Chapter 120
Chapter 120
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Translator: Ryuma
Chapter: 120
Chapter Title: Crisis at the Artifact Lab
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Click!
The moment Nam Yeon-ah flipped the main power switch, the sound of the power supply to the warp gate being cut off echoed through the air.
Following that, the warp gate—which had looked like a bottomless abyss—went dark.
Slice!
At that instant, the enormous arm of some massive entity that had been trying to emerge from the warp gate was severed clean off.
The unidentified entity seemed utterly furious at having its arm chopped off.
But that was it.
The warp gate was already completely sealed shut.
The message must have been distorted for that very reason.
"It's over."
Shin Yu-hyun could sense that the crisis had passed.
Defeating the Xenomorph Mother had been one thing, but when that colossal something started emerging from the warp gate, a chill had run down his spine.
Just from the arm that had thrust out, it was clear this was an entity far larger and more powerful than the Xenomorph Mother at minimum.
And thanks to the residual mana in the fallen Xenomorph Mother and the power cables, the warp gate would have stayed open for a few more minutes.
Had that happened, the massive thing would have crawled out completely.
But fortunately, Nam Yeon-ah had shut off the power, severing both the supply and the residual mana in one go.
She had gotten them past that deadly hurdle.
"I'm so glad you're alive."
"I never dreamed you'd actually come... Thank you so much."
Nam Yeon-ah's face flushed red as she fidgeted, at a loss for words. She had called for help, but the warp gate's emergence had jammed all signals, so she hadn't been able to get the full message across.
Yet here he was, rushing to her aid.
"Of course I had to come."
Shin Yu-hyun smiled in response. Then his expression turned grave as he spoke again.
"So, this whole mess was because of the crystal fragment, right?"
"Yes. Exactly."
Shin Yu-hyun's face darkened at Nam Yeon-ah's nod and confirmation.
The crystal device was technology used by those Getia bastards.
He never imagined it would lead to something this dangerous.
"I'm sorry. I had no idea it was such a hazardous item."
Shin Yu-hyun bowed his head to her.
Had he known a crisis like this could erupt, he would have warned her ahead of time or not entrusted her with it at all.
Or at least overseen the experiment with full precautions in place.
Regardless of the reasons, handing over the crystal fragment had put the lab in grave peril and cost lives.
Feeling a twinge of responsibility, he apologized.
But Nam Yeon-ah shook her head.
"No, you didn't know either. And there's a reason things turned out this way."
"Huh?"
Shin Yu-hyun blinked in confusion at her words.
A reason?
What did she mean by that?
"You told me you could control magic beasts with the crystal, right? So I was trying to figure out the mechanism behind it."
If she could unravel that, humanity might finally escape the threat of magic beasts.
That was why, as a final experiment, Nam Yeon-ah had decided to supply the crystal fragment with both mana and electricity.
"To uncover its operating principle, we ran an experiment feeding it power from the lab and mana simultaneously. But that's when the problem started. The crystal fragment began absorbing more mana and electricity than its limits could handle and went berserk."
"The crystal fragment went berserk?"
"Yes. I tried to stop the experiment right away, but..."
Grind!
Nam Yeon-ah ground her teeth.
"Yu-hyun, you asked those guys who tried to assassinate me before about the Getia Worshippers, remember?"
"Yeah, I did."
The group led by Lee Ji-soo who had tried to kill her in the unconfirmed dungeon gate.
She had heard about the Getia Worshippers from them back then—and since Shin Yu-hyun had earnestly warned her not to tell a soul, she hadn't breathed a word to anyone until now.
"A Getia Worshipper... was among the researchers."
Shin Yu-hyun's eyes widened in shock.
"You're saying there was a Getia Worshipper in the lab?"
"Yes. And the outcome... well, you saw it."
Nam Yeon-ah's expression turned hollow.
When the crystal fragment started rampaging from absorbing the dual energies of mana and electricity, she had tried to shut it down.
But the Getia Worshipper had cranked up the mana and power output instead.
That was how the warp gate had opened through the crystal fragment.
"The accident was all that bastard's doing. So you don't need to apologize, Yu-hyun."
Instead, she comforted him.
Insisting he bore no blame.
She went on to explain everything else that had happened with the crystal fragment experiments.
"At first, it was astonishing. A door to another world had opened, after all. But the nightmare began soon after."
Xenomorph magic beasts must have started crawling out through the open warp gate.
"What happened to the Getia Worshipper?"
"Dead. Eaten by the magic beasts that crawled out of the warp gate."
Nam Yeon-ah shook her head as she answered.
What a bitter end.
"I see."
Shin Yu-hyun nodded gravely at her account.
'To think they'd even infiltrated Nam Yeon-ah's lab...'
