Chapter 381: The Factory Deep Underground – AO’s Story.
Chapter 381: The Factory Deep Underground – AO’s Story.
Underground.
It could be called the place where everything began.
Not in a good way, but in the worst way possible.
It was the place that taught the Awakened—those thought to be composed only of justice and endurance—that there exists a threshold where they can vent purely malicious rage.
It was the place that signaled the beginning of a new world, one no longer bound by the rules of the past.
However, those who know of its existence are few and far between.
In fact, most don't even know such an incident ever occurred.
Even if you searched the entire world, you wouldn't find fifty people who know even a fraction of the truth regarding the laboratory and factory nestled deep within the earth.
Those involved with the factory.
And a few dozen members of a trusted joint task force of Awakened and non-Awakened who, sensing something suspicious, independently investigated and raided the facility.
That is the sum total of everyone who knows of the Factory Deep Underground.
And then, the weeding began.
Beings who possessed power far exceeding the limits of any individual used the strength they had gained to protect humanity to instead distill pure malice.
The power we held was used to massacre those involved.
Private punishments, devoid of any legal evidence, were carried out against anyone who knew even a whisper of that place.
The lightest punishment was a large-scale Memory Erasure. However, because this was done before the technology had been fully refined, many were left with permanent mental disabilities.
The harshest punishment was, naturally, death—burying everything beneath the earth forever.
Thus, everything related to that place fell into a slumber beneath the soil.
Not a single record remains.
Every person associated with the factory knew exactly what they were doing and therefore left no records, and we didn't know everything about the factory, nor did we have any desire to leave a legacy of it.
By covering the sins of others with an even greater sin of our own before vanishing, we sought to erase the very fact that such an event ever existed from the world.
However, that plan was thwarted by the Heavenly Demon Sword God. Those who still harbored memories of the Factory Deep Underground—memories that should have vanished—swore an oath never to let them pass their lips.
No matter which Management Bureau secrets you dig through, you will find no record indicating such an incident took place.
The same applies to indirect records.
The Factory Deep Underground is a 'non-existent event.'
Because nothing remains in this world to prove such a place ever existed.
The only things left to prove that place once stood within the earth are the relics of the past, waiting to enter their graves with the incident clutched to their chests.
That was my understanding.
At least, until I met AO Director just now.
"How many people know about that?"
A coldness so profound that I felt no emotion—a level of composure that even I found strange.
I wondered if the chill of the coffin I would one day lie in would feel like this.
"None. I have a general idea of how you all handle information regarding that place. That secret must vanish along with us. Correct?"
"…Yes."
Then that was enough.
"I agree with that sentiment. And you don't need to worry about the drug. What the survivors made is a crude imitation. The ingredients themselves are… well. My apologies. That was a slip of the tongue."
She bowed her head voluntarily before I could even react.
It was an overreaction.
I hadn't shown any response at all.
However, through her brief words and actions, a small measure of trust in her began to form.
Perhaps because I remained silent, AO Director watched my expression for a moment before speaking again.
"To return to the topic of the drug, it is an utterly crude object compared to the medicine of the past in every respect. Even the medicine made with the best methods was a product of delusion; the current drug is something that can't even come close to it."
As she explained, she tapped her stomach.
The sound that echoed from her was not the dull thud of hitting flesh, but a dry, rattling sound, as if she were striking bone.
"…Then why do they keep making it?"
And why align themselves with the Regressionists, whose ideology is the furthest thing from their own?
"They cannot give up that drug because they cannot escape the illusions of the past. They simply don't want to believe that the path they walked, paved with sin, was wrong."
She spoke and stared blankly at the ceiling.
Then, a voice tinged with emotion flowed from her lips.
"It started with good intentions. Five men and women sharing a conversation in a typical college tavern. 'The Awakened are victims who stumbled into this war by chance. So, let us make it so that awakening doesn't depend on luck, but can be controlled.' That was the beginning of all the tragedy."
She continued to speak.
She told the history of a place I didn't know—a history we never wanted to know.
"The research of those passionate, talented individuals progressed rapidly. But they soon hit a wall. A wall that could never be scaled without a certain method. And so, they compromised with reality. They accepted funding and stepped slightly over the line of ethics."
I listened intently.
Because those words were like a confession that someone had desperately wanted someone else to hear for a very long time.
"Crossing the line is only difficult the first time; after that, it's just a long fall. Good intentions were soon filled with malice. But as long as they held up the pretext of 'the greater good,' they came to believe that even that evil was a path toward a higher virtue."
At first glance, these words sounded like an excuse.
But I felt no self-justification in her voice.
There was only the profound sorrow of laying out the facts.
"The five soon became ten, and the ten soon became a hundred. The lab became a Research Institute, and soon it became a factory producing goods based on delusions. Unverified theories became law among a group driven mad by insanity. Within that, no individual could stop. The group had already become a single, massive organism entwined with countless people."
She didn't call herself a victim.
Calmly, she blamed herself for failing to stop it all.
