The Shadow of Choi Minseol
Kang Yeolchan was the first to speak, his voice brimming with excitement.
"Mom! Really? It appeared? What is it?!"
Yoo Hyeyeon calmed him with a wave of her hand.
"It's a drone blueprint."
"A drone?"
"Mom, a drone blueprint isn't really that special..."
Just as Yeolchan said, a drone blueprint wasn't anything special.
Rarity aside, it was completely useless.
A drone—equipped with a processing unit, receiving wireless commands, and acting independently—was nothing more than prey to be fed to F.
Even in the early stages of the last war, countless military drones had been hacked by F, turning their barrels against their human creators. Until humanity used electromagnetic storms to neutralize small machines lacking EMP countermeasures, half of all human defeats were caused by drones.
Therefore, drones could not be made, nor should they be made. Even if they were built, they couldn't be used.
"That would be true for a normal drone... but this is a drone mounted on a Searcher. Meaning, it's a machine species."
An unexpected term slipped out.
"A machine species, you say?"
"Yes. A portion of a machine species' blueprint has been exposed. This is... unprecedented, so I'm not entirely sure of its value."
If it was a machine species drone, that was a different story.
They might decipher the machine species' communication protocols, or perhaps find a clue that would allow humanity to hack the drones in reverse.
At the very least, they could determine the drone's exact specifications and utilize them tactically.
Though whether that had any meaning now that the war was over, he didn't know...
As those thoughts crossed my mind, a sudden question arose.
"Wait, I have a question."
"What is it?"
Yoo Hyeyeon raised her head and looked at me.
"Drones of the search-type machine species appeared past the midpoint of the war. However, the world of the Internet seems to recreate the pre-war world."
"I see what you mean. As you said, the Internet recreates the past before the war, so how could there be information on a drone created during the war?"
"Exactly."
Yoo Hyeyeon and Kang Yeolchan briefly exchanged glances.
Kang Yeolchan spoke up.
"Hyeong-nim. In this world, time and space don't mean much."
"What do you... mean by that?"
"Hyeong-nim, you can speak casually to me! We're close! The Internet world is a mix of past, present, and future information. The main era we see is the 2020s, but some places recreate the 2000s, and others even recreate the 2050s!"
"There are even some Event Zones that recreate the Joseon Dynasty. Distinctions of time are meaningless in this world."
The two took turns adding explanations.
"In any case, Maetan will buy this information for a very high price. It might open a path for us to hack and utilize machine species drones... We can expect a handsome sum."
Yoo Hyeyeon did not hide her anticipation.
CC's message popped up.
[Mister, I want to see it too.]
"May I take a look for a moment?"
"Yes, of course."
Yoo Hyeyeon turned the laptop toward me.
On the monitor, a three-view drawing and blueprint of the drone were displayed.
It was a drone I had seen countless times on the battlefield.
Memories of digging into the dirt and holding my breath to avoid being detected by this thing, drones pouring out from the body of a multi-legged Searcher, and the image of the Operator dying while clutching one at the Pyeongtaek base flashed through my mind.
[Mister. Please put your hand on the laptop.]
For a moment, a tingling sensation washed over the back of my neck.
[Done.]
I took my hand off the laptop and leaned back against the sofa.
Yoo Hyeyeon spoke.
"Let's call it a day. You're welcome to stay longer if you'd like, Joohyuk, but isn't it about time you reached your connection limit?"
Thanks to CC handling the calculations on my behalf, I had obtained a near-infinite active connection time, but publicly, I kept my connection limit at five hours. It was a fairly long connection time for a D-grade.
"As you know, to log out, just go back to where you first connected. There will definitely be a door. Opening that door will log you out."
I left the Sprout office and headed toward Chungmuro.
The place where I had logged in was a building in front of Chungmuro Station, and a side door next to the building served as the gateway to Intra-Maetan.
I stood in front of the gateway and called CC.
"CC, earlier when I touched the laptop..."
[That's right. I copied the drone. Look up.]
When I raised my head as CC suggested, a large drone was hovering halfway up the building above me.
[Sharing video feed.]
A small window opened before my eyes, revealing a panoramic view of Chungmuro seen through the drone's eyes.
[Recreating this level of technology in reality would be impossible right now, but in the data-driven Internet, it can be replicated 100%.]
CC panned the drone's camera as if showing off.
Beyond Chungmuro, various parts of Seoul appeared so close they felt within arm's reach. The performance of the lens was staggering.
"Incredible. Were we really fighting a war against bastards with this level of intelligence-gathering capability...?"
[It's almost like having a maphack on.]
I didn't know what a 'maphack' was, but it was certainly a cheat-like performance. With this resolution and field of view, the machine species must have seen everything we did, no matter where we hid during the war.
[Ah, Mister, look over there!]
The drone's camera pointed at a sign on a building.
BBL PC Bang.
[Mister, you didn't forget our deal, right?]
Another video window opened next to the drone's feed.
Inside was my room in Maetan, and a prosthetic arm with its palm facing me.
It was the record of that day.
The day I realized CC was in my prosthetic arm, leading to a fierce struggle.
That day, we made a deal.
CC would supplement my lacking computational ability to make me a Player, and I would find CC's lost past.
Inside the video, the conversation from that day could be heard.
[Maybe that PC Bang is the place I was looking for... Huh? Or not? Why are there so many PC Bangs?]
