The Monsters Are the Cataclysm
'Is he telling me he wants to die?'
Honestly, when I'd heard Moon Youngseok's words a moment ago, that had been my first thought.
The Artificial Hunter Development Project.
As the man before me had said, a human experiment carried out long ago in the shadows of this very nation.
Orphans taken and collided with high-density mana in trials meant to force their abilities awake.
Considering that even Lee Joongoo — the sole party involved — had been reluctant to explain the whole of it, then at the very least, the subjects must have been thrown into gates.
And a fair number of them must have died, too.
"I am not saying I helped with that project."
That much, Moon Youngseok did protest. But either way, the moment those words left his mouth, a visit to his laboratory became unavoidable. I had to verify whether he truly had a hand in that project or not.
Besides, even granting the doubt, the only person who could guide us right now was Moon Youngseok himself.
He could watch my reaction and lead us to some laboratory with no connection whatsoever to the project… but still.
'Throw him in front of Lee Joongoo, and we'll know.'
If Dr. Moon genuinely intended to defect to our side, then a face-to-face with Lee Joongoo was inevitable regardless.
Whether a mere academic could tell a lie under the eyes of humanity's strongest — wouldn't that make for a rather intriguing thought experiment?
"But prithee — art thou certain 'tis wise to simply follow behind him?"
"Huh?"
"The possibility of deceit hath not changed one whit, hath it?"
"Well, fair point."
"Hast thou a countermeasure prepared?"
"Nope."
"EEEK?!"
Tiamat let out a shriek. At the sound, Moon Youngseok, leading the way ahead, glanced briefly back over his shoulder. I waved him on — it's fine, keep moving — and once he turned forward again, I sighed at the back of his head and rounded on Tiamat.
"Hey, seriously, what's with the sudden screaming?"
"F-forgive this one. But I pray thee understand — hearing such talk, could even I remain unshaken?"
"You've got a point, but still…"
The truth was, from the moment Moon Youngseok had asserted his innocence, touring their laboratory had been a foregone conclusion. There was no way we could arrange a separate meeting for later — he'd slipped away from the organization's eyes to contact me, and I, for my part, had only gotten into the club by borrowing Cheong Joonpil's name. Neither of us was exactly in a position to schedule reunions at our leisure.
In that sense, Moon Youngseok had played it rather cleverly, I had to admit.
"Worrying won't fix it now. We wing it, that's all."
'You gloriously irresponsible bastard.'
Not that I could talk. If worrying would actually produce a solution, I'd worry until the cows came home — but this wasn't that kind of problem. Thinking about it would just burn time for nothing.
So here, Plan C it was: the venerable when-the-body-won't-cooperate,-let-the-brain-take-the-beating strategy.
"And anyway, why are you so worked up about this?"
"How could this one not be?! Behold how little power I currently wield!"
"Well… yeah, that's true."
Right now, her power sat at roughly E-rank monster or below — practically an ordinary civilian. If one of the goons who'd been leering at Tiamat earlier had seriously raised a hand, things could have gotten genuinely dicey.
Given the infiltration mission she was running alongside me, there'd been no helping it.
Still.
"It's just an avatar, isn't it?"
"KYAAAAH!!"
"Doesn't it basically not matter if you die?"
I kept that thought to myself — saying it to her face felt a touch cruel — though it didn't exactly help.
Truthfully, I'd brought her along partly because even if this did escalate into open war with the organization, she was someone who'd walk away without a scratch.
"Thou sayest she may die?! Where in all the world is such talk acceptable?!"
"Hey, when you put it that way, it sounds like I'm saying it's fine if somebody kicks the bucket."
"Didst thou not say so?! Do not tell me thou believest that, being merely an avatar, her death signifies nothing?!"
"Uh…"
"Then, had one of those louts sought to toy with this one earlier, thou wouldst simply have stood by and watched?"
Watching the goddess sulk with a faintly wounded air, I had to concede the remark had been more than a little delicate.
Well, avatar or not, the mechanism was essentially long-range possession. Ideally she could sever the connection at the right moment, but with her every ability suppressed to civilian levels right now, that was a tall order.
"You already died once, so quit whining."
"Wh-what didst thou say?! Thou knave! That was not this one, but—"
"Yeah, yeah, I get it. I'll protect you. Happy?"
'Shit. Corpse-shield strategy: officially scrapped.'
Even as I grumbled inwardly, she was nodding away, thoroughly pleased with herself.
"Hm-hm. Well then, good. Thou dost clearly repent thy thoughtless words. Most seemly."
"Uh, sure."
"Very well. Then discharge thy duty as the goddess's guardian knight — and see it done with utmost devotion."
'What an absolutely unhinged load of horseshit.'
I sighed internally. Setting aside everything else — there were no knights in your era, you know?
Crazy ugga-ugga primitive that she was.
For the record, back when the versions of the myth featuring the name Tiamat were the mainstream ones, the kings of the Middle East apparently kept berserkers among their ranks — warriors who would charge the enemy stark naked.
"I cannot fathom what delightful conversation you two are having, but we have arrived."