The worshipper who sabotaged the experiment was surely from the Ashen Church.
"Any other survivors?"
"Ah, yes. I evacuated as many staff as possible to Basement Level 5."
Nam Yeon-ah recounted the events to Shin Yu-hyun.
The moment the warp gate opened and magic beasts started pouring out, she had immediately sealed off the laboratory.
To buy even a little time.
She broadcasted an evacuation order to Basement Level 5 over the internal system and called in security.
Thanks to that, a good number of staff had survived.
"Lucky break amid the misfortune."
Shin Yu-hyun let out a small sigh of relief.
"But I couldn't contain the magic beasts in the lab."
The Xenomorphs that emerged trashed the interior and desperately tried to escape outside.
A few even slithered out through the vents.
Seeing that, Nam Yeon-ah promptly sealed every exit from the lab.
Ensuring not a single magic beast could get out.
"The control room grew dangerous too. The windows were reinforced bulletproof glass, but not enough to hold back magic beasts."
The beasts clung to the control room windows, trying to break in.
As hordes pounded on them, the researchers inside fell into panic.
Nam Yeon-ah had to slap some sense into them.
"So how did you escape the control room?"
"There's an emergency passage from the control room straight to Basement Level 5. We researchers got out through there."
Nam Yeon-ah gave a wry smile at his question.
She had evacuated to Basement Level 5 with the control room staff.
The emergency passage was too narrow for magic beasts to enter, and the door was made of one-meter-thick steel alloy.
Even magic beasts wouldn't break through easily.
"But Researcher Kim Seung-cheol..."
He was probably the worshipper.
She said he had been staring at the beasts outside the window and the warp gate, muttering something incomprehensible. Then, after part of the glass shattered, a tentacle grabbed him and dragged him away.
He was likely devoured without even a corpse left.
That was the last she saw of him before fleeing the control room.
"Anyway, I'm just glad you made it out alive, Yeon-ah."
"If you hadn't come to rescue me, it would've been bad."
Nam Yeon-ah and the surviving researchers had holed up in Basement Level 5, monitoring the situation.
There was a CCTV control room there for checking every floor.
But things looked grim.
The magic beasts that escaped Lab Level 4 were battering at the sealed entrance to Basement Level 5.
They couldn't use the control room's emergency passage, but they could break through the stairwell door connecting Level 4 and 5.
Nam Yeon-ah and the survivors had done everything to block the entrance and keep the beasts out.
But it was only a matter of time.
Then, suddenly, the beasts vanished.
They had gone off to hunt the infiltrating Shin Yu-hyun.
That had given Nam Yeon-ah and the others a moment's respite.
"This is the second time you've saved me, Yu-hyun."
Nam Yeon-ah smiled at him. Then she sidled closer and whispered,
"But... who is she?"
At the end of her gaze stood the stunning beauty, Shuv.
With Shin Yu-hyun rescuing Nam Yeon-ah and the lab's other survivors, the situation was finally under control.
The warp gate incident at Nam Yeon-ah's lab was hushed up.
They couldn't reveal warp gate intel to the general public.
Officially, it was announced as an accident during an experiment at the Artifact Research Institute, resulting in casualties.
Nam Yeon-ah wasn't thrilled about concealing the truth.
But with the crystal device, Getia Worshippers, warp gate, and magic beasts from another dimension all involved, cover-up was the only option.
The cleanup was handled by Namdu Group's superhumans.
They erased every trace in the lab.
All infected researchers were incinerated, and the Xenomorph magic beasts were mostly destroyed—save a few for research.
'All that's left are my spoils of war.'
The loot from defeating the Xenomorph bosses.
Everything was stored in Dia's sub-space for later.
'The real issue is the Artifact Research Institute.'
Shin Yu-hyun watched the Namdu Group superhumans bustling at the entrance, lost in thought.
The survivors, Nam Yeon-ah included, sat wrapped in blankets, numbly sipping coffee with lifeless expressions.
Their home away from home—the Artifact Research Institute—was utterly wrecked.
The only intact facility was Basement Level 5.
"Yeon-ah."
"Yes."
Called by Shin Yu-hyun at the lab entrance, Nam Yeon-ah looked up with a dazed expression.
"What are your plans now?"
"Well..."
She trailed off with a bitter look.
Trapped in the lab, survival had been her only thought.
Now rescued with some breathing room, uncertainty flooded in—what next?
Her Artifact Research Institute like a home, her colleagues like family.
All lost in an instant.
Shin Yu-hyun understood her mood and situation all too well.
So he spoke softly to her.
"Yeon-ah. Want to come live at my place?"
"...!"
Nam Yeon-ah clamped a hand over her mouth, speechless at his unexpected offer.