?
Thinking I ought to thank him in person someday, I quietly scooped up the words I'd tossed out without thinking.
"Yeah. I think he really is a good person."
"Oh? Someone you know?"
"Someone I'm grateful to in a lot of ways."
"Hmm…"
Clara's pink eyes fixed on me, deep in thought. I felt oddly self-conscious and ducked my head a little into the blankets.
But what came out of Clara's mouth wasn't teasing jealousy or a playful jab.
"I'm glad."
"Hm?"
"Honestly, I was really worried. That without me around, big sis Serena would just wither away all by herself…"
The sudden warmth in her words made my body flinch. Affectionate hands undid the blankets wrapping me, and Clara slipped into the space she'd opened against my chest.
"I'm so relieved to see you're in much better shape than before."
"…It's thanks to good people. People who don't belong with a mess like me—"
"Mph!?"
Clara's index finger pressed against my lips. A faint hostility mixed into those upturned pink eyes, and I cut myself off without meaning to.
"Still, you're not all better yet, are you?"
"What are you…"
"All right. Since it's come to this, I'll just have to correct you, big sis."
"W-wait! Correct me!?"
"Heheheh~ You'll find out soon enough!"
Crack-snap—!
Sparks leapt into the empty air. It was the same precursor phenomenon as the spatial-transfer magic that had brought me into this room only a few hours ago.
I startled, and my vision accelerated on its own. The world seemed to shatter into dozens of fragments. Beyond the broken-glass mirage lay the streets of the Vatican at evening.
"Nnh, please relax. It isn't dangerous!"
Hearing that whisper-soft voice, I released the force I'd poured into my eyes. The world accelerated again, and the Vatican streets inside the mirage rushed forward into reality.
At the same time, the space we were standing in flipped inside out.
When I came back to myself, we were somehow standing in front of a famous clothing boutique in Vatican City.
"Where is this?"
"It's a hundred-fifty-year-old tailor shop where I had my clerical robes made."
A small hand gently took hold of my wrist. In a shy voice, like a girl out on a date, Clara made her declaration.
"From now on, I'm going to keep dressing you in new clothes until you admit for yourself that you're pretty."
"…What?"
"That's the karma for hanging up on me so high-handedly~♪"
Unfortunately, I had karma of my own piled up.
I'd even hung up on her from the transport plane, and I simply could not withstand the look that said, You're not going to abandon me, are you~?
And so… I ended up being led by the hand of a girl humming with pure delight, and stepped into the brightly lit clothing shop.
Commencing record of the !&$#th Human Preservation Council
Permanent Director #17 of the World Government. Welcome, Director ■ ■ ■.
Lights came on in the dark basement. The man who entered the wide room — empty but for a single large rectangular table — pulled out the seventeenth chair and sat down.
At the same moment, translucent holograms rose around the round table. A massive screen descended at the far end of the room, and a message announced the start of the session.
The topic of the !&$#th Human Preservation Council has been set to 'The Papacy' and 'Babel Tower'.
Permanent Directors #20–50 without access clearance for Babel Tower information are requested to return to their daily duties.
Less than a minute into the meeting, more than half the holograms vanished. A brief stir passed through the room, and the moment fewer than thirty people remained connected, the massive screen began to ripple.
Beyond the display, the pure white snowfields of Siberia unfurled. Beneath a blood-red sky, set among the scars of ruptured space, stood a colossal tower.
The first SS-rank gate in history, once known as the Siberia Gate. The form of that enormous tower — known to the public under that name — had changed considerably from how it looked at first discovery.
The flesh that had clung to its exterior in grotesque layers was gone. The once pitch-black outer walls had turned white under accumulated snow, and the tower's overall saturation had faded considerably. As if it were preparing to enter hibernation.
After enough time had passed for everyone to confirm the sight, Permanent Director #5's words appeared beneath the screen.
I acknowledge the failure of the 7th Usurpation Project.
The appearance of Babel Tower was a clear variable in the experiment.
Therefore, for the time being, progress on the Usurpation Project will be suspended. All related experiments and research facilities will be provisionally shut down.
Any Directors with objections, please request the floor.
One minute passed. Not a single hologram expressed opposition. Judging that enough time had been given, Permanent Director #5 moved to the main point.
Babel Tower's current state has been confirmed as relatively stable.
However, now that Babel Tower's existence has been revealed, I judge that the security level of related information must be raised.
Accordingly, the Incineration Corps is currently burning related intelligence.
There are places where information incineration has become impossible.
The photograph of Babel Tower vanished, replaced by two new images: a dimensional server against the backdrop of outer space, and Vatican City.
We have confirmed that the Dimensional Server Administrator is arbitrarily restoring information related to the disposed Northern Supernatural Research Institute.
That side will take time to restore, so we will set it aside for now.
The dimensional server photograph was erased, leaving only Vatican City.
Therefore, in this session we will decide the disposition of the Vatican's astronomical observation agency.
After sufficient deliberation, we will open a vote.
The moment Permanent Director #5 finished speaking, Permanent Director #8's hologram stirred.
In favor.
For efficient response, all information must rest under the World Government. Until now, the Papacy and its subordinate institutions have acted far too freely.
Unnecessary noise between nations. Gaps in information, military power, and technology. Conflicts of core interests — our World Government exists to eliminate every factor that obstructs efficient warfare.
Therefore, I believe that all information regarding the SS-rank gate Babel Tower and the biological experiments of the Northern Supernatural Research Institute — intelligence that would cause unnecessary social chaos — must be managed entirely by us.
The existence of Babel Tower. The experiments of the Northern Supernatural Research Institute. The list of victims. Every one of these is a dagger that could prove fatal to the continuation of our regime and our project.
For the survival of humanity, the Usurpation Project must not end. We will not tolerate any variable that interferes with the Usurpation Rite.
If we do not seize that authority, it will go intact to the bosses of every S-rank dungeon that targets our armies.
The moment Permanent Director #8 finished, Permanent Director #13 — seated across the table — took the floor.
Opposed.
The founding purpose of the World Government is to reduce unnecessary conflict among humans and to mount a joint response against dimensional invasions.
A forced information incineration procedure via the Incineration Corps carries the risk of direct confrontation between the Papacy and the World Government.
For the Incineration Corps to penetrate the heart of the Vatican, a full-scale invasion of Vatican City would be required.
That would provoke internal division among humanity, and ultimately bring about humanity's extinction.
Permanent Director #17, who had been watching quietly, requested the floor the moment the chamber fell silent after Director #13's words.
In favor.
What if, rather than deploying an army, we created chaos through more natural means?
Eight years ago — during the bombing of the Northern Supernatural Research Institute and the appearance of the S-rank dungeon Tomb of the Knight King — if we overload a Reality Erosion Device in the same manner, we can open a gate in the middle of the Vatican.
In that opening, infiltrating the Incineration Corps is fully feasible, according to our projections.
Opening an A-rank gate in the heart of the Vatican — how does that sound?