Moon Youngseok addressed us in a perfectly level voice. And indeed, an end to the pitch-black corridor had begun to come into view.
Moon Youngseok had led us from the corner of the hallway where we'd been talking to some room on the building's third floor — and what greeted us as we stepped inside was a darkness so absolute that even a hunter's eyes struggled to make out objects.
Then came another stretch of walking — a considerable one — until, far ahead, we could finally make out a door leaking a faint haze of light.
'So we're going underground.'
Even as we walked, I was running the numbers.
The dark corridor's purpose was, first and foremost, blocking sightlines. Following Moon Youngseok's back, I gradually registered the floor tilting — subtly, but unmistakably, downward.
Just like that.
Nine times out of ten, the whole thing was an obstacle course designed to conceal the laboratory — a safeguard against spies like us, who'd infiltrated under borrowed names, reporting its true location.
'Clever, actually.'
With a structure like this, you could hear the lab was on the third floor, blow the entire building sky-high — and the real laboratory wouldn't suffer so much as a scratch.
And one more thing.
Novus Ordo Seclorum.
This club really had been serving as a relay base for the organization. That much was obvious from the mere fact that a facility like this was installed on the premises.
"Well then — welcome, to the central laboratory of the Novus Ordo Seclorum."
With those words, Moon Youngseok operated a passpad mounted beside the door frame. A low mechanical hum — bzzz-ing — and then light exploded upward, flooding the chamber around us.
"Whoa…"
Unlike me, half-expecting a machine gun to come flying out, Tiamat voiced her admiration without reservation. I briefly considered chiding her for it — but the moment my eyes fully adjusted to the brightness, I found myself making very much the same sound.
It was far too lavish to be a mere hidden facility tucked beneath some building.
Mana, streaming from the installation at the laboratory's center, raced across the white panels — the same kind I'd seen at the Gangwon branch.
Being an illegal facility, they couldn't tap a leyline the way the Gangwon branch did. The government keeps a close eye on leyline use and management, after all.
So they'd made up the difference with staggering wealth and equipment.
At the heart of the laboratory, machinery I couldn't begin to comprehend was converting raw electricity into mana. And then that converted mana was being distributed out to every corner of the facility.
An evil organization's secret base.
There was simply no other way to describe the sight.
"Seeing your reaction, I find myself feeling rather proud of it too."
"You called it the central laboratory of the Novus Ordo Seclorum earlier. Is that what you people actually call the organization?"
"For the most part. From what I've heard, this club was the very foundation upon which the organization was founded."
"Hmm."
So the people who had pinned their hopes on a new era being born at the end of the First Cataclysm… were now devotees of an era defined by a Third Cataclysm.
A truly exquisite irony.
"Anyway, moving on."
"That name is unreasonably long as hell."
"Novus Ordo Seclorum?"
"What even is that, you nerd? Let's just call them the bastards from here on out. Saves everyone the trouble."
"Impressive as it all is, this can't be the whole show, right?"
"Of course not."
Naturally. If this were everything, there would have been no need to bring up artificial hunter awakening experiments in the first place.
True to form, Moon Youngseok handed out several sets of materials with practiced ease and took his seat. He looked every inch the university professor.
"Then, before we begin — let us first review the purpose of this secret organization. The Third Cataclysm, yes?"
"Precisely. As of now, this organization is actively working to trigger the Third Cataclysm by design."
"And the monsters are cooperating toward that end, on top of it."
"I can't speak to the details, but if monsters are crossing over into this world from beyond the gates, they must have some purpose in doing so. That is why the monsters await the Cataclysm's occurrence — for their own ends, whatever those may be."
"World domination, probably. Whatever. Not my problem."
Humans might warrant the curiosity, but monsters? We were going to kill every last one of them anyway. No need to know their motives.
"Then, one question. How, exactly, does this organization intend to bring about the Third Cataclysm?"
"Uh…"
"Good question, that."
"Hmm, let's see. To put it in the most extreme terms, a Cataclysm amounts to little more than an overabundance of gate occurrences. And gates erupt from the detonation of densely concentrated mana."
"So they set off a mana bomb or something?"
"That would not be a bad approach — however, every Cataclysm to date has shared one thing in common."
"Commonality?"
"The appearance of an enormous, singular monstrosity."
"Now that you mention it, I have heard something along those lines."
The First Cataclysm — the great disaster that began with a colossal eruption said to have originated beneath Mount Etna in Sicily.
The Second Cataclysm — the great disaster that began with a colossal earthquake said to have originated in the Atacama Desert of Chile.
"Something like that?"
"Thou speakest of the Extra-standard, dost thou not?" Tiamat replied with utter indifference. I, on the other hand, couldn't follow at all.
"Extra-standard?"
"The Association's most closely guarded secret. By protocol, not even S-rank hunters are permitted to access it. A top-priority directive."
"Uh, you mean S-rank monsters?"
"No."
Extra-standard.
Monsters beyond the reach of any firepower modern human society could muster — classified under a separate Special Rank precisely because no other measure applied. Monsters, in the most literal sense, that demanded the total strength of a nation to oppose — or that could annihilate a nation entirely on their own.
