Chapter 19
Chapter 19
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Translator: Ryuma
Chapter: 19
Chapter Title: Ancient Language
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*Trrrring-*
*Trrrring-* *Click.*
"Ah, Shin-ju...!!"
"The person you are trying to reach is currently on another call. Please try again later."
Enri was biting her nails, pacing back and forth inside the intelligence division.
"Hoo, hoo."
Enri's expression was twisted with frustration.
"Mr. Shin-ju, Mr. Shin-ju, please...."
She pressed the call button again.
"It's him...."
Enri heard Sharin muttering beside her and turned her head.
Sharin, with an agitated expression, slowly looked up at Enri.
"It's the bastard who cut off my arm.... That's his voice...."
Enri's eyes flashed for a moment.
"What?!"
"That bastard... he did that to Furen...."
While Sharin bit her lower lip, ancient characters etched on scraps of parchment scrolled rapidly across Bid908's monitor.
He was urgently searching for the etymology of the words he had noted down seven years ago, just in case: 'Gelusnieu. Ofunais. Mineatsua. Jimanuitu. Nachiahwichahoa.'
He had previously determined they were an ancient cosmic language, but even now, he had no way of properly deciphering any of the words except for 'Jimanuitu'.
Still, he didn't give up and continued to search through the data.
[Just where am I supposed to look....]
Suddenly, the door burst open.
The group inside turned their heads.
Before them stood Hyde, sweating and holding a laptop.
"Enri... You're Enri, right? The one... the one who kept calling earlier!"
Enri glared at him and nodded silently.
Even in that moment, she thought, *This bastard hacked my phone.*
A flash of anger surged at him for so brazenly committing a crime inside a police station, but Enri maintained her composure.
It seemed he had something to say about the situation.
Hyde spoke urgently.
"Old Book, no... Park Shin-ju is in danger! I know where he is!!"
The research institute building began to shake violently.
"Ugh! What the hell!"
Jekovic, who had been lounging leisurely on a tree branch, felt the immense vibration and landed on the ground.
When he looked up, the institute's giant antenna was starting to move, pointing toward the sky.
"Hey, hey, Park Shin-ju, you punk... What in the world are you doing!"
Jekovic's fur stood on end.
His animal instincts told him something had gone terribly wrong.
Unlike his earlier, carefree demeanor, Jekovic's eyes now glinted like a predator's.
*Crack, crack.*
His body began to swell, his mane rippling as if it were a living creature, and his fingernails and toenails extended, sharpening.
With his upper canines protruding downwards as the final touch, Jekovic, having completed his transformation into a wolf-like form, immediately scaled the building wall and leaped onto the roof.
Shin-ju's scent was wafting from the top of the building.
U.C.I.D. Headquarters, underground.
Spaceship hangar.
*Vwoom- Vwoom- Vwoom-*
Enri, Sharin, and Hyde met Silverfire at the spaceship hangar.
Meanwhile, Bid908 decided to stay behind at the main office to provide backup for his deploying colleagues in case of any unforeseen circumstances.
Silverfire had just finished the final tests on the Graudis, the spaceship that had been damaged in the battle with the Shark Tooth Pirates.
Sitting in the cockpit, he was running various operational tests while listening to Enri explain the current situation.
Soon after, Sharin and Hyde, in the back seats, finished their boarding preparations by putting on their headphones.
Silverfire adjusted the navigation route. The location was Yongmun Mountain, Yongmun-myeon, Yangpyeong, Gyeonggi Province.
A moment later, the ship's supports were released, and the hangar platform began to rotate.
The floor tilted as a large metal door opened, letting in the outside light.
The previously dark runway gradually began to brighten.
Silverfire relayed further instructions to the crew in the back via their headphones.
-ETA ten minutes. We're deploying at maximum speed, so buckle up tight. Enri, keep calling Mr. Shin-ju. Bid will handle all support communications from HQ.
"Yes, understood."
*FWOOOOSH-*
As soon as Enri finished her reply, blue flames erupted from the Graudis's engine ports.
The Graudis then shot down the runway at incredible speed and soared into the sky.
Meanwhile, Jekovic froze, stunned by the sight unfolding before his eyes.
Wind and blue electricity swirled around Shin-ju, who was floating in mid-air, his body arched like a bow.
Jeg's mechanical hand was pressing down on his body, barely managing to keep him from flying higher into the air.
"What should I do?"
Jekovic's eyes darted around.
Suddenly, the sound of a song reached his ears.
Jeg's mechanical hand, having spotted Jekovic, urgently snapped its fingers as if to say, 'Look at me.'
*Snap! Snap!*
Hearing the sound calling him, Jekovic looked up at Jeg's mechanical hand.
While still pressing down on Shin-ju's body, the hand pointed its index finger toward the room where the singing was coming from.
It then made a motion of clenching its fist tightly.
Jekovic immediately understood Jeg's signal.
*'Destroy the source of the singing.'*
Jekovic growled, his ears perked.
He quickly smashed through the door of the room where the song was playing and entered.
In the middle of the room, a large computer and an amplifier were set up.
Tibee-ra's song was flowing from the amplifier.
"Here it is."