I could feel that in her voice.
"Everything wanted to move forward. The investors wanted satisfying results, the researchers wanted their ideas to be proven right, and the practitioners wanted the sins they committed to bear fruit. The runaway collective only ran forward, believing they were absolutely right."
Was that the cause of that twisted place?
A collective's rampage that began with good intentions.
An individual caught in that current cannot stop the flow.
It's not that there are no dissenters.
AO Director, who was telling this story right now, was one such person.
Of course, since the only evidence was her word, it might not be the absolute truth, but her body at least proved that she belonged in the realm of the victims.
People gather to form a group, and the colony that is the group moves according to the collective will of the people.
Gradually, the group and its members become inseparable.
Yet, every single member has a completely different face.
Therefore, someone within the group will inevitably recoil against the collective will.
What begins from there is a madness that cannot be stopped by individual strength.
Because their individual wills have already been devoured by the monster known as the collective.
A group exists because there are individuals, but once it reaches that stage, a reversal occurs where individuals exist only because the group exists. The group then tries to purge any foreign substances to remain one.
With a power equal to the madness the collective possesses.
That was the being before my eyes—AO Director.
A being who had meaningless poison endlessly and forcibly shoved down her throat.
"That was the end of that factory."
She brought the story to a close.
New knowledge and their actions were being etched into me.
However, it had no effect on me.
It wasn't some trivial story like 'those people had their reasons, too.'
AO Director didn't tell the story to create that kind of atmosphere, nor did she want me to be influenced by it.
Then why?
"Why did you bring this up?"
It was a story without any meaning.
At my question, AO Director wore a twisted smile.
"To let you know who your opponents are."
She, who had been looking into the distant past, met my eyes and spoke.
"Two of the original five are members of the Regressionist Terrorist Group. They might try to give you a long-winded explanation of their circumstances."
I could feel emotion in her voice now.
Rage and madness.
"They aren't even worth listening to. Kill them. If you want information, you can keep them alive. But kill them after you've heard it all. Kill them before their dream creates any more victims."
With every repetition of the word 'kill,' a murky rage seeped through.
But a tiny, truly minuscule amount of sadness was mixed in as well.
"Let their dream end in their pure days. Please, kill them."
Perhaps this was AO Director's true heart.
The small, honest wish of a being who had fallen out of sync with the world.
"I understand."
I replied with total sincerity.
"I'll take that as an acceptance. I will send the operation details and related materials to your terminal shortly. You may rest until then."
Since she had ended the conversation, I stood up from the sofa and headed for the door.
In that cold silence, just as I gripped the doorknob.
"Before you leave, I have one thing to ask. It's a question that might touch a nerve."
AO Director spoke once more.
"…You've already touched several nerves."
Ever since this conversation began.
I simply knew that I shouldn't get angry.
"I see. Then I will ask."
"…."
What kind of question was she hesitating to ask after being so brazen until now?
"Looking back now, the research at the factory wasn't dramatically horrific."
A spark of anger almost flared up at those words, but it quickly died down.
Because I knew exactly what she meant by that.
"Yes, I am well aware that it was an atrocious crime. And I believe the punishment they received was fitting. However, compared to crimes that make you doubt if such things could truly happen in reality, it is true that the severity was lower."
Yes, what happened in the Factory Deep Underground was nothing compared to even more horrific incidents.
Like the criminal organization that operated a plant producing Otherworldly entities that created narcotic substances using the bodies of immature beings.
Like those who ran a business by kidnapping people and harvesting their organs without anesthesia through infinite regeneration.
Incidents where things that should never be used were used in ways they should never be used.
Anyone immersed in the darkness of the Management Bureau knows that, as simple incidents, there are things far worse than the Factory Deep Underground.
The endless list of cases proves what happens when a mad being, who cannot be bound by the framework of human society, gains power beyond human limits.
Yet, the punishment they received was far more lenient than what happened in this case.
Is an imaginable sin lighter than an unimaginable one?
If one knew that, they would naturally have questions as a party involved.
And I knew the reason.
"Because it was a factory."
"What do you mean?"
"I couldn't stand the fact that all those actions were automated, and in the end, only a single package remained."
A place where everyone involved could turn their eyes away from the sin, and where it felt as though it had become normalized.
I was more shocked by the fact that the sin was being carried out automatically than by the acts themselves.
It would have been less shocking if some human had become a butcher and performed those acts with their own hands and a hammer.
I learned at that place that a cleanliness devoid of any perceived cruelty is what is truly terrifying.
I can still recall it now.
The memory of a place that, despite being stained with so much blood, didn't hold even a hint of the scent of blood.
The fishy smell of iron wasn't the smell of blood.
It was merely the smell of oil-stained machinery.
That was the Factory Deep Underground.
A place where several non-Awakened awakened just by seeing it.
And where several Awakened gained power on the spot.
That was the kind of place it was.
"…I understand."
"Good. That's enough."
With that final exchange, I left the room.