And yet.
"Beyond even that."
"What?"
"Beyond even that?!"
"What the hell kind of ghost-gnawing-rice-grains nonsense is that supposed to be?!"
Too absurd for words, I turned to look at Moon Youngseok — only to find the man himself nodding along with complete composure.
"That's accurate."
"Huh?"
"It's quite simple, really."
As Moon Youngseok finished, Tiamat added her piece, calm and unhurried — though the quiet sigh she let out suggested she wasn't entirely pleased about it.
"Special Rank — beings that cannot be measured by the firepower of the present age. That is S-rank. Am I not correct?"
"You are."
"Then what, I ask thee, dost 'Extra-standard' among them signify? Being unmeasurable by modern firepower, a separate Special category was created to classify them. And yet — beyond even that, beings that cannot be counted, firepower or no…"
"Humanity's foremost priority."
Tap, tap.
Rapping her fingertips against the table, Tiamat delivered the answer.
"A matter that precedes any question of strength or classification. Namely: foes whose very emergence demands that all of humanity stand united against them."
The scale of it was nonsensical.
"No — wait, what now? All of humanity?"
I mean, sure, we'd been calling these people traitors to humanity, but where did this sudden "humanity" business come from?
"I do not speak in jest. Of all people, surely thou knowest?"
"Uh… know what?"
"Thou, more learned than any in the ways of monsters — surely thou knowest the meaning held by those places: Mount Etna, and the Atacama Desert."
Put that way, it did ring a bell.
Mount Etna. In Greco-Roman myth, the place hailed as the great forge of Hephaestus, god of the smiths. The smith god was said to hammer out the weapons of the gods using the lava of Etna itself.
Because, within the Greek and Roman myths, no flame burns hotter than the eruption of Mount Etna.
Which meant…
"Tartaros?"
"Think but a little further."
"Let's see…"
It was also said that Hephaestus had established his forge upon Etna in order to stand watch over the hell that slumbered beneath the mountain. In other words — the ancient Greeks believed that Tartaros, the hell of their myths, lay directly beneath Mount Etna.
And…
"Ah."
I realized. I couldn't help but realize.
The Greeks had believed something else, too. That Mount Etna had not originally stood upon the island of Sicily at all.
It was hell's stopper — the seal Zeus had prepared to imprison the being who had once challenged his throne, and had actually driven him back in defeat.
Shaking its body beneath the earth and wrenching the ground apart — that was an earthquake. Belching fire from endless fury — that was a volcano. Overturning the ships of the sea with its waves — that was a tsunami. A being that summoned the storm — hence the typhoon.
And with its hundred heads, it called down the thunder — and so there was lightning.
"Typhon."
The strongest monster of Greco-Roman myth. The embodiment of every natural disaster known to man, and father to countless monsters besides. A great monstrosity said to have once bested even almighty Zeus himself.
The Atacama Desert was much the same.
The first thing that came to mind at the name Atacama was, of course, the Giant of Atacama — the largest humanoid ever to walk the earth. Local legend, moreover, held that the figure was a sealing of the giant said to have warred against Viracocha, god of the Inca, in ages long past. The stories claimed that on the day the giant opened its eyes, it would hurl aside the South American continent that pinned it down and scour human civilization from the earth.
"Aye. Either way, foes who need no explanation at all."
"So what you're saying is — every time a Cataclysm hits, at least one obscenely strong bastard shows up?"
"Nay. The monsters are the Cataclysm."
"…Huh?"
"Think on it simply. Thou rememberest the conditions for a gate's occurrence?"
"Well, yeah."
"Then what of the mana held within a monster that could, absent any interference, annihilate humanity single-handed?"
"How the hell would I know?"
"Fuck if I know. Never seen one."
And yet — even without seeing, I could take a guess. I could piece it together.
'Well. We're screwed.'
"Yes. That is the true nature of the Cataclysm."
It was not that an eruption of countless gates had somehow culminated in the appearance of an Extra-standard monster. Quite the opposite, in fact.
A monster capable of destroying humanity on its own had appeared — and the mana density had spiked violently in response. And because of that, gates had begun to erupt all across the globe.
That was what these people were calling the Cataclysm.
'Son of a bitch.'
"No — is that even supposed to make sense? So what you're saying is…"
The two Cataclysms humanity had endured to this point had been nothing more than aftermath?
"Correct."
Even I found myself at a loss for words. And yet, one thought drifted unbidden through my mind.
Novus Ordo Seclorum.
I had no intention of whitewashing them. Whatever circumstances they might claim, these people were traitors to humanity, full stop.
And yet.
'No wonder, I guess.'
Upper crust, elites, whatever they called themselves — at their core, they were civilians. Not hunters.
Confronted with the truth like this, of course they'd been scared out of their wits.
"In short: this organization intends to summon an Extra-standard monster, and to trigger the Third Cataclysm through its aftermath."
Well, whatever. But hearing a man say that to your face, any lingering shred of sympathy for him tended to evaporate on the spot.