Jekovic immediately bit through the electrical cords with his teeth.
The wires sparked and snapped.
When the singing stopped, he rushed back to where Shin-ju was.
However...
*Kwoooo-*
"Aaargh...!!"
Shin-ju's condition was unchanged.
Listening closely, he could hear the sound coming from the basement as well.
Jekovic ground his teeth.
"Damn it! It wasn't just in one place!"
As Jekovic lamented and was about to head for the basement.
An unidentified purple light emanated from the Old Book lying on the floor.
Only then did Jekovic notice the Old Book's presence.
As he carelessly tried to look at the Old Book...!
A black liquid shot out from the tip of Jeg's finger and hit Jekovic right in the eyes.
*Splat-!*
"Agh! What is this!"
His vision suddenly went dark, and Jekovic rolled on the floor.
"W-What are you doing!!"
Suddenly, the Old Book began to rise slowly into the air, eventually floating up next to Jeg's hand, which was holding Shin-ju down.
The last page of the book started to become faintly visible.
Jeg instinctively realized that he must not, under any circumstances, look at that picture.
At that moment, a light flashed from the last page.
Jeg's mechanical hand began to distort as if being sucked into a black hole.
*Crunch, crunch, crunch.*
Fragments began to fall from the mechanical hand as it was crumpled by an unknown force.
Jeg's hand quickly vanished back into the gate.
With the restraining force gone, Shin-ju's body increasingly defied gravity, positioning itself in mid-air.
A non-human voice erupted from Shin-ju's mouth.
In response, the building's vibrations grew even more intense.
*BA-BOOM-*
The purple energy that had been gathering around Shin-ju finally couldn't be contained and exploded.
*CRASH-!!!*
Jekovic was thrown out of the building.
"Kraaah!!"
He tumbled onto the forest floor but instinctively got up and took a stance.
Blinded, Jekovic's ears were pricked, trying to assess the situation.
He opened his mouth wide and shouted.
"What in the hell is going on!!"
A massive stream of purple energy began to shoot fiercely into the sky, traveling up the giant satellite antenna.
*Fwooooosh-.*
The entire forest heaved from the energy wave.
The surrounding leaves and branches shook violently, as if in a hurricane.
Rocks and trees everywhere began to cry out.
All the sounds of nature in the forest merged into one, then split into tens of thousands, spreading a terrifying roar.
Just as the Graudis arrived near the forest, the beam of purple light shooting into the sky was visible through the spaceship's window.
Soon, a spectrum of bizarre colors began to shimmer wildly inside the shaking Graudis.
Ominous colors rippled like waves across the lenses of Enri's glasses.
"Sh-Shin-ju...!"
Silver, Enri, Sharin, and Hyde tried to resist the unknown power.
But in the face of this unidentified, unknowable force, they felt a strange sense of helplessness.
Lured by the ominous yet beautiful colors, they stared blankly out the window.
Meanwhile, on the monitor of Hyde's laptop, which was placed on a shelf, a glitching error began to occur, the pixels looking as if they were melting.
A moment later, the figure of a person appeared on the monitor.
It was writhing and wailing, its face twisted into a bizarre expression as if in agony.
However, everyone, including Hyde, Sharin, and the other U.C.I.D. officers standing nearby, was so captivated by the light emanating from ahead that they completely failed to notice the anomaly on the laptop.
"Kraaaah...!!"
Sharin let out a cry of resistance.
"No...!!"
Finally snapping out of it, Sharin stomped her foot and shouted with all her might.
"Hey! Snap out of it! Land this thing now!!"
Hearing Sharin's shout, Silverfire wrestled his wandering consciousness back into focus.
*Crackle, crackle, crackle.*
"Damn it!"
Electrical sparks erupted from his body as if in defiance.
Silver managed to grab the lever and immediately banked the Graudis.
The Graudis tilted sharply.
The summit of Yongmun Mountain.
The figure of a woman could be seen sitting peacefully before an elegant, traditional outdoor bench.
Her hair, once shining silver, was now embroidered with purple light.
Slender fingers holding a teaspoon stirred the teacup at a slow pace.
Presently, the teacup approached the woman's lips.
The aroma from the cup wafted gently around her well-defined nose.
A moment later, the face of Kim Cha-yoon, savoring the tea, was revealed.
Across from Cha-yoon sat Aila, the idol singer she sponsored.
And next to her was a humanoid alien dressed in a clean, elegant white suit.
However, it had no face.
A bizarre, crown-like metal pedestal rose from above the suit.
And in its center, a purple sphere containing a vast cosmic galaxy was slowly rotating.
It looked as if a piece of the universe itself had gained life and taken human form.
Aila sat quietly, looking down at the bench floor, unable to even think of picking up the teacup in front of her.
Cha-yoon slowly opened her eyes and gazed at the beam of light rising into the distant sky with an ecstatic expression.
"It's beautiful. It's finally begun, M.I.X."
The purple galaxy called M.I.X gazed at the distant light source and murmured softly.
"Jimanuitu... All preparations are finally complete. The mark He carved seven years ago is at last seeing the light."
It was a chilling voice, creeping up from the depths of the void.