The drone's camera whipped around, pointing at signs that read 'PC Bang' one after another.
There were PC Bangs all over the city.
"Let's go into one for now."
The screen showing the drone's camera feed turned off.
When I looked up, the drone was dissolving into light.
I crossed the street and headed toward the PC Bang with the worn-out sign.
Second basement floor of the building.
In a spacious, brightly lit area, rows of seats equipped with monitors and keyboards were lined up.
"Welcome."
The man sitting behind the counter glanced at me and greeted me.
But that was all; his gaze immediately returned to the monitor on the counter.
Electronic beeps echoed from beneath the monitor.
CC projected an arrow in my field of vision. It was a touch display.
[It looks like they use these terminals. It seems this is a place where you rent a terminal to access the Internet... I guess it's not the place I was looking for.]
CC's message window slowly drifted downward.
Was she disappointed?
"The Internet? Aren't we inside the Internet right now?"
[I mean the pre-war Internet, before it became a virtual world. Before it was occupied by F.]
After paying, I scanned the monitors of the patrons who were already seated.
Though the screens were all different, they all seemed to be playing games.
Shouts, screams, despair, and joy were all tangled together.
[I've seen it in old data. In the past, there were places where people rented computers to test their strategies and reflexes against each other... This must be it.]
"It feels like Maetan's entertainment server."
I sat in a corner seat.
The computer and monitor were similar in form to what I had seen in Intra-Maetan.
[Please put your hand on the keyboard. I'll search.]
As I placed my hand on the keyboard, the information on the monitor flickered and changed rapidly.
I caught a brief glimpse, but it was information regarding PC Bangs and quantum processors.
CC, who had been scouring the network for a long time, spoke.
[…It seems the kind of information I want isn't in this era's information network. The information base seems to be from before I was born...]
CC's voice sounded somewhat downcast.
[I failed, but what about you, Mister?]
"Me?"
[You said you had a purpose for becoming a Player too, right?]
Once again, the memory of the day I first met CC played before my eyes.
The steel prosthetic arm swayed in front of the camera.
In the corner of the screen, CC's messages from that day appeared like subtitles.
"Even if you tell me to search... I don't know what to do."
[Give me information about her. I'll search.]
"Information... She's a woman... pretty... black hair, and she's eleven years older than me."
[Oh, older...! And?]
"Her computational ability is outstanding. They said she was SS-class. She also has a brilliant strategic mind, bold yet cautious. In particular, her precise scouting and accurate judgments often made me feel as if we had an AI on our side."
[...It's a bit different from what I was thinking... In this era, computational ability isn't a search parameter... and since you were born in 2030... starting from those born in 2019... What else? What about her name?]
"Her name."
We had never called her by her name.
Commander, or Mom. Soldiers around my age called her Noona.
I probably hadn't heard her name even once since our first meeting.
Even so, I had never forgotten it.
"Choi Minseol."
[Choi Minseol... There are a few. If we limit it to those born in 2019... eleven people show up. Eight of them have social media... Is she among them?]
Faces of women appeared on the monitor.
But none of them were faces I recognized.
[Then she doesn't have social media... Ah, she doesn't have social media, but there's someone who appeared in a news article.]
A news article from a newspaper appeared on the monitor.
21-Year-Old Female Researcher Simultaneously Obtains Country's Youngest Double Doctorate
Choi Minseol (21), a domestic female researcher, has become a hot topic for simultaneously obtaining degrees in neuro-brain science and quantum physics. Choi Minseol graduated from high school through a qualification exam at the age of 16 and...
Before I could even finish reading the sentence, CC scrolled down the article.
At the end of the document, a woman wearing a square academic cap and holding a bouquet of flowers was standing.
[Is it this person?]
Ah.
It had been so long.
She was younger than she was in my memories, but there was no mistake.
[Mister!]
"Sorry. This is her. Get more information..."
[Look around you.]
Only after hearing CC's warning did I realize.
The PC Bang, which had been so noisy just moments ago, was dead silent.
It was so quiet that I could hear myself swallowing, the sound of my own breathing, and even the beating of my heart.
I slowly turned my head.
The people in the PC Bang were all staring at me.
"...This is..."
Though slightly different, I had felt a similar atmosphere before.
It was when I had connected to Intra-Sampyeong for an external assignment, only to realize they had already been compromised by F.
Did this mean we had been detected by the AI? But why...?
[Let's not provoke them. For now... let's get out.]
CC quickly cleared the search bar on the monitor.
I slowly stood up from my seat and headed toward the door.
Until I stepped out, neither the patrons nor the pretty female clerk behind the counter took their eyes off me.
[Pretend you don't notice.]
Without looking back at them, I quietly opened the door, left the PC Bang, and silently climbed the stairs.
"Huff... Huff..."
As soon as I stepped out onto the streets of Chungmuro, I let out a ragged breath.
Fortunately, the street looked exactly as it had when I first arrived.
Cars were still driving on the road, and nothing unusual could be seen in the people passing by.
I checked the sky, but unlike Intra-Sampyeong, the sky wasn't shattering to reveal a hidden side made of numbers.
[Fortunately, it seems we've escaped surveillance.]
[But why did the residents of the Internet suddenly become wary of us?]
"...It must be because we searched for Choi Minseol."
[Choi Minseol? Why?]
I didn't know the exact reason either.
However, I felt a strange sense of exhilaration.
I wasn't wrong.
Her whereabouts were inside the